COMMODORE CORP.
This is a research about the companies that fail to innovate. The focus of the study for this research is Commodore Corporation. Commodore Corporation or commonly known as Commodore International Corporation was a U.S. homemade computer and electronics company based in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Commodore Corporation played an important role in the development of the home-personal computer industry in the 1980s.
In 1954, while driving a taxicab in New York, Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore Corporation was already running his small business by repairing typewriters for a few years. In 1956, Tramiel succeeded in signing an agreement with a Czechoslovakian company to sell their typewriters in North America. However, Czechoslovakian was a part of the Warsaw Pact and could not be imported straight into the U.S., so Tramiel shifted the production to Toronto, Canada and set up Commodore Business Machine (CBM). The advent of the U.S. market of Japanese typewriters rendered the sale of U.S. typewriters unprofitable. Tramiel decided to travel to Japan to find out the reason why Japanese could compete in their market with North Americans. Tramiel saw the first digital calculators during the journey and chose to transform his business into mechanical adding machines.
The Commodore 64 (or C64) home computer was published in August 1982. It was one of the most popular home computers ever produced, sold between 17 and 30 million units by Commodore Corporation during its lifetime. Then, Commodore Corporation published its first Amiga computer in 1985. It was simply called the Commodore Corporation’s Amiga devoid of references. It was advertised by Commodore both as their planned successor to the Commodore 64 and as their rival to the Apple Macintosh.
The Commodore Amiga 1000 was later renamed. The graphics capabilities of the Amiga 1000 have been ground-breaking for its moment. The Amiga could show up to 4096 colours, generate 8-bit stereo audio and operate multiple apps simultaneously at a comparatively inexpensive base cost of $1295. These characteristics were unprecedented in a consumer-oriented computer and gave the Amiga 1000 an important technical lead over its three primary rivals (the Atari ST, the Macintosh, and the IBM PC) that wasn’t matched till once the Amiga faded from the mainstream market.
Commodore ought to have been flying high as the 1990s started. The long-awaited new Amiga models were finally released in 1992 with better graphics, the A1200, and A4000. Sales reacted by 17 percent higher than in the past year. The Video Toaster had set up a niche that no other computer platform could match in desktop video editing, and the fresh Toaster 4000 pledged to be even better than before. The Amiga seemed to hit his step after a rocky beginning.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t last this achievement. Sales dropped 20 percent in 1993, and Commodore lost $366 million. The firm announced a loss of $8.2 million in the first quarter of 1994 — much better than the past four quarters, but not yet sufficient to produce a profit. Commodore had before, especially in the mid-’80s, run into financial difficulties, but this time the injuries were too deep. The venerable Commodore 64’s sales had finally collapsed, and the Amiga couldn’t fill the gap fast enough. The firm released a declaration warning investor about their issues, and the inventory collapsed. Commodore International Corporation announced on 29th April 29 1994, that it was beginning the original stage of voluntary liquidation of all its assets and filing for protection against bankruptcy.
