Why? I haven't a clue, except to assume one of two things. Either they are to blinded in ignorance by traditional mass marketing, of which they cannot hope to compete with MS's mass marketing dollar. Or, they are blinded by their own egos in their need to insure they always have a phoney pedistal to stand on and cause users to see them as something they probably are not. Either case, they are greatly limiting themselves and others (all of us).

Five Consecutive Years on Inc. Magazines TOP 500 list.

An example of what can happen thru Consumer Direct Marketing and the many benefits it can bring us all as individuals, for doing the many things we all can and have done to advance Amiga technology in sales, support, feeback for technology advancements. Of course we need to custom build a plan that fits the Amiga. But who of standing has the ability to do this. Who hasn't shown intent to unfairly apply, what is apparently the industry established intent of forever applying wrongful and judgemental double standards? Answer: There is no-one of standing. For to be in standing, is to be accepted by those practicing such double standards. Those who many follow. Those who can easily deny the voice of users who do see much better ways!!!!

A PROBLEM?

Gateway/AI cannot do this, simply because Consumer Direct Marketing and being Publicly traded (Stock Market) are a contridiction of terms. The most fundamental difference is that in Consumer Direct Marketing it's those who do things to increase value that reap the rewards, but with stocks, it's who invested and did nothing or little but reap the gains from those who do. However, The Amiga technology is licensible and hardware is intended to be done by third parties anyway. Also, there is no reason why Amiga International cannot provide us with the "service" of managing/operating such a plan. From Gateway stock holders view, even now it's just profit from OS sales and technology licensings. SO what does it matter to stock holders? I'd think they be glad to have such a user force behind insuring increased OS sales and technology licensing. The key difference is what direction is the money, that will be spent one way or another, going. Is it towards the risk of traditional mass marketing or is it the direction of certainty from user involvement in sales, support, feedback incentive? The real question is: Why is certainty not happening here? IS IT THE Tradition of applying unfair judgemental double standards?

The 80/20 rule is really quite simple. It's applied in many way to many fields but comes down to this.

80% of the goal can be reached by doing 20% of the work. The remaining 20% of the work takes the remaining 80% of the effort. And it is this remaining 20% of the work that spells quality and sales.

In teamwork, what can be done is this:

20% of the effort to reach the 80% of the work is easy to reach for those skilled at such work. From here the remaining work is broken down into single units and passed on to those skilled in these specific units.

For them, they see a unit of 100% to do. They inturn do their 20% to reach 80% of the unit goal.

Then recursion of this process of breaking the remainder down into more specific units and passing them on to those skilled.....

The next thing you know is: You have the new Amiga and consumer inclusive marketing and full support feedback plan happening way ahead of schedual.

You cannot beat the 80/20 rule, but you sure as hell can make it a hell of a lot easier to reach thru "place-value, resolution, recursion" of open honest teamwork.

Hmmm, I wonder if this was applied in NASA getting to the moon?

The PVRR Warp drive loop!

Value added reselling is a very tough thing to do in the current computer industry. But this can change and overnite.

A very simple example:

Given that we have open modular systems (HW and SW) that are easy enough to put together a child could do it.

I go out and buy the hardware and software components I need to do something but it is up to me to put them together in order to do.

Lets' say I pay $100 each for three pieces of hardware and $20 for three pieces of software functionality. $360 total.

I take this and integrate it to add value and increase the total value $40. I add to this an additional $20 as is require of this subscription business plan, bringing the total to $420. I sell this to a client who wanted it and I've made $40. Perhaps I sell several of these, in which case I've made $40 per each. But all I need to really supply is the integration part, letting the client get the needed HW and SW parts direct.

The $20 required per sale, lets' say is divided by five. $4 goes to the subscribing individual who introduced me to this plan, $4 to the one who introduced him, etc.. up to four. That only equals $16, so what about the remaining $4? Well it goes into a pot that is divided each month among those who have introduce and helped others to introduce new people into the plan. If you understand this then you will see there is incentive to help other do.

Here is how the 80/20 rule works here.

Developers produce the components in HW and SW that the end user can put together to their needs. Such HW and SW can range to a simple function to a more complete HW and SW package. From this you might see that the subscribing user might be seen as a developer or integrator.

At any rate the developer only needs to do a part, a 20% effort part. Besided the developer doesn't really know what the many possible details of the 80% might be. And why show he care, knowing he cannot possibly do so much in the time he has.

Income comes from subscription, sales of parts and integration of parts to add value. Fair and equal to all.

The annual subscription supports managing the plan and providing monthly information on what is available in the way of new parts and ways to use parts. A monthly purchase of specific information or product (of which the customer may chose from) may be required in order to qualify for the bonus of $4 per each below you. But lets' say you have a total of 100 people below you in the four demensions allowed and the require purchase for you is $20. That leaves $380 in your pocket. But it's no free lunch because you know you have earned it in helping support those below you in the four demensions, via one on one and group help in HW and SW use and integration.

Why would there be a need to help in such areas? Simply because, although you may have easy to use tools for integration, it doesn't mean that the complexity of the part is easy to understand and intergrate. But by the same side of the coin, the developer and integrator will have incentive to make it as easy as they can. Because it means more use and sales for them.

How about the individual who only wants to own and use the products for pleasure, not subscribe? No problem, they can either contact the party who introduced them to the product line (BTW, computers being as versatile as they are also opens up the area of services and non-computer products generated from your work.), or they can buy at retail direct from the focal point company (the manager of the plan - AInt.) Either way the product is shipped direct to them and if they want support then for an additional fee, they will be put in touch with a list of local subscribers who have reach the qualification to share in the fifth four dollar share.

Now all this is just to get the idea of what can easily happen overnite for the Amiga and it's community. At worse case, no cost to AI or Gateway, but then no extra share for them either. Business is busines. However, for them (AI) to maintain the plan, they need to show income better than break even for growth, planning and advancement. Gateway, on the other hand, who are they if not just another potential developer/integrator, who does receive royalities on the big picture of the "Amiga Technology" via licensing.

I'm not say this is what is going to happen, in general or specifically. But we are all damn with MS poisioning if this general direction doesn't happen. This is as certain and I'm absolutely certain such a fair and equal opportunity plan will remove both the MS hold and piracy for all practicle purposes.

Office automation is on it's way in. But office automation is not the production side of many business. Office automation, as current efforts are, are problematic. Why? because the right tools do not yet exist that allow the office worker to do the specific integration they see, need and know to do. Production automation, well let's just say that comes after office automation and it's the 80% of the work to do.

By all rights, the Amiga and it's OS, are by far more suited, even right now in it current state (simple give it better crash protection - a matter of playing the odds of crash) than any other system to accomplish this direction.

And to think, How in hell can anyone even think of marketing specializing and integration customization via mass marketing? Except for those brainwashed by MS.

On 29-Jul-98 16:51:18 Alex.Calara wrote: >Here you go, Tim.

>In order to make a new computer following the lead of an old idea, I think it's best to have a small, integrated, tightly woven group of managers, techs, marketing driectors, R+D people, and a healthy dose of secrecy. You have to think, even as small as our community is, 800000 users is a _lot_ of NDAs to enforce. This is not a locked cleanroom with no contaminants - You yourself said that we are not alone in this NG. We'd have to perform background checks of everyone to filter out the baddies, but not even all the good guys could pass. Even if we could manage to keep out the wrong sort of company, there remains a problem. Let me illustrate:........[snip - search dejanews for both my email address and Alexs']

I write:

How can the Intellectual Property issue be changed so that those who produce such IP will be properly recognized and rewards without the overhead of such paperwork and technicalities that only helps support lawsuites, dishonesty and overall constraints?

And what is the current incentive regarding users who produce such IP, those who produce good things but do not have the legal resources large companies have?

The current incentive is to apply any method including and first dishonesty in order to take ownership control over that which another has done.

The incentive is built into the way IP is currently legally handled. Not to mention methods of staying ahead of the law in the computer industry have been well established and very much in use.

Solve this problem and the problems and position you see no longer exist and we all can move forwards better.

The way technology is moving and reinvented, it is no big deal to clone and follow closely on the heals of those legally owning IP.

The current IP methodology has far to much overhead and constraints vs. payoff and advancements. And it's only going to get worse simply because technology is moving faster and faster.

Of course us end users are stupid and know nothing. How do I know? The few have told me, over and over and over and over and over again....... So it must be true????

Or is it really a matter of who benefits from such insanity of the elite, the master race?

Wealth is a matter of how much money you cause to move, but as things are the direction of movement supports who?

Want to beat Bill Gates? Change the game by changing the direction of which the wealth moves. Provide incentive to work together and then there will be no need for the complexities and loop holes of how IP is legally handled.