An Open Message to the Amiga Community An Open Message to the Amiga Community from Bill Buck, CEO, VIScorp Chicago, IL July 24, 1996 Escom AG and Amiga Technologies GmbH are in bankruptcy and will cease to exist as corporate entities. VIScorp has reached an agreement with the Trustee for the liquidation of these companies and with the creditors of these companies for the purchase of "Amiga." There were at least eleven different banks or companies that had claims to be "owners" of the technology and/or the inventory. Escom had liabilities of over $250 million. Imagine the confusion... The steps that we had to follow through the last three months were painstaking. As the situation at Escom deteriorated, we had to continually re-negotiate our purchase contract. We could not speed-up the process. Many things we wanted to begin immediately we have had to delay. The situation at Amiga and Escom were extremely troubled. This was in part because of the difficult financial and management situations at Amiga and Escom, but also because of how poorly organized the intellectual property had been under Commodore. In the course of the Commodore bankruptcy many problems developed that were never repaired. The final (and last of three) purchase contract was signed on Friday, 19 July. It cannot be changed; it has been executed. The intellectual property of the former Commodore and the inventory of the former Amiga Technologies will be owned finally by VIScorp. The final paperwork will be completed in the next 30 days. During this month, VIScorp GmbH will be registered and Amiga Technologies will continue to operate temporarily in bankruptcy for VIScorp. Petro Tyschtschenko and his staff will continue to operate from Germany. Raquel Velasco and Petro Tyschtschenko will be the new General Managers of Amiga, to be known as VIScorp GmbH. Al Duncan, a former General Manager of Commodore will join VIScorp to manage the sales and distribution of VIScorp and Amiga products in North America. Petro will continue to operate from Germany and manage the existing business. Raquel is looking for someone from the community to manage the re-organization of the sales and distribution in Europe. Please contact Raquel if you are the right person for this job. The engineering efforts of the former Amiga Technologies and the on-going engineering of VIScorp will be combined and professionally managed. We intend to begin to implement the plans we outlined in Toulouse very shortly. Please excuse our lack of communication with the community over the last months. We were severely restricted from communicating our activities. Please resend your emails to any of the VIScorp staff if they have not been answered by this letter. We simply could not answer all the emails. Do not expect miracles from VIScorp, expect slow, but steady progress. Thank you for your continued support. Best Regards, Bill Buck Contact: Florine Radulovic, Director of Communications [ www.vistv.com | Corporate Staff ] Return to the Amiga Web Directory Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / cucug@cucug.org