This morning, I attended the Iwin press conference in Unterhaching.
Although in theory, 23 people should have come (there was room for 30, and according to [1], "7 places are still available"), there were only *three* guests (and I hadn't even bothered to apply for an invitation), the other two being from http://www.amiga-news.de/ (a more detailed report should appear there tonight).
Martin Steinbach arrived with nothing but ten copies of the Iwin "press kit", consisting of printouts of the PDF files we already know (product specs and the five-year roadmap), plus two sample ads ("Would you like this to be your new girlfriend? - Everything you were dreaming fo for such a long time" and "High end computing for game-console prices! Las amigas vuelven en casa..."). There was no video (as promised on [1]: "Iwin - an introduction") and no "Iwin Insurance 1.0" or "Iwin VideoStore" presentations.
We had a three-hour talk with Martin. Unfortunately, he failed to give a single convincing answer during that time. He claimed that the Iwin custom chips were basically UAE source code cast in silicon and that the sample chip design and production was done mostly for free by their hardware partners. He tried to explain the fact that he is a Merant employee with tax reasons (about the photos posted at compcity.nl, he claimed that some of them showed the Merant office, while the others showed the actual Iwin office, and the Merant pictures "should not have been published"). Regarding Tulip and the "Commodore" name, he stated that the price doubled from 18 to 36 million (he didn't specify a currency - I believe he meant Austrian Schillings, as he is from Austria) after an interview was published early. He said that "black boxes" will be shown during the Indianapolis show on the upcoming weekend, but made conflicting statements about the meaning of "black box" (just empty boxes vs. working beta hardware) and that they would not attend HEW due to problems with AInc. Germany. Regarding the fake files in the download section, he refused to give an answer and told me to ask Rue Ann instead.
The Holiday Inn lunch buffet was okay. Of course, most of the
seats remained unused.
I left with lots of promises (he wants to send me the missing video, a *working* PowerSE demo CD and tons of info material) and the uneasy feeling of having been lied to for three hours in a row.