My evening with Commodore USA, LLC

[jorkany]

"Why does it have to be innovative?"  
 
Because this is what sells,

I take it you weren't really involved much with computing in the late 80s thru mid 90s?

[jorkany]

I don't remember the name Acube coming up. The X1000/OS4 project came up and he said they were contacted and (me paraphrasing) that this is not a viable option because there is no product near completion and doesn't look like it will be any time soon. They want to get a product on the shelves this year, not some undetermined time in the future if at all.

Bit of a bombshell for some, I imagine.

[jorkany]

And you are 100% sure that what he told you is the truth and not just spreading F.U.D. to tap some of AEon's potential customers?

I guess that depends on whether Barry:

1) Doesn't give a crap about the existing Amiga community(s) and has his eye on selling to a much larger audience

or

2) Is so clued into the Amiga community and specifically the OS4 scene that he is even now conniving to steal away the dozen or so people who plan to buy an X1000.

Now, I don't have much of a business background but I do know how to make money, and I suspect Barry does too. Which is more profitable do you think, 1 or 2?

[jorkany]

I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective - please see my reply #375 to Persia.

Okay, let's examine your post #375.

O.K. - but didn't Trevor Dickinson state from the very beginning that the A1 X1k is not targetted at the "common user", but at developers and geeks?...AFAIR, Trevor said if he sold 250 units or so he'd break even. So selling "a thousand or two" would mean quite a good profit for him, wouldn't you agree?

This doesn't differ from what I said in my post #367: the market for the X1000 is so minuscule that there isn't any profit to be had there. So no reason for Barry to try to steal away the dozen or so people who might buy an X1000.

Maybe this is due to him looking at it from a completely different perspective.

He wants to supply the masses (as far as I understood), while Trev just wants to supply the devs and geeks to lay a foundation for further development of the platform.

So they are aiming at completely different target groups, I'd say...

Once again, this is the same thing I said in post #367. Barry doesn't care about the X1000, or the potential loss of a dozen or so customers. Hell, he doesn't even seem to care about the Amiga community in general! He's more interested in the millions of people who aren't even an active part of the Amiga communities today who still remember the Commodore/Amiga name.

And if Barry realy is a prooven business man as it was repeatedly stated here, he should be aware of that.
But in this case I don't understand why he states things that can be interpreted by those interested in the A1 X1k as if the whole project is just vapourware/a hoax.

It's not Barry's place to try to protect the feelings of people interested in the X1000 project. According to Redrumola, all he said was he contacted A-eon/Hyperion about working with them, and decided that due to the unknown completion of the X1000 project that he would prefer to proceed without them. If that upsets people who thought the project was on schedule and rockin', that isn't Barry's fault.

The only motivation for that that comes to my mind is that he's intentionally spreading F.U.D. in order to torpedo the A1 X1k project.
Correct me, if you think I'm wrong...

Okay, you're wrong.

Think about what's doing more damage to the X1000 project - some unknown appearing and planning to sell rebadged PCs in custom enclosures as C64s and later Amigas; or the delays and missed announced release dates on behalf of A-eon? Or do you think everything is going smoothly with the X1000? It'll be cool when those betatesters start getting their boards, right?

[jorkany]

They didn't.
He's referring to the settlement which gave Hyperion the right to continue to develop Amiga OS, including, but not limited TO 4.

#6

Then people need to stop referring to it as a "loss" or a "win" and get with the reality.

[jorkany]

I was referring to this statement Red made on behalf of Barry:
... The X1000/OS4 project ... is not a viable option because there is no product near completion and doesn't look like it will be any time soon. ...

I read it that way, that the X1000/OS4 project isn't "near completion and doesn't look like it will be any time soon" - but I just noticed that he could also have meant it this way: It "doesn't look like it will be any time soon" "a viable option ".

In case it was meant the latter way, I initially misunderstood him.
The way I read it initially seemed to imply he found out something being in strong contradiction to what AEon stated publically so far regarding the state of the A1 X1k project.

Had he worded it this way ... The X1000/OS4 project ... is not a viable option and doesn't look like it will be any time soon because there is no product near completion. ...
I wouldn't have read it the other way initially.

I assumed that a prooven businessman choses his words carefully when talking about his business to avoid such misinterpretations - and so I suspected him to have it intentionally worded this way to create uncertainty and confusion - but that's possibly just me (because not being a native English speaker)...

I see where you're coming from now, but I think you're reading too much into it. We don't have Barry's verbatim statement, just Redrumola's recollection of it (which personally I don't doubt). Apparently Barry thought there was some viability to a collaboration or he wouldn't have contacted A-eon/Hyperion. It's not difficult to believe that CUSA's schedule and A-eon's schedule don't intersect.

Besides, what CUSA product would these people waiting on the X1000 jump ship to? The CUSA waiting line?

I guess time will tell if CUSA is really that desperate for customers, but if past history is any indication Barry doesn't care about the existing Amiga communities. Either he's full of crap all around, or he believes the market is bigger than just the few people in the community.

[jorkany]

Now you confuse me - AROS 68k???

I thought AROS was for x86 architecture?

Why would I want to run an 68k version of AROS on an 68k machine, that runs 68k apps anyway?

AROS is open source, and so can go places other OSes cannot.

An advantage of running AROS on a 68K machine is that AROS is still being actively developed.