Opinion Article : Amiga DE a Good Idea, Poor Execution

[System]

@Ion

> AA aplications are supposed to run natively

Trying to be impartial as I can, (AA/DE has never held any real interest for me outside of the abstract concept) the problem is that there are NO AA programs of note which will drive any desire to migrate to another platform, Amiga or otherwise.  It is not my desire to slam or upset those of you who've written really cool AA applications such as the crossword puzzle or scroller, but there is no killer application for AA as of yet.

Considering Amiga Inc's licensing scheme and demands, there is also no impetus on any major development company to create platform applications specifically for AA, as opposed to the other companies and efforts mentioned in Tekmage's article.

[System]

The problem here -- and I cannot believe that I of all people are defending Amiga Inc on this one -- is yet another mistake in the core business plan of Amiga Inc.  They bit off on, and based their entire plan around Tao's Intent product being able to be adapted to meet Amiga Inc's needs.  

The problem is, as Bill McEwen admitted to me about a year ago (the last time we spoke), Tao's Intent was "not nearly anything resembling the level of completeness or usability that Tao had presented to us in the beginning".   So in essence, Amiga Inc irrevokably backed the wrong product and doesn't have any alternatives at this point but to write what they can -- with no money -- to complete the Tao product to match their needs.

Somewhere along the lines, and this is pure speculation on my part, I'm thinking a rift most likely occurred between Amiga Inc and Tao.  Probably at the point where AI's money ran out.  This might account for why Tao currently has a finished product which is shipping on a few devices while Amiga DE/AA has (for all intents and real purposes) not seen the light of day except as a game pack.

[System]

@bhoggett

I agree with you about Bill's confusion with Tao,
but I believe this was because Amiga was already
desperate for funds. At AmiWest 2000 Bill told us
that they paid 1.5-2.0 million more than they had
anticipated because of an unexpected bidding war
with the now defunct Dan? of the Boxer fiasco.
Bill with his unbridled enthusiasm made assumptions
about Intent that weren't warranted. Additioally
almost all of his efforts had to go into finding
additional capital.

This in no way absolves Bill of responsibilty for
Amiga's problems, but seen in this light, one might
be a little less harsh in his judgement of the
situation. Panic is a mistake creating environment.

I have actually been amazed at Amiga's ability to
survive this long considering the difficulty of
the situation. It is a testament to the community,
Bill's drive to survive, Eyetech, Hyperion and many
other unnamed people.

I personally am loking forward to the release of
OS4, and I do hope that problems with the DE can be
resolved. It still could be a hell of a way to go.

But then again only TimeWillTell

[System]

Maybe AI should have concentrated on OS4.
That way they would have had a real product much sooner.

Instead they went for a business plan that needed a
5+ year gestation period.

So, will AI only survive if DE is a success ?
Or do AI get money from Hyperion for OS4 licences;
if Hyperion wait a bit longer AI will disappear and Hyperion
will be in the position of doing what they want with AmigaOS, at the risk of weakening their user base.

Rather than suggesting Hyperion are/would deliberately starve AI of OS4 licence fees, I'm wondering if Hyperion has a contractual agreement to start shipping OS4 by a
certain date ? And what is that date if so.

koan

[System]

@bhoggett

They couldn't. OS4 was never going to attract any investment, so it was a non-starter as a business proposition.

If Genesi managed to make a go of it then maybe AI could have done or are you suggesting that it's a totally non viable business model and Genesi are on borrowed time too ?

It's unlikely OS4 will ever sell many more copies than the number of coupons bought

There's at least one person who would consider buying OS4 who didn't get a t-shirt (or not as it turned out).

koan

[System]

> Btw, can you imagine Microsoft licensing the kernel from third party?

For win2000 they didn't license it, but hired people from third party ("DEC/Digital" if i remember well) to rewrite completely the former NT kernel.... so it was no "intrernal" work either

[System]

>However, I've noticed that everyone who says how cool AmigaDE is fails to come up with any real reason why it is cool or why it's better than any alternatives. Since I'm on the outside and will stay that way, I'd be interested to know.

I, personally, didn't enjoy programming like with DE since the C64 times... I'd like to have more time left from my "real" job as a programmer to get back and finish some projects started some time ago with my "party Pack"..