Over the last several months and in fact couple of years, Amiga has continued our software and business development and generally kept quiet. This path of quietness was chosen so that we communicated only when there was a development that culminated in a product that could be purchased.
In recent weeks, our being quiet has been interpreted as weakness or an open invitation to attempt harming our business relationships and opportunities with partners and customers.
Amiga is dedicated to providing a new operating system and digital environment for the Amiga community and the broader public, and to delivering products and services that are used by a variety of third party consumer electronics companies.
Amiga has never wavered from the path that was laid out and will deliver on that promise.
I am writing this letter to all in the Amiga community, past, present and future. We have learned a great many lessons over these years together. We made many mistakes, and not every partner we selected turned out to be the best or the most ethical. We can certainly point fingers and blame others, but it really does not matter. What matters is that contrary to a great deal of the nonsense that I am reading lately, Amiga at no time has ever abandoned our goals, the Amiga community and our dream. I recently read a post about how OS 4 should power a phone, and somehow this is supposed to be an epiphany that the Amiga OS could power more than a desktop. This has long been part of our core business plan, Amiga entered into and paid for an agreement to develop a pilot of an embedded version of OS 4 in 2005. Amiga lost a deal worth more than 250,000 units because the development was not properly handled. Amiga has been working and negotiating with third party OEM’s and ODM’s for far more units than the iPhone® has shipped and we still are unable to provide the product. The people who are being hurt are the legitimate third party developers who worked hard on OS 4.0, the customers that we are losing and the community.
No one wants to see OS 4.0 shipping more than Amiga does. Amiga tried for more than 3 years to work on and work with the necessary parties to reach that goal. Millions of dollars were offered, and refused, millions of dollars offered to make sure that the third party developers were paid, and yet without the third parties being consulted Amiga efforts are denied and frustrated. With these activities and continued efforts Amiga is the one that is portrayed as being in the wrong by those who are driven by self-interest and who do not care about the best interests of the broader Amiga community. We want to be particularly clear on the following point: Contrary to what has been said in public forums, Amiga has never expected to or tried to take intellectual property rights or money away from the legitimate, independent third party developers who worked (and continue to work) on OS 4.0, In fact, if our last offer had been accepted, these developers would have either been paid by now, or at least would be seeing a revenue stream, and millions of customers would have Amiga running on their systems – whether computers, mobile devices or phones.
In fact, Amiga’s consistent position has been that Amiga would assume all of the legitimate third party contracts and make sure that all legitimate outstanding amounts are paid.
What many of you do not seem to understand is that KMOS (now known as Amiga, Inc.), which acquired the tangible and intangible assets of the Amiga business in 2004, was and is a company with new financial wherewithal and new strengths. We have added people with proven records and they are keeping us focused as a company. We are able to focus our attention on developing products and technology that will drive revenue and our future as a company.
For those of you wanting to point fingers and blame Amiga for the fact that OS 4.0 is not shipping, you are pointing your fingers at the wrong people, and frankly I am not going to sit quietly any longer and let this unfounded criticism continue.
New hardware is indeed being developed, and we have selected the first 3rd party manufacturer that will build in high quantities, and yes, this new hardware is being delayed because OS 4.0 is needed to complete the package and to resolve certain technical issues. As I said before, no one wants OS 4.0 shipping more than Amiga.
The OS 4.0 situation could be resolved very quickly. We have tried. We were forced to take a legal course when the other side would not even mediate (which the contract calls for). This situation can still be resolved without the courts, but it cannot be a one sided solution.
With regard to recent comments about Tao and Intent, the reality is that Amiga does not support Intent and we have not since before Tao was forced into receivership. We have been working on our “AA2” solution for Amiga Anywhere. We wanted to keep quiet about it until the SDK and documentation were completed and made public when it was ready to ship. However, because of recent posts where incorrect statements have been made, we want to let you all know that Amiga Anywhere is not dependent on intent and that the new solution is in the pipeline .
My last point concerns a recent post about another company making offers for Amiga. This is categorically false. A bona fide offer was never received. Amiga received a letter that asked for our financials. In the phone conversation that followed, we explained to the contact at the other company our current valuation based on the last round of funding we had completed, and then gave them the current valuation on the round that is in the process of closing, and we were told that there was no way they could even get close to those numbers.
Amiga is making great strides and technical progress on our products and services, and with the partners and companies that Amiga has amassed not only in the cell phone space, but in other consumer electronics disciplines as well. With the new people who have joined, our recent acquisition in India, Amiga is opening the doors to a long term strategy that the community can support, respect and be proud of.
One of my frustrations lies with the fact that this Amiga team sacrificed a great deal to deliver on our promises. I want to thank the loyal members of the Amiga community for sticking with us through thick and thin.
Bill McEwen
