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Amiga Update (1996-12-04)
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AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technologies, GmbH
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961204
V I S C O R P E X P L A N A T I O N
J A S O N C O M P T O N Q U I T S ( U N V E R I F I E D )
R U M O R ! Q U I K P A K T H E " S A V I O R"
I A M ' S T H O U G H T S O N C U R R E N T S T A T U S
Editor's introduction and thoughts:
Unusual things to send your way today. First, a report from VIScorp on
what's going on in the acquisition from their point of view. This is
overdue, but appreciated. They do state they dropped their offer on
October 31 and they give their reasons. It would have been appreciated by
many if this information was made available then, but it's not too hard to
understand why VIScorp didn't say anything. It certainly wouldn't have
helped them with the Amiga community. However, by not making this known
until now they've probably hurt their reputation even more. Also, remember
our report in issue 961130 that VIScorp can't meet current business
obligations from current income. As of today their stock was trading at
$2.00 a share - nearly worthless. We certainly don't wish VIScorp bad luck
and we won't say they can't pull out of this ... but folks, it doesn't
look too good for them.
Right below the story from VIScorp is an unverified posting from their
Jason Compton, essentially announcing his resignation as VIScorp's
Communications Manager for Amiga. Jason Compton did as good a job as anyone
could in a difficult situation. His loss just adds to the bad news VIScorp
is having to deal with, assuming this posting is genuine, which we feel is
likely.
So what's next? Well, we hope you get some amusement from all the
Machiavellian lunacy surrounding the Amiga's future, as it would otherwise
be just plain depressing. In an effort to lighten matters some, we present
a juicy rumor plucked from the net today. It concerns QuikPak, the company
that can't spell but can build Amigas and do it well.
Finally, a very interesting perspective on the current state of the Amiga
community from Dale L. Larson, "El Presidente" of Intangible Assets
Manufacturing, the Amiga company which supports one of our all time
favorite corporate names.
We Amigans definitely live in interesting times.
Brad Webb, Editor
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V I S C O R P T A L K S A B O U T T H E A C Q U I S I T I O N
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 2, 1996
VIScorp announced today that while conducting its due diligence for the
planned acquisition of the assets of the former Amiga Technologies AG, its
financial institutions and the management of Amiga agreed that the assets
to be acquired were of significantly less value than the US$20 million
which had been proposed. The original US$40 million offer included the
guarantee of ESCOM distribution in Europe as well as several other features
which disappeared with the ESCOM bankruptcy.
One of these items is the fact that one of the most valuable pieces of the
inventory is currently encumbered in a complicated legal challenge to the
ESCOM AG bankruptcy estate. Without the assurance that this piece could be
delivered as a part of the package deal, VIScorp began to reconsider their
offer.
Further, it has been discovered that the intellectual property is being
pirated daily by small and large companies alike. To combat this problem,
VIScorp intends to partner with Mahr Leonard Management Company, a Dallas,
Texas company specializing in patent infringement.
Due to the above, VIScorp allowed its offer to expire on October 2, 1996,
and lowered its bid shortly thereafter. Throughout all of this time a
wholly-owned VIScorp German subsidiary continued to operate Amiga through
Oct. 31, at its own expense and with the concurrence of the Trustee. This
was done because VIScorp believed that Amiga was more valuable as an
operating company and wanted it to retain this value. During this period
VIScorp paid Amiga expenses, including salaries, and generated over $2
million in sales which were to be credited against the final sale price at
a later date.
VIScorp continues to be interested in completing the acquisition of Amiga.
It believes that the future of two-way, interactive television depends in
large part on the installed base of Amiga users who currently access the
Internet through their televisions and Amiga A1200 computers to reach
thousands of available Amiga titles. It also believes the next step is to
modify the operating system to further adapt the television market to the
vast and developing resources being created by the Amiga world-wide
development community - products which include games, entertainment, and
information.
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J A S O N C O M P T O N R E S I G N S ( U N V E R I F I E D )
4 Dec 1996
I'd just like everyone to know that as of December 16, 1996, I will no
longer be employed by VIScorp in any fashion. I'll do the best I can to
handle VIScorp inquiries until then, and will be posting a VIScorp press
release which should answer a number of questions that to date have not
been addressed to everyone's satisfaction.
Future VIScorp inquiries should be directed to David Rosen at
drosen@ix.netcom.com.
--
Jason Compton jcompton@xnet.com
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R U M O R ! ! Q U I K P A K T O T H E R E S C U E ! !
4 Dec 1996
I have it on good authority that QuikPak is the new front-runner
for Amiga Tech. Believe me this is great news. These guys have
a lot of innovative products coming out. Like the A 5050 t and
A 4060 L. They love the Amiga and it is there main goal - not
set-top boxes.
Steve Collins
envisage@ptd.net
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I A M ' S T A K E O N T H E S I T U A T I O N
Dec 3 09:08:00 1996
I repeat what I've said for a long time. First "Commodore is irrelevant."
Then "Escom is irrelevant." Then "Viscorp and P5 and PIOS are irrelevant."
While we're at it, "any debate about the relative merits of Jason is
irrelevant." (But to put in my $.02 anyway, I'm in full agreement with Carl
and Kermit and others -- Jason is a great guy, and you guys are being
unfair to him. You thought VIScorp mattered, and now you're disappointed
to find out that it doesn't, and you're taking it out on Jason.) From a
user's perspective, anything that doesn't already exist in some kind of
usable prototype simply doesn't matter. From usable prototype to general
availability of production machine takes a matter of months. Anything that
you can't buy for at least months, if not longer, is irrelevant. Unless
you're creating new technology yourself, you can safely pretend it doesn't
exist until you have seen something with your own eyes.
So keep using your Amigas as long as they do what you need them to. Keep
buying new boards and software to expand the usefulness of the Amigas you
have. And if you reach a point where you absolutely positively have to
have capabilities that your Amiga can't give you, start shopping for
something else. The VisCorps and P5 and PIOS need a heck of a lot more
than your support (and in fact, your support is probably completely
irrelevant to them -- either they have the huge resources required, or they
don't, and there isn't a darn thing you can do about it.) They need a $20
million check payable to a German liquidator, then several times that for
development and production.
If you want focus, how about focusing on the companies that are actually
shipping a real product that you can buy, rather than merely peddling press
releases. We could use your support. Wanna support us? Visit
http://www.iam.com, check out our Amiga catalog, and order something. Call
some other Amiga company and order something. But stop obsessing about
things you can't control and that really don't matter in your day-to-day
computing anyway.
--
Dale L. Larson Intangible Assets Manufacturing Publishers of
el Presidente http://www.iam.com Amiga stuff and of the book
dale@iam.com info@iam.com Torn Shapes of Desire: Internet Erotica
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Amiga Update on the net: some issues available in html format at:
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Copyright 1996 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
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