Someone once said "you can only make first impression once".
To me it appears that Aeon painted themselves in a corner: The event was so hyped and drummed up that they had to show something running, regardless of the state. I think it didn't do them any favors.
Combine that with the rather unprofessional presentation (no PA system, hello?), vague answers ("north of £1500", "likely before christmas"), demoing the system without the component that was largely driving the marketing (no xena chip was present), breaking the earlier promises (being available during summer, that was the suggestion as everyone understood it) and still not revealing the CPU and you have a disaster.
Being unprepared for the presentation is just inexcusable ("I only found out 10 mins before we were down to give one. It was all very last minute, although I found out later that it was in the actual Event programme"). Being "surprised" by the interest is as bad. The whole event was drummed for months, and then you're surprised by the attendance? ("The Amiga "tent"was always busy, especially around the A-EON/Hyperion/ACube area, the suddenly the tent seemed to fill up and it seemed that 100's of people crowded around the A-EON area."). This is plain unprofessional.
No doubt there will be those who will get it regardless, but forget attracting anyone else outside of the very hardcore community.
Considering this all I very much doubt if the company will survive in the long run.
Update: Now that I think about it, the whole thing appears a huge déjà vu: Original AmigaOne and Eyetech. It saddens me that little has been learnt from the earlier mistakes.
