20 Questions with Alan Redhouse

[Seehund]

I guess this is just yet another opportunity to say [color=FF0000]WE TOLD YOU SO![/color]

But Eyetech seem to take pride in their efforts to kill AmigaOS. Screw you and your "investments", Eyetech. You're irrelevant, you're no longer needed, the world is filled with "new Amigas" (hardware platforms that AmigaOS could be sold for) without your labels and your monopoly.

The Amiga is dead. It's been a decade, is it REALLY that damn hard to understand? AInc and Hyperion, adapt already! Quit pretending, stop making decisions that obviously "defy commercial logic"! (Jeezus! I remember when I said that...) Leave Eyetech and the whole "new Amiga" and "Amiga hardware market" idiocy behind. Stop making a software product into nothing more than a means of charity for an irrelevant hardware dealer, which less than a thousand people will donate to anyway. Sell AmigaOS for hardware that people actually want to buy or already own in numbers that could possibly begin to make it worthwile.


"It is such a tiny market and the costs of entry are so high that no commercial concern in its right mind would get involved."

No SH!T?? You don't say? I think I've heard that before, but then it wasn't from Eyetech, but from us who oppose the compulsory hardware licensing/bundling/dongling...

In other words, it's NOT a good idea to lock all sales of AmigaOS to this unnecessary and artificially separated "Amiga market".

"Without a 'monopoly' this tiny market would be even more fragmented, making for even smaller production volumes and much higher prices. "

Is this from the department of redundancy department? The department of samfacial logic? What we don't need and don't want is your monopoly, i.e. this tiny market.

"This exclusivity is in itself no big deal. Competition only has any significant effect on prices when the market is large and unrestricted and volumes reaches mass-production (500,000+ per year) proportions."

This is hilarious. Or sad. Or just weird. The exclusivity [Eyetech being the only ones allowed to sell hardware to you if you want AmigaOS] is not a big deal, because without it AmigaOS could have benefited from hardware competition, and when shopping for hardware potential AmigaOS customers could've been part of a larger unrestricted market...? So that's why we need a small, restricted pseudo market, instead of for example buying AmigaOS for a Mac that's sold in the millions by multiple competing vendors all over the world? Duh.

[Seehund]

Wayne,

Sorry.
I've never done an "I told you so" before, and I figured I'd at least have to try it once before this is all over and forgotten. Won't happen again.

[Seehund]

stop making decisions that obviously "defy commercial logic"!

You mean close down the Amiga OS 4.0 project and eat the losses,

I mean make it possible to sell AmigaOS. It is a commercial product that isn't done for free, so it must sell or it's pointless. Might as well open it completely and release the sources then, instead of just sitting on it to let a computer shop sell a few hundred overpriced motherboards. It would be different if it were a hobbyist project made for free in people's spare time.

stop AmigaOne production and any other hardware development,

If AmigaOS weren't exclusively tethered to the "AmigaOnes", there wouldn't be much cause for concern if they were cancelled today. Get competitive, or good riddance.

Hardware development? There is no hardware development for AmigaOS, at least that much has been done right - anything else would defy commercial logic. (Unless you count fringe phenomena like PPC cards to be used with old Amigas, but that defies commercial logic...)

and Amiga, Inc. fold up and go out of business.

If that would mean AmigaOS transferred to competent hands, and harmful alliances with irrelevant hardware shops would be broken, yeah, go for it!

I assume you also have a problem with the way Apple conducts its business. Tying Mac OS to only Apple approved hardware.

Apple sells Macs - their own hardware, their own software. It's Apple's hardware. They have full control over their hardware. They can choose to make new hardware, how to make it, and set their price. They make money on it. I'd wager they make MOST of their money on it. They have the resources, control and competence to try to make their hardware stay competitive. They're in the hardware business.

It's nothing like the situation with AmigaOS4. It's more like the situation back when there were Amigas, and when Commodore had money.

[Seehund]

I'd wager they make MOST of their money on it.

Actually? No. Apple make far more money on their ancillary products such as the iPod and music service than they do on Macs themselves. I'm not suggesting Apple make NO profit on the mac, simply not "most of it".

If I'm reading this table (PDF) right, then my guess was wrong. Apple doesn't make most of its money on Macs, but Macs are still their single largest source of income; 46% of Apple's revenue.

The iPods and iTunes are growing faster than Macs, but they haven't overtaken the Macs just yet. Apple sells a much larger number of iPods than Macs, though.