These days it's almost impossible to compete with x86 on the desktop. There just isn't enough volume for PowerPC to drive the R&D necessary to create competitive chips for the desktop (and laptop) market. Apple realized this and switched to x86. If Hyperion wanted OS4 to be anything more than a niche OS for nostalgic hobbyists, they would head in the same direction.
IIRC Apple switched to Intel because Motorola were unable to make a G5 processor run cool enough to use in a laptop. This was a serious issue for Apple who were stuck with the increasingly obsolete G4 chips for laptops, they had to do something. Whether Motorola's failure was due to the volume issue you describe is debatable, but I would suggest it was more of an engineering/architecture problem. Hopefully the new PPC chip spoken of relating to the X1000 will run cool enough for any potential use in a future laptop configuration.
I lol'd at the mention of a floppy disk drive earlier in the thread, but I have to say, it would be nice to have a USB Amiga compatible floppy disk drive available for less than $35 for transferring data either on any new machine or just to be able to load games into UAE.
My humble opinion is that Hyperion have a lot of work cut out for them, but they seem to have hit the ground running and I wish them all the success in their endeavours.
