| May 1999 |

Greetings to all of you, folks!

Its been along time since we could speak over the leadership of our mother company. First, they gave us nothing to talk about and secondly one could hardly talk about the subject without breaking out in tears slamming your fist on the table or drowning in a large beer mug (dependent upon ones mood and temperament). Has anything changed? Even our beloved Petro gives often cause for anguished complaints, and the Yanks have done nothing but cause us to pull our hair out by the roots, or so it would appear.

But lets check out The People Behind Amiga

At one time there was only Nicole Gottfried, who knew all of her customers personally, listed as official spokesperson. Had we really grown so small? Now, there are again more. As we direct our attention to these new additions we realize with certainty how in truth Amiga has changed into a company we can no longer complain about.

Have they finally figured it out? Do they now know what an Amiga is and should be? And have we, as end users, finally been noticed? Has someone finally noticed how Petro, with nothing in his hands, has managed to keep the name Amiga alive, in spite of having nothing to sell?

It does give one cause to think (although this time in a positive way) that at one time the people who have bought there way in, were previously well known far earning their daily bread in small but rather interesting companies. Jim Collas, who is now the designated leader of the entire Amiga group, founded in 1987 a small firm of the name Anigma, Inc., who produced from product inception through production complete motherboards and other customer specified products. Perhaps we don't have to leave our special hardware and precious coprocessing chips if the good Jim himself has produced hardware, programmed video games, and after that acquired a masters degree in electronics.

A bit less well known man is our charming associate, Richard LeFaivre. His list of previous experiences is splattered throughout the who-is-who in the computer industry. he previously worked for SGI, Sun, and Rutgers University in New Jersey. He has his degree in Mathematics and Computer Science. Maybe he won't really be needed as chief technician with his many projects and diverse committees.

What remains? Coming from both the land of burgers and Cokes as well as Germany are 14 additional people. Among these there are many well known names from previous shows and exhibits such as Jeff Schindler and Bill McEwen. Axel Kraemer is also not exactly unknown to us.

But will it work? For that we can, as before, only "wait and see." But don't look for me to rain on this parade. They are doing well; and when this fall in Cologne we see OS 3.5 perhaps no one will rise from their chair, but we will no longer have to knock around a five year old operating system. So people, off to the key boards and let our friends celebrate with us!

Oliver Gerler
Tom Lively