Gateway 2000 Assessment

So now that Gateway 2000 have been in control of the Amiga for around nine months, how have they performed? Are they the Amiga's saviours, or another Escom?

I thought the best way to do this would be in a list form. Just all the good and bad points one by one, to prevent me from being to subjective. This is to be an objective hard unbiased view of Gateway 2000's performance...

  • Price - Although they haven't given any official pricing for the A1200, you can get it for as cheap as £210, which has to be better than £400.
  • Licencing - Micronik, Index, and hopefully many more to follow.
  • Willingness to work with companies such as Phase 5, PIOS, etc rather than just preventing them from releasing PowerAmigas (although you'd think otherwise with this Wonder A6000 business).
  • The setting up of Amiga Inc for research and development, with new employees.
  • The possible deal with Epson for them to supply Amiga printer drivers, etc.
  • The announcement that an updated AmigaOS will appear soon...
  • The announcement that they will begin R&D on new hardware.
  • The Amiga Inc summit to discuss ideas on the Amiga's future.
  • Not choosing PPC may be a good idea considering recent events - they are right to consider other possibilities.
  • You now get Directory Opus 4.12 with the Amiga 1200 Magic Pack.
  • Er, Amiga International is a better name than Amiga Technologies GmbH... (er!)
    • Good PointsBad Points
    • Still No New Amigas - (At least from AI themselves) We can't expect miracles, but not even a minor redesign, no A1200/A1200T hardware bundles. Still just the basic A1200.
    • No Indication of any future for the Amiga - New Amigas may take time to build, but they haven't said what they will start to build, or whether the future of the Amiga is with Alpha or PPC, with custom chipsets or PC graphics cards, with AmigaOS 4 or pOS...
    • Preventing the Wonder A6000 TV thingy from being released (although this will hopefully be sorted out)
    • Advertising? - Ahem, maybe 1998. Even Escom did better than this.
    • Amigas in Shops - It's increasingly hard to find Amigas, Amiga hardware or software in shops these days. At least Escom tried to change this, with their own shops and other places (even if they weren't very well displayed), but Gateway 2000 seem to be doing nothing about this.

    Mark