http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/31/commodore-usa-to-relaunch-amiga-brand-with-series-of-aros-deskto/
Desktops
Commodore USA to relaunch Amiga brand with series of AROS desktops
By Joseph L. Flatley posted Aug 31st 2010 7:03PM


Barry's back, kids! The CEO of Commodore USA just informed us that, in addition to slapping Commodore stickers on various all-in-one PCs, he has acquired the rights to the Amiga name (we only hope that the process went a little smoother this time around). The plan is to sell machines that fully support AROS -- an open source variant of AmigaOS 3.1 that the kids seem to go crazy for. We can't wait to get a look at these bad boys, but for now it looks like we'll have to do with the picture of an old Amiga 3000 he inexplicably included with the PR. The PR, that is, that can be seen in its entirety after the break.
Show full PR text
COMMODORE USA ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION OF AMIGA EXCLUSIVE WORLDWIDE LICENSING RIGHTS
Company to produce new line of Amiga branded keyboard computers

FT. LAUDERDALE, FL. and MAPLE VALLEY, WA. August 31, 2010 – Commodore USA, LLC and Amiga Inc., today announced their licensing agreement whereby Commodore USA, LLC will produce a full line of new AMIGA branded "AIO" (All In One) keyboard computers, under an exclusive worldwide license granted by Amiga Inc. for this newly revitalized computer category.

Mr. Barry Altman, President and CEO of Commodore USA, LLC states "We are ecstatic to be partnering with Amiga Inc. in this new, exciting product launch. The legacy of the Commodore and Amiga trademark brand, reunited once again after so many years, and our reintroduction of the legendary All-In-One computer keyboard form factor, combined with the twenty-five year anniversary of the introduction of the first Amiga computer by Commodore International, is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Commodore USA has now taken a major role in not just supporting the future Amiga market with our many new products, but also in providing a new beginning for the enormous existing Amiga community. Our relationship with them, along with our support for the elegant, robust and lightweight AROS desktop operating system, will ensure that they and future customers will benefit from our new and exciting vision, and enable the legacy Commodore and Amiga culture to flourish. We look forward to bringing these new products to market, and welcoming a whole new generation of computer users to the Commodore and Amiga experience". Mr. Altman continues " I would like to personally thank our team of advisors, consultants, lawyers and most of all the over 5 million viewers to our website, and the 270,000+ respondents who took the time to provide us with not only their thoughts and suggestions, but offered us their support and wishes for our success. And one more thing: We have now successfully negotiated the acquisition of two legendary brand exclusive trademark licenses. Our efforts will now continue in acquiring the third and final brand license, completing our quest for the total technology trifecta. Stay tuned...the best is yet to come!".

In response to an overwhelming demand from Amiga users worldwide, Commodore USA's CTO Leo Nigro announced today that their new Amiga branded computers will be fully AROS compatible, and that they will be supporting the AROS open source community in every way possible. Mr. Nigro states "With the monumental strides that AROS has recently achieved, we realize the importance of accelerating this progress with funding that will enable this project to rapidly move forward and take it's rightful place at the forefront of desktop operating systems". With the recent announcement of their newly updated Commodore C64 model, and the acquisition of the Amiga brand exclusive trademark license, Commodore USA has once again catapulted the Commodore and Amiga namesake to the forefront of consumer electronics brand recognition.

About Commodore USA, LLC

Commodore USA, LLC designs, produces and markets a series of all-in-one Commodore branded keyboard computers, and other unique form factor computers and consumer electronics.

Barry S. Altman is the President and CEO of Commodore USA, LLC, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Spanning a 25 year career in the bleeding-edge electronics and satellite/space telecommunications industry, Mr. Altman founded and served as CEO & President of Cabletech Satellite Systems, Inc. U.S. Cable Technology, Inc., The Cabletech Satellite Network and United Broadcasting Co. This group of companies built NOC's (Network Operation Centers) for cable television programmers, and cable television head ends for cable companies throughout the United States, They designed and constructed the satellite uplink network operation centers for such companies as Viacom International, Warner Amex, Viacom and MTV Networks. They directed and produced the domestic satellite telemetry downlink for the Live Aid concert for MTV, which was at that time the largest world wide deployment of a live satellite television broadcast. Cabletech has manufactured, designed and installed systems for Grumman Aerospace, The United Nations, government and private industry, and over 45,000 TVRO C& Ku band satellite systems for businesses and consumers nationwide. Cabletech was a developmental partner with General Motors & Hughes Communications in the small aperture DBS system that later became DirecTv.

About Amiga Inc.

Amiga Inc. holds the intellectual property related to the AMIGA personal computer that was developed and sold by Commodore International and Amiga Corporation, including hardware designs, software, operating systems, trademarks, and other intellectual properties. Amiga Inc. also produces and distributes enabling technologies and applications for wired and wireless devices that provide technology to developers for writing and porting applications to a new multi-media operating system that is hardware agnostic, enabling applications to run unchanged on x86 and other processors. States Bill McEwen, CEO/Pres "We at Amiga are pleased to once again be part of the great plans and products at Commodore USA. This is just the beginning of something great".

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@SHADES

This could be pretty huge, if Commodore supports AROS by hiring a few full time devs. Otherwise, if they're using AROS as a replacement for UAE I don't see it beating PowerPC and FPGA based Amigas. Anyone can run AROS on the x86 computer they already own.

@CodeSmith

How does that jive with their "intent" stated:

Quote:

Our efforts will now continue in acquiring the third and final brand license, completing our quest for the total technology trifecta.

#6

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@SHADES

WTF!!!! this is getting interesting now

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@number6

I'd say that statement doesn't say anything for or against... it just means that they want to be sure no-one's going to pop out of the ground and sue them for trademark violation. If they own all the trademarks, they're safe. That's it.

The only way to really give AROS the shove forwards it needs is to hire some full time professional developers to solve the hard problems. Bounties just provide some incentive, but unless an OSS project has some really dedicated individuals (Linus, Theo, etc), people just pick stuff to work on that's fun to do. Most people want to do flashy things like GUIs or interesting things like filesystems. You normally have to pay someone before they'll want to do something boring and hard but necessary like performance, error reporting or improved message passing.

@SHADES

Game, Set, Match. Let the kvetching begin!

@commodoreusa

LOL

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@number6

Quote:

Our efforts will now continue in acquiring the third and final brand license, completing our quest for the total technology trifecta.

The commodore colt ??

_________________
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

I serve King Jesus.
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@Barana

Holden better watch out....

@SHADES

Quote:

States Bill McEwen, CEO/Pres "We at Amiga are pleased to once again be part of the great plans and products at Commodore USA. This is just the beginning of something great".

So, how did they manage to get into contact with McBill? I'm surprised at the lack of conspiracy theories about this part. Oh wait, that's right, those are usually put forward by people who would be revelling in this "Amiga is coming to x86" hype. (of course it's not... It's only 'Amiga-like' coming to x86.. Oh wait. It's been that way for years hasn't it?)

Seriously, where are the critics saying "I don't see anything posted on the Amiga Inc website confirming this. I won't belive it. It's vapourware. I won't believe it unless Bll himselfposts here on this forum to say it's true."

I guess it's no surprise how one sided these claims really are, nor which side they usually come from.

tiffers

@persia

Ahhhhh persia is a aussie/kiwi/southafrican or south east asian !

_________________
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

I serve King Jesus.
What/who do you serve?

I have already seen people who are looking at this and saying "Huh? How does this relate to that announcement at VCF for a new Amiga running Amiga OS?" Talk about creating confusion!

One thing that I have a real problem with is the claim that there is an "overwhelming demand from Amiga users" for a machine running AROS. If there is a demand for AROS, it's from AROS users, who already run it on a standard PC. Amiga users want a machine that runs Amiga OS, whether that's version 4.x, or an older version that runs on classic 68K machines. Likewise, MorphOS users want a machine that runs MorphOS.

I don't think that the confusion that this creates is going to help anyone.

Hans

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The only interesting thing : maybe we could have a specific case with an Amiga look.

WOW ;)
Intresting News

Finally, computers will be manufactured under the name of the Amiga:)
And no monsters under the name "AmigaOne"

And also good news for AROS ;)

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This is pointless, everybody knows that AROS' users don't care about the name, they repeated it tirelessly for years shouting it at us

Anyhow maybe i'm getting old and i don't recall... what was the "third brand"? Commodore PC? CDTV? Atari ST?

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@Nibunnoichi

Quote:

Nibunnoichi wrote: This is pointless, everybody knows that AROS' users don't care about the name, they repeated it tirelessly for years shouting it at us

I must agree, I really don't care about the name. And now I fear it will get AROS in trouble because of it. We would have been better off without it. (OK now I was speaking as if this wasn't fiction anymore which I still will believe until I see evidence of other things.)
IMHO AROS is mature enough to stand on it's own merits.

Commodore AROS (tm) would have been just as good.

Last edited by Manu on 01-Sep-2010 at 06:58 AM.

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AmigaOS or MorphOS on x86 would sell orders of magnitude more than the current,
hardware-intensive solutions. And they'd go faster.-- D.Haynie

@SHADES

This is funny.

I've never understood why some people wanted so badly to see the name Commodore placed back in front of Amiga, considering how detrimental Commodore as been for the Amiga. It's almost as bad as saying "Microsoft Amiga"

In any case, calling an x86 PC an Amiga would be an insult to everything the Amiga stands for so I'm hoping they'll use the name for something more noble than some rebadged PCs.

/me rushes to e-trade to invests all his savings on pop-corn stocks

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@Drako

Quote:

Drako wrote: Finally, computers will be manufactured under the name of the Amiga:) And no monsters under the name "AmigaOne"

What a silly statement.
Now there'll be real monsters manufactured under the name Amiga, but having even less to do with Amiga. At least AmigaOne's run AmigaOS.

so goodbye A-EON, game over, wikipedia : "The AmigaOne X1000 is custom hardware running the Amiga Operating System, and as such should not be confused with the line of Amiga branded PCs announced by CommodoreUSA in September 2010".

it's gonna be a huge blow to already poor A-EON/HYPERION marketing strategy. happy anniversary.

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@SHADES

hmm..Natami in the AmigaFantasy Case with Commodore Amiga written on it would be awsome.

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