Dear Ben,
Our commitment to partners and manufacturers has been to make the new version the root implementation for backwards compatibility. Obviously we can never guarantee this absolutely as future variables may impact our ability to confirm 100% but we will make all reasonable efforts.
The earlier versions of intent were put out at the reasonable request of Amiga and then further outside pressure led to a free 'taster' ADK which was released to give an indication of some of the capabilities of intent. This next revision is the one that the Tao engineering and management teams have been working towards over many years and is put out at a time that we have dictated. There is a dramatic leap forward in terms of functionality, tools and documentation. It also reflects what we have learnt from the highly positive experiences we have had since putting intent out into the field in mass market deployed products in the last 18 months with companies such as Sony, Philips, Kyocera, Sharp and JVC. I cannot say any more without preempting our launch.
I think that those who had the ADK from Tao and now get the new version will find that they may have to make changes to their applications in some situations but the effort will, in most cases be fairly insignificant. Having upgraded to the new version, then at least you should find your software forward compatible. Of course we do not incorporate the DE feature set so DE applications will not run on the new version of intent.
Many thanks.
Francis
