SALE DETAILS 1/3
From the Atari Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!"
Phew! What an interesting week for Atari users - past, present, and
possibly future: Atari Corporation has been sold to Hasbro!  Every now
and again, patience wins out and one can usually find a few meaningful
messages on the Usenet, unlittered with spam or get-rich-quick
schemes. The message that I found contained the news of Atari's sale,
along with a web address pointing to the SEC filing report. Naturally,
I had to see for myself!
Sure enough, there it was in all its glory. On March 9th, it became
official - a $5 million sale. I think Hasbro got a real bargain.
Already the speculation is rampant in the Atari newsgroups. What are
Hasbro's plans for Atari? It's really too early to tell; and I'm
certainly not ready to guess. I'm still recovering from the news! In
fact, the news hasn't made the media, including any of the online
sources I've researched.  I'm hoping that Hasbro will be making some
kind of statement in the days to come. In the meantime, we'll be doing
some investigation of our own here at STReport.
I'm going to include some of the filing report below - those parts
which _I_ felt were key. I have not edited any of these; they're all
cut directly from the SEC report. If you're interested in viewing the
entire report, set your browser to the following url:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/941167/0001047469-98-009085.txt
Otherwise, here are what I saw as the "important" points to the sale:
[Editor's note: All items below are taken directly from the SEC filing
report]
"Atari Hardware Platforms" means the following hardware platforms:
Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Lynx hand-held and Jaguar game system
hardware, Atari 800, ST and Falcon 030 computer family hardware, TOS
operating system, 8-bit operating system, and Portfolio palmtop
computer.  "Excluded Assets" means the following assets:
     i.   inventory, receivables, furniture, fixtures and equipment;
    ii.  any tax assets of Seller, including pre-paid taxes, tax
         credits and tax carryovers;
   iii.  all tax returns and tax records whether or not related to the
         Acquired Assets;
    iv.  the $45,000 balance of the royalty guarantee owed to Seller
         on December 31, 1997 by Interplay Productions, Inc. under
         Amendment One to the Game License Agreement dated July 29,
         1996, between Atari Corporation and Interplay Productions,
         Inc. and as otherwise identified in SCHEDULE 3;
     v.  software developed by or for Seller or its predecessor under
         license of intellectual property rights from a third party or
         third parties for use on the Atari Hardware Platforms to the
         extent that such software is not related to or associated
         with any of the trademarks and copyrights set forth in
         SCHEDULE 1 or any of the game titles set forth in SCHEDULE 3;
    vi.  Hardware embodying Intellectual Property (other than Seller's
         Intellectual Property) that is licensed from third Persons.
   vii.  all assets associated with or related to Seller's disk drive
         business.  "Hardware" means equipment, components, circuitry,
         integrated circuits, processors, casings, layouts (including
         synthesizable code), mask works, manufacturing data, and all
         designs, schematics, tooling, formulae, processes, and know
         how therefor (whether or not any such items are presently
         embodied in physical components) and related Intellectual
         Property.
... To kill a Jewish vampire you have to drive a Cadillac through its heart.
--- JetMail 0.99beta22
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