-=========================================================================- _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Amiga Update -News and Rumors /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || (An Occasional Newsletter) / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || BACK FOR THE FUTURE || -=========================================================================- AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technologies, GmbH --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: some issues available in html format at: http://www.sharbor.com/amiga/news/ All back issues available (in ASCII text) at: http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1996 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. -=========================================================================- _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || Brad Webb/AmigaUpdate /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || webb@malamute.med.ge.com /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || -=========================================================================-