Amiga Industrial Council and Open Amiga Workgroup

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The AMIGA INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL and The OPEN AMIGA WORKGROUP (ICOA)

For the past nine months, an international cross section of Amiga
developers, original Amiga and Commodore veterans and informed Amiga users
(The ARise Initiative), have been discussing, debating, analysing and
deliberating over the future of the Amiga platform.

This culminated in the creation of the Industry Council/Open Amiga working
group (ICOAWG), a formal project built around the two most promising ideas
to come from the study.

The Industry Council proposes a co-operative forum of serious Amiga
designers and developers, providing them with a forum in which they can
debate, create and plan for the future of the platform as a single set of
focused concerns rather than competing against each other and wasting time
and resources re-inventing the wheel.

The Open Amiga is seen as one of the by-products of the Industry Council. 
First, it would work towards the establishment of a common set of Open
API's, protocols and specifications.  Secondly it would lobby for the
creation of a shrink-wrapped Amiga operating system that could run
potentially on any platform, platform specific HALs (Hardware Abstraction
Layers) providing the translations that would allow Open AmigaOS to run on
disparate systems.

A week ago, the formal project proposal was dispatched to Gateway for their
consideration and inclusion in their future plans for the Amiga.

We are pleased to announce that Gateway responded favorably to the outreach
by the ICOA, without endorsing ICOA or any strategy thus far offered.

This weekend, at the World of Amiga show in London, representatives of ICOA
workgroup will be giving a presentation at the Amiga Society's Developers
Conference (DEVCON), on Saturday.  If you are an Amiga Developer, please
attend.  If you are an Amiga User, please stop by at the Finale
Developments booth at WOA.  They have kindly offered us a space to present
the ICOA initiative.  We look forward to seeing you there.

For any further information please contact the project manager, Fleecy Moss
at fleecy@netreach.net

Skal Loret
Director of Communications
The Jay Miner Society for The Advancement of Personal Computing
skal@nac.net


The Industry Council Open Amiga Initiative (ICOA) is sponsored and
supported by the Jay Miner Society for The Advance of Personal Computing. 
A non-profit society incorporated in the State of New York.  JMS has no
economic association with any company, nor does the JMS specifically
endorse any Amiga-oriented Companies, Products or Commercial Concerns.

The Jay Miner Society for Independent Computing
140 West 24th St., NY, NY 10011, USA.

14 May 1997

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