Amiga

1. Open Letter To The Community by Jim Collas

June 8, 1999

Dear Amigans,

Ted Waitt was recently interviewed by Guardian Online about Gateway's plans in general. There was also a question specifically about Gateway's plans for Amiga that Ted answered as follows: "we've had a group of people working on leveraging the Amiga assets into an appliance strategy for us. How well that works out, I don't know: it will be interesting to see. There are some great assets there. It's definitely not a computer business.” This comment has obviously spurred many responses from the Amiga community. I want to assure people that this doesn't reflect a shift in our Amiga plans. We have not changed our plans to release a next generation Amiga multimedia computer. I have described the new multimedia computer and how it integrates into a full "information appliance" environment in my May letter to the community posted on our web site. Please read the May letter, as it will help you understand Amiga's product strategy.

Ted's comments refer to Gateway's product plans for using the Amiga technology. Gateway's main interest in the next generation Amiga technology is for the emerging information appliance market. Gateway's focus on Internet connected information appliances is justifiable given the extremely high potential of this market and it's threat to the PC industry. Prominent Industry analysts have called information appliances "the next Internet wave” and "one of the most exciting opportunities of the new millennium.” By the year 2002, it is forecasted that information appliance shipments will surpass PC shipments and there will be more information appliances connected to the Internet than PCs. If I were CEO of Gateway, this would also be one of my primary areas of focus. But I am not CEO of Gateway. I am CEO of Amiga and I don't want to confuse Gateway's plans with Amiga's. There is a significant overlap in our plans but there is a difference in focus. I have been empowered by Ted to drive Amiga as an independent company with it's own strategy and plans. This will eliminate a major challenge that has held Amiga back for many years. The challenge of getting the proper attention and priority from large corporate parent companies which are focusing on their core business.

Regarding Amiga's strategy, I have mentioned many times that Amiga will use the immense emerging information appliance market to build momentum for our next generation architecture. This is why we have come up with an architecture that integrates the power of multimedia computing into a full home computing environment that includes information appliances. This is a revolutionary architecture and computing environment for the future that combines power and simplicity. It is a powerful plan that gives Amiga a great chance of rising again as a significant force in the industry. On my trip to Germany and the U.K. last month, I presented details of the architecture and plans to a small group of prominent people in the Amiga community. I did this confidentially to get some feedback and validation on our plans. Once people understood exactly what we were doing, the feedback was very positive and people were excited about the revolutionary new architecture. Personally, I am extremely excited about sharing details of the new Amiga architecture with the community as a whole but we are still in a very sensitive stage relative to competition and technology partners. I know this is frustrating to the community since you have waited so long for a next generation product. We will continue to share as much information as possible when it is appropriate.

I hope this letter clarifies Ted's statements on Gateway's use of Amiga technology. I will continue communicating as much as possible. You can expect to see my June letter to the community in a few weeks. I promise you that 1999 is going to be a great year for Amiga and the Amiga community. Keep the momentum going as we come back for the future.

Sincerely,
Jim Collas
President and CEO, Amiga