Why did commodore went under?

[bbond007]

Hi why do you guys think commodore went under? one must think that all the Commodores and amigas they have sold over the years must have been giving them a lot of money in the bank.

because they failed to settle a dispute over a patent to Cad Soft for the use of their XOR cursor and as a result they were banned from importing CD32s (for the US market) during the 1994 xmas season. they were already living paycheck to paycheck at the time.

If the CD32 was a success on they US market then maybe they could have kept the doors open.

[psxphill]

Hi why do you guys think commodore went under? one must think that all the Commodores and amigas they have sold over the years must have been giving them a lot of money in the bank.

They wasted money because they had no vision and the management were having too much fun playing.
 
Cancelling the a3000+ and turning the a300 into the a600 was just plain ridiculous.
 
The a3000 & a500 plus has already shown the world that commodore were going nowhere. The A2000 & A500 were fine in 1987, but four years later they had basically done nothing. The original A1000 was developed from scratch in that time.
 
For commodore to have survived they really needed something like AGA in 1989.

[djos]

The CD32 imo was another dumb project, they should have focused on just making decent computers instead of being a jack of all trades - every major Computer maker that has ever tried making a console has failed:

Apple Pippin
Atari Jaguar
Amiga CD32
Panasonic 3DO
Philips CDi
Commodore CDTV
Tandy/Memorex VIS

in fact you could almost list the IBM PCjr in there too as it had a cartridge port for games.

[lassie]

The CD32 imo was another dumb project, they should have focused on just making decent computers instead of being a jack of all trades - every major Computer maker that has ever tried making a console has failed:

Apple Pippin
Atari Jaguar
Amiga CD32
Panasonic 3DO
Philips CDi
Commodore CDTV

in fact you could almost list the IBM PCjr in there too as it had a cartridge port for games.

Do you collect Philips cdi and Atari jaguar also? i also have them :-)

[djos]

Do you collect Philips cdi and Atari jaguar also? i also have them :-)

Nope, wouldnt mind an Atari Falcon tho.

[lassie]

Nope, wouldnt mind an Atari Falcon tho.

I know that those machines failed but mayby that is why i collect them :-) but yes a falcon could be cool to have

[huronking]

The same reasons Scott Adams makes a living drawing Dilbert.

[Iggy]

Do you collect Philips cdi and Atari jaguar also? i also have them :-)

Ah, CDi.
Microware OS9 married to unfortunately proprietary Signetics components (including the 68070 processor that performed worse then a Motorola 68000).
AND crappy display quality.
 
Oh well, I liked the OS underneath the hardware.
Significantly better then AOS.

[agami]

For the same reason most companies fail. It's not a mystery inside an enigma wrapped in a riddle. It's the same reason Apple almost failed in the mid 90's, it's the same reason the Print industry, Airlines, and Auto industry are in trouble. And it's the same reason A-Eon will eventually fail.

They forget what their raison d'être is, they forget their 'Why'. They focus too much on the How and What, and the bottom line, and fail to adapt to the ever changing landscape.

[Matt_H]

For commodore to have survived they really needed something like AGA in 1989.

And they probably would have, if management hadn't mucked around with engineering.

Commodore's collapse is a fascinating case study of executive incompetence. It should be taught in business schools.

[desiv]

I agree and not here...

• Lack of chipset updates. ECS is not even worth mentioning. No Paula update. No chipset support for high density floppies. AGA was released too late.

Definitely, and I think this goes to the lack of money/interest Commodore had in R&D..

• Lack of professional software. Apple inc addressed this matter by setting up Claris. Commodore should have done the same or at the very least subsidised the development of professional packages such as Word Perfect.

Yeah, Apple had a person whose job was "Software Evangelist" that worked the press and the vendors (and helped developers get what they needed).
Wordperfect for the Amiga was nice, but not enough..

• The Amiga 500 and 1200 were too expandable. The worst thing Commodore done was providing the A500 with a side connector that allowed pretty much anything available on their big box A2000 to be used on the A500.

What?  Too expandable?  The expansions they had were too expensive (more specifically the A500) and non-standard.  No game developer (well, most wouldn't) would develop for anything other than Kick 1.3 and 1M RAM because it was all most users had.  I'm considering the possibility that the pseudo-closed A500 (although it was the best seller) was also what killed the Amiga in the long term.  No video upgrades (DCTV and HAM-E, while kual, don't count).  Every PC had a video card which was upgradable, but the Amiga line, you had OCS.  (Eventually AGA, but only for a percentage of the users.  The upgrade was to buy a new computer..)

• The Amiga 2000. Oh dear. First it was a expanded A1000 then a A500 with a massive expansion board. Simply adding double the RAM was not enough. The Amiga 2000 never should have left Commodore without a 68020+ processor and on-board SCSI. As many will agree the A3000 was a big box Amiga done right!

Personally, they probably should have gone from the 1000 to the 3000, but it needed more like AGA graphics by then, preferably on a video card

• Releasing/developing the following junk

CDTV - Designed to be user friendly. This was hardly the case with terrible disc caddy system, old 1.3 ROMs and no in-built floppy drive (when all Amiga software to that date was released on floppy) made no sense
[/LIST]

• CD was fine, and no one wants a floppy in their entertainment center, but it needed to come WITH VideoCD.  Requiring an add-on?  That means basically no one will use that feature, including developers.

        A600 / C65 - Desperate attempts by Commodore in reliving the  C= 64 era

Agree.  Although loved now, the A600 wasn't a good idea at the time. (Although better than the A500+)

• Many more issues such as: poor marketing, lack of licensing the Amiga chipset to third party developers, not working with enemy Atari to bring down costs (by sharing components) and not moving to generic PC parts such as keyboards ultimately cost Commodore their business.

I agree with poor marketing, but I don't see any good coming out of licensing the chipset out.
There would be no working with Atari, so that's not a big deal.  And I don't think generic PC parts matter much.

Poor R&D and poor marketing were KEY tho, I agree there..

desiv

[Bamiga2002]

Mehdi Ali!

[psxphill]

And they probably would have, if management hadn't mucked around with engineering.

In that time frame I don't think management was in control of engineering at all. When that happens you end up with projects like AAA.
 
I'm not convinced that Los Gatos would have been any better if kept around. Second system effect is difficult to avoid.

[Megamig]

What? Too expandable? The expansions they had were too expensive (more specifically the A500) and non-standard. No game developer (well, most wouldn't) would develop for anything other than Kick 1.3 and 1M RAM because it was all most users had. I'm considering the possibility that the pseudo-closed A500 (although it was the best seller) was also what killed the Amiga in the long term. No video upgrades (DCTV and HAM-E, while kual, don't count). Every PC had a video card which was upgradable, but the Amiga line, you had OCS. (Eventually AGA, but only for a percentage of the users. The upgrade was to buy a new computer..)

I might have been misunderstood. I was reflecting that a A500/A1200 can be upgraded to specifications that exceed those standard in big box Amigas (such as CPUs). If the A500/A1200 were aimed at the low end market they should have been engineered not to be upgraded apart from limited memory (no more than 2-4mb Fast) and kickstart ROMs.
 
As for bad products, do not forget the Commodore 128 - which apparently cost almost as much as manufacturing an Amiga 500. Why Commodore ever bothered with the C=128 is beyond me. Especially when the LCD would have opened a new market.
 
IMHO the C= 128 really should have been a Commodore 64 motherboard modified with a internal 64K REU, reset button, numeric pad and a burst mode serial port. The whole CP/M and other trash was not necessary once Commodore aquired the Amiga. Additionally launching the Amiga 1000 the same year as the C=128 lacked focus. No wonder people were confused. What was the future in 1985? 8-bit or 16-bit computers!

[Dr.Bongo]

Mehdi Ali!

+1

[djos]

One thing I'll never understand is why commodore insisted on on making PAL variants of their computers, why not simply make everything 60hz like in IBM land and be done with it! Then all software written for the machine will work in all markets, maybe add a 50hz video mode just for video editing, but standardize on 60hz for everything else.

Then you only need one monitor and one model for each computer line.