Software companies and small markets

[yoodoo]

Alan's comments at AmiWest about new mobo designs were very enlightening. Basically, he believes there is no point changing the design every few months as it will shrink the potential market (people hanging on for the next design) and prevent economies of scale.

New graphics cards, USB2, Firewire, Serial ATA etc could all be achieved using PCI cards + drivers. Perhaps a 3 year mobo cycle would be decent, with yearly updates on processsor cards?

There are only 2 designs needed: desktop ATX (which we have) and small footprint all-in-one jobby for embedded stuff/ lifestyle computer, perhaps shoehorned into a laptop size thing if it fits.

Personally, I'm very happy with my (outdated) A1G3 which runs at 733Mhz. Cant wait to put OS4 on it.

[yoodoo]

Historically, Amiga users are quite happy to pay for hardware at seemingly high prices, but perceive less value in software (hence all that piracy).

The key for software vendors will be to maximise sales by hitting AOS, MorphOS,AROS and Amithlon too if possible. Someone might actually cough up the cash then.

The key for the OS developers is to attempt to provide APIs that are sufficiently compatible to make the software developers job easy while still differentiating their products. Compare the different Linux distros - they all run (pretty much) the same software but have different audiences.