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Amiga1.iff: ---------- DRAFT DON GILBREATH SPEECH ESCOM PRESS CONFERENCE MAY 30, FRANKFURT Hello, my name is Don Gilbreath. I have 12 years' association with Commodore. I have worked in various capacities from engineering to technical sales and marketing. As a Director of Product and Market Development, I designed and managed among other products the team that brought CDTV to market. I am happy to be here today for the re-birth of Amiga. After spending some quality time with ESCOM management, I am convinced they possess the marketing finesse and strength to make Amiga successful into the 21st century. Currently, I am Chief Technical Officer for VisCorp, an interactive set-top box developer and application designer based in the United States. Our executive offices are in Chicago, and we have engineering teams based in West Chester, Pennsylvania and the Silicon Valley. VisCorp is the first company to be granted a license to use the Amiga technology in interactive set-tops. Before I explain why we believe Amiga is the right platform of choice for set-tops, let me explain the current landscape of North American set-top offerings. IT IS A MESS - MASS CONFUSION! Companies are scrambling, forming joint ventures for the purpose of joint ventures... Amiga2.iff: ---------- We are aware of some 40 set-top projects. Seventeen design wins alone are for Philips chip sets and an OS9 derivative (DAVID), the closest competition for an Amiga offering. Some of the other set-top projects (or camps) range from pure video game- based platforms such as Nintendo, Sony, and Sega to a multi-functino, cost prohibitive (in terms of memory) Microsoft-based platform as well as similar offerings from Apple, SUN, and Silicon Graphics. Amiga will find a home between these two ranges in terms of cost/features and the development community. There is another camp which tend to be as much of a *target* as a potential *partner* and include Scientific Atlanta and General Instrument. They are currently not as strong in computer technology as cable modems, video delivery, and authorization schemes. There is synergy and relationships will develop between Amiga and these two companies in particular. What is this set-top business all about? 1. Selling product - initial hardware sale/lease or licensing - the enabling technology. 2. Potential of ongoing revenues - hard goods, soft goods - providing movies, telephone service, and grocery shopping 3. Controlling transactions - classic gate keeper model. We need a consortium because the following is at stake: 1. Self-interest in semiconductors - hardware design win. 2. Operating system dominance - where applications reside. 3. Delivery system dominance - cable, teleco, radio, satellite, etc. 4. Development community - tools and understanding of next generation software. 5. Secure transactions - financial and developer community backed (musicians to software writers). To the customer, it must be friendly and secure. Amiga3.iff: ---------- Set-top world common goal: 1. Low cost - 2. Content rich - variety 3. Deploy a platform to meet the above parameters: Allow an upgrade path similar to a computer i.e. cable model du jour, MPEG audio/ video, etc., ISDN, wireless cable modems, etc. The confusion: 1% homes wired for 2-way high speed data... The confusion stems from how this magic, high-speed data arrives to the home: is it from a telephone, satellite, radio, cable, or some hybrid? In out model it does not matter. We have OEM activities today in all of these areas. Our present VisCorp model, which is in homes today under the guise of a market test, is a hybrid model utilizing both analog telephone and broadcast data video. When the cable modem and digital audio and video technologies settle, the federal laws may change as well. Our strategy is to deploy a product that is useful today but provides a migration path to this over-hyped, high-speed, low-cost world we don't live in. The current product: Over the past few years, we at VisCorp have been developing an Interactive set-top platform. The VisCorp product starts by converging the television set with the telephone. It converts the television set into an executive speakerphone with one-touch on-screen dialling and caller ID. It has built-in filters and font generators to convert on-line data services to text that is readable at standard television viewing distances. It has a built-in credit card reader and can support electronic directories, classified advertising, and catalog shopping applications. Other features include on-screen TV listings with one button recording capability, sending faxes and Amiga4.iff: ---------- Email, and accessing Internet and multi-participant games (thousands playing simultaneously) that in some cases are tied to live TV events with national scoring in place prizes and cash where legal. The VisCorp product is currently being tested on a cable system in a Detroit suburb where it is also supporting one-touch ordering of pay-per-view and access to local bulletin board service including restaurant reviews and local civic information. So this sounds like a great product. So why the Amiga? Is there something wrong? Absolutely nothing. It is our entry model, suitable today, and can be sold at retail 1995 for under $300 or the price of a feature-rich telephone, which it is. We have a custom chip program nearing completion that further cost reduces this product and enables further dimensions in interactive television in terms of the toy industry and education. The Amiga-based version will be our second model. We plan to embark on a crash program to further develop a chip set with our combined licenses and patented technologies with Amiga functionality. The combined Amiga/VisCorp interactive television platform will support all currently envisioned interactive applications with the exception of full motion video on demand and practical speed CD audio delivery. We do not think this is a handicap as a base case offering. Speciality markets or cable customers can be addressed with additional modules. We encourage an Amiga set-top consortium to be formed immediately. We believe a minimum base case design including encryption technology, if possible, would be supported by consortium members. Since this platform is destined for world markets, a software rating mechanism would include parental lockout of adult features and include reviews, top sellers, etc. This standard must be in place in a similar fashion to that of the movie and music industry, thereby freeing the software development community to treat it as a guaranteed publishing platform with secure distribution of content and payment. This device which many of us will build in various configurations will handle digitally secured conference calls to movies on demand. The hools must be in place. Thanks to ESCOM with the Amiga platform, we have an opportunity to change television. Amiga5.iff: ---------- Presentation at Amiga Press Conference May 30, 1995 --------------------------------------------------- Draft My name is Ed Goff. I'm a Philadelphia lawyer working with ESCOM and Amiga Technologies GmbH, on a wide variety of issues related to the re-launch 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 will be as open as possible, and which will therfore 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 electronic 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 at 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 arrangement is finalized. A second area of licensing that falls within our strategic framework for a more open Amiga is embedded technology. We are currently pursuing opportunities for licensing the Amiga technology or portions of it to enterprises in these industries who will embed 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 and 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 embedded 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 recognized 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 Amiga6.iff: ---------- licensing arrangements 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 licensees. At this point, I would like to ask for questions you may have on any of these areas. Thank you. Amiga7.iff: ---------- Speech W. Dietrich 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 today's 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 industry's 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 Amiga's other architectural advantages this makes a powerful system for all semiprofessional and professional applications, perfectly suited for today's 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 original 68040 based Amiga systems - which have been powerful machines already - time-consuming applications are dramatically accelerated. These application benchmarks, still use unoptimized 68040 code, which can be accelerated another 1.5 times by a simple optimization to the 68060's speacial features, which is a most simple task for software developers now that the 68060 is available. The scalable 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 Amiga's architectural advantages the Amiga will hold its 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 commong Amiga applications, so you can get a personal impression of this advanced technology. Thank you very much for your attention. Amiga8.iff: ---------- Scala, 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 oure 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. +47 22 36 13 38 Fax +47 22 36 13 84 Internet: Dag.Danielsen@scala.no Amiga9.iff: ---------- Presentation of Jeff Frank 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. Amiga10.iff: ----------- Dr Peter Kittel, 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. - The PC 10 succeeded to carry on the advantages of the 8000 series and at least in Europe to increase the professional reputation. - 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 applications 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 Amiga11.iff: ----------- 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 digitizer 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 Amiga12.iff: ----------- 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! Amiga13.iff: ----------- [same as Amiga9.iff] Amiga14.iff: ----------- [junk] Amiga15.iff: ----------- 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 conjuction with a modem to access online services and the worldwide Internet. ESCOM is providing that market with a wide palette of advantageously 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 ration. 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 smart resource sharing 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 inexpensive 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 Amiga16.iff: ----------- [same as Amiga15.iff] Amiga17.iff: ----------- and NTSC compatible, so it can just be plugged into a TV or any video monitor. A PC needs a conveter 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 Americal market, which is much more advanced than in Europe in this regard, we already have licence agreements with our partne 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 Tianjun 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 Amiga18.iff: ----------- 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 success story. Look at the structure and competencies we have built up in a short time. Thank you. The spoken word applies! Amiga19.iff: ----------- Petro Tyschtschenko 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 Mio $, 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. Amiga20.iff: ----------- 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 Amiga21.iff: ----------- 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 Mio $ 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. The spoken word applies! Amiga22.iff: ----------- Speech for ESCOM: new Commodore & AMIGA Prof. Dr. Hartmut Esslinger / frogdesign, Thu, May 25, 1995 Page 1 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) * 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. * 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, Amiga23.iff: ----------- 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 * what will happen to the legendary brands? * what will be the future products ? * how will they look and feel ? * to whom will they appeal ? * 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. Amiga24.iff: ----------- * 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: * 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, * the waystudents look at the future, they will live in as designers soon too. But you will not feel left out completely, * 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: * it is very competitive, but due to standards it's based on WIN-WIN * it is about working together, respecting people and nature * it is about building alliances rather than destructing common ground Amiga25.iff: ----------- Bernard van Tienen Commodore Press Conference Frankfurt 30 May 1995 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-ennd 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. Amiga26.iff: ----------- 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. Bernard van Tienen Member of the Executive Board ESCOM AG Bernard van Tienen is member of the executive board for ESCOM AG with responsibility for worldwide purchasing, ESCOM UK, Scandinavia, Belgium and The Netherlands. Before joining ESCOM, van Tienen founded a PC retail chain with 32 shops in The Netherlands, now part of the ESCOM group. Prior to this, van Tienen was Vice President of Commodore International and Divisional Director of Olivetti. Following today's (30 May 1995) announcement, van Tienen is also responsible for the distribution of Commodore and Amiga products.