amiga-news.de - Who has bought Amiga?

01.Jan.2000
Volker Mohr Who has bought Amiga?
Volker Mohr has done this summary for us:
Everybody has heard it: Amino Development has purchased the rights on the name Amiga, the Internet domain, and most important, on the Amiga technology developed in the time before Gateway. Not purchased were the rights on the new multimedia environment, so far been called "AmigaObjects", and the so-called Amiga MCC. These products, developed during the Gateway era, will be integrated into the Gateway product line without the name Amiga in the future.

With other words: What we user would call Amiga does now belong to Amino.

But who is Amino? Basically, Amino consists of two persons: Fleecy Moss and Bill McEwen. If you had an eye on Amiga Inc. and Gateway in the last few years, these names will sound familiar to you.

Bill McEwen was employed at Amiga, Inc. as "Head of Marketing and Software Evangelism". He left the company only days before Jim Collas, not all that voluntary himself. Before Bill worked at Amiga, Inc., he already was employed by several other well-known computer companies, but had nothing to do with Amiga. Despite this, he was immediately impressed by the capabilities of the (original) Amiga, and very quickly became a convinced member of the Amiga community and a supporter of the (by Jeff Schindler) so-called "Amiga Classics". Of course he did not lose the feeling for the need of new hard- and software developments. So, he was also a supporter of Collas' plans for the so-called AmigaMCC.

Bill McEwen had to leave Amiga, Inc. a few days before Jim Collas. While Collas was said to have left the company "for personal reasons", Bill never hid that his contract was not extended. While Bill is no long-standing Amiga fan, he did not only learn to understand and value the Amiga and his users, but also was able to win the trust of old Amiga gurus like Dave Haynie and Carl Sassenrath.

Fleecy Moss is also known to most from his time at Amiga, Inc. Little is known about his time before that. In an interview with the magazine CU Amiga (which has been closed down in the meantime), October issue 1998, page 30f., he tells a little bit about himself: "I am British, and currently work in the USA. I am Project Manager and System Architect, responsible for introducing new special computer systems. I am Amiga user for 8 years (translator's note: with the interview being dated 1998), and started with a Commodore Pet and VC 20 at the age of 11. What I hope to give the Amiga is respect for his philosophy and community ideals, as well as a good feeling for the future and the digital information revolution." (translator's note: The above has been re-translated and might differ slightly from the original, to which I don't have access.)

After Joe Torre, Fleecy Moss was the second important person at Amiga, Inc. whose contract was not extended. After his departure, Fleecy initiated the KOSH project. KOSH is intended to be "the hardware equivalent to Linux", a computer platform honoring user wishes and needs, developed as open source. Fleecy knows of course that such a goal cannot be achieved in short terms. When Gateway canceled the AmigaMCC plans, Joe Torre initiated Amino together with Bill McEwen. (translator's note: probably this should read Fleecy Moss and Bill McEwen, not Joe Torre!?) There have been little information about this company. The first impression on the public was made by the close connection with Phoenix, a connection of several Amiga distributors and developers with the goal of creating a new platform as an alternative to the Amiga. This common platform was originally intended to be based on PPC systems with QNX as operating system. Both was not a final decission when Phoenix / Amino was founded, but a basis of discussion for common plans.

So what does the purchase of Amiga by Amino mean? It is clear that the freshly founded two-man company does not have the funds to continue AmigaOS development and have new hardware build in short terms. But that is not required necessarily. To get an impression what can be expected, I recommend having a close look at the Phoenix pages. The basic difference will probably be that now there will be no development of an Amiga alternative, but a further development of the Amiga platform. This means, roughly, that Amiga/Amino will lead the path, but several other companies will build new Amigas, too. This would bring the Amiga area a similar situation as in the PC area, where many companies can honor many special wishes of users. This path of action has several advantages: The necessary investments are distributed among several companies. Additionally, this gives added security to the user, since a possible bancruptcy of a single company would not endanger the whole market. This way, the Amiga as a platform will be of interest again for new users.

If the future systems will run on a modern AmigaOS, QNX or whatever, or if the new systems will be based on PPC, that's speculation. It's a fact, however, that there has been work on the future before the purchase, too, so things don't start from zero. Especially how new users are to be drawn has to be speculated about. For sure there has been thought put in this area, too.

I am convinced that many surprises are to be expected soon. (Translation: mb)

[News message: 01. Jan. 2000, 08:00] [Comments: 0]
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