CommodoreUSA CEO Interview Answers

[Digiman]

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?
That’s funny. Maybe we should create a line of Amiga clothing
especially for them. I’ll talk to our Director of Social Media and get his
take on this.

Download the linked RTF format doc I converted to search easily

[runequester]

I might have missed it, but where were the hundreds of thousands of sales to a high street retailer?

Ad company lies again?

Maybe it was the same people who sent him fake photos of a "chinese" manufacturing plant?

Its a regular conspiracy

[A3KOne]

Very simple summation of the entire interview:

I loved Commodore and Amiga.

Commodore and Amiga names had disappeared from the public eye.

We licensed the names to sell PC's running a custom Linux distro in an effort to revive the name and sell computers that have the name.

We have nothing to do with classic systems or updated systems from the classic tree, and really don't care to.  If you are into that, more power to you.  If you don't want what we have, don't buy it. We are not interested in selling what you want, we are interested in selling what we can make money off of.
_________________________________________________

If you think about it....It really isn't much different than the idea of the Amiga MCC under Gateway.  A custom cased Linux based PC (that looked a bit Mac-ish) with the Amiga name on it was all that would have been - but it would have been more "pure" since the product was to be produced by the IP holder and not a licensee. Had the MCC dropped in 1999, most of us would be happily running Amiga(Linux)OS.

I use Mint almost every day and like it... I might even consider purchasing an Amiga branded PC running a custom version if the case was cool and the price was competitive to comparable end product manufacturers.  As long as their prices are 2x Dell, I will be happy running my Asus laptop and homebrew desktop.

[fishy_fiz]

I didnt read the rest of the thread, but it he's basically said:

 "We're doing nothing other than trying to milk some sales with the commodore and amiga names. We have nothing interesting technology wise. Both software and hardware are from other people. We have no interest in the amiga. We have no real idea what it is that people become attached to, heck we dont even really understand the machine and OS so we're going to pump something out for name followers."

Bit of a shame, the amiga deserves to be something other than a recognisable brand name. In it's heyday the Amiga was successful on its own meritts and not the name attached to it. Even Commodore, as silly as they were at times recognised this.
At the end of the day I dont care too much, it's not exactly a secret this is the route they were taking. My only concern is that it makes it harder for the systems we all follow (classics/os4/aros/mos) to attract more attention. I have no doubts that in the near future there'll be confusion on places like OSnews as to what an amiga based system is. There'll be plenty of people who end up just assuming its a linux based OS, ergo of no interest to them.
Having said this though, there appear to be new users and devs arriving daily in AROS-land, even despite the potential confusion C-USA are helping to generate. "Amiga" fans know what they liked about the amiga/amiga os, and theyre the same things they'll find with aros/os4/mos, but lacking in C-USA amiga branded systems.

Remove the ahead of the curve games, graphics, software that attracted so many people to the amiga back in its heyday (mainstream users) all that's left if the OS. This is only of interest to a small portion of users, and a lot of the users that are interested are informed enough to know what theyre getting into (not just name followers)

[cicero790]

Thanks for an interesting interview.

[Snoozy]

I think that what most of us have come to recognise is that what C-USA is doing with the commodore/amiga brand is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
 
C-USA have confirmed that they are largely irrelevant to the retro amiga community.

[rewlako]

Long time lurker here.  Just want my three cents in on this one, for those of you in favor of C=USA.

First, using the car analogy mentioned earlier for C=USA is flawed (an example mentioned was the new beetle versus the original) This isn't anything like that. If C=USA made cars, they would take a 2005 Fiat, slap a Chevrolet sticker on it and claim it's the new 2012 Chevy Impala.  And sell it for a ridiculous price.

Second, those of you who used the Amiga in the good old days (and not just bought one last year in an attempt to be a hipster) knows that the Amiga has always been at war with the PC.  The PC was its main competitor after the Atari disappeared.  Producing Amiga's with PC hardware is literally like spitting and pissing on the original Amiga's grave.  Absolutely appalling.

Third, The Amigas they "produce" have nothing to do with Amiga, there is absolutely no resemblance, neither runs an Amiga OS, you can't use old hardware or software on any of them.  The only thing they have in common is the name.  And guess what, they're using it so they can sell it to nostalgic suckers like you guys, and you're chugging the bait down like there's no tomorrow.

I hope some of you get the chance to read this post before the C=USA sponsored Amiga.org removes it.

[crawff]

Welcome!!

[TurricanX]

Long time lurker here. Just want my three cents in on this one, for those of you in favor of C=USA.
 
First, using the car analogy mentioned earlier for C=USA is flawed (an example mentioned was the new beetle versus the original) This isn't anything like that. If C=USA made cars, they would take a 2005 Fiat, slap a Chevrolet sticker on it and claim it's the new 2012 Chevy Impala. And sell it for a ridiculous price.
 
Second, those of you who used the Amiga in the good old days (and not just bought one last year in an attempt to be a hipster) knows that the Amiga has always been at war with the PC. The PC was its main competitor after the Atari disappeared. Producing Amiga's with PC hardware is literally like spitting and pissing on the original Amiga's grave. Absolutely appalling.
 
Third, The Amigas they "produce" have nothing to do with Amiga, there is absolutely no resemblance, neither runs an Amiga OS, you can't use old hardware or software on any of them. The only thing they have in common is the name. And guess what, they're using it so they can sell it to nostalgic suckers like you guys, and you're chugging the bait down like there's no tomorrow.
 
I hope some of you get the chance to read this post before the C=USA sponsored Amiga.org removes it.

I was trying my best to remain pretty neutral on the whole thing until I read the interview. I believe what you've just said there pretty much sums up my feelings on C=USA.
 
Until a company/person who cares about the actual future of Amiga or Commodore, or restoring these companies to their former glory, owns the names C=USA will be allowed to continue to sell their overpriced custom PC's with that name slapped on them.

[fishy_fiz]

Third, The Amigas they "produce" have nothing to do with Amiga, there is absolutely no resemblance, neither runs an Amiga OS, you can't use old hardware or software on any of them.  The only thing they have in common is the name.  And guess what, they're using it so they can sell it to nostalgic suckers like you guys, and you're chugging the bait down like there's no tomorrow.

I hope some of you get the chance to read this post before the C=USA sponsored Amiga.org removes it.

While some of what you said I more or less agree with, this last paragraph is a bit baffling.
Which Amiga.org have you been reading for the last few years? It definately doesnt sound like the one Ive been using. There's pretty much no-one who's buying into what C-USA are selling. In fact despite having no interest in them the over the top anti C-USA sentiment that's so prominent here gets a bit tiring (as does any over the top sentiment).

[rewlako]

While some of what you said I more or less agree with, this last paragraph is a bit baffling.
Which Amiga.org have you been reading for the last few years? It definately doesnt sound like the one Ive been using. There's pretty much no-one who's buying into what C-USA are selling. In fact despite having no interest in them the over the top anti C-USA sentiment that's so prominent here gets a bit tiring (as does any over the top sentiment).

I don't see why the last paragraph shouldn't come as a shock, if you have been frequenting this site the past year you should have noticed Transition's frequent bumping of C=USA threads.  Do you think he's doing it for fun, for free?

Examples: 1, 2, 3 - the list is long, just search and you'll find more.

I'm all vented now, so I guess I'll go back to lurking.

[fishy_fiz]

That may (or may not) be the case, but it doesnt mean people are buying it, which is what you said. Pretty much every C-USA thread here shows what people think of them and thier products, and its not flattering to C-USA.

[rewlako]

That may (or may not) be the case, but it doesnt mean people are buying it, which is what you said. Pretty much every C-USA thread here shows what people think of them and thier products, and its not flattering to C-USA.

Ah, now I see what you mean.  If you read my post again you'll see it was for "those of you in favor of C=USA."

I'm sure those concerned know who they are.

[Heiroglyph]

Someone explain to me how he could make anything more Amiga-like while using the Amiga name after the AOS legal fiasco?

It sounded to me like every time they even try to make it look or feel more Amiga-like, they risk losing the name and being sued by Hyperion.

If it would sell another 100 units to hard-core Amigans, you don't think he'd have slapped AROS on there too?  Sure he would, but he can't.

Thanks to Hyperion and AI, what CUSA is doing is pretty much all that's legally possible without building a custom outdated PPC board, yet CUSA gets all the hate.

There is plenty of hate to go around here, but I think a lot of it is misdirected.

[OlafS3]

there might be some truth in it what you say. But I think they would be better off when they had only used "Commodore" and built PC with preinstalled Aros. And when they not install anything "amigian" on it, their products are not interesting for the community. And outside people look at the price and will not buy it just because the label on it. "Amiga" is still recognized by many but not so important that people pay every price...

[cicero790]

@Heiroglyph
+1

Hope now lies on strategy.