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Gateway Sells Rights to Amiga Name
kman writes "I just read the news on ABCNews that Gateway Sells Rights to Amiga Name - Personal computer maker Gateway Inc. signed a deal to sell its Amiga trademarks and computer systems to closely held Amino Development Corp. " Ah, the saga of Amiga continues - terms were not disclosed, but Gateway has decided to "wrap Amiga's software
engineering function into Gateway's product development
systems" making it sound like GW is considering continuing to make the "information appliances" they were originally planning.
It's a shame we'll never really see the Amiga return, if they could only incorporate the best of the Amiga into current machines correctly. It's wasn't the flashy graphics and nice sound that made the Amiga so great. It was the fact that it NEVER ran out, or had a conflict of IRQ's and DMA. It had TRUE plug & play, not the plug and pray we deal with now days. TRUE protected memory. (you could do things like dump the whole OS into a Virtual Ram Drive, reset, and boot out of ram!) The list goes on, of things the Amiga could do, that the IBM will never do, or do as well.
The new owner of the Amiga brand announced today that they would be changing their name to Vapor, Inc. Company President, Nopra Duct, said it signaled an innovative new strategic direction for the company. "People accuse Microsoft of selling vaporware, but we haven't released a new product in years! That puts Microsoft to shame, and they're the most powerful company in the known universe. Just think where we will be in two years!"
The company also announced plans for an IPO, including gratuitous use of the words "Internet", "E-Commerce", and "Linux". They plan to trade under the ticker symbol NULL.
(Editor's Note: The above is what is called "humor". Look it up in the dictionary.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I'm glad they finally gave up the ghost on that. Let's face it, the Amiga was awesome, but the name wasn't going to sell PC's. I mean, think about it - if you're Gateway, what name do you want to use? Gateway, or Amiga? They've got a heck of a lot of money invested in the Gateway brand, cow spots and all, and they'd be foolish to dilute that investment by adding a second name.
What's your damage, Heather?
What concerns me (and likely other Amiga enthusiasts too) is the rights for existing and new Amiga technology - are these part of the deal? Will they ever be released? What does a company making an Amiga clone (as several are in development, it seems) have to bear in mind or licence?
The Amiga still isn't dead, and has a good community, which deserves better support than being shifted from company to company in business deals. How about some new hardware or licencing?
Fross
Gateway still holds the patents, the licences and all of the cards. It did not originally buy Amiga in order to resurrect it, only to gain that technology. But holding those trademarks ment that a gigantic community was built around it, and Gateway had to deal with them. By selling the trademarks and not the patents to Mr McEwan's Amino, they solve that problem. They keep the technology, and loose the community. Amino gains the community and not the technology (except maybe the OS, which is copyrighted not patented)
This could be good yet.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
It was about time Gateway let the people involved in the "Classic" (daft title, I know) REAL Amiga community get on with developing the successors to this elegant platform. Personally, I think it was about time there were some positive Amiga news, and I think this is the best piece of info I heard in a long time.
Stelios Kalogreades