Randy Speaks

After nearly eight months, I still get mail asking things like, "who are you," and "who is this third Amiga guy?" Well, having enjoyed relative anonymity, I was asked to now put fingers to keyboard to answer some of these questions as well as to tell you a bit more about our direction and goals.

So, who am I, where did I come from, and where is Amiga going?

Before coming to Amiga I was a banker first and foremost, with a strong background in finance and sales management. Most of this experience came from Canadian banking institutions, namely the Bank of Montreal, Royal Trust and the Royal Bank. Upon my departure from the banking industry, I moved to the technology field where I worked for QNX as a sales account manager and ultimately as the regional sales manager. While at QNX I was responsible for opening their office in Silicon Valley and managed several key accounts for them, including Gateway and the Amiga account. Most recently I established the sales and alliances function for an exciting new Java start-up company called Thinweb Technologies, who were just approved by the SEC and by NASDAQ for their public offering.

Randall Hughes

Not too long ago I was contacted by Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss with an offer to partner with them to acquire Amiga and play a pivotal role in the building of this company. Presently, I am a co-founding partner and the Vice President of Sales and Strategic Alliances. I'm also the Third Amiga, as many like to say.

Apart from my background in finance, sales management, and a history with both established companies and technology start-ups-which will help Amiga attain its goals-there is an obvious friendship, respect and shared vision between Bill, Fleecy and myself. This carries over to everyone else here at Amiga, too. I am fiercely loyal to my colleagues, to our vision, to our community, to our brand, and ultimately, loyal to our integrity. I am a gun hired to protect the integrity of our business plan, our future, our brand and that of our partners. I am here to ensure the success of Amiga by dealing with our best-of-breed partners, to ensure that our community is well served and that Amiga is once again a household name recognized for the excellence of its products and its commitment to the community.

The success of Amiga will be as a direct result of applying our values and vision to our efforts. Our success means success for those who use our products. Should anyone doubt my convictions or those of Amiga, just sit back and watch us grow.

Eight months have come and gone with a great deal of activity having taken place. We are pleased to have met our goal of building a team of foundation employees at Amiga. In fact, we have a team that is second to none. Many more things have come to pass, too. Amiga has built several key and strategic alliances. Some of these alliances you already know about, others will be revealed when the time is right. We have realigned and continue to refine our dealer network. We have made the legacy hardware more affordable. We continue to pursue a migration path for the Classic Amiga. Most importantly, we have released the Next Generation SDK, and accordingly have opened the doors for developers to work with us to create the future. This is indeed exciting because the Amiverse represents the first truly visionary change of philosophy in an operating system platform since the original 'Grin Factor' was inspired by the Classic Amiga.

In the coming weeks, you will learn much more about the Amiga Developer's Box and additional hires at Amiga. You will hear the rave reviews that we've been hearing on the SDK and hear from some of the thousands of developers who are using the SDK. You will see profiles on the Amiga movement in the mainstream media. You will feel the momentum and experience the focus and commitment of this team and enjoy the benefits of a rejuvenated community.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a time of celebration. A unique and revolutionary OS-in fact the first truly binary-compatible cross platform OS-will change the manner in which users think and use their computer. It is called Amiga and it will bring the computing industry together and obviate the need for the plethora of conflicting and redundant operating systems in the world today.

To paraphrase the terribly boring, but always correct management guru, Tom Peters, there are four measures that can be applied to an individual/company/community:

1) One must be a great teammate and a supportive colleague. This is the key to success for all of us, bar none.
2) One must be an exceptional expert at something that has real value. Amiga has provided a platform that is truly remarkable. The community has an unprecedented legacy and expertise in all things multimedia.
3) One must be a broad-gauged visionary: a teacher, a leader, or an advocate. This is the legacy of Amiga and it will continue into the future.
4) One must be a businessperson with business sense. We recognize that our future will not please everyone (though I think that we will). However, please judge the future on its merits. If history is any indication of the future, then we are all on the verge of epiphany.

In closing, I'd like to urge you to support your community and dealers with conviction and remember that my door is always open. We encourage you to share your thoughts and know that you will like what you see.

Randall P Hughes
VP Sales and Strategic Business Development
AMIGA INC. randy@amiga.com.