Joey Kay Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 Hey gang! I've recently been reading a lot about James Morgan's time at Atari, and for a change of scenery from the usual "Anti-Tramiel" posts, I thought I'd flame for a bit about what a yutz James Morgan proved to be at the helm of Atari, and how he helped kill the company. There was a great article in the July 23rd 1984 Business Week describing his follies. (I sent a scan to Curt at AHS, along with some other articles from the era, and hopefully he will be able to get them on his sight in due time) Basically, here's the highlights of his blunders according to Business Week: -His 30 day freeze on all development when he joined in September -His canning (and all-too-late reinstatement) of the new 8-bit 1400/1450 models -His indecision over choosing where to manufacture the 800XL that ruined the Christmas '83 home computer season for Atari Morgan literally ruined Atari's 8-bit line during the Christmas '83 season. Because of his indecision over moving 800XL manufacturing overseas until it was too late, Atari was left with too few 800XLs that cost too much to manufacture (and in turn, too much to sell). Atari could have had 800XLs in plenty of quantity for $199 for Christmas of 83, instead of having not enough available for $299. In essence, Atari would have made a good run at Commodore's market share had Morgan not blown it. Of course, we all know which 8-bit computer of that time ended up being the best selling personal computer in history... Ultimately, history has shown that the Tramiels were the nail in the coffin of Atari (albeit with the help of a global recession and standardization to IBM) but Morgan was certainly no prize, either. Cheers! Joey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 Hey gang! I've recently been reading a lot about James Morgan's time at Atari, and for a change of scenery from the usual "Anti-Tramiel" posts, I thought I'd flame for a bit about what a yutz James Morgan proved to be at the helm of Atari, and how he helped kill the company. There was a great article in the July 23rd 1984 Business Week describing his follies. (I sent a scan to Curt at AHS, along with some other articles from the era, and hopefully he will be able to get them on his sight in due time) Basically, here's the highlights of his blunders according to Business Week: -His 30 day freeze on all development when he joined in September -His canning (and all-too-late reinstatement) of the new 8-bit 1400/1450 models -His indecision over choosing where to manufacture the 800XL that ruined the Christmas '83 home computer season for Atari Morgan literally ruined Atari's 8-bit line during the Christmas '83 season. Because of his indecision over moving 800XL manufacturing overseas until it was too late, Atari was left with too few 800XLs that cost too much to manufacture (and in turn, too much to sell). Atari could have had 800XLs in plenty of quantity for $199 for Christmas of 83, instead of having not enough available for $299. In essence, Atari would have made a good run at Commodore's market share had Morgan not blown it. Of course, we all know which 8-bit computer of that time ended up being the best selling personal computer in history... Ultimately, history has shown that the Tramiels were the nail in the coffin of Atari (albeit with the help of a global recession and standardization to IBM) but Morgan was certainly no prize, either. Cheers! Joey Joey, You're also leaving out the fact that James took the job but would'nt start for 2 months leaving Atari with temporary management to deal with the lapse before he came onboard. Ferrand was placed in charge of Atari and quite frankly he should've stayed there, he was a superb manager and he could've very well have gotten things on the right track. That 30 day delay of the 800XL's and also the reworking of the 600XL to drop its Composite output to save costs really hurt Atari unbelievably and actually helped Commodore. 84's sales were hurt because of that decision. While the computer line suffered due to Morgan's decisions, he was putting together the framework to lean out the company, he did get all of the divisions to finally meet each day, go over project status and schedules... something that wasn't done under Kassar and caused a lot of confusion and lack of clarity. Morgan did finally restart the 1450XLD line. It was rather wise to cancel the 1400XL since it really was an overlap product and didn't make too much sense to market since all it brought was a built in modem (you could buy a 1030) and the speech synthesiser which while it was a cool add-on wasn't a must-have. Disk Drives and expansion were what was needed. Atari was looking into creating an 800XLD which would've been a low cost 1450XLD less the modem and speech with built in disk drives. Morgan's initial starts with Atari would ripple through the company for the next 9 months while he was there, but he did seriously cut back the profuse bleeding of cash that was seen in 83' and the company was beginning to get more focused and in line. I think if he had been given 6 more months that things would be much different today. Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callipygous Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 Completely agree Warner Communications drove Atari into the ground. It is a classic case of delayed reactions. The products developed under Bushnell, namely, the VCS and the 800, enjoyed their heyday under Ray Kassar and his band of losers. They , of course, claimed all the glory. Kassar and Co then managed to go years without even one new product being brought to market. I don't count the XL or the 5200 because they are just repackaged 800 technology. Imagine going 5 years in the computer industry without a new product. At least, Tramiel produced the ST in a few months. Okay, it wasn't a huge success, but it was the right direction. Tramiels were not responsible for the collapse, but get blamed for it somehow. They made some bad decisions, to be sure, but most of the damage had already been done. BTW- Would like to see the article scanned in. Think I have a similar interview somewhere with another Atari exec. All about how they reorganized Atari into a profit making division. Ha! Really all that happened was that the VCS and its games began selling like hotcakes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 ST - wasn't a huge success - think outside the USA!!!!! In Eurpoe the ST was HUGE, one of the best selling consumer computers for nearly 5 years... Ok so it wasn't Miner's successor to the 800, that we all craved, but it was a hugely successful platform, that lead the Amiga in Europe for several years... sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 Huhhhuhhaaa You said boob.... Seriously though, I don't think you can blame Atari's fall from grace on one man wether it's Mogan, Kassar, or Tramiel. Atari failed because it got too greedy (pre-crash), developed good products but never stood behind them (the TT computer line), tried to hold onto the past way too long (the 7800), and ultimately got cheap and lazy (the Jaguar). Quite frankly after the crash I think Atari got itself into a death spiral of bad practices that was impossible to get out of. Atari was just stuck in its ways and couldn't change fast enough to save itself. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Callipygous Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 ST - wasn't a huge success - think outside the USA!!!!! In Eurpoe the ST was HUGE, one of the best selling consumer computers for nearly 5 years... Ok so it wasn't Miner's successor to the 800, that we all craved, but it was a hugely successful platform, that lead the Amiga in Europe for several years... sTeVE I'd like to hear from others in Europe on this point since it was an "also ran" in North America. Being "one of the best sellers" and only in western Europe sounds good but not, IMHO, "huge". Ah well, I suppose on a Commodore board, we would be discussing how Commodore messed up on the Amiga and how they should have never gotten rid of Jack Tramiel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atarifan49 Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 Ah well, I suppose on a Commodore board, we would be discussing how Commodore messed up on the Amiga and how they should have never gotten rid of Jack Tramiel So true. And if this was an Apple board we be talking about the blunders that John Sculley made: removing Steve Jobs (not that Jobs was perfect and probably did need to leave), not licensing the Apple OS and clones, high profit margins, constant confusion between different models of Macs, Michael Spindler (there was a boob like Morgan )... But we all seem to agree that each era of Atari collectively contributed to their demise. Warner did bring in the needed capital and clout that acceled Atari to a new realm. But their driving it like a runaway train turn that quick rise to a quick end. Morgan and his two month vacation was stupid. Tramiel with his lack of advertising and treatment of retailers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted July 24, 2002 Share Posted July 24, 2002 Callipygous, You need to remember that Erope is a BIG market!!! I worked in retail from 1995, and ran stores from 87 thru 1992 in the UK - I sold large numbers of machines - the ST software titles stood atop the software charts, every software company produced titles for the ST... I can remember hardware shortages, all the retailers clamouring for products, at one point the machines simply couldn't stay in the stores long enough to get taken from their shipping boxes. Just take a look at the software released for the ST in Europe - from games to Pro Midi stuff, several newstand magazines, specialist computer shows dedicated to the platform - the depth of support does not come from an also ran system sTeVE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey Kay Posted July 25, 2002 Author Share Posted July 25, 2002 There's certainly some interesting posts here... But we all seem to agree that each era of Atari collectively contributed to their demise. Warner did bring in the needed capital and clout that acceled Atari to a new realm. But their driving it like a runaway train turn that quick rise to a quick end. Morgan and his two month vacation was stupid. Tramiel with his lack of advertising and treatment of retailers. I couldn't agree more with that thought. Warner did a fine job of building Atari and then ruining it. Undoubtedly, the talent pool at Atari in the Warner years was second to none. The Warner years were exciting times at Atari. I was thinking about this today, and really, Tramiel never really "killed" Atari. It was dead when he bought it (why else would Warner sell it to him for no cash - just promisary notes?) However, his outdated business tactics were certainly were unable to recessitate the company. As morbid as this sounds, Warner killed Atari and Tramiel cremated the corpse... Cheers! Joey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maury Markowitz Posted July 25, 2002 Share Posted July 25, 2002 I've recently been reading a lot about James Morgan's time at Atari Out of curiosity, where? There's great books on the history of Apple all over the place, is there one on Atari? I'd love to read it! BTW, the best book on Apple isn't about Apple, it's the bio they did on Steve when he was still at NeXT. MUCH more detail about what was going on in the company than things like West of Eden. Maury Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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