from the Internet IRC escom confernece on
30th May 1995 - It was hard work snapping
this line by line ya know!

Zool     : Today, Escom held a press conference on their plans for the Amiga.
           Trifid was at the conference, and he is going to be kind enough
           to fill us in on what happened.  Thanks to Jason Compton and
           HammerD for helping me out with this conference.

Zool     : Also, read Amiga Link Magazine to get a copy of the trancipt of
           this conference.

Zool     : Now, I'll turn this over to Trifid, who was reporting for my
           magazine, Amiga Link.  Trifid?

Trifid   : first of all: please excuse my crippled english :) okay, lets
           start:

Trifid   : A4000 production starts september/october. there are 15.000
           A4000/040 and 10.000 A4000/60 planned.

Trifid   : The 060 version is a "normal" A4000 with a licensed cyberstorm
           card (phase5) in it.

Trifid   : Those A4000 will have a completely new outfit. This outfit is
           made by Bjorn Rybakken.

Trifid   : A1200 production will start in september as well. escom plans to
           sell 120.000-130.000 units in 1995.

Trifid   : We don't see any new CD32 in 1995. Production will start at the
           beginning of 1996 if everything goes well. This new CD32 will
           have a new outfit as well. There was nothing said about a new
           hardware in it!

Trifid   : "Amiga Technologies" expects a turnover of 100.000.000 DM in
           1995. wait a second...

Trifid   : Every new amiga comes with a SCALA MM 300 bundle from now on!

rauper   : explain MM 300 ...

Trifid   : Monthly costs for amiga technologies are approx. DM
           600.000/month. the break even point should be reached this year.

Trifid   : Multimedia 300 (scala product).

Trifid   : There is no decision made about the CPU in new Amiga models yet.

DarkUni  : MM300 Is a multimedia authoring system that is used by lots of
           cable companies and even hotels

Trifid   : production of C64s in china started 5 years ago! but GATT forces
           the manufactureres to pay a licence for it.

Trifid   : VisCorp is the first company who has been granted a licence of
           amiga technology. (for the AA chipset i think, but i'm not sure
           about this)

jcompton : Yes.  Viscorp will use parts of the AGA chipset in their
           interactive TV unit. As well as the Amiga OS.

Trifid   : there is an interesting part left.

Trifid   : petro tyschtschenko (amiga technologies) said: " I would also
           like to refer to commodore computers, pentium pcs, which will be
           available in august this year. theses will be fully loaded p75
           and p100 multimedia pcs.

Trifid   : they will be assembled in our own escom facilities.

Trifid   : we plan to sell between 50.000 and 60.000 units before the end
           of this year.

Trifid   : let me point out that the commodore amiga operations will be
           separate, amiga technologies will only take care of amiga,
           whereas escom will provide commodore PCs.

Trifid   : one month later, we will start producing the high-end multimedia
           amiga 4000T

Trifid   : to succeed in keeping that tight schedule, we negotiated with
           well known producers in europe and asia.

Trifid   : for the selection of the manufacturing partner, we will be
           emphasizing the quality requirements.

Trifid   : until the end of the year we plan to produce enough machines to
           meet the demand.

Trifid   : here was nothing said about pricing at all.

Trifid   : mr. schmidt only said "we'll make a competitive price" (and he
           was smiling happily) :))

Trifid   : these machines are already outsold in preorders!

Trifid   : 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 (mr. schmidt said that the new
           CD32 would take until the beginning of 1996).

Trifid   : the takeover of the inventory which is mainly composed of spare
           parts, in the UK and gemany is completed.

Trifid   : the rumoured stocks of new amigas ready to be sold do not exist!

Trifid   : headquarter: Bensheim, employeed: 50 people for development,
           support to devs, resellers, and users.

Trifid   : production management, marketing, pr and administration.

Trifid   : "we also took over the former commodore development center in
           Norristown, with its research and development facilities."

Trifid   : Eduard Goff, former Vice President and General counsel at
           Commodore new leads that center.

jcompton : This does not exactly ring true...but I'll explain later.

Trifid   : our developers are now working on the next generation RISC based
           amigas as well as on improving current models.

Trifid   : here, we are working in a tight partnership with SCALA and
           MOTOROLA.

Trifid   : amiga techn. GmbH expects a tornover of 100mio DM in 95, mainly
           from the christmas business (A1200, A4000, CD32) We are
           confident that we will have rentabilized our 10 Mio $ investment
           by spring 1996 with Amiga sales and licenses.

Trifid   : well, that's it.