Eyetech as the new MAI distributor.

[System]

Great news, and no, the naysayers weren't wrong.  We said it was an MAI board all along despite the denial from Alan.

But... now I'm confused.  If the AmigaOne is, in fact (which it is) an MAI board, which is being marketed to resellers at substantially less than $600 (which in fact it is), then

1) Why have we been waiting on Eyetech
2) What does Eyetech actually have to do with it?
3) Why are we paying a substantial price premium to Eyetech for the AmigaOne?

Sorry, I wish Alan all the best, and there's probably something I'm not aware of (please elaborate?), but for me this press release very distinctly leaves the taste of Eyetech as an unnecessary middle-man who is there simply to get his cut.

[System]

When discussing Eyetech's neccessity in this matter, it is adviseable to look
at what Eyetech is providing:
First a conduit to the Amiga OS4 through Eyetech's partnership with
Amiga/Hyperion, second both retail and wholesale distribution channels
already in place, and third they will probably order 600-700 boards in this
first order, these things add up to a significant contribution to get the
ball rolling.

If Mai had to set all of this up and deal with orders of one to twenty
boards, the costs to us would be even higher. This way Mai has no risk and a
clear path to a market that COULD turn out to be lucrative. If they had to
bear the risk of this on their own it wouldn't happen PERIOD!

Once again, I want to thank Alan for his willingness to stick with us
through all of the hassles and bickering. We Amigans are blessed to have
people like this that are willing to risk a great deal in times like these
to help keep the dream alive. Eyetech is not doing this because they have
to; they are doing it because they want to. They have many oportunities to
go in other directiohns.

But then only TimeWillTell

[System]

Hmm. I didn't think it was a secret that the Amiga One was based on the Teron CX.  Given that 1) It uses the same chipset 2) It is designed by the same "far eatern" company. [Eyetech them selves admitted this]. I'd rather dought the Far East Co. Inc. would redisign the board from the grownd up, it is just not practilce

Mabey the problem is Eyetech saying "no it is not the same", which to me means ..  it's not the same thing you get if you get a Teron CX, it is different in some aspect.

They did of course though not specifically state it was similar, probably not wanting to go through the hassle of describing the minute differences and have every change be questioned, especially when they did not design it.

I'll have to look for the price of the Terron to comment on Wayne's post I don't see a price, but I've been reading all day long

[System]

From Wayne:

Great news, and no, the naysayers weren't wrong. We said it was an MAI board all along despite the denial from Alan.

Wayne, you really should read the release more carefully before jumping to all the wrong conclusions. We have always said that the AmigaOne board was based on the Teron Cx design that MAI commissioned - and that is exactly what the MAI press release says! It is not however the same board as the AmigaOne. By taking this route we have been able to have a fully working board in the hands of developers within a few months of scrapping the original AmigaOne-1200 design on economic grounds.

But... now I'm confused. If the AmigaOne is, in fact (which it is) an MAI board,

What is this? You don't want to believe me and now you don't want to believe MAI either. MAI make chips, not boards. They commissioned a few Teron CX boards and had them manufactured externally so that they had a testbed/developer system for potential mass purchasers of their chips (for use in set-top boxes, embedded systems etc). Thats why these systems cost $3900 each - check out their web site. They do not, and have no intention of making production boards - these are simply not available, not at $600 or any other price, from MAI or anyone else.

By forming a partnership with them it is a win/win situation all round. We get (and modify) the Teron design for the AmigaOne and go into production at production volumes and production costs (ie much lower than evaluation board costs - but still nowhere like as low as the costs of PC boards which are manufactured in the 100000's).  MAI get lower cost evaluation boards for their chip customers by piggybacking on our production runs, and the AmigaOne developers bring a high level of driver/porting etc expertise to the party which MAI don't have (they are chip designers, remember). Thanks to the A1 developers we've already got 5 different modern Linux PPC distributions up and running from a standing start in a few weeks whereas MAI's own offering for their evaluation boards was previously limited to a very old version of TurboLinux.

which is being marketed to resellers at substantially less than $600 (which in fact it is), then

Excuse me, but what planet are you from? The A1 dealers need to provide technical and consumer support for the board, eat, pay mortgages and other bills. Of course they buy the boards from us at a discount. But I really do not think that any of them would regard the discount as 'substantial'. It is however around the same level (in %) that most of them would have received on - for example - phase 5's PPC accelerators (although of course the A1 boards are substantially cheaper and therefore a dealers absolute margin will be much less per sale).

1) Why have we been waiting on Eyetech

Presumably because you want an AmigaOne. Otherwise I really don't know

2) What does Eyetech actually have to do with it?

I have spelt this out already. MAI make chips not boards and there would have been no end-user boards produced based on their teron design had we had we not formed the partnership agreement which was the subject of the release.

3) Why are we paying a substantial price premium to Eyetech for the AmigaOne?

Pardon again. The AmigaOne price (like I imagine that of the Pegasos) is purely related to build cost. I'm sure that Mr Buck would have loved to price that board at significantly lower than the AmigaOne if possible*. But broadly speaking both boards will have similar production costs and therefore (bit of a leap in logic this for some readers) roughly the same selling price. Of course you could always buy a few thousand chipsets yourself and wirewrap them together to save assembly costs - I'd be very happy to compete with you on that basis.

(*and if we could realistically sell the AmigaOne for half that of the Pegasos then of course we would of course do that as well)

Sorry, I wish Alan all the best, and there's probably something I'm not aware of (please elaborate?), but for me this press release very distinctly leaves the taste of Eyetech as an unnecessary middle-man who is there simply to get his cut.

I think the thing you are missing Wayne is an acute sense of reality.


Alan

[System]

If $600 is right and they are flogging the A1 at Eyetech for $550 then i dunno what to think.

The price on our website clearly states the AmigaOneG3-SE is USD500, or USD 550 including OS4-OEM. I really don't know where Wayne got his USD600 from.

Alan

[System]

@Alan,

Thank you for clarifying.  As I said in the original post, "there must be something I'm missing" (or something to that effect).  I appreciate your response and your honesty.  You've pointed out a few things I was not aware of, and no, anyone who knows me knows I am *not* a fan nor supporter of Bill Buck, Merlancia, et al.

The "$600" I believe comes from early press releases and I don't know how much it goes for, especially since it's still not available.  I will tell you factually that I am still firmly not a fan of the AmigaOne concept (PowerPC based hardware in general) at all.  More power to you though, and I believe that we all appreciate the clarifications.