Author: Jason (05-020.026.popsite.net)
Date: 12-30-2000 06:17
Hasbro paid $5million for the company, including the name and symbol.
Hasbro may have received some backlash from the retail business community at large because although we love the company, a lot of investors don't.
As far as investors are concerned Atari brings back memories of the 1984 computer market crash in which the company was unable to deliver hardware that was paid for in advance and followed with a string of endless law suits to get their money back. Back in '84 Atari had over 50 building scattered all over Silicon Valley and couldn't even find its own stock to ship.
There are numerous other business failures that kept investors running from Atari like it was a desease. The failed Federal store purchase for marketing Atari merchandise was one. The rejection of producing and marking the 7800 back in '85 was another and then running to release the product in '87 when they should have come out with a new game system. The reproduction of the 2600jr was another and the laughs that came from "The fun is back!" commericals. The rejection of Nintendo when it wanted to use the Atari name and symbol on their new game machine. And the lastest blunder was IBM's 50 million dollar investment into the Jaguar game system that never really made it off the ground.
Atari was determined to make the grassroots, word of mouth philosophy work under Jack. He expected jourlists to come running to his door every time Atari produced the first of somthing. (Did you know Atari produced the first CD-ROM drive and it was for the ST? Didn't think so :-) )
Atari's business and marketing practices got so bad people started making jokes that they were going to buy out Jack-in-the-box and start marketing their product though the fast food outlet.
This gives you an annotated history of why Atari's name and symbol are shunned in the business and investment community, and without investments a company goes nowhere.
Jason.
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