CommodoreUSA CEO Interview Answers

[Darrin]

Asking customers to design product scope & specification without an accurate description of technical solutions C=USA has the competency to design and build is NOT a viable business plan. Asking them to pay up front is also lunacy.

It is 100% down to C=USA to define their ability to legally, technically and financially be able to potential deliver the following....

1. C64x style bespoke identical replica Amiga case + keyboard + mouse
2. Ability to license existing/build new PPC motherboards with OS4 compatibility
3. Feasibility of x86 Amithlon+OS3.9 or AROS system being developed.

All I saw was a $500,000 attempted scam.

Yep, and pity the poor bugger who volunteered to collect the cash.  Imagine trying to collect US$500 worth of Pounds, Euros, Australian Dollars, New Zealand Dollars, Pobble Beads, Chickens, Goats, etc, with fluctuating exchange rates.  Imagine then trying to refund money to people who back out or when the whole deals turns out to be bollocks.  The transaction fees alone would hurt.

It was a completely insane idea from a company who is supposed to be in business.  The fact that they suggested it meant that they either knew it wouldn't happen and/or they have no concept on how financial transactions work in a global market.

The idea of having "someone else" organise it and hold the money was a cleaver ploy to protect themselves legally.  Kind of like offloading their product assembly and technical support onto the "dealers" they're trying to recruit.

[Darrin]

Hmmm, that sounds another company we know... :roflmao:

and I still have my $50 (virtual) voucher.  

[Darrin]

Well they off loaded the case design and hardware+OS specs to us so might as well have someone else deal with the finance issues too eh?

LOL.

Perhaps when you order from them you're expected to fly to Florida, walk into their shop, assemble your own computer, box it up, address it to yourself and then drop it off at FedEx on your way back to the airport.  

[Darrin]

True. Very worrying that Amiga Mini is a real turd of a product to start with mind.

OK C64x, price and OS aside, was a viable niche product. Had the price not been $1000 more than dead C64+keyrah+i7 micro ATX m/b it may have sold well enough.

They were supposed to improve product line not go back to branded unrelated PCs as sold before C64x

My gripe about the C64x was the keyboard layout.  The whole "menu key" concept was naff.  They should have just been normal F10-F12 function keys, the C64 graphic symbols should have been on the keys and a C64 emulator should have been pre-installed with the keyboard mapping already set up.  Oh, and throw in a USB joystick too and some *.D64 and/or *.T64 games.

As a novelty (because it wasn't good enought to be a main computer for me at home) it was too expensive to buy "for a laugh".

Meanwhile, I've just picked up a C128D off eBay and it looks almost brand new (so my brother tells me because I'm at work and he unboxed with it).

[Darrin]

They would probably charge extra for the privilege of visiting their factory as a 'deluxe tour' option :roflmao:

and make you answer the phone when people call with problems.


Barry:  "Would you mind getting that?"
Customer:  "Err, sure.  Hello, can I help you?"
Person on Phone:  "Can I speak to Commodore Tech Support please?  My C64x is buggered and doesn't appear to have a mouse."
Customer:  "hang on, I'll get someone...  Barry!  It's a call for Tech Support."
Barry:  "Uh, please deal with it, I, err, I, um... I need to take a dump!  Be right back!"

Customer:  "Leo?"
Leo:  "Um, I need a dump too.  Bye!"

Customer:  "Dammy?"

Customer:  "Err... could you please describe the nature of your technical emergency?"...

[Darrin]

Wellllll, I'd say the Amiga Community is unified on the definition of what an Amiga truly is about the same as Europe is on who the best football team is...:biglaugh:

Swansea City?

[Darrin]

Vs you all's trolling and libel?

See you in court then.  I could do with some extra cash.

Just remember, YOU are the guy who posted pictures of non-existant factories and thousands of motherboards that did not belong to C-USA.  Once a link between you and C-USA can be proven then YOU are the one who could face legal action by anyone who invested (or invests) money in C-USA based on your statements.

[Darrin]

Minimig? AROS? Morph OS? Individual Computers? The guys that make the PS2 controller adapters or Svideo adapters?

The hobby is f'ing teeming with people taking initiative and building crazy, cool things

and they don't ask for 500 pre-orders and cash in advance either.  

[Darrin]

Unlikely, as an investor should perform due diligence.
 
Even if dammy was directly employed by CUSA he never claimed to represent it.
 
Marketing material is almost always faked (although they like to call it artistic impression) but it's not generally illegal.
 
If an advertisment produced by CUSA for a product made misleading claims then you could have a point. However even showing the wrong factory in an advert would not be illegal, because it has no impact on the functionalilty of the product.
 
I don't know if I believe that it was the marketing companies fault, but it's definately possible. Bill Hicks had his own opinions on marketing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

True, real investors should, but C-USA has already shown via their website that they intend to target "enthusiastic armatures".  While I suspect that their (his?) original plan might have been to target a smaller number of high-rollers (which would explain the Disney marketing, lies about the "factory" and "high-street orders", etc which have failed, the new target is the little guy looking to be his own boss with $10k-20k to "invest".  Convince 1000 people to "invest" $10,000 and you can walk away with a cool $10,000,000, divert the funds into shell companies, file bankruptcy and start all over again as Sinclair-USA.  Websites like this that keep pointing out the BS and which are easily found with a Google search must be a real pain in the backside for them.  Ironically, the more they try to shut the critics up, the more “hits” they make for people to discover the truth.

Remember, C-USA knew how many C64x machines they had ordered so when Dammy posted that picture of tens-of-thousands of motherboards on pallets (I did a quick calculation based on that picture and IIRC there was around 60,000 motherboards visible) he KNEW that they were not the real thing.  Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that he was sent the picture by Barry in good faith then Barry must have known they were not his motherboards unless you are willing to believe that the CEO of a computer company last no idea what his motherboards of his one and only product looks like or know how many he ordered.  Once we accept that Barry must have been lying, we also know that his story about his “China Agent” sending him the pics was also a load of dingo’s kidneys.  ?  Leo as CTO also must have known that the pictures were false, unless a CTO has no involvement in product development.

In short, we can’t trust a word these guys say and the big question is, why are they lying?  Are they doing it to look stupid or are they doing it for potential financial gain?

[Darrin]

The mobos were off the shelf stuff sold to other companies as well. It wouldn't be surprising at all to see a gigantic pile of them in an warehouse somewhere. Of course finding out that the picture you received from your supplier, and then used to brag with, was swiped from a website and then getting ripped on in the press for it is embarrassing.

It is interesting to see how much flack CUSA gets, when they've put their money where their mouths are, designed, produced and have for sale real products, and all done within reasonable time frames.

I think the root of the problem a lot of people have comes down to the fact that CUSA actually achieves its goals unlike most everything else in Amiga land which is mostly absurd hype that never materializes and what does is usually broken and will be fixed "any day now".

The fact they produced a C64x doesn't excuse the rest of their behavior.  It is as simple as that, especially when their attitude obviously hasn't changed.

Many people (aCube, Indivision, E3B, etc) have produced products (more than one!) and they don't act the way C-USA acts.

You'll need to explain how C-USA has achieved its goals too.  Where is the $30m advertising?  Where is the high-street retailer?  Where are the 100,000 orders?  Where are the (prinched of the internet) designs for those wonderful cases they showed on their website?

Rather than achieve their goals, I'd say that they have failed repeatedly.

How difficult is it to buy one of these:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2311915&CatId=4149
Install a graphics card and Linux
Put a C= sticker on it.
Multiply the price 3 or 4 times and then sell it (actually, the selling is the hard part as they're finding out).

And that price was retail!  Source the parts from China in bulk and you should get it down to a third or a quarter of that.

[Darrin]

Linky

http://m.prnewswire.com/news-releases/commodore-usa-appoints-korey-kay-102977849.html

It's still on the CommodoreUSA press release site too. Bet they will be zapping that one.

LOL.  So they admit it was a lie (and it wasn't their idea, oh no!) and yet we have it in black and white that they set it up right from the start.  Brilliant.  

I like this line:

Commodore USA, LLC designs, produces and markets a series of all-in-one Commodore and Amiga branded keyboard computers, and other unique form factor computers and consumer electronics.

So back in September C-USA was claiming it produced and marketed a series of Amiga branded computers and yet here we are in April and they're showing us demo models of someone else's case.  Does... not... compute...

[Darrin]

Don't forget Dammy's phone call with Barry about $20,000+ Amiga's.

http://www.commodore-amiga.org/en/forum/27-commodore-usa/8551-phone-call-with-barry

Don't forget to add $10 to that since you have to buy Amiga Forever yourself.

Another classic from over 7 months ago:

Dammy:  "I just got off a long phone call with Barry. Barry apologizes for the delay in answering the questions we asked awhile ago, but he is busy living a real life fairy tale."

Was Pinocchio classed as a fairytale?

Dammy:  "He wanted me to replay that the AIO keyboards are have seals. If you spill something on the keyboard, just wipe it off (or a damp rag if it's soda because of the acid). Keyboards are replaceable."

Shame that a huge company like that has to use fanboys to inform customers of a product's specifications.  Still, a "wank-proof" keyboard should keep Dammy happy.

Dammy:  "Yes, there is going to be unbelievable amount of games that will come on the preinstalled hard drives."

He forgot to add "and they're also downloadable for free off the internet."

Dammy:  "There will be multiple options on what OS you can get pre-installed which you can boot from."

Yes, you can ask for COS or Linux Mint.
 

Dammy:  "They are working on a app store, devs will pick what price they want (if any) to sell it for."

If only the Webmaster can work out from his copy of "Website Design For Dummies" how to implement it.  7 months obviously isn't long enough.
 

Dammy:  "Amiga information will be coming out in the next 14 or so days. He was hoping it will be in the next couple of days but it might be a couple of weeks. Again, he is time is extremely limited. Amiga will using all high end hardware (i7) with price for AIO starting around $2K and going upwards into the $20K plus zone. Amiga will be targeting the pro home user and professionals."

High end CPU and low end everything else.  Still, not as high as the price.  Still, at least their $20k model will make the X1000 look cheap.

Dammy:  "Very exciting times "

"Comedy Gold" more like it.  

[Darrin]

@wildstar128:

After that last post all I can say is "welcome back Barry".

[Darrin]

I like the way that Barry, sorry Wildstar128 thinks that we're the crazy ones, and not someone with a type AAA+ personality disorder who thought he could muscle in on an existing community, claim to be Jesus Christ and then dictate a new direction for the Amiga that happens to walk all over the existing x86 and Linux communities.

He also apparently thinks that the Hyperion/Amiga Inc settlement has forced C-USA to lie, insult and spam.

Finally, he thinks we are upset about what Barry hasn't done, while it is actually what he has done (lies, insults and spam).

You would think that the fact that we're debating this in a thread on Amiga.org and not CommodoreAmiga.net would make the bells ring as to who has the mental problems here.  

[Darrin]

LOL.... I wish because then I have the resources to acquire the IP. Sorry, I am not Barry.

Well your posting style at 3am after a night on the town exactly matches Barry's style at midday after a cup of coffee.  An easy mistake to make.  

To the point, put your money where your mouth is. You have no more of rights over intellectual property then 10 to 20 million Commodore owners who had first generation purchasing of Commodore products. First generation purchase: I mean, purchased from authorized Commodore distribution and had the official warranties with Commodore or at least qualified. In other words, you didn't get your first Commodore from another another customer.

I have put my money where my mouth is.  Over the last couple of years I've purchased Keyrahs, RTG cards, SDFFs, card readers, Amiga/C64 Forever, a Chameleon64, a C-One, a Minimig and ARM board, an FPGA Aracde and pre-ordered an X1000.

What have you done?

I've bought several PCs too, but I got them from HP.  More powerful than C-USA can do and a fraction of the price.  My C64 Forever and Amiga Forever still run on them though.

As for feeling that you guys think they have any rights over the trademark with all about 10-11 full pages worth of questions that are really unrealistic claims.

Yeah, expecting Barry to just bugger off and sell some PCs is unrealistic.  However, we live in hope.

What I am trying to get at is why you guys waste so many pages of questions that you already know the answer is that the your suggestions are totally useless and only serves less than a 1000 individuals worldwide. Real companies for international commercial trade of goods requires a market base of at least a million potential customers.

If this was "wasting pages" then we would be posting on CommodoreAmiga.net.  This is the site we have all used for years to discuss the Amiga variations.  C-USA insist on coming here and posting rubbish and as we're here we feel the need to respond.  If they're not interested in what we think then they should stop posting here.  They keep telling us we're not their target customers so why on Earth do they keep coming back?

If you have potential customer base of 1000 individuals then you have to spend no more then $100 in R&D.

Better than that, I don't need to spend a penny on R&D because others (MikeJ, aCube, Hyperion, Indivision, etc) are already doing it and have been for years.  I just by the finished products as I pointed out above.

[Darrin]

I'm not selling them. In addition, you might want to know how business operates if you suggest or propose ideas for someone to invest their money.

That would be a good start for you guys. Take some courses in business and run a business.

It might do you some good in your life as well.

Just for the record, I don't need you to tell me how to run a business or to go on a course.  I own my own company and I'm doing very well thank you.

You need to tell C-USA how to run a company and to go on a business course because computers do not equal furniture.