compt.sys.editor.desk

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==  compt.sys.editor.desk                          By:  Jason Compton   ==
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Like the new front-page logo?  Then thank Gareth Edwards
(config@ultim.demon.co.uk) for the fine work on short notice.  Thanks,
Gareth.  With the change in look for the old Amiga logo, it was decided
that AR should follow suit.

So, what's news this week?  Well, all of the "official" releases from Amiga
Technologies (both of them) are included in this issue.  As for the news
that comes through the pipeline...sometimes it changes so fast it's
difficult to keep up.  Suffice it to say, there have been no major
developments or changes in Amiga Technologies policy, at least nothing we
can hold them to.  Indications point to a new company called ISE, a startup
totally unrelated and unowned by Escom, that has been subcontracted to do
ALL software and hardware development for the Amiga, leaving Amiga
Technologies to be a marketing and sales company only.

This, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing.  But more on it as news
becomes available.  Hey, engineering is engineering, it doesn't matter what
the label is, as long as there is quality behind the product.

Engineering.  Sales.  Marketing.  In what other computer or technology
industry do the users pay so much attention to these things?  We are, all
of us, armchair CEOs, PR agents, advertising directors, technical support
personnel and product planners.  Nowhere else in the world could Escom have
found a group of people so willing to speak their minds and share their
thoughts and ideas.

At times, though, it has turned into a shouting match.  "Low signal to
noise", as the disdainers call it.  Just as Amiga magazines exist to
condense news and events into digestible product, this energy needs, has
always needed, a focus-a way to present it in usable form to the Amiga's
owner, without seeming aggressive or overbearing.

Enclosed in this issue you will find M-PLAN, a comprehensive plan for a
first step towards this goal.  Amiga Report highly recommends reading this
document.

Nowhere else in the world is there anything quite like the Amiga, a machine
and a culture that has literally stood on the cutting edge-and the
brink-since its existance, able to change so many minds yet be dismissed
out of hand by so many others.  But the ride, for those who stay and work
with it, is unparallelled.  Nowhere else in the world would an M-PLAN
exist.  There would be no users staying up late into the night just to hear
news of corporate liquidations, no world-class FTP network, no calls to
radio programs just to extoll the virtues of a computer, no vigilant group
of users bursting with ideas and suggestions.  I could never create
anything like Amiga Report anywhere else in the world.  Under the crazy
conditions of the Amiga, these things flourish and form something truly
incredible.

This is it.  What are the options?  Against what seem to be incredible
odds, Amiga Technologies needs all the friends it can get.  Against these
odds, the fight can be given up, the Amiga can become a closet culture and
join the ranks already bursting with the fallen, near forgotten platforms.
But if that happens, not just a computer is lost.  A culture, a community,
a neighborhood, is lost.

It's worth working together for.

Jason

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