What will drive the New Amiga?

[System]

@Dammy,

Didn't miss it at all.  AROS is not a company, nor does it even have 1/4 the resources and contacts of any existing "Amiga company".  Leave it to you however to try and take any subject and point it to AROS.  :-)

[mindful]

Ever heard Meya singing her song called 'It's all about the money'? Not? May I share my thinking..?

For the average "Joe" it's not about who or what is out there. It's simply about how far he can reach out. So mabye the Amiga do not really need that special-new-killer-application after all. Now if Joe can afford to reach out for all of them, then what?
Some Joes might take one. Some Joes might take two. Any some confused Joes might take all 3 of them (Amiga, PC and a MAC)

If price is not an issue, then what is?
Amiga don't need any new great idea become no. 1 once again. We just need to do the exact same  things as anyone else do, except a lot better. (Yeah! I remember Steve Jobs. But who can really afford a Mac?)

BTW, Who is not eager to swap out Windows for something a bit more reliable..?

[Chas916]

One thing that could help drive the Amiga is that it isn't Windows. Amiga should chose markets where being a small player is a plus. Windows is so ubiquitous that it is very easy to hack or have infected by spyware or viruses. I doubt the markets for dedicated computing devices where sensitive information is made available would go to a Windows client or server. Medical systems - hospital devices, home care medical devices, financial systems - ATM, cash registers, POS systems, automation systems - robotics, vending machines. There are entire industries that rely on such equipment, even when the economy is weak healthcare, banks, foodservice, and manufacturing continues.

These are systems that are perfect for the Amiga. The thing they need though are great RAD development tools such as AmigaVision or Macromedia products, and mature visual C, JAVA, or BASIC programming tools that support advanced technology such as XML and SOAP.

Amiga would then be wise to court large companies such as Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony to use the Amiga OS in their products.

The sales and use of the OS in these devices would help feed Amiga in the business end so that it could supply general computing devices for the hobby end of the market. The most we could hope for is to have the Amiga be as strong as it was when the A500 was released.

[MarkTime]

Well, I'm trying to think of an analogy, perhaps I will use one from the world of politics.

In the United States we have only two political parties right?  Democrats and Republicans.

Wrong.  We have only two 'major' political parties.  3rd parties like Natural law, Green Party, Libertarian Party, even socialist parties, remnants of the Reform party, not only exist, but in terms of 'profitability' they are healthy.

OK, before I digress too much.  This does relate to Amiga. If you want to establish a profitable platform, you can.  If you want to compete with windows, you won't.

Any one of these little political parties that thinks its going to compete with the established,entrenched major parties, is a failure.  Any one of these little parties that takes it's own membership from last year, as a baseline, and then targets membership growth, can report a success of 25% on a year over year basis.

There is a market for the Amiga.
If you can accept what the Amiga is today.
Establish a baseline.

And then improve on that.

Then you will have success.

If you have your head in the clouds, then you will only ever see utter, complete, dismal, failure.

The problem here, is Genesi and Amiga, Inc. (don't know about KMOS) they don't know what there market is, and can't address the market that exists, because they cannot even see it.  They simply lack the ability to take their heads out of the clouds.

[mikeymike]

... every platform had a-buzzword alert!- "killer app" that brought people to the platform itself. The classic Amiga had-in my case-games like F/A-18 Interceptor that used 16-bit color

Erm, are you sure about that?  64k colours on an A500 simultaneously?

[System]

Erm, are you sure about that?

No.  It was actually quite a debate, but we couldn't find anything that could confirm it at the time it was written.  If you read the entire article and came away with that as your only question, we need to get you away from the microscope more often

Wayne

[Paul_Gadd]

What will drive the New Amiga?

Nothing whatsoever, offers nothing at all to a normal everyday computer user.

Amiga TAX on hardware
Lack of software
Crooked companies

Imo nothing will change at all.

[System]

Imo nothing will change at all.

Then why are you here, and why are you bothering to post?  Surely someone of your importance has something better to do.

[MarkTime]

Paul, I usually like your no-nonsense approach, but I disagree with you this time.

If the theory doesn't fit with reality, then its time for a new theory.

The fact is, we are here.  This is a community of Amigans.  Despite the fact that the perfectly sound theory exists for why we aren't here...we are here.

If they sold 1000 boards last year, assuming they didn't do a perfect job, they can improve the job they are doing and sell 1500 this year.  Then you have growth.  You continue growth long enough, you have a platform.

The problem I have, is that everyone is following into the same trap Wayne has fallen into, comparing the Amiga to past glories or to windows.

It seems too bitter a pill to recognize the market at 1000 and create a realistic plan to grow the real market.

I saw this in the Libertarian party too, for 10 years they were stuck at 10,000 members.  For 10 years they kept trying to launch themselves into political wins, with the 'wisdom' of their arguments with the knowlege they had 'right' on their side.  Then one day they realized, money wins elections...then they realized they didn't have enough, but what money they did have, was coming from their membership.

Then they realized they needed to grow their membership.   That they couldn't even think about winning an election until they had 250,000 members, that was the amount of membership they would need, before they could raise the $$$ it takes to win.

Now, its been another decade, they still haven't won an election, but they have grown from 10,000 members to over 50,000.  They have grown 5 times, and they will have to grow 5 times again before winning their first election.

We are here.  There is a market.  But currently amiga leadership wants to use this market simply as a springboard to success in the wider market...as they would call it 'the real market'

Only problem is, realistically speaking this market isn't big enough to do that.  If that is the plan, great.  But be realists...you have to grow this market first.

They need to swallow a real bitter pill:  this market has 2000 people.  And this is their market.

They need to find out why we are here, and then address our real interests.  Grow this market from year to year, and maybe someday it will springboard you out.

Anyway I think this whole talk is a trap.  It gets people back into the 'glory days' mode.  
We'll never get anywhere until we realize what the Amiga is today...and realizing that we have to go for incremental growth.

Its a real bitter bill to think that, we have only 2000 people today, and that 3000 people is real growth for next year.  But that just may be, the only realistic way of getting to the 100,000 strong community that is really needed before this community is enough to launch genesi or kmos to greater success.

[IonDeluxe]

Nothing whatsoever, offers nothing at all to your normal everyday computer user

Ypu really should just move on if you think that way.

What made the AMiga A success was simply that it was marketed like a games machine, but offered so much more coupled with an easy to use OS and advanced graphics/sound system. In other words you got morethan you bargained for at a relatively inexpensive price.

All we have to do is the same thing again.

First it needs an identity, these generic cases, however nice they get, dont do it. We need a case that yells AMIGA.

There are two places the Amiga could break into the market for a sustained and healthy profit flow. Industry/kiosk systems and that kind of thing, which wont really get it into the public eye, and a multimedia entertainment platform that can replace the DVD, CD, stero, VCR, surround sound systems, radio, maybe even cable TV, provide the households internet gateway, AND be a useful workstation/games machine as the bonus.

In my home I currently have 4 sperate devices(5 if you count the surround sound system) The AMiga could easily be designed to fill this space as all these other machines (stereo DVD VCR surround and cable) the cable part is where a partnership with a cable tv provider would be required, but ignoring that I would still be eliminating 5 device for 2 device(not including the cable) on top of that it can run as a normal computer/games machine.

this could very well get the machine into enough homes to bring the developers back, however it would need to be marketed well, and it would have to be soon as there are manufacturers who are beginning to move in this direction.

I have thought of doing this myself for years, and have set up my PC to do this in my computer room, the only thing I am missing is a TV tuner board.Even still, it is not integrated too well and is just a bunch of seperate and competing interfaces on my computer, easy to use for me but not others who are not familiar with my system.

Combine this with internet gateway and wireless networking/bluetooth technology with properly integrated software interface, a strong and well marketed identity, and you have a winner!

Something like th NGAGE using wireless technology and the Amiga as a server for network games mayhem in the household could work well too in support.

[bhoggett]

A good set of points, Wayne. I'm far less convinced that there is a sensible and detached cool head amongst the power corridors to turn things roud though. Everyone is just too entrenched in their own political corner and too afraid of diluting the perceived power they now hold.

As for the mainstream, I doubt the Amiga has either the innovation or quality to break back into it, either at desktop or digital device level, and this applies as much to AmigaOS4/AmigaOne efforts as it does to MorphOS/Pegasos ones.

The problem isn't that there are no more opportunities left in the digital markets, it's just that there's a whole long queue of other developers who are closer to that goal and have better resources than either of the Amiga contenders.

As for AROS, it is barely on the first rung of the ladder to be seen as a real OS, and a far way from there to be even noticed by the mainstream. To talk of AROS as a mainstream contender today or in the next few years is ridiculous.

When that changes, I'll be more than happy to acknowledge it, but for now Wayne was right to ignore it.

[Paul_Gadd]

Then why are you here

For the updates of Amithlon and AROS. (both are my favorites and do not cost me the earth).

[bhoggett]

If they sold 1000 boards last year, assuming they didn't do a perfect job, they can improve the job they are doing and sell 1500 this year. Then you have growth. You continue growth long enough, you have a platform.

And there you have the first major hurdle.

The Amiga scene is full of fanatics, so while you may have an encouraging initial sales figure, what you then see is everything levelling out and sales drying off as you saturate the existing market. Assuming that you'll attract another 1500 in the second year is ever so optimistic without much basis. Assuming that there are 50,000 ex-Amigans just dying to return is delusional at best.

Stopping the exodus for longer than a few months would be a start, then looking to grow the market by a few hundred for a few years. The trouble is that technology moves a helluva lot faster these days, and the chances of Amiga technology keeping up well enough to even keep people from leaving again is slim indeed.

[MarkTime]

OK clearly I'm off on my own little tangent here.

But, again, using a unknown political group as an example.

If you heard a group was founding in 1970's, after much initial excitement, has stagnated, never won an election...what would you think of their long term prospects?

If you heard of a group, that was initially a great failure, but made some real hard decisions, has never won an election, but has a plan to grow their membership, has done so every year, growing five times their size in the past decade, what would you think of their long term prospects?

We have two groups of leaders who think they are the ultimate sales people.  But what do you think of their long term prospects?

They set themselves up for failure every year, because they tell us to compare ourselves realistically to Windows, and so year after year, with only failure to report, they wonder why sales are down.

I think they should establish a baseline, compare themselves to last year, and have good news to report for once.   It partially just salemanship but on the other hand, good news, is part of what this community wants...they just don't understand or care about this community :-(

[System]

Assuming that you'll attract another 1500 in the second year is ever so optimistic without much basis

Exactly, and herein lies the whole point of the article (since everyone appears to have missed it even though I EXPLICITLY stated it).  How do we move beyond the existing community?  The biggest issue is the creation of software which brings people to the platform.  Right now there is no incentive for any PC user to buy one.  If we're going to survive, at least one of the companies involved has to find a way to motivate sales outside the existing (dwindling) community who -- for the most part -- already owns either an AmigaOne or Pegasos.

[System]

I really don't think anyone's getting the political thing here.  English works.