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Changes
→Vendors shifting gears; remain loyal to TI market
His company is now "100 percent TI mail order and 70 percent retail TI," but, he observes, "five years from now that's going to be a very small business. We need to look at other businesses to be in while continuing to support the TI market."
Reitan sees a lot of short-term opportunities for consumers and manufacturers, particularly with "third party peripherals that don't have to compete with the distribution system from TI. "Many consumers are delighted when "we tell them what's available," he notes.
He says that "we have a very close relationship with TI and as long as TI stays in business we'll continue to support their products."
Charles Ehninger, president of Futura Software, says that his company will also continue to support the TI99/4A market, in which "we have a lot of good friends." However, his company also plans to develop products for the TI Professional and the IBM Personal Computer.
"The optimistic view (of TI) is that this is a static market and will never grow," he says. "The pessimistic outlook is that it will die very soon."
Futura Software specializes in business software for the vertical market, with specialized products for professionals such as architects, engineers and attorneys. The company's inventory also includes more than a dozen game titles.
He says the TI pullout from the home computer market was "a very disappointing experience, especially since we had just completed a total business system on the Winchester hard disk."
Futura was on the verge of announcing the system when TI "exploded the bomb," Ehninger said.
The week before, he notes, some TI officials had told him that TI would continue to support the 99/4A for two or three years to come. He feels that his sources were sincere in what they told him. Corporate decisions, he says, are made in "ivory towers"
and not everyone gets to be there when they are made.
Mr. Moon, of Moonbeam Software (he says his first name is Mr), notes that his company will continue to produce games for the TI home computer "as long as there is demand."
He notes that his company has recently reduced prices on all its software.
"We had intended to reduce the prices before Tl left the market," he says. "That just brought it to the forefront."
The International 99/4 Users Group, which does $2.5 million in TI business annually, has a number of proposals in to TI.
Charles LaFara, IUG president, says that the IUG would like to manufacture a number of TI cartridges on a royalty basis, buying the parts from TI and assembling them for resale. Included among these would be Extended BASIC, Editor/ Assembler, Terminal Emulator II and non-solid state programs such as Teach Yourself Extended BASIC and Teach Yourself BASIC. The IUG has also asked to take over TI's toll-free hotline.
La Fara feels that the IUG can help TI users "detain the obsolescence" of their machines for the next 36 to 48 months. He notes that the IUG program library contains some 2,500 user written programs. He also says that the IUG will continue to publish its magazine, Enthusiast '99, and plans no major changes in its operations that will affect members in the near future.
<span style="text-align: right;">'''— LB'''</span>
