The Last 2 Days of the C= Bankruptcy

     This is a recount of what happened during the last two days of the
 Commodore Bankruptcy, and what other news has been announced since then.
 
     On April 20, the auction for Commodore took place.  Escom's starting
 bid of $5 million was the starting bid, not including the $1.3 million
 they had already payed for the Commodore trademark.  During the day, two
 other companies, Dell, a major American PC maker, and an American computer
 store, entered bids.  Dell's bid was rejected for having too many
 conditions, and the computer company didn't have the $1 million cash
 deposit neccesary.
 
     At 4 PM, the auction ended, with Escom's bid of $5 million the
 accepted bid.  However, Dell continued to work at their bid, and after 4
 PM entered a bid of $15 million, which also contained fewer conditions
 than their previous bid.  The bid did, however, have the conditions that
 Dell would be allowed 1 month to examine Commodore, and that if they
 didn't want it, they could "return" it, losing only their $1 million
 deposit.  They could also extend that period to 45 days for another
 $100,000.  
 
     The management teams of C= UK and CEI, the two most vocal groups
 during the long bankruptcy, did not bid.  It is believed that C= UK no
 longer had the money to bid.  CEI chose to cast their lots with Dell,
 perhaps because they had the money to win, but not to do anything with the
 Amiga after they won.  
 
     The next day, Friday, April 21, the lawyers for Escom, Dell, and the
 creditors were present at a court hearing.  There were approxiamtely 65
 people present, of which 5 were actual Amiga users who went simply to see
 who won.  Dell and the creditors made the arguament to the judge that
 Dell's bid should be accepted, because it was higher than Escom's bid.
 Escom argued, however, that that was unfair, for their bid had been
 accepted, and because Dell's bid had too many conditions, whereas Escom's
 bid was unconditional.  The judge, after hearing long hours of arguaments,
 ordered both sides to try to work out their differencs at lunch.  After a
 two hour break, all sides re-entered, announcing that they had resolved
 their conflict, as Escom had raised their offer to $12 million, still
 unconditional.  The judge accepted this offer and Commodore was sold.
 However, the Phillipines' plant and C= UK were not included in the deal,
 but Escom is expected to purchase these soon.
 
     A few days later the Bahamian Court approved the sale, and all was
 official.
 
     Since then, Escom has made it's policy to the Amiga much more clear.
 They have decided to allow their Amiga operations to be run by a company
 that they will be creating, known as Commodore-Amiga, Amiga-Commodore,
 Commodore-GmbH, or something similiar to that.  The company will be owner
 by Escom.  The head of Engineering for the Amiga will be Dr. Peter Kittel,
 a prolific poster on Usenet.  This is viewed by all as good news for the
 Amiga, as Dr. Kittel is very in tune with the Amiga community and as a
 "net-surfer", can make all the latest Amiga news known much freely than
 the old Commodore ever did.  Escom's press officer, Dr. Wirsing, will be
 the Head of Marketing at the new company.  
 
     The new company will have a starting staff of approximately 50,
 although that number will grow as money begins to come in from sales.  The
 Engineering department will be located in Germany, as will the technical
 support at first, although it is also expected to begin technical support
 in other countries as soon as money allows.  There are two general
 offices, one in Germany and one in the Netherlands.  No decisions on
 starting subsidiaries in UK, the US, or Canada have been made yet.  The
 company will be very liberal with liscencing of the Amiga technology to
 other companies for use in other products or in Amiga clones.  It is
 expected that CEI and MacroSystems will be the first clone makers.  The
 new company will also sell Amigas in any store that wants to have them,
 and not just the 1500 Escom stores in Europe.  
 
     Technical plans have not been made very clear yet, although we can
 expect much work on changing the Amiga CPU from CISC to RISC.  
 
     The A4000 and A1200 will be produced, but the company has not
 commented on the CD32 yet.
 
     All in all, this seems to be very good news for the Amiga.  We have
 people who know the Amiga running a new Amiga Corporation, people who are
 not just interested in milking the Amiga for all that it is worth.  We
 also have the support of Europe's second biggest computer chain, owner of 
 1500 stores!  And, best of all, we will probably see Amiga clones,
 something that many have been waiting for for a long time.  Who knows,
 someone could easily liscence the Amiga tech and work out a way to make it
 into a laptop, or a new game's system, or a new high-end Amiga!  The only
 bad news that I see is the small staff at the new Amiga corporation, but I
 hope that with time this company will grow much bigger.  I'm sure that as
 soon as money comes in from the Amiga they'll begin to hire more staff,
 and show Escom how important they could be to Escom's business operation.
 
     Let us pray.