Are You The One?

[DarkHawke]

Well, if you're an enthusiastic computer hobbyist and don't want to get involved in the TRS-80, CoCo, or even C64 communities, I suppose this is a way to go.   :-D

Seriously, though, even the dude what wrote the piece acknowledged the price/performance difference between x86 and PPC boxes, and the A1, unless some honest-to-Jehovah miracle occurs, isn't gonna change that.  Not being a part of AInc, I can't say for sure that the A1 is intended as a stop-gap measure and has the intended product lifespan of a hyperactive mayfly, but what else could happen?  

Methinks the AInc investors aren't looking for the kind of profits that you get from running a boutique computer corporation, and even though AInc is neither making nor selling the hardware, their next major OS won't run on anything else, so the effect is much the same as if they were Apple.  Sad thing is, they ain't Apple!  Apple can at least count its userbase in the millions, so having its OS go hand-in-glove with its own computer hardware remains a viable (read: profitable) course.  AInc won't even get what profits do come from A1 sales!  Okay, maybe some buck from licensing, but that'll be even less than the meager returns Eyetech will see.

So, hey, if you have the means and it scratches your particular itch, more power to you!  Just don't delude yourself into thinking that the A1/OS 4 combo will be the driving force of the renaissance of the Amiga.

[DarkHawke]

Don't fool yourself into thinking it won't sell relatively good.

The operative term there being "relatively"!  Relative to what?  Amiga sales in the last eight years?  Sure!  It'll sell great guns comparatively!  :-D   Obviously there is some demand for this item, and in the opinion of both AInc and Eyetech, there is some money to be made in knocking out yet another proprietary Amiga system, otherwise they wouldn't do it.  My point is that there aren't big bucks to be made doing this, and to think otherwise is the computing world equivalent of tilting at windmills.

I think that what AInc primarily gets out of this is good will with the rabid Amigans.  You notice that they've farmed out all the heavy lifting for both the OS and hardware, largely contributing only licensing rights and promotion on the AInc website.  Sure McEwen and Co wholeheartedly endorse it!  Makes 'em look like "true Amigans" and like they're "giving back" to the community!  In the meantime, they keep workin' away on what they think will really[/u] bring in the money [and on which they've obtained their venture capital]: Amiga Anywhere.

Ultimately, the one effort complements the other.  The remaining hard-core of the Amiga community are appeased by the A1/0S 4 release, and thus more favorably disposed to anything else coming from AInc.  AInc turns their worst and most avid critics into true believers with very little effort on AInc's part.  At the same time, the A1/OS 4 combo gets these same folks up to technological snuff so that they can seamlessly move to the REAL new OS, the Amiga Anywhere-enabled OS 5, and then go out and preach the virtues of this truly next-generation OS to the masses, a goodly number of whom are well disposed to the Amiga, but don't want to get hooked into additional hardware expense just to get the killer OS.

The true kicker is that so long as SOMETHING sells, AInc can't lose.  If the A1/OS 4 combo takes off beyond all reason, they make out like bandits.  If it doesn't do so well, but OS 5 does the proverbial hotcake selling thing, they're still sittin' pretty!  Still a gamble overall, but Bill and Co. must have seen how little downside there was to giving the remaining rabid community what they wanted while the main focus of the company remained on the multi-platform OS of the future.