The $500 000 Question: How much is Amiga *worth*?

[snowman040]

I don't think Commodore brand was sold for 32million$. Escom bought Commodore and Amiga for 25mill$ with many things left to sell (A1200s, A4000s, semi-produced machines, etc...)...

Amiga today could be worth 1 million $, with all  IP/Patents/Brand, and ongoing 'development'.

BUT

Only if buyer gets:

- All rights to produce and sell Amiga OS, Hardware,...
- No restrictions on porting Amiga OS to other platforms (x86)
- Detailed HW/SW project documentation

This 500.000$ licence fee is very interesting, what company would pay 1 million $ (licence and HW R&D) to run OS4 that don't exist ? How much units they have to sell (and at what price) to come to any profit ?

P.S If Amiga brand is so valuable - how comes that Amiga Inc. isn't sold already ? Freescale is sold for 17.6 billion $, what would be the problem to throw 10-20-50 million for Amiga name? Common sense I guess - Commodore brand ISN'T making any money to it's owners (at least not millions). Brand is something people remeber - product and quality is what they stick to. Look at DFI, XFX, Club3D - newborn companies that sell thousands units of PC HW and really don't have some 'catchy' brand - but have high quality.

[snowman040]

Well I must admit that was brave one :-( 32million$ just for brand name. But Tulip did release products under Commodore name (OEM MP3 players, but hey), and what Amiga Inc. can say they produced in last 6 years worth more than 1 million ?

[snowman040]

Ok shine some different light on us ? What Amiga Inc. can offer to someone that is worth millions ? Name ? Many people connect Amiga to video games, if remember the name at all. User base ? There is probably 100 000 users that would buy some new HW/SW if produced, so it's a lousy market share. Operating system that can compete with current: Windows, Linux,... ? :-( !

Tulip got a hell of a bargain for Commodore name, and if you read more about Tulips - you can find they are very often seen at courts - so I wouldn't be surprised if there is some money fraud behind all this.

[snowman040]

stopthegop wrote:
stone wrote:

nowadays since windows, linux and macos all have grown into unhandly mastodonts it holds even more value as a lightweight scaleable system.

So true!  Preach on, 'brutha stone!  

Lightweight scaleable system can get you 50 000, 60 000 hardcore users (BeOS, MorphOS, etc, etc). While XP and OSX have a bit more, walking into that battlefield takes much more than Amiga name and 20yr old OS...

[snowman040]

Drifting from topic aren't we ?

The point IS that TODAY Amiga Inc., Amiga OS, and all IP/HW/.... isn't worth much. Possibly in next 5 years someone will invest money in R&D, patent some cool things, rewrite Amiga OS and then we will have cool platform/system - but TODAY we don't have that. And you can't sell the possibility for market success....

@neon32: development without sales is a useless thing to do. Even 'free' linux was developed by commercial companies, they brought it to desktop market in last 4-5 years.

p.s. I can bore you all to death with Win/OSX/Linux historical data, but open another topic if interested.

[snowman040]

This is fun! :-) 'you said, I said...'

@stone: you tried to explain us that Amiga Inc. has more value then 20000-50000-100000$ for brand, and from "millions Amiga users" you moved to "millions that Amiga name rings a bell" ? What bell ? "buy all new Amiga products" ? I doubt.


@all: Please stop that 'Amiga OS rulez' nonsense, yes it RULED some 20 years ago, but try connecting to internet out-of-the-box or try reading modern web documents. Amiga OS today needs a lot of work to be done, and that is almost as rewriting the OS from scratch.

[snowman040]

@stone: Last comment wasn't directed at your posts (one with @stone: is)... I edited it to clearify.

a brand is valuable when the name means something to a lot of people. its not about buying or not, its about millions of people who will get some kind of assosiation when they hear the name.

I doubt all those people will think something more than "Amiga? that computer from 90s?", but ok... this discussion leads to nowhere anyway...

@recidivist: well in a very odd situation that there IS NO 1,2,3 from your list here at amiga.org, we stick to no 4.

[snowman040]

I agree.  Unfortunately the herds of sheeple seem to prefer mundane tasks to ones which require a cerebrol cortex.    

Please stop mixing "I like" with "market value", Amiga from 1984 will never happen again. Back in 80's one-man company could make the change in computer market, today it's simply not possible.