Last month we discussed what was happening to Commodore and where it is likely to go. Now we go one step further and get the vision of the two men that matter most.

David Pleasance and Cohn Proudfoot are current Joint Managing Directors of Commodore UK. They are responsible for the management buyout bid and their future fortunes are distinctly entwined with that of the Amiga. We visited them with a camera and a tape recorder to get some candid views, cutting through the gossip and the hearsay and getting some straight information.

CU: If the management buyout goes ahead when do you see the Amiga back in production?

Colin Proudfoot: The buyout process that we're going through has been described to us as the most complex legal untangling of a corporation since Maxwell because there are so many jurisdictions and so many different receivers around the world -there are now ten creditors committees involved. The process is a step by step one. What we're trying to do is commence manufacturing as early as possible in that process, which is when we are confident that our bid has been accepted, that we are winning the business and are going through the legal formalities. This could take some months. What we hope to do is get some product in manufacturing, perhaps this year, most likely January-February time, but really starting volume production is going to be over the next year, February onwards. If we can do anything faster we will, but I think it's unrealistic to expect that.

CU: You have said before that you will concentrate on the A4000 abroad and the CD32 and Al 200 at home. Is that still the case, or do you have anything else which you are going to start producing from scratch at this stage?

David Pleasance: Our responsibility is to fulfil the very high level of demand for all of our products, which are, in the majority of cases 1200s and 4000s. They are in demand world-wide. We made the decision to concentrate on 4000s on the premise that there was likely to be very long lead times for component parts and we need less component parts to achieve a turnover figure which is acceptable to the investors if we do it on 4000s rather than 32s, for example, because of the sheer cost of the goods. That still holds. But on the basis that we now know we've missed Christmas we will be putting the 1200 into
full production as quickly as we possibly can. [Both] will be at maximum production level at the earliest possible opportunity.

CU: You have also said that you might look at upgrading the Al 200 and A4000 and put out packs with hard drives and extra RAM. Is that still the case?

DP: Part of our overall plan in the first twelve months of operation will be to strengthen the brand in terms of product availability... model availability, so we do intend to bring in some new models. But I stress that nothing we bring in will put current models at risk in terms of pricing. People will not be disadvantaged if they buy something today and we bring out something in six months time to replace it. It's very important to stress that. It is strengthening the range rather than replacing old products with new. We also definitely will be putting into production, not immediately because it has to be second priority, a CD-ROM drive for the 1200 and the expansion box for the CD32.

CU: That is very important. Most of the software houses have said that they will port software across from PC if there is a fully compatible Al 200 CD-ROM drive, but not just for the CD32 at the moment.

DP: No, we understand that. And obviously at the same time we're looking for a CD32 compatible drive for the A4000.

CU: What about the CD64?

DP: The CD64 is a figment of somebody's imagination in terms of its code name, if you like, but we've been at great pains to explain to everybody that we believe very strongly in RISC technology and we have developed our own system which incorporates' a RISC core. When we develop that system- we're talking about 18 months or so- it is our intention to bring out RISC products both in the high end station market and the low end consumer market, which is where our strength is.

CU: At ECTS you announced that AAA was being dropped in favour of RISC development. At the moment the Amiga's in-built graphics capabilities, ie AGA, are quite unique distinguishes it from the PC and Mac. When a RISC based Amiga comes out against RISC competitors what will its unique selling points be?

DIP: Ours is a complete chipset, in the tradition of Amiga. It has a real-time 3D rendering engine with full texture mapping, compatibility with full motion video, MPEG, and also... I'll need to double check on this [it's not been finally confirmed yet] ... 22 voice, 16-bit stereo [sound]. It is a very comprehensive and effective system which we're going to be making available in a modular form, one [where] the low end products will have two modules, but with the capability to be upgraded. Obviously the hig workstations will have a lot of modules. We'll be giving the end user the opportunity to buy at a low entry point and then expand as their needs require; that in itself is pretty special.
To put things in perspective our estimation is that a CD games console based on this technology will give a power performance something like 20 times better than Ultra 64, which we beleive to the best spec product planned to come out in the near future.
 And you're talking about a graphics worstation that is something like times more powerful than the 4000 for no more money -and possibly less.

CU: When this machine comes out in 1996/1997 is it going to be backward compatible with the current range of Amigas?

No, definitely not. This is a departure for Amiga because, as you know, Motorola's 68060 is the last in that line of chips, therefore we have nowhere else to go now. So we have to take the next technological step forward, and that is a completely new architecture.

Will the Amiga RISC system be cross compatible in some way with PCs and Macs using RISC based processors?

My understanding is that this particular system will be the most transparent that's on the market and will be able to run, with emulation certainly, Macintosh products. But without emulation our understanding is that this processor will run DOS software through Windows NT and we have been told that it will run something in the region of 4-5 times faster than the Pentium.

CU: What would the structure of the new company look like? Would Maidenhead be the base? Where would manufacturing take place?

We envisage that Maidenhead will be the core of the company, that's where the management will be. We don't want to create a monolith overnight and we will expand as fast as the market demand and sensible expansion plans permit. So we see ourselves initially as going through distribution. The key markets for the Amiga have traditionally been UK, Germany, France, Italy, Scandinavia, in European terms and then the USA for the top end products. What we're looking at is the UK organisation staying in place, also keeping Commodore Canada. In manufacturing terms what we said was we want to manufacture in Europe if we can find the right people to do that on the right terms and we are currently in negotiations with various parties in the UK. We would continue to source other products, say monitors, from the Far East.

We will continue to source products rather than taking on the manufacturing ourselves and will concentrate on our core strengths which are product development and marketing.

DP: We will be taking our engineering workforce which is currently 18 people, in Morristown [USA] and turning it into 60 people as quickly as we can recruit, so that's likely to be a two to three month process. These will be split into two, possibly three areas. One is an area of engineers who will be maintaining and supporting our current technology and from that developing new derivative products, so that current technology is made to work harder for us and provide different models to fill some gaps. The balance of the people will be working on new technology. We are also going to form a completely new [software and peripheral] development support team here [in Maidenhead]. We will be bringing one person over from the US and he'll head up a team of around about 22 people whose sole job will be to support development.
 

"We don't want to create a monolith overnight ..."
Colin Proudfoot
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PROFILES:
DAVID PLEASANCE:
Current job title: Joint MD
Nationality: British
Length of time at Commodore:
Eleven Years

Was there life before Commodore?
Began career in retail finance. Part of the marketing team that launched Australia's first commercial credit card, Bank Card, before VISA and MASTERCARD came on the scene. Worked for 3M in their consumer product division - the people 'who invented post-it notes' and who have over 87,000 products in production including floppy disks. Headed up Pioneer's car stereo division in Australia. Came home to UK and joined Commodore in 1983.

What has he done at Commodore?
Joined as business development manager to sell Commodore PCs. Moved on to become national accounts manager handling the big retailers like Dixons and Comet etc. and distributors. Eventually became National Sales Manager and Sales Director. 1990 saw David moving to Switzerland to head up Commodore Electronics limited as General Manager. In 1992 he was promoted to Vice-President of sales in the USA and in April 1993 took over as Joint
Managing Director of Commodore UK right back in Maidenhead.

What does David see as the three most significant events or changes that have happened since he joined Commodore? "Being given the opportunity to market products the way I wanted to: selling bundles, selling dreams really". "The losses [sustained by Commodore International] were significant for the wrong reasons, everybody here took that very badly because it was a bad reflection on everything that had gone so well here [in the UK]". "The third thing is this opportunity [the MBO] as a result of all that, to become a part owner of this world-wide business and to control its activities."

What has the most difficult thing over the last few months?"At this moment in time our inability to defini-tively say 'on this day we can tell you, yes or no [regarding the management buyout and the Amiga's future]', I think that's been the hardest thing. We're aware of the need to tell the community - your readers in particular - that the Amiga is a long term product, that it has a future, that it's going to be looked after by people who really care about it."

What interests does David have outside Amiga? Music. He has a recording studio, the heart of which is, naturally enough, the Amiga. His big passion is the guitar though. Despite being heavily involved in an international takeover David still rates himself as one of the best flamenco players in the country.

And what If the MBO fails?
David will be looking for another job.

COLIN PROUDFOOT
Current job title: Joint MD
Nationality: British
Length of time at Commodore:
Four years

Was there life before Commodore?
Most of Colin's work before Commodore was in the financial world, though he trained as a production engineer at University. All of his work has been in high tech industry, starting off with Tube Investments where he helped implement their computer system, then moved to Rank Xerox as a financial analyst. Following this he spent some time at Wang when they were first penetrating the UK, transforming in three years from a £50m company to a £175m company. He then set up a management consultancy and advised businesses of all sizes, including Barclays Bank. Joined Commodore in 1990.

What has he done at Commodore?
Joined initially as Commercial Controller, then four months later, in 1991, became finance director and finally join David as Joint MD in 1993.

What does Colin see as the three most significant events or changes that have happened he joined Commodore? "Coming out of the PC MS-DOS market place and focusing the UK businesses on Amiga, is a key change; building from our strengths rather than trying to compete in a difficult marketplace. The second key change was moving from our own UK distribution to sub-contracted distribution which enabled us to reduce our cost base and be more flexible. The third major change has to be the parent company going into liquidation, because from a financial point view all the rules change."

What has been the most difficult thing over the last few months'
"I have already answered that question" [The parent company going liquidation]; "That was both difficult and challenging, but also very positive because you find out when the parent company goes into liquidation and you're trying to keep the business in the UK afloat who your friends are. One of the things that has kept me going is the volume of support we've had from third parties, suppliers and customers."

What Interests does Colin have outside Amiga?
Sport: He enjoys golf and skiing.

OK, so what is his favourite Amiga golf game?
No comment.

David is seen as the figurehead by magazine readers, does Colin mind this?
"Not at all, I'm quite happy to let David get on with it".

And what if the MBO fails?
He doesn't envisage a future with Amiga outside the rules laid down in the MBO.

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