#Titel Forum / Aktuell / Talk with D.Pleasance #Logo gadget16:pinsel/AG.Aktuell #Font topaz 8 #C10 Sb: Talk with D. Pleasance Fm: Betty Clay/SYSOP 76702,337 #C21 Here is an article that will appear in the next issue of the ICPUG Journal in England, to be published in about two weeks. The JOURNAL is one of the best technical journals for Commodore products still being published, and I'm proud to write one of their regular columns. ICPUG (Independent Commodore Products User Group) is the oldest and largest computer user group in England, having celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of their origin some time ago. The group is national, serving all of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. There is a set of national officers who conduct the overall business of the group, and local chapters that hold regular meetings throughout the British Isles. The national officers arrange booths at most major computer shows in England, and provide support to users in many ways. John Bickerstaff, one of the authors of this article, is Chairman of the national organization and of one of the local groups as well. He and his wife, Janet, are also writers of some note in England, having written for almost all of the English magazines that publish articles about Commodore or Amiga computers. Because of their positions of leadership in this large computer group, they are personally acquainted with almost everyone connected with Commodore products in the U.K., and are often able to arrange such interviews. #Seitenende #Font Losse 16 #C31 COMMODORE - THE FUTURE INTERVIEW WITH DAVID PLEASANCE #Font topaz 8 John and Janet Bickerstaff #C10 Tuesday 6th September 1994. We arranged to meet David Pleasance, Joint Managing-Director of Commodore, at the European Computer Trade Show in London. This is what he had to tell us. #Seitenende #C31 Management Buy-Out #C21 We are, in fact, about two weeks behind what our schedule was. We had planned to announce the successful management buy-out of the assets of Commodore International and Commodore Electronics at the ECTS. The reason why we are two weeks late is that two weeks ago Colin Proudfoot and I were in New York with Coopers & Lybrand (who are acting for us), one of our investment people, the Liquidator and the Liquidator's lawyers, for a meeting which took approximately five hours, which you can take as a positive sign that the Liquidator is taking us very seriously. The purpose of that meeting was two fold. One was to establish finally what can and cannot be delivered in terms of what is available for sale. The second reason for the meeting was to determine exactly how our bid was to be structured to make it easier for the lawyers. To say that the situation with Commodore and all the subsidiary companies is complex is a major understatement. All the companies have cross-shareholdings and trading arrangements. The net result is that we were told (and it came as a major surprise to us) that the Liquidator could not, as previously promised, deliver to us all of the component parts inventory which is currently in the Phillipines, and that formed a very major part of our business plan to enable us to bring products to market for Christmas. That meant that we had to come back to the UK, get in touch with all the component suppliers from around the world, find out whether they would supply us, find out how much it would cost to get our product put to the front of the queue, how much for air freight, work out how many machines we can built and the profit on them. In other words we had to draw up a completely new business plan in order to satisfy our investors, and that we have done in just two weeks, but we are two weeks behind on what we had originally planned. Coopers & Lybrand have now drafted an unconditional draft agreement, which is what the lawyers asked for, and that effectively says, this is our offer, this is what we want and, subject to you delivering this to us, we will pay you. That will be delivered to the Liquidator today. We have put on the bid a validity period of ten working days to come back with an answer. However, life was never meant to be simple, the US courts have yet to decide whether they wish to intervene. They have the option of letting the Bahamas do it, doing it in conjunction with the Bahamas, or taking it themselves, which is very unlikely. We should know within ten working days from today whether we have got this or not. We are very confident about it because we know that the other players are doing, but nothing is certain in life. #Seitenende #C31 Research and Development #C21 The seventeen Commodore engineers currently residing in Norristown, US, are extremely happy to work with us, and we have budgeted to immediately take them back up to sixty/sixty-five people. The way that we will run the R & D Centre is that there will be a team of about fifteen people, who will be looking after current technology. Their role will be to support existing products and to manufacture derivatives, and new products from our present architecture. The remainder will be working on new technology, and that is exclusively RISC. We have canned that AAA project completely, and the reason is that although the chips are virtually finished, there is no operating system, and this would take eighteen months to bring to the market. In addition, we will be bringing Chris Ludwig over to the UK permanently, and he will head up a team of about twenty people whose sole job in life will be to support developers. This will be a major step forward to strengthen our relationship with the developers. Within six months we will have development systems for the RISC product and those systems will go selectively to the development community. I intend to loan them the machines until they have developed products and, when they start to sell these products, I expect them to pay me for the machines. For the first time we will have developers able to work on new software before the hardware hits the market. #Seitenende #C31 Current Technology #C21 We intend to establish sub-license agreements with companies who make third party products and who have ancillary products who are not in competition with us. We have established a good relationship with NewTek and Scala, and we intend to allow them to use our hardware in whatever manner they see fit to sell more systems. We will be prepared to work very closely with anybody who wants to develop third party peripherals that will help us to sell Amigas, and that again is a complete change of attitude from Commodore in the past. #Seitenende #C31 Marketing #C21 We expect to have products coming to market around the middle to end of November and, because of the component part situation, we will have less CD32s and A1200s that we wanted to meet demand, but we will major more on A4000s. This gives us the opportunity in the UK to support the independent dealers and we will feed them the bulk of the products and likewise in European countries. #Seitenende #C31 New Products - Amiga card for the PC #C21 There will be no new products this side of Christmas for obvious reasons. As soon after Christmas as we can, we will have the CD drive for the A1200 and the expansion box for the CD32, and then within a few months we will have new products using existing technology. One of those products is almost certainly going to be an Amiga on a PC card. This will probably be a sub-license deal with another manufacturer. This could be a very substantial business because everybody who has a PC wants to turn it into a multimedia machine and an Amiga on a card could be a very cost-effective solution. #Seitenende #C31 The Way Forward #C21 We will be having a forum in the UK, and one in the US, very quickly after we have got the company and that forum will basically be to talk with everybody saying, look we have got a blank piece of paper, we can go in any direction you like, tell us what you want so that we can all swim in the same direction. This forum will be for anyone interested in the future of the Amiga. #Seitenende #C31 Change of Name #C21 The company name will almost certainly be Amiga International and we will not be using the name Commodore anywhere. The new company will be based at Maidenhead. The products will be manufactured in the UK, possibly by ICL, who can provide warranty and support. #Seitenende #C31 Shows #C21 We are doing the Motor Show. There is part of the Motor Show called Future World and that is at the NEC at Birmingham from the 18th to the 30th October. What they have got is the Motor Show, the Ideal Home Exhibition, and Future World on at the same time. One ticket gets you into all three shows. Future World contains a ride which was manufactured for BMW for last year's Motor Show in Frankfurt. This ride takes you through a series of shop windows with live people working in them (a bit like the Epcot Centre). It carries two thousand people an hour and we have a stand right where everybody gets off this ride. 800,000 to a million visitors are expected at this show. We are also doing In the City, which is in a hotel in Manchester, and is the music industry's main show of the year. There we are going for the Guinness Book of Records. We are going to live record, and live video some music artists, MPEG encode it, add some graphics, and produce a CD in the fastest ever time. The Future Entertainment Show is at the same time as the Motor Show, but we may try to support it. The World of Amiga Show is at Wembley on the 9th, 10th and 11th December and there will be an User Group area. #Seitenende #C31 In Conclusion #C21 It is most important for people to know that the Amiga is saved. Twelve weeks ago we had not even mounted a management buy-out and it is an amazing thing that we have put together. We intend to strengthen our support for user groups like ICPUG - why re-invent the wheel?