> I would argue that they lacked business acumen. The fact is Commodore's marketing of the Amiga was terrible. After the 1985 head start, they let the technology languish for years.

EVERYBODY lacked business acumen. Motorola, MOSTEK, TI (although they were better than most), Apple, Radio-Shack (Tandy), Tramiel, Commodore, Amiga and Intel. What a mess! It's a wonder that they ever got out of the swamp.

I guess MS, ARM and Intel all turned out doing OK. And, Steve Jobs grew up and returned (in greater numbers with a turtle-neck!) and became an incredible intuitive design-evaluator and huckster (is that what you call the person who starts a new religion?), but having lived through so much of this (including Compaq and Star (the Dallas one - not the Xerox one - but that counts too!), [EDIT: I forgot about ComputerLand and their sinister hand in all of this - and of course Garry Kildall missing the IBM meeting - I'm not even getting into the software stack with zip-zip-zimmerman] and the origins of Dell and the ending of Compaq (and Tandem and DEC and HP!), everything seems to chaotic and random.

I know that we all (probably) like to feel like we are the gladiators on the field, and winning from strategy and planning and cunning and intelligence and skill - but in retrospect - everything seems so random to me.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical.