Iwin - Wish or Reality?

Here you find the german version .

Some time ago a new company named Iwin appeared with a web site that promised fully compatible Amiga-Clones.

Of course, there were immediate doubts regarding technical and historical aspects, because the company never appeared before. Martin Steinbach, author of the web pages and alleged CEO of Iwin, asked the Amiga community to stay calm until the first computers would be delivered. Since then, we try to verify the story or to prove it wrong.

Pro:

• The Website is much too complex for a simple hoax.
• Some people got merchandising articles from Iwin.

Contra:

• The company is supposed to have more than 300 employees, but may be contacted just via some E-mail addresses and a single cell phone number.
• The search function on the web site never worked. Note, that a full working Yahoo-Search-Engine facility would cost some money!
• The CDRs (with the Technology-Guide) that Iwin sent were not readable.
• The files one may download from the web site are Photoshop files or files that belong to Windows-NT.
• Asking the mail server mail.iwin-corp.com (which responds with "usahost.net ESMTP Sendmail 8.8.5/8.6.12") one finds out, that all mail addresses are just aliases to one single address <iwin@usahost.net>. A global company that collects all mail via one address and sorts it out afterwards?
• The web pages are hosted by a very cheap provider for $19.95 per month. Not exactly what one might expect from a real company, that uses it's webspace to let people download bigger files from, but merely an offer for private customers. You can tell the difference at the usual surf times, the site is slow.
• The domain has been registered by the private person Martin Steinbach, and not by any company (which would do so, normally). Furthermore, the registration has been done on the 21st of Juni 1999. Under what name has the company been on the net before? Or is the online presence of the company really that young?
• Some photos (pretended to be taken at Iwin) already disappeared. There are remarkably few employees to be seen on that images.
• Some traces lead to a company named "Intersolv":
  • Martin Steinbach, the alleged CEO, is posting from a computer named xlproxy 1.intersolv.de.
  • On one of the images in the lower left corner there is a box with an "INTERSOLV" label.
  • Further investigations showed, that there really was a company named "Intersolv" that merged into "MERANT" recently. Merant has an office in Ismaning near Munich.
  • Iwin, surprisingly, also has an office in Ismaning.
  • On the photos there are a lot of computers from HP (Hewlett Packard). Merant has signed a strategic agreement with HP.
  Do the photos from Iwin actually show an office from Merant?

Lets see, how long we will have to wait for the promised computers. 8-)

This page was translated by Randolf 'RANDi' Schultz

Oliver B. Warzecha, Tobias Walter,

Last changed: 13-Sep-1999