CommodoreUSA CEO Interview Answers

[Kesa]

"The rainbow coloured ticker has huge appeal in the gay
communities, I know this first... hand... after visiting bars and
nightclubs in Amsterdam and San Francisco, wearing nothing
but a... wearing a dark purple T-shirt with huge Amiga ticker on
the chest. Are you considering the market appeal for "Amiga"
and rainbow ticker in the LGBT communities?"

Darrin, what a cute question you asked...   :knuddel:

[Kesa]

Where did he answer that???!!!  

Towards the bottom.

[Kesa]

Are you talking about those cases with custom paint jobs? They look really cool but have seen one in real life. Any good?

[Kesa]

Off topic. Amiga.org just crashed. Here's what came up if anyones interested:


                                           AmigaORG                                            
                      
                      
                                                                                  
                      1/500.Amiga.org:C>why The last command failed because : *shrug* Click here to return to the main index. 1/0.Amiga.org:C>info Mounted disks: Unit       Size     Used     Free Full Errs   Status   Name RAM:        16K       16        0 100%   0  Read/Write Ram Disk AORG0:       4G      276  4194028   0%   0  Read/Write Amiga.org AORG1:       4G      276  4194028   0%   0  Read/Write Forums AORG2:       4G      276  4194028   0%   0  Read/Write Gallery AORG3:       4G      276  4194028   0%   0  Read/Write Links AORG4:       4G      276  4194028   0%   0  Read/Write New Posts  Volumes available: Amiga.org [Mounted] Forums [Mounted] Gallery [Mounted] Links [Mounted] New Posts [Mounted] 1/0.Amiga.org:C>

[Kesa]

This CUSA stuff is so 2010 (or was it 2009?)  Let's move on to something more interesting.

Agreed. Any ideas?

[Kesa]

For a new topic, how about what everyone plans on doing with their FPGA Arcade systems?

I'm anxiously waiting on the daughtercard option so I can run my BBS on it ( need ethernet), even got a case for it already, the Antec Skeleton Mini case.

About time. I am waiting for the NatAmi to be released. That is if they ever get around to providing some details about it such as price and progress in general. *Sighs*

After using MOS for about a year i want to go back to legacy. NG Amigas are boring. FPGA is the best option for me i think.

Tell me about that case. How much did it cost? What (good) flaws does it have?

[Kesa]

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:

Begin football rant :rant:

Don't get me started about football after watching "heros" Chelsea "defeat" Barca yesterday. Chelsea are the biggest cheats in the game. I mean, parking a bus of 9 defenders and using 1 striker to win a game? Can you be any more pathetic?

WORST FOOTBALL TEAM EVER!

End rant :rant:

[Kesa]

Barry:  "Hello boys and girls!  I'm your Uncle Bazza and I'm the host of the C-USA Smoke & Mirrors show.  Now I know I've been a bad boy in the past, but thanks to Prozac I'm a new man and I just want to be your friend.  Talking of friends, I've brought two with me.  Meet Middleman and Wildstar.  Say hello to the children guys."
Middleman:  "Hello boys and girls!"
Wildstar:  "Hello boys and girls!"
Barry:  "Why don't you guys tell everyone how nice I am?"
Middleman:  "Oooh!  Uncle Barry is really, really, really nice."
Wildstar:  "He's even nicer than that!  He's like a double helping of nice with a big dollop of icecream on top!"
Middleman:  "I love icecream!"
Wildstar:  "And Uncle Barry loves the Amiga!"
Barry:  "Well there you have it boys and girls, I love you all and I'm a really, really nice guy."
Middleman:  "With icecream!"
Wildstar:  "Yes Uncle Barry, don't forget the icecream!"
Barry:  "OK, that's all until next week.  Remember to come to my website and pre-order a computer with excessive RAM, a sub-standard graphics card, no expandability and an underpowered PSU"
Middleman and Wildstar:  "And icecream!"
Barry:  "You guys are so funny.   Hey, where's Dammy with my meds?  I feel the need to insult someone."

WTF!

I think darrin needs a holiday...

[Kesa]

Otherwise, blowing $150k on making a bunch of boards for which only 50 on the planet will ever buy isn't going to be prudent. Investing $2k-3k.... Maybe but there is no paying for labor. So, $1k in labor maybe for $129-159 price. This way, you can reinvest and have profit and pay for time.

That is why the price doubling the cost is the strategy. You must nave a profit margin but bring cost down so the price is competitive.

If one is going to have real R&D then for one guy doing the job, we are talking $50k-100k for 20-40 hours a week  to bring a product to market. Do yourself a favor and look up what hardware engineers make at major companies for their time. An honest company would endeavor to pay their staff and contracted developers reasonable amount competitive to anyone else. We are talking $55k to $100k. If you got a $1 million is staffing expenses and 2-3 million in other expenses of operation. You need to make $5-6 million to break even to also address taxes. At this scale, we are talking to be viable - $10 Million revenue is a necessary for on-going operation and growth and that needs to increase at least 5% to stay up on the leading edge of inflation.

$10 Million may sound like a lot but that is still small.

$10 Billion is when you are up there with the big league.

LOL. Where are you coming up with all these numbers? Yay for creative accounting! :hammer:

[Kesa]

Millions isn't alot and is easily doable. First, Barry isn't someone with no money connections and financing. You think Barry is completely financed this out of dollars in his wallet? No. It is business venturing and numerous financial arrangements.

Barry knows how to run businesses and isn't someone who has never ran a business. He may not be the brightest individual in the world but experience and knowledge goes hand in hand. The other business like anything is equity to start up CommodoreUSA. Lets put it mildly, it is business and as such he is not going to run it like anything other than a business. Whatever issues or supporting of Commodore and Amiga classic has to be isolated from running down the revenues and incurring liability on the CommodoreUSA business end.

Actually this is my biggest complaint. My feeling is that he doesn't have the experience and knowledge to be a successful entreprenuer.