Rumors on UK magazines that C=UK got the highest bid. CEI again gives a new bid to the liquidators. CEI announced that they were signed an agreement with IBM to have them manufacture Commodore products, for them if they win Commodore. Escom seems to be interested in Commodore. Techmedia Publishing, stopped the publishing of Amiga World, the world's first Amiga Magazine. The primary reason was the 11 months Commodore liquidation and the magazine's low circulation. The last issue of Amiga World was April 1995. The cancelation came after the issue was completed so you will not find any goodbyes and things like that on April's issue. Escom (a German based PC-clone maker) and the liquidator had reached an agreement to make their bid the contract bid. The contract bid was for $6 million, not counting the $1.4 million they have paid for getting the Commodore's Logo from Commodore Germany. Other offers were made for other parts of Commodore. At last the judgement day of Amiga (or the auction date), was set. It was April, 20th 1995. The companies that made it till that day were Commodore UK, CEI and Escom. 1 year after the liquidation... time moves fast...Escom finally made it!
In the auction on April 20, only two companies had bid, Escom and Dell. Escom was the German computer retailer, and Dell is a big American computer company. CEI, long thought to be a bidder, had thrown in their hat with Dell, so that Dell would work with CEI on the Amiga, although CEI would be the ones running the show in respects to the Amiga. Escom's bid was the starting bid of approximately 5 million dollars, as well as the money they spent on the C= trademark, approximately 1.3 million dollars. Dell made a bid at 2 PM of an undiclosed amount. However, that bid was rejected for Escom's bid, because it had conditions attached to it, whereas Escom's bid was unconditional. After the auction ended, and Escom's bid was accepted, Dell continued to work on, trying to make a more suitable bid. Their second bid was a $15 million bid, with the condition that they be allowed a 30 day waiting period to look at the Amiga and decide if they wanted to keep it. If they decided not to keep it, they would forfeit their $1 million deposit, and the whole process of getting another bidder would have to go on again. In the hearing on Friday, April 21, the Creditor's Commitee wanted to accept Dell/CEI's bid. However, Escom felt that was unfair, because Dell's bid was placed after Escom's bid was accepted. There was much legal wrangling, but finally, the judge asked that during the recess the parties try to work out an agreement. After 3 hours, the court re-adjurned, and Escom said that they would agree to raise their bid by $6.5 million, to 12 million dollars. Although that was less than Dell/CEI's bid of $15 million dollars, the Creditor's agreed to drop the objection to stop Escom winning the Amiga, because Dell could back out of the deal and then they'd have to go through the process again. [...] Escom has sales of approximately 2 billion dollars last year. [...] Commodore UK did not place a bid at the auction, apparently because their backer dropped out. However, Colin Proudfoot of C= UK and Escom have both stated that in 2 weeks they will be holding talks as to Escom either liscencing Amiga technology to C= UK, or, more likely, buying C= UK. Escom has said that they will work with Amiga developers, user groups, and the Internet to support the Amiga. The Phillipine plant and stock in it wasn't included in the auction, but it will most likely be sold to Escom for $1 million soon, because it may actually be illegal to sell it to anyone other than Escom.
Escom held a conference in May 30th. Escom announced the beginning of a new era for Amiga machines. First of all Escom created a new division, called Amiga Technologies. Their first priority is to resume the production of the machines. They were expecting the new Amigas to be out on September 1995. They announced the production of an Amiga 4000/060 in a brand new Tower case and the A4000/040 in tower also. In October they will produce Amiga 1200s. They have also signed contracts with Scala, so with every Amiga you can get for free a Scala MM300. The RISC technology should be researched in 1996.  A
new official amiga logo, replaces the old one. The logo has been designed
by FrogDesign. Frogdesign states about the brand: "The Amiga
Wordmark evokes both a classic and elegant feel as well as modern look.
Bodoni, the font selected to build upon is a classic font. Further refinements
involving the manipulation and substraction of serifs and the addition
of the red square create a progressive, yet elegant logo. the red square
represents technology and adds energy to the logo by implying a sense of
motion.".
Magic Pack Includes: The A1200 has some incompatibility problems, concerning the floppy disk.
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