Market Share

[Kent Swafford]

     I enjoyed Ron Shiflet's post on VHS-BETA and Mac-DOS. I have a
few comments concerning Dean Reyburn's choice of Mac as the platform
for his CyberTuner.

     If all business decisions need to be based on market share, I
suppose we piano technicians should all be preparing for new careers
in electronics since electronics receive such a higher percentage of
consumers' entertainment dollars than do pianos. Obviously, not all
good business decisions need be based upon market share.

     I am speaking here as one who originally chose a beta VCR over
VHS, and now has and uses both. Up until a year ago, my only
computers were not MACs _or_ DOS, but Atari ST's. (I still use an
Atari computer daily.) My kids play their video games not on a
Nintendo, but on an Atari Jaguar, the 64 bit game machine that was
first on the market in 1993. I _liked_ new Coke, OK? And I make my
living in the small field of piano technology, not something more
mainstream like dentistry or real estate sales. (Yuck!)

     Dean's decision to develop CyberTuner for the Mac was a
carefully thought-out business decision. Keep in mind that Dean is an
accomplished DOS programmer, who found it difficult and complex to
provide proper customer technical support for his DOS programs. He
has said that it is much easier for him to provide technical support
for the customers of his Mac programs. I hope I am not speaking too
out of turn here, but Dean has reported that in the closing days of
1996, as techs were looking for those final 1996 tax deductions, he
had more orders for CyberTuner than his very small business could
handle easily. RCT sales have exceeded projections.

     CyberTuner is a fully operational, advanced visual tuning device
that in many respects outperforms all other visual tuning devices and
is available _now_ for those who are interested. As an example of
RCT's advanced features, varying the stretch of a tuning according to
the preferences of the piano technician is a basic capability of RCT,
and is accomplished in seconds with a few mouse clicks. Explaining
how to accomplish the same thing with an Accu-Tuner took a whole
series of posts and the extraordinary brilliance of Jim Coleman, Sr.

     It should be worth noting that the Power PC chip on which modern
Macs are based was developed in part by IBM. Since IBM already has a
stake in the PPC chips, there has been talk that IBM might build
PPC-based notebook computers that run the Mac OS in addition to
Windows. This might not happen, but if it does, it will render the
Mac-Windows debate rather moot as it relates to CyberTuner.

     The bottom line:  For me, it has been worth buying a Powerbook
in order to run CyberTuner. I have submitted an article to the Piano
Technicians Journal with much detail about CyberTuner. If there are
any questions about the article (if it runs) and CyberTuner, feel
free to ask here on the pianotech list.

Kent Swafford