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        AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc.
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990914

      H E ' S   D E A D ,   J I M   C O L L A S . . . M A Y B E
               {See Editor's Thoughts and Introduction}

            T H E   P R E S I D E N T   S P E A K S . . .

                    A N   A L T E R N A T I V E ?

Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:

 We present the much anticipated statement from the new President of
Amiga below. Frankly, we're not sure what to make of it and will
withhold most of our comments for a few days to think it over. Our
first thought, in all honesty, is a question: if the Amiga isn't a
"box" or an operating system, what, exactly, is left? Clearly, this
statement tells us there will not be a computer from Amiga. We never
expected them to make many, but we did expect them at least to control
hardware specs for a new machine, based on recent developments. An
Internet Appliance server for the home if nothing else. Also, we
expected the same control for an operating system, not just something
to run on top of other operating systems (Windoze? NT? Mac? Solaris?)
also based on recent developments. Our second thought is another
question: what is the cost of a good Dell computer running Linux? Our
third thought: are we being too hasty in seeing only negatives here?
Is there a real vision spelled out here which could, in fact, be the
next real Amiga? That IS a possibility ... I think ...
 We like to give everyone a fair chance. So, you'll get a real
editorial in the near future, after we digest this, but not tonight.
However, we bring you a second story that may be of interest to some.
 Nothing seems to come easily for us, does it?
 Brad Webb,
 Editor
----------------------------------------------------------------------

            T H E   P R E S I D E N T   S P E A K S . . .

September 14, 1999


TO: THE AMIGA COMMUNITY

 Thanks for your notes and comments about our plans for Amiga. In the
past couple weeks, we've received hundreds -- if not thousands -- of
emails and messages from loyal Amigans worldwide, many of you
expressing a concern about Amiga's future based on recent reports in
the media and in numerous chat rooms. I am so impressed with the
spirit and passion of this great community and I wanted to make sure I
told you that.

 The fact is... to borrow from Mark Twain... the reports of Amiga's
death have been greatly exaggerated. To that end, I wanted to provide
a little more detail about our plans for Amiga... both as a product
and as a company, and hopefully clear up any confusion that exists.

 First, I hope you'd agree that Amiga was never about a box. It was
never about an operating system either. Sure those things were part of
what made the original Amiga great, but at its heart, Amiga was simply
about a better way. Amiga was ahead of its time. Amiga promised to
change the world. It ran against conventional wisdom and was better
than anything out there at the time. In fact, we could all argue that
it's still better than anything out there.

 The ideals and spirit of that original Amiga are alive and well
today. But to limit Amiga to just one box, one product, one OS, is to
keep Amiga from ever seeing its full potential. Think about it.... The
original Amiga never did really reach its full potential despite its
technical advantages and its cost and ease of use advantages. Why?
Because it never became ubiquitous. The company's early vision was
probably too limited for the vast potential that Amiga offered.

 The original Amiga was all about multi-media, so why not have Amiga
running on every type of device imaginable, on top of every other OS
out there? That's the beauty of Amiga and where we are as an industry.
We're in the midst of a revolution unlike anything the world has seen,
and Amiga has never been better positioned to change that world and
make a bigger impact. Limiting Amiga to just one box and one OS at
this point would be like offering the world a better horse and
carriage at the dawn of the automotive age. Amiga and its
revolutionary spirit deserve better than that. Amiga is going to
produce software technology that will enable Internet services on an
emerging category of products commonly referred to as "Information
Appliances". It is an exciting new mega trend in the industry and we
are excited about being at the forefront of this next great wave in
computing history. In addition, we have decided to work with business
partners who will deliver our software technology on their systems,
rather than enter the hardware business directly.

 So long live Amiga, but if you think that Amiga was just a box,
you've missed the point. Amiga is about a better way. In the coming
weeks and months, we promise to keep you posted on progress against
our plans for Amiga, and we thank you for your continued support.
Let's work together to enable Amiga to revolutionize the industry and
change the world!

Long live Amiga,


Thomas J. Schmidt
President & C.E.O.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

                     A N   A L T E R N A T I V E ?

14 Sept., 1999

              == THE PHOENIX PLATFORM CONSORTIUM ==

 We are pleased to announce the acceptance of provisional charter for
the Phoenix Platform Consortium.

 Phoenix signatories believe it is time to place our destiny back in
the hands of folks who understand what the Amiga is all about. You
will notice members of the original Jay Miner team within our ranks.

 Unlike other new entities we will not field questions from
newsgroups, mailing lists, or in email, nor will we be erecting a
marketing facade to false hopes. Results and honest direction are our
mandate.

 The Phoenix Platform Consortium will assume responsibility for aid
and recommendation for reference platforms for the Amiga users who
wish to upgrade their present Amigas, as we establish an open
migration path to a new platform. That platform will in spirit and in
feel be a new Amiga experience while incorporating and surpassing the
features found on the desktop elsewhere today.

 More information will be posted when we have facts to present. Please
do NOT email the participants in curiosity. We ask for your patience
in this matter. Please respect the wishes of the participants named
below. There is much to do and we have just begun.

 As information becomes available it will be posted on mailing lists,
newsgroups, and at the following website: http://owlnet.net/phoenix/
which will be up shortly. This announcement is freely repostable.

 Thanks, from the Phoenix Platform Consortium, currently:

    Alan Crandall       JMS
    Alan Swithenbank    Stanford Comp Systems Lab
    Albert Bailey       Flying Mice
    Andy Finkel         Met@box
    Aron Digulla        AROS
    Bart G Colbert      BG Colbert
    Berardino Baratta   MetroWerks
    Bill Bull           QNX
    Bill McEwen         Amino
    Bohdan Lechnowsky   REBOL
    Bruce Ellsworth     AmiTrace/ACSVideo
    Carl Sassenrath     REBOL
    Christian Kemp      ANN
    Clash Bowley        Flying Mice
    Dan Dodge           QNX
    Daryl Low           QNX Internship
    Dave Cook           GuruMeditationError
    Dave Haynie         Met@box
    dinglis             QNX
    Don Cox             Don Cox Computer Productions
    Drew S Tarmey       IAT Manufacturing
    Dr Greg Perry       GPSoftware
    Ed MacKenty         MacKenty Software Services
    Eric Herget         Ki Networks
    Fleecy Moss         Amino
    Frank Friesacher    QNX
    Fred Wright         The Wright Solution
    Gary Peake          Team AMIGA/OwlNet
    Geert Bevin         Thunderstorms/The Leaf
    Giorgio Gomelsky    JMS
    Glenn Davidson      Cloud Media
    G'o'tz Ohnesorge
    greenboy            Phoenix
    Hal Greenlee        HardDrivers
    Holger Kruse        Nordic Global
    Igor Kovalenko      Motorola iDEN
    Joanne Dow          Wizardess Designs
    Joe Gulizia         SCOLA
    Johan Rönnblom
    John Shepard
    Kevin Lowe          BrainDrops
    Kevin Tiernan       Elfnet
    Marc Albrecht       A.C.T.
    Mario Charest       Zinformatic
    Mario Saitti        Phoenix
    Marko Seppänen      Visual Engineer
    Martin McKenzie     CADTech
    Matt Sealey         U of Leicester
    Michael Battilana   Cloanto
    Mick Tinker         Access
    Odd H Sandvick
    Olaf Barthel        logical line GmbH
    Paul Lesurf         Blittersoft
    Paul May            Phoenix
    Paul Nolan          Paul Nolan Ltd
    Ray Akey            HMetalsoft/ZenMetal
    RJ Mical            Mical.org
    Robert Krten        PARSE/Cisco
    Ron Liechty         MetroWerks
    Rudi Chiarito       Magrathea Development
    Samuel A Falvo II   Dolphin
    Shaun Sauve         QNX
    Stephane Desrosiers
    Stephen Jones       Siamese Systems
    Steve Tomkins       QNX
    Tobias Abt          Picasso 96
    Vegard Berget
    Wolf Dietrich       phase 5


Interested developers may contact greenboy [greenboy@bigsky.net]
 with a post titled

   Dev Database «your name»

and with the following information in the body

1. Name
2. Company
3. Email@
4. Developer Category
     A. Hardware
     B. Software
     C. Beta tester
     D. Marketing/Support Functions
     E. Internet-oriented development
5. Development Description (ie specialties - video, office suite, etc)
     A. Current Projects
     B. Past Projects
6. Platforms currently involved
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga Update on the net:
 All back issues available at:
    http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html
Stop by and check out our archive!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1999 by Brad Webb.    Freely distributable, if not modified.
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  U P D A T E  /__\\   | \  / ||    ||  || ___  /__\\    U P D A T E
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From:             Martin Baute solar@baud.de
To:               team@amiga-news.de
Date:             Tue, 14 Sep 1999 20:12:43 +0200
Subject:          Open Letter to Tom Schmidt
Voller Name:      Martin Baute
Homepage:         http://www.baud.de/public/members/solar.html

Dear Sir,

we are the Amiga community. We are a community of people brought together
by a very different kind of computing, which survived despite the gravest
of circumstances, beyond bancrupty, beyond despair, beyond obsoletion.

The community survived because there was hope, and little alternative.

We look at the market of home, personal, and office computing, and we see
bloated, inefficient, unreliable systems that offer little "feeling" to
the power user, and much irritation to the beginner.

So we dared to hope, that one day there would be a computing alternative
available again to the masses, one that made computing fun again for
everyone, not only for the elusive few who actually like to modify arcane
registry entries or .rc lines.

And our hopes, for long, and sometimes very dark years, were on the brand
named "Amiga", because this brand - rather, the philosophy and spirit it
stood for - embodied what we liked in computing.

We have seen many changes at the helm, even more changes in direction.

And every time again, ever since EsCom times up to the latest ongoings at
Amiga Inc., whenever there was a change at helm or a change in direction,
we feared.

Our fear always was the same. Will there be an Amiga computer we can
buy, to sit on our desks at home or in the office?

There has always been talk about Set-Top-Boxes. In more recent times,
there is talk about "information appliances".

But what the community anxiously waits for, always has waited for when
the winds of change were blowing, is not about Set-Top-Boxes, not about
"information appliances". I do not want to critizise, to the contrary.
There are evolving markets out there waiting to be explored, and it is
a good feeling that Amiga might be among the spearhead of explorers to
this market.

However, for us, the existing, living, starving community scattered all
around the world, for the distributors, developers, vendors, users, for
us, it is the desktop we most anxiously wait for.

Yes, there certainly is a mass market for Set-Top-Boxes and information
appliances, and the Amiga Inc. concept for a pervasive home network is
a nice one for sure. But all this is not what the brand "Amiga" promises
to us.

To make a long story short, to ask the question so vital for motivation,
faith, and hope for many of us, I ask you:



- Do the plans at Amiga Inc., which you told us will be followed
  through, still include a home/personal computer product range similar
  or at least alike to the "Multimedia Convergence Computer" previously
  presented by Amiga Inc.?
  Manufactured by Amiga Inc. itself, or by third party manufacturers?

  (Means, will we see hardware as revolutionary as your software
  technology, or will we share the fate of BeOS, fine OS without
  own plattform?)

- And will it be presented anywhere near to the original time scale
  (1st quarter 2000)?



A question so simple, but of utmost importance for those who look at
Amiga Inc. today. Those looking at Amiga tomorrow might be satisfied
by Set-Top-Boxes and "information appliances".

We are not. Scatter our fears.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

With kindest regards,
--
    Martin Baute          /// Amiga A1200 Towerhawk - PowerPC 603e / MC68060
 => solar@baud.de <=     /// Newsmaster - English:  http://www.amiga-news.de
Member of Team AMIGA \\\/// Member of the Bielefeld Amiga Users & Developers
100% Microsoft free!  \XX/ Maintainer of Version Watch: http://www.vwatch.de

Amiga - The Last Line of Defense.
-- www.baud.de



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