9 replies to this topic

[Joey Kay]

Probably the closest forum to the right one for this... anyhow...

Just reading through the NATCO lawsuit pdf file on Atarimuseum.com

[url="http://www.atarimuseum.com/ahs_archives/archives/pdf/misc/natco_suit.pdf"]http://www.atarimuseum.com/ahs_archives/ar.../natco_suit.pdf[/url]

and stumbled across this passage (paragraph 20e)

[quote]
"NATCO would spin off or otherwise eliminate all Atari, Inc., activities with the exception of development, production, and sale of video games and computers, which would be the focus of all efforts."[/quote]

If this is true, then are we to believe that James Morgan planning on axing AtariTel?

We know Tramiel didn't want it, Warner was left with it, and they licenced the technology out. But perhaps Morgan was going to ice it... any ideas?

Cheers!

Joey[/quote]

[Ferris]

I know Mitsubishi ended up with the Lumaphone. Not sure about everything else.

[Curt Vendel]

No, Ataritel was still intended to more forward as a seperate division in of itself, in fact interesting enough, I spoke with the heads of Ataritel and they went to Warner trying to buy Ataritel and run it seperately, Warner said no to the offer, but then later sold off the various designs and technology to Mitsubishi, Axlon and BSR.



Curt

[Joey Kay]

Curt Vendel said:

No, Ataritel was still intended to more forward as a seperate division in of itself, in fact interesting enough, I spoke with the heads of Ataritel and they went to Warner trying to buy Ataritel and run it seperately, Warner said no to the offer, but then later sold off the various designs and technology to Mitsubishi, Axlon and BSR.

Interesting... any idea what were the other "activities" being referred to in this passage.

There's so many ongoings in that company that we'll never fully know!

Cheers!

Joey

[Curt Vendel]

Ive been privvy to many things in confidence by many high ups in Atari, some will have to go to the grave, there was a lot more going on behind the scene's at Atari then most anyone ever knew...

Atari's crash in the 80's wasn't just about bad marketing, there were a lot of other things going on, some could even be considered internal sabotage.



Curt

[Joey Kay]

Curt Vendel said:

Ive been privvy to many things in confidence by many high ups in Atari, some will have to go to the grave, there was a lot more going on behind the scene's at Atari then most anyone ever knew...

Remind me to book a seat at your death bed...

Curt Vendel said:

Atari's crash in the 80's wasn't just about bad marketing, there were a lot of other things going on, some could even be considered internal sabotage.

I remember reading - I think it was in Zap! - that there was a real attitude of "I don't care how bad off your division is as long as mine stays afloat" and, of course, when everybody finally realized that the whole ship was sinking, not just single divisions, etc, it was too late.

I suspect that even if Morgan had not blown the '83 computer season by dithering about where to manufacture the damn things, Atari's ship would still have been sunk given the wreck that that company was in... I doubt Morgan could have saved it. It needed more than just strong sales to stay afloat.

A shame, really.

Cheers!

Joey

[svenski]

For the UK at least it was bad marketing, but perhaps "bad" is too good a word. Was almost as if they (Atari UK) didn't want anything to be a success.

The height of the 8-bit scene was box dumping the 800XL, then a short lived (we'll do 2 ads in Atari magazines) for the XEGS. It really was that bad. I think there was a couple of TV spots for the XEGS but it was nothing - kind of if you were up at 3am you might see it.

With the launch of the ST it looked like Atari were getting it right - was that down to lack of competition?. They had the market sewn up. When the Amiga launched Atari could have maintained market share but they probably threw 10% of what Commodore was putting in, into marketing.

Then you have the Lynx , and compared to a Game Gear or Nintendo Game Boy it was fantastic. But did they push it?, no.

The Jaguar was another console ahead of its time, but was that ever marketed properly?

Atari watched their market share dwindle, and didn't do anything about it.

But, given that Commodore, with the huge success that the Amiga was, flopped, would Atari have been able to survive anyway?

From store level, it seemed like Commodore ventured perhaps 2 years 2 early into PCs, they shot themselves in the foot with the Amiga 1200 and the CD32. That and some dodgy third party onsite support.

Another example would be SEGA... they rested on their laurels, guess nobody saw SONY coming.

[Tickled_Pink]

svenski said:

With the launch of the ST it looked like Atari were getting it right - was that down to lack of competition?. They had the market sewn up. When the Amiga launched Atari could have maintained market share but they probably threw 10% of what Commodore was putting in,  into marketing.

Not even close to that I would say although marketing was better on the ST. It seemed that Atari were starting to get their act together. The number of ads seemed, for the first time, to be at a frequency similar to that which Atari gave to the 400 and 800 in the early eighties. But then the Amiga finally gathered speed and developers got the hang of its somewhat messy kernel.

But marketing at Atari UK on other models were a sham. Advertising was seemingly restricted exclusively to Atari magazines. What was the point of that? I don't recall seeing a single advert for the Lynx.

I remember an interview with Bob Gleadow where he said that when he took over at Atari UK, the 130XE was being sold at less than cost. This saw a price increase from £99 to £130. It shows the shambles Atari UK was in at the time and the desperate measures employed to maintain its meagre market share.

Gleadow always came across to me as a smarmy Tramiel butt-licker.

[carmel_andrews]

Gleadow has always worked for tramiel ever since he started in the electronics industry with Cummins/Cummings somewhere near durham (UK) tramiel bought out Cummings/Cummins in the early 70's and made Gleadow the manager for the Cummings/Cummins Durham offices (which i guess were eventually renamed commodore/cbm)

I also rememmber sending gleadow a strongly worded (non offensive) letter, basically pointed out that He/tramiel were screwing up Atari big time, the sickener was he accused me of being insulting... Of course Gleadow, that's why Atari is now partly owned by the french and is allowing its name to be associated with products available on competing platforms/systems/formats

All I can say to gleadow (if he's reading this) is... AND what a GOOD job you did at screwing up Atari (UK)

[bigdcaldavis2k]

Curt Vendel, on Sat Apr 2, 2005 11:00 PM, said:

Ive been privvy to many things in confidence by many high ups in Atari, some will have to go to the grave, there was a lot more going on behind the scene's at Atari then most anyone ever knew...

Atari's crash in the 80's wasn't just about bad marketing, there were a lot of other things going on, some could even be considered internal sabotage.



Curt

"Internal sabotage"? Sounds like Razak was more crooked than we all think.