Amiga INC value

[eLowar]

Originally Posted by pmc

Amiga nowadays = what exactly...?

Difficult to desire something that isn't anything anymore no matter how iconic (to some) the name used to badge it.

Quite. There are no new users, and the old users don't even know what they want. The hope the majority of the remaining Amiga believers seem to have in new Amiga stuff is to capture "the soul" of the old times. Living in the past doesn't seem like a market with a lot of future, as opposed to, say, sports cars.

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by Charlie

Hmmm, 'Girlfriend' genital wart cream might have a market...

"I'd buy that for a dollar!!"

[Merlin]

Originally Posted by eLowar

Quite. There are no new users, and the old users don't even know what they want. The hope the majority of the remaining Amiga believers seem to have in new Amiga stuff is to capture "the soul" of the old times. Living in the past doesn't seem like a market with a lot of future, as opposed to, say, sports cars.

I know what you mean; nostalgia isn't what it used to be, is it?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by pmc

By extension, you think that the Amiga brand is worth millions?

Commodore has already made million(s) from licensing and promoting their name.

Originally Posted by pmc

Something is only worth anything because people desire it, the name is something associated with that desire.

A recognisable brand for 30-somethings (i.e. the people with money) can be worth a lot of money.

Originally Posted by pmc

Amiga nowadays = what exactly...?

Whatever the next owner wants it to stand for, if they were smart it would be a branding on some computer related gadget.

Originally Posted by pmc

Difficult to desire something that isn't anything anymore no matter how iconic (to some) the name used to badge it.

The name, logo, brand is iconic within today's 30-something westerners. People who own like 50% of the world's wealth.

Slap the name Amiga and the logo on some anonymous chinese netbook and see what a leg up it would give them!!

The longer it goes unused, the less it will be worth. It probably has 10 years of value left before it is completely worthless.

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by illy5603

In my fantasy dreamworld. "Amiga" would become the property of a joint venture between Individual Computers, Toni (WinUAE) and Amigakit with board members made up of and voted on by EAB members. Maybe then it would have some value and direction.

One can dream right?

Your right illy5603, Individual Computers, Toni (WinUAE) and Amigakit are awesome!

[Photon]

Yeah, the Amiga brand can be worth millions, in the right hands.

[papa_november]

It's worthless because the current owners are jerks. Not only are the current owners jerks, but the owners going on about a decade and a half back have all had no idea what to do with it. Instead of a port of the OS to X86, we got this PowerPC bullshit that literally went nowhere.

History has left the OS behind, and the name is synonymous with obsolescence. The Amiga is a punchline now.

[pmc]

Originally Posted by AlexH

Commodore has already made million(s) from licensing and promoting their name.

I agree, the brand *was* worth millions but the original question related to the value today which is obviously not worth millions as things stand.

Originally Posted by AlexH

A recognisable brand for 30-somethings (i.e. the people with money) can be worth a lot of money.

Again, I agree - it *can*, however in the case of the current Amiga brand I don't think "can" equates to "is".

Originally Posted by AlexH

Whatever the next owner wants it to stand for, if they were smart it would be a branding on some computer related gadget.

This could work to make the brand worth money again but the marriage between the name and the gadget it was applied to would have to be exactly right if it were to be a useful & desirable item and at the same time embody that special Amiga "feel" for want of a better descrption.

Originally Posted by AlexH

Slap the name Amiga and the logo on some anonymous chinese netbook and see what a leg up it would give them!!

I think that's true to a point but only as a short term shot in the arm. What a disappointment it would be to get your new Amiga to find it's just another PC. In my opinion that would soon kill the iconic Amiga name in the minds of those 30 somethings eager and willing to part with their cash to get some of that old Amiga-ness back. This goes back to my previous point - just exactly what gadget could the name be on that fulfils that useful & desirable + Amiga-ness criteria?

Originally Posted by AlexH

The longer it goes unused, the less it will be worth.

I completely agree on that.

[Firthy2002]

Originally Posted by papa_november

we got this PowerPC bullshit that literally went nowhere.

All three of the current generation games consoles have PPC-derived processors (all developed at least in part by IBM!), but it is probably the last hurrah of the architecture.

[papa_november]

And all three of those PPC-derivative CPUs are so badly gimped in the interests of reducing heat/costs that in nearly every case you have to wonder how much less of a headache even something like an Atom would've been.

[TCD]

And all three of these have nothing to do with the current value of Amiga Inc...

[alexh]

Originally Posted by pmc

What a disappointment it would be to get your new Amiga to find it's just another PC.

To us, the infinitesimal minority, who actually remember what the Amiga does and was yes. To the overall vast majority who are just walking through Argos or Frys or whatever looking at netbooks;

"Asus, who the feck are they, sound like a rude work? Packard Bell? Don't they make phones or something? Amiga, cool I remember them, ahhh, they were great weren't they. You think Billy would want an Amiga for xmas??"

Your thinking is too narrow minded. The vast majority of people will never even know they are being steered to the product at all. It will be almost subliminal. As with almost all marketing and advertising.

Originally Posted by pmc

In my opinion that would soon kill the iconic Amiga name in the minds of those 30 somethings eager and willing to part with their cash to get some of that old Amiga-ness back.

But that's just it, unless they are frickin geeks like us they don't remember what "Amiga-ness" was let alone are trying to get it back. It's just a brand name they recognise and associate quality with over other brands without quite knowing why. They didn't set out to buy an Amiga, they wanted to buy a netbook (or whatever) and just chose an Amiga branded one over the others on the shelf.

Originally Posted by pmc

This goes back to my previous point - just exactly what gadget could the name be on that fulfils that useful & desirable + Amiga-ness criteria?

Anything. Netbook, Tablet PC, SmartPhone. Anything associated with computing will give a huge boost to an almost anonymous vendor.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by papa_november

And all three of those PPC-derivative CPUs are so badly gimped in the interests of reducing heat/costs that in nearly every case you have to wonder how much less of a headache even something like an Atom would've been.

Going slightly off topic, but the performance-per-watt of the Atom is MUCH MUCH lower than any embedded PPC.

[Charlie]

FWIW:
I agree, slapping old brand-names on new hardware makes good business sense...

...take Acorn for example:
A name with all sorts of useful connotations in the UK, even today - not least of which is a reputation for quality (and high price).
An otherwise unremarkable company with no link to the original Acorn has bought the name + logo and slapped them on their own laptops. They are selling rather well at a somewhat inflated price - why?
Because *everybody knows* Acorns are 'good quality' machines with 'history' so it's ok that they are expensive because you get what you pay for...
...laptop company gets a leg up in a saturated market AND gets to hike the retail price by 20% - hurrah!

Hell, even though I'm an old geek who likes his Acorns, rather than crying 'BLASPHEMY' I'm half tempted to buy one of their over-priced computers myself just because it would be cool to have a new Acorn.

The Amiga name has got to be worth much more than the Acorn one - just not under it's current ownership and (sadly) not in any kind of form 'we' would like to see it used.

[Predabot]

Hmm... couldn't *WE* the fans, in theory buy everything Amiga, if the price is low enough??

Start a foundation, like the Mozilla one, where thousands of people donate and pitch in, and just about makes enough of the gold to grab all them goodies.

Make it an Open Source platform, and make the trademark a COLLECTIVE trademark.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_trade_mark

Thereby we could REALLY start seeing some cool stuff happening!

So... what's it worth?

[Charlie]

Perfectly reasonable question, it would indeed be great. Yes, there's a but coming...

...Large parts of the Amiga system (esp the OS) are based on outside companies IP so there would be a minefield of sub-licensing to deal with.
...The history of the Amiga over the last 20 years is such a convoluted mess that I suspect finding who actually owns the genuinely Amiga bits could take years to sort out (much expense) before it could be bought & open-sourced.
...I believe large parts of the OS source & chipset schematics have gone 'missing' over the years which complicates matters further.

Sorry to sound like to voice of doom - it's a good idea, but I can't see it happening. I think we're stuck with our increasingly aged boxes + emulation (very good) + AROS, etc if that's your cup of cha...

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Predabot

Thereby we could REALLY start seeing some cool stuff happening!

For example? What 'we' do with the name and copyrights then? Except for making KS and WB freely available of course Would 'we' make Jens design a new 'Amiga' and have some people code a cool new OS and software? Would 'we' make a electronic gadget to get started? Or do we go for the genital wart cream?

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Charlie

...Large parts of the Amiga system (esp the OS) are based on outside companies IP so there would be a minefield of sub-licensing to deal with.

Not to mention that Amiga Inc do not own AmigaOS or Kickstart anymore.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by alexh

Not to mention that Amiga Inc do not own AmigaOS or Kickstart anymore.

Who does then? Just for curiosity's sake you know

[alexh]

It came out in the OS4 trial transcripts....

Erm....

Dunno, the name escapes me.