After what felt like an eternity to earnest Amiga users the German bankruptcy courts have officially approved the sale of Amiga Technologies to Gateway 2000. The deal which will make newly formed Amiga International a wholly owned subsidary of Gateway 2000 was announced at a special press conference at the Novotel Centre in Hammersmith UK. The full press release can be found at the Amiga Web Directory.

At a specially chaired press conference in London, UK Petro T. has outlined Gateway's plans for the Amiga. While some users may be disappointed about the plans it is clear that Gateway have thought long and hard about the Amiga and it's future and have prepared a well balanced plan. The most important revelations are:

• The Immediate Future:
  Amiga International has moved into new offices and plans to begin recruiting more staff including an engineering team soon. The new Amiga International should be in full swing by early June. Current distribution will remain unchanged, as will the Amiga models on sale at least for the forseeable future.
  
• Licensing
  Gateway plans to license the Amiga to everyone and anyone interested in the Amiga. Gateway state Our licensing policy will be very open, broad and focus on licensing and standard O/S, Chipsets and the trademarks. They believe the Amiga technology will make it's way into many different embedded applications such as medical solutions, fitness systems, simulation systems and even irrigation systems!. Of most importance to Amiga users is Gateway's willingness to listen to any intersted parties in forwarding the Amiga including Phase5's PowerUP system. It has already been reported that Phase5 and PIOS have spoken about sharing of technology, are we seeing the merging of technologies to make a Super Amiga?. At the time of writing they have also warmly greeted plans from the newly formed Open Amiga Initiave. The importance of everybody following one path was also stressed, the Amiga market cannot support further fragmentation.
  
• Support:
  To keep the Amiga market alive Amiga International plan to support the Amiga through "the internet, meetings and all useful initiaves coming from the AMIGA community". Also planned is official support for developers including maybe financial backing. Amiga International also plan their own line of products for the Amiga.
  
• Future Amigas:
  As previously mentioned Amiga International is more than willing to license the Amiga technology. It was also stressed that Amiga International "explore an open AMIGA platform, use industry standard components to make it cheaper to produce, faster to develop and easier to upgrade". While this is bound to upset those wishing for a proprierty system it is hard to fault the decision making. To produce a new GFX chipset today would take millions of dollars and lot of time, both of which Amiga International doesn't have.
  

QuikPak, Gateway 2000 and Robinson Consulting on May 1st met. The outcome of the meeting was said to be "extremely positive" but Quikpak regret being unable to divulge full details of the meeting. An announcement will be made at the upcoming WOA 97. Quikpak believe "this will mark a new beginning for the Amiga platform". The full article can be found at AmigaSupport.

Remember how Microsoft bidded for Amiga Technologies?. Well apparently they weren't working alone, a group of ex C= employees were part of the consortium. When it became clear that the court appointed liquidator was set to reject the offer Microsoft pulled the plug on the idea. Now the ex C= employees who were the brains of the bid are trying to stop the Gateway deal, citing the fact that because Microsoft pulled out on them they didn't have enough time to search for alternative funding and thus enter a bid.

InfoWorld an online technology news service has in any article hinted at a reason behind Gateway's purchase of Amiga Technologies. Apparently the Amiga technology is ideal for use in a palmtop PC. Though there is no official source for the rumours it could make a lot of sense. Amigas are renoened for their ability to operate efficiently with very little resources. A definite problem would be though to somehow cramp the OS into only a few hundred kilobytes but if Microsoft could do it with Windows CE we definetly can. Another problem may be the fact Amiga chips because they are CMOS (?) take a damn lot of power to operate. The full article can be found Here

Gateway 2000 has finally released a press release to the Amiga community. It is though only to confirm that they will wait until the buyout deal is approved by the German courts before they will relase further plans. There will though be a press conference held and the World Of Amiga Show '97 in the UK. They do mention however that they are pleased with the feedback and support from the Amiga community so far. For the full press release Click Here. In other news Petro T will be at the upcoming Amitech 97 representing the newly formed Amiga International. It is understood that he will address the show as well.

The Sydney Morning Herald, a print newspaper in Sydney Australia has made mention of the Amiga sale. The small article appeared in the weekly liftout computer section and makes mention of the "AmigaWalker" which is a $US1000 machine with 5MB RAM and a 77mhz processor (?!) that will be released by the new Amiga International. The article appears in full below, Copyright remains with the Sydney Morning Herald and is printed WITHOUT permission. I hope they don't mind too much...

AMIGA. When Amiga Technologies filed for Bankruptcy in July last year, Amiga fans worldwide went into mourning for the legendary multimedia machines that were a gaming and graphics favorite in the early 1980's. After a number of Amiga buyout rumours over the past year, the latest is that Gateway 2000 has bought the rights and remaining stock of the Motorola 68xxx processors that formed the heart of the Amigas. ZDNet reports that Gateway intends to rename Amiga Technologies Amiga International and revive production on the AmigaWalker, a $US1000 5Mb RAM, 77mhz processor in "spaceship design", previewed at CeBIT '96.

In other miscellaneous buyout news more of the major players in the Amiga market have pledged there ongoing support for the new Amiga International including AntiGravity Products and the Australian Amiga distributor Megatron. For more info on the Australian buyout news Click Here.

Be inc developers of the now defunct BeBox and BeOS also made mention of the buyout in their newsletter distributed by email. Jean Lousie Gasse (I hope I got the spelling right!) was very positive about the buyout in his column and was "happy to see a company like Gateway interested in something like the Amiga". One gets the impression though if the Amiga makes a comeback Be has a lot to lose. For more information and the article see Be Newsletter 67

An interesting view and a "semi" interview with the Gateway CEO can be found at http://www.accessone.com/~olegm/303.html. While it is scarce on exact details it paints a bright future for the Amiga.

Phase5 in contrast to earlier reports have promised to cooperate with the new owners of AT, Gateway in any way possible including the sharing of technology. This can only be seen as "A Good Thing (TM)" for the Amiga and it's future, an A/Box type machine with an AmigaOS would surely leave almost all home PC's for dead. for the full press release Click here

Since the last update three other online news services have picked up on the Gateway/Amiga Technologies sale. All three are definetly worth a read.
Next Generation
TechWeb
Newsbyte, requires subscription

Newsbyte as part of their coverage of the sale have shown a possible logo which is below, I hope they dont mind me republishing it here.

QuikPak despite being an unsuccessful bidder for Amiga Technologies have reaffirmed their commitment to the Amiga and have welcomed Gateway 2000 to the Amiga market. For the full press release Click here.

Petro T. on behalf on Amiga Technologies has attempted to approach Phase5 about a strategic partnership between both Phase5 and the new Amiga International but Phase5 are being very uncooperative. It appears Phase5 have made a conscious decision to go it alone because they have already turned down ProDAD as well. Petro T. seems to think that personal differences between various employees at both organisations are also hampering negotiations. Despite all this he will continue negotiations.

A bankruptcy court in Germany has accepted Gateway 2000's offer for Amiga Technologies. The deal is still subject to regulatory approval. The purchase includes all patents, trademarks, trade names and current inventory and assets. The price Gateway are paying for Amiga technologies has still not been disclosed.For the full press release Click here.CNN has also picked up the Amiga buyout story although sonewhat late compared to other online news services, for the article Click Here.

In other buyout news an Amigan on the "Pure Amiga" mailing list sent an email to Gateway re:Amiga's future and was told by a Gateway spokesman "if nothing else the next two weeks will be very interesting". Gateway though are still to officially acknowledge their future intentions for the Amiga.

It is official, Gateway 2000 has submitted the successful bid for Amiga Technologies. It is though subject to regulatory approval but no problems are anticipated. Many online news services are carrying information on the buyout, a few of these are listed below:
Amiga Technologies GMBH
Amiga Web Directory
C|NET
Yahoo News
Wired News
Philadelphia Inquirer
PC Week Online

Amiga International

A new company will be created totally independant of Gateway and will be titled Amiga International. Petro T will remain president and the companies structure will remain almost identical to Amiga Technologies. No further info has been released.

Future Intentions?

Gateway at least until the buyout deal gets rubberstamped are keeping tight lipped as to their future intentions. From the wording of the press release it seems certain Gateway will continue the Amiga range of computers but in which direction?. Most people seem to think Gateway will create a new high powered low end Amiga and sell it very cheaply at least in the short term. As far as next generation Amiga's go it's anybody's guess.

My Opinion:

If there is one definite positive coming from Gateway's decision to buy AT it is that the Amiga is getting unheralded mass market recognition. I doubt if an Amiga oriented company had picked up AT we would have seen as much media attention. The Amiga is for once in it's life in the media spotlight.

Gateway are a mass market company who produce PC's of a very good quality. They have a record of being innovative in the multimedia field despite making PC Clones ;). Coupled with a very good financial position they appear at least on the exterior to be our saviour.

Their intentions are largely unknown. Though I seriously doubt they'll just use the technology to their advantage in future PC's or just keep flogging off the Amiga as-is till demand diminishes. Gateway will forward the Amiga. As it currently stands they would be foolish not to adopt some of the technology developed by Phase5, QuikPak and PIOS.It is far too late to start development of a next generation Amiga from the ground up so a lot depends on there willingness to either co-operate or license the technology. At least in the short term I think we are likely to either see massive price reductions of low end Amigas or a totally new low end Amiga, 030 6mb RAM and maybe a modem.

A lot will depend on the willingness of Gateway to fund future Amiga development. For a real Amiga revival Gateway must be willing to bankroll a damn lot of money. Amiga support internationally is floundering, we need marketing, we need developer support and we need future development!. If Gateway choose to follow the direction of previous owners Escom AG then there is little doubt that the Amiga will die. To really make a go of it Gateway will need to pour copious amounts of money into Amiga International and not expect a sizeable return for a long while.