March 12, 1999 - Jim Collas, the newly named president of Amiga Inc. and formerly the senior vice president of Product Development and Management for Amiga’s parent company, Gateway, addressed an enthusiastic crowd gathered at the Henry VIII Hotel, site of the Amiga99 show in St. Louis, Mo. tonight.
According to Amiga fans reporting from the hotel, Mr. Collas outlined the future plans of Amiga Inc. along with the future plans of the Amiga as a platform. The new Amiga operating environment will be dubbed "AmigaSoft" and the first version, AmigaSoft 4.0 alpha (for developers) will be released in September of this year with the final 4.0 version arriving late in the year. AmigaSoft will feature a revolutionary software architecture (supporting multiple processors) and a full development environment. AmigaSoft 5.0 beta will debut late in the year with the final version making its way to release in the second quarter of 2000.
Mr. Collas described the new machine as a full information appliance environment. Apparently Amiga Inc. has some hefty sales goals for the new machines (information appliances). Collas actually mentioned 20-30 million units might be ultimately sold, but admitted that they would need to focus on the proper strategies to achieve this.
Going forward, Collas promised a more active public relations stance with the current Amiga community. They plan to make continuous progress updates available on the Amiga Inc. web site and offer better communications, more involvement in the community, more press releases and forums, Amiga community support programs for developers, users, magazines, resellers, distributors and trade shows.
Collas asserted that much has changed at Amiga Inc. The division now has the full support of parent company Gateway who has installed dedicated senior executive leadership. They have also fully dedicated resources and the effort will be fully funded. Collas made a personal commitment to those assembled to listen attentively and and act aggressively. Amiga Inc. will be soon hiring many key, new positions.
In closing, Collas said that there is a new computer revolution on the rise and Amiga can lead this revolution and make history again. He said that we must keep the spirit of Amiga alive and become a strong and single community in order to succeed. Collas said that he intends to listen to the Amiga community.
His presentation was greeted with a standing ovation from those at the event.
Copyright 1999, CUCUG. No reposting.
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