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1995-01-03
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From: Betty Clay/SYSOP, 76702,337
To: ALL
Topic: Talk with D. Pleasance
Msg #163142
Section: Hot News and Rumors
Forum: Amiga User
Date: Fri, Sep 9, 1994, 12:34:21 PM
Here is an article that will appear in the next issue of the ICPUG Journal
in England, to be published in about two weeks. The JOURNAL is one of the
best technical journals for Commodore products still being published, and
I'm proud to write one of their regular columns.
ICPUG (Independent Commodore Products User Group) is the oldest and
largest computer user group in England, having celebrated the fifteenth
anniversary of their origin some time ago. The group is national, serving
all of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. There is a set of national
officers who conduct the overall business of the group, and local chapters
that hold regular meetings throughout the British Isles. The national
officers arrange booths at most major computer shows in England, and
provide support to users in many ways. John Bickerstaff, one of the
authors of this article, is Chairman of the national organization and of
one of the local groups as well. He and his wife, Janet, are also writers
of some note in England, having written for almost all of the English
magazines that publish articles about Commodore or Amiga computers.
Because of their positions of leadership in this large computer group,
they are personally acquainted with almost everyone connected with
Commodore products in the U.K., and are often able to arrange such
interviews.
COMMODORE - THE FUTURE
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID PLEASANCE
John and Janet Bickerstaff
Tuesday 6th September 1994. We arranged to meet David Pleasance, Joint
Managing-Director of Commodore, at the European Computer Trade Show in
London. This is what he had to tell us.
Management Buy-Out
We are, in fact, about two weeks behind what our schedule was. We had
planned to announce the successful management buy-out of the assets of
Commodore International and Commodore Electronics at the ECTS. The reason
why we are two weeks late is that two weeks ago Colin Proudfoot and I were
in New York with Coopers & Lybrand (who are acting for us), one of our
investment people, the Liquidator and the Liquidator's lawyers, for a
meeting which took approximately five hours, which you can take as a
positive sign that the Liquidator is taking us very seriously. The purpose
of that meeting was two fold. One was to
establish finally what can and cannot be delivered in terms of what is
available for sale. The second reason for the meeting was to determine
exactly how our bid was to be structured to make it easier for the
lawyers. To say that the situation with Commodore and all the
subsidiary companies is complex is a major understatement. All the
companies have cross-shareholdings and trading arrangements.
The net result is that we were told (and it came as a major surprise to
us) that the Liquidator could not, as previously promised, deliver to us
all of the component parts inventory which is currently in the
Phillipines, and that formed a very major part of our business plan to
enable us to bring products to market for Christmas.
That meant that we had to come back to the UK, get in touch with all the
component suppliers from around the world, find out whether they would
supply us, find out how much it would cost to get our product put to the
front of the queue, how much for air freight, work out how many machines
we can built and the profit on them. In other words we had to draw up a
completely new business plan in order to satisfy our investors, and that
we have done in just two weeks, but we are two weeks behind on what we had
originally planned.
Coopers & Lybrand have now drafted an unconditional draft agreement, which
is what the lawyers asked for, and that effectively says, this is our
offer, this is what we want and, subject to you delivering this to us, we
will pay you. That will be delivered to the Liquidator
today. We have put on the bid a validity period of ten working days to
come back with an answer.
However, life was never meant to be simple, the US courts have yet to
decide whether they wish to intervene. They have the option of letting the
Bahamas do it, doing it in conjunction with the Bahamas, or taking
it themselves, which is very unlikely. We should know within ten
working days from today whether we have got this or not. We are very
confident about it because we know that the other players are doing, but
nothing is certain in life.
Research and Development
The seventeen Commodore engineers currently residing in Norristown, US,
are extremely happy to work with us, and we have budgeted to
immediately take them back up to sixty/sixty-five people. The way that we
will run the R & D Centre is that there will be a team of about fifteen
people, who will be looking after current technology. Their role will be
to support existing products and to manufacture
derivatives, and new products from our present architecture. The
remainder will be working on new technology, and that is exclusively RISC.
We have canned that AAA project completely, and the reason is that
although the chips are virtually finished, there is no operating system,
and this would take eighteen months to bring to the market.
In addition, we will be bringing Chris Ludwig over to the UK
permanently, and he will head up a team of about twenty people whose sole
job in life will be to support developers. This will be a major step
forward to strengthen our relationship with the developers.
Within six months we will have development systems for the RISC
product and those systems will go selectively to the development
community. I intend to loan them the machines until they have
developed products and, when they start to sell these products, I expect
them to pay me for the machines. For the first time we will have
developers able to work on new software before the hardware hits the
market.
Current Technology
We intend to establish sub-license agreements with companies who make
third party products and who have ancillary products who are not in
competition with us. We have established a good relationship with NewTek
and Scala, and we intend to allow them to use our hardware in whatever
manner they see fit to sell more systems. We will be prepared to work very
closely with anybody who wants to develop third party peripherals that
will help us to sell Amigas, and that again is a complete change of
attitude from Commodore in the past.
Marketing
We expect to have products coming to market around the middle to end of
November and, because of the component part situation, we will have less
CD32s and A1200s that we wanted to meet demand, but we will major more on
A4000s. This gives us the opportunity in the UK to support the independent
dealers and we will feed them the bulk of the products and likewise in
European countries.
New Products - Amiga card for the PC
There will be no new products this side of Christmas for obvious
reasons. As soon after Christmas as we can, we will have the CD drive for
the A1200 and the expansion box for the CD32, and then within a few months
we will have new products using existing technology. One of those products
is almost certainly going to be an Amiga on a PC card. This will probably
be a sub-license deal with another manufacturer. This could be a very
substantial business because everybody who has a PC wants to turn it into
a multimedia machine and an Amiga on a card could be a very cost-effective
solution.
The Way Forward
We will be having a forum in the UK, and one in the US, very quickly after
we have got the company and that forum will basically be to talk with
everybody saying, look we have got a blank piece of paper, we can go in
any direction you like, tell us what you want so that we can all swim in
the same direction. This forum will be for anyone interested in the future
of the Amiga.
Change of Name
The company name will almost certainly be Amiga International and we will
not be using the name Commodore anywhere. The new company will be based at
Maidenhead. The products will be manufactured in the UK, possibly by ICL,
who can provide warranty and support.
Shows
We are doing the Motor Show. There is part of the Motor Show called Future
World and that is at the NEC at Birmingham from the 18th to the 30th
October. What they have got is the Motor Show, the Ideal Home
Exhibition, and Future World on at the same time. One ticket gets you into
all three shows. Future World contains a ride which was
manufactured for BMW for last year's Motor Show in Frankfurt. This ride
takes you through a series of shop windows with live people
working in them (a bit like the Epcot Centre). It carries two thousand
people an hour and we have a stand right where everybody gets off this
ride. 800,000 to a million visitors are expected at this show.
<continued>
From: Betty Clay/SYSOP, 76702,337
To: ALL
Topic: Talk with D. Pleasance
Msg #163143
Section: Hot News and Rumors
Forum: Amiga User
Date: Fri, Sep 9, 1994, 12:35:02 PM
We are also doing In the City, which is in a hotel in Manchester, and is
the music industry's main show of the year. There we are going for the
Guinness Book of Records. We are going to live record, and live video some
music artists, MPEG encode it, add some graphics, and
produce a CD in the fastest ever time.
The Future Entertainment Show is at the same time as the Motor Show, but
we may try to support it. The World of Amiga Show is at Wembley on the
9th, 10th and 11th December and there will be an User Group area.
In Conclusion
It is most important for people to know that the Amiga is saved.
Twelve weeks ago we had not even mounted a management buy-out and it is an
amazing thing that we have put together. We intend to strengthen our
support for user groups like ICPUG - why re-invent the wheel?
---Betty
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