amiga-news.de - New Executive Update

13.Mar.2000
AMIGA New Executive Update
A new Executive Update has been posted:

March 10, 2000
Dear Friends:

With all of the continuing rumors out there, one would think that we were gone, or just spending the money that we raised on homes in Hawaii, or doing nothing.

I can assure you that this is not the case. As mentioned in the previous update, if you do not read it here do not believe it.

This months letter is going to be a long one, and I apologize in advance for the length. There is a lot of information here so take your time.

Recently I received an e-mail message that brought to my attention a sad reality.

When Gateway purchased Amiga in 1997 they made many promises, and in fact there were 6 different product announcements during their tenure. I was involved with two of them, QNX, and Linux.

While I believed that we were going to deliver on the two product versions that I was involved in, they did not materialize, and it has hurt many of you. The decisions to change or alter either of these announcements was not mine, but I was a part of the team that was involved in both. For this I am very sorry.

It is because of the reasons mentioned above that I promised not to say anything or announce anything until it was done, and ready.

I know that this is difficult, especially with the number of great people and Amiga companies who are feeling the continued strain, but I did not want to have us all go through any more false starts, and undelivered dreams.

April 1, 2000 is the date, and St. Louis is the place. This is the first opportunity for ``your'' Amiga company to present, demonstrate, speak, and see the first product to come out of Amiga - The new Developer System. In fact one lucky show attendee will win one of these systems.

With all of the above said; Another month, and a great deal of work has been completed. Many of you believe nothing is happening, I can assure you that a great deal has been occurring.

Amiga - ``So the World May Know''.

There have been some great new hires, many new partnerships and great progress as we are moving forward. There is more information about them mentioned below.

Partnerships

Tao-Group

The first of course was the announcement with Tao-Group which has been moving along great. In St. Louis we will be showing the first round of the Amiga/Tao system. There is a great deal of work to be done, but we are far enough along to launch the new developer system for Tao at the show.

Haage & Partner

We have entered into a long term relationship with H&P that will provide API's and a path towards to the future OS. This includes new updated versions of Storm IDE. They have also committed to porting all of their software to the new platform.

We are also excited to work with H&P on a new version of the WarpOS that will allow the new Amiga to run on PPC accelerator cards. This means that an Amiga that has a PPC card running WarpOS will be able to run the new Amiga on that card! That's right. The new Amiga running on the current A1200s!

More on H&P will become public as we continue to move forward and work through the testing programs.

We are very excited about this relationship.

Hyperion

Hyperion and Amiga have entered into an agreement for the porting of the existing and new games to the new Amiga. This along with the great work that Ben and his team have done in working on a new 3D gaming engine for the new Amiga. They have been working very closely with the Amiga development team and Tao-Group to make the development of games for the Amiga a cut above the rest. We are very pleased to be have them as members of the new team.

Epic Marketing

Thomas Steiding has been a great supporter from the beginning. Epic has announced that not only will they be making their games available on the new system, but that they have secured the rights for many new games. More on Epic with a follow on announcement later.

There are many more partnerships that will be revealed in St. Louis with even more exciting news.

E-Mails

Where to start. I continue to receive hundreds of e-mails everyday, and while I am not the only one on the team who seems to be living on e-mail, we have not been able to answer as many as we would like.

We are listening, and working on many of your comments. Here are some of your concerns and what we have been doing to help:

Phase 5 and their recent changes.

We have been in contact with Mr. Thomas Dellert, and Mr. Stefan Domeyer, and we are working with both DCE, and Met@box to provide solutions for the Amiga market and we expect some great news soon. I can say that the conversations have been going very well, and we look forward to working towards an exciting future with both of these companies.

One of the key benefits with the relationships that we have been able to strike with both of these firms is their long term commitment to Amiga.

According to our initial conversations, and project plans we are working to ensure that the new Amiga will run on both of the PPC boards supplied by these companies.

We will be providing more detail in product announcements from both firms.

Dealer and distributors have been contacting us about their current situations and future plans.

In response to the many requests we have created the Amiga Dealer Network, or ``A D N''. Randy Hughes our VP of Sales (more about him later) sent out an e-mail message to over 300 dealers, and the response has been fantastic. Many dealers are ready to begin carrying the Amiga again, and more are very excited about the future. The A D N is a way for us to better communicate our plans, hear concerns, and work together to create a stronger Amiga. As I am sure that you will see there are great things to come from the A D N.

Remember that we plan on being able to run the New OS on PPC boards. Does your machine support that option?

Developers and the future development plans.

Training sessions at Tao-Group have been continuing for some months now, and we have a better relationship today than when we started, and we are more convinced than ever that our decision was the right one. There will be opportunity in St. Louis for others to see the Tao-System at work, and we look forward to seeing all of you there.

We also will be having a developer meeting in St. Louis on March 31st at 7:00pm. This is a developer only meeting, and we will be giving information about the hardware, software tools, and the developer support program. We know that there is going to great interest in this seminar to plan ahead and get there early as space is limited.

Please check the St. Louis show site, and the Amiga sites for more information.

Communication with the Amiga Community.

We have contracted with Equinox Design to create the new ``Amiga World'' newsletter. This will be available for free to all of the Amiga community. Initially this will be made available via the Internet from our new website and then (if demand merits) we will make a printed version. This is not in anyway in competition with the existing Amiga publications that currently are in print. This instead is targeted as a newsletter designed as a vehicle to help the community communicate better together. The Editor of Amiga World is Fletcher Haug, the former Editor and Publisher of the Amiga Informer. The first edition should be available within the first two weeks of April.

There are no advertisements, and we are using this as another method to get information out to all of you, and to help the publications that we have today.

More Communications with the Amiga Community.

As mentioned in the past update, I have reactivated the AAC. There have been some great discussions and great ideas to come out of the conversations to date, and they will be a great help in the future as we move forward. The members of the AAC are:

Christoph Dietz
Carsten Schroeder
Coner Kerr
Andrew Elia
Bill Panagouleas
Craig Delahoy
Ben Vost
Wayne Hunt
Don Hicks
Goetz Ohnesorge
Gary Peake
Kermit Woodall
Holger Kruse
Thomas Frieden
Juergen Haage
Thomas Raukamp
Heinz Wrobel
Wayne Martin
Thomas Svenson
Jeffery Rose
Randhir Jesrani
Trish Zlotek
Tom Lively
Cade Hannan
Luca Danelon
Guenter Horbach
Ian Greenaway
David Law
Paul Lesurf
Bill McEwen
Christian Kemp
Basil Flinter

We will soon be reactivating their aac.amiga.com mail accounts.

New Faces for the Team

There are many new people at Amiga, and we are excited about the team that we are continuing to build. Below you will find some specific detail on certain team members, here you will find the names and descriptions of the folks that I get to work the most closely with.

Randall P. Hughes - VP Sales and Strategic Business Development

Randy comes to us after being the VP of Sales at a very exciting Java technologies company ThinWeb. Randy and I worked together when he was my primary contact at QNX. He is a very skilled person with backgrounds in Banking, and technology. Randy understands the Amiga, and what the future brings. He has had business dealings with some of the strongest technology companies in the world. He was the person that QNX selected to open their first office in California. I know that you will enjoy meeting him in St. Louis.

Now the official comments that will be going up on the web site later;

Mr Hughes comes to Amiga directly from a Java based start up where he headed the sales and alliances function from inception to its filing for IPO on the NASDAQ exchange.

Randy was initiated to the Amiga community as the lead manager responsible for the relationship with Amiga during his tenure at QNX where he headed the expansion to Silicon Valley and into Southern California.

Randy was first and foremost a financier from his days at notable Canadian financial institutions, namely the Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank.

Randy was educated at the University of Ottawa, Canada and at Marlborough College in England.

Vincent P. Pfeifer - VP of Operations

Vince and I worked together for several years at ConnectSoft. Vince has an incredible ability to deliver products. I have seen him time and again walk into extremely difficult situations with very hard headed engineers and stupid marketing people, and deliver amazing products. I am very pleased that he has agreed to join us.

Here is his official web site description;

Vince Pfeifer has 14 years experience in the computer industry with the last 12 spent in the software area. Vince joins us from GraphOn Corporation where, as Vice President of Product Development and General Manager of GraphOn's Seattle based operations, he oversaw all Engineering resources for GraphOn's multiple development sites. During his tenure at GraphOn, sales tripled while product offerings doubled. Additionally, Vince helped oversee the merger that made GraphOn a publicly traded company whose Market Capitalization quadrupled in under a year.

Vince has hands-on experience building and managing software development operations as well as product management organizations. Vince has experience with both startup organizations (ConnectSoft, Exodus Technologies, GraphOn) as well as more established companies (Symantec).

Why I joined Amiga, by Vincent P. Pfeifer

Other than the belief that Bill McEwen could sell ice cubes to Eskimos, I joined Amiga to take on the challenge of turning a company's name and image that has become somewhat dated here in the United States into a top level, respected company in the computer industry. As I am coming off a successful venture in helping turn GraphOn into a publicly traded company with record revenues from the position of Vice President of Product Development, I was ready for a new set of responsibilities in more areas than Product Management and Engineering.

Amiga offers a challenge that I look forward to: build a company from the bottom up with the benefit of having name recognition and some technology already in place.

It is an opportunity to do something that I have wanted to do since my early days at 5th Generation when I sat on the Tech Support phones and listened to average users try to use relatively complicated software. I know that it sounds like a religious crusade, but I want to make computers easier for the masses, and with my position at Amiga, I have an opportunity to help influence that vision significantly.

Gary Peake - Director of Developer Relations and Support

My favorite man from Texas. Gary has already put thousands of hours of his life to support the Amiga, and the community worldwide. Now he has joined our team in delivering his years of experience and affection for the Amiga in supporting the efforts of the Amiga community.

Tarah Mallo - Reception and Office

Tarah is our first line of communication to the outside world. She has been working with the development team gathering information and support. As well as helping me to get organized. I will state for the record that the pictures of the original office were taken ``before'' she joined. Say hello to Tarah the next time you call.

Kari Erickson - Executive Administration

Kari is the person who will keep my life and travel plans in order. She is who you will get to speak to first before getting me, or any other member of the executive team. Kari joins us after leaving one of the very prestigious law firms here in the Seattle area, and I am sure that you can already feel her pain in having to deal with me on a day to day basis.

Susan Sutton - Director of Finance and Human Resources

Susan is going to take over the collection of funds, and the paying of bills. She is also the person who gets to deal with all of the employee complaints about Fleecy. Just kidding there are more complaints about me, than there are Fleecy.

Gordon Stone - Director of Information Services and Information Technologies

We refer to Gordon as the network man. Gordon got his start in computing by upgrading Amiga memory for recording studios in Oregon. He has since moved onto operating numerous systems, and is versed in all that is connectivity. Gordon actually will start in two weeks, but we wanted to introduce him now.

Operations in Germany - New Members on our team

Markus Grohmann - Order processing and EDP

Markus already has a family history with Amiga, as his brother used to work with us in Braunschweig. We look forward to working with Markus.

Barbara Nitzsche - Executive Assistant to Petro

With the addition of Barbara to our team in Germany we will be able to have Petro out more. Next time you call Langen say hello to Barbara and welcome her to Amiga.

Members of the Development Team

Dean Brown - Dean founded DKB weeks after the first A1000 came out and then spent the next 15 years designing and producing all manner of add ons, expansion cards and accelerators for the whole range of Amiga computers. He brings a deep understanding of the spirit and reality of the Amiga hardware, along with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of current and future projects. He will use this to help Amiga and its partners create multiple hardware platforms for the future.

Dave Taylor - Dave is another scouser, from Liverpool, UK, although he supports the wrong football team. He has spent the last ten years designing and implementing distributed manufacturing, control, and eCommerce systems for small, medium, and large companies across the globe, on Mainframe, Unix and Windows architectures. The last 3 years have seen him concentrating on distributed systems, databases, and n tier commercial systems. He brings commercial world experience, eCommerce expertise and formal methods with a refreshing new look on architecture to the company, and was also brave enough to try snowboarding with Wouter and myself.

Wouter van Oortmerssen - Wouter is a tall, dutch, quake master currently completing his doctorate at Southampton University. He has been an Amigan since the early 1990's and is most well known for the excellent Amiga E language and compiler that grew from a research project into a professional system. He is bringing a fresh look at language, conversation and interaction in the new Amiverse.

Andreas Kleinert - Andreas has worked for the last few years producing public domain, shareware, and commercial applications for the Amiga, PC and UNIX markets. For the Amiga market, Andreas concentrated on various graphics and datatype systems before taking up the challenge of lead developer for the SuperBase database product line. His deep knowledge of data storage, retrieval and indexing is core to creating a self describing and multi dimensional amiverse.

Trond Werner Hansen - Some people are leg men, others are face men. Trond is most definitely a face man - INTERFACE man 8-) Over the last seven years he has moved from small programs to enhance workbench, through completely reimplementing layers.library as SuperLayers, to developing a NG Amiga workbench system. With configurability and simplicity being central features for the Amiverse, Trond will be helping to redefine presentation and participation in digital worlds.

The Amiga Developer Support Network Crew!

Gary Peake <gpeake@amiga.com>

Gary has used and beta tested on most Commodore/Amiga computers from the Vic-20 to the A3000. His organizational, design, and testing skills will be a valuable asset to providing a unique, forward looking online developer support system that will set many "firsts" in the computer industry. And his association with Team Amiga will enable Amiga Inc. to provide a valuable multi-national scope to Amiga Developer Support. Gary has many years of experience with online web applications and will utilize his experience to provide an evolving Developer Support structure that will grow with us and our Amiga developers. Gary is also a current member of the 3D Development Team.

Gary will host our first Amiga DevCon in St Louis on Friday March 31st and will be there to answer questions on an individual basis through April 2nd. The full program details will not be announced until then, but all developers wishing more information should contact Gary Peake at gpeake@amiga.com .

For information on the time and place of the DevCon contact Bob Sharpe at bscharp@icon-stl.net

Ray A. Akey <rakey@amiga.com>

Ray is the creator of CNet BBS for the Amiga Classic and has been programming for the Amiga for a number of years. Ray's understanding of all areas of product development from concept to coding to testing to finished product gives us a unique look at all areas of Amiga Developer Support needs. Ray's experience with Internet application programming will prove extremely helpful for the future of the Amiga. Ray will also be assisting in maintaining some of the online systems we will employ. Ray currently lives in Canada.

Götz Ohnesorge <gotz@amiga.com>

Götz is one of the most aware Amigan's I know in dealing with cutting edge products and issues. He has been an Amiga user since they were first available. Götz is a quick study on high-end multimedia and new technologies. His expertise in getting the facts quickly and succinctly will aid us in all areas of developer support. He will be assisting in keeping information current and available for new developers in the several online systems we will be providing. Götz's knowledge of several languages will help the new Amiga Developer Support System to be truly multi-national. He is a current member of the Amiga 3D Development Team, as well. Götz currently lives in Germany.

Jonas Gustavsson <jonas@amiga.com>

Jonas is a long time Amiga user and has excellent experience in programming, testing and using high-end digital/multimedia applications. He has worked with 64 bit Alpha's under heavy multi-media use. Jonas' primary areas of interest is digital graphics, high-end multimedia, video editing and titling, and he has experience working in the commercial tv and movie industry as well. Jonas speaks several languages as well and will be an exceptional asset to the Amiga Developer Support System in assisting us to be multi-national. He is also currently a member of the Amiga 3D Development Team. Jonas currently lives in Sweden.

More information.

We have spending a great deal of time on infrastructure and getting ready for the next wave.

New Building!

One of the first problems was in the area of Real Estate, we currently are in 600 feet with us bulging out the walls, and being located outside of a car wash has its benefits, but it is still rather annoying with all of the car stereos going at the same time outside your front door.

We are in the process of moving to our new world headquarters in Snoqualmie, Washington. The new address will be;

Amiga Incorporated
34935 SE Douglas Street
Suite 210
Snoqualmie, WA 98065
USA
Telephone number +001 425.396.5660
Facsimile number +001 425.396.6551

We officially open the doors and are up and running on March 15th, 2000. However we will begin moving equipment, phones, servers, etc on Monday March 13th, 2000. This means that it may be more difficult to get in touch with over the next few days. We apologize in advance for any hardship this may cause.

New Web Site!

This is one of the number one items on the list, and the largest number of ``comments'' that we receive from the community.

We have been in process building a new web site for some weeks. The difficulty has been server location and time. We have now addressed both of these issues and we plan to have a new site up in the next couple of weeks.

A web site is a constant work in progress, so we look forward to your comments, and will continue to try and enhance the experience.

Final thoughts.

This letter does not cover all of the activities that are and continue to take place. There is so much more happening that I could spend days writing and still not keep up with it all.

We are extremely busy here, and could not be having more fun. The company and the people who have contacted us to support what we are doing have been in many cases overwhelming. We have several more partnerships that we are going to be announcing in St. Louis, and we hope to see as many of you there as possible.

I recently asked a long time Amigan, and a member of the select team that worked with Jay directly the reason that Jay started this venture. I have heard many ideas as to what Jay ``really'' wanted to do, and many e-mails inform me that they know what Jay had planned all along. While I never had the chance of either meeting, or speaking with Jay I thought I would ask.

Simply stated ``Jay wanted to build the greatest home computing experience ever, for under 500.00''. I can tell you that his dream still lives with every member of this company, and we will deliver on his dream.

I thank each and every one of you for your continued support, and look forward to the future.

Keeping the faith,
Bill McEwen, and the rest of the Amiga team (Translation: mb)

[News message: 13. Mar. 2000, 08:00] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

< Next message

Prior message >