-Hello All.
    Welcome to the latest feature here at AmigaSource - Interviews. In an attempt to keep the masses informed and generate more site traffic ;-) I have conducted my second with Mr. Fleecy Moss of Amiga Inc.

   Once again please keep in mind that I'm neither a reporter or web designer. The questions are not indepth or really technical - Just the basics. With that said please enjoy and spread the word about AmigaSource!!

General
1-How long have you been involved with the Amiga?
Since I bought an A1200 in Scotland back in 1993.

2-How long have you been the CTO/VP of Amiga Inc?
Since Bill, Randy and I bought Amiga from Gateway back in January 2000.

NOTE - The following was actually question #2. The above question #2 was reworded after the reply to match the answer given by Mr. Moss. The following was sent to me for posting on 14 Nov 2002 by Mr. Moss. Nothing has been changed in this interview without Mr. Moss's prior approval.

2a-How has it been being the CTO/VP of Amiga Inc?
It has been both very exciting and very scary. Exciting because you are almost like a kid in a candy shop, having your own company there to mould what you want do do (although you soon realise even as the technologist that business is 90% meetings and wrangling over who gets how much). Scary becase as CTO of Amiga, everyone expects you to carry on their version and dreams of what Amiga is, which is a very personal thing. There isn't anything else I'd rather be doing though (which will depress quite a few people).

3-Where do you see yourself in 1 year? 5 Years? 10 years from now?
In one year, I want to go to an Amiga show or even better, an Industry show and see lots of new Amigas, lots of new software and lots of proud, smiling faces (and more importantly - new faces) all saying they are Amigans.

In five years, I want to see the Amiga Environment all over the planet, with Amiga a successful company and Amigans very pleased with their universal digital presence, wherever they are in the world.

In ten years, yikes, I just hope Amiga is still a success and the world hasn't blown itself up.

4-Where do you see the Amiga in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years from now?
If the digital revolution plays itself out the way we expect it to, then Amiga should come to be one of the primary players in the industry, firstly with the DE (pushing content onto all the second generation mobile devices) and then with OS5 as we finally have the universal solution that we hoped for in 2000.

5-Do you use an Amiga? At work? Home?
I lent my A4000 to a friend in the US and he still has it. I have UAE on my PC and the kids play on my A1200 030. I don't use it much for work anymore as most of my work is DE and OS5 design but I still play Cannon Fodder on it and use Photogenics. I have my A1 on order and can't wait to start using it and the new apps on OS4, especially Audio Evolution.

General Amiga
6-Sorry to ask but I feel the need to cover the rumors of "death and destruction" right off the bat. Is Amiga "Shutdown", "Near death" or "Going out of business"?
We have had some tough times over the last 12 months, as have most companies based in the US, and especially in the Pacific NorthWest but no, we have never been shut down, near death or going out of business. We all have stout Amigan hearts and it'll require a stake through the heart of every Amiga employee before that ever happens. In fact, the last three months have been non stop, and for me, I've been working 12 hrs a day UK time and then getting calls all evening/night from Dean, Bill, Kevin and the gang in Snoqualmie. In fact, as the MS deal grows and matures, it's getting even worse and we are going to have to start hiring new people just for that part of the business.

7-Why the lack of an updated website?
Don't know - I'm not part of the web group. We have made a decision just to get on with the work we need to do, which means getting the product out the door for the DE partners and finishing and shipping our pride and joy, AmigaOS4.0. We are working on a new website just for OS4 but that won't be live for a few weeks.

8-What's the status of the coupon/ tee-shirt deal?
Don't know. It's not my area.

9-What was/is the final tally of the "I am Amiga" club?
Don't know. It's not my area.

10-How many people work for Amiga? In Snoqualmie? (New location) Contracted out?
We have about 30 people working for the company at the moment, ten or so in Snoqualmie and the rest spread out around the world. We are more interested in having the best people we can get, rather than making them sit in traffic jams trying to get to an office. I know some of our players would rather this weren't the case, in particular Jonas Gustavsson, our media lead in Sweden who is up all night working with Jarno van der Linden, our 2D genius in New Zealand. In fact, if it wasn't for the Internet, we probably wouldn't have been able to get as far as we have done.

11-Can you comment on the status of the "legal proceedings on companies/personnel using unauthorized intellectual property" that was mentioned about at Amiwest2002?
It is on going. On the advice of our legal team we are still adding evidence to the portfolios and waiting for certain trigger conditions in one particular case.

12-It was announced that Amiga has split into two sections? Why the split? Whose in charge of each section? Does "failure" in one directly effect the other?
We split into two for many reasons. It was confusing our investors, our partners and also we didn't want to advertise we were developing a desktop OS to a very big new partner who wouldn't be too happy about that. It also means, as you correctly point out that both can be separately accountable revenue stream sets. No one is 'in charge' of each section - it is more of a functional reorganisation aimed at marketing and strategy. We don't want two separate architectural units because of the requirements of OS5.

Software
13-With Hyperion developing OS4.0, what Amiga's take on the current status on OS4.0? Are you still pleased? Is it on schedule? Still on track for OS5.0?
We are very pleased with the progress of OS4, particularly because we have been able to add elements planned for future releases. This has really reflected itself in ExecSG which has some very advanced features in it that we weren't planning on implementing until OS5. Yes it is much later than we wanted it to be but we haven't rushed it, we have done what needed to be done and the product that comes out will be a great foundation for the future. We are very confident that the long wait is almost over for Amigans.

As for OS5, it's schedule is more open ended and because of its inter relationship with OS4, there is still a lot of architectural tweaking going on. For now we are concentrating on the near future and AmigaOS4.

14-What's the status of AmigaDE? What happened with the updates with the Graphics/Sound?
The AmigaDE is progressing nicely. We have 2D, 3D, Audio, Database, Interface, Scaling, Transformation, Storage, Distribution and a nicely growing set of quality apps from the developers. Our issue has been finding the resources to get that built into an SDK to release it to the general public. However, the SDA developers have had full access to all of these resources for over a year now and are busy using those tools to create their next set of apps, which are just getting better and better. Once we get the first MS releases out, we will then take a breath and throw some resources into getting the new SDK out.

15-Any Status on Amithlon (or it's new name)? Are you still in contact with Bernie?
Absolutely. We are very keen to get Bernie's new product out the door and are doing all we can. Unfortunately, the hold up now is due to actions from other parties and it looks like it will have to end in court.

Hardware
16-What's Amiga's final word on the current AmigaOne hardware? (Are you pleased?)
As a first step absolutely. There's not many people who wouldn't be happy with an 800 mhz G4, especially with something like the AmigaOS4.0 screaming on it. However, I will emphasize that this is a first step. What strikes me as absurd is all the people screaming on about custom chips. If they knew anything about HW architectural issues they'd know that the chips themselves aren't the problem anymore. I'm not going to say much more, but don't be surprised if something special appears in the future 8-)

17-We have all seen the demonstrations of the A1 hardware. We know its real and the final build is locked in but have you seen/used a beta copy of OS4.0 on it?
Not on the A1 no - we still have some drivers to write that are peculiar to that board, and which are necessary because unlike the CSPPC version which has access to the AA amiga hardware, the A1 has no such access.

Partners
18-What is Amiga's relationship with Hyperion?
They are a very close partner.

19-What's Amiga's relationship with Eyetech? (Just a distributor?)
They were the first company to sign up to be an Amiga solution provider.

20-Is there ANY good news on the Thendic front? Would Amiga be willing to "work" with them? (For example extend the hand of good will in licensing?)
The AmigaOS has a clearly defined licencing policy and anyone is free to sign up to it. In a recent posting by Bill Buck on www.amiga.org he said that Thendic had no interest in seeing AmigaOS4 on the Pegasos as that is not their business. If Thendic won't get a licence then all the set up cost for the licence will have to be born by a distributor, and given the small size of the market, this seems prohibitive. Given that the Pegasos shares most of the same components, and that there is little creativity available in putting together a PPC AGP/PCI machine, there would be little difficulty in having it run but we have limited resources and can only apply them to companies that actually want to be partners rather than those who have their own agendas and products.

21-With Sendo "Dropping" the Z100 is Amiga going to try and provide content for the Series 60 Platform?
Amiga Anyware is a hardware agnostic total content solution. In fact Sendo has proven the value of the AmigaDE better than any marketing promotion. We already have a prototype AACE player running on Symbian and it will be brought to commercial completion in the near future.

22-Are there anymore partners to be announced?
Yes. MS has opened a lot of doors for us, both expected and unexpected but there are many non MS opportunites presenting themselves. In fact, just the MS announcement has galvanised many of the non MS companies we were talking to into pushing the DE much further up their agenda.

In Closing
23-What can the Amiga community do "right now" to show their support?
Keep on being Amigans. Support their dealers, their user groups, their website, their magazines - celebrate their membership of the community. The long wait is almost over and we can soon start moving forwards again.

24-Any final words? This is your chance to reach hundreds/thousands of fellow Amiga users.
We are sorry it has taken so long but we will very soon be able to offer you new hardware and your favourite AmigaOS, providing the fastest, most stable Amiga experience ever. This is the start of the next stage in the Amiga story and we couldn't have got here without all of you. Thanks.

25-Any exclusive information you want to share with us?
Not if I don't want to be sacked ;-)

Well folks that it. Hopefully this has answered a few questions. Until next time keep dropping in to see all the new sites added!!!