This is an edited transcript of a live chat which took place in
AmigaZone's chat area, on the evening of February 23, 2000. The special
guest was Mr. Fleecy Moss, Vice President of Product Development for
the new Amiga Corp. who bought control of Amiga from Gateway at the
end of 1999.
These chats with Fleecy (and maybe Amiga Pres. Bill McEwen will
join in too) will be held the last Wednesday of each month in
AmigaZone's live chat area. To participate, you must be a registered
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monthly. Join and you get a free gift :)
This transcript is Copyright 2000, AmigaZone, all rights reserved, and
may not be re-published in any form, anywhere, whether printed or
electronic, without explicit written permission of AmigaZone. You have
the right to download a copy of this transcript to your computer for
your own personal use. You do not have permission to re-distribute or
edit it without prior written consent. For permission, email
harv@amigazone.com and ask.
Thanks to KTDetlie for assistance in editing down nearly two hours
of raw capture into this form.
----------- [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT] ------------
-Harv: well okay, let's start. what's new since a month ago? GA.
-Pault: OK, it was on Amiga Oasis, they mention an interview but I can't find
it to d/l.....
-Fleecy: We have a new office, we have a new VP of operations, a real cool
and kickass guy called Vince Pfeiffer, we just did our latest round of training in
Seattle
-Harv: explain training. who are you training to do what?
-Fleecy: We were very saddened by P5 going down = Bill had spoke to Gerald
only a few weeks before.
-Harv: any loss of a long-time company is sad.
-Fleecy: We were training some of the development team in the Tao system. It
is quite different say to Linux.
-Harv: okay I'll ask a couple more questions.
-Fleecy: I think 2 more publications are coming on line in the US, a disk mag
and something else
-Harv: Fleecy - any progress or news about the liquidation of the remaining
1200s? GA.
-Softlogik: Happy Birthday Georg Fredrich Handel
-Fleecy: Petro is slowly selling them into India, where there is a big demand
for them. Bill is getting a pallet NTSC'd to bring over. We are looking at
another possibility which could return some real rewards for everyone. We will
see though...
-Fleecy: A German who lived in the UK - what a star ;-)
-Rebbi: harv: are we doing formal questions for fleecy yet?
-Fleecy: give me a tenner and we'll ignore the formalities ;-)
-Rebbi: fleecy: heh, heh
-Harv: Fleecy - are you hiring back any of the old Amiga/C= familiar names at
all? I mean the people who were in CATS, or Los Gatos, any of the original
crew. GA.
-Ktdetlie: Fleecy, I'd just as soon have a chance to buy a PAL machine.
They're better for my favorite games, but the power would still have to be
converted. Is there any chance of that?
-Fleecy: Quite a few of the ppl we are hiring will be very familiar to the community
but apart from Dean, no one from the old days (and Dean will kill me for that).
-Harv: Dean "DKB" Brown?
-Fleecy: Yes, DKB
-Fleecy: Times change. Designs change. Drivers change. Those ppl have lives
and money and moved on.
-Fleecy: he was there before a lot of them, or should I say next to them
-Harv: okay, if you have a question for fleecy, please send a "?" and kevin will
keep a queue going won't you kevin?
-Softlogik: yassir
-Rebbi: My first expansion board was a DKB 1202! ;-)
-Fleecy: ktdetlie - power conversion - not by us - we are just trying to sell
them
-Harv: If no one has any questions, I'll just keep asking them. I have plenty.
-Moxee: go for it
-Moxee: {:^)
-Rebbi: fleecy: It's nice to hear about progress; hirings, moving into offices,
etc. What can you tell us about infrastructure, etc, at this point. GA.
-Harv: white boards. we wanna see white boards and office cams :)
-Fleecy: We have a development team (a dozen or so), a developer support
manager and team (14), the AAC has been restarted, we are trying to get the
ADN moving again, we have a VP of ops, the new website is close to being
ready, and we are working on something nice
-Pault: and videos with various company names flying by....
-Fleecy: for the community
-Harv: ADN = Amiga Developer Network?
-Fleecy: Well, a few of us are serious quake heads, and 3 of us went arse
boarding during training. I'd say snowboarding, but we didn't seem to use the
boards much at all.
-Fleecy: yes = Bill is very concerned about the dealers. Ppl have stopped buying as
they wait and we want them to understand that they should buy the SW because we
are working with H&P to ensure it works on the new Amiga. It isn't wasted.
-Harv: oh. Dealer network.
-Moxee: good
-Rebbi: fleecy: When might we start to hear some names. We luuuuv names! :-)
-Fleecy: When the new website comes up. I had hoped the new Director of
Developer support would be up by now but I guess Bill was busy moving.
-Harv: names, yes, it would be nice to have everyone's names and positions on
the website.
-Harv: can you name the new D of D S ?
-Fleecy: It's someone you all know and love... that's as far as I'm going until the PR
-Rebbi: harv: "D of DS?"
-Harv: (director of developer support).
-Harv: (I tend to ask non-technical questions because I'm a non-technical
person).
-Fleecy: Bill, D of DS, and myself will be there. We are trying to sort out
something for the developers - we have some legal stuff to take care of soon.
All the announcements we had thought would be nicely spread out will
probably all arrive a the same time - M
-Rdugaue has just entered the chat room.
-Harv: hi.
-Rdugaue: howdy
-Rdugaue: crowded tonight
-Gsarff: fleecy, hi. is the company going to get taken over by 'suits'? like the
mess at cbm with mehdi ali and gould?
-Pault just shuddered!
-Fleecy: I bloody hope not. I don't own one. Bill has one he bought when Huggy
Bear was a cult figure. Seriously, we have made sure that control will remain in
our hands even post IPO
-Gsarff: ah. cool!
-Harv: Speaking of IPO.. any dates yet? And I heard r00merZ of a certain well-
known Hollywood actor being invited onto the B.O.D. any truth to that? Did he
accept?
-Fleecy: He was concerned that he had nothing to offer and Bill said we wanted
him precisely because he wasn't a techhead. I'm haven't heard anything since
then.
-Awesome has just entered the chat room.
-Awesome: Thanks -Harv it worked
-Harv: oh. :( I thought it would've been a wonderful choice and what he had to
offer was his famous name and face and attitude. sigh.
-Awesome: Hi everyone
-Harv: hi.
-Fleecy: I'm not saying he didn't - I hope he did. I wanted Cameron Diaz.....
-Harv: Amiga has always needed an instantly recognizable spokes(person) I
think and has never had one.
-Pault: yes
-Fleecy: I agree - he would be great
-Harv: Any questions for Fleecy?
-Harv: Fleecy is VP of the new Amiga Corp., in case any of you just got back
from Mars.
-Pault: Fleecy, we aren't talking personally here. ;)
-Fleecy: if not, just chat amongst yourself and I'll frag this bastard who thinks its
cool to hide up there with a railgun ;-)
-Harv: Shirley some of you MUST have some burning questions you want to ask
him? Squash those roomers. get the truth.
-Fleecy: well tell me what you want to see in the new Amiga?
-Rdugaue: PnP
-Fleecy: do you see a future for what the Amiga was in the future?
-Rebbi: -Fleecy: Any specific plans you can talk about for getting in touch with the
current (remaining) user base? GA
-Harv: What I want to see - incredible speed and every freakin internet plug-in there
is.
-Softlogik: and drivers for everything there is
-Rdugaue: USB port
-Fleecy: Speed? Tao gives us transparent multi-processor parallelism. We are also
looking at some technology that could turn the internet from treacle to better than TV
whilst being fully interactive
-Harv: I'd really like to see a very universal system that can not only run all my
old (and current) Amiga stuff with which I'm familiar, but emulate just about anything
else and do it so fast it's totally transparent.
-Pault: not ambitious or anything...
-Harv: hey, he asked.
-Fleecy: soft: the problem with that is we could end up doing a Be and spend more
time writing drivers than developing our core product. What we need is a unified
driver model - HAVi will hopefully allow us to get there.
-Harv: yes, USB ports for all them new cheap peripherals out there. Not weirdo
expensive stuff that no one sells anymore.
-Rdugaue: Right!
-Softlogik: Fleecy, I can appreciate that, but I also remember the OLD Amiga
that hardly anything worked with.
-Fleecy: So in the end you just want something that can run all these apps
irrespective of what OS they were written for, or which processor, and all talk to
each other all in a common digital universe?
-Ktdetlie: I'd like to see something like Quicken which my bank says I need to be able
to download reports from online banking and bill paying.
-Harv: sounds good to me. :)
-Rdugaue: That would be the ideal world... :-)
-Harv: I want the damn thing to run so fast I don't have to wonder "Why is the
hard drive light on? What's it doing?"
-Moxee: Quicken, ah
-Fleecy: soft: I am not disagreeing. I just want a better solution. Everyone does.
We are going to try and push it.
-Rebbi: fleecy: I want to be able to walk into a local computer store and buy Amiga
stuff! :-)
-Fleecy: Well, the amiverse is about ten steps in that direction.
-Awesome: How about walk in to the local grocery store and buy amiga software?
-Harv: The best solution would be for ANY computer stuff to automatically be
Amiga stuff.
-Harv: USB scanner? just plug it in.
-Harv: Like a Mac mouse? Plug it in.
-Harv: whatever. just plug it in. auto-config.
-Fleecy: -Rebbi: We've got a good chance of that happening with what we can
provide. Punters have got to buy though, developers have got to develop.
Linux is on supposedly 10 million machines but I think I counted 5 products,
not including distributions in Comp USA.
-Fleecy: If they'd write the frigging drivers in Java, or Tao VP code, we could
have that
-Rdugaue: Java Drivers. That sounds nutty!
-Softlogik: The Linux people get everything for free.
-Fleecy: auto-config ;-) Wait until you see what we are planning with the HAVi
device object model
-Rebbi: fleecy: I'm just tired of paying high prices for stuff (drivers, etc) that
other platform's users get for free...
-Softlogik: WordPerfect is free, several commercial databases are free, the
development tools are free.
-Harv: Do you have any plans for multi-city DevCons ala the way CATS used to do
them? 2-3 day intense training with the head honchos, etc. etc.?
-Rebbi: I mean, $90 for Scan Quix? Come on!!
-Fleecy: Nothing is free remember. The free stuff costs someone. Drivers are
"free" because a million ppl buy the printer.
-Fleecy: We will start at one devcon a year, a full serious and commercial developer
thing with most of the dev leads there, for some serious work and play. As we
expand, so they will.
-Harv: ahh that's good to hear. I went to one DevCon in SF 10 years ago. It was
really something.
-Fleecy: gotta have devcons again - that's where we make the real money
selling mugs, jackets and t-shirts ;-)
-Harv: exactly!
-Harv: never underestimate the huge market for LOGO STUFF.
-Rebbi: Fleecy: C= always seemed to treat the Amiga user base with contempt;
made you almost feel dumb for buying an Amiga. Any specific plans yet for
communication and "feelgood" programs for the current user base?
-Softlogik just hid his Gateway mug!
-Fleecy: If petro can sell those watches, we are selling Amiga staff action
figures,
-Fleecy: or inaction figures as some will call them ;-)
-Harv: -Rebbi - I would semi-disagree. I remember our user group getting nearly
monthly packets from West Chester with reams of literature, photos, offers, coupons,
etc.
-Fleecy: The AAC will be developed to its full potential. It was Bill's idea after all.
Collas just got the credit for it. We are also doing something on the new site that will
try to be a focus for the community, give them an opportunity to participate, belong
etc.
-Rebbi: harv: you have longer history in this than I do, though. I bought my A1200 in
'93, just before the bankruptcy...
-Fleecy: Hey, if we aren't delivering, tell the AAC and get them to kick our asses.
-Harv: <-- Amiga owner since 10/7/85.
-Rebbi: :-P
-Pault: Yeah, yeah.
-Softlogik: Hey, I still got a working 1000
-Harv: questions anyone? you only get this opportunity once a month. make the most
of it!
-Wendell: me too
-Harv: btw, I read today that M$N is dropping usenet entirely. not that that has
anything to do with this, but I found it hilarious. they can't police it or own it, so
they remove it.
-Pault: I can still remember (probably because they were so few and far
between) the C= marketing bits that I really liked. The kid who could achieve;
the user list (BB.King and others with accomplishments) in a glossy
presentation. Any plans on P.R.?
-Fleecy: they probably got some mail from some of the more exotic characters
on csam...
-Fleecy: yep - we have lots, and lots of ppl in high places want to help. It's just a
matter of getting it done. First though we need some product. What we are
attempting is as much a definition of "digital life" as it is about introducing a product.
-Harv: Have you contracted a PR firm? going to do it in house, or what? GA
-Fleecy: what time is it where you are? All my clocks say different things 8-(
-Harv: <- 8:45 pm
-Softlogik: 11:44 EST
-Awesome: 10:46 Chicago
-Wendell: <- same as Harv
-Harv: any questions for Fleecy, VP of Amiga? yoo hoo?
-Harv: are you all sitting in stunned silence?
-Fleecy: We may outsource some of the flash stuff, but we and the community
are a pretty creative bunch. Ideas aren't something we lack in that arena.
Taking those ideas to implementation and beyond is a talent that charges
though...
-Harv: stunned apathy?
-Rebbi: harv: sleepiness!
-Harv: explain "the flash stuff" please?
-Awesome: I think that next time i will be more prepared to as some intelligent
questions...
-Fleecy: production - artwork, music, the implementation of the ideas.
-Fleecy: next time you may have something to ask questions about ;-)
-Awesome: true
-Fleecy: Where you all happy, sad, apathetic about the H&P announcement?
-Awesome: i missed it
-Harv: considering HP was able to crank out 3.5, I think they're quite capable
and professional and a good addition.
-Rebbi: fleecy: To be honest, I'd have had more of a reaction if it had been
clearer what the announcement meant, exactly.
-Pault: The H&P announcement kept me from committing seppuku after P5
rolled. (Though bankruptcy doesn't necessarily equal total death.)
-Fleecy: They are going to create product for the new Amiga, work with us on
creating a classic emulator, and perhaps, if we can swing it, do a set of transitional
releases that help move developer and user from the old to the new.
-Harv: Fleecy - just how deep are your VC pockets? You've hired what, 20
people? How long can you live on VC before you actually have to sell some
product and have an income stream? GA
-Rdugaue: Income stream? What's that. Look at the IPO market and valuations.
Who needs income streams!
-Harv: Well, Amazon doesn't, but most everyone else does, no?
-Fleecy: I think I said a long time ago that a company such as ours needs to have 3
years of reserves at start out. For some reason ppl thought this meant no product for
3 years, but it means that it can take that long to achieve self sufficient success.
-Rdugaue: tech stocks are highly overvalued. And most of the companies with
IPOs in the last year or so are still burning cash.
-Fleecy: Of course, there's always the .com option ;-)
-Rdugaue: yep
-Pault: Well, Mikim (Doonesbury's fictional Co.) had a more realistic ride, IPO
then a Micro$oft counter-announcement followed by bubble-burst and money
lost on all sides.
-Rdugaue: It worked for me. :-)
-Awesome: Does p5 Bankruptcy mean no G4 for the amiga?
-Fleecy: DCE bought the rights didn't they? And the AmiJoe is starting to ship.
-Awesome: When will the first new amiga product roll out from the new amiga
-Awesome: I believe that DCE did, But they are not taking over the previous
orders.
-Fleecy: the dev box will come out in the next few months. We hope sooner.
With it we are taking a risk because there won't be much Amie in it, since we
are still developing it, but they can get their hands on something.
-Fleecy: -Awesome - you can't blame them. No money. No point.
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