Amiga MA Magazine 1998 #6/amigamamagazinepolishissue1998.iso/www/cucug/at/at951119.txt

Text File | 1997-11-07 | 7KB | 145 lines

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