🚀 go-pugleaf

Date:     Wed, 29 Jun 88 17:59:46 -0900
To:       info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Reply-To: <FTDDR@ALASKA.BITNET>
Sender:   <FTDDR@ALASKA.BITNET>
From:     Don Rice @ Elvey 708D, Ph 5173   <FTDDR@ALASKA>

Any University salesplans?

There are still some folks interested in buying STs for university use.  In
the developer notes I've seen mention of limited-time-only student discounts,
but no sign of a general policy for selling to universities and other large
organizations.  I get the impression that Atari execs target certain
companies and send marketing people to them to wine and dine the purchasers
pretty much on a case-by-case basis.

IBM, HP, Apple, and other big companies have been very aggressive in setting
up purchase agreements with the state and university.  The obvious advantage
to buying through them are the discounts...even single item purchases may
save 10-40% over buying from the local dealer.  The discounts really reduce
the price difference between "big name brands" and the local ST price, leading
one to wonder why any large organization should buy Atari.  And there are
other advantages in some of the agreements:
- firm prices through the fiscal year so purchases can be properly budgeted
- orders through regional distribution centers provide fast service and
  firm delivery dates.  Local dealers can't provide a large inventory of
  big ticket items.
- special maintenance agreements.  The big companies seem to realize that
  small dealers can't support a full-sized maintenance service, so they
  allow machine swaps or loans and send units to a central service point
  to be fixed.
Apple made the biggest splash around here by extending discounts to students.
They were clever enough to send some corporate types to the local user groups
and work the members in a cheerleading frenzy...the user groups contacted
students, faculty, local media, and everyone else in an impressive burst of
quasi-religious zeal, and Apple got a statewide PR blitz.

Anyway, the question is: will Atari include government and educational
organizations in their marketing plans, and go after them?  With all the
alternatives readily available Atari can't expect buyers to pay high dealer
prices, wait indefinitely for backorders to arrive, and not be able to
buy the top-of-the-line products (Megas) simply because the dealer can't
afford Atari's expensive maintenance/minimum order requirements.

I'd be interested to know if the people who have bought STs for such
organizations haggle with local dealers, talk to Atari directly, or
what.  In the past, people here were getting fairly decent prices
and delivery times from mail order sellers, but no more.  If Atari
doesn't have a reasonable alternative, I'll be stuck advising people
to buy (yecch) Macs instead.  Some of them have already done so...

Don Rice
FTDDR@ALASKA.bitnet