Greetings:

I want to thank all of you who have contacted me in the last couple of days about some new rumors that are spreading through our community. As I have mentioned before if you have any questions please do not hesitate in contacting any of us listed at the end of this message.

Here are the rumors that are circulating this week:

1. The new Amiga will be based on the Intel Merced chip.
WRONG! I want to make this perfectly clear. The next generation of Amiga machines that run OS 5.0 will typically be media-processor based. The last time I checked Intel didn't have one of these.

2. Fleecy and I are dating.
I will answer this one later.

3. The BeOS is the OS partner, and they are what everyone should develop to.
WRONG! Please do not jump at every rumor. As mentioned before, Be is ONE of the OS partners that we are considering. There are at least 6 others that are on the list. We have narrowed the contenders, and we hope to have all of this wrapped up soon.

4. Amiga has no plans for the high end of the platform, and will not have any support for NewTek.
WRONG! Keys to our success are the ability of the next generation Amiga architecture to be scaleable and work well as a home computer and the high end with the Toaster and Flyer.

5. Amiga does not care about the QuickPak situation, and does not care about the 4000 shortage.
WRONG! We are doing all that we can in helping this process come to a close. The legal problems are between QuickPak and Hembach. These legal problems started before Gateway ever purchased Amiga. We hope and pray that this can be resolved quickly also.

6. Jeff and I are dating.
WRONG! It would make Fleecy jealous.

7. OS 3.5 is back and in development.
We are currently evaluating the market needs for an OS upgrade before OS 5.0 ships. No decision has been made. As soon as we have all of our information gathered, we will make the final decision and let everyone know.

8. Amiga Classic is only for those machines compatible with OS 4.0.
WRONG! The Amiga Classic line is for the applications and hardware that currently run OS 3.1. If it runs 3.1 then it is in the Classic series.

9. The new Amiga architecture will not be compatible with the current Amiga applications.
We plan to have hardware and software compatibility for the developer platform and software emulation for OS 5.0.

I hope that this helps in dispelling some of the rumors. I am sure that there are more, and once I receive a rumor from more than a few people, we will get the answers up as quickly as possible. Thank you again, and I look forward to seeing many of you in Columbus, and then Cologne.

Keeping the faith,

Bill McEwen

Head of Marketing, Amiga, Inc.