CommodoreUSA CEO Interview Answers

[Bamiga2002]

If you don't have the funds please sell the brand names to someone who has the cash and understanding/will to steer things into right direction. Don't mud the Amiga-brand with anymore products that aren't related to it.

And no more lies please...:sealed:

[TheDaddy]

One question hasn't been answered.

What will it take for you to go away and leave us alone?
Is it because money has been given to amiga.org?

I read through the "interview" and honestly it's a load of bollocks.

Nothing we didn't know already, more insults added left and right, this time toned down a bit.

Illusion of grandeur all over. Comparing themselves to Apple several times. Apple I say. APPLE!

Jez...how deluded!

Also justifying the fact that IF Apple can "steal" stuff so can we.....ahhhh that makes it ok then.

You don't mind me "stealing" the Amiga name do you? Just for a bit?

And the cherry on the cake was: "It's not our fault the $30 million budget thing...it was the agency's idea and we don't do business with them any more"

LOL!

This really is top comedian's stuff.

I feel sorry for Leo and the followers...really do.

[TheDaddy]

@Leo

Man you are saying the exact opposite of what your boss has just said!

Do you two even talk to each other?

[TurricanX]

I used to build custom desktop PCs for people as a hobby, based on their particular needs. I certainly never slapped a well known brand name on the case and claimed it was something else though and then tried to sell it for more money.
 
You work for a soulless money making machine that's had the unfortunate good sense to secure the rights to a once popular and fondly remembered brand name. The whole 'Amiga' is a concept thing is just an excuse to do what you want with the name, I've heard and seen it many times before from companies who have acquired brand names.
 
You have no passion for building or developing new technology, for continuing to develop and improve on Commodore or Amiga chipsets, or to provide a gaming and entertainment platform for all things Amiga old and new in the Amiga community.
 
I might as well just build my own PC and put an Amiga sticker on it. Or, in fact, bottle my own tap water and sell it as 'Amiga water'. If only I had the rights.

[Forcie]

We actually WANT to do all the cool things the community want us to do because we also believe it to be quite interesting, and in many ways align with our ultimate strategy.

I actually liked it better when Barry said something along the lines of "if you aren't interested in our generic PC crap with an insane markup, don't buy it", and made it clear that he is not interested in supporting the community in any way in the interview.
At least that felt something like drawing a line in the sand after spamming the community for years without being able to show a single thing of interest to it except for "Look! we have a shiny logotype from the 80's!".

So, at least have the common courtesy to fall in line behind your boss and shut up now, because he clearly confirmed what your critics have saying from the very beginning. And IF you have anything of value to contribute to the community in say three years (although I doubt that you survive that long as a company considering how you have been conducting your business), kindly stop your tiresome spamming until then. Thank you.

[Tripitaka]

One question hasn't been answered.

What will it take for you to go away and leave us alone?
Is it because money has been given to amiga.org?

I read through the "interview" and honestly it's a load of bollocks.

Nothing we didn't know already, more insults added left and right, this time toned down a bit.

Illusion of grandeur all over. Comparing themselves to Apple several times. Apple I say. APPLE!

Jez...how deluded!

Also justifying the fact that IF Apple can "steal" stuff so can we.....ahhhh that makes it ok then.

You don't mind me "stealing" the Amiga name do you? Just for a bit?

And the cherry on the cake was: "It's not our fault the $30 million budget thing...it was the agency's idea and we don't do business with them any more"

LOL!

This really is top comedian's stuff.

I feel sorry for Leo and the followers...really do.

How can anyone add to that? 100% spot on! My feelings towards CUSA have certainly soured since reading the answers and I was not impressed beforehand. I so hoped they would redeem themselves somehow. It's not just CUSA either, they got the Amiga name under license from Amiga inc after all is said and done. I'm pretty sick of them too.

[persia]

@Leo

Man you are saying the exact opposite of what your boss has just said!

Do you two even talk to each other?

+1

Are they playing good cop bad cop?  Barry made it clear he has no interest in NG or Classic Amiga.  It's just a name.  I've moved on, I no longer expect Amiga to return in any real sense.  Can't we just leave it at that, you guys do what you want to try to survive and stop coming to sites devoted to the classic Amiga?  Let's just put some space between us, you have nothing for us, we have nothing for you.

[dougal]

All CUSA needs to do is somehow get Amiga OS4 ported to their systems and have better pricing. They have done much more with the Commodore & Amiga brands then anyone has done in the last 15 years.

I can't believe that nobody has insulted the manufactures of the SamXXX motherboards.  They are outdated, slow and overpriced and they don't have anything to do with Amiga other than the fact that Amiga OS4 will run on them.

Its about time Amiga OS4 went x86. PPC is dead and is only useful for games consoles and anybody who says PPC is not dead is only hanging on to the past. Apple has abandoned them more than 5 years ago now after so long.

[_ThEcRoW]

@Dougal

Wow, one person with common sense in a trashed thread!
+1000 points on your post.

[Kalvan]

From reading their posts, I can only come to one conclusion.
 
Commodore USA isn't a business, it's a get rich quick scheme. If it had been a business, there would have been more effort placed in making the Amiga stand out from the rest of Today's computing world through hardware, software, and user interface diferentation. Okay, Hyperion is threatening to sue if Commodore USA uses an Amiga OS alike. They can either use MorphOS or AROS with Natami and call Hyperion's bluff (And it absolutely is a bluff; by now all patents on AmigaOS Calls have expired, and documentation on any hypothetically copyright infringing code is trivially simple to verify or disporve) or they can build the computer Jay Miner would have built if he were around today, and without even looking at anything at Intel.
 
On paper, my Hibana series of computers seem rather expensive to make, but in actuallity, most of the real heavy lifting is already done. MIPS, Imagination Technologies, Renesis, Adapteva, Lucid Technologies, Texas Instruments, Achronix, Quallcomn/Bigfoot Networks, Micron Technologies, RAMBUS, all those companies and their respective IP exist right now. Even the Apollo CPU core now exists in a form tangible enough to start taking orders on. All that's needed (at most) is manipulating blocks of transistors to fit on dies. (Okay, an RLD3 RAM Controller will need to be designed from scratch, but that isn't too onerous) The only "custom" chip that really needs effort on is the extended AMY or PAULA chips, but even then the original articles are out there in the wild. I mean, how much effort would it be to hook one of those up to a data analyzer, then expand and extend it as I talked about?
 
The software side of things will be harder to wrangle together, since they would need to hire conplier writers first, but once that's over with, things should pregress remarkably smoothly. For one thing, every standard text on D and Scala speak of code length reductions of at least 80% and often as much as 95%.
 
And as for motherboards, well, until they can aford a factory of their own, they can always contract out to the likes of Pegatron and ASRock for R&D and production.
 
But that's just the way I see it. Am I missing anything?

[Digiman]

I'm a linux noob. I've tried a number of linux distros over the years. I find the commodore OS Vision distro fun. Sure, it's not a spectacular feat of engineering but it have the old commodore feel of fun for me.

I just bought an iMac today for $1600. I could have built a similar spec'd x86 machine for half that. But I didn't. And millions of others didn't.

Do you think Dell engineers their own computers? Why hate against a company with enough balls to pony up to pay for the license for the commodore and amiga brands? They have already done more than Amiga inc ever did with it. Sure, it's not the classic Amiga or a new amiga but that will never happen.

I hope they do well. They are no Mehdi Ali or Gould. All profitable home computers these days run on x86 architecture. Macs and PC's. Mobile computing is the future. There are 3 major OS's available these days. Cusa does not need to re-invent the wheel. Just create something that has a sense of style customized with the spirit of Commodore.

A few differences here regarding VIC SLIM & AMIGA MINI (put C64x to one side for now, at least it is unique looking) .

1. They have done less than the producers of x1000 and the SAM460 based 500 thing. Their machines run OS4. They have done less than Hyperion and the MorphOS team on software side. They have done less than Bernie (Amithlon) or AROS team to integrate Amiga OS into regular x86 architecture.

2. Apple iMac $1600 vs MSI Wind AIO $750 is not the same situation. Apple have a unique in house OS with in-house bespoke apps and have a unique case styling. All supported by cloud based services that instantly allow access to say photos taken on iPhone to appear on your iMac via proprietory mods to their OS. I can buy the Amiga Mini case for £75 and an identical motherboard and run Linux on it. Even run XP with an OS4 visual style see?

3. Even going down this x86 route an Amiga in 1988 did MORE than a 286 PC costing twice as much and was nicer to use with superior creative software and far superior games. Now their Amiga costs twice as much and runs the same OS and apps as everyone else.

If he was serious he would offer the same gaming performance as a DELL XPS PC but at significant savings in cost say 33% all in a bespoke unique case. This is nothing more than a quick buck operation raping the brand names from our cherished memories.

His ideas are poorly executed. The VIC SLIM should be a cost reduced Intel i3 2100K based computer in a white C64x case!

[Tripitaka]

They have done much more with the Commodore & Amiga brands then anyone has done in the last 15 years.

You shouldn't keep putting that LSD in your breakfast buddy, it's messing with your head.

[Darrin]

Poor Ben comes here one more time to try and order us to accept Linux as Amiga.  Linux is Linux.  Slapping Amiga wallpapers on Windows 7 will not make that an AmigaOS either.

The simple solution for C-USA (as it always has been) is to stop abusing the Amiga name, stop insulting the existing AmigaOS solutions and just bugger off and try and sell their unsupported, overprices Commodore-USA PCs.  Actually, it seems their new plan (as I correctly predicted last year) is to have others sell their PCs, provide the support and hand over wads of cash for using the name.

The confusing thing is, why do they keep coming back here?  Why are they so hell bent in convincing us that they're the "Second Coming?  The only answer I can come up with is that they are DESPERATE for our cash.  I'm guessing that anyone who wants to join their reseller scheme is going to have to fork out around $10,000 so convincing just 10 of us to sign up is $100,000.  Convincing 10 of us to buy their existing models would probably reduce their dusty unsold inventory by 50%.

Just go away, sell your PCs and come back in 12 months and gloat if you're still around.

[cicero790]

@dougal

+1

I think Amiga deserves more than being pure retro.

[Duce]

C-USA:

Enough.  We all read 30+ pages from your CEO, telling us not to buy if we didn't like it, 30+ pages stating any real Amiga innovation is not on the horizon.  30+ pages of patronizing insults and delusional grandeur from a CEO that seems to have read the Steve Jobs bio a couple times too many.  You don't need us, you don't want us, we once again are told we are not your target market.  Why you still here?

You are a commodity PC vendor that sells machines running Linux.  We're cool with that, but now that your CEO has stated there are absolutely no intentions from your company that will ever benefit users looking for the unique Amiga experience as we know it, stop the spam and go away before the dedicated users of A.org get sick (and leave due to it) of the constant drone of being preached to by a INTEL PC ASSEMBLER PUSHING LINUX....

Putting an Amiga sticker on a commodity case filled with commodity parts, running Linux does not make it Amiga in all eyes of the world.  Just like how a delusional person can put a Mercedes decal on a Honda and convince himself he's driving a luxury car, I guess it's all dependent on your perspective.  Yet some people still have thriving businesses selling Mercedes stickers to Honda owners - I suggest you go after that comparative market in your chosen field.

I wish you guys the best in your business, but no one comes to A.org to read about a Linux PC in a stickered case.  No one.  The fluff to real meat ratios of posts here are getting atrocious - all I care about is people not leaving A.org because of it.  Enough, ok?  We know where to find you.

Except, it isn't anymore.  Barry told us your products will never be what we're after, we were told there will never be anything other than stickered commodity PC's as the "vision" of the C-USA Amiga.  I'm cool with that, but man - for the love of this place I just wish Commodore USA would go away.

I'd be tarred and feathered if I started spamming ad's on A.org for my side hobby company that builds high end gaming PC's on a per order basis.
Why?  They are completely irrelevant to anything Amiga.  Just like C-USA is now irrelevant to us, by Barry's own admission.

[Kronos]

They have done much more with the Commodore & Amiga brands then anyone has done in the last 15 years.

Mmmm 15 years you say ??
In 1997 C= and Amiga got divorced at when Escom was dissolved.

C= went to Tulip,"C= gaming" someone did that C64-Webbit and lots of cheap crap labelled C= .... NotCUSA is right on track I would say.

The Amiga !BRAND! went GateWay who did sweet flirting nothing with, except to sell it to a bunch of (imcompetent) scamsters..... again NotCUSA comes quite close here (especially on the imcompetent part).