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{subhead}Executive Update, Part 1{def}{p}
Article by Amiga
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March 10, 2000
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Dear Friends:
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With all of the continuing rumors out there, one would think that we
were gone, or just spending the money that we raised on homes in
Hawaii, or doing nothing.
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I can assure you that this is not the case.  As mentioned in the
previous update, if you do not read it here do not believe it.
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This months letter is going to be a long one, and I apologize in
advance for the length.  There is a lot of information here so take
your time. Recently I received an e-mail message that brought to my
attention a sad reality.
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When Gateway purchased Amiga in 1997 they made many promises, and in
fact there were 6 different product announcements during their
tenure.  I was involved with two of them, QNX, and Linux.
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While I believed that we were going to deliver on the two product
versions that I was involved in, they did not materialize, and it has
hurt many of you.  The decisions to change or alter either of these
announcements was not mine, but I was a part of the team that was
involved in both.  For this I am very sorry.
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It is because of the reasons mentioned above that I promised not to
say anything or announce anything until it was done, and ready. I
know that this is difficult, especially with the number of great
people and Amiga companies who are feeling the continued strain, but
I did not want to have us all go through any more false starts, and
undelivered dreams.
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April 1, 2000 is the date, and St. Louis is the place.  This is the
first opportunity for “your” Amiga company to present, demonstrate,
speak, and see the first product to come out of Amiga – The new
Developer System.   In fact one lucky show attendee will win one of
these systems. With all of the above said; Another month, and a great
deal of work has been completed.  Many of you believe nothing is
happening, I can assure you that a great deal has been occurring.
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Amiga, So the World May Know.
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There have been some great new hires, many new partnerships and great
progress as we are moving forward. There is more information about
them mentioned below.
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{subhead}{center}Partnerships{def}
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{center}{bold}Tao-Group{nobold}
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The first of course was the announcement with Tao-Group which has
been moving along great. In St. Louis we will be showing the first
round of the Amiga/Tao system. There is a great deal of work to be
done, but we are far enough along to launch the new developer system
for Tao at the show.
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{center}{bold}Haage & Partner{nobold}
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We have entered into a long term relationship with H&P that will
provide API’s and a path towards to the future OS.  This includes new
updated versions of Storm IDE. They have also committed to porting
all of their software to the new platform. We are also excited to
work with H&P on a new version of the WarpOS that will allow the new
Amiga to run on PPC accelerator cards.  This means that an Amiga that
has a PPC card running WarpOS will be able to run the new Amiga on
that card!  That's right.  The new Amiga running on the current
A1200s!
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More on H&P will become public as we continue to move forward and
work through the testing programs.  We are very excited about this
relationship.
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{center}{bold}Hyperion{nobold}
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Hyperion and Amiga have entered into an agreement for the porting of
the existing and new games to the new Amiga.  This along with the
great work that Ben and his team have done in working on a new 3D
gaming engine for the new Amiga.  They have been working very closely
with the Amiga development team and Tao-Group to make the development
of games for the Amiga a cut above the rest.  We are very pleased to
be have them as members of the new team.
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{center}{bold}Epic Marketing{nobold}
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Thomas Steiding has been a great supporter from the beginning.  Epic
has announced that not only will they be making their games available
on the new system, but that they have secured the rights for many new
games. More on Epic with a follow on announcement later.
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There are many more partnerships that will be revealed in St. Louis
with even more exciting news.
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{subhead}{center}E-Mails{def}
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Where to start.  I continue to receive hundreds of e-mails everyday,
and while I am not the only one on the team who seems to be living on
e-mail, we have not been able to answer as many as we would like. We
are listening, and working on many of your comments.  Here are some
of your concerns and what we have been doing to help:
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Phase 5 and their recent changes. 
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We have been in contact with Mr. Thomas Dellert, and Mr. Stefan
Domeyer, and we are working with both DCE, and Met@box to provide
solutions for the Amiga market and we expect some great news soon.  I
can say that the conversations have been going very well, and we look
forward to working towards an exciting future with both of these
companies.
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One of the key benefits with the relationships that we have been able
to strike with both of these firms is their long term commitment to
Amiga.
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According to our initial conversations, and project plans we are
working to ensure that the new Amiga will run on both of the PPC
boards supplied by these companies.
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We will be providing more detail in product announcements from both
firms.
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Dealer and distributors have been contacting us about their current
situations and future plans. 
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In response to the many requests we have created the Amiga Dealer
Network, or A D N.  Randy Hughes our VP of Sales (more about him
later) sent out an e-mail message to over 300 dealers, and the
response has been fantastic. Many dealers are ready to begin
carrying the Amiga again, and more are very excited about the
future.  The A D N is a way for us to better communicate our plans,
hear concerns, and work together to create a stronger Amiga.  As I am
sure that you will see there are great things to come from the A D N.
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Remember that we plan on being able to run the New OS on PPC boards. 
Does your machine support that option?
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{subhead}{center}Developers and the future development plans.{def}
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Training sessions at Tao-Group have been continuing for some months
now, and we have a better relationship today than when we started,
and we are more convinced than ever that our decision was the right
one. There will be opportunity in St. Louis for others to see the
Tao-System at work, and we look forward to seeing all of you there.
We also will be having a developer meeting in St. Louis on March 31st
at 7:00pm. This is a developer only meeting, and we will be giving
information about the hardware, software tools, and the developer
support program. We know that there is going to great interest in
this seminar to plan ahead and get there early as space is limited.
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Please check the St. Louis show site, and the Amiga sites for more
information.
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{subhead}{center}Communication with the Amiga Community.{def}
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We have contracted with Equinox Design to create the new Amiga
World newsletter. This will be available for free to all of the
Amiga community. Initially this will be made available via the
Internet from our new website and then (if demand merits) we will
make a printed version.
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This is not in anyway in competition with the existing Amiga
publications that currently are in print.  This instead is targeted
as a newsletter designed as a vehicle to help the community
communicate better together. The Editor of Amiga World is Fletcher
Haug, the former Editor and Publisher of the Amiga Informer.  The
first edition should be available within the first two weeks of
April. There are no advertisements, and we are using this as another
method to get information out to all of you, and to help the
publications that we have today.
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{subhead}{center}More Communications with the Amiga Community.{def}
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As mentioned in the past update, I have reactivated the AAC.  There
have been some great discussions and great ideas to come out of the
conversations to date, and they will be a great help in the future as
we move forward.  The members of the AAC are:
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Christoph Dietz{p}
Carsten Schroeder{p}
Coner Kerr{p}
Andrew Elia{p}
Bill Panagouleas{p}
Craig Delahoy{p}
Ben Vost{p}
Wayne Hunt{p}
Don Hicks{p}
Goetz Ohnesorge{p}
Gary Peake{p}
Kermit Woodall{p}
Holger Kruse{p}
Thomas Frieden{p}
Juergen Haage{p}
Thomas Raukamp{p}
Heinz Wrobel{p}
Wayne Martin{p}
Thomas Svenson{p}
Jeffery Rose{p}
Randhir Jesrani{p}
Trish Zlotek{p}
Tom Lively{p}
Cade Hannan{p}
Luca Danelon{p}
Guenter Horbach{p}
Ian Greenaway{p}
David Law{p}
Paul Lesurf{p}
Bill McEwen{p}
Christian Kemp{p}
Basil Flinter
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We will soon be reactivating their aac.amiga.com mail accounts.
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{link fe8}On to Part 2{end}