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- Path: EU.net!sun4nl!xs4all!usenet
- From: jtv@xs4all.nl (Jeroen T. Vermeulen)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
- Subject: Re: New Press Release!
- Date: Mon, 25 Mar 96 05:27:42
- Organization: Leiden University, Mathematics & Computer Science, The Netherlands
- Message-ID: <19960325.7B4A448.54FF@asd05-14.dial.xs4all.nl>
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-
- In article <4j29au$m2m@azure.acsu.buffalo.edu> rycohen@acsu.buffalo.edu (Ross Y Cohen) writes:
-
- > >Schmitt's approach is: Seek markets that are not covered by the competition
- > >at all. Deliver a product that does not comply to the standard image of a
- > >PC. Give people *new* reasons to buy a computer.
- >
- > Giving people a new reason to buy a computer is great, but you also have to
- > give them a reason to make it _your company's computer.
-
- Naturally yes, but that's for a "company desktop computer"-type machine. The
- Walker is obviously aimed at home use. Personally I'm confident that
- higher-specced machines will follow, like that new version of the A4000T. From
- what I've heard from AT so far its performance could be surprisingly higher than
- you'd expect from the comparison with a plain A4000/040: We have here a
- WarpEngine/040 at 40 MHz that's up to ten times faster than a 25MHz A4000/040
- with the same amount of memory (for the work we do).
-
- Schmitt has said he doesn't want to engage in head-on competition with the PC
- yet. I think that this is the right decision for now; of course the Amiga
- could "sneak" into those markets once we've moved to PPC, and my long-standing
- wish is that the platform would some day cover the entire range from embedded
- applications to high-end workstations, and even heavy-duty servers once we have
- memory protection.
-
- AT already seems to be moving quietly into that direction with contracts ranging
- from set-top boxes to medical systems for hospital use.
-
-
- > The reason I, and everyone I know who bought an Amy did so is because it
- > could do things other machines couldn't (or at least significantly better).
-
- My personal "love story", in case anybody's interested: I was a teenager
- looking at a BBC program where they showed current computer technology in 1985
- or so. When the speaker arrived at the A1000 (saying something like, "...and
- the latest:") he gave a quick demonstration and explanation of the WIMP
- concept. "Where's the BASIC screen?" I asked myself. "Where do you type your
- commands? How do you program a machine like that?"
-
- Then he started up the "lines" demo from the Extras disk. AND the boxes demo.
- AND the spots demo. And for an encore, the circles demo. They all ran at the
- same time!
-
- That was the moment I lost my heart. A similar Microsoft demonstration last
- year on a 100MHz system (but running only two tasks, and without the colours)
- wasn't nearly as smooth after a decade of catching up. Had I seen that 1995
- system on the BBC in 1985 instead of the A1000, I doubt I would have been as
- much impressed as I was with the Amiga. It was the sheer elegance and
- user-friendliness of the OS, not the multimedia capabilities that got me.
-
-
- > The MAC gave me a reason(the GUI) to go out and get a computer, but when I
- > did so, I got an Amy (for reasons obvious then and now). If you bring
- > something _genuinely new(and capable of generating serious interest)
- > to the market, I doubt it will be something able to realized without serious
- > CPU/graphics/sound power.
-
- We are past the point where the PC is "exciting technology". Intel and
- Microsoft are trying hard to create an aura of infallibility around themselves
- (otherwise eg. Intel would not have lied about the Pentium bug and there would
- have been no scandal) but the fact is that it is an established commodity.
-
- No longer will people buy computers because they are a fascinating new
- development of uncharted possibilities, and find programs as excuses for buying
- the technology; they will buy things that are of use to them (in economic terms,
- so that may include games). Whether it includes computer technology loses its
- relevance like it has with speaking dolls or washing machines.
-
- The new markets are for companies that find and cover those demands, not for
- those that think they can gee-wizz the customer out of his socks with the exact
- same product as the next company (which has $0.31 more production costs offset
- by only $0.30 less profit margin).
-
- For competing in the now "traditional" desktop market I think the emphasis must
- be on intuitiveness and the Amiga is well-suited for that. The key here must be
- in software. Even hardware developments are now so volatile that what really
- matters is how well the software exploits them.
-
-
- > As far as I can tell the only market that isn't very well covered by the
- > PeeCee Clone is the mid-range-performance-for-low-cost market. But the
- > fact is (and it's growing truer every day) that your low end garden-
- > variety PC is becoming rather powerful. And if you want to, you can spend
- > less money and pick up a 486 for little more than a comparably equiped
- > Amiga. My point here is that our vaunted mid-range-performance-for-low-
- > cost market is dissappearing too.
-
- Agreed; however the "new" application markets also happen to be ones where the
- customer has no reason to look for any kind of Wintel compatibility. Instead
- they can go for what gets the job done. With the departure from custom hardware
- I see no reason why we can't recover our mainstream price position (absence of
- MS/Intel slice of the dough making up for lower volume), but realistically we
- also need ways of getting around the demand for MS/Intel compliance, meaning new
- software development and exploration of new markets.
-
-
- > >But AT simply explores new markets that are still open for growth to an
- > >established platform without the $600+ price tag that goes with the official
- > >Conformism Compatible(tm) sticker.
- > >
- > I'm not sure we're disagree seriously here: we both think the present
- > developement going on at AT is a good thing, but there is a reason for
- > the $600+ price tag. Decent CPU, hard drive, 6+ M ram, etc.
-
- No, I don't think we're disagreeing very seriously either. :-)
-
- I just wanted to give my view of the logic behind AT's moves and why they are
- in itself not as worrying as some people here seem to think. You know, the
- "anything below P6 speed is suicide!" crowd.
-
- BTW the $600+ price tag I was talking about is not for an entire system; I was
- talking about the price of conformism itself (ie. the obligatory MS OS and Intel
- CPU and motherboard).
-
- I do
- > not regard having a hard drive in all machines conformism, any more than
- > I regard seats in a car conformism. Having the power of your current low-
- > end CPU be with in a factor of 2 of the competition's low end should not be
- > considered conformism either.
-
- The "Conformism Compatible(tm) sticker" was intended as a sarcastic reference to
- the MS/Intel brand dominance, not an argument against hard disks.
-
- However I do think that having an extremely low *price* bottom can be a larger
- advantage than most people realise. I would love to see the Amiga OS used in
- anything down to the level of microwaves. Here's why:
-
- - The volume there is enormous, and integrating it with the desktop market
- could generate a lot of wealth and new technological developments.
-
- - Embedded applications are mostly in the same CPU pool as the Amiga: 68k
- family, moving to PowerPC. All we need now is an ARM port!
-
- - The Amiga OS is IMHO very suitable for stripping down to the bare essentials.
-
- - The software can be developed, simulated, tested and debugged in its own
- native environment on a desktop computer. This was also one of the nice
- ideas about the CD32, I think.
-
- - Developers could benefit from the genericity and continuous improvement of
- the OS. Migrating to other hardware could be a matter of replacing a driver
- and recompiling.
-
- - It would open new options of integrating with other technology in the future,
- eg. adding ARexx/Envoy support to your toaster oven.
-
- With regard to the latter point: Imagine a network where the computer is not
- the only kind of "master". Hardware like an answering machine and a printer
- would be connected to the network instead of to the computer exclusively. A
- machine like a fax would be obsolete, as the answering machine could pipe an
- incoming fax message directly to the printer, even if the computer was turned
- off at the time.
-
- It is this kind of application that Manfred Schmitt hinted at during the famous
- Computer Club broadcast on German television. It requires a low price bottom,
- which I don't think is something to worry about as long as there are higher-end
- machines coming and the future holds attractive performance at a wide range of
- price levels.
-
- The PowerAmiga could well reach the same price and price/performance levels as
- the Mac. The fastest Mac could once again be an Amiga running an emulator,
- without costing more than an Apple. In fact that machine might just be the
- first multitasking PowerMac. Once we have reached that point, people will be
- able to buy the Amiga that suits them. Who will care that a large part of the
- installed base will run the lowest-specced machines?
-
-
- > I'm looking forward to this, but will the software market come back to
- > life? I'm becoming pessemistic.
-
- I don't think it would be proper for me to give any details, but I hear from
- several sources that even IBM is thinking about developing for the Amiga. And
- they are still the biggest software vendor in the world...
-
-
- > >The PC market has established itself and is trying to force upon us their
- > >notion of what a computer is and does. The user doesn't necessarily agree
- > >with this, or might have different needs that are not satisfied by that
- > >definition of a computer. Those are the needs that invite competition from
- > >original thinkers.
- >
- > I think the opposit is the case: we forced on the PC industry _our conception
- > of what a computer does, and they have spent the time and resoursed necessary
- > to come up with some sort of semblance: responsive GUI, fast cool graphics,
- > sound, decent apps, cool games. Now they're starting to beat us at our
- > own game (in spite of having a _rather poor OS), largely through brute,
- > inelegant force. And now I'm starting to hear statements from Amy users
- > that years agoe you would have only heard from PC weenies ("Well sure, a
- > PC is great if you want to play _games, but with my Amiga I do _serious
- > work.")
-
- Nicely put. Those same people who put down multimedia in the eighties as "just
- for games" are now harping themselves about OO design, multitasking, GUI,
- user-friendliness and most of all high-speed graphics--and judge any platform by
- its game graphics because that happens to be what their own system is best at.
-
- They wanted to turn the CD-ROM into a software revolution, and look what
- happened: The CD drive still has a one-letter device name. The difference with
- eg. a hard disk is hard-coded into every little corner. The CD FS standard was
- crippled at birth to suit them. But we can sure as hell play some gamez on 'em!
-
- > Ross.
-
-
- --
- ============================================================================
- # Jeroen T. Vermeulen \"How are we doing kid?"/ Yes, we use Amigas. #
- #--- jtv@xs4all.nl ---\"Oh, same as always."/-- ... --#
- #jvermeul@wi.leidenuniv.nl \ "That bad, huh?" / Got a problem with that? #
- BILLGATES adds up to 663 in ASCII... And he's really Bill Gates the Third
-