NO RESPECT

Speaking of entertainment, Commodore has once again proven itself to be the Rodney Dangerfield of the computer world—it don't get no respect. The company went to great lengths to promote its CDTV product as the big attraction at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show, but despite heroic efforts to woo the press, it garnered scant attention. About the only major publication to take notice was the Wall Street Journal, which apparently felt obligated to explain why the company's stock price had jumped nearly 30 percent in the days preceding the public announcement. The unfavorable tone of that article was disturbingly predictable. It led off with the traditional statement to the effect that "an ailing Commodore Business Machines launched a new product yesterday in a desperate attempt to bolster sagging earnings," and concluded by saying that this product couldn't possibly have any impact in the market because it wasn't introduced by IBM. The article seemed to have its desired effect; it not only explained the sudden rise in Commodore share prices, but made it go away as well.

We've even heard some skepticism about CDTV within the Amiga developer community. More than one developer has ventured the opinion that of the 100 applications (by Commodore estimates) to be developed for the platform in 1990, 99 percent will be nothing more than ports of existing Amiga products, with little or no enhancements that take advantage of the storage capacity of the CD-ROM.

—SHELDON LEEMON

–INSIDER NEWS AND GOSSIP