Commodore USA's Final Challenge to the Community

[EDanaII]

Look, I ain't exactly a CUSA fan either. I've even gone so far as to insult Barry over on the Commodore Amiga forum, but this quote from the first post in this thread:

7. Commodore USA is ONLY paid on completion of the work to the satisfaction of the 500+ first batch customers, when the final product is ready to ship.
8. On project commencement, Commodore USA will provide monthly project updates until completion.
9. If Commodore USA does not perform the required work in 6 months of the project commencement date, then the 500+ customers have the option to withdraw immediately for a full refund of their prepayment.

is not a take it or leave it proposition... no, wait, it is: you can take your money back if you don't like it or you can leave your money with them if you wanna keep their product.

Poor CUSA, they can do no right...

[Duce]

EDana:

It's not a "perfectly valid arrangement" from a company with their background.  Not in the least, and it wasn't their place to come in here acting as the savior of the Amiga after treating the entire community like absolute **** for YEARS.  There's reports of them taking pre order payment for current systems (see the Reddit link) and the purchaser hears nothing out of them and has to consider a lawyer or reversing charges on a credit card.  I think that gives people a whole HELL of a lot to keep in mind before any talk of pre payments on some new Amiga system, doesn't it?  Or am I to assume we should just ignore the reports that have been heard, and just take them at face value, lol.  Hard for a guy to get his money back if he is unhappy if he gets no answer on the "support line" like the Reddit fellow, no?

You know what would have went a long way, C-USA?  Saying "sorry" or simply giving real answers that have been asked for a long time.  Sorry for the threats, sorry for the spam, sorry for the fact a lot of promises have gone entirely undelivered, sorry for the fact you made very offbase and prejudiced slurs about people and the community.

Completely unwilling to answer any questions, and you wonder why no one wants anything to do with you.  I'll ask my top ones, again - you come here asking question, but are unwilling to answer any yourself.  The unwillingness to answer any questions simply tells me and others you are trolling for more publicity.  Now...

1 - when and were can I see/buy your product in a large retail chain?  I don't buy ANYTHING sight unseen.  Not from Apple, not from HP, and not from you - valid question, I'd love to see one.

2 - heat issues with the C64x, still an issue or has this been fixed?  Telling the customer "to buy a laptop cooler for it"or to crack the case and install fans is not acceptable, sorry.

3 -  when will your products get into the hands on independent reviewers, such as Engadget and other well known online review sites?

4 - ever consider sending a review machine to someone in the community, like a Mod here at A.org?  Being the big wheels that you are in the PC industry, you know all professional reviews are on a "loan" basis product wise, costing nothing more than shipping.  A company with confidence in their products should have had these machines written up in every mag on the planet by now.

[orb85750]

At least this is their "FINAL challenge," meaning that we won't be hearing from them again in the future? (fingers crossed)

[spihunter]

Either everyone here has a really short memory or some of them weren't around far all the insults, lies, theft, and homophobia this company has spread so far..

I wouldn't care if they put out something that I really, really, wanted. I would never give a Dime to these people.

EDana:

It's not a "perfectly valid arrangement" from a company with their background.  Not in the least, and it wasn't their place to come in here acting as the savior of the Amiga after treating the entire community like absolute **** for YEARS.  There's reports of them taking pre order payment for current systems (see the Reddit link) and the purchaser hears nothing out of them and has to consider a lawyer or reversing charges on a credit card.  I think that gives people a whole HELL of a lot to keep in mind before any talk of pre payments on some new Amiga system, doesn't it?  Or am I to assume we should just ignore the reports that have been heard, and just take them at face value, lol.  Hard for a guy to get his money back if he is unhappy if he gets no answer on the "support line" like the Reddit fellow, no?

You know what would have went a long way, C-USA?  Saying "sorry" or simply giving real answers that have been asked for a long time.  Sorry for the threats, sorry for the spam, sorry for the fact a lot of promises have gone entirely undelivered, sorry for the fact you made very offbase and prejudiced slurs about people and the community.

Completely unwilling to answer any questions, and you wonder why no one wants anything to do with you.  I'll ask my top ones, again - you come here asking question, but are unwilling to answer any yourself.  The unwillingness to answer any questions simply tells me and others you are trolling for more publicity.  Now...

1 - when and were can I see/buy your product in a large retail chain?  I don't buy ANYTHING sight unseen.  Not from Apple, not from HP, and not from you - valid question, I'd love to see one.

2 - heat issues with the C64x, still an issue or has this been fixed?  Telling the customer "to buy a laptop cooler for it"or to crack the case and install fans is not acceptable, sorry.

3 -  when will your products get into the hands on independent reviewers, such as Engadget and other well known online review sites?

4 - ever consider sending a review machine to someone in the community, like a Mod here at A.org?  Being the big wheels that you are in the PC industry, you know all professional reviews are on a "loan" basis product wise, costing nothing more than shipping.  A company with confidence in their products should have had these machines written up in every mag on the planet by now.

[amigadave]

Look, I ain't exactly a CUSA fan either. I've even gone so far as to insult Barry over on the Commodore Amiga forum, but this quote from the first post in this thread:

is not a take it or leave it proposition... no, wait, it is: you can take your money back if you don't like it or you can leave your money with them if you wanna keep their product.

Poor CUSA, they can do no right...

I applaud your efforts in trying to talk sense and make the most of an opportunity, but it is a waste of your time arguing with the few CUSA haters that will never accept anything that they do or say.

I am no fan of CUSA either, but if they really want to make amends with the community, I will let them (if they can).  My doubt is that they will never get 500 people to agree to anything.

[spihunter]

If your just going to ignore what these guys have done up to date here then there is really no sense in trying to argue with you either?. I'm not sure what they are trying to accomplish here but so far they haven't really said much......

Many folks here have asked they they either support AROS or the Natami. Neither one is a money maker so I don't see them being interested.

I applaud your efforts in trying to talk sense and make the most of an opportunity, but it is a waste of your time arguing with the few CUSA haters that will never accept anything that they do or say.

I am no fan of CUSA either, but if they really want to make amends with the community, I will let them (if they can).  My doubt is that they will never get 500 people to agree to anything.

[Amiga_Nut]

Just give me something that runs OctaMED and Bars and Pipes like a real Amiga and I would buy it.

I could make that on x86 hardware tomorrow for you!

[Amiga_Nut]

It sounds like what would be more useful than having CUSA make anything would just be for a bunch of Amiga users to pool some cash together, come up with some case designs and hire a company that does injection mold stuff to make some cases.

There would be a few technical issues in the final construction with keyboards and power supplies, but, overall, this would get people exactly what they want, I would think.

Maybe I am over simplifying, I don't think so though.

Actually you are not simplifying anything. The PSU comes with the choice of motherboard, and in the case of X86 Micro ATX or Mini ITX there are laptop style external PSUs.

The cost is for tooling up for production, the actual cases once the moulds are finished are peanuts compared to the C-USA $400 charge for an empty C64x keyboard

[ChuckT]

Look, I ain't exactly a CUSA fan either. I've even gone so far as to insult Barry over on the Commodore Amiga forum, but this quote from the first post in this thread:

is not a take it or leave it proposition... no, wait, it is: you can take your money back if you don't like it or you can leave your money with them if you wanna keep their product.

Poor CUSA, they can do no right...

It is a take it or leave it proposition because the title is "Final Challenge" and there is a number associated with the "contract".  The "contract" has little room for negotiation and neither did it originate from the community.  It is kind of like saying we won't have a Commodore 64 with a 6502 chip and we won't have a Commodore 128 with CPM or we won't have a Plus 4 with original chips because they aren't intersted in that.  They imagine this as a marriage with no foreplay; they only want sex to consumate the marriage.  And it is kind of like IBM, Atari, Mac and others were involved in this computer war.  Amiga users wouldn't visit an IBM board to talk about Amiga or download Amiga games because there was this pride that we're Amiga and an IBM board couldn't deliver Amiga graphics.  Then CUSA insults the users by putting IBM hardware in a C-64 like case and I felt insulted.  And instead of being a good manager by giving the community something even though they don't see it our way, they issue a demand in the form of a contract.  Forget the users who want a C-64 with an original SID chip.  Forget the users who want a Commodore 128 and original chips; you're now told what the contract is going to be.  How is that for smoothing relations over for us?  The contract is a hard sell and I don't know these people and based on the contract, I can't see them caring about the Amiga technology and I don't see any R&D or development because ......... it is just a mindless transaction because there is no future development and there is no profit planned on getting a salesman or development for a C-65.  If we look at it as an economic problem, we can graph all the money going to CUSA and none for Natami and none for Minimig development or SAM user development.  So you have to choose whether you want development by people who care or by people who haven't shown they care up to this point by courting us or giving us some transparency.

My co-worker sells jewelry so I asked her how she sells it because I wanted to get involved in sales.  She says she does nothing because jewelry sells itself.  Compare that to CUSA's offer that we have to come up with a number or it won't happen.  That infers their creativity alone can't sell it.  We have to come up with what we want because they're not going to be creative too much beyond what we want which means they're done promoting it in the design phase.

[dammy]

I know what people want...shall I tell you?

I have a good guess what people want, it's a question if 500 will commit to it with money is the question.

[dammy]

There is no reason why we can't put $100 down and pay the rest later.  The fact is that I don't even know what I'm paying.  How do you buy a computer you've never seen and how do you set the price for a computer you've never seen?

What computer is that?

[drwho]

So why hasn't it been done already?

Well, in some ways, it sort of has, right?

Wasn't the minimig just some dude designing an FPGA that could play all of his favorite games?

What about Natami? Looks like just a bunch of guys that had an idea and decided they would make that happen.

MorphOS, another ragtag team of people putting something together because they wanted to.

So, to answer your question, it hasn't been done already because I just said it in my previous post, I don't want to take credit for thinking it up, but, I read the entire thread and no one mentioned it. :-)

[dammy]

Does HP accept pre-orders?  Apple?  When is this practice normal?  Commodore did this in the early days and it was because they didn't have the money so that tells me something about whom we're dealing with.

Microsoft did this with Kinect.

When would CUSA be accepted to do business with Best Buy?  I can guarantee you that Best Buy wouldn't pre-order.  They would buy on credit and pay in 30 days.

You are acting like profit is the main motive for C=USA to offer this, which isn't true.  You are also acting like there is a significant market left for new products in the online Amiga Community which is simply not true. It's a microscopic market that makes any new product aimed solely at that market doomed to loose money.

[dammy]

If your just going to ignore what these guys have done up to date here then there is really no sense in trying to argue with you either?. I'm not sure what they are trying to accomplish here but so far they haven't really said much......

Many folks here have asked they they either support AROS or the Natami. Neither one is a money maker so I don't see them being interested.

C=USA's offer is get 500 people together with money in a third person escrow account, and come up with a specific product you all are willing to pay for.   Why should they bother go poking around hoping to find something that will make most people happy?  Far easier for 500 people to tell C=USA what one item will make them happy.

[dammy]

The cost is for tooling up for production, the actual cases once the moulds are finished are peanuts compared to the C-USA $400 charge for an empty C64x keyboard

Then why don't you gather a few peanuts up and go make a case with a custom keyboard?  I don't understand you all, you make it sound so easy, then why haven't you done it years ago and make a huge profit from it?  If it's that trivial and all.

I'll even answer for you, it's not trivial and it's damn expensive.  That is the reason, and we all know it.  

What is the reason why so many haters are trying to piss all over this proposal?  I find this most amusing actually, that the haters are so filled with rage they rather see nothing new for the community then to make Barry work for free.  :rofl:

[Duce]

Dammy, C-USA is not Microsoft.  The idea you'd even remotely compare the two is appalling, regardless of your blind dedication to "the cause".  The Kinect (and your facts are misleading about what you stated about the pre-order factor involving MS directly in a funds down deposit with MS directly) is a completely invalid comparison, and C-USA is not Microsoft.  

MS has a worth of 44 billion dollars roughly, Dammy.  MS doesn't have a pack of insulting, roving fanboys working for free as their ad department.
MS had a revenue of 16 billion dollars, Q4 2011.  

They needed no pre-orders to develop the Kinect on a financial basis, and have never issued cockeyed "challenges" to the community in the guise of "helping".  There's a lot to bitch about when it comes to Microsoft, but the comparison of them and the Kinect and C-USA and this purported project
is insane.  Kinect took pre-orders for Kinect in the same way I can pre-order a video game from a vendor - a guarantee I will be able to obtain one when they become public and nothing more.  I pre-ordered Skyrim, Dammy, via a Best Buy.  Does that somehow imply that Bethesda Software, makers of said game - needed my pre-order to find game development?  If they did, joke is on them, cause all I did was give my name and the retailer saved me a copy for pick-up with no cash down.  Some stores did indeed ask for a deposit on Kinect, but to my knowledge MS themselves never asked for one thin dime to "reserve" one or otherwise fund anything.  I had plenty of friends "pre-order" a Kinect via retailers, which required a deposit in some cases, but never a pre-payment to MS and money going into escrow, lol.  A ridiculous comparison of situations, even for a fanboy, Dammy.

Microsoft has never come onto obscure hobby computer fan sites like A.org wanting to save the day, while simultaneously and blatantly insulting the community wholly at the same time.  I've never got death threats from Microsoft if I stated I disagreed with their business practices.  Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer has never hounded independent journalists, publically calling them homosexuals and asking about their sex lives if said writers gave them bad press.

Your C-USA/MS comparison isn't even as unplausible as an "apples vs. oranges" aspect.  It's like comparing Mars to Earth, entirely irrational and insane, lol.