Gateway's Amiga Due To Become Set-Top Box
newsbytes.com
12 Jul 1999, 5:03 PM CST
By Laura Randall, Newsbytes.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA,
Gateway's Amiga subsidiary [NYSE:GTW]
is preparing to release a technology plan
that appears to move away from the PC market and instead
focus on Internet appliances and television set-top boxes.
The company is holding back on the details of the plan,
citing confidentiality agreements and competition. But
Amiga executives seem particularly excited about a
technology called AmigaObject, software that enables the
integration of high-speed network transactions and
communication between applications. AmigaObjects are
portable and transferable across platforms. The technology
will run on Linux operating systems, the company said,
citing "significant performance advantages" over other
operating systems.
"This is just one piece of the new Amiga operating
environment. It is the type of technology that will allow us to
build a revolutionary computer platform," Jim Collas, Amiga's
chief executive, wrote in an open letter to Amiga users
earlier this month.
Amiga plans to release a five- to seven-page outline of its
product strategy in the next week, but Collas said it won't be
for several weeks, at the World of Amiga and AmiWest
shows, that the company will disclose its full technology
plan and strategic partners. At these shows, Amiga also
plans to unleash a new hardware unit that "will bring exciting
new capabilities to the Amiga," Collas said. He declined to
give more information, citing confidentiality agreements,
except to say the CPU is not an X86 architecture processor.
Analysts say Amiga's new and decidedly un-PC-like plans fit
with Gateway's strategy to launch itself full-force into the
Web business as the PC revenue market steadily declines.
Gateway executive Ted Waitt recently told the Guardian
Online that "Gateway has a group of people working on
leveraging the Amiga assets into an appliance strategy for
us." But, in response to cries of concern from Amiga users,
Collas downplayed the comment on the company's Website
and stressed that "this doesn't reflect a shift in our Amiga
plans."
Waitt continued: "I am not CEO of Gateway. I am CEO of
Amiga and I don't want to confuse Gateway's plans with
Amiga's. There is a significant overlap in our plans, but there
is a difference in focus." Collas said Amiga still plans to
forge ahead with its multimedia convergence computer,
which the company says will eventually integrate with digital
televisions, set-top boxes and other devices.
Reported by Newsbytes.com,
newsbytes.com17:03 CST
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