Which reminds me, wonder whatever happened that middleman fellow?!
Talking behind my back eh? Don't worry, I'm right here! :p
Hi folks,
Sorry, but I've been away for a while (call it my personal break away from forums/anything Commodore-related if you will - I think I suffered burnout from read the last discussion), so haven't really seen what's happened. Just catching up now and reading up on Barry's and everyone else's answers....
Here are my thoughts on the subject:
1) I think Barry has given a fair and balanced interview. He is being pretty honest here IMHO and is hiding nothing here save any legal trade agreements they have with their business partners AFAIK….
2) He is being realistic about the market situation and for the company in general - that for a reborn Commodore to survive, it has to make products that are relevant to the market and on-par tech wise with the best that is out there. Being Linux and Windows-compatible is one way to secure that future (or at least the funds for that future). Though not agreeing with 'legacy Amiga purists' going the x86 route now is the most logically sound route for the company at present.
3) Had made some points which are very logical from a business perspective (which again may upset some Amiga fans here) but is the truth. Computers have come a long way since the Amiga days of producing customized chips, and the parts today are pretty much commoditized. To go against what the general market wants is financial suicide.
4) interesting points have been made in regards to how 'he sees' the Amiga brand, namely that it is a performance brand, and the old ideas were simply 'a concept'. In this day and age somehow he is right about it I feel….you don't see people using customized chipsets anymore save retro sites like A.org…..
To be fair, after looking at the answers after his reply, I think the Amiga community in general I think is being too harsh on his company, and being too pessimistic about certain things a little too early. He has said he is a small company slowly working to rebuild the Commodore and Amiga brands. As Leo has mentioned many times before Rome wasn't built in a day…..
CUSA I believe is doing things right - it's not doing anything 'wrong' except maybe have slightly more expensive offerings in some product lines to Apple? But even then it's coming down cheap.
I just heard they launched the new Vic Mini the other day….and that's a completely new product to the last one (which I remembered was similar to the Amiga Mini)….