Gateway Inc is once again said to be considering a revival of the Amiga desktop computer brand it acquired back in March 1997 (CI No 3,130), with news expected to have been revealed over the weekend at the Amiga 99 event in St Louis. Gateway got together representatives of its Amiga Inc and German Amiga International subsidiaries in San Diego last month to discuss the new strategy. The two Amiga units have now been integrated under a new corporate strategy and relocated to San Diego. New president Jim Collas called the non PC-compatible Amiga platform ideal for internet-ready, consumer-oriented digital appliances of the future.
Amiga says it plans to release a low-cost Amiga PC and an internet appliance before the end of the year, although it won’t be issuing any detailed product plans or introducing its several strategic partners until the summer. Enthusiastic Amiga fans, of which there are still quite a number, aren’t holding their breath, however. Promises last May of a new Amiga operating system and machines that were due in November came to nothing (CI No 3,413). At that time, Gateway was talking about the Amiga unit as a multimedia systems and software company.
The company, however, insists that it is stepping up a fast-track development process which is already underway. Products currently targeted for the initial launch are a development system and software development suite, an internet appliance and a low-cost home computer in the tradition of the Amiga A500, which achieved peak sales in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The original Amiga’s used the Motorola 68000 and later PowerPC processors. Last year, there was talk of Amiga using an industry standard architecture for the new-generation machines.
Amiga is also setting up a software development center based in San Jose, California under Dr Allan Havemose, VP of engineering. While no new machines were forthcoming in November, Amiga did announce a technology alliance with QNX Software Systems Inc, and has licensed the QNX real-time operating system as the basis for the next generation of Amiga architecture. The San Jose-based labs will work on Amiga multimedia layers to run on top of QNX’s Neutrino real-time core. Existing applications will have to be re-written for the architecture, although an Amiga Classic PCI card or emulator will be included in the development system.
Peter Tyschtschenko will remain as managing director of Amiga International, and will, says the company play a critical role in guiding the current Amiga community through the transition to the new Amiga architecture. Amiga was once owned by Commodore International Ltd, an early, pre-Macintosh entry into the multimedia desktop world during the 1980s. Escom AG, and more recently Tulip Computers International BV, took on the rights to the Commodore name. Escom eventually sold off the Amiga side of the business to Gateway in 1997.
