TCW Podcast Episode 247 - The History of Commodore Pt 4

The final chapter of our Commodore series covers the company’s chaotic decline. After early success with the Amiga line, internal conflict grew under President Tom Rattigan, who wanted to focus on the low end with the Amiga 500 while Irving Gould pushed for high end systems like the Amiga 2000. Missed deadlines and a failed boardroom challenge led to Rattigan’s firing and Gould taking direct control. When IRS tax issues forced Gould to step back, Mahdi Ali became President and began reorganizing engineering. Ali hired Bill Sydnes from the IBM PC team, who also had a hand in the failure of the PC Jr, to evaluate and streamline development. Gould continued to cycle executives in pursuit of short term stock gains, which weakened Commodore as it chased conflicting markets. Cost cutting turned the popular Amiga 500 into the poorly received A600, though the later A1200 fared better. Ali moved manufacturing to the Philippines after shutting down facilities in Hong Kong and Germany, but production was disrupted by the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption. Commodore finally collapsed and went bankrupt in 1994, ending one of the most turbulent stories in personal computing.