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[bitcpy]

Those last 2 sentences just about sum it up for anyone who wants to run a business.

To be honest, everything I've seen and experienced has left a really bad taste in my mouth with respect to this new Commodore company. It's not for me.

I really dont see anything innovative or new and putting the name "Amiga" on a computer built from standard PC parts with Opensource Linux O/S and a custom theme doesn't cut it for me. Its a disrespect to the real Amiga.

There are only 2 things I have seen so far that are new from this company: The re-creation of the C64 case and the brand new plastic stickers.

Props to them for investing the $$ into the injection molding. Now if they would just do something innovative with the hardware and/or software they MIGHT have something to offer.

<Rant Off>

Originally Posted by comptech

I tried to impart to Barry the importance of having customer service and this is the response I got:

http://forums.commodore.net/showthre...me-back!/page2 (halfway down the page)

All it takes is 1 customer service rep (8.00 bucks an hour) to answer phone calls/emails instead of some poor schmuck who is already overloaded with his numerous other jobs.

It Takes Months To Find A Customer...

seconds to lose one

[vexar]

You know, I was |==| this close to buying an Amiga Mini (that is the net on a tennis court). I really appreciate the form factor, and I realize I'm buying "a Linux box." I thought it was expensive, I had a friend tell me "you can buy a whole lot more for less" and i thought, "no, I'm investing in the future, big, bold, etc."
Eventually this summer, I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad E530 with an Intel Core i7 3612 QM (whatever the heck that means, it is a quad-core). I paid $825, delivered, for it. It is very fast, it sips electricity, runs on a whisper, and if I am so inclined, I can spend $100 or so and get it up to 16GB of RAM when I need it for a work project. In fact, I'm using it now. Lenovo has great customer service, I was able to add a video camera to it, and I got a tracking service when I completed my purchase.

Commodore: you lost the sale because I realized I was in dream mode again, and that's how I usually make a financial mistake. You are competing with Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, and the lot, and I realized that's really what I wanted: something business grade. You haven't made a new machine worthy of your brand, and I can't believe I spent four hours offering up a product direction strategy in an email from my corporate account that didn't get noticed. You won't beat Dell in the small margin commodity server market, no matter how hard you try, because you can't be bothered to hire even an overseas outfit to handle your tech support. You are marketing but you aren't selling, and that's not closing deals. Why aren't you actively going after a small business office hardware refresh? Gosh, your market is so easy to get some leads. Fish for a contact at I dunno... Sears, and offer to sell them their desktops for a refresh at an irresistible price, and include a premium hardware support plan for two years. Pay someone locally to be "on call" for your customer, and you'd have unbeatable customer service to have a fella making house calls a couple times a month and taking calls.

Also, you wiped your forums to cover your tracks, especially when I (with Xerxes) made a lot of racket about the power configuration being wrong (neither of us take credit for it, someone on Amiga.org pointed it out first, we just went after it). That helped me feel better about not buying your system.

Leo: CTO's don't write scripts. You have an executive position and set the direction of technology, nothing else. What you are is a principal architect and QA lead and tech support. Barry isn't coaching you very well (by example) on how to be an executive. I'm sorry about that.

Amiga / C= community: Linux Mint is a great distro. I'm sure it will be fine for you. Zotac makes great hardware. As long as you didn't get the Core i7 machine, you should be fine, but they didn't test the configuration all that much at Commodore USA. Nobody feels the "soul" is in these new Linux boxes. Barry is feeling nostalgic, and that will wane. I think he's at the age where retirement is a consideration. Your best bet is to hope everything gets sold again, but I do not see the Commodore USA business model turning into a source of revenue to support $5M / yr in Research and Development and this certainly wasn't started with that kind of funding. If the remaining 10,000 Amiga fans were able to scrape together $10 Million (USD), or even $6 Million and a lot of "share equity" for part-time engineering work, then the Amiga could rise from the ashes.

Tesla Motors got 11,000 people to put $5,000 deposits down on a car they hadn't seen, touched, much less driven before, made with radical new technology. That's way over $50 million. I have since test-driven one of their cars and had a tour of their endless factory in Fremont. Be honest with yourselves: if Commodore USA isn't making something as amazing as a Tesla car, they are a flash in the pan and nothing more. I keep wishing Commodore USA wasn't a shanty of an idea, but dreams that I don't pursue/build are not ones I can influence.

[bitcpy]

My story is similar to yours. I came really close (a few times) to ordering a fully built machine. When I started doing my typical searches looking for reviews of the product and seeing the posts I held off.

I went back and forth, emailed them a few times, looked at the barebones models, and then when I saw there was no response from their sales people I posted here.

That got me doing more and more research and eventually through some posts I read here and from other sites I discovered what the new Amiga REALLY was.

Originally Posted by vexar

You know, I was |==| this close to buying an Amiga Mini (that is the net on a tennis court). I really appreciate the form factor, and I realize I'm buying "a Linux box." I thought it was expensive, I had a friend tell me "you can buy a whole lot more for less" and i thought, "no, I'm investing in the future, big, bold, etc."
Eventually this summer, I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad E530 with an Intel Core i7 3612 QM (whatever the heck that means, it is a quad-core). I paid $825, delivered, for it. It is very fast, it sips electricity, runs on a whisper, and if I am so inclined, I can spend $100 or so and get it up to 16GB of RAM when I need it for a work project. In fact, I'm using it now. Lenovo has great customer service, I was able to add a video camera to it, and I got a tracking service when I completed my purchase.

Commodore: you lost the sale because I realized I was in dream mode again, and that's how I usually make a financial mistake. You are competing with Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, and the lot, and I realized that's really what I wanted: something business grade. You haven't made a new machine worthy of your brand, and I can't believe I spent four hours offering up a product direction strategy in an email from my corporate account that didn't get noticed. You won't beat Dell in the small margin commodity server market, no matter how hard you try, because you can't be bothered to hire even an overseas outfit to handle your tech support. You are marketing but you aren't selling, and that's not closing deals. Why aren't you actively going after a small business office hardware refresh? Gosh, your market is so easy to get some leads. Fish for a contact at I dunno... Sears, and offer to sell them their desktops for a refresh at an irresistible price, and include a premium hardware support plan for two years. Pay someone locally to be "on call" for your customer, and you'd have unbeatable customer service to have a fella making house calls a couple times a month and taking calls.

Also, you wiped your forums to cover your tracks, especially when I (with Xerxes) made a lot of racket about the power configuration being wrong (neither of us take credit for it, someone on Amiga.org pointed it out first, we just went after it). That helped me feel better about not buying your system.

Leo: CTO's don't write scripts. You have an executive position and set the direction of technology, nothing else. What you are is a principal architect and QA lead and tech support. Barry isn't coaching you very well (by example) on how to be an executive. I'm sorry about that.

Amiga / C= community: Linux Mint is a great distro. I'm sure it will be fine for you. Zotac makes great hardware. As long as you didn't get the Core i7 machine, you should be fine, but they didn't test the configuration all that much at Commodore USA. Nobody feels the "soul" is in these new Linux boxes. Barry is feeling nostalgic, and that will wane. I think he's at the age where retirement is a consideration. Your best bet is to hope everything gets sold again, but I do not see the Commodore USA business model turning into a source of revenue to support $5M / yr in Research and Development and this certainly wasn't started with that kind of funding. If the remaining 10,000 Amiga fans were able to scrape together $10 Million (USD), or even $6 Million and a lot of "share equity" for part-time engineering work, then the Amiga could rise from the ashes.

Tesla Motors got 11,000 people to put $5,000 deposits down on a car they hadn't seen, touched, much less driven before, made with radical new technology. That's way over $50 million. I have since test-driven one of their cars and had a tour of their endless factory in Fremont. Be honest with yourselves: if Commodore USA isn't making something as amazing as a Tesla car, they are a flash in the pan and nothing more. I keep wishing Commodore USA wasn't a shanty of an idea, but dreams that I don't pursue/build are not ones I can influence.

[vexar]

Originally Posted by bitcpy

That got me doing more and more research and eventually through some posts I read here and from other sites I discovered what the new Amiga REALLY was.

What is the new Commodore USA Amiga, the Emperor's new clothes?

[vox]

Originally Posted by bitcpy

Is Commodore USA alive or is it smoke and mirrors?

I've sent 2 emails to them in the past 3 weeks inquiring about products and asking for clarification on details of specs and never got a reply to either one.

I even sent the emails from 2 different email accounts just to make sure it didnt get lost in spam.

I dont get it. They have all these BUY IT NOW buttons on their website, and no one answers sales questions? They say "ship within 1 or 2 days" on some of the things I was looking at but I was skeptical to order because I didnt get a reply to my emails.

Has anyone here bought something from their site? Did you get your product in a reasonable timeframe?

I ve never recieved an reply from official address, but a private mail from Berry.

Products if may be called so are famous for slow delivery, assambly and no support.

Check the latest 130 days repair story
http://anticusa.wordpress.com/2012/0...-norway-to-us/

However, it would be unfair to say the are gone,
they do some PR, new forum and are properly registred LCC

[CritAnime]

Well for anyone interested then here is a thread that was on their forums of someone who built a computer using the Wesena case. It's in MHT format because it's a dump of the page.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5R...lJ0YnJYS1laNTg

[vox]

Originally Posted by CritAnime

Well for anyone interested then here is a thread that was on their forums of someone who built a computer using the Wesena case. It's in MHT format because it's a dump of the page.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5R...lJ0YnJYS1laNTg

Please follow these step by step guide
http://anticusa.wordpress.com/2012/0...less-then-800/

Also: thanks for the link! It has now been eternalized as blog page
http://anticusa.wordpress.com/amiga-...-x64-machines/

[vexar]

So... Amiga Mini is gone now? Just the shell, huh? Six months of hype for 2-3 months of product availability. They have no cash. I think what they are doing now is building what they expect the market will buy up, selling out, and then re-tooling for a new "idea." I use the term lightly. I don't think they believe in what they are doing. I think they would keep a product around if my understanding was otherwise. I came close to buying one, I had hesitations. In the end, my hesitations proved worthwhile. If I were a computer builder, I'd still buy one of their cases, but I'm not.

[CritAnime]

Even if I was a local PC store/inidpendent builder I wouldn't buy them. You have to buy in minimum bulk of 10 (with the 15% discount) which is $2201.50 for the Amiga mini and $2932.50 for the C64x not to mention inport taxes. Which is a large chunk of money to be spending on cases you could possibly not sell. And even if I was doing it as a one off purchase I still couldn't justify it as the importation costs would be just silly on a single unit.

They have been through lots of hardware revisions since they have been selling these things. My understanding, which is based upon snippets from the old forum which now no longer exists, is that they were buying complete board configurations in bulk that were close to the end of their retail life. The reason been, as I mentioned, they said things like the boards or components weren't been manufactured any more such as one of the atom chipsets.

suppose I should mention that Amiga Mini is no more. its been removed from their product listing.

[vexar]

Originally Posted by CritAnime

My understanding, which is based upon snippets from the old forum which now no longer exists, is that they were buying complete board configurations in bulk that were close to the end of their retail life. The reason been, as I mentioned, they said things like the boards or components weren't been manufactured any more such as one of the atom chipsets.

suppose I should mention that Amiga Mini is no more. its been removed from their product listing.

Okay, so that's their game, fascinating. I'm sorry if you feel this is harsh, but buying things near the end of their market viability, claiming it is new, and then dropping the product as soon as your inventory is clear is really a bottom-feeder's mentality. It means you don't believe in what you are making.

Their elimination of the old forum seems to me like they were trying to erase some of their own mistakes or cover their tracks. I mean, I had my (shared) story with the power supply coming up short, and yet here is one more.

This does hurt, emotionally. I want to believe things are better than they are. It feels like a degradation transition between rational compromises and making a dollar off someone else's naivete.

[persia]

Launching a desktop in the tablet age was never a bright idea. They chose the wrong market. RIP Commodore USA.

[commodorejohn]

Originally Posted by persia

Launching a desktop in the tablet age was never a bright idea. They chose the wrong market. RIP Commodore USA.

Alternatively, it may just be that going up against every other established computer manufacturer with middling and badly-executed hardware builds, free-as-in-quality-not-as-in-price software, at luxury prices and with crap support is doomed in any circumstance...

[CritAnime]

[QUOTE=vexar;711061]Their elimination of the old forum seems to me like they were trying to erase some of their own mistakes or cover their tracks. I mean, I had my (shared) story with the power supply coming up short, and yet here is one more. [QUOTE]

They have also moved onto a completely new board system so that even rules out them porting the informattion over as it's probably a completely different data structure to the databases. Far too much for their busy time.

Originally Posted by persia

Launching a desktop in the tablet age was never a bright idea. They chose the wrong market. RIP Commodore USA.

The tablet market is saturated. I doubt if they entered it that they would make a big enough impact for it to be really viable. And if their PC prices are anything to go by then they would probably price it right into the firing lines of Sony, Samsung, Acer, Asus, Apple and not to mention the hundreds of brands that saturate the cheap end of the tablet market.

I think their next venture will possibly be into the whole Raspberry Pi thing. Not enough people have jumped on that bandwagon yet.

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

Alternatively, it may just be that going up against every other established computer manufacturer with middling and badly-executed hardware builds, free-as-in-quality-not-as-in-price software, at luxury prices and with crap support is doomed in any circumstance...

This is probably the most realistic view. I feel their very much like how Commodore Gaming was. Making so so computers and premium pricing them right into the same brackets as much more powerful and feature packed brand computers. And we know how it ended for them.

[Darrin]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

Alternatively, it may just be that going up against every other established computer manufacturer with middling and badly-executed hardware builds, free-as-in-quality-not-as-in-price software, at luxury prices and with crap support is doomed in any circumstance...

The sad thing was, this is exactly what we were trying to point out to them right from the start, except they were trying to cover it all up.

They might have had a chance selling cheap PCs equipped with Windows and/or Linux and configured to play retro games right from the desktop... and stated just that.

All of this fluff about their own "OS" coupled with what was obviously rebadged existing hardware, marked up to skyhigh prices and configured/assembled by an amature was going nowhere.

Didn't they have one single person who knew something about the computer market working for them?

I'm afraid that Barry (whatever his intentions) seemed to think selling computers was like selling coffee tables: You by them as cheaply as you can, mark them up and resell them. Unfortunately the margins on furniture are not the same as those on computers and you don't need to provide 24 hour tech support on a sofa.

As for the lies, he makes Pinochio look like Mother Teresa.

[persia]

SO if they're really gone what's going to unite us? Does this mean red v blue v AROS is back on?