Speech by Petro Tyschtschenko at Bradford [This transcript came directly from Gilles Bourdin's laptop and as such is annotated for delivery, not a direct transcript of what was actually said. -Jason] Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests. I am pleased to be here at our first common press conference with Microvitec. My name is Petro Tyschtschenko, I am President at Amiga Technologies GmbH. The company was founded in May 1995, just after ESCOM AG acquired the rights to the technology and patents of the former Commodore Company. Amiga Technologies GmbH is a 100% subsidiary of ESCOM AG. ESCOM AG is a public company. 25 % belongs to Quelle [explain], 10 % to Siemens-Nixdorf, 12,5 % to RWE [explain], 38,5 % to Manfred Schmitt, founder and chairman of the board, 14 % splitted to other shareholders. You surely have heard about the last ESCOM deal in the UK concerning the Rumbelows shops. Before working at ESCOM AG, during my time at Commodore, for 12 years, when I was Director for international logistics, I always used to trade with manufacturers and accessory providers in the far-east. Commodore partners in this regard were notorious companies like Hyundai, Samsung, Daewoo or Philips, all famous names in the monitor business. Logically, the first thing I did when I began setting up the operations of Amiga Technologies GmbH was to revive my contacts. According to asian courtesy, I got many promises to help Amiga and to send propositions. I am known as being an impatient man. I wondered if there wasn't a possible solution in Europe. In the Amiga-Magazines I saw advertisements for Microvitec Monitors and was surprised because I knew the name from the banking and industrial sector. In Munich, at a big press meeting, I had the opportunity to talk to many people from the monitor and Amiga busines, and I heard many positive comments about Microvitec. This convinced me to keep heading towards a european solution. I arranged meetings in Bensheim with Mr H President at Microvitec Germany and adressed him our technical requirements, prices and quantities for an Amiga monitor. I quickly understood that the Microvitec deal would be the best solution from the technical point of view. Instead of choosing a low cost product, I decided to go for the mid-level and to prefer good quality. Another advantage with Microvitec:was the location in Europe, our main Amiga market. This was going to enhance our logistics tremendeously and keep costs at a low level! Now, ladies and Gentlemen, we decided to call the monitor M1438S. The initials stand for Monitor and Stereo. 14 represents the size and 38 means that the monitor can sync all horizontal frequencies from 15 to 38 Kilohertz. This is just what is needed for a multimedia computer like the Amiga. We already got very satisfying tests in the Amiga-press. A little restriction concerning the use with genlocks has been detected but Microvitec engineers are already working on it. Distribution Our first deliveries of the M1438S began in mid-September. After a few startup difficulties, we have everything under control. For the last quarter 1995, we will have sold all forecasted 15000 units. For the UK market, we can ship directly from the Bradford facility, which saves us time and money. The deliveries for continental Europe are made from our service-and-spare-center in Braunschweig. As you can see, ladies and Gentlemen, Logistics is an important thing for us and I think the we have reached quite an acceptable level of optimization here. Now, let's talk about our plans for 1996. What shall we do? Go back for far east production or continue our cooperation with Microvitec? The decission has been taken....... Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, we decided to continue the british experience, how could it be otherwise? For us, of course, the price question is an important one. But I am convinced that Microvitec will be very cooperative on this issue, we are currently discussing this. Concerning the product range, we think of three different models. For the first quarter, we will continue with the 14 inch model. For the CEBIT fair in Hannover, we have a 15 and 17 inch model on schedule. Our goal is also to replace the 14 inch by the 15 inch model as soon as possible, during the second quarter, and this without increasing the price. Ladies and gentlemen, we know that the 17 inch monitor will be a breakthrough in the Amiga market. We allready presented first prototyspe samples at the IFA fair in Berlin and the great response from the public convinced us to market it as soon as possible. Be aware: this monitor is able to adapt itself automaticcaly to horizontal frequencies from 15 up to 64 Kilohertz. This monitor can be used on high end Amigas fitted with 64 bit graphic boards and can display video as well as high resolution VGA screens. There is actually no competition for this product on the market and we know that our Amiga monitor will be appreciated by those who do video applications, even on the PC and Macintosh side. Our forecasts for 1996 are set on 60.000 monitors, which will represent a turnover of about 20 million UK Pounds. We will begin with 10.000 14 inch models during the first quarter, negociations are still being made for the forthcoming quarters. Ladies and gentlemen, as you might allready know, we will not only sell monitors. We plan to bring 100.000 Amiga 1200 and 20.000 Amiga 4000 T on the market. Regarding the 060 Motorola board for the Amiga 4000 T, I'm afraid that we will have delays until next year, dued to availability difficulties with Motorola and other component providers. Our turnover at Amiga Technologies will be around 100 Million DM, which is about 45 Million UK Pounds. For the coming year, I will not make any comittments but if everything keeps going as well as this year, we expect to ship 500.000 Amiga 1200 and 50.000 Amiga 4000T. Since then, there will also be new models available in the entry-level as well as in the mid-range. We also intend to present our new A1200 CD-ROM drive on the Amiga fair in Colone. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are very pleased that we could contribute to increase the utilization of industrial capacity in Bradford. We hope that this will also help to improve the social situation here. We think that with our action based on "european location and partners", we showed that a computer manufacturer can be competitive without having to transfer ist production to the far east, like Commodore did. We think that we are quite innovative in this regard and we hope that our experience will be followed by other computer manufacturers. Our main market is currently Europe. But there is also a great potential in the United States. In our forecasts, we did not include America because we are currently in negociations with distributors and future partners to find a solution to cover the north-American market. These negociationas are quite promising. One of the distributors overseas has allready ordered 500 monitors. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to export british Monitors to the USA and I will make you a confidence about one of my dreams I am about to realize: To export european made monitors to Asia. This would indeed be a nice reward for the excellent work made by Microvitec and Amiga Technologies. Thank you for your attention. ---- Courtesy, Jason Compton at Amiga Report