This was originally a letter to the editor of BYTE magazine.
Editor
BYTE
70 Main St.
Peterborough, NH
03458
May 15, 1986
Dear Editor,
Here’s a little more fuel for the 520ST vs Amiga vs Macintosh fire. Does everyone remember the Apple ][ Plus? Well, the Atari 800 of the same time was every bit as capable as the Apple ][+; both had the same 6502 processor and 48K of RAM. (OK, the Apple had more expansion slots.) The Atari had superior graphics and sound. It offered “The power without the price.” The Atari, however, was marketed largely as a home/game machine while the Apple was presented as a home/small business machine.
The type of marketing determines, to a large extent, who buys a product and for what purpose. Software developers are probably more aware of this than most of us. In the Atari, therefore, they saw a market for home/game software; in the Apple they saw a market for home/small business software. Thus the software bases developed for each of these two machines were not nearly as similar as the machines themselves.
Because of the type of marketing promoting it, the Atari became a home/game machine while the Apple in fact became a home/small business machine. Buyers had to pay a premium (above what the Atari would have cost) to buy the Apple product of similar capabilities. This they did because they were, after all, buying a business machine. And they got one.
At one time, Atari intended that the 520ST was to be sold only through computer specialty stores (doubtless to show the serious nature of the ST). Now it’s available through mass-merchandisers. This marketing move will convince software developers (in case they needed convincing) that the Atari machines (the larger ST will be guilty by association) will not be needing many great spreadsheet programs, accounting packages or powerfull word-processors. The market just won’t be there. Games, however, will be in demand.
Commodore is now in the process of similarly emasculating the Amiga. The price has recently been dropped by (I believe) $500 in an effort to get market share. The Commodore 64 had great market share too but is it everything Commodore wanted it to be? Is it everything the owners wanted it to be? Think back to those TV commercials that compared an Apple ][, an IBM PC and a Commodore 64. You remember, the one that went, “Based on price and memory…” and then proceded to show both the Apple and IBM machines concluding that the Commodore 64 was the better buy. Anyone that bought the Commodore 64 thinking that it was “as capable” as either the Apple or IBM machines was in for a surprise.
The truth of the matter is that, for the vast majority of computer buyers, clock speeds and data path widths have little significance; the machines they buy will be only as capable as the commercially available software for their machine of choice. And that is determined largely by the marketing of the machines themselves.
So, which is the more powerfull, the Atari ST, Amiga or Macintosh? Forget about benchmarks, specialized graphics chips and the like. Look instead at the marketing. Both Atari and Commodore seem to be promoting their contenders in the 68000 competition on the basis of price, if current advertising is any indication. Apple, meanwhile continues to plug along after the business market. Some very powerfull software is available for the Macintosh despite its perhaps less sophisticated hardware. Thank the marketing people.
Personally, I will be very surprised if either the Atari or Commodore product attracts the quantity, quality or breadth of software that is available for the Macintosh so long as those machines are marketed in a manner and at a price which ensures that a large portion of their installed base will be in the hands of adolescents.
The Apple ][ outlasted its competitors of the day and the Macintosh will likely do the same, due largely to the software base that is developing. And for that, we have to thank Apple’s marketing
Cordially,
Warren Michelsen