CommodoreUSA CEO Interview Answers

[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).

[runequester]

Dell has done more for the amiga brand than CUSA has done, given they sell linux PC's far cheaper, provide better customer support (****ty as opposed to non-existing) and their CEO doesn't spend time insulting people on the internet.

[OlafS3]

You are really not right there. Hyperion, MorphOS-team, the Aros-community and many 68k developer/user share the same ideas (however the OS is called). It would be nice if hardware and software bundles based on Amiga-API would be sold under "Amiga" but that is not priority. I have a used Notebook at home (2 Ghz+, 1 GB Ram) for just 100 EUR with Kubuntu installed. I see no big difference to their products right now (except that the components are "slightly" better and the label on it). Is there anything innovative on it (hardware and/or software)? No! Does 68k software run on it? No! Is it based in any way on the Amiga API? No! Do they support the community in any way? No! ("waste of money"). Do they have any serious intentions to do something with any of the camps? No! The only "yes" I can imagine... Do they want our money? Yes! As long as they do not have serious offers for us they should leave us our peace. They want to make money with the brand name? Fine. We cannot do anything against it. But as long as they have nothing interesting to offer (in our sense) they are only wasting our time.

[EDanaII]

We would love to do all the various things the community want, but we quite simply can't at the moment for various reasons both legal and financial.
But be assured that it isn't because we have no interest in doing so.

Please explain this, then, Leo:

Whatever happened to "Commodore USA's Final Challenge to the Community?

You all gave up. It still stands. It’s not our fault you can’t agree on anything or maybe there just aren’t enough of you out there. :-P

That doesn't sound like someone who "would love to do all the various things the community want." That sounds like a cynical response to what appeared to be a pretty cynical ploy to begin with. You and your boss made an offer to the community and then you copped out. You really wanna show some goodwill, then _try taking leadership_ of your challenge.

You and I have argued this before, previously, regarding AROS. You and Barry expect a community that is leaderless, with a thousand different views, looking in a thousand different directions, to take leadership for itself. If you REALLY want the goodwill of the community, then TAKE LEADERSHIP of that community by taking the mob where it wants to go.

And if you can't take leadership and give the mob what it wants... well, instead of being disappointed that they don't see things your way, maybe you should just go away until you can give them what they want.

Yes, no matter what you do, there will always be someone who doesn't like what your doing. Being a leader does not mean pleasing all of the people all of the time.

Two cents...

[vox]

Vox. For once there is some constructive criticism in your response.
We know we have to lift our game and provide better value for money.
To have any chance at being competitive a company is required to go through continual cycles of improvement of its products and strategy.
We'll get there eventually.
At the moment AmigaOS has nothing to do with our products and we state as much on our Commodore OS page if you would care to look at it.
Whether you find that insulting or not...it is beyond our control at the moment.
And honestly, it is easily alleviated by installing AROS, whether we can do anything with it commercially or not.

I was also very positive in the early days seeing your Triple Boot video and genuine wish to support AROS. You are only IT literate person in the team, as much as website can tell, and much better in public appearance. Therefore, think of you as possible PR (or there is PR in team  with your advisory).

Beside great utilization of multi level marketing, big promises and modern popular psychology and bussiness schemes, we can‚t yet say you are success. Much to own behaviour, that creates opossition.

Limitations of Amiga Inc licence is something I expected you to be aware as well as limitation of all 3 current AmigaOS arhitectures. You could easily overcome them by agreement with Hyperion and AROS team e.g. you will for 2 years ship machines with AROS and now fund AROS development with 5-10% of profit (this might go to programmers hired not only bounties) and from e.g. 2014 fund OS 4.x transition to your motherboards only  at same level. That would provide great stability and viable future for all AmigaOS and CommodoreOS. And would mean support to you grant baby steps. During that time both AmigaOS or MorphOS or AROS could reach needed requirements and become your additional feature to already installed Ubuntu with AmigaForever or AmiKit.

Also using such antique OS could provide possibility for cheap x86 (+FPGA?) boards that couldnt run newest games, but do most of daily jobs and emulate consoles and Amiga experence (on Linux and Win7 Starter with best free software) plus dual boot to e.g. with improved Amithlon and Amiga Forever and pack of greatest Amiga games. Highest single core or lowest dual core with 2GB of fast RAM and decent graphics could run Linux, Windows 7 starter. And there are still VIA and such cheap suppliers of decent x86 CPUs. And with Kempston USB joysticks and great pack of games could really make a cheap retro appeal of everything working out of box.

Playing high end systems for home users isnt really gonna work out despite the name, and marketing efforts. C64x case is so far only real product of yours, shame its quite expensive.

There is still time until 2019.

Bottom line, having nothing to do with AmigaOS Amiga(OS) community has nothing to do with you really, so better focus on Linux and gamers forums.

[Darrin]

That doesn't sound like someone who "would love to do all the various things the community want." That sounds like a cynical response to what appeared to be a pretty cynical ploy to begin with. You and your boss made an offer to the community and then you copped out. You really wanna show some goodwill, then _try taking leadership_ of your challenge.

It was obvious that they were not making a serious offer when they wouldn't answer any questions about what they were "capable" of  producing.  By not narrowing down the options they made sure there were too many ideas and that no one project whould reach the magic "500" number.

Even if one did, they would have found some reason not to do it and used it as an excuse to keep us quiet for a few months while they went about "business as usual".

[number6]

Oh yes.  And they didn't even piss off Amiga users.  Plus their prices were cheaper and included a Windows OS.

Let's be careful about heaping any praise upon Commodore Gaming as a "company", simply based on what you saw as value for the money.
Remember that they tried to pass themselves off as licensor of the Commodore IP:

Altman was then contacted by Taco van Sambeek, who represents the Netherlands-based Commodore Gaming, a company founded in 2005 with the intention of "re-launching the classic Commodore 64 experience on various platforms."

 Altman and van Sambeek both tell us they attempted to negotiate a deal that would license the Commodore name to Altman's Commodore USA. But although Altman seemed to indicate he had secured the rights last month, this was not the case.

 Commodore Gaming doesn't actually own the rights. It has merely licensed the right to use the name for gaming ventures, and though the company apparently has the power to pass a similar right to a third party, it can't license the name for more general purposes.

Note to those unaware: They are defunct.

#6

[number6]

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.

This has nothing to do with patent. It has to do with a settlement agreement between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion VOF (now a CVBA).
And although it is called a "settlement agreement", it is actually a "stipulated judgment", which you can research on Justia:
http://www.justia.com/dictionary/stipulated-judgment.html

Once the stipulated judgment is signed by the judge, it becomes the judgment in your case.

So, any conjecture about why not change the settlement agreement is just nonsense.

#6

[Darrin]

Let's be careful about heaping any praise upon Commodore Gaming as a "company", simply based on what you saw as value for the money.
Remember that they tried to pass themselves off as licensor of the Commodore IP:

Note to those unaware: They are defunct.

#6

Thanks for that info.  Very interesting.  It seems the industry is crawling with opportunists.  Mind you, for what C-USA wants, C-Gaming might have been within their rights to sub-license to them.

[number6]

C= went to Tulip,

Not really.

some interesting history and links

One day the real history of this reported "sale" may become public. Let's just say neither of the participants had the best motives at heart. Heh.

#6

[number6]

Thanks for that info.  Very interesting.  It seems the industry is crawling with opportunists.  Mind you, for what C-USA wants, C-Gaming might have been within their rights to sub-license to them.

No idea, but it was a moot point, since Ben van Wijhe (Asiarim) raised it's head at that point, and the rest of the licensing story between Asiarim and CUSA is history.
Now the case to determine the true licensor is in the courts, hopefully for the last time.

#6

[Darrin]

No idea, but it was a moot point, since Ben van Wijhe (Asiarim) raised it's head at that point, and the rest of the licensing story between Asiarim and CUSA is history.
Now the case to determine the true licensor is in the courts, hopefully for the last time.

#6

Ask them to sort out who owns the Amiga ROMs and WB3.1 while they're at it.  

[Kronos]

Ask them to sort out who owns the Amiga ROMs and WB3.1 while they're at it.  

VillageTronic !!! (which might actually be true .....)

[Darrin]

VillageTronic !!! (which might actually be true .....)

LOL.  If only.

Is this the same company?
http://www.villagetronic.com/

[motrucker]

I really have to wonder if people are reading the same interview I was reading.
Commodore USA is currently a small company, with limited resources, and with limits to Amiga IP usage. We are doing the best, with the IP we have available to us, as we possibly can.
It's all fine to sit there and say, oh, ......

If CUSA was developing ANYTHING  this would be a different story. You are doing exactly the same thing IBUYPOWER is doing: assembling Intel/AMD  type computers -   but charging three to four times as much. I should add that IBUYPOWER is honest about assembling their computers from other firms parts, and doesn't charge much for their computers.
The only real difference I see, is that CUSA is dragging the Amiga name through the mud.
It's a shame, but Barry doesn't have a clue what the Amiga computer was about. The original Amiga was an innovative NEW machine for truly creative people. CUSA's abomination is nothing new. It's just another PC assembled from other manufacturers parts. No innovation, nothing new and, nothing remotely Amiga like about them.

[runequester]

You can pretend to be a big player along the lines of Commodore, Dell, Atari, Apple etc.

You can pretend to be a tiny cottage industry.

But you don't get to be both.