Amiga now charter partner of Microsoft's Mobility Partner Advisory Council

[SirLancelotDuLac]

@Wayne

Like Amiga Inc promised us originally before denying they ever said it, I want to run AmigaOS/DE/AA/whatever on WHATEVER HARDWARE I HAPPEN TO HAVE AT THE TIME.

Don't give me the OS5 ####. 3 years into building OS4 and it's not done yet. There is no OS5. There won't be in my lifetime at this rate and I'm only 36.

Wayne, please forgive me for being rude, but I can think of no other way of putting this, you are as big of a fool as the executives at Amiga Inc. were when they announced that "any hardware" OS if you really think they could have produced that in this short amount of time.  It takes Microsoft AT LEAST two years between OS upgrade releases and they are ONLY CODING FOR ONE PLATFORM.  NT 5 (ie:2000) was in development for AT LEAST 3 years before it was released.  How many delays do most Windows releases go through before they are finally released, and Microsoft has a lot more employees at their disposal than Amiga Inc.

I don't ever remember Amiga Inc. denying their original promise; I do remember them coming to the realization that they COULD NOT ACHIEVE THEIR PROMISE according to their original plans.  How soon you forget all of those posts at Moo Bunny where Francis Charig (sp?) of TAO stated very bluntly that INTENT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO BE A DESKTOP OS.  Remember all of the flames about no memory protection, etc.  Remember the statements from the TAO execs stating that INTENT was meant for PDAs or as a layer on top of an OS.

So tell me, how were they supposed to write this wonderful OS you want so quickly when they would effectively have to re-write an OS that they DO NOT OWN.  Do you really think TAO would just give them their intellectual property and say, "here you go, have fun completely changing the purpose of our software"?  It's one thing for TAO to give them the information needed to write, "value added" APIs on top of INTENT, it's another thing for them to let Amiga Inc. completely rewrite INTENT.

So Wayne, what would you have Amiga Inc. do, simply port Amiga OS to the X86 platform.  Talk about suicide.  The only OS's that can currently survive on that platform is Windows and Linux.  How can Amiga OS hope to generate revenue on X86 when BE couldn't even gain market share by GIVING THEIR OS AWAY.

Would you rather they take the extra time necessary to complete their "completely cross platform solution"?  Again, that would be suicide; do you really think their investors would put up with no income at all for 5+ years in today's economy?

So what can they really do to survive?  Well the only thing they can do is take the only product they have that has a chance of making a significant profit, the DE, and partner with everyone possible to get it sold, even if that is Microsoft.  As anyone in the software industry will tell you, first you make your application to the 90% market share OS, then you port it to others.  Just because they are partnering with Microsoft does not mean the DE is suddenly no longer cross platform, it is still built upon TAO INTENT which IS CROSS PLATFORM.  Amiga Inc. are just trying to ensure their survival by getting any product they can to market, even if that means FIRST releasing it on Windows.

As far as "sleeping with the enemy" is concerned, there's an old saying, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer".  Just because they are "sleeping with Microsoft" does not mean Microsoft will "buy them out".  What would buying out Amiga Inc. provide Microsoft?  Nothing.  If Microsoft were to buy anyone out, they would buy out TAO, the owners of the most important piece of Amiga Incs DE technology.  Buying out Amiga Inc. would simply be a waste of money, and even though Microsoft could afford to waste it, they did not get where they are today by wasting their money.

The corporate execs at Amiga were fools to make so many quick promises after purchasing the Amiga name.  They have had to come to the realization that they couldn't achieve their plans as originally laid out and as a result, have modified their plans more than once.  I see nothing wrong with this and don't see how this makes them liars, as so many have called them.  This is simply how business works.  So far, the only thing I have seen that they have done that I consider questionable is the Amiga club.  Taking money from people and not keeping good communication with those individuals is very bad business.

I will be the first to admit that Amiga Inc. has made some horrible business decisions, however, unlike so many other people I've seen on some forums (not you Wayne) I do not blame the current owners for Commodore's, ESCOM's, Viscorps or Gateway's screw-ups.  I also believe (unlike others) that Amiga Inc. is the last chance Amiga OS has to survive and possibly grow.  I do not believe the Amiga OS will survive as anything other than an Emulator if yet another parent company dies, even though Hyperion and Eyetech have supposedly taken steps to ensure they could finish the OS if Amiga Inc. went under.  Unless Hyperion made some kind of deal that would keep the OS intellectual property out of the bankruptcy courts and immediately transfer complete ownership to them, I don't see how the Amiga OS could survive.

I for one wish Amiga Inc. well and hope they start generating some income soon.  I certainly would like to see my all time favorite OS be more than just a retro computing platform for nostalgia. (Which reminds me, I need to purchase the latest Amiga Forever CD  ) )  It would be nice to see OS 5 come out with the DE integrated into the OS making it "cross platform".  These are all things I would like to see and do believe Amiga Inc. are working toward this goal.  I am also a realist, I believe that they currently have a higher chance for failure than success at the current time and therefore, I am not holding my breath.

I also hope that, if they are not getting ready to declare bankruptcy, they straighten out this whole Amiga club fiasco soon.  I feel for those who sent in money for this, having been screwed by the Siamese PCI fiasco so many years ago, I understand the frustration.  Since then I will not pre-order anything "to get a discount when it's released", and would advise even the most faithful Amigans to do the same.

[SirLancelotDuLac]

I meant in relation to the current "Amiga" direction. I am one of the first who tries to find the silver lining but I simply can't find it anymore.

Here's a silver lining, if the Microsoft gamepack partnership sells well, they have money coming in, with this money, they might be able to aford an employee dedicated to responsing to those who joined the Amiga Club and are wandering where their t-shirts are.   Sure it's not much, but getting answers to those that deserve it is a start.

Amiga Inc's main goals have zero to do with an Amiga as we know it. I have no love for Ben Hermans and while I have faith in Eyetech to resell MAI boards, I have no interest in one.

Sure, but now your opening up the "what is an Amiga" pandoras box.  The Amiga we know has a 68000 series CPU in it, is that what you really want?

Would your rather see the Amiga as you know it (outdated) or see it as you know it could have been.  The Amiga OS WILL NOT get were you know it could be without years of growing pains.  Since the Amiga has been in stasis for so long, we have to deal with the growing pains today, instead of dealing with them years ago.  

That leaves me (and I'm sure a slight majority of you) with nothing in the future that I'm interested in. I run PalmOS, hate Windows PDAs. I don't need a slow, expensive PPC solution, and I need commercial software support. None of these things are being addressed or even compensated in the decisions that Amiga Inc have made.

I don't know if TAO INTENT is already on Palm OS, but if it is, then there is no reason that you couldn't run the game pack on your PalmOS PDA.

PPC is expensive, but not necessarily as expensive as you might think when you consider total cost of ownership.  Some people have their macs for two to three times longer then most people have their PCs.  If I own one 3,000 dollar Mac as long as one individual owns three different 1000 dollar PCs, then they cost the same.  People seem to forget in today's "throw-away" society that there is something to be said about products being "built to last".

A friend of mine found an old add for a 386 machine with 2 Meg of RAM, it cost over 8,000 dollars.  For that much you could get an enhanced Amiga with Video toaster and more.  The people who bought the Amiga with Video toaster can still get use from it, those who bought the 386 have since trashed it for something else.  For those who want to upgrade their current Amiga, if they can get another 10+ years out of the Amiga one, it will have cost less than having to buy 3 or 4 PCs during that time.  Just because something costs less up front, does not mean it costs less over time.

[SirLancelotDuLac]

1) they would have taken the help offered to them

Not certain what sort of help was offered, but good old Billy boy can only do what the people footing the bill will let him.  As with all companies, sometimes they have to say no and offer no explanation why due to what those pulling the strings say.

As stated, I'm not certain what help was offered, but it can be difficult for companies to accept "free" help for fear that they might open themselves up to legal action in the future.  Remember, they are based in America and America is the land of lawsuits and honey.    :-)

2) by extension, Amiga Inc would have any idea how to handle public relations.

Actually, Amiga Inc. would be doing great at public relations if they had an actual product.  The problem Amiga has run into is that they purchased a product that already existed.  Once a product exists, you need a public relations department.  The problem is their existing product is so old, it is practically like not having a product.  When you don't have a product yet, you don't need public relations.  Remember Transmeta's website before the product was released, it had NO INFORMATION AT ALL.  There's no point in giving out information before you have any real information.

Amiga Inc. have their own little Pandora's box.  They don't have a product, so they should not be making announcements of their plans, yet they have a product from yesteryear and have so many people that loved that product, that they want daily updates from the website.  So, to try to please the old customer base, which is what they hope they can build on, they make PR announcements based purely on their optimistic estimates on what their technology might be able to do.  PR mistake number one, never make announcements based on optimism.  Once they make the first mistake it is all destined to go down hill from there, you can't just eat your mistake and make no further announcements until you have something concrete, the public will kill you.  So you have to continue making new announcements that contain changes to previous announcements which were changes to even earlier announcements and so on and so on until you look like the bumbling fools they look like today.

On the bright side (for Amiga Inc.), though, the only people who pay real close attention to this are the old die-hards, which is actually such a small camp of individuals that they could afford to lose all of the die-hard users and still survive.  (Of course Hyperion and Eyetech might not be too happy about this)

I for one hold no animosity towards Amiga Inc. about their bad PR.  After ESCOM failed and then the Viscorp fiasco, I started taking ALL Amiga related announcements with a grain of salt.  I definitely enjoyed reading them all, and even felt most sounded like it would be a great product if it came to fruition, note the IF, but I have never held my breath.  Then of course there is the other train of though, Commodore had a GREAT product with the Amiga, but their PR sucked.  If Amiga Inc. was creating some kick ass PR I would seriously worry that OS 4 would SUCK.  (Look at Microsofts history, GREAT PR, Suck ass products)   :lol:

Regardless of PPC/x86 (the fact that I do not support PPC does NOT make me a proponent of any particular chip), Amiga *could have* made a comeback if they had handled their business like a business starting THREE YEARS AGO. Now it's simply too late for Amiga to have do anything substantial, either on the desktop or in the pocket.

It's easy to sit back and say someone should run his or her business differently when either you don't have anything to lose or you are the only one who stands to lose, but when you have investors money that your playing with, you need to play by the investors rules.  It's easy to sit back and say they're doing everything wrong and state how differently you would do things, but you don't have the investors breathing down your neck now do you.

As far as "could haves" are concerned, the Amiga "COULD HAVE" been the dominant desktop home computer today IF COMMODORE handled their business like a business instead of a personal change purse for Mr. Ali.  You should always stay away from "could haves"; the only thing you get from "could haves" is animosity towards an entity of some sort.  "Could Haves" is why most people who hate Amiga Inc. have that opinion, despite the fact that Commodore did more to hurt the Amiga scene than Bill, Fleecy and Co. ever could at this point, even if they tried.

I for one wish Amiga Inc. and partners the best of luck in succeeding at OS4 and the Amiga One.  If OS4 comes out as scheduled I will probably get one if the finances permit.  Even though my Windows PC does in fact satisfy most, if not all, of my NEEDS, it satisfies practically none of my WANTS in computing.  To date, Amiga OS was the only computer to satisfy my wants, for that reason alone, I feel the Amiga One is worth looking at.

[SirLancelotDuLac]

Actually, from what I remember (perhaps Gary can help me out here), BeOS was abandon by Be just when it was really taking off for this stupid DC/IA/PDA/Cellphone/* Stinger OS since they were going to ride the wave. Remember that wave, the one DE is suppost to be riding on? If anyting, X86 increased the numbers of Be users and developers. Stinger, drove that entire group of users/developers away from BeOS.

Yes you are correct, one of the reasons BeOS died was because they gave up on the desktop OS for the PDA OS.  The MAIN reason that they did this was because they couldn't even GIVE THE OS AWAY to the OEMs.  If I remember correctly, Microsoft makes its biggest chunk of change on Windows from the OEMs, therefore, it would stand to reason that if BE could get some OEM action, they could have survived on the desktop.  They couldn't so they gave up the desktop for a market that wasn't so saturated by Microsoft.  I agree, though, if Be had been able to hold out longer, they might have actually started to gain some market share.  It was very apparent, however, by the sudden shift, that they couldn't afford to wait long enough for BeOS desktop to gain enough marketshare to start reporting a profit.

I have no idea what you think is so magickal about PPC that will keep people around to use either OS4 or MOS. If anything, the short term gain by using PPC will be the boat anchor that drowns the OS in the long haul. It's great both OSs want to run with the big dogs, unfortunetly, they have this load stone called PPC that will grind them into the dirt.

Who said I thought PPC is magickal?  I just said x86 was a dead end at this time.  Look how long it took Be to even begin making inroads in x86, do you really think Amiga can afford to wait for Amiga OS to start taking hold on the x86 platform?  I don't think so.  If you are not going with x86, the best alternative, is PPC, IMO.  (Not to mention the fact that the current state of Amiga OS makes PPC the easiest and quickest to port to at this time)