The Amiga's long line of ownership

[Matt_H]

The recent news about the liberation of OS4 from the current Amiga Inc shell company prompted me to think more about this article from a not-too-long-ago New York Times.

I see a strong parallel between the Amiga and Simmons, in that both have gone through a long series of owners that have stripped real value from the properties while inflating the price for the next owner with (what I assume to be in Amiga Inc's case) debt. Remember that Escom picked up Commodore for a "mere" $10 million, yet I think DiscreetFX was quoted a tag price far, far higher in their buyout attempt - at a time when the Amiga's practical market value is close to zero, very much unlike conditions in 1994.

Thoughts?

[dammy]

The recent news about the liberation of OS4 from the current Amiga Inc shell company prompted me to think more about this article from a not-too-long-ago New York Times.

I see a strong parallel between the Amiga and Simmons, in that both have gone through a long series of owners that have stripped real value from the properties while inflating the price for the next owner with (what I assume to be in Amiga Inc's case) debt. Remember that Escom picked up Commodore for a "mere" $10 million, yet I think DiscreetFX was quoted a tag price far, far higher in their buyout attempt - at a time when the Amiga's practical market value is close to zero, very much unlike conditions in 1994.

Thoughts?

Is it a liberation or a union of AI/Itec with Hyperion?  It's good news for OS4 development, hope to see AOS ported away from PPC in the next few years.

[Matt_H]

Is it a liberation or a union of AI/Itec with Hyperion?  It's good news for OS4 development, hope to see AOS ported away from PPC in the next few years.

We've only seen the announcement from Hyperion, not the settlement documents, so we don't have the full picture, but I don't see how Amiga Inc walks away from this with any sort of dignity. My guess is they ran out of money to pay their lawyers and their share of the settlement was "We won't get dragged further into debt by going to trial". Seems they finally conceded the point of the bankruptcy clause from the original contract - basically what the whole lawsuit was about.

The point being, now that OS4 can accumulate real value away from the proverbial private equity firm (Amiga Inc), it seems like the downward spiral of ownership of the Amiga (unlike Simmons) may have been broken. Finally people with a technical strategy are in charge, rather than some ethically- (and competency-) challenged finance guys. No more pillaging of the brand, hopefully.