Amiga Technologies (ESCOM):
The saviours of the Amiga from Commodore
They had already prior to this bought the Commodore logo rights for use in building their range of PCs so they could own most of the PC market sales made in Europe and the UK. But for some reason, they decided to bid against the contenders who were still around come auction time (who where several US Amiga companies, Commodore UK, Dell Computers, and some others).
ESCOM's then boss hired Peter Kittel, one of the last remaining Commodore Germany employees to head up a new Amiga devision in ESCOM, which was to be called Amiga Technologies, and they were amoung other things to create the logo you see above this bit of text. Peter Tszchenko was shortly later nominated to run this new operation along with alot of ex-Commodore Germany staff and other talented Amiga users. Peter Tszchenko is the one in the photo above.
It has now been a year since they have bought it and thoughts on them have been mixed since the rumours about this have started filtering out. During the year the re-established links, got Amigas back into stores, commenced advertising in the UK for a while, got the Amiga back on the production line, launched two new Amiga packs, the Amiga Magic Pack (a pack full of great software for home and business/school use as well as some not so great games), the Amiga Surfer Pack (Same as Amiga Magic Pack but with a modem and pre-installed internet software). As well as this they announced two new Amigas, the first the PowerAmiga (a PowerPC version of an Amiga), and the Amiga Walker (which was later on scraped) which integrated high-end Amiga and PC technology into one as well as a new operating system and a case which could only be compared to a vacuum cleaner. It shouldn't be denied that they have done alot of work, but was it sufficient? Only time will tell, but with Viscorp about to take the reigns who knows what tommorow shall bring! Ironically though, the company which acquired the Amiga from Commodore died like Commodore did, forced into Voluntary Liquidation, this is a wierd paradox. Both once might companies which reigned supreme.
VisCorp:
The successors to Amiga Technology of the Amiga:
Viscorp is made up of Carl S. (who wrote the Amiga's pre-emptive multitasking
Exec library, as well as working on the CDTV and several other Amiga-related
projects, prior to leaving Commodore to join Viscorp), and also other ex-Commodore
employees who designed things in Commodore over the years (albiet mostly failed
products such as Commodore's worst disaster, the CDTV). Thier priority is making
'ED' set-top-boxes which integrate a standard Amiga into a i-TV (Interactive TV
setup) which allows services such as interactive tv shows, playing games with
upto thousands of others, surfing the net, movies on demand and other things.
They state they are also commited to bringing out a 'Killer Amiga', while this
may be so, till we see the products we won't be satisfied. It is rumoured the
ED Boxes will be integrated into Sony's TVs. (As well as an ever more FAR out
rumour Viscorp is a subsiduary of Microsoft). They have already range a deal
with a huge TV Firm to license the Amiga SetTopBoxes to for integration into
their TVs. The Amiga's destiny may just lay in their hands, and if they do a
good job it could be a great thing, if they fail is it the end??