Here's my take on what they should do with Amiga OS and Amiga DE. First it's all about the app. An os is nothing with out a reason to run it. I've got a great peice of hardware in my A4000 but with nothing to run on it I might as well throw it away. We all know that the OS enables to the hardware, we all know that applications are why we use computers.
So look at all the applications for the Palm pilot. There are 10's of thousands of them, some good some bad but they all suffer one major flaw, they only work on the Palm. Look at Symbian Series 60, hundreds of apps with the same flaw. Look at UIQ, pocket PC, MacOS X, Windows. Each of them has their applications and all those application only run on their system. Sure you can emulate but we all know how well that works.
It was for this reason that Intent, Java, Brew and things like app forge where born. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Hell C was designed to solve this problem too. It's evident from the market today that no technology was truly won. Certainly java is popular but have you used a java application on a UIQ device? My god it sucks. if intent lives up to the claims that Bill McEwen and Flecy have been making for it you would think they have a winner. I know I've not mentioned the Amiga OS, I'm getting there. So lets say we have an application and really there are applications and then there are applications. My AIM client is just as much an application as lightwave. Photoshop and notepad. See a trend. There are a certain class of applications which lend them selfs to be small and there are applications which need to be big, in some cases freaking huge (#? office anyone?) My point is it might make sence to have a text editor for Amiga DE but it might not make sense to have Open Office. So how do you design a product that lets you get a peice of all this action, the mobile space and the desktop space? How do you build a system that allows users to do what they want and more importantly willing to pay for? A system that allows applications to run everywhere when needed but allows desginers to use the power only a desktop can afford?
You sell both. You sell a desktop type system and you sell a mobile type system. You sell Amiga OS and Amiga DE. Amiga DE should always have the ability to run on a whole bunch of things, Intent allows that. More importantly is that TAO pays to make sure Intent runs on everything and Amiga gets to use it. Amiga OS on the other hand can be more restrictive on the hardware side. There can be reference designs and certain requirements about chip sets and whatnot and still make it small and fast. Maybe in the near future desktop is really settop. But my point is this. Take ComCast cable in the US. Very large company lots of money to spend. Call them up. "Hey ComCast, what makes you the most money?", ComCast might say "We make a killing on this PPV stuff, it's great!". Garry says "Cool, I hear your looking to sell more if it, think having a system that let users view PPV from almost any device in their house would help you sell it?". ComCast responds "What kind of devices? thinks like laptops and windows?". Garry smiles and saids "Actually our delivery system works with tons of cellphones, tablets, laptops, desktops. Hell we don't even require windows, this thing just runs. It's a great system. We've got a settop box which handles all the billing, delivery, data management and allows you to fully customize it. It can even browse the web and send email". ComCast replys "Hm, you busy tomorrow? We should talk".
In my little story the Settop is an Micro-AmigaOne with AmigaOS and Intent+DE runing on whatever with a client application.
That's just one option. But face it, if Amiga/KMOS/Who ever's business plan is to sell you to and I we are doomed. It's going to take 10's of millions of dollars to get the Amiga to a state where it can compete against Windows and just is not worth it yet. If they can get ComCast to trial the system I described it would move 10's of thousands of units, if they brought it we are talking millions of boxes.
It makes sense to me ;p
Bill "tekmage" Borsari
