For instant success with the Mac crowd, prepend all of your product names with "i."
Does that tell you about the type of people that are abandoning Windows in favour of a Mac?
It only proves to me that Windows Vista and 7 are lousy or at least not what a lot consumers wanted after XP.
It also could suggest that the previous $3000 to $4000 price tag of Macs was offputting.
Now if only we can attract more commercial software to Linux.
@amigadave
On the other hand, as much as I have seen and heard that speech, I come to think that sadly many Amiga resellers/developers/hardware_designers (but not all), want to milk the cow at exorbitant prices and lousy products, with the old tale of economy of scale, niche markets, or whatever.
This is an attitude that does not encourage the preservation of the Amiga as a viable commercial market at all.
They even make investments on unreasonably dumb bounties that after sometime they regret that they have supported, instead of focusing what the community, and finally, what that market needs.
Look, on the contrary, how succesfull some very few Amiga resellers/developers/hardware_designers have been, that they felt humble enough, and took the time to analyse the community´s needs and have provided viable solutions.
The Amiga user market has indeed responded by buying from them leaving many of their products literally out of stock.
It is not that Amiga users are cheap. As an example, all Amiga users I have personally contacted so far this year, have at least spent 200 US$ in Amiga accesories this year, despite there are not many available, and even some like me, have spent well over 800 US$. But then most of the time I, like many others find difficult, if not impossible, to get a particular Amiga item, despite the money that we have already stashed for that purpose.
So sanity and cooperation have to work both ways :)
Does that tell you about the type of people that are abandoning Windows in favour of a Mac?
It only proves to me that Windows Vista and 7 are lousy or at least not what a lot consumers wanted after XP.
It also could suggest that the previous $3000 to $4000 price tag of Macs was offputting.
Now if only we can attract more commercial software to Linux.
DiscreetFX's primary focus for quite a while has been developing visual effects products for video editing solutions on Windows. We would sometimes also make these effects available at a later date for Mac OS X. Potential Mac customers would call us concerned because certain products would ship much later for Mac OS X if ever. As 2010 winds down and ends we have noticed a softening in our Windows effects business. We did some research and found that while companies that sell integrated hardware/software solutions on Windows are doing fine software only vendors have noticed a great slow down.
Our research results have come back and this downward spiral will only continue and accelerate in the future. Microsoft continues to bleed many key executives at an alarming pace. What do they know that we don't? Since we wish to grow and expand DiscreetFX we plan to avoid this destitution and software sales decay. For some time we have already run the business side of DFX on Mac OS X and this has worked out well. Starting today we will change the focus of our software effects development from Windows to Mac OS X. Now the OS X versions of our software will come out first and later the Windows versions will ship if ever depending on the product. The first product this will affect is MusicFX.
DiscreetFX's Amiga business and Amiga.org will remain unchanged since this has always been the fun side of the business. This decision should strengthen DiscreetFX and help it grow. We are only reporting it here for transparency reasons and for full disclosure to our customers since some of them are members of this site. Of course old products are still fully supported.
If you have questions don't hesitate to ask. Our first mission is to help our great customer base. Exciting times are ahead like the Mac App Store. A lot of our regular customers have changed platforms from Windows to Mac and we will now join them. Expect to see other software developers follow suit. We are usually slightly ahead of the curb. If you remember we were one of the first to embrace selling software on Flash drives in 2006 and we completely moved to selling all our FX software on Flash drives in 2008. Apple just started selling Mac OS X and iLife 11 on Flash drives last week with the new MacBook Air.
Best regards
DiscreetFX Team
Why not port to AROSx86 and sell "closed" hardware and software solutions then?
This way you control the quality of the hardware such as RAID(s) and video cards ensuring that your product performs expectedly well on the hardware.
@amigadave
Well, basicly I got the wrong idea on what was the concept you were wishing to elaborate on your previous post.
I see we agree on many things. And yes, you are right in that nearly an 80 percent of the money (and even more sometimes) Amiga users spend, is aimed at hardware. But then it is a chicken-egg situation: very little good Amiga software is available to buy -> few users buy that stuff, and they dont spend that much because there is not that much worth of it.
Was just wondering how one stays ahead of the "Curb" ?Drink less ;)
As 2010 winds down and ends we have noticed a softening in our Windows effects business. We did some research and found that while companies that sell integrated hardware/software solutions on Windows are doing fine software only vendors have noticed a great slow down.
Our research results have come back and this downward spiral will only continue and accelerate in the future.
..............................................................................................
Starting today we will change the focus of our software effects development from Windows to Mac OS X. Now the OS X versions of our software will come out first and later the Windows versions will ship if ever depending on the product. The first product this will affect is MusicFX.
Best regards
DiscreetFX Team
Good Luck, doesn't take a brain scientist to see why your developing for Windows's millions of users vs Amigas thousands of users.
1% of a million is way better then 10% of a thousand
I wish we still had thousands who were actually actively using their Amigas, Classic, Next Gen, or Emulation. I haven't seen any evidence that we have over 1,999 users left who still use their Amiga computers as anything more than a nostalgic hobby, or an interesting diversion from their mainstream computer experiences (which are almost always required for work, or because they can't do everything they need, or want to do on a computer from their Amiga, or Amiga-Like computers), which they turn on more than once a week, or once a month.
the only thing I use my iMac for is the net... :)
I wish we still had thousands who were actually actively using their Amigas, Classic, Next Gen, or Emulation. I haven't seen any evidence that we have over 1,999 users left who still use their Amiga computers as anything more than a nostalgic hobby, or an interesting diversion from their mainstream computer experiences (which are almost always required for work, or because they can't do everything they need, or want to do on a computer from their Amiga, or Amiga-Like computers), which they turn on more than once a week, or once a month.
I hope, or wish someone can/could prove me wrong and show me that we still have 2,000+, or several thousand Amiga users (all varieties) who still use their Amiga computers for more than the occasional game once or twice a week, or month. I wish someone could prove to me that we still have over 100 to 200 developers, writing code for the Amiga (all varieties), because we desperately need many new and/or updated applications and it would be nice to get some new games too.
While I agree with your sentiments, I have to disagree on the Amiga being nothing more than a hobby or diversion.
I use my Amigas for all my computing need's, Audio, Gfx, DTP etc.. on a daily basis, the only thing I use my iMac for is the net... :)
Heretic! (http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35564) ;)
Believe me I'd love to get this old iMac doing something useful, but you'd need to use a calendar to time the bootup sequence and you could take the dog for along walk waiting for iTunes to start... :)
Is it PPC or Intel?
It's an old iMacG4 800Mhz PPC, bought it for £65 then had to pay some geezer nearly 400 quid to fully upgrade it to OS X 10.4.11
(http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/af79/frankosamiga/Funny/apple_imac_fp.jpg)
Make's a nice desk lamp though... :)
sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop Excellent idea, but surely an OS with better stability would be better for such devices? Haiku/Linux/BSD etc....
According to Steve Jobs, the Mac now makes up 20% of total computer sales. I personally know of about a dozen people that have switched from PC to Mac,but none that have gone the other way....
According to Steve Jobs, the Mac now makes up 20% of total computer sales. I personally know of about a dozen people that have switched from PC to Mac,but none that have gone the other way....
Even Steve Ballmer himself lacks faith in MS and is selling 75 millions shares.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20022007-75.html?tag=cnetRiver
... or he just wants to actually have some cash to spend. Execs selling shares is normal. Gates has been selling Microsoft shares on a schedule "forever" for example. Otherwise, what'd be the point of getting the shares in the first place?
Being rich on paper is well and good, but it doesn't buy you anything.
@ Transition
Wanted to ask if any of your products will also hit the Amiga market again, once the X1000 has come out into the public domain?
Cheers
Your point is understood but is selling 2 billion dollars worth of shares sound normal? That's a lot of money.
@ Nicholas
Cheers mate... :) I think... :confused:
Erm... bit of a dummy when it comes to macs, is that a cd or dvd I burn it to... :confused:
Will I lose all my data, progs, passwords, cookies etc... if I do this ?
I don't have any backup OSX discs if it goes wrong... :(
I assume Lubuntu is a different OS system...
Or is this all just a plot to blow up me mac and stop me posting nonsense on Amiga.org... :roflmao:
PS:The bill broke down as
1GB Memory Upgrade £60
160GB Hard Disk £48
DVDRW Drive £25
Upgrade OSX 10.2 to OSX10.4.11
Call Out Charge £55
Labour £192
Total Cost £380
(Spot the Mug or What ... :) )
Cheers Tone, :)
I'll give that way a try first, as I say I have no way of reinstalling OSX back on this mac and don't want to lose any of the data on it.
Anything has to be better than OSX10.4 which I find terribly slow... :)
Every once in a while I try a Virtual Linux box just to see how it works, I've tried KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox, Openbox, E17 and none of the Windows managers impressed me as something I'd want as my main OS. The whole this seems designed by geeks for geeks and frankly a waste of time for me.
Frankly I don't see what people see in Linux. At work I run a Virtual Linux box as a web server and it does great at that. But as a web server it doesn't need a gui and it runs happily by itself, which is how Linux seems the happiest.
Every once in a while I try a Virtual Linux box just to see how it works, I've tried KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox, Openbox, E17 and none of the Windows managers impressed me as something I'd want as my main OS. The whole this seems designed by geeks for geeks and frankly a waste of time for me.
Frankly I don't see what people see in Linux. At work I run a Virtual Linux box as a web server and it does great at that. But as a web server it doesn't need a gui and it runs happily by itself, which is how Linux seems the happiest.
Every once in a while I try a Virtual Linux box just to see how it works, I've tried KDE, Gnome, Fluxbox, Openbox, E17 and none of the Windows managers impressed me as something I'd want as my main OS. The whole this seems designed by geeks for geeks and frankly a waste of time for me.
According to Steve Jobs, the Mac now makes up 20% of total computer sales. I personally know of about a dozen people that have switched from PC to Mac,but none that have gone the other way....
The whole this seems designed by geeks for geeks and frankly a waste of time for me.
Backed up all my data, burnt the ISO, popped it in, booted up....
Nothing except for a black screen, waited for about an hour & nothing happend... (tried a couple of times) :(
Same issue with mine, there are ways to get it working but not via the LiveCD it seems. You'd need the alternate install CD and would need to hack around with X configurations, too much trouble for me.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/technology/microsoft_pdc/index.htm
CNN Story about Microsoft as a dying brand.
I'm sure DiscreetFX switching to Mac will be the final nail in the coffin. :lol:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/27/technology/microsoft_pdc/index.htm
CNN Story about Microsoft as a dying brand.
Sounds like what I am seeing in my personal life... 6 years ago I didn't know anyone with a Mac... Now I can think of 14 people off the top of my head who all own a Mac (who didn't before)... And all but 3 of them bought MacBooks...