As promised, this entry will have a little more meat than the previous one. I'd like to say a little bit about the current state of Commodore, the corporation.
First, some history. Commodore Business Machines was founded in 1952 by an enterprising young man (and an Auschwitz survivor) named Jack Tramiel. This entry is not about that company or even really about any of the machines this company produced. It also isn't about Jack's successors, whose bad decisions and corporate excess drove the company into a death spiral in the early 1990s. You can read all about the history of that incarnation of Commodore at The Secret Weapons of Commodore.
This entry isn't even about Escom, who bought the rights to the Commodore name when the company went bankrupt in 1994. They just used the name for an ill-fated line of multimedia PCs and are hardly worth more than a footnote in Commodore history.
Today, I'm writing about the current owners of the Commodore name and the partners who are helping them relaunch the brand. It is also a lesson on how not to handle public relations, especially for an established brand with fifty years of history.
The original Commodore tried to kill their flagship, the Commodore 64, many times over the course of its life. Still, many customers weren't overly impressed with the flashiness of their Amiga and PC lines, and wanted Commodore to continue producing upgrades to their aging 8-bit line. Dedicated individuals and companies like CMD have kept the platform alive even today.
After purchasing the Commodore trademarks from Escom, Tulip started (and quickly abandoned) their own line of PCs. They also released the C64 Web.it, an underpowered 486-class PC with a Commodore emulator. After that, Tulip silently sat on their Commodore assets except for some limited and largely-unknown licensing. The 8-bit community learned to live without them so much as acknowledging our existance. They turned a blind eye to our many unauthorized uses of the Commodore logo, and we turned a blind eye to them in general.
About a year ago, Ironstone Partners and Tulip both announced a partnership to relaunch the Commodore brand. Ironstone's annoucement could be summed up as "hey, we're here…stay tuned for some cool stuff". Tulip's announcement was a little more forboding, describing plans to create the only official C64 web portal, and stating that "Currently there are about 300 commercial websites that use the name Commodore or Commodore 64 without having a license from Tulip. Tulip will not allow unauthorised use of the Commodore brand." It should be noted that this same press release touted the remaining fanbase as part of the value in the Commodore name.
After a year of silence, Tulip and Ironstone held a very amateurish press conference this June announcing a hodge-podge of product lines from the new Commodore. Wanting to be your one-stop entertainment source, the new Commodore offers/will offer MP3 players, paid downloads of cracked Epyx games (!?!?!), music downloads, and a device that plugs into your TV and lets you play the old Epyx favorites. This renewed interest in the Commodore brand also brought more threats. In a mailing list post, someone close to Ironstone says that a representative of theirs claimed ownership over the ports on the back of the 64 — the same ports that the original Commodore openly documented and encouraged people to use. Worse, according to this source, Tulip now intends to claim royalties for products that plug into these ports!
What does all this mean? It means that Tulip/Ironstone want to resurrect the Commodore brand, and I agree with that move. My personal feelings aside, the brand has a strong history and still some value in the marketplace. But they are going about it in a reckless, amaturish, and overall irresponsible manner that makes one wonder how Tulip came to be one of Europe's popular PC brands. I forsee this venture becoming nothing more than a footnote, much like Escom. My only worry is that they may end up wounding the community while fighting to stay solvent.
Tulip/Ironstone have made comments that are a slap in the face to the community who have put so much time and energy into their hobby. Just look at how much I'm stressing out over this year's expo! Worse still is the fact that their actions make the idea of Commodore in the 21st century look like nothing more than a farce, a tired old brand dusted off by hacks without a lick of business acumen. Not only will they destroy Commodore’s current incarnation, they may very well ruin whatever reputation the name still carries.
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