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| 06.Jan.2001 Christoph Dietz |
CES: Interview with TAO's CEO Francis Charig As already reported, Christoph Dietz flew to Las Vegas for amiga-news.de to attend and report directly from the CES. Here's the interview he had with the CEO of TAO, the software partner of Amiga Inc.:
Amiga-News: Good morning Francis and thank you for the opportunity of this interview. Francis Charig: It's a pleasure for me either! Amiga-News: Let's start with some basic questions. How old are you and where are you born? Francis Charig: Unfortunately I'm 40 years old. I was born in Oxted by London. Amiga-News: Sure you are married and have children? Francis Charig: Yes, my wife is Japanese and we have two boys. One is six and the other will be three in February. Amiga-News: When and where was TAO (pronounced: DAO) founded? Francis Charig: TAO was founded in 1992 in Bracknell nearby Reading, England. Until 1995 it was a virtual company, located in a bedroom. Amiga-News: How many people are working for TAO? Francis Charig: About 70 people. More then 50 of them are in the software department. They are coming from three major groups: the Video games industry, the Blue Chip Industry and we selected the best directly from the universities, Stanford for example. Amiga-News: What's your position at TAO? Francis Charig: I'm the chairman of TAO. TAO is not a public company. Sony and Motorola together own 30% of TAO. If TAO would be a public company, its market value would be about $100.000.000. Nowadays Amiga Inc. is our most important partner. Amiga-News: Do you remember your greatest success? Francis Charig: Of course, it was to bring this exiting engineering team together. These people are incredible. We only had a fluctuation of two people in the last 2 1/2 years. Amiga-News: What was the worst day in TAO's history? Francis Charig: [Thinks long] it was to loose business with our investor from the blue chip industry in 1995 while we had no customers. Amiga-News: When did you had "First contact" with Bill McEwen? Francis Charig: It was in October 1999. We introduced him to investors after he decided to use our software for the new Amiga. In fact: TAO saved Amiga. Amiga-News: Are you familiar with Amiga's history? Francis Charig: Yes, I know about it all. I know about Commodore, Escom, VisCorp, Gateway and all these things. I still have my Amiga, but unfortunately it's standing in the attic. Also my nephew used the Amiga. I loved gaming on it, e.g. BrakeOut. Amiga-News: Can you describe the new OS with only three words? Francis Charig: Consumer Multimedia Stack Amiga-News: When will the new Amiga-OS be ready, in Q3/2001? Francis Charig: Of course not! Someone in the next half year! Amiga-News: We are just a few days in the New Year. Do you have a wish for this year? Francis Charig: *Joking* Retirement. No, I wish that TAO would be successful in all of the key markets. Amiga-News: Is the existing Amiga community important for you? Francis Charig: Yes. The Amiga community provides ones of the best engineers and artist. There is more multimedia skill in the Amiga community than in the PC-World. But there is a discussion if memory protection is needed or not. I want to explain TAO's point of view. For what is memory protection needed? To prevent bad programmed software from crashing the computer. That means that it leads into bad programming. But the software for AmigaDE will run on your desktop but also on your mobile or in your car. Mobiles for example don't have memory protection. Are they crashing? No, the software for them is well programmed. If we add memory protection we have to have a very, very good reason. Because it slows down the operating system. Our goal is to deliver the best multimedia-operating stack. This also means speed! Amiga-News: Some words to the community? Francis Charig: We can make Amiga great together. To be great we have to lead the world. Amiga is delivering the best content to the mass market. If we always remember that, we can achieve. Amiga-News: Thank you for this interview and have a successful stay at the CES. Francis Charig: It was a pleasure to me. Thank you! Contact Information TAO Group
[News message: 06. Jan. 2001, 23:37] [Comments: 0] [Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version] | ||||
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