Following is an interview of SASG's opinion on the new acquisition of the Amiga assets, which has been published in several Amiga magazines:

1.) What is your comment on Gateway 2000 as new Amiga owner?

SASG is very positive about Gateway 2000. This is a company with almost 10000 employees with big assets and monetary power. They have already proven that their advertisement efforts and PR are amongst the best in the computer market. Their MS-DOS based systems are very often cited in benchmark tests and reviews as reference systems. So, Gateway 2000 has a good reputation in the public eyes. As far as the Amiga is concerned we think that this is the best that could have happened to our computer, since GW2000 has always shown interest in platforms other than the MS-DOS-PC. And here is not only interest, but financial stability that speaks for GW2000 as the new Amiga owner.

2.) If Gateway continues the development of the Amiga, how will that affect your company regarding the Amiga market?

As many Amiga users probably know, the Standardized Amiga Shareware Group (www.sasg.com) was founded back in early 1994, which was the time of the downfall of Commodore. Our reason to found SASG was to show our solidarity with the Amiga and its users worldwide after this crisis. We wanted the world to know that there are authors of renowned software products (like MUI, MagicWB, MCX, DFA) that do not drop the Amiga. At that time we felt that shareware has a greater potential than ever before. For this reason, we revolutionized the shareware idea by offering more service, support, presence and comfort for the same low usual shareware fee. Our new concept proved to be highly successful amongst the Amiga users who embraced it enthusiastically.

So, our support for the Amiga market was and will always be exceptionally strong, independent of any changing situation of the Amiga assets. This has always been the core philosophy of SASG; we want the Amiga to survive at all cost by constantly improving it with our software to make it more appealing to the users. Still, the news about Gateway 2000 as the new owner of the Amiga inspires us to new ideas and certainly is instilling positive energy into our productive efforts.

3.) Do you believe the Amiga market can grow and be big enough once again?

Certainly. We can underline from our own experience in the last three years that the Amiga user base is still very active and engaged. The Amiga user is a quite special species that holds very tight to his computer, since he is very knowledgable and knows about the many advantages of the Amiga system over other platforms. This is the main potential of the Amiga: Very dedicated users that will fight for a continuation of the Amiga line of computers with all means. And now, as they get a new change to support the Amiga again, you can bet they will! This is our definite conviction.

4.) What is the most important thing for Gateway to do right now?

The most important thing to do first is to supply the world with the complete line of Amiga computers again. We know from an analysis that there is a great demand for the existing Amiga computers. We couldn't believe our own eyes, but the demand is really huge. GW2000 certainly knows about that and will satisfy this demand as soon as possible.

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