Interesting old article

[OldAtarian]

Here's an interesting read about the ST and why it didn't make it in the US like it did outside the US.

 

http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/stdoom89.html

[Goochman]

I did a cost/benefit article on the ST back in college - showing how Mac/IBM emulation was possible as well as using Word Perfect for a 1/3 of the price. My teacher also asked why they hadnt heard of this computer at the time.

[carmel_andrews]

Interesting article

 

Article does make a point, tramiel didn't realy give atari much attention in it's main market (the US), preferring to focus on getting Atari built up internationally (mostly in europe and UK) so that he could get shot of atari's sagging inventory lines muchy quicker (since the US market were'nt interested in that product)

 

Atari (under tramiel) were essentially trying two tricks, implimenting a 'commodore' plan and taking atari out of the US market where it faced less competition and also gave the european/uk market a taste for modern technology (i.e. a mac like computer selling for less then a mac), the only reason why i think the ST was briefly successful (for the first 2/3 years at least) in the US was mainly because of it's mac like features, however as time went by people started to notice that more and more games started coming out for the ST (same happened with the amiga) and that plus the fact that the ST didn't really have the support from the big heavyweight applications publishers (who were already supporting the pc and mac) meant that unless the ST could make it's own way in the business market with it's 'lightweight' applications (compared to the pc and mac equiv's) the St wasn't going to last for very long, since the games end of the market would be comsumed by upscale 16bit products by the likes of sega/nintendo etc which really put the dampner on the ST (in the US that is) so basically the ST was squeezed out of the market at both ends, the only reason why europe and the UK held on for a few more years is because Atari were making some inroads in the non games market and also it enjoyed more 3rd party support from games and non games publishers

 

I think if Atari had just aimed the ST (and ST like computers that followed the ST like the TT, Falcon, Mega series and portable versions) at the business (and non games) and music markets the ST in all geographical markets would have been more successful and probably would have given Apple anyway a run for their money