Why did commodore went under?

[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.

[duga]

Because PAL televisions couldn't display 60 Hz in the 80:s?

[djos]

Because PAL televisions couldn't display 60 Hz in the 80:s?

From the Amiga onwards tho they should have made monitors mandatory - you couldn't hook an IBM up to a tv!

From the Amiga onwards this was IMO a big mistake!

[duga]

The A3000 had a scandoubler and A600/A1200/A4000 should have had that too. They should have excluded the RF output on the A600/A1200 and maybe the composite output too (with 15 KHz RGB and 30 KHz VGA left).

[itix]

• 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.

Amiga 500 expansions (except 512 kB ram expansion) were rare and insanely expensive.

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

Commodore never invested to the OS development anyway. But then Commodore always was a hardware company that never understood the software.

[Jose]

They could've had a big chunk or the biggest of the video / animation / CAD / Gfx whatever and also game markets if they had ended the AAA project in time. If so, AAA could've played 24bit video from an HD right in 1990!
This sums it up for me: "Commodore's collapse is a fascinating case study of executive incompetence. It should be taught in business schools.".

[djos]

The A3000 had a scandoubler and A600/A1200/A4000 should have had that too. They should have excluded the RF output on the A600/A1200 and maybe the composite output too (with 15 KHz RGB and 30 KHz VGA left).

Commodore could have used EGA Monitors as the standard on the 500/2000 and VGA on the 3000/4000 but still used OCS/ECS and AGA. This would have likely saved money and allowed the Amiga to be taken more seriously due to not being another plug into a TV job.

[Jose]

BTW, corruption was probably an even bigger problem, they couldn't have been that stupid, could they ?

[takemehomegrandma]

Hi why do you guys think commodore went under?

Because of internal corruption.

[scuzzb494]

The saddest day of all....
Friday April 29, 1994, at 4:10 P.M.

Commodore International filed for liquidation
in order to be protected from its creditors
Friday April 29, 1994, at 4:10 P.M.

Commodore's official statement follows:

"Commodore International Limited announced today
that its Board of Directors has authorized the
transfer of assets to trustees for the benefit of
its creditor and has placed its major subsidiary,
Commodore Electronics Limited, into voluntary
liquidation. This is the initial phase of an
orderly liquidation of both companies, which
are incorporated in the Bahamas, by the Bahamas
Supreme Court."

Whilst they hoped the action would be short lived
it was not and sadly meant the end of Commodore.

Happens.... Business is a risk when you need to
draw on massive amounts of capital. Even when
the product is fine and selling well the smallest
of debt can push a company over. This was a
business issue in the end. And sadly Amiga
users suffered at the time, and also during
the many false hopes that followed. And I guess
we still live in hope. The fact that there was
such a healthy following and still is, is the
real tragedy.

[Haranguer]

Commodore's mistakes were many. I'll list a few that contributed to their downfall.

1.  They tried to replace the C64 during the height of it's sales with the Plus 4, which didn't have sprites, and, quite frankly, wasn't as good.

2. When they released the CDTV, they refused to allow games to be published for it (at first, anyway), and wouldn't let it be displayed near toys or games in retail outlets because they wanted people to think it was "serious".

3.  Then they tried to replace the C64 with the C128.  If they'd done this 2 years earlier, it might have worked, but they released the C128 a few months before releasing the A1000.

4.  Having released the A500, and despite it's sales still being astronomical, Commodore tried to discontinue the C64.  Public pressure forced them to bring it back, so they gave it a streamlined case.

5. They replaced the A500 with the A500+, at Christmas, without warning, and packaged it with games that wouldn't run on it.  Mehdi Ali was CEO.

6. The following Christmas, they replaced the A500+ with the A600 (a downgrade, in my opinion), while advertising the A1200 loudly.  While there were plenty of A600s, there weren't enough parts to supply the number of A1200s demand required, so people bought PCs instead, just in time for Doom. Mehdi Ali was still CEO.

The CD32 didn't have anything to do with it.  It had barely been released by the time Commodore went into receivership on 28 April, 1994 (the day after my birthday).  If it had been, it wouldn't have saved them.  Mehdi Ali was still CEO.

If Commodore hadn't gone bankrupt, they planned to discontinue Amiga OS, and sell computers that ran Windows NT.  They didn't respect their product, and they didn't respect their customers.  That's why they went bankrupt.

[kolla]

duga: Are you Swedish or what?

[dreamcast270mhz]

CBM was plagued by mismanagement that caused things like the Amiga 600 to be obsolete by the time they were built. If you think about it, the 600 is not too bad and we have managed to make upgrades to it, but if you think about it I have to say that one thing I think commodore could have done differently was being at the forefront of innovation in computers, all the time. If they had taken the Amiga line and adapted it for very good expandability, such as:

Allowing the CPU slot the full memory bus width of the 32-bit standard (for a system max of 4GB)
Having AGA upgrades for the older Amigas
Introducing ECS and AGA at the same time, with the 3000 and 600 being relegated to lower cost versions of the A4000 and A600. This would've allowed AAA to take place.
Eliminate the PC Compatible division, and instead comission first party CPU emulation bridgeboards.
They also could've had the 68060 standard as soon as it came out, because I believe it predated the pentium.
They best road map would've been to then migrate to the 601 and 603 PPC processors with 040 and 060s available as compatibility bridges, unless the 68k line could be expanded.

Thats my opinion of their blunders

[gertsy]

Read the book. There's a lot of good ideas flying about but only a few hit the mark.  The main reason in my mind is because they rode their platfoms into the ground and stifled the very creativity and R&D that made the Amiga 1000.  Executives then came to think that the C= company was successful because of their leadership.  Always a dangerous thing.

[persia]

Yes, Amiga jumped out in front and then just sat there waiting for the world to catch up and pass them.  Commodore expected to get money from it's products forever without putting any money back in to improve them.

[motrucker]

BTW, corruption was probably an even bigger problem, they couldn't have been that stupid, could they ?

This is as close as any one has come in this thread. There were two crooks in charge of Commodore International Inc., by the names of Gould and Ali. They stole all of the company's cash assets, then drove it into the ground.
Look into the shareholder's meetings in the last year or so of Commodore's existence. Gould would call the meeting with almost no advance notice, in places like the Cayman islands (were no laws existed to stop this sort of corporate fraud). This will give you a quick and dirty idea of what went on.
How Gould and Ali managed to skirt the law, and not get arrested is amazing.
But, all this crap about poor aga, or chipsets, is just that - crap.
Commodore International was raped and pillaged, pure and simple.