They also had an exceptional suite of 'multimedia tools'. The market for desktop publishing, video editing, graphics tools, etc. was cornered well before the Amiga did so. Amiga had some early inroads with broadcast media and CGI, but that was an awfully small niche. I believe Apple had the first machine with spreadsheet software.
Just like PCs had a serious business market from the beginning, so did Apple.
It didn't matter what part of the world, Apple simply had the superior graphic design and video editing tools. Amiga provided cut-price competition for 'non-linear' video editing, compositing, and 3D CGI (e.g., Newtek products), but once again, not taken as seriously, and not at the same scale as Apple products.
It's not fair to say that CBM failed Amiga, but that Apple aggressively beat CBM at developing markets for their platform:
> According to Eric Peters, one of the company's founders, most prototypes of "the Avid" were built on Apollo workstations. At some point, Avid demoed one of their products at SIGGRAPH. Says Peters: "Some Apple people saw that demo at the show and said, 'Nice demo. Wrong platform!' It turned out they were evangelists for the then new Mac II (with six slots!). When we got back to our office (actually a converted machine shop) after the show, there was a pile of FedEx packages on our doorstep. They were from Apple, and they contained two of their prototype Mac II machines (so early they didn't even have cases, just open chassis). Also there were four large multisync monitors. Each computer was loaded with full memory (probably 4 megs at the time), and a full complement of Apple software (pre-Claris). That afternoon, a consultant knocked on our door saying, 'Hi. I'm being paid by Apple to come here and port your applications from Apollo to Macintosh.' He worked for us for several weeks, and actually taught us how to program the Macs."
I’d say that Apple was the exception not the rule. Like a modern Silicon Valley startup it was partnered by both a technical mind and a business savvy mind, who (unlike Tramiel) remained at the helm during the worldwide shift of business computing to IBM PC. Also, Apple didn’t participate in the race to the bottom, and concentrated on making a high quality product that justified its price tag as a serious business machine. Amiga started out trying to be the cut price Apple, but the entered the game too late. But it is tantalising to think what could have been if Amiga was founded alongside someone who had business savvy
I see that said a lot, but communicating about the value of the Amiga was easier said that done. It was a machine that could do everything, and that was built in the first place as a gaming machine (from the earlier devs themselves). The C64 was also mostly used for gaming at that time so that image of a computer that could be used for professional purposes was not really there in their DNA. Companies went for PCs by default and did not care about the graphics capabilities of the Amiga. Apple had its own market and the Amiga was mostly in a place where it was affordable for many consumers but lacking proper professional support and software to turn it into something else.
