The following is a transcription of the telephone greeting Petro 
made to the Saku 99 Amiga Show in Finland in September 1999. 

I have tried to make this as readable as possible, but without 
taking any liberties with the context of his speech. Keep in 
mind that - while Petro's english is good - this is an address 
made over a telephone and recorded off a speaker in a crowded 
room. 

I have tried to lose all of the 'ums', 'ahs' and 'ands' and 
connect a few unconnected sentences. Where the quality of the 
recording was such that a word or phrase was unintelligible 
(including audience coughing, etc), I have tried to indicate 
this with a (?). 

Otherwise this is an accurate account of what Petro said. 

--------

Hello?

Hi everybody. How are you doing today? I'm really a little 
bit sad that I could not come to see all (?) Amiga this year. 

But first, the latest news which was announced over C/Net 
and over the Gateway Internet two days ago. My boss, Jim 
Collas, left the company and I'm, of course, very sad about 
this. Because I am thinking that here was a guy that could 
drive our Amiga in the right direction for our future.

But nevertheless the lines (?) are continuing as you know, 
and I'm famous for this - that I will never give up. So don't 
worry. Nobody will attack me, nobody will fire me, we should 
cool down. I will leave Germany in around two hours to go to 
the United States. I will have Sunday night already the first 
dinner with the new president, which is Tom Schmidt, and then 
I will know, of course, a lot more than today when I'm getting 
all the facts and how it will be continued.

Because, dear Amigans, we will have a future. We will have 
a bright future. And some things happen. Especially the US 
companies and I remember when I worked for Commodore there 
was always a lot of going and coming. Nevertheless,  we have 
to keep what's going on.

I'm really sad, not only because Jim Collas is gone, I'm also 
sad because I could not fly to Finland as last year, which was 
really great for me. I was really excited to go and see you 
and to give all these giveaways personally, from my bag to your 
hand. But I know that Janne (one of the organisers of the Saku 
show - CD), who is really an excellent organiser, will assist 
me, will give all the presents which I brought which I sent to 
him. I hope also that the demonstration of the OS3.5 will work 
proper and you will enjoy and you will see that we are really 
serious with everything.

The OS3.5 will be ready for sale end of September and we are 
now in plan. As you know, we have had a little bit of delay. 
Officially we would like to announce the OS3.5 in Canberra, 
what we have done, but not with a final version but with a 
pre-release. But that's okay.

Now we are in planning and sales will start end of September, 
for sure.

I'm also quite sure that the new development on the MCC will 
continue. Maybe there will be a delay, I don't know. But I 
will let you know as soon as I'm back. This will be next week, 
on Thursday, and I'm quite sure that when I talk with my US 
colleagues that we can also put an announcement - an official 
announcement - on our web site, and we can start then also 
communication.

So I can promise you, what I can do for Amiga I will continue 
to do. I need your support, also for the future and I hope to 
see you soon, maybe the next big convention (which) is in Cologne, 
as you may know, on the 14th and 15th of November and I will be 
glad to see some Finnish guests there.

So thank you very much for your attention, thank you very much 
for your understanding, and I only can repeat myself - please, 
do not panic. We will survive. Thank you.

(applause)

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(Transcript Copyright 1999, Craig Delahoy)

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http://www.ansonic.com.au/craigd/cdamiga1.htm