It's a little known fact that Gateway 2000 don't own the rights for the Amiga Technology in China (including Hong Kong), Taiwan and Macao. Rightiming Electronics, trading as Newstar in China, developed a multi-media and multi-functional TV set top box called the Wonder TV A-6000 based on the Amiga technology. The all-in-one box system features combined functions of a multi-media personal computer, fax machine, Karaoke machine, audio CD player, video CD player, game machine and of course Internet box. That's a fancy corporate description for an Amiga.
Lotus Pacific Inc, has been operating for 3 years and the company's central
mandate is to 'pursue business opportunities in China and other Far East
countries'. It looks to be on the right track as it's thought that the
market for new inexpensive multimedia home electronics products, such as the
'Wonder TV A-6000', is likely to boom. In other words, China is ready for
the Amiga.
Lotus Pacific have aquired the Amiga's patents, licenses, trademarks, and copyrights to be applied in the Chinese region. This does not mean that they own the Amiga, Amiga development or any rights whatsoever applying to the rest of the world. The ECS and AGA Amiga chipset in conjunction with the Amiga operating system's low hardware requirements is thought to have been the major reason for utilisation of Amiga technology. It's not clear if Lotus Pacific will cooperate with Gateway 2000 and Amiga International on future Amiga development.
As recently as May the 23rd, Lotus Pacific issued US$3 million of fresh
stock to an unnamed private investment firm. Lotus Pacific's rather spartan
Web site can be found at Lotus Pacific.
Earlier in March the company issued 10 million shares to raise US$2
million dollars. This was used to set up the wholely owned subsidiaries;
Richtime Far East, a textiles company, and Regent Electronics corporation,
a company dedicated to selling multimedia electronics in China.
Interestingly, Regent Electronics is the company whose stock was swapped in
the aquisition of the Amiga rights from Rightiming. Strangely Rightiming's
Web site is the same as Regent Electronic's. It's not clear what,
if anything significant, this corporate manouvering of stock and
intellectual copyrights of the Lotus affiliated companies means to the Amiga in China. Rest assured that CU
Amiga Magazine will investigate further. Look forward to a feature on the
Amiga in China in a forthcoming issue of CU Amiga Magazine.
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