Date:         Tue, 22 Oct 1996 18:27:52 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Turbo <thom@calweb.com>
Subject:      VW CD - Defeat?

Well, the marketing guys asked me to take down my VW-CD page.  Seems they
think that nobody really wants a VW CD, saying that we could probably only
sell 300 or so of them, which I think is bullshit, but you know the
marketing types...

Anyway, here is my response to them.  I haven't heard a response from them
yet to it, so this should be interesting...

>Regarding the VW CD:
>
>Several months ago, after getting my own copy of the product, I 
>approached Arnold Gold about the idea of making a version that
>covered air cooled volkswagens back past '82.  He indicated that
>he didn't know how much support there would be for it, and that I
>should talk to Jonah.  I went to Jonah with the same proposal, and
>after some discussion, we decided that any inquiries would be 
>directed to him, and stored in a mail folder.  I told him I would
>do a web page, with a "mailto" to him.  After Jonah moved,
>I was directed to forward the requests to Jeff Lagges.
>
>Due to the number of people who knew my connections with VW's and
>with Alldata, I wrote up a web page describing what Alldata did
>and how wonderful it would be to have the same product for earlier
>cars.  That way I didn't have to keep typing up response after
>response when people asked me about the product.
>
>It appears that nobody took me seriously, and now that it is 
>evident that there really _is_ support, everyone has panicked.  
>Also consider the level of response in proportion to the number
>of people who even _knew_ about it.
>
>Nobody, not even myself, has done any real market research to determine
>if this is viable or not, and I think its irresponsible to just
>toss out some numbers and say its not feasible.  Look at the number
>of people who work on VW's compared to the number of people who
>would actually even think of working on their 1996 Ford Explorer.
>If the target of the Consumer CD is really consumers, then I think
>you have to realise that not everyone with a car less than 10 years
>old is going to do work themselves.  How many of _you_ actually
>do any of the work on your own cars? Yet the product is probably
>available for all of the makes and models you own.  I think the
>size of the aftermarket for VW parts is representative of the
>number of people working on these cars still.
>
>I know that a similar attempt was made to support the Macintosh.
>
>So, for the time being I will remove the link.   I tried.
>
>Thom
>--
>Thom Fitzpatrick                          email: tfitzpat@alldata.com
>Systems Administrator                     phone: (916) 684-5200 x3132
>AllData Corporation                       fax:   (916) 684-5225
>
>

Thom Fitzpatrick
thom@calweb.com - http://www.calweb.com/~thom
Visit _The_ VW Bus Page: http://www.calweb.com/~thom/vw.html