Currently it is important for Amiga Inc and its partners to have a clear indication of how many AmigaOS4 units will be sold initially. They want to get clear figures on the minimal AmigaOS4 userbase, to be able to attract more software developers. This is one reason outlined in Amiga's latest executive update for the new Amiga club promotion. By joining the "I am Amiga Club" for 50.00 USD, (EUR 50.00, or GBP 32.50), you will be able get a free Amiga T-shirt and a 50 USD (EUR 50.00, or GBP 32.50) discount coupon for usage with either an AmigaOS4, AmigaOS4/AmigaOne bundle or complete AmigaOne desktop computer purchase. The membership is being sold at Amiga's online shop and at the websites of some AmigaOne dealers, namely Computer City (The Netherlands), KDH Datentechnik (Germany) and Vesalia (Germany).
I am pleased to see that hunderds of people have joined the Amiga club already. This means that we can initially look forward to an AmigaOS4 community of at least the size of Be Inc's BeBox computer. Of course not every AmigaOS4 costumer has joined the club yet, as not everyone gets their information from Amiga websites, some people are on vacation and many others want to be able to read a review or see the finished product before making use of such a promotion. The latter is of course understandable, but it would help alot if you could show your support now. Remember that those AmigaOS4 developers have written amazing commercial and/or completely free software titles for the Amiga in the past. Good promotion sales now, would give the 30 or so involved OS developers an important thumbs up for their efforts! So if you are sure you want AmigaOS4, then please act now! Also if Amiga can show that there is a big enough interest in AmigaOS4, more hardware companies could be convinced to support AmigaOS4.
Finally it would be great if people would be able to make hardware/software developers, potential users and retailers aware of the soon to be released AmigaOS4 desktop multimedia operating system and the new PPC based AmigaOne hardware. The more people join our efforts, the better chance we have in making a difference and offering a viable alternative within the computing industry. Also other alternative operating systems can add alot of added value to the AmigaOne hardware platform, especially during the initial period while expanding the AmigaOS4 software library. There are many good OS projects out there, each serving its own purpose and each offering its own benefits. The new AmigaOne platform should be brought to the attention of alternative OS developers.
Going after AmigaOS4 niche markets
It is obvious that the people who already joined the "I am Amiga Club" are true AmigaOS fans. They know AmigaOS' benefits like: good hardware optimised performance, unmatched responsiveness, unmatched multitasking and a low bloat memory footprint. For them AmigaOS itself is the killer application. What will be more of a challenge is to convince people who haven't used AmigaOS for many years, let alone the people who have never even touched it. That's why I believe the Amiga community has to concentrate on different niche markets, step by step expanding, more and more into the mainstream.
I believe the first important niche markets, would be the professional graphic/video and music/audio markets. The Amiga still has a well known and positive image within these market segments. Great audio, 3D rendering and graphic manupulation software started out on the Amiga platform. Video capture and editing on the new Amiga could, when well implemented, become very interesting to general computer hobbyists again. The solid high performance multitasking nature of AmigaOS would be a huge advantage here. Another killer application for AmigaOS could be presentation/multimedia production software like Scala. Many people have come into contact with this excellent piece of software, also because it came bundled with many sold Amiga systems in the past.
Then there still is a huge demoscene where the Amiga computer still has a truly astounding reputation. The scene could offer a huge pool of talent, for instance the people behind Maturefurk (last year's winning Assembly demogroup with their 68k Amiga demo Lapsuus) are also the people who created the top selling game Max Payne. Already alot of good Amiga PPC demos are being released at DemoParties, new cleanly implemented hardware like that of the AmigaOne will allow demos to be pushed to even higher quality levels.
Although there have been some very good wordprocessor titles available for the Amiga in the past, the Amiga computer does not have a well known desktop publishing and wordprocessing history. Current users need to be kept contented with packages like OpenOffice.org, offering good compatibility with mainstream applications, but IMO for the first years to come it is unlikely that new users will be attracted to our platform for such usages. Similarly internet tools and webbrowsers are imporant to please the users, but will not by itself attract many new users. However the high degree of user interface costumizability offered by many such applications on the Amiga, could prove to be a selling point. Luckily a new PPC native version of MUI will become available for AmigaOS4, while a highly improved version of ReAction comes integrated with the new operating system.
Finally there are the gaming and nostalgia emulation scenes. Apart from a couple of exclusive game titles, most of the games will likely be ported from other platforms. It will take a long time before the new Amiga has established itself firmly enough to get the top selling titles first. Regardless entertainment titles have proven themselves to be essential for the success of desktop systems and luckily the Amiga has an excellent reputation within the gaming industry. Also the AmigaDE, when it becomes succesful on target platforms like PDAs, cellphones, game consoles and STBs, could offer a good and simple source for new Amiga games development. One should not forget that the Amiga platform was also the birthing ground for many good emulators (including games consoles) and for the people who want to use classic Amiga software demanding old chipsets an improved PPC version of UAE would be a very important tool. It should be noted however that there is a company developing a PCI based solution to connect an A1200 motherboard, which should then allow direct AGA chipset access.
What is your opinion? How can we make the best impact with only limited resources?
- "As the long wait for AmigaOS fans comes to an end"
- "The Amiga PowerPC hardware platform"
- "What you can do to help"
