This chapter is now a separate part of Amiga Documents both because the single-page layout was becoming overly lengthy and difficult to read, and because the sad saga of the "dot-com years" which started in the years of the tech bubble and was followed by years of stagnation came to an end on February 1, 2019, when the assets were sold to Amiga Corporation [277][292]. Several issues outlined here, for example issues involving US trademarks, appear to have been addressed. This is, thus, a chapter worth forgetting, if not learning from.
Following Gateway's acquisition of the Amiga assets in 1997, within a few years no less than three different companies with the exact same "Amiga, Inc." name were put into existence.
A first company was incorporated in Delaware in 1997 [221]. It operated out of South Dakota [2] until it was merged into Gateway, Inc.'s subsidiary Gateway Technologies, Inc. at the end of 2007. It was briefly named "Amiga Development Corp.", and in the context of the different entities it now remains better recognizable as "Amiga South Dakota". A second company (originally named "Amino Development Corporation") was then incorporated in Washington ("Amiga Washington") [3] and a third (originally named "KMOS, Inc.") was again incorporated in Delaware ("Amiga Delaware") [4].
The following sections focus on these different "Amiga, Inc." companies and their alternating claims of being either one and the same, or different entities (even while they were run and supported in part by the same people, and a single person had the power to simultaneously be both the seller, the buyer and a secured creditor).
The new Amiga Washington company had at least two problems at its core, which would never be solved:
The Amiga operating system was almost 10 years old
Amiga Washington possessed no unique technology or exclusive rights
Other than some bug fixes and minor improvements to DataTypes (an Amiga file processing mechanism) and drivers, Amiga OS 3.1, released in 1994 to run on Motorola 68K CPUs, was largely unchanged since the 1992 release of the previous 3.0 version. Amiga still had no support for current hardware, no Java, and no modern browser or multimedia capability. Mr. Bill McEwen knew this well and promptly declared the Amiga Classic (i.e. the 3.x operating system) to be "dead" [10], introducing a new "Amiga" operating system that substantially was [11][21][32][33] a licensed and repackaged [10] Elate operating system by Tao Group Ltd (UK). Therefore the "old" software was initially perceived to be of little to no value, and only years later would the Amiga Classic OS again gain relevance in a dispute involving the Classic-derived "AmigaOS 4".
Based on Tao's Intent virtual processor, Elate was in many ways comparable [12] to Java, as it was able to run the same code on multiple platforms. Elate was positioned for use on portable and multimedia devices. The new Tao-based "Amiga" operating system inherited this identity. While initially referred to as the new "Amiga OS" [11], it later became known as both "Amiga Anywhere" and "Amiga DE".
The other problem that Amiga Washington faced was that of being merely a licensee, rather than the owner, of Gateway's Amiga patents, which furthermore were nearing expiration. While it had also been assigned the Commodore-Amiga trademarks and copyrights, other companies [7][13] had licensed or even acquired co-author status [186][230] on the Amiga operating system well before Amiga Washington had even incorporated.
Amiga Delaware (the successor of Amiga Washington) also appeared to make some confusing statements about "AmigaOS 4" after it was found out [62] that Amiga Delaware had no rights over Amiga DE, yet the company had been valued $87 million for technology that in its documented description [60] could originally only match Amiga DE. Unsubstantiated claims whereby phones powered by "AmigaOS 4" were expected to sell more devices than iPhones [78] were not part of the initial plan [132]. Innocent version number mistake, or intentional smokescreen?
Between 2000 and 2009, Mr. Bill McEwen continued to retain some public roles, including that of CEO, president and "acting president" of various "Amiga" companies, while Dr. Pentti Kouri (via his companies Invisible Hand LLC, Monrepos LLC, Tachyon Corp. and ITEC LLC) expanded his control both as the lead investor and as a secured creditor.
Other names that appear in "Amiga"-related documents include that of Mr. John Grzymala, who was entrusted [17] with the Kouri family's financial operations, and Mr. Janne Kouri (Dr. Pentti Kouri's eldest son), who was an associate [18] of Monrepos, and who also executed [19] some payments to Mr. Bill McEwen on behalf of ITEC. During this entire time frame, the name of law firm Reed Smith LLP, and in particular its attorneys Mr. Darren Cohen and Mr. Gregory Shatan, appears on most documents relating to intellectual property (assignments, litigations, etc.)
Mr. Garry Hare briefly took over as CEO (replacing Mr. Bill McEwen) during the transition from Amiga Washington to Amiga Delaware, and soon left, but not without being involved in a lawsuit of his own [20], which left a first trail of documents that offered some insight into various interactions between different companies. Before leaving, Mr. Garry Hare also testified in the Thendic/Genesi vs. Amiga [21] case (Thendic/Genesi demanding some rights over the Amiga OS), where on March 12, 2004 he made a surprise statement [22] claiming that on April 24, 2003 (i.e. almost one year before), Amiga Washington had transferred the Amiga OS to ITEC LLC, who in turn, on October 10, 2003, transferred the assets to KMOS, Inc. (a Delaware corporation later to be renamed "Amiga, Inc." [4]).
In spite of existing litigation [21] and debts between Amiga Washington and its landlord [23][85], employees [24][44][93], and other entities [25] that may have rendered it technically insolvent, these transfers from Amiga Washington to Amiga Delaware were justified via a mechanism of loans [31][19], security agreements (between Amiga Washington and ITEC) [26][27] and assignments (from ITEC to KMOS) [28][29][37].
Shortly after the statement at the trial, Amiga Washington also released an announcement [33] on March 15, 2004, repeating the claim that it had transferred the Amiga OS (based on the technology developed by Commodore-Amiga, also known as "Classic" OS) on April 24, 2003, and that it would "focus on Amiga DE" (i.e. the OS based on Tao's Elate/Intent technology). This led to worldwide echo [34], as it seemed inexplicable how between April 2003 and March 2004 Amiga Washington made no mention of this assignment. To the contrary, during this time frame it was involved in unrelated negotiations that involved both its board and legal counsel, where it was claiming title and interest to both the "Classic" Amiga OS and its future version 4 (not Amiga DE), which also resulted in public announcements, as in the case of Cloanto's Personal Paint for AmigaOS 4, to be co-developed by Amiga Washington [32]. Why would Amiga Washington declare its commitment and projects concerning AmigaOS 4 in January 2004, if (according to the March 2004 declarations) it had assigned the rights to that same OS in April 2003 in order to "focus on Amiga DE"?
In practice, the transfer of assets from Amiga Washington to Amiga Delaware would have had a number of potential benefits:
It would be more difficult for Thendic/Genesi to obtain the desired rights over the Amiga OS
Creditors of the heavily indebted Amiga Washington would also find an "empty" company
The new company would be free from the control of both Net Ventures BV and the successors of Invisible Hand LLC (which in the meantime had been declared bankrupt)
Too good to be true? This was indeed debated in the courts (as can be read in the documents presented here), but all cases ended in private negotiations and settlements, so there has never been a judgment on this "strategy". This same mechanism appears to also have been used in other Pentti Kouri companies. For example, the assets and core team of Digital Ink, Inc. [9], another company funded by both Invisible Hand LLC and Net Ventures BV, were moved into a new company, named CandleDragon, Inc., but still working with the same technology and people [40][17] after some IP assignments [41] that went through the same ITEC LLC company and the same Reed Smith law firm, possibly after a similar chain of loans and security agreements. Is this only the tip of a somewhat obscure iceberg? Possibly, yet our focus here is on the "Amiga" case.
A more thorough analysis of the entire set of documents appears to have the potential of exposing an increasing number of details of interest. For example, the so-called "ITEC-KMOS-Monrepos Agreement" (signed three times by Dr. Pentti Kouri on behalf of all parties) has been filed at least three times [35][38][39] as a "true and correct copy" dated October 7, 2003 [29], and at least once [36] in a slightly different version dated October 10, 2003 [30]. The first version had a correct spelling of "KMOS", but it also included a reference to an email dated October 10 (three days into the future). In the second version, the dates were aligned, and a second reference to an email by Mr. Ben Hermans of Hyperion Entertainment was added. The second version appears to have a "reset" fax device date (year 1996), and all instances of "KMOS" except for the first and the last spelled as "MKOS", which might be a mistake, or a different entity. The second version additionally indicates a different number and description of shares issued by KMOS and held by Monrepos. Both versions appear to have some details corrected and other (different) details wrong, so it is not immediate to understand which is an edited version of the other, to what degree obfuscation was introduced, and what led to these changes. Also, one of the most disputed assignment agreements was deposited without signatures [28].
Transitioning from Amiga, Inc. I to Amiga, Inc. II to Amiga, Inc. III, Mr. Bill McEwen repeatedly stated that the various Amiga companies were "unrelated". For example:
Yet in other statements, Amiga Delaware kept priding itself of being one and the same with none other than the "real" Amiga from the 1980s:
"Amiga, Inc. is the world's premier provider of multimedia enabling technologies. For almost two decades..." (Amiga.com, April 17, 2007 [45])
"Amiga, Inc., founded in 1983, is a computer software company..." (Amiga.com, April 22, 2007 [46])
"Amiga, Inc., founded in 1983, is a computer software and game company..." (January 6, 2008 Business Wire release [47])
Amiga Washington too had previously been making similar statements on the same web site:
To be, or not to be... Can you have it both ways?
In 2001 the amiga.com Internet domain, which was arguably the most important asset in Amiga's campaign of incredible claims, was let expire, and was renewed [113] by courtesy of Amiga user Mr. Alan Rateliff.
As the rescued amiga.com domain later changed hands from Amiga Washington to Amiga Delaware, it is also noteworthy how neither the content, nor the legal "Amiga, Inc." copyright and trademark notes, nor the SSL certificates [49][50] were modified, remaining unchanged and even renewed in the name of the Washington entity. All Amiga companies kept referring to "Amiga, Inc."
By 2014 Amiga Washington had remained inactive for longer than five years [184][227], making it ineligible to be revived under Washington State laws, but still able to wind up and liquidate its business and affairs, as well as defending itself against lawsuits [273]. This possibly ends the debate about the transition from Amiga Washington to Amiga Delaware, as claims against Amiga Washington appear to have been settled, or now probably exceed the time limits imposed by statutes of limitations.
As of October 2018, after lawyer-controlled Hyperion Entertainment again sued the Amiga parties (Amiga Delaware, Amiga Washington, ITEC, Cloanto), Amiga Delaware was listed to be in "good standing" [272][294], indicating a successful reinstatement from its previous "inactive", "delinquent" or "void" status [181][182][183][185][201][209][223][267]. It is believed that this would not have occurred had Hyperion Entertainment not attacked Amiga, and especially its still-active holding company ITEC, owned by the powerful Kouri family.
Within the context of the same litigation, the Amiga parties later announced that all assets had been sold to Amiga Corporation on February 1, 2019 [277][292].
It is well-known that "amiga" means friend (female) in both Spanish and Portuguese, but what about Amiga's "friendly" investors? As an Amiga forum member once asked [66], "Why does it take this many corps to manage virtually NO (Amiga) product line?" Could it be that as it morphed from Amiga, Inc. I to Amiga, Inc. III, the "Amiga" facade was used to protect something that had less to do with products and community, and more with some type of financial operations?
In 2003, when a judge asked Mr. Bill McEwen how much the heavily indebted company had at the bank, he answered [61] "About a hundred dollars".
By 2004, "friendly" investments had set the company's value at 20 million dollars.
By early 2006, more "friends" had raised the value to 87 million dollars.
Not bad, for a company with no products.
Another approach to estimate the possible residual value in 2006 is to start from 1995, when ESCOM paid between 10 and 12 million dollars [224] for the Commodore-Amiga assets. These were later stripped of the patents (which were retained by Gateway, and later expired) and of the "Commodore" trademark (licensed to RULAG and sold to Tulip), neither of which ever reached Amiga Washington. Even in a best-case scenario, Amiga Delaware could only have received a subset of what Amiga Washington originally had access to. Not only had Amiga Delaware no license over Amiga DE [62], but before assigning its IP to Amiga Delaware, Amiga Washington had licensed or sold some other IP assets (and with them possibly some rights to use "Amiga"-related marks). So ultimately Amiga Delaware appears to have owned little more than the amiga.com internet domain, the Commodore-Amiga copyrights (possibly of interest for nostalgic purposes, but not to compete with Apple's iPhone), and some trademarks.
It should be considered that these numbers are only the result of known documents. For every document found in public filings, there may be many more that are not (yet) known.
Could these operations explain the immense resources poured into legal cases that possibly only served the purpose of defending the fragile facade? Could these also explain other incredible announcements like a 10 million dollar hockey arena sponsorship [67], or why multimillion-dollar companies linked to Dr. Pentti Kouri, like Prokom and Espial, ended up posting [63][102] to minuscule Amiga discussion sites like "Moo Bunny"?
As someone suggested [71], was investing in Amiga Delaware a requirement for becoming an investor in other Dr. Pentti Kouri companies like Hakia [77], or otherwise a way to transfer money [83][84] to Dr. Pentti Kouri?
Did the ramifications between the numerous companies (some private, some public) sharing addresses, officers, investors, and money being moved from one entity to the other as needed, have possible implications under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act?
What was the role of former US Senator Bill Bradley? [109][64][53][77][75][107][76][108][110]
Who was the mysterious Mr. "Greg Ford" who posted [198] on Amiga forum ann.lu on January 27, 2004, hinting at a power clash inside Amiga Washington? Was he related to the successors of either Invisible Hand LLC or Net Ventures BV (both apparently in Dutch hands)?
According to a May 2007 article in the Kent Reporter [88], Mr. Bill McEwen indicated that "There are five investors in the company [but] declined to identify the five except for Dr. Pentti Kouri, Amiga's New York-based chairman. [Mr. Colin Campbell, vice president of the Seattle Thunderbirds hockey team] said he has met one of the private investors who lives in Europe." Mr. Bill McEwen himself was reported to own a stake [91] in Amiga Washington, and was named as one of the founders of Amiga Delaware. Mr. Fleecy Moss (full legal name Barrie Jon Moss), also known as "Wayne Dresing" [90], who resides in England and is the former CTO of Amiga Washington, stated [89] "I currently own stock in Amiga" in an April 27, 2007 court declaration, so he is likely to be the person who met with Mr. Colin Campbell. Other three known investors in Amiga Delaware (i.e. excluding the former Dutch shareholders of Amiga Washington) include Dr. Pentti Kouri, Tapul (Singapore/Malaysia/USA) and Prokom (Poland). If Mr. Bill McEwen and Mr. Fleecy Moss count as investors this makes a total of five, matching the May 2007 statement.
On the private side, the most notable presence may well be Dr. Pentti Kouri's school friend Mr. Lu Pat Ng, who attended Atlantic College in 1965-1967 [51]. This is the same institution where Dr. Pentti Kouri studied in 1966-1968 [52]. It is therefore not surprising that Mr. Lu Pat Ng, "representing his family from Malaysia who has substantial investments worldwide" [53] invested both in Amiga Delaware [54] and in Dr. Pentti Kouri's Hakia search engine [55][56]. Interestingly, Mr. Lu Pat Ng's signature in the Amiga Delaware agreement is unreadable [54] and almost completely covering the printed name ("Ng Lu Pat"), as if there was an attempt to not make it too obvious to notice that "Lu Pat" and "Tapul S.A." (Singapore) are one and the same (if you can read backwards). Once again, considering that when an "Amiga" signature is missing or unreadable it might not be so by coincidence, it is sufficient to use a search engine to confirm that these Amiga "friendships" are only the tip of another not entirely transparent iceberg. Indeed, both "Lu Pat" and "Tapul" appear as separate entries, but in the same lists, among the largest shareholders of better known public companies, such as Inch Kenneth Kajang Rubber Public Limited, a Malaysian business incorporated in Scotland [57][58][59]. One might not even consider the two entities as being related, were it not for their common "friendship" with "Amiga".
The Tapul-Amiga Delaware agreement dated May 10, 2004 also is a notable example of the paradox induced by the (momentary) separation of Amiga DE and Amiga OS into different companies. On March 15, 2004, Amiga Washington was forced to state [33] that it would focus on Amiga DE, retroactively leaving Amiga OS (which was the target of the Thendic/Genesi lawsuit against Amiga Washington) in the new and safer hands of Amiga Delaware (aka KMOS). But, as both Mr. Bill McEwen and Amiga Washington had repeatedly stated, the old (Classic) Amiga OS was "dead" [10], and it was Amiga DE, the more modern Tao-based OS, that had the mobile and multimedia capabilities. Yet Mr. Lu Pat Ng, after "due diligence regarding, amongst others, the business potential of [Amiga]OS4" [54], apparently decided to invest one million dollars (buying 5% of shares, effectively valuing the company at $20,000,000) in AmigaOS 4, and not in Amiga DE. Why?
Could it be that by 2004 a noisy Amiga community, with its colored web sites, its fanatical discussion forums and its charming Mr. Bill McEwen had become the perfect facade for matters that had to do more with "friendship" than with technology, in a world where nobody really cared about the difference between Amiga OS and Amiga DE?
In February 2006 Prokom Software S.A., a Polish business publicly traded at the London Stock Exchange, bought [60] from ITEC two million dollars' worth of shares, corresponding to 2.3% of Amiga Delaware. At that price, the company was therefore valued at $86,956,521.74, i.e. more than four times as much as it was in May 2004.
Like Tapul, Prokom too was an investor in Dr. Pentti Kouri's Hakia [53][64][65][75][76] search engine.
In its public 2006 semi annual financial statement, Prokom stated that "Amiga, among other products, developed a versatile platform for an operat[ing] system that enables use of any software or IT applications on all types of mobile devices. Prokom Software SA will work with Amiga on marketing and distribution of this product among Polish software and mobile devices vendors." Prokom's description, especially the "any software or IT applications on all types of mobile devices" clearly refers to Amiga DE (which was powered by Tao's Elate/Intent virtualization technology). The "Classic" Amiga OS never possessed any type of virtualization technology that would enable a Java-like "write once, run anywhere" capability.
Again, $87M doesn't look like a bad deal, considering that Amiga Delaware didn't have a license for Amiga DE.
Whereas Tapul was (we presume) a private company, how could Prokom explain such a "favor" (or lack of due diligence) to its public investors?
In a final twist of events, by 2007 Prokom's Mr. Ryszard Krauze had been charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and corruption, and fled the country [68]. In 2008, Prokom became part of Asseco Poland.
Amiga DE (originally from "Digital Environment"), based on the Elate operating system by Tao, and also known as Amiga Anywhere ("AA"), was supposed to be the next generation Amiga operating system [11][21][32][33], replacing the "dead" [10] "Classic" Amiga OS. Unlike Amiga Washington, however, Amiga Delaware never obtained a license [62] from Tao. This may help explain why Amiga Washington, instead of quickly closing its doors after transferring the assets to Amiga Delaware, publicly stated [33] that it would remain involved with Amiga DE.
The fact that Prokom seemed to have made an investment for a non-existing product did not escape the attention of some Amiga forum members [69][70][74], who contacted Prokom, the press and the London Stock Exchange.
Possibly not accustomed to the inquisitive nature of the most active Amiga fans, Prokom even felt the need to reply directly on juvenile-friendly Amiga forums such as "Moo Bunny" (August 28, 2007 [63]). Without much doubt, it also contacted ITEC/Dr. Pentti Kouri, probably triggering the following rapid succession of statements and changes.
Between September 2007 and January 2008 (Consumer Electronics Show), both AmigaOS 4 and Amiga DE/Amiga Anywhere were repositioned, and AmigaOS 5 and "AA2" were introduced:
An "Open Letter" by Mr. Bill McEwen was released [78]
An "AA2" (Amiga Anywhere 2) FAQ section [79] was added [80] to amiga.com
Mr. Bill McEwen attended a CES-related event to mention AA2 [81]
CES: Press release titled "Amiga Launches New Version of AmigaAnywhere" [82]
CES: "AmigaOS 5" interview to Register Hardware [197]
In these combined and forward-looking statements, Amiga Delaware explained that Amiga DE/Amiga Anywhere, which depended on Tao's Elate/Intent, was to be replaced by a new solution, to be independent from Tao's technology, consisting of Amiga Anywhere 2 (AA2) and Amiga OS5.
These statements were so vague and open that even Register Hardware concluded [197] that what was being presented was "AmigaOS 5" and that "AmigaAnywhere 2 is AmigaOS 5". According to the article, Mr. Bill McEwen even "whispered" to Register Hardware that "We had to call it that because of the Microsoft deal". After all, if "Amiga Anywhere" (Amiga DE) was an operating system, couldn't it be expected that "Amiga Anywhere 2" would be an operating system as well, rather than merely "the next step in the evolution of the Amiga operating system" (from the Register Hardware footage)?
This got so difficult to interpret that it required a FAQ page [79] to explain that AA2 by itself was not and would not be an operating system, but merely an API (set of functions, similar to open source projects like SDL). In spite of the "New Version of Amiga Anywhere" press release title, AA2 was therefore not a replacement to Amiga Anywhere, because the original Amiga Anywhere, featuring Tao's Elate, was a true operating system, whereas AA2 was not. The FAQ itself clarified that "When completed, [Amiga]OS5 will incorporate and support the AA2 API on top of its own APIs to enable future compatibility for existing source code." In order to replace Amiga Anywhere (which, by inclusion of Tao's Elate/Intent, was an operating system plus an API layer), Amiga Delaware would therefore need both AA2 (API layer) and AmigaOS 5 (operating system).
The press release also mentioned that "New features of AmigaAnywhere 2 include a device-independent, single, ubiquitous Virtual Environment (VEN) that functions across different operating system and the Internet" [82], further confirming, even lacking an AmigaOS 5, a virtualization technology and other aspects resembling the original Prokom statement that had been filed at the London Stock Exchange.
An Amiga Anywhere SDK was indeed released with some early version "2.0" material, hinting at the possibility that AA2, when complete, would be similar to the thin functional layer that Amiga Washington had added to Tao's Intent. However, AA2 never contained (nor, according to Amiga Delaware's FAQ, was it meant to) a true operating system, nor the virtualization technology known as "VEN". Arguably, AmigaOS 5 itself never existed, so that there never was a replacement for Amiga Anywhere or Tao's Intent.
The new "What is AA2" FAQ web site section was given unusual prominence, as indicated by the new and generic "www.amiga.com/faqs/" address and "Frequently Asked Questions" title, in spite of the fact that there were no questions ("AA2" and "OS5" had not been released), and no topics other than AA2 or AmigaOS 5 to be discussed.
Additionally, in the open letter [78], AmigaOS 4 was repositioned as a project that was not merely the PowerPC CPU port of the original 68K CPU Amiga OS that it was originally intended to be: "I recently read a post about how OS 4 should power a phone... This has long been part of our core business plan... negotiating with third party OEM's and ODM's for far more units than the iPhone has shipped". This would appear to be an additional layer added to defend the "mobile device" investment claim.
If the open letter [78] sounds a bit delusional ("far more units than the iPhone") and a bit like a child caught in the act of stealing ("the reality is that Amiga does not support Intent"), the long FAQ [79] is more reminiscent of artificial intelligence projects such as Eliza (a computer program designed to simulate a therapist) or the Postmodernist Generator (software that writes articles that may be accepted even if not understood).
From a technical point of view, the whole fabrication looks even less credible considering the contexts in which it was positioned:
The old "Classic" Amiga OS had been, to different degrees, matched by its clones like AROS, MorphOS and Hyperion Entertainment's AmigaOS 4
The new AA2 library, if ever released, would be in direct competition with free and popular alternatives like SDL (a cross-platform multimedia programming library)
The new AmigaOS 5 operating system, if ever released, would have to match the features and pricing of both Java, backed by Sun Microsystems, Inc., and the free Linux operating system, which was increasingly used in mobile phones, in embedded systems and for multimedia in general
Given this challenging context, in which even established players like Tao had been driven out of business, how could the entirely forward-looking statements of Amiga Delaware be valued $87M?
Ultimately, and up to December 2009, a Tao-free operating system never materialized in any verifiable form beyond these vague statements and some animations, remaining an exercise in vaporware and obfuscation. It therefore seems that the rushed and unexpected introduction of the "AA2" and "OS5" combination had the sole purpose of adding credibility to the claim that Amiga had something of potential value without needing the technology that it had just been discovered to neither own nor have access to.
Between February and April 2007, as the Amiga community was beginning to "pay attention" [70][65] to Prokom's investment in Amiga Delaware, Mr. Bill McEwen, still operating out of his home office in Kent, Washington, entered into an agreement [86] to sponsor the new Kent Hockey Arena, home of the Seattle Thunderbirds, a minor league team. This would cost Amiga Delaware 10 million dollars.
Considering that Amiga Delaware still had no products, putting millions of dollars that came (partly) from public investors into a small-town sports sponsorship could seem bizarre at best.
To position this into a bit more context:
In 2006, it became publicly known [92] that young Mr. Bill McEwen XVII [6] plays hockey. This means that his father, Mr. Bill McEwen XVI, must have had some familiarity with the local hockey community.
In Poland, Prokom (later incorporated into Asseco) was a well-known [71] sponsor of major basketball and other sport teams. This might have been an inspiration for Amiga Delaware to do the same.
In the first half of 2007, not only had public attention been drawn to the dubious Prokom-Amiga investment, but other court cases were in full progress. It might have been necessary to show Amiga Delaware as a "real" and "important" company.
As more insiders were increasingly aware of the Amiga's troubles, it might be reasonable to expect that everyone would be happy if the company could be sold. Again, a major sponsoring effort might have make Amiga Delaware look more "important" and "healthy".
Ultimately the sponsorship ended in a public debacle, but not without first having obtained significant media coverage, both deliberate (in April 2007 [45]) and by way of public debate [93][74] and press coverage.
Notable releases and articles include:
City of Kent Sells Multi-Million Dollar Naming Rights for Proposed Events Center to Global Tech Company Amiga (Press Release) [45]
Kent Arena's New Benefactor Has History of Troubles (The Seattle Times) [43]
Amiga: We Are Good for the Money (Kent Reporter) [88]
City of Kent Waits for Word on Amiga's Payment (Kent Reporter) [94]
Naming Rights at Stake for Kent's Arena (Puget Sound Business Journal) [95]
Kent Officials Lose Patience with Amiga (The Seattle Times) [96]
Amiga Fails to Deliver Cash, Loses Naming Rights to Kent Arena (The Seattle Times) [67]
What's in a name? Not Amiga (Kent Reporter) [97]
Kent Council Questions Pay Raises Approved by Mayor (The Seattle Times) [98]
Also in April 2007:
Someone from Dr. Pentti Kouri's Espial [101] posed general Amiga-related questions on the "Moo Bunny" Amiga forum [102] (the poster was later identified as long-time forum member Vincent Yin)
Former Amiga Washington employee Mr. Bolton Peck (also known as "Tronman") again [103] posted [10] his perspective of things
Amiga Delaware sued Hyperion Entertainment [104]
Presumably in an attempt to prove use of the "Amiga" trademark, Mr. Bill McEwen publicly asked for old invoices [105]
What message did Amiga Delaware try to convey [45] with its April 17 Kent Arena sponsorship press release? Was it meant to show to the courts, to Prokom and its investors and auditors, or to some new potential investors that Amiga Delaware was not only "for real", but also "important"? Whatever Amiga Delaware wanted to obtain with the arena announcement, it was probably important and short-term, because the truth would inevitably emerge in the following weeks. Was there a Polish or London Stock Exchange audit or court date that we don't yet know about? If however some new investors were at stake, the then-current investors would not have been the ones paying for the arena during the following 10 years, so the problem would be in their hands. Was there an acquisition deal that later did not go through? Or was it a final "favor" for Mr. Bill McEwen to quietly leave a "crime scene" in return for some personal local glory? (If he owned 10% [91] of $87M [60], that might pay for an arena.)
Having its presence split between Mr. Bill McEwen's home office in a rural area of Washington State, a New York mail drop address [87] and a claimed office in India, it is not easy to measure the objective smallness and insignificance of either Amiga Washington or Amiga Delaware.
The largest number of post-1999 Amiga staff that has ever been documented is four people appearing to have a lot of fun in large and mostly empty offices, when Amiga user and journalist Mr. Luca Diana visited the Snoqualmie (Washington) location in 2001 [111]. Three of these four individuals had previously worked together at the former ConnectSoft/Ruksun in Seattle. But money would soon run out for both those offices [23][85] and the staff [24][44][93]. When a Seattle Times journalist visited the new Issaquah (Washington) address in 2007 [43], he found mostly cartons and one person that could not be verified to be a full-time employee.
When Amiga user Ms. "Cecilia Fx" visited the New York address in 2005 [87] she similarly found empty spaces that appeared to host a number of Dr. Pentti Kouri-related business ventures. She noticed someone making a delivery to Bandwidth Technology Corporation. A search for the "167 Madison Ave" New York address in this set of documents matched Cross Architecture, The Kouri Family Trust, Monrepos LLC, Bandwidth Technology Corporation, and Amiga, Inc. A 2009 profile from Bandwidth Technology Corporation [112] confirmed that "Dr. Pentti Kouri served as Managing Member of Invisible Hand LLC, a venture capital and business development company focusing on cutting edge wireless and Internet digital enabling technologies, and was a Managing Member of Monrepos LLC, an international investment firm with holdings in Internet companies. While at Monrepos LLC, he served as Chairman of Ztango.com Inc., a world leader in wireless Internet solutions and services..."
Not having any products of its own, Amiga Delaware maintained an online store selling products licensed from third parties, such as Cloanto's Amiga Forever [115]. Said store was using SSL certificates [49][50] and "Amiga, Inc." copyright and trademark footers and legal notes unchanged since the days of Amiga Washington, and in part even Amiga South Dakota.
It would be interesting to analyze a full report of sales conducted by both Amiga Washington and Amiga Delaware, to see whether sales of $0.99 "crapware" (forum reference to software that it useless, obsolete and/or otherwise commonly available for free) and other third-party products [116][117] reflected a functional business model, or merely served the purpose of preserving a facade of activity (both for investor and for trademark purposes) while "investors" kept using the company to transfer funds.
These few tangible signs of the "real" Amiga Washington and Amiga Delaware companies appear to be in striking contrast not only with the ever-confident words of Mr. Bill McEwen and the press releases at amiga.com, but also when the (presumed) occasional sales from amiga.com are placed side by side with the thousands of hours billed to Amiga Washington, Amiga Delaware and their investors by the likes of Reed Smith [118], one of the largest (and probably most expensive) law firms in the world.
In September 2006, i.e. after the Tapul and Prokom investments, and in the midst of the Amiga-Hyperion Entertainment court battles involving AmigaOS 4, Amiga Delaware announced that it had purchased Ruksun Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd. of Pune, India [119]. This would be positioned as Amiga's "off-shore development center", and was repeatedly claimed by Mr. Bill McEwen as employing a high number of people (67 people on May 18, 2007 [43], 75 people on May 26 [88] and 63 people on October 5 [120]).
Whenever Mr. Bill McEwen discussed how many employees Amiga Delaware had, and dozens or hundreds of employees were mentioned, they were either part of some future plan, or conveniently located in India, where neither the Seattle Times [43] nor some curious Amiga user [111][87] could pay a surprise visit.
Even before the creation of Amiga Delaware and Amiga India, Mr. Bill McEwen was making similar claims about the number of employees of Amiga Washington. In a March 20, 2000 interview [106] to the Seattle Times, he mentioned "70 employees... moving to Snoqualmie".
Other conflicting statements about the number of employees were made during 2000: between 16 [121] and 18 "scattered around the world" on the same day [122], and 20 a few months later [5].
In a 2003 court interview, he was able to list about a dozen people, including himself and co-founder Mr. Fleecy Moss, the three people photographed by Mr. Luca Diana in 2001 [111] (Mr. Vince Pfeif[f]er, Mr. Sanjay Menon, Mr. Dean Brown) and Mr. Kevin Umberg, Mr. Jonas Gustafson [Jonas Gustafsson?], Mr. Jarno van der Linden, Mr. "Rudy Fiorito" [Rudi Chiarito], Mr. Ray Akey and Mr. Randy Hughes. All were mentioned as being uninsured and/or unpaid and/or working from home and/or having a different day job. No answer was provided to the court as to who exactly had ever worked under a formal employment agreement. Other names, known from other sources to also have worked for Amiga and to have not been paid, include Mr. Wouter van Oortmerssen and Mr. Olaf Barthel.
In a March 2000 "Executive Update" [123], introducing Mr. Vincent P. Pfeifer, Mr. Bill McEwen stated, "Vince and I worked together for several years at ConnectSoft." An April 2002 Seattle Times article [124] also mentions that "McEwen worked at ConnectSoft". ConnectSoft was a Seattle-based software company.
Why is ConnectSoft relevant? Because in 1995 it purchased [125] the same Ruksun company that Mr. Bill McEwen purchased [119] again in 2006. Ruksun was then renamed ConnectSoft Ruksun, and then renamed back Ruksun before it was "sold" again to become Amiga India.
Mr. Sanjay Menon, formerly working for ConnectSoft Ruksun in India [70][126], also joined [128] the two ex ConnectSoft friends Mr. Bill McEwen and Mr. Vince Pfeifer at Amiga Washington.
An undated early-2000s photo [127] by a former Ruksun employee titled "The Ruksun gang!" shows 13 people. As another former Ruksun employee clarified [69] in a 2007 post on the "Moo Bunny" Amiga forum, "most of them left in 2004 after the big Microsoft debacle. The staff was still very young and some of them continued education after their time at Ruksun up. During the dot.com bubble in 1999-2001, nobody thought a MSc would be all that important. They earned enough without one!"
If Ruksun-renamed-ConnectSoft had about 13 people around 2001-2003, but "most of them left in 2004" when the company disbanded, how could Ruksun-renamed-Amiga India employ between "63" and "75" people when Mr. Bill McEwen bought it again in 2006? What was the true purpose of the acquisition? Did Amiga Delaware's investors know that Mr. Bill McEwen and other two Amiga Washington/Amiga Delaware employees had good "connections" at the company they had just purchased? Why did this transaction require at least two different [129][130] US holding companies? Who was paid how much for the acquisition? How many employees did Ruksun really have in 2006?
Trademarks are generally expected to be distinctive and to help identify products and services so that consumers can distinguish the source without likelihood of confusion. Yet, at the end of this disquisition, it should have become clear that for the average "Amiga" consumer it would have been impossible to tell three different "Amiga, Inc." [2][3][4] companies apart (South Dakota, Washington, Delaware). Not only did officers and investors intentionally and simultaneously use the exact same "Amiga, Inc." name for companies in three different states for overlapping periods of time, but they also claimed or admitted [22] that for almost one year (between April 24, 2003 and March 12, 2004) they kept secret the fact that the "Amiga, Inc." company that appeared to be publicly representing certain products or services, was in fact an entirely distinct entity.
As part of the August 30, 2004 transfer of assets [37] from Amiga, Inc. (Washington) to Amiga, Inc. (Delaware), Amiga, Inc. (Washington) agreed not to use the "Amiga" marks any longer. This also meant that from that day neither Amiga, Inc. (Washington) nor Amiga, Inc. (Delaware) could any longer market the same "Amiga DE" and "Amiga Anywhere" products that had been the basis of trademark claims (e.g. "Statement of Use" for USPTO Serial 76096557). This is because the Washington company had given up all rights over the name [37], while the Delaware one did not have a license [62] for the underlying operating system and "player" technology by Tao Group Ltd. Such a long time of non-use is important, for trademark purposes.
During this entire timeframe spanning more than 10 years, the single amiga.com Internet domain was used to represent a succession of three "Amiga, Inc." companies as if it were the same company. The footnotes, the legal notes and the whois information always referred to a single name, namely "Amiga, Inc.", in 2009 just as it was in 1998. Similarly, in spite of widespread, unlicensed and unchallenged use of "Amiga" on web sites (forums, news sites, fan sites, etc.) and software products (e.g. on the "Aminet" download network [196] and in commercial packages [159]), the occasional mention of "Amiga, Inc." in third party sites was generally never updated after being set in relation to the first of the three companies.
Even the SSL certificate, which is an electronic document meant to disclose the seller's identity to the consumer, remained substantially unchanged [49][50] as the entity changed from Amiga Washington to Amiga Delaware. How could a consumer understand who represented what? Over the years, different companies with the same name engaged in promises, acquisitions, "$300,000 coupon scams" [70][195], legal battles and occasional sales, and the consumer, the honest enthusiastic Amiga computer fan, always paid the ultimate price.
Amiga Delaware tried to register [158] marks that had been in widespread use for decades [140][141][142][143][144][145][146][147][148][149][150][151][152][153][154][155][156][157], such as the so-called "boing ball". Amiga Washington itself had been using [1][166][167] the "boing ball" without any trademark claim, even on pages where trademark notes were generally present for other marks (e.g. "Java" or "Amiga").
When in 2006 Amiga Delaware had to file to renew the "Amiga" trademark at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), in order to satisfy the requirement to illustrate that the name was indeed in active use on actual products, it had nothing better [114] than the photo of a 1200 baud modem (a model from 1985-1986), that was most definitely not being sold for at least 15 years. By USPTO standards, this might be a fraudulent filing.
Between 2005 and 2007, Amiga Washington and Amiga Delaware made numerous address changes, assignments and corrections to "Amiga"-related trademarks [160][161][162][163][164].
In 2007, in an attempt to prove use of the "Amiga" trademark, Mr. Bill McEwen publicly asked for old invoices [105].
Notwithstanding the attempted assignments of the existing trademarks, and the wide presence and use of third-party products and similar marks, in 2006 Amiga Delaware tried to register new trademarks for the same marks [158][165].
In early 2010, a search on Aminet for software titled "amiga" or with "amiga" in its short description resulted in 5,052 titles [196], spanning the entire timeframe during which the three "Amiga, Inc." companies were active, and including releases prior to that.
A similar March 2010 search on internet domains containing the word "amiga" resulted in over 15,000 results [213]. The search was limited to domain names up to 25 characters, no numerals, and using only the .com, .org, .net, .info, .biz and .us extensions. While many of the results were related to the social and adult business ("amiga" meaning female friend), numerous domain names were computing-related and appear to have been in uncontrolled use for years. Why did the Amiga companies or their law firms never do such a search, to protect the claimed trademarks?
Amiga Washington had also sold to others some IP assets and rights that included the possibility to use certain "Amiga"-related marks without any form of quality control ("naked licensing").
Hyperion Entertainment itself opposed [137][139][175][212][211] several attempts to transfer and/or register "Amiga"-related trademarks, claiming [214] that the transfers from Amiga Washington from Amiga Delaware were fraudulent, meant among others to defraud the creditors of Amiga Washington. Hyperion Entertainment further noted how the two companies were run by the same "insiders", who allegedly knew that Amiga Washington was insolvent, and indicated how a crucial claimed security agreement had not been registered with the Washington Department of Licensing [210].
Over the years, the answer to the "What is an Amiga?" question became less clear. Companies like Amiga South Dakota, Amiga Washington and Amiga Delaware were not releasing products. Inevitably, "Amiga" news sites (amiga.org, amigaworld.net, amiga-news.de, morphos-news.de, amigafuture.de, ann.lu, ppa.pl, amigaimpact.org, etc.) increasingly covered systems like MorphOS, AROS, Amiga OS XL, Amithlon, Amiga Forever, UAE, Fellow, Efika, Sam, MiniMig, Clone-A, NatAmi, Phoenix A1000, A-EON, etc. It therefore might be claimed that the "Amiga" mark became genericized even within the context of operating systems, software and computers (the word "amiga" per se is a popular generic Spanish/Portuguese word meaning "friend", also increasingly used in the US and elsewhere).
While this research tried to be as factual as possible, one key question to understand the whole picture is inevitably more personal: if you had an $87M business to run, who would you put in charge? Would you leave him there for 10 years? On the other hand, if it wasn't a true business, but an $87M "fraud", who might be a good public man for the job?
The question arises not as much because little was known about his qualifications other than he was a former truck driver [5], but because in 10 years he and his "Amiga" companies did not accomplish anything. 10 years is a lot of time, and being valued 87 million dollars [60] carries a lot of responsibility.
What made the investors behind Amiga Washington and Amiga Delaware keep Mr. William Wallace "Bill" McEwen XVI in charge for so long? Could it be that as they realized their initial mistake ("You will note that Amiga's financial troubles began long before 9/11, before the tech downturn got crazy and so on." [103]) they changed strategy, and started using "Amiga" for something else? If they had been fooled by a con man, maybe the rest of the world too would not realize that there was no substance in the new "Amiga", and the punishment for the original swindler would be to stay exposed to all apparent failures and risks for 10 years?
Mr. Bill McEwen was featured in a number of videos on YouTube that are more revealing of his personality and charm:
His exaggerated promises ("far more units than the iPhone" [78], "much better than OSX from Apple" [194], etc.) are referenced in detail in these pages. His listings of toys, his jokes and his wanting to show familiarity with famous and respected people are also interesting:
In a 2001 interview to a French Amiga publication [192]: "I have a V-Twin 1500cc Victory Motorcycle, a Polaris Quad, three horses, a ski boat and a John Deere Tractor."
When asked by a judge [61] what damages Amiga Washington planned to seek against Thendic: "Fourteen billion dollars. Is that too high?"
Signature in employment agreement [192]: "Overlord Supreme".
In a 2001 interview [189] he referred to Microsoft's "Bill" (Mr. Gates) and Tao Group's "Francis" (Mr. Charig) by first name, also feeling the need to mention that he had Mr. Charig's home number.
Mr. Bill McEwen was also not very private about his religious views. Even the New York Times [5] could not fail to notice that "Mr. McEwen keeps a copy of the Bible on his desk at all times". The "So the world may know" Bible quote remained the main amiga.com title for five years [1], while other quotes appeared in his speeches and slides [190]. During his official travels [193] for Amiga events, he also gave interviews to religious radio programs [191].
Understanding the reasons that led to the $10M Kent Arena debacle may help understand both Mr. Bill McEwen and the companies he represented until the end (in December 2009 he was still listed as "President/CEO" [138]). For a few days, the multimillion-dollar Kent offer raised Mr. Bill McEwen's profile in his local neighborhood. But how could Mr. Bill McEwen desire the inevitable long lasting negative consequences for himself and for his family that would follow within a matter of weeks, when the excuses of board members "traveling outside of the United States" [88] and the lack of money to fund the arena as agreed would be discovered?
How could he keep mentioning two-digit [106][43] and three-digit [88] numbers of employees, but not expect that a Seattle Times journalist might visit [43] his "headquarters" only to find that the truth consisted of a lot of cartons and one person pretending to be an employee?