Hyperion bankrupt?

[Lionheart]

To quote Hyperion:

Who ever said that there would be a "return"? The cost of the Amiga litigation has put that prospect off for many years to come if ever.

Also, please no business advice.

We'll take our advice from people like Trevor, Matthew Leaman, Steven Solie (who came up with the "Hyperion Blog"), Jens S. from Individual, Michael from Cloanto etc. i.e. people and developers who have put their money where their mouth is or have actually contributed significantly to AmigaOS development.

Take a look at Trevor's recent Blog post and the picture he posted from the meeting in Brussels.

Those are the people that Hyperion management relies on for decision making.

And even if you think they are bad decisions, it is our money and we can spend it any way we want, yes, even on AmigaOS development.

Source

Funny how that worked out for you.

[Lionheart]

@ All,

From AW!

Hyperionmp
   
   Re: Hyperion Entertainment bankrupt?
Posted on 13-Feb-2015 23:42:38       [ #60 ]
Hyperion
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 466
From: Unknown
   

@OlafS25

The quote a famous writer: "the news of our demise is greatly exaggerated"

This is the result of an unfortunate administrative mishap by a third party and is in the process of being addressed/cleared up.

This may take a while as everything takes a while in Belgium whilst it comes to administrative and judicial matters.

Those dancing on our grave, sorry guys, no party here

Hyperion Entertainment Directors

Whether or not that is true remains to be seen.  However, it seems a little odd that  someone posted that with Hyperion's account on Amigaworld.net while Hyperion hasn't even made an announcement addressing it on their own forum.

[Lionheart]

The X1000 is really an impressive hardware design in my opinion, which actually requires Linux to support both CPU cores and full 4GB RAM configuration. My point is that even if the future of Amiga OS 4.x is uncertain, the hardware still have OS support. The only thing holding me back is the price, but you can't expect PC prices without mass production for a custom design like this.

It was an impressive hardware design more than 10 years ago, but certainly not today and especially not with a $3,000 price tag.  Unlike the original Amiga, the X1000 has neither a hardware or price advantage.   Its only real selling point is that it is able to run Amiga OS4, which is only an advantage when selling to die-hard Amiga fans as even Linux can do more than it.  And why buy an X1000 to use Linux when you can by a more powerful PC for less than 1/3 the price of an X1000?

[Lionheart]

That's your opinion.  Many would disagree.  

I think it is worth the price tag and so I bought one.

The reason I didn't buy a cheap PC to run Linux is because I don't want to run Linux, I want to run OS4 so that is the selling point that counts.

Your argument is like telling someone who paid $30,000 for a Harley Davidson that he should have bout at $15,000 Kia because the Car has 4 wheels and airbags.  You're missing the point that the guy wanted a motorbike.  

No, my argument is more like telling someone who bought a 10 year old Harley Davidson for $30,000 that they could get a brand new one for around $8,399.    

Take out the Amiga name from the system entirely and I doubt you would have spent $3000 on a system that is more than 3 times the cost of a new PC and that is running on 10 year old hardware.  That kind of business model gives die-hards fans something to drool on but doesn't increase your user base.  The name only works as long as there are people around who still remember it.

[Lionheart]

The latest A-EON press release of OctaMED acquisition (and maybe previous ones too) states "Expect to see more software acquisitions in the future." So would one of these be AOS4.x??? Hehehehe... just feeding this thread a bit more

At this point A-Eon would be better off buying MorphOS, getting a license to use the AmigaOS name from Amiga Inc., and renaming it AmigaOS while still offering an edition called MorphOS for PowerPC computers outside their own.  This way Amiga Inc. only owns the name, not the technology.  

no, i don't have a $3000 system dedicated to  running AOS. but even if i did it's not an 'investment,' it's a purchase  of a consumable item. i also have blackberries, two cars, and some  lovely new dishes. they're not an investment either.  

Last time I checked Hyperion's OS4 cost around $150, which was added to the price of each X1000 sold.   So if you invested in an X1000 you invested in OS4, which is pretty much the only reason to buy one.

[Lionheart]

That's pretty close what actually happened in the late 90's. Amiga Inc. approached the MorphOS developers to ask them about making their OS the new AmigaOS. They talked about it, got a contract they couldn't agree on and Amiga Inc. found Hyperion instead. So if things had been a little different, we would all have used MorphOS as AmigaOS today. Makes you think, doesn't it

Amiga Inc. wanted to outsource the development and own the source. Hyperion's problem was accepting the low amount Amiga Inc. paid them ($25,000) to develop the OS.  I suspect that they'll try this again when Hyperion goes bankrupt but OS4 is obsolete and needs to be replaced the same way Apple replaced their classic version of MacOS with OSX after they bought over NeXTSTEP and brought back Steve Jobs.

MorphOS has nothing to lose and everything to gain in a deal with A-Eon.  They could continue to sell MorphOS for PowerPC systems and a version called AmigaOS with added features and software for A-Cube and A-Eon.  Even at the lowest price MorphOS sells their operating system (around $75 for one EfikaPPC system) they would make $15,000 if A-Eon even sells 200 and $30,000 for the same amount of computers sold if they were charging the same price Hyperion charges for each X1000 sold.

This is one person's opinion, but not so rich men spend 3 grand on gaming rigs to squeak an extra frame per second out of a game all the time; so the Amiga should be the hobby of only the poor, the uneducated, the huddled masses?

And for less than 3 grand they get a modern and more technologically advanced computer that can play the latest games, not a $3,000 paperweight that was obsolete almost a decade ago and  that can't even run the latest software let alone the latest games.

at least 200 people disagree. and the X1000 isn't 3000EUR. oh, and for the record, i bought my first system for less than $600. my next machine was only $400. that may be expensive in your eyes, but it wasn't in mine. please don't take your feelings, project them on everyone else, and then draw false conclusions.

-- eliyahu

O_o  Seriously?   And yet you don't see the problem here?   I'm sorry but how likely do you think someone is to develop new software for a user base of 200?

[Lionheart]

I don't know about that. They would have if they didn't support the Macs because most people are simply not prepared to invest so much money into one single computer nowadays. But I would still love to see a port to these computers. I think that the one who would gain the most is A-Eon after this bankruptcy mess. Some people are probably refraining from buying X1000 and it's successors because they are afraid that AmigaOS 4 might stop being developed soon (we do have one confirmed case of that). If they at least had an Amigalike alternative like MorphOS they might buy one anyway. That said, I think most if not all people buy an A-Eon computer only for the sake of running AmigaOS 4 on it.

I think the MorphOS Team would port it for the price of one or two free computer(s) or motherboard(s). That might be a little too expensive for A-Eon if they are really not that interested.

A-Eon should give at least 3 computers and negotiate with MorphOS to sell a version of their OS for A-Eon and ACube's computers at a reduced price.  However, A-Eon should get a license to use the AmigaOS name or renegotiate the license they have with Amiga, Inc., as I'm not sure if the current license they have allows them to sell hardware using the Amiga name without AmigaOS.

[Lionheart]

I think so too

I don't think Amiga Inc. will be helpful. The OS/4 guy who came and went like a storm asked him for a licence and was demanded 600.000 dollars and 5% of all the profit. I hardly would think that as either advantageous nor affordable.

A-Eon is most likely already paying that amount in their license agreement with Amiga, Inc.  And $600 a year and 5% in royalties shouldn't be a lot for a company selling overpriced $3,000 computers.  

Amiga, Inc. doesn't have to be helpful, they just don't have to be stupid.  Without someone to license the name to they might as well not even exist.  They don't make or develop anything anyway.  Letting go of OS4 would make their IP more useless than it already is, leaving them only able to license out the Amiga name.