DiscreetFX submits proposal to acquire Amiga Inc. in the next 12 months

[T_hairy_bootson]

Originally Posted by shillard

Nothing a few hundred million can't fix. The following steps assume that a complete business and marketing plan has been compiled, scrutinised and documented, that an R&D direction has been set. What direction?

DiscreetFX is the one telling the story - let Pyro fill in the blanks.



Step 1 - Raise Capital

Raise a few hundred million (real dollars, not Australian) in capital. That would involve convincing those with real money to invest in a dubious and risky tech venture that actually involves building stuff, as opposed to an e-commerce enterprise. To get this kind of cash you need to compete with everyone else after this kind of cash. Private equity firms that run buy-outs of listed businesses and large non-listed businesses usually demand a complete return on investment within 5 years - and that's before they sell the business off.

Once you've worked out how to compete with that - go find the cash.


Step 2 - Segment your customers, build pre-launch awareness

So who are the customers? Kids running WinUAE? Bitter and twisted Amigans of old? Unix Nerds? Graphics geeks? Desktop publishers? Mums & Dads who download from the net?

Once the segments have been identified, you need to provide them with a compelling reason to drop what they currently use/ intend to use, in favour of what you offer. This means you offer better value - not a lower price, but more bang for buck than the competition. BUT....unless you sell your gear at a good margin, those providing the cash from Step "1" above will be all over your arse.

Oh, and you'll go bankrupt. Like C= did.

Of course building awareness takes money. Lots of it. And be prepared to be ridiculed by a skeptical Win/Apple obsessed specialist and mainstream press. Lots of spin required at this stage.

Step 3 - build your distribution channels

Who will sell your creation? Specialst stores, game stores, department stores, Best Buy, Dixons, online, will you go direct like Dell?

Here's the catch - unless you go direct, you don't get much say. You can court as many potential distributors as you like, but they decide if they want to do business with you.

So to get on the shelves of any retailer, you'll have to offer them something better than everyone else who wants that shelf space - Apple, IBM, Toshiba, HP, etc.

Good luck.

And don't think "better" means high quality - it means more margin, better rebate, better trading terms, more co-op support, and more ATL advertising that will drive people into their stores to ask for that product.


End of lesson 1....


Good Luck.

Geez louise... all pyro wants to do is buy amiga inc and finally sell OS4 for now. There are people out there that would buy it and are happy to mess with it. If hardware licencenses were easier to obtain the hardware could be built by third parties, whether it be the outdated PPC technology (AmigaOne, Pegasos etc..) or classic PPC accelerated amigas or something new (Samantha etc..). Release it and the hardware will be built. At the moment the situation is in a stalemate due to current amiga inc management and their grandmothers. They won't release OS4 because there is no hardware and no one will build hardware because OS4 is not released.

It is a niche hobbyist market for now but still a viable market, but that doesnt mean it has to stay that way. New products could be built whether for classic systems or re-implentations of classic hardware or next gen ideas for industry embedded systems etc..

Whatever way you look at it I think new management would be better than the current management and their grandmothers.

GOOOOOOOOO PYRO!!!!!

P.S. Pyro --> Release the kickstart 1.3 roms if you do get AmigaInc.

[shillard]

Originally Posted by Jope

Why would a new Amiga in handheld form sell to the market where Symbian + MS + Palm already have a strong foothold and installed base?

Precisely - and who would sell it?

Who would support it with development?

Why would anyone buy it, over the other products on the market?


Now go ask the same question about an Amiga desktop (when the desktop market is shrinking), an Amiga laptop, an Amiga....

[shillard]

Originally Posted by T_hairy_bootson

Geez louise... all pyro wants to do is buy amiga inc and finally sell OS4 for now. There are people out there that would buy it and are happy to mess with it. If hardware licencenses were easier to obtain the hardware could be built by third parties, whether it be the outdated PPC technology (AmigaOne, Pegasos etc..) or classic PPC accelerated amigas or something new (Samantha etc..). Release it and the hardware will be built. At the moment the situation is in a stalemate due to current amiga inc management and their grandmothers. They won't release OS4 because there is no hardware and no one will build hardware because OS4 is not released.

It is a niche hobbyist market for now but still a viable market, but that doesnt mean it has to stay that way. New products could be built whether for classic systems or re-implentations of classic hardware or next gen ideas for industry embedded systems etc..

Whatever way you look at it I think new management would be better than the current management and their grandmothers.

We can at least agree on your final point above. The current crop are so full of piss and wind that it beggars belief. Even more pathetic are those desperate fools hanging on their coat tails, who actually believe that slick Willy is the messiah.

"Release it and the hardware will be built" - by who? Who, other than a mad hobbyist (not that I'm opposed to them - one built the USB card I have in my A4000) would do that?

You could spend your time and money building hardware for an ultra-niche OS4 machine, or you could spend it building something for Win/ Mac that would actually sell and make you some cash. With a family to feed, what would you do?

New hardware is pointless without developer support - both hard and soft. Expecting to see the next edition of "Full Spectrum Warrior", or "Civilisation 5" for OS4?

May as well pull out your telescope and hope to see Vipers launching from the Battlestar USS Armstrong.


Bill #2 is dead keen to tell everyone about his upcoming movie (all this talk of an Amiga buy-out couldn't possibly be a viral marketing campaign targetted at a niche audience of fanatics, could it....?), but real short on detail with his "plans" for the Amiga.

If the owners are willing to sell.

If he can raise the funds necessary.

In a year or so, when the corpse is another year colder.

Gimme a break guys. You're dead keen to shoot the messenger, but take a good hard look at your own reactions to Bill #2's hollow pronouncements.

[T_hairy_bootson]

Originally Posted by shillard

We can at least agree on your final point above. The current crop are so full of piss and wind that it beggars belief. Even more pathetic are those desperate fools hanging on their coat tails, who actually believe that slick Willy is the messiah.

"Release it and the hardware will be built" - by who? Who, other than a mad hobbyist (not that I'm opposed to them - one built the USB card I have in my A4000) would do that?

You could spend your time and money building hardware for an ultra-niche OS4 machine, or you could spend it building something for Win/ Mac that would actually sell and make you some cash. With a family to feed, what would you do?

New hardware is pointless without developer support - both hard and soft. Expecting to see the next edition of "Full Spectrum Warrior", or "Civilisation 5" for OS4?

May as well pull out your telescope and hope to see Vipers launching from the Battlestar USS Armstrong.


Bill #2 is dead keen to tell everyone about his upcoming movie (all this talk of an Amiga buy-out couldn't possibly be a viral marketing campaign targetted at a niche audience of fanatics, could it....?), but real short on detail with his "plans" for the Amiga.

If the owners are willing to sell.

If he can raise the funds necessary.

In a year or so, when the corpse is another year colder.

Gimme a break guys. You're dead keen to shoot the messenger, but take a good hard look at your own reactions to Bill #2's hollow pronouncements.

You arent the messenger, nothing you are saying is new and I am not the type of person that would buy an OS4 system either. But there are people out there who have spent heaps of cash on these systems. Pegasos, Aone, Aone micro etc.. THESE SYSTEMS GOT BUILT!!! There are even people spending money on PPC classic Amigas. Just because it doesnt float your or my boat it doesnt mean it doesnt exist. These people have money to spend on hobby computers that are an alternative or a supplement to wintel/mac/linux and they want their OS4 already. Never you mind their reasons.

You have made it clear you arent interested in next gen amigas, so why stick around arguing with people who are interested. Why do you take iot so personally that people do not agree with you? Why are you continually rude to other members of the forum who have a different opinion than yourself? Who made you the god damn next gen amiga messiah? Who are you to insult Pyromania and accuse him of an alterier motive when he has been an active contributing member of this forum well before you?

In the nicest possible way shillard, this isnt the way we behave around here. This is a friendly community free of zealots mostly but we do like to look at both sides of the coin from time to time.

[shillard]

Some clarification required, I think....

1. I just spent over $1,000 getting a new PPC/060 Cyberstorm unit with RAM sent to me from Germany, to replace a dead one in my A4000. So don't lecture me about fanatics who spend megabucks on PPC classic Amigas....


2. There's a difference between being rude, and being honest. Mostly my "rudeness" has been in response to equal "rudeness", or me daring to ask questions. Shameful - I know.

3. As for Bill #2, I asked him some pretty simple, general questions about his master plan. I'll give him the credit for responding, but the detail was....lacking. Here's the reply I got, you be the judge:

"Thank you very much shillard for taking the time to write these very good questions. As a famous developer once said in the AMOS Pro manual, you have to walk before you can run. We don't own Amiga yet or know their full $ situation so could not answer most of these questions. We are working hard on completing Oil Change first, then Amiga is our next goal if they are even interested. It will be @ least a 12 month process. Please let us know if you have further questions."


Oh, the questions were:

1. What is the product roadmap?

2. Overlay with a channel roadmap?

3. Who is the target market?

4. How have they been identified and segmented? How will they be targeted? What is your USP?

5. Who are the distribution partners?

6. What reseller margins, support, co-op activity and terms do you anticipate? How many resellers, where, what channels?

7. What share are you targetting?

8. Portable product? Given the global shift away from desktop PCs to laptops - on all OS platforms.

9. What developer support have you secured - both hardware and software?

10. What's your advertising budget? ATL and BTL?


Pretty simple stuff - aside from the dead-obvious question: Why publicise your intent to acquire a non-listed entity when it would appear that no deal has already been struck, you don't know the value of it, you don't know if it is even on the market, and you don't appear to have any solid plans as to what you will do with it?

[T_hairy_bootson]

Originally Posted by shillard

Some clarification required, I think....

1. I just spent over $1,000 getting a new PPC/060 Cyberstorm unit with RAM sent to me from Germany, to replace a dead one in my A4000. So don't lecture me about fanatics who spend megabucks on PPC classic Amigas....


2. There's a difference between being rude, and being honest. Mostly my "rudeness" has been in response to equal "rudeness", or me daring to ask questions. Shameful - I know.

3. As for Bill #2, I asked him some pretty simple, general questions about his master plan. I'll give him the credit for responding, but the detail was....lacking. Here's the reply I got, you be the judge:

"Thank you very much shillard for taking the time to write these very good questions. As a famous developer once said in the AMOS Pro manual, you have to walk before you can run. We don't own Amiga yet or know their full $ situation so could not answer most of these questions. We are working hard on completing Oil Change first, then Amiga is our next goal if they are even interested. It will be @ least a 12 month process. Please let us know if you have further questions."


Oh, the questions were:

1. What is the product roadmap?

2. Overlay with a channel roadmap?

3. Who is the target market?

4. How have they been identified and segmented? How will they be targeted? What is your USP?

5. Who are the distribution partners?

6. What reseller margins, support, co-op activity and terms do you anticipate? How many resellers, where, what channels?

7. What share are you targetting?

8. Portable product? Given the global shift away from desktop PCs to laptops - on all OS platforms.

9. What developer support have you secured - both hardware and software?

10. What's your advertising budget? ATL and BTL?


Pretty simple stuff - aside from the dead-obvious question: Why publicise your intent to acquire a non-listed entity when it would appear that no deal has already been struck, you don't know the value of it, you don't know if it is even on the market, and you don't appear to have any solid plans as to what you will do with it?

Are you an investor?

What gives you the right to ask any company these questions? Go on ask any other company you do not plan to invest in these questions, see if you get any answers... now you are just being absurd if you think Pyro owes you any answers to the above questions.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Unknown_K

It doesn't matter if a console or car exists, if I can build a better one (better being decided by the public)

Better as decided by the public?

The public have a rather alarming habit of being coerced into buying inferior products.

Betamax superior to VHS = VHS the victor

Just one example where the public decided what was 'better'. A product can be the best no matter what the public think, its just getting them to buy it is the problem!

[shillard]

Originally Posted by T_hairy_bootson

Are you an investor?

What gives you the right to ask any company these questions? Go on ask any other company you do not plan to invest in these questions, see if you get any answers... now you are just being absurd if you think Pyro owes you any answers to the above questions.

I'm smallfry when it comes to investing, but as to the rest...

Those questions - all of them - are answered via the websites and/ or annual reports of every major IT operation.

Feel free to PM me if you need some pointers to get that information on stuff from Toshiba, Sony, HP, Canon......

[shillard]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Better as decided by the public?

The public have a rather alarming habit of being coerced into buying inferior products.

Betamax superior to VHS = VHS the victor

Just one example where the public decided what was 'better'. A product can be the best no matter what the public think, its just getting them to buy it is the problem!

You speak the truth.

[T_hairy_bootson]

Originally Posted by shillard

Feel free to PM me if you need some pointers to get that information on stuff from Toshiba, Sony, HP, Canon......

All public trading companies though, looking for investors.

Anyways thats it for me in this thread I said my piece as you no doubt will continue to say yours. Lets not let any bad feelings caused by this thread spill out into the rest of the forum as I have no ill feelings towards you or any others.

[shillard]

Well mate, YOU have managed to conduct yourself in an adult manner - despite clearly disagreeing with plenty of things I have to say, you didn't have a massive dummy spit about it.


The least I can do is return the favour.


BTW: Readers should not that my references to "Slick Willy" apply to Bill #1, not Bill #2 of DFX.

[shillard]

Originally Posted by Muzkat

You are comparing these two as to how they finished up? How pessimistic and materialistic of you. That is no way to judge a man. I would have said Tesla over Gatesy boy anyday.

I dunno, Gates has done more good for the world than a barking mad inventor. He's really thrown the guantlet down to the other uber-rich with his charity work.

[shillard]

Hey Boo Boo - from Galactic coordinates 10,0,11,0,0 by 02 from Galactic Zero Centre - um, care to rephrase the question?

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by Fred the Duck

It's when people take these fantasies seriously and label the rational people "naysayers and gloom spreaders" that the lucid need to back away and ignore them.

Call me picky, but where are all these "irrational" people?

I do agree with a lot of what Shillard says, but I do think it's the way he puts his views across that has annoyed a lot of people. Maybe if he spent less time being insulting and patronising then none of these silly arguments would have happened.

[P-J]

Hi all. Can't you all just either ignore him or add him to your block list? This thread is a little out of control now

There is always one who tries to ruin it for everyone on this board, just don't feed him and eventually it'll go away!

[Fred the Fop]

Originally Posted by T_hairy_bootson

Geez louise... all pyro wants to do is buy amiga inc and finally sell OS4 for now.

Yeah, but he stated he wanted to bring Amiga back to it's former glory, and I found this ludicrous. There is no other issue i have with the whole thing. I wish him the best for this miniscule ultra niche market.

[P-J]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

The public have a rather alarming habit of being coerced into buying inferior products.

I think he might have meant the 'target audience' for the product. The target audience for the 'current' AmigaOS isn't really going to be light users who use Windows XP but couldn't tell you that if you asked them.

I think those people are totally off limits until Dell or HP tell them otherwise.

Just the way I read it anyway

[Fred the Fop]

Originally Posted by Graham Humphrey

Call me picky, but where are all these "irrational" people?

I do agree with a lot of what Shillard says, but I do think it's the way he puts his views across that has annoyed a lot of people. Maybe if he spent less time being insulting and patronising then none of these silly arguments would have happened.

If you are serious about asking me about my judgment of the irrationality of these people after what they have said here, I cannot bother. Please review their posts. You will find overtly emotional, inane, and irrational statements galore.

[P-J]

Originally Posted by Fred the Duck

Yeah, but he stated he wanted to bring Amiga back to it's former glory, and I found this ludicrous. There is no other issue i have with the whole thing. I wish him the best for this miniscule ultra niche market.

If you post a big enough picture of Liberace the thread will be restored to it's former glory and everyone will be happy

[Graham Humphrey]

Originally Posted by Fred the Duck

If you are serious about asking me about my judgment of the irrationality of these people after what they have said here, I cannot bother. Please review their posts. You will find overtly emotional, inane, and irrational statements galore.

Such as?

I'm sorry, maybe I'm reading a different thread to you, but I haven't found anything irrational. A few examples of what you think are irrational, deluded etc. posts would be good.