AmiWest 2009, the Amiga show for the West Coast of the USA, is history. We held steady with a slight improvement in attendance and had some new exhibitors this year.
As always, breaking news was a part of our show. Steven Solie announced at 2 PM on Saturday afternoon, October 17 that the lawsuit(s) between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion Entertainment is (are) OVER! Binding arbitration was accepted by all parties, with Hyperion Entertainment emerging with the rights to continue with Amiga OS4 and beyond as well as other trademark and intellectual property rights. Here is the text of the official announcement, taken from the hyperion-entertainment.biz website:
“Hyperion Entertainment CVBA and Amiga Inc. reach settlement”
Brussels, Belgium: October 17, 2009
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA is pleased to announce that on September 30, 2009, it has reached a comprehensive settlement agreement with Amiga, Inc., Itec LLC and Amino Development Corporation, Inc., to bring all ongoing litigation and worldwide pending procedures between the parties to an end.
As part of the settlement agreement, the Amiga Parties acknowledge that Hyperion is the sole owner of AmigaOS 4 without prejudice to any third party rights.
Within the framework of the settlement agreement Hyperion is granted an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide right to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to use, develop, modify, commercialize, distribute and market AmigaOS 4.x (and subsequent versions of AmigaOS including without limitation AmigaOS 5) in any form, on any medium and for any current or future hardware platform under the exclusive trademark “AmigaOS” (Amiga operating system) and using other associated trademarks (such as the “BoingBall” logo).
Hyperion will continue development and distribution of AmigaOS 4.x (and beyond) as it has done since November of 2001.
We wish to thank our loyal customers who have supported us throughout the judicial procedures and especially the AmigaOS 4.x development team for their continued efforts and at the request of whom this official announcement was made.
As Hyperion Entertainment’s most ambitious project to date is drawing to a close in collaboration with our partners, we invite our current and prospective customers to watch this space for further updates on Hyperion’s continued efforts to revive the Amiga platform.”
We hope that this signals the end of hostilities and the “green light” for software development that is needed so much for Amiga to bring all of the Amiga advantages to the marketplace as a serious competitor. Many thanks to everyone at Hyperion for persisting through these trying times.
We would also like to thank all of our exhibitors and volunteers for their efforts in making AmiWest the community event that it is. We are both a legacy platform and the future of computing. That community spirit was totally in evidence at AmiWest, with 99% in attendance at the Saturday night banquet pledging to return for AmiWest 2010! (The sole dissenter, a faithful SACC volunteer, will be unable to return due to a change in residence.)
We wish to thank everyone for their cooperation, positive attitude and willingness to support our exhibitors. Please help them continue their activities throughout the year so that all of us can return to AmiWest in 2010 with reports of a great year.
