Gateway nixes new Amiga PC

PC maker Gateway has scrapped plans to develop a new Amiga machine.

In a letter posted on the company's Web site, Amiga president and chief executive Tom Schmidt said the Gateway subsidiary will instead focus on the emerging information-appliance market, creating software for set-top boxes and Internet appliances, including devices based on the Linux operating system.

Gateway's Amiga unit said as recently as July it would offer a new computer, but that announcement was followed by the sudden departure of former president Jim Collas, raising doubts among Amiga's fans about the company's direction.

Still, a new computer that runs the Amiga operating system remains a possibility. A group called the Phoenix Platform Consortium plans to create reference designs for its own Amiga computer, while a German company is working on a desktop machine slated for release in early 2000 that would be backward-compatible with older versions of the Amiga operating system.

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