Amiga Mag HDD Backup/Amiga Mag HDD Backup.zip/Amiga Mag HDD Backup/Alexander.img.bin/Alexander.img/*10.7/ESCOM Archive.sit/escom all

Text File | 1995-06-24 | 54KB | 759 lines

Date: Tue, 30 May 1995 22:29:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Joshua Galun
To: [e-mail]
Subject: IRC conference info!
Not the greatest prose ever, perhaps, but the best I could do in 3 minutes
for you.  Enjoy!
May 30 - Frankfurt, Germany
    Today Escom AG announced its plans for the Amiga line of personal
computers to the world in a press conference in Frankfurt, Germany.  The
press conference was well attended by over 70 reporters from assorted
newspapers and magazines, including 2 reporters from Amiga Link Magazine,
Mathias Frankenbach and Joerg Gutzke.  After the press conference, Mathis
came onto IRC and Amiga Link Magazine held a press conference to report on
what happened.  Although the full edited log of the IRC conference will be
in Amiga Link #5, and the transcript to the conference will be released by
Amiga Link later as well, this is the gist of what happened.
    Escom announced that they will have Amigas before the Christmas
season, probably by September or October.  In their first run they plan to
make 15,000 A4000/040s, 10,000 A4000/060s (using the Ohase 5 Cyberstorm 060
card), 120,000-130,000 A1200s (which will be upgraded to the 030EC) and
CD32s (no numbers announced).  They also plan to make a new box for the
A4000, which was shown at the press conference, and do a redisign of the
CD32 in 1996, so that it can compete with the new games consoles coming
out.  Escom also said that they will make an Amiga t-shirt (no joke) to
allow Amiga users to show their support.
    Escom is planning on making Pentium PCs with the C= name on it.
    Escom said that every Amiga sold will come with Scala MM 300, the
multimedia authoring system, which is another sign that the Amiga will be
marketed as a multimedia machine.  They also said that they will be porting
the Amiga OS to RISC, although they have not yet deicded on which chip to
use.
    On the bad side of the news, Escom did not announce any concrete plans
for marketing the Amiga, and they didn't announce their distributors
outside of Europe, if they even have any.  The Amiga Technologies company
will also only start with 50 employees.
    The Amiga Technology Company will have a turnover of 100,000,000
deutch marks a year, and will break even by the end of this year.
    Escom is looking to set up a factory in Europe to match their existing
one in China.
    Read Amiga Link Magazine #5 for a more complete report, as their is
much that I have missed.  This text file is freely distributable on BBS or
online service or Internet, but may not be used by any magazine,
newsletter, or other publication, without the express written consent of
Joshua Galun.
                             Joshua Galun
                     Editor of Amiga Link Magazine
      ///                    Joshua Galun                           ///
     ///        Editor in Chief of Amiga Link Magazine             ///
  \\\///  "Your source for the latest Amiga news and Reviews!"  \\\///
   \\\/    Huge fan of, JRR Tolkien, the Amiga, Green Day,       \\\/
                        and The Simpsons!




===========================================================================
          REPORT ON ESCOM'S MAY 30th FRANKFURT PRESS CONFERENCE
  By: Angela Schmidt                             [e-mail]
  Translated by: Giorgio Gomelsky                         [e-mail]
       Thanks to Baffy and Fionn for proofreading/German-checking
===========================================================================
[Faced with a $1,600 plane fare, I was unable to attend Escom's press
conference.  It was much cheaper to send Angela Schmidt instead, and she
brought back the most important points of the presentation.  -Jason]
Escom has founded a division called Amiga Technologies GmbH.  Escom
considers the patents and rights they obtained from Commodore to be their
keys in the multi-media market.
The Amiga line will be continued under the name "Amiga" and distributed
worldwide.  Escom will use the "Commodore" label for Intel-based
multi-media-PCs which will be distributed in Europe only.
They did a market study in Germany and found that 93% of all PC users knew
the name Commodore-literally, only the name IBM is better known here.
As of August, there will be Pentium PCs with the name "Commodore", and
Escom plans to sell between 50,000 and 60,000 before the end of the year.
One month later, the Amiga 4000T should be produced in appreciable numbers.
In the past, less than 1,000 were produced.  They are planning to sell
around 25,000 by the end of the year, 10,000 in the United States.
The new 4000T will also have a new design.  They are making big efforts so
as to have a new design from the very beginning.  It has been mentioned
that the new A4000T will have a SCSI connection that was missing from the
4000s.  This was considered to be a major disadvantage in the original
4000s.
A month after that (October), it is planned to make the A1200 available
again.  They are estimating that between 120,000 and 150,000 will be sold
by the end of the year.  They will try not to miss Christmas sales by all
means.
With the CD32, several problems have shown up: It is not easy to get hold
of all necessary components needed for the production of the CD32.  There
seem to be problems in supplying those parts.  For this reason there wont
be CD32's until next year.
Until then, the CD32 will get a far more attractive design, to compete with
the game consoles.  Eventually, in the future, there will also be slightly
altered CD32s for set-top boxes.
It is possible that next year there will also be an A1300, based on a
68EC030, which would also have a CD-ROM drive as a standard feature.
Also, the first of the Amiga Technologies-based set-top boxes may be built
immediately.  Escom has licensed Viscorp to build such a unit.  In this
area of licensing, they will be open to other possibilities.
With regards to the future, they are considering building a RISC-chip based
Amiga.  PowerPC and the HP-PA RISC chip are being considered, but no
decision has been made yet.
At any rate, there shall be an Amiga operating system for this RISC-based
system, because AmigaOS simply belongs to the Amiga.  The porting of
AmigaOS to non-Amiga platforms is also being talked about.  This would
bring the Amiga closer to the mainstream.
With regards to the use of AAA, no decision has been made.
Jeff Frank, Engineering Director of Amiga Technologies, has announced an
expansion of the A4000T, one based on the 68060 turbo card which is will
likely be very similar to the CyberStorm 060 card, since there seem to be
licensing agreements with Phase5.
An expansion of the A1200 to an 68EC030 may also be considered.
The new Amigas will be bundled with a product from Scala (MM 300).  Whether
a good word processor and paint program would have been preferable is open
to argument.
Amiga Technologies plans a turnover of 100,000,000 DM in 1995, which mainly
is to be achieved by Christmas business.  At the moment, the monthly
expenditure is in the region of 600,000 DM.  But the intention is to get
into the black by the end of the year, and by spring of '96, the $10
million cost of acquisition should also be covered.
The central distribution will be in Holland.  There will be different
methods of distribution-for instance, through wholesalers, store chains,
and mail order houses.  The Amigas will additionally be distributed through
special distributors.
Commodore will offer sales- and marketing support to their resellers.
Furthermore, there will be a program in Europe for the training of
distributors.  The customer support should also be considerably improved.
It has been mentioned several times that ESCOM received an overwhelming
amount of faxes and letters, most of which had to remain unanswered.
Many have sent them their wishes for the future.  There were also
expressions of concern from the users about the Amiga being taken over by a
PC manufacturer.
Amiga Technologies would also like to be directly on the Internet very
soon.  For this purpose, there will be an Amiga connected to the net.


Manfred Schmitt
Chairman of the Executive Board, Escom AG

Ladies and gentlemen,
Since we won the auction for the intellectual property of Commodore and Amiga, the ESCOM AG is
flooded with congratulation messages. Amiga clubs and Amiga users write to ask us to revive and
continue to develop and improve the Amiga. Many of them actually sent us their wishes for future
hardware architectures and operating systems improvements.
However, it is still unclear for many users how a PC manufacturer and retailer will use the Amiga
technology.
Here is our answer:
ESCOM now turns from a PC manufacturer and retailer into a multimedia company. The big multimedia
applications will come very soon as Pay-TV, Video on demand, homebanking, home-shopping and
online services. In this growing market, we want to become a leading provider of hardware, software and
solutions. Our goal is to give the user a cost-efficient way to access all these new services the multimedia
world will allow. The Amiga technology brings us all we need here in an elegant way. We see in the
Amiga the key to Multimedia technologies for the future.
As an intelligent terminal, you all know the PC. Many people use the PC in conjunction with a modem to
access online services and the worldwide Internet. Escom is providing that market with a wide palette of
advantageoulsy priced Multimedia PCs in a range between 2000 and 3000 DM.
But there are other user profiles, who want to use the multimedia technology without having to spend
several thousands of DM. For these users, the Amiga represents a very interesting alternative. It stands
out with an amazing price/quality ratio. Also remarkable is the operating system with a still unmatched
multitasking ability. That means that several applications can run simultaneously, depending on
available memory without slowing down the whole system. This is achieved by the smart resource
sharing of the system and the low consumption of RAM and processing power by the applications.
The Amiga operating system needs 8 times less memory than Windows, and it multitasks better than
Windows. Through this smart use of system resources, the Amiga is still a very efficient and unexpensive
computer.
Video is another strength of the Amiga. In this aspect, the Amiga is superior to the PC. The video output
of the Amiga is already PAL and NTSC compatible, so it can just be plugged into a TV or any video
monitor. A PC needs a converter to do this. The Amiga represents a possibility to give people access to
interactive television, online services and pay TV with set top boxes at decent prices like 400 DM. The
market is huge because there are much more televisions than computers in the homes.
The set top box is a concrete application involving Amiga technology that we want to improve. For the
American market, which is much more advanced than in Europe in this regard, we already have license
agreements with our partner VisCorp - our first licence by the way. We are willing to be very flexible and
open-minded regarding licensing of our technology. Amiga developers and manufacturers shall have the
chance to talk with us to define partnerships or license agreements. Together, we will develop a wide
range of Amiga hardware and software. Our goal is a productive, open amiga technology. The example of
Viscorp demonstrates it at best : we license Amiga technology to people who want to integrate it in their
own products. The press already talked about another partner, the Tianjin Family-Used Multimedia Co.
Ltd. They will build the lower range of Amiga computers and revive the legendary Commodore 64 for the
chinese market.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have mainly talked about the Amiga. In New York, we also took over another
well known brand : Commodore. All of you surely remember the good old Commodore 64 and its
tremendous success in the early eighties. It is still a famous episode in the home computer history that
could be compared to the Volkswagen Beetle. A recent study made by the german economic magazine DM
reveals that the name Commodore still has very high recognition. 93 percent of all PC users know the
trademark Commodore. such a reputation is only surpassed by IBM.
We will now separate Commodore and Amiga operations. Amiga will be the multimedia range with
Motorola processors and Commodore for Intel based Personal Computers. We want to use all available
and appropriate distribution channels both for Commodore and Amiga: specialized retail stores,
warehouses, and mail order services. The ESCOM subsidiaries are only one of many possibilities.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are convinced that ESCOM, Commodore and Amiga will become a sucess story.
Look at the structure and competencies we have built up in a short time.
Thank you.

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]


Ed Goff
Escom Attorney

My name is Ed Goff I'm a Philadelphia lawyer working with ESCOM and Amiga technologies GmbH, on a
wide variety issues related to the relaunch of Amigas.
In particular, I will talk today on issues of Licensing.
Our strategy will be somewhat different than the strategy that you saw from Commodore in the past. It is
our intention to have strategic program for Amigas that with be as open at possible, and which will
therefore drive the Amiga technology into as wide a range of products and applications as is possible.
First I would like to discuss the broadest type of licensing arrangements that will fit within our plan,
Strategic alliances. We intend to consummate arrangements for further development of the Amiga
technologies together with strategic partners. These partners may be one or more well known names in
the electronics and telecommunications industries. Together with the strategic partner or partners we
intend to fund further development of new and advanced products based partly on Amiga and partly on
proprietary and public systems provided by the strategic partner.
Unfortunately I am not a liberty at this time to discuss or even identify potential strategic partners, as
some of these discussions are at a very early stage. However you can understand that these strategic
arrangements often take the form of joint ventures, cross licenses, cost and risk-sharing agreements, and
capital arrangements. As a result we can only announce the nature of such a strategic arrangement
consistent with the wishes of the strategic partner at the time the arrangements is finalised.
A second area of Licensing that falls within our strategic framework for a more open Amiga is imbedded
technology. We are currently pursuing opportunities for licensing the Amiga technology or portions of it
to enterprises in these industries who will imbed the Amiga in their products. One example of this sort of
arrangement is VisCorp, a potential maker of TV set-top boxes. As you have heard or may hear from my
colleagues, it is our belief that the Amiga presents uniquely attractive mid cost effective solutions to
enterprises attempting to meet the specifications of the telecommunications and cable industries. It is our
belief that encouraging vendors in these markets to embed Amiga capabilities or features could be very
exciting, and hopefully rewarding. In this regard I encourage you to make our intentions known as widely
as possible so that we can get the broadest possible spectrum of imbedded technology licensees.
A third and less grandiose area of licensing involves people and companies who are already using the
technology covered by the portfolio of patents copyrights and trademarks now owned by ESCOM. Often
this area can be unpleasant because some of these folks have never recognised in any formal way their use
of the technology. We intend to review a wide variety of products and components with a view to
developing a licensing arrangement with their makers, users and sellers. At the moment, this is an
uncharted area. It requires fairly intensive reviews, and often difficult discussions. For that reason, I am
unable at this time to give you further details on potential licencees.
At this point I would like to ask for any questions you may haveon any of these area.
Thank you.

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]


Wolf Dietrich
Phase 5 Digital Products

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
My name is Wolf Dietrich from phase 5 digital products a Frankfurt based manufacturer of AMIGA
peripherals. I am happy to present to you at this re-introduction of the AMIGA series of computers the
latest generation of the 68k series of processors the superscalar 68060 CPU. phase 5 digital products has
developed the first fully operational implementation of this processor for the AMIGA marketed as the
Cyberstorm 060 accelerator which is available now and shipping.
With this implementation of the powerful 68060 processor the new AMIGA models make a step ahead
into the leading group of todays microcomputer systems. The 68060 processor combines the powerful
functionality and instruction set of earlier 68k processors with a new superscalar architecture and adds
performance-boosting features like two parallel integer instruction units, larger data and instruction
caches of 8k size, a branch cache and pipelined write accesses. This all means a combination of the
industries most advanced technologies for processing performance enhancements.
While software compatibility with existing applications is fully maintained, more than 80 mips processing
power let real-world applications on the AMIGA perform competitively with other high end systems such
as Pentium and PowerPC based machines. In combination with the AMIGAs other architectural
advantages this makes a powerful system for all semi-professionals and professional applications,
perfectly suited for todays requirements for multimedia computing.
The figures shown here indicate the performance leap which the 68060 brings to the AMIGA. With speed
increases by a factor between 4 and 5 times over the performance of the original 68040 based AMIGA
systems which have been powerful machines already - time-consuming applications are dramatically
accelerated. These application benchmarks however still use unoptimized 68040 code which can be
accelerated another 1.5 times by simple optimisation to the 68060s special features, which is a most simple
task for software developers now that the 68060 is available.
The scaleable superscalar architecture also opens a wide future for options such as multi-processor
systems, which either combine multiple 68060 processors, or even integrate other CPUs into such a system
to build a most flexible computer system for many various tasks.
As a conclusion it can be said that the 68060 processor integrated into the AMIGA architecture offers true
workstation power. With this competitive performance and the full integration with the AMIGAs
architectural advantages the AMIGA will hold it's position as an outstanding multimedia computing
system.
So far the overview on the 68060 technology for the AMIGA. At the showroom, some 68060 based AMIGA
systems can be seen running common AMIGA applications, so you can get a personal impression of this
advanced technology. Thank you very much for your attention.

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]


Jon Bohmer
Founder of Scala, Vice President, New Business Development

Scala is in the business of computer televison: that is, using a computer to produce and distribute
television-type programming.
The company is one of the world's leading developers of computer-based television information
solutions and the undisputed leader in multimedia software for the Amiga platform. Available in eleven
languages, Scala's multimedia tools are distributed in more than 40 countries.
Scala was founded in Norway in 1987. Today we are headquartered outside Washington DC, with
international headquarters in Oslo and offices in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and
Sweden. Scala's team of software engineers includes most of the people who originally developed the
Amiga operating system for Commodore.
Our main products are Scala Multimedia, a software package for the production and playback of
multimedia presentations, interactive training applications, infotainment, and video titling; Scals
InfoChannel, for multimedia networking and information distribution; and Scala Interactive Television,
including software for the production of ITV content and the operating environment for satellite and
cable TV decoders.
All products share the Scala BackBone technology. This makes the software independent of hardware
platform and makes Scala solutions portable to multiple environments. BackBone includes MMOS,
which is an object-oriented operating system layer specifically developed for multimedia applications, and
ScalaScript which is the scripting language we seek to establish as the standard multimedia language of
the future.
Since the Amiga went out of production a year ago, Scala has seen a constant demand for Amigas, from
both new and experienced users. We are happy to see production resume, and to continue to support the
Amiga platform.
Together the Scala software technology and the Amiga hardware technology make up a powerful and cost
effective solution for everyone who needs a multimedia package for home or office use. No other
solution can match the price performance of the Amiga and Scala combination. We look forward to
working with the new Amiga Technologies company in order to provide ready-to-use solutions with
every machine.
Scala's good design has long been one of our strongest assets, and it is an acknowledgement of our
achievements that ESCOM has chosen one of our designers to create the new look for the new Amiga.
Editor's Contact:   Dag I. Danielsen, Information Manager
                   Scala, W. Thranesgt. 77, N-0175 Oslo, Norway
                   Tel. [phone]    Fax [phone]
                   Internet: [e-mail]

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]


Jeff Frank
Engineering and Manufacturing Amiga, Amiga Technologies GmbH

Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Jeff Frank and I have been retained by Amiga
Technologies GmbH to provide technical assistance with respect to Engineering and Manufacturing
Amiga related products. Previously, I have been with Commodore International Ltd. for nearly nine
years, primarily as Director of Engineering.
I am sure you are all as happy as I to hear that the "Amiga" is indeed alive and well!
Initially, most of our labors will be focused on resuming production of the A4000 Tower and A1200 class
products. In fact, the A4000 Tower will be much like a new product introduction, considering that
Commodore only ever built 1000 units. The A4000 Tower and A1200 will feature the AmigaDOS 3.1
Operating System which was not in wide release prior to Commodore's demise. We will also pursue both
tactical and strategic enhancements to the Amiga product line over the months and years to come.
Tactically, our first and perhaps the most obvious enhancement will be a 68060 processor upgrade to the
A4000 Tower. We also believe that a performance upgrade to the A1200 by moving from an EC020 to an
EC030 processor as well as built-in support for fast RAM capability is a logical step.
Strategically, we are looking into creating "Encapsulated Amiga Environments" or Emulations for the
IBM and Apple environments. Also, potential ports of AmigaDOS to non-Amiga platforms will be
assessed. We feel that this is a way we may help the Amiga Technology to permeate other Computing
Environments. We will also consider merging architectures of available RISC technologies and the Amiga
technology.

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]




Dr. Peter Kittel
Head of the Product Planning Group, Amiga Technologies GmbH

Ladies and Gentlemen,
As Head of the Product Planning Group of the new Amiga Technologies GmbH, I would like to give you
an overview about the past and the technical future in our view.
The company Commodore started in 1958 as a typewriter repair company followed by production of
electric typewriters, digital watches, calculators and video games. In 1977, there was launched one of the
first real desktop computers, the legendary PET 2001. It was followed by the CBM series, where the CBM
8032 dominated the German bureau market in 1980 and the following years, just before the breakthrough
of the IBM PC. These 8000 series had a reputation of being especially easy to use and to program and being
robust.
Simultaneously, Commodore started the Home Computer market in 1981 with the VIC 20, soon followed
by the C64. The C64 became the top-selling computer ever, its success and sold number is again only
comparable to the Volkswagen beetle. In this way, Commodore had generated two different markets
which complemented each other nicely.
The year 1985 brought great news. In spring, Commodore introduced the IBM-compatible PC 10, and in
July in New York during a gala show the Amiga.
Ñ The PC 10 succeeded to carry on the advantages of the 8000 series and at least in Europe to increase
the professional reputation.
Ñ The Amiga was far ahead of its time with its graphics and sound capabilities and got an euphoric
reception by the computer press. From its first days software and hardware vendors exploited the
special capabilities of the Amiga to display graphics, or also animated graphics, all accompanied by
synchronized sound. Only later the term "Multimedia" was invented for this, the Amiga did it
from day one.
The special capabilities of the Amiga are due to two aspects, its special hardware - the Custom Chips with
the familiar names Paula, Agnus and Denis - and on the other hand its Operating System. Looking back,
one can only admire how well suited for the future this unique operating system was designed in the
early 80's. As a result it offers still unmatched multitasking ability. The Amiga reacts immediately on
every user input and wastes no time for administrative tasks. Typically you can run several big app
lications in parallel, without noticing a slow down of any of them. This all while the Amiga uses its
resources like memory in RAM or on disk very efficiently, so that it appears always faster through this
aspect, and also doesn't stress the wallet of its owner in regards of big RAM or hardisks. A further feature
of the Amiga is its video compatibility by using scan frequencies typical for video, as well as its ability to
get genlocked. Every Amiga from the low-end to high-end provides this feature. Many video and TV
studios use the Amiga as an integral part of their equipment.
To show more concretely where the Amiga comes from, here is a picture of the genius behind the Amiga
Custom Chips, Jay Miner, who passed away last year.
The breakthrough for the Amiga came in 1987, when the first Amiga 1000 was followed by two successors,
the Amiga 500 as a dedicated home computer and the Amiga 2000 as a professional workplace computer.
The A500 became immediately the star of the home computer scene and dominated it for several years, so
that Commodore nearly gained a monopoly in this low-cost market. On the other end, the A2000 featured
the Open System Architecture, so that add-on vendors could offer everything from an external video digit
izer to a turbo board with a bigger processor. One other unique Amiga feature helped here, which is called
"AutoConfig". You can just plug in cards and don't need to bother for DIP switches or jumpers, a feature
that's only now slowly emerging as the "Plug&Play" also on PCs.
The year 1994 brought the breakdown of Commodore, after the financial reserves had been exhausted by
some fatal management decisions. The liquidators tried to sell the company, but only in spring 1995, on
the auction of April 20th and 21st in New York, the German company ESCOM won and took over
Commodore completely.
Under the wing of ESCOM AG, Amiga Technologies GmbH will concentrate exclusively on the Amiga, to
restart its production and develop it further.
The current Amiga generation offers a full palette from the absolute low-end - the multimedia game
console CD32 - over the full-featured home computer A1200 up to the high-end with the A4000 Tower.
Concurrent platforms try to state it as normal that you get a trade-off between enhanced features and
speed. But the Amiga shows that this has not to be the case for a really modern operating system. The
professionality of the Amiga's video features shows up frequently in the recent past, in that several TV
series in USA are now produced completely on Amigas for their video effect parts. Two examples are
SeaQuest DSV and Babylon 5.
After the takeover the new company is conscious of the necessity to further develop the Amiga platform,
as the competition has not stood still. The new Amiga company will therefore install an engineering
division that can make the transition into a new generation happen.
In the mid term future this will lead to stronger processors and otherwise enhanced versions of the
current models.
The big perspective for the future consists in a port of the Amiga architecture to a RISC platform, to assure
the awaited power for the future. The very first task of this new engineering division will be to prepare
this decision. Which of the concurring RISC platforms will be the optimum for the special case of the
Amiga, is no trivial decision. On one side, it is a goal to bring the Amiga nearer to the "Mainstream", so
that it becomes easier to port and run existing application programs. On the other hand, the future
computer should always remain recognizable as an "Amiga" that is not assimilated among an amorphous
mass of similar computers. The Amiga once started with far superior graphics and sound capabilities, and
should by all means regain this advantage.
To fulfill both requirements, there are currently two alternatives, the PowerPC and the HP PA RISC. Both
have advantages and disadvantages, and they will get thoroughly judged.
Concurrent with this, the operating system will have to get adapted to this new hardware platform, plus
will adapt to new requirements like 3D graphics, texture mapping, Object Oriented design and other
current technologies. This task will be not as difficult as some might suspect, as we can build on a basis
which was always designed with progress in mind. Let's look forward to a great future of the Amiga
architecture!

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]




Petro Tyschtschenko
General Manager, Amiga Technologies GmbH

Ladies and gentlemen,
As the General manager of Amiga Technologies GmbH, I would like to welcome you to the first press
conference of our new company and also tell you how much we appreciate your presence here.
At a spectacular auction five weeks ago in New York, ESCOM AG acquired the rights to the intellectual
property of the former Commodore company for 10 million dollars, including all trademarks, logos,
products and licenses.
Since the day we succeeded in buying the Amiga technology, many people have asked us how the future
will look for their computer of choice. We got floods of anxious faxes and letters to which we couldn't
give an answer at once because things were too early to comment. We will use the opportunity we have
now to talk you all of you and present the new ESCOM daughter company, Amiga Technologies. Some
leading developers of hardware and software for the Amiga as well as some of our new licensing partners
will present themselves and their projects to us.
To clear up things from the beginning - and that's the point you are all interested in - I want to make the
commitment that we are determined to resume production and also want to continue hardware and
software developmetn of what we believe is a superior technology. That's why we created Amiga
Technologies and we are now hiring the best and most capable people to accomplish this.
For a successful Multimedia company like ESCOM, the Commodore Patents and licenses concerning
Amiga are considered the key to multimedia technology. Mister Schmitt will say more about this later.
But let's concentrate on our immediate plans. As the director of Amiga Technologies my first priority
now is to resume production of Commodore and Amiga computers and bring them on the market as
soon as possible. For us, this means September 1995.
I would also like to refer to Commodore computers, Pentium PCs, which will be available in August this
year. These will be fully loaded P75 and P100 multimedia PCs. They will be assembled in our own ESCOM
facilities. We plan to sell between 50,000 and 60,000 units before the end of this year. Let me point out that
the Commodore and Amiga operations will be separate. Amiga Technologies will only take care of
Amiga, whereas ESCOM will provide Commodore PCs.
One month later, we will start producing the high-end multimedia Amiga 4000T. To succeed in keeping
that tight schedule, we negotiated with well known producers in Europe and Asia. For the selection of the
manufacturing partner, we will be empasizing the quality requirements.
Until the end of the year, we plan to produces enough machines to meet the demand. These machines are
already outsold in pre-orders. In October, the production of the low-end A1200 will begin. We expect to
ship enough units as well as CD32 game consoles to meet the Christmas season demand. Please give us
more time to publish quantities.
The takeover of the inventory, which is mainly composed of spare parts, in the UK and Germany is
completed. The rumoured stocks of new Amigas ready to be sold do not exist. For inventory in the
Phillipines, we are currently negotiating with the local trustees.
Ladies and gentlemen, the new Amiga Technology will now become the operating center of an
international Company held 100% by ESCOM AG. Our headquarters in Bensheim will employ around 50
people for following tasks: development, support to developers, resellers, end users, production
management, Marketing, PR and administration. We also took over the former Commodore
development center in Norristown, with its research and developmetn facilities. Eduard Goff, former
Vice President and General Counsel at Commodore now leads that center. He will talk to you later. Our
developers are now working on the next generation RISC based Amigas as well as on improving current
models. Here, we are working in a tight partnership with Scala and Motorola.
Amiga Technologies GmbH expects a turnover of 100 Mio DM in 1995, mainly from the Christmas
business with Amiga 1200, 4000 and CD32. Our monthly expenses are evaluated at around 600,000 DM.
The break-even point should be reached this year. We are confident that we will have rentabilized our 10
million dollar investment by spring 1996 with Amiga sales and licences.
I will be here again for further questions later this afternoon, but now let me introduce M Manfred
Schmitt, Chairman of the executive board at ESCOM.
Thank you.

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]



Dr. Hartmut Esslinger
Founder and president of frogdesign

Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen,
The 70's were the decade of marketing
the 80's were the decade of finance
the 90's will be the decade of design
Business Week Magazine 1990
Reading this quote from Business Magazine, New York, one may be inclined to look at design like a magic
medicine. I feel that the prominence of design today has more to do with market reality. Today, basically
great production and functional quality is plentiful technical performance is exchangeable, be it
computers, automobiles, TVs, clothing - basically it's all the same, the markets and product-features are
transparent like glass-houses, the customer knows nearly everything, even the margins lay in the open,
there is no feature the competition doesn't have very soon too, no major mechanical differentiation has
been left in High-Tech. Except innovative human culture adopting products to people's specific needs -
especially emotional ones, DESIGN, Integrated Strategic Design to be precise.
Our own market research shows us, that in the field of TEDology products, (Richard Wurman:
Technology-Entertainment-Design as the new global industry)
Ñ 10 years ago, 4 in 5 potential customers looked at technology and price and only 2 in 5 cared for
design, ease of use and ergonomics.
Ñ Today 4 in 5 potential customers make a buying decision based upon design but they also expect the
price to be about 30 percent lower than the "elite-design target-group" would have accepted 10 years
ago.
Design however is not defined by qualified esthetics alone, some people list design as a visible principle of
quality, some people define design still as a matter of prestige, and some just look at the level of
excitement design will provide. Design is becoming different, democratic, open, free. Design is reflecting
our open society: many dreams, many ideas, many truths. With design being considered a popular issue,
no artificial add-on is considered competent anymore, no stylistic exclusion of the masses for the benefit
for an elite will be tolerated. DESIGN is requested, feasible and available in what Alvin Toffler calls the
"individual mass product".
We all know what Commodore and Amiga meant as high-tech brands: Commodore was an affordable
way to get into personal computing, the first Amiga machine actually was created just one mile off my
house in Los Gatos - and personally I know some people who created the machine very well. But for some
not so trivial reasons, the brands were managed out of the market.
Now - after ESCOM acquired them - NOW
Ñ What will happen to the legendary brands?
Ñ What will be the future products?
Ñ How will they look and feel?
Ñ To whom will they appeal?
Ñ And will there be a new legend?
We have set you three goals:
Our new products will emerge from what Richard Wurman calls TEDology, or what Nicholas
Negroponte calls the new domaine of "creative digital life"
Technology
we will apply the best of Microsoft / Intel
we will apply the best of Macintosh / PowerPC
we will apply the hottest Technology in Games
and we will apply the newest in Digital Television, Audio and Video.
Entertainment
The new Commodore and Amiga products will be accessible by innovative and cultural software-
interface solutions, which will be easy-to-use and powerful tools. I personally feel that our new
products will create a new standard for people-oriented high-tech consumer products.
Design Our new products will be high-tech fashion statements, some will appeal to young people, as
statements of a new culture, some will appeal to women, emotional and elegant, some will
appeal to power-hungry web- surfers, some will appeal to machine-crazies, we will introduce
color on a bigger scale and we will create the opportunity of design-customization.
As we just started to conceptualise and design the new product lines, I cannot show you anything concise
or descriptive at this time, I only can explain our "way of design" a little bit and illustrate it with some
examples:
Ñ Historic frogdesign breakthroughs, which were then assumptions of the future or became huge
successes, changing high-tech into high-fashion.
And as I am also a teacher,
Ñ The way students look at the future, they will live in as designers soon too.
But you will not feel left out completely,
Ñ Because at the end of my short presentation, I will show you the new brand identities of
Commodore and Amiga and one short 3 second peek into the design-work under way.
Let me also remark shortly on the new way of doing business in computing, (which since about 20
years is at the center of my professional life): a life life it myself now for more than 20 years:
Ñ It is very competitive, but due to standards it's based on WIN-WIN
Ñ It is about working together, respecting people and nature
Ñ It is about building alliances rather than destructing common ground

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]



Bernard van Tienen
Head of Distribution, Commodore and Amiga Products

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
I'm delighted by today's announcement and confident of the significant benefits that it brings to
customers of Commodore, to our employees and, of course, to our new larger company.
I'd like to talk to you about how we are going to distribute Commodore products, and by that I mean both
the Commodore Intel Pentium and the Amiga Motorola based computers.
Distribution will be centralised in the Netherlands, where Commodore is based. Commodore products
will be distributed in Europe, whereas Amiga will be worldwide distributed. However, we are already in
the process of recruiting distributors for the Amiga range, and I'm sure we'll be able to give you more
details on this at a later date.
In Europe will be three main channels of distribution.
The first through retail via computer retail chains, brown goods chains, department stores and mail order
companies.
The second through a limited number of key distributors, the number will of course depend on the
country and type of distributor involved. And thirdly, for Amiga products only, through a range of
specialists distributors targeting the vertical markets of high-end Amiga products.
With our distribution in place, what can our customers and our distributors expect from Commodore?
Commodore's success will be based on the three principles: price competitiveness, sales & marketing
support and service.
When it comes to price, Commodore will benefit of the purchasing power of the Group. Commodore will
offer its retailers and distributors a full range of sales & marketing support. Commodore will implement a
Europe-wide training programme for distributors and sales staff, to promote a high level of technical and
product knowledge that will equip them to deliver the best advice to customers.
Good after-sales service is equally vital to Commodore's customers. As part of our philosophy to make
things as easy as possible for them, we introduce a range of service options. In summary, ladies and
gentlemen, we will provide clear channels of distribution for Commodore and with them an unrivalled
package of price, support and service. We will make a success of the still strong Commodore and Amiga
brands.

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]


A message of intent from Dr. Peter Kittel
Escom's new head of Engineering for the Amiga

From: [e-mail] (Dr. Peter Kittel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Amiga Resurrection
Lines: 99
Message-ID: ([e-mail])
Date: 7 May 95 23:33:30 MEZ
Organization: Private Site
Mr. Schmitt, Boss of Escom, has authorized me to publish the state of affairs.
Most important item first: I have my job, and it's the of the world-wide boss of engineering. Yes, I know, I
start into a very difficult task, as successor of real celebrities. OTOH I had eleven years time at Commodore
to study what is the wrong strategy and which leads to success. I will spend all effort to avoid these known
errors.
And now for the big picture: There will be founded a new, completely selfstanding daughter company of
Escom AG. It will have own rooms at an own address in Heppenheim. It will be the headquarter of the
new company, with control and coordination for the whole world. One subsidiary will exist in any case in
the Netherlands, and it will do Europe-wide distribution and sales. Further country subsidiaries are not
impossible. Yet there are no concrete decisions about UK, USA, and Canada in particular.
The new company is yet to be founded, but this is currently in the works with great effort. The name is not
yet decided, it will probably be something like "Commodore-Amiga" or "Amiga-Commodore" or the like.
This company will (at least for the time coming) care exclusively for the Amiga model palette.
As can be inferred from the first paragraph, there will be an engineering department, for hardware and OS
software. For this there exist already promising contacts with well-known and well-reputated names. Yet
there's no problem if someone feels obliged to send his resume (no email or fax, please) to
Escom AG
Personalabteilung
Tiergartenstr. 9
D-64646 Heppenheim
Germany
You see, we consider ourselves an international company. Of course we only want the best ones :-).
Further there will be a Support department which will do world-wide coordination, but also covers the
german area. Thus most of these people should be german-speaking. The Amiga Developer Support
Programm ADSP will get reactivated ASAP. About those developers currently using BIX or CIX, we have
not yet decided. These people should feel free to contact me directly at this private account (no company
one *yet* existing) and giving some input. In the past years there was a split among the developer
community into different communication channels. Thus no direct communication of the developers
among each other was possible, and for engineering this meant double work to explain the same issues
once on one net and then additionally on another net. We will do everything to avoid this nonsense in
future. There are big obstacles, as there are big cost differences in different regions of the earth, and
simultaneously a high degree of confidentiality has to be maintained. - Enduser support will happen
mostly in electronic form, via mailbox, Internet, and probably also Btx.
Of course there will be also a Marketing department and what is needed in admin. All together this will be
a rather slim company of ca. 50 people at first, but a further expansion is of course not impossible.
It is planned to restart production of the last current model palette, probably in full scale, but no guarantee
yet for this. Also of course not all models will appear at the same time again, one after the other. As Escom
has an own poweful casing production, they will perhaps get a redesign of their styling, in any case for the
A4000, but the hardware under the hood remains unchanged at first. First diverse contributing factories
on earth have to revive their production of parts. New developments would mean additional months of
waiting, before you could buy the products. That would be too big a sacrifice.
The direction of the new engineering department will definitely be the port to some RISC platform. The
choice of this RISC is still open. There are ecstatic advocats for at least two alternatives, PPC and HP PA
RISC. Chris Ludwig gave an interesting interview about this. It will be the first task of engineering to
prepare this choice of paths into the future with all possible expertise.
It has been decided to be very liberal in regards of licensing in the future. So, whoever wants to build e.g.
an Amiga Laptop or a set-top box, can get chips and OS!
As you all see, much of this is still a letter of intent. The points which are declared as still open are *really*
open, so there's no use in bombarding me with further questions.
As my work load, at least now in the building phase, will be immense, I can't guarantee my presence on
the net like before. But who knows me, knows that that would be most painful for me myself. So let's
look forward.
In the next weeks there will be press conferences to tell more and more details.
Long live the Amiga and for a good cooperation.
--
Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel       //
Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/  Email to: [e-mail]
Now re-employed at The New Commodore in Heppenheim, Germany
Stay cool, not cold (Cool bleiben, nicht kalt); H. J. Friedrichs

Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / [e-mail]



NIEUWS
10 MAY 1995
ESCOM ANNOUNCES UK's 'BIGGEST EVER' RETAIL LAUNCH
- 1000 jobs created by launch of Britain's biggest specialist PC retailer -
The UK's 'biggest ever' retail launch has been announced today (Wednesday 10 May) by ESCOM, the PC
retailer, following its takeover of the former Rumbelows chain in March.
The launch coincides with the opening of over 100 new ESCOM stores nationwide which, with a further
100 stores projected to open by the year end, will make ESCOM the UK's biggest specialist PC retailer. The
company's rapid expansion from 27 to over 200 stores will also create around 1000 new jobs resulting in a
major recruitment and training program.
As well as relaunching around 200 former Rumbelows stores, ESCOM has already begun to introduce
concessions in all the out-of-town Office World stores, which will be about 50 by the end of the year.
The ESCOM trading formula, which has already been highly successful in over ten European countries, is
based on offering both business and home PC users an unrivaled package of value for money, quality and
service. ESCOM's prices are currently 20 per cent below of our major competitors and, says the company,
its low cost structure and Europe-wide purchasing will enable it to sustain this position in all the markets
in which it operates.
'Missing link'
ESCOM's intention is to act the 'missing link' between British PC users and manufacturers, bridging the
often considerable gap between user needs and manufacturers' products.
"We earmarked the UK as a major opportunity because it is the second largest market in Europe, and one
with enormous potential," said Manfred Schmitt, president of the ESCOM Group.
"Currently PC ownership among British households is just under 15 per cent, leaving another 18 million
households who are potential first-time buyers. At one end of the supply chain are consumers who
suspect that computers could make their lives easier, more fun, more interesting but aren't quite sure
what they need or what they should buy.
"At the other end are manufacturers whose innovative products can do all those things for them. Our
'Easy ware' concept - the user-friendly way to choose a computer - is designed to appeal to personal users,
first time buyers and small businesses and aims  to create the 'missing link' between manufacture and
consumer, assessing each customer' s individual requirements and then providing the customer with the
least expensive solution."
An intensive staff training program has been implemented over the past two months to promote a high
level of technical and product knowledge among ESCOM's 450 retail staff to equip them to deliver best
advice to customers.
Retail outlets
Currently fewer than 20 per cent of all PCs in Britain are sold through retail outlets. In the United States
the equivalent figure is just under 50 per cent. ESCOM expects around 50 per cent of all PC sales to be via
retail by the end of the decade.
The trend, the company believes, will be driven by a number of factors, including the potential
opportunities from multimedia and the Internet which are creating increasing demand among former
'technophobes' and new computer users. Equally, younger consumers are growing up with computers as
an everyday fact of life. Increasingly, also, the demarcation line between business users and private
purchasers is becoming blurred, with many employees working partly or wholly from home.
All these trends, ESCOM believes, will fuel a major boom in high street sales of PCs and associated
software and services.
To support the launch ESCOM is mounting a ú6 million national and regional press advertising
campaign, badges on the theme 'the man from ESCOM, the man who knows', and the company will be
distributing 13 million copies of its PC Buyers Guide via newspaper and magazine inserts.
The company is also working with major regional business organizations to launch an awards initiative,
entitled the 'Budding Business Awards' designed to help smaller businesses overcome barriers to growth
by providing IT advice and support.
Our partners
The Launch is being supported by three of ESCOM's key suppliers - Intel, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
"The fact that these three leaders in our industry have chosen to associate themselves so closely with
ESCOM," says Manfred Schmitt, "is a reflection of the confidence we all share in the future of our
nationwide, dedicated PC retail operation. Together, we intend to offer British business and home PC
users an unrivaled package," he concluded.
Steve Poole, vice president sales and general manager Intel Europe added: "The PC industry has
experienced massive growth in the past few years, fueled largely by the aggressive improvements in value
for money offered by today's high performance PCs, especially those based on Intel's Pentium (R)
technology. Obviously, a major factor in this has been the dramatic increase in the number of specialist PC
outlets, bringing expert advice to the first time buyer or the less technically comfortable. This is especially
true in the US and Germany, where the PC retail sector accounts for some 40% of PCs sold. The UK's PC
retail sector provides a great opportunity for growth. With ESCOM's arrival on the high street, the UK PC
buyer has widespread access to a major European leading edge PC retailer."
Simon Dyson, director of Software, IBM UK said: "IBM is delighted to participate with ESCOM in their
impressive retail launch today, and in this opportunity to bring IBM Software products to the High Street.
ESCOM - in choosing to pre-load their PCs with our award-winning OS/2 WARP - reflect the worldwide
trend towards OS/2 WARP being the 32-bit operating system of choice. WARP has now sold over 2
million copies, and this association with ESCOM will add considerably to the rapidly increasing number of
PCs sold in Europe pre-loaded with WARP".
"Hewlett-Packard is delighted to be part of ESCOM's massive retail launch," said Geoff Nightingale, HP's
consumer products marketing manager. "We believe that ESCOM will play a significant part in
promoting our products into the home and small office markets. The launch is indicative of the
phenomenal growth that will come from changing work habits - the move from commuting to work to
working from home."


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