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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: asian1 on February 12, 2003, 05:16:45 PM
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Hello
For overseas customers, buying PowerPC products from various companies are difficult. The customers have to wait for several months or years and hope that the distributor does not "Forget your order" or "went bankrupt!".
Even with giant companies (IBM), it is difficult to get PS/850 and RS/6000 (several months / years!)
If you go to PC Shops, you can test the product, pay for it and carry it home.
I got idea about Amiga Inc / Hyperion / Eyetech opening "Cash and Carry" shops on several regions.
Is this possible?
Thank you.
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You mean like a warehouse selling Amiga stuff? It would have to be a very small shop, to be profitable. Hopefully this will change very soon.
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A warehouse style shop those German supermarket shops that are springing up might work. A no frills here's our products architechture would be required.
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Hello
On several Asian countries, there are 2 types of PC shops:
1. Official "Intel Inside" PC shops with giant "Intel Inside" stickers on its windows / name plate.
2. Ordinary shops that also sell AMD based PC, AMD Motherboards and Cyrix / VIA CPU.
Intel had conducted massive advertisement campaign for its P4 CPU and its motherboard. The name, address and phone number of "Official Intel Inside" PC shops are mentioned on the advertisement.
Intel staff is busy scanning the shop for AMD / Cyrix products. If a PC shop sell any AMD / Cyrix product, the shop will be banned from the advertisement.
Because AmigaOne is an ATX board and use ordinary case, peripherals, and PCI cards, perhaps the ordinary PC shops can put giant "Get AmigaOne here" sticker on its windows and have stock of several AmigaOne motherboards, beside PC boards.
Is this idea possible?
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Logistically it wouldn't be a problem since, as you say, the Amiga motherboard has an ordinary ATX form factor and would be right at home in a PC shop. The problem would be finding shops that would want to bother with such an offbeat product and then making sure the shop staff understood what an AmigaOne is. This is where I think there'd be trouble getting shops to cooperate. The public is essentially ignorant about Amigas and most shops probably don't think it's worth their time to try to educate the masses. Added to the problem is the fact that there may not be much promotional support from Eyetech or whoever the distributor is in your region. All those big Intel stickers cost money, as do the brochures, in-store displays, staff training and so on. Small manufacturers would have trouble matching that level of support.
Maybe it'd be better to find local shops that already specialize in niche products. For example, near my office here in Tokyo is the outfit that Be, Inc. worked with to push BeOS in Japan. Plat'Home (http://www.plathome.co.jp/) carries Linux and BSD products, hardware, etc., so it was an easy thing to take on BeOS as well. I can imagine AmigaOnes (and Pegasos, too) being right at home there. The shop customers are people who are more sophisticated users than most, probably have already educated themselves about the products, etc.
When (or if) Amiga and Pegasos are more widely known then maybe more mainstream shops will see the potential for sales and will be more willing to carry the products.
BTW, for comparison purposes, Genesi is thinking more along the lines of viral grassroots sales with enthusiast users/developers setting up localized web sites to act as resellers and offer support, etc. Presumeably these local enthusiast resellers would have some boards and boxes on hand to let people play with, but I don't know how that's supposed to work for sure.
-- gary_c