Hi All...magnetic brings up some interesting points that we covered in an earlier ANN post that we would like to modify a bit and post again here.
BTW, magnetic you did a GREAT job with
THIS! :-D
Title: Big Marketing Battles Ahead
The Pegasos II will be the ONLY alternate hardware platform of its price and performance on the market. The hard part will not be the whether or not it is a great product...IT WILL BE! The challenge will be overcoming the market convention for many things.
Challenge #1 (the old favorite): CPU speed
Comparing the rated speed of two processors in MHz is virtually useless unless the processors are exactly of the same architecture. Even processors within the same family cannot be directly compared (Pentium I vs. II, III vs. IV, G3 vs. G4, etc.). For example, the enhancements made to the Pentium II gave it far better performance characteristics than the Pentium. The difference in MHz alone could not account for the improvement. The increase was due more to a number of architectural changes, including cache sizes and algorithms, pipeline organization, memory access, etc. If you cannot compare the MHz "rating" of CPUs from the same family (hint: Altivec) as it compares to the relative speed of the entire computer, you really cannot compare the clock speeds across two distinct families (IntelWhatever and PPC). The clock speeds of CPUs reminds us of the marketing hype that goes into selling vacuum cleaners or blow dryers -- which machine has more amps? Anyway, back to computers...what "sucks" or "blows" more!? We will need to overcome the primary propaganda PC-oriented marketing obstacle.
Editor Note: Here enters our catchy new PegPower marketing phrase inspired by Don Cox...
WATTS HAPPENING! :-P
Power is the rate at which work is done, expressed as the amount of work per unit time and commonly measured in units such as the *watts* and horsepower (flying horses that is! Pegasos Power!). Power (to do things) is the key... PegPower!
We need to get people thinking about what they can do and not the speed at which computer runs to do it. :-) Magnetic has made a start at this in the review
HERE! Challenge #2
It is NOT about MorphOS or AmigaOS. It is about Microsoft vs. OpenSource. This is about Linux folks. :-o The City of Munich recently decided to move its 14,000 desktops to Linux. SuSE confirmed that this meant it would be using SuSE Linux Desktop. Congratuations to SuSE. They are breaking down the "wall" for us. We have not moved up to bug-on-the-windshield status yet. First, we have to get them to try something new in the Pegasos hardware. THEN, we have to eliminate vendor lock and get people to partition their hard drive with more than a LinuxPPC distro (or they could have a few hard drives), only then might we get the chance to stand in for a few dances. Remember, we are trying to get more people here!
(Remember, the Trojan Horse...follow the link to there and catch the whole story :-D ! ) We need to send a friendly Trojan Horse to the Linux Community too!
Challenge #3
Applications! We have to have a lot of them. If you want to create a *Community* you have to be part of it! It won't be just Genesi spending time and money to move things ahead -- and THANKFULLY WE ARE NOT ALONE. Have you noticed there are a few others getting involved...:-) Visit
MorphOS-News. Scroll through the last few weeks. Things are moving. Nevertheless, we have MUCH MUCH MORE to do. We REALLY appreciate all the help, but remember the bug analogue...(we have to get those wings moving!)
This is partly the reason we are moving into the DemoScene...check
this thread out if you missed it! What can we say when confronted by our GHz-pumping-steroid PC friends...
Spitball #1
Hey Friend, are you homogenized? Got Pegasos? And while you are at it, please ask yourself the *ethical* MicroSoft question. There is NO spyware or Gestapo installation tactics here. We won't ask you endless privacy questions. By the way, have you actually sat down and read a EULA lately? (forget MacOS for now...) Read through the one for XP Home today. It actually prohibits you from connecting to your XP HOME PC via your network for anything other than file or print services. Technically, that seems to mean you cannot install something like Apache and run a small website from your own house. It also probably means you cannot install Oracle on your PC for learning purposes, because then you would be accessing a database service, which the EULA doesn't appear to allow. Is it just a good thing that Microsoft does not yet have the technical means in place to enforce such draconian terms, but it sure does seem like they intend to head down that path...(if we let them...;-) ). In the meanwhile, the Pegasos offers FREEDOM to use the OS and applications you want! See
PegasosPPC.com for details...;-)
Spitball #2
Why Choose A Pegasos? Why The Dell Not!
Get them to ask themselves if they want to support boring clone outfits that benefit from pumping out the cheapest boxes with the least innovation, or if they want to go with a Company that - for all its faults - is ready to innovate like crazy! Dell are parasites making commodity products. They do not advance the state of the art of the industry. They just make it a bit cheaper and you get what you pay for (and pay for, and pay for...).
Spitball #3
What is the lifespan of the product? An Apple investment has a practical lifespan of two-to-four times as long as the PC alternative. Anyone want to address the resiliency of this Community...;-) Then, you can address the CPU card, the upgrade path, scalabilty, the vibrant cool folks in the Community, etc. :-D
The VALUE meter has to pull to the right, even against a lower entry-level cost of a PC-clone.
People are forever waiting for that new, faster CPU to come out. They end up waiting forever when they could get on with it and be using a NEW KIND OF COMPUTER tomorrow (...or at least in September!). What is in front of them then has to be compelling for them to make this decision!!!
We will need alot of help to be successful and appreciate all the effort being made. PegPower!
Best regards,
Raquel and Bill :-)
