THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT AT WOASE

[whabang]

Perfect, M$ get content for PocketPC and smartphone ( used to be incompatible AFAIK ) and DE/AA developers get a larger market. Now we only need a PalmOS version of DE/AA and Amiga will get really big!

[z5]

@MikeB:

So in conclusion: 8 games will be sold and later 8 more. That's 16 games (8 of which have been on sale for a long time). That's it really...nothing more is for sale?

I have respect for the few DE developpers out there but i don't think this will set the world on fire...MShite or not...

To sum it up: there is NO DE, no decent developper kit, no software... I'm still trying to figure out how 8 games will generate a huge cash income for Amiga Inc?

The executive update is another bubble of air, with nothing in it. OS4 versions soon to be announced...yeah right...AInc being split into Desktop and DE? What have they ever done for OS4?

I'm not buying it anymore. My only hope is on Hyperion, because i believe they will succeed. Amiga Inc? Who are they?

[ghauber]

but i do keep wondering why the DE developers haven't managed to make any software yet

Don't worry, we *have* managed to make some software :-)  Be patient, and you will see...

Where is all the software that MS are going to promote? Productivity software anyone?

It's coming...

One thing you've got to understand, is that the slowdown that affected Amiga has also affected many of the DE developers.  How many of us do you think could afford to full time develop content for the Amiga DE when there has been very little revenue coming from there?  We still have to pay the bills, put food on the table, and all that.  Things are changing, however, and this MS deal is going to make things a *whole* lot easier for us.

Are there any DE developpers out there anyway?

Yep, quite a few on the SDA list...

[System]

@ z5

That is your opinion, IMO having AmigaDE products available through major retail channels  is a major milestone for Amiga products during the last 8 years.

Amiga will gain more brand recognition, and with regard to AmigaDE you are IMO just plainly wrong. Both the Amiga team and Tao have come a long way to make intent/AmigaDE suitable for developers and consumers solutions. Actually they have done an amazing job.

BTW here's a half year old interview with Fleecy if you are interested. Also note that Hyperion are also supporting the AmigaDE technology, and AmigaOS4 and the AmigaDE will share common APIs and other source code. Seamless AmigaDE integration into AmigaOS4 is also planned for future AOS releases.

[z5]

That is your opinion, IMO having AmigaDE products available through major retail channels is a major milestone for Amiga products during the last 8 years.

Ofcourse it is...i agree...if you HAVE any products available...which, apart from 8 games, theyhaven't. It's just so simple.

And i still can't figure out which benefits AmigaDE integration into OS4 would give us. Playing Planet Zed on our desktop Amigas? No thanks...

[System]

And i still can't figure out which benefits AmigaDE integration into OS4 would give us.

pJava and J2ME support for instance, and lots of other dev tools and technologies like i.e. Renderware or CodeWarrior. When the AmigaDE and intent take of in a great way, AmigaOS will likely greatly benefit from these advancements as well.

Playing Planet Zed on our desktop Amigas? No thanks...

Why not? Planet Zed scales perfectly to higher desktop resolutions, as demonstrated by Bill McEwen on TechTV.

Personally I love classic 2D shoot 'em ups, I would love having Planet Zed for AmigaOS4. Actually I am hoping to see a good new Turrican clone for the AmigaDE in the future as well.

[Seehund]

whabang wrote:

Now we only need a PalmOS version of DE/AA and Amiga will get really big!

It seems like the chances of ever seeing that happening are severely reduced with these "news". If that would happen, that would probably result in MS saying "no thank you, we're not interested in distributing your stuff any longer."

"Amiga Anywhere" is not interesting to MS, "Amiga on MS PocketPC/Smartphone" is. The whole idea of AInc adapting Tao's stuff was to allow selling/running the exact same binaries on any platform with the DE/AACE installed. Clearly MS have no interest in selling someone else's apps to people who use platforms from MS's competitors, like Palm users. This distribution deal must be regarding AACE apps/games for AACE-on-MS-platforms. Bye bye "platform independence."

Also, while this is a potentially good deal for AInc, and the developers whose games/apps they distribute, it has nothing to do with AmigaOS. There's no funding or development of that from the trademark licensor AInc.

"The Amiga name and boing ball will feature heavily on the packaging." OH YEAH, ejaculation is imminent, how utterly fantastic news! :-þ

[mos107]

As most people seem to have taken this out of context I will try to recount the speech from what I can remember (the speeches wil be out today so you can all hear it from for yourselves)

Simple fact the PDAs and Smartphones on sale at the moment (the PocketPC ones) are very high spec (if you compare to most amigas that people have at the moment)
Eg Ipaq go up to 400Mhz and 64MB ram,

This is to make up for the crap that MS have (in terms of games and other content).

Amiga managed to show the AmigaAnywhere content to MS (I am sure you will here the full story from the speeches but its too long to talk about here).
They loved it as you could just use the same memory card in most of their devices, and the other memory card (they have Compact flash and a Secure digiatl version - IIRC),
not only that but the content was so much better in terms of quality and speed compared to what they have, that they made an agreement to get it out in the big wild world.

SO they get better content which will help sell their PDAs (they will be bringing out their own PDAs and Smartphones at really cheaper prices as they think the other major companies sell them for too much and so they dont get to the ordinary people who like playing games - which is what most of the AA content is at the moment).

One example of MS Smartphone can be found on the  Orange website. look out for the SPV near the bottom of the page.
This will run the AA content as it has a Secure Digital slot and as it runs PocketPC you can us the current AA game packs.

SO MS DO THE SELLING AND NOTHING ELSE (for the moment).

Amiga get royalties for each pack sold (and so do the developers).

All this marketing with hardly any work (other then developing more content and supplying it - IE NO MORE LOOKING FOR NEW CHANNELS TO SELL THE STUFF).

With the (hopefully) money rolling in, they can also concentrate more on AmigaOS and getting it to be the best host for AA (or should that be DE).

Theres lots more too it but as it will be out on the web soon (as mp3 I think), your just going have to wait.

[System]

@ Seehund

"Amiga Anywhere" is not interesting to MS, "Amiga on MS PocketPC/Smartphone" is.

Of course Microsoft will not use its marketing muscle to promote rival products, but Amiga Inc isn't tied to Microsoft neither. There is more stuff in the works, stay tuned.  :-D

[AmigaMac]

Well if they can get Amiga DE (and its content) on Palm OS powered PDAs, I'll support the Amiga Anywhere initiative, but I surely ain't going to buy no Pocket PC powered PDA!

[Herewegoagain]

Amiga will gain more brand recognition, and with regard to AmigaDE you are IMO just plainly wrong. Both the Amiga team and Tao have come along way to make intent/AmigaDE suitable for developers and consumers solutions. Actually they have done amazing job

You got that right.  While we may not be seeing alot of info out of Amiga directly regarding DE/AA, Tao sure has an impressive line up of partners, including a number of gaming companies.   Who knows how many of these companies are also looking at using the extra stuff in AmigaDE (is is still called DE or just AA???)  

http://tao-group.com/partner_links/partner_links.php

[J]

Now I read most of this stuff, I'm very excited by this Micro$oft thing. When I first saw their name, I was unsure but is seems like a win-win situation. M$ need Amiga's content and Amiga and developers get money. Lots of it hopefully. Who better than to push your products that the World's biggest PR machine?

(is is still called DE or just AA???)

This is the only thing that bothers me now. I'm a bit lost as to what exactly AmigaAnywhere is.  Is it  still the 'DE?' Is it still  platform independant? If I write a game using the DE SDK, will it run on all these M$ PDA/Smartphones as well as on a desktop machine using the DE Player? Basically, can I 'Write once, Run anywhere?'

Cheers,

J

[System]

what exactly AmigaAnywhere is

AA is an AmigaDE derivative.

AA/DE content is usually platform independent, like for instance Planet Zed being demonstrated, running on both Linux and PocketPC powered PDAs at the WOASE show.

The "Paks" Microsoft will be distributing will only include a PocketPC version of the AmigaDE derivative. So you cannot simply plug such a card into a Linux PDA, at least not without this PDA having the needed AA player pre-installed.

The PocketPC player is a couple of megabytes big, small enough to bundle with 4 games. Ideally target devices would all have the needed AA/DE player pre-installed, as you would then have a couple of spare megabytes on the card to use, and you could easily plug any AA pak into any AmigaDE compatible device, just like Bill demonstrated on the TechTV show.

[publied]

It's a joke? A silly joke? Why anybody is saying me that is a very silly joke?

 :-?

[System]

Hey guys, remember that Apple teamed up with M$ when they came back from the dead under Steve Jobs. Jobs introduced a "special guest" at a MacWorld Expo, who turned out to be Bill Gates on the big screen. A lot of attendees thought it was a stage act & booed loudly.

Look at Apple now. Teaming up with M$ could make Amiga  a stronger company -- and, unlike Apple, we're not getting IE6 rammed down our throats.

Although getting IE6 and Office wouldn't hurt OS4's chances, either. :-D

[whabang]

How about IE7 on AOS 4.X, PocketPC, PalmOS and Smartphone???

 :-D  :-D  :-D

No wonder Amiga Inc begged people to not port Mozilla... :-P