I fully understands how talking about user numbers in the hundreds (or below) is provoking to some, but the key term is *user* (not participator in the AW.net social club), and to quote myself from *a year ago* in this thread: "If the numbers seems disappointing to some people, I think they may have had an unrealistic view of the overall 'state of the nation'."
Fine. No how about you present a plan to correct that situation, now that we've completed the 11 page adventure to reach that obvious conclusion.
The only ones who would even bother trying to *use* (as a *desktop* system) MorphOS, OS4 or AROS are the old Amiga enthusiasts that are already here. As a desktop system, it simply won't offer anything to anyone else that established OS's won't do better, so no-one will bother even if given away *for free*, like we have seen with AROS. It can't attract users from the outside using the current model (read: the 1992 "desktop" model, remaining here from when the computer world looked completely different), so the amount of users each of these OS's have is a zero-sum game within the existing (and rapidly shrinking) "Amiga Community". All the OS developers knows this and has probably come to peace with this fact half a decade ago or more already, and none of them really cares, *they are all* (MorphOS, OS4 and AROS) developing their OS as a hobby, and they are developing it into something they would like to use themselves, with no thought about potential commercial applications for the OS outside the community.
Heck, not even Commodore thought of the Amiga as a PC. Had they had the resources and ambition to put up a fight with Microsoft (and Apple) back in the early 1990's where it could have mattered, then Amiga *could* have mattered on the desktop market today. I'm talking about a situation where the Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, etc, etc, etc would have been running on Amiga OS today (which would probably have been completely different by now anyway), not because someone put up a bounty and donated a developer machine to Apple or Microsoft, but because of Amiga's significance on the desktop market, much like they do on Mac OS. A high single-digit market share could have been enough. But Commodore never had that ambition (they were exploring their own PC line AFAIR), and they for sure didn't have the vast financial muscles this would have taken anyway, as became obvious to everyone in 1995, if not before.
You can say what you want about Bill Buck (and many does :lol:), but nobody can say he isn't constantly pursuing possibilities on new (or at least "new-ish") markets. His plan (through VisCorp) was to buy the Amiga bankrupt's estate and utilize Amiga technology in non-desktop context (while still providing a desktop "on the side"). While I don't think the ED ("Electronic Device", its development code name) would have been a great success back then (the real market for STB's wasn't there yet, at least not in Europe), I think it's a proper way of thinking about Amiga in a commercial context - use its strengths in real, commercial products for *other* markets than the desktop market, while still providing some kind of desktop configuration for developers.
So what are Amiga's strengths?
I think the most prominent strength (the only one) worth anything, is its tiny footprint, its leanness, it's efficiency. This can make really low performance (even "under-performing") devices feel fast, my Efika is a proof of that. And speaking of Efika, the LimePC (which was about to be far more than the netbook the OS4 crowd is talking about now,
take a look at the pictures in post #3) can be considered an extrapolation of that one; and again: Here is Bill Buck, and again: Here is the Amiga (in the shape of MorphOS, in a non-desktop form (or at least: *Could* have been, had it been ported to the Efika 1.5 years faster, and then adapted to the needs accordingly after that)). And again: it fell through! :p
There are many areas where Amiga's strengths makes sense, many kind of devices that aren't desktop (and aren't tablet or smartphones either, those ships have also sailed), that benefits from ultra-cheap (virtually no cost), ultra-lean HW. SCALA (Hollywood?) type of applications, In-shop displays, Info Kiosks. In car/in flight/on train info systems/"infotainment", etc. 64-bit, SMP, Memory Protection, resource tracking, etc, etc, won't be needed, not really wanted either, since it will destroy the simplicity by making things complex. Those are desktop kind of things, something Amiga isn't.
And how do you harness these strengths in a commercial context? Well, the first step will obviously to decide that this is what you really want to do, that your primary goal is no longer a desktop for the vanishing Amiga community. You should then carefully *keep* it lean, simple and clean all the way, you don't arbitrary bloat it by throwing .so crap or desktop stuff into the picture in an ad-hoc manner. You should start putting together a package that could meet the demands of the market or market niche you are aiming for.
STB's got itself a real market half a decade past the "ED". I actually think Amiga would make sense in that context. And STB's are moving into TV's now, making them more than "just a TV". Amiga would make sense in a TV, but it would need development to do so. This is still unexplored territory, virgin estate, go claim it! In a few years, the "Apple TV" would have evolved and taken the full step into a 50" iTV you can put on your wall, and Android will as well, both having a new set of media (iMovies, instead of iTunes, oh wait,
it's already here!) and a new App-store tuned for this new platform. Do it now, with the right partners, like electronics manufacturers, Spotify, Voddler, whatever (this is nothing you do as a five person, part time cellar company) and who knows, maybe you just might have a chance of claiming that single-digit market share you never got on the desktop market, by the time it becomes relevant to measure market shares on this yet to be developed market...?
But the thing is, those ultra-cheap and low-performance devices aren't made from PPC's, they are made from ARM, which disqualifies both MorphOS and OS4 before even getting to the starting line. These kinds of discussions are utterly pointless as it is.
The Science of Marketing isn't about how to put together an ad for a news paper or magazine, it's about identifying and satisfying needs on a market. And here is the shocker: There is no need on the desktop market for what MorphOS/OS4/AROS has to offer. The problem isn't about lacking promotion or advertizing, it's about completely lacking a commercial context.
But again, in any way, under any circumstances, *nothing* will happen as long as it's being tied to the PPC. The PPC is an Amiga killer, not an enabler, *especially* those costing $3,000...
