amiga-news.de - Merlancia: Open letter to the Amiga Community

29.Jun.2001
Merlancia Industries (ANF) Merlancia: Open letter to the Amiga Community
Merlancia Press Release #MPR29062K1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

29th June 2001

Merlancia Industries
3516A West Cactus Road
Phoenix, AZ 85029 USA

1-877-53-AMIGA | ++1 602-789-0956
http://www.merlancia.com | merlancia@merlancia.com

Merlancia Open letter to the Amiga Community by Ryan E. A. Czerwinski, CEO of Merlancia Industries

Greetings to all. We are happy that the Amiga community is taking a deep and serious interest in our products and what we are working on in the background! We will be releasing some more critical information to answer your questions soon, however, we are currently gagged until some other contracts are completed.

I assure you all that welcomed good news is ahead...in fact, look forward to a feature article about us in an upcoming issue of Amiga Active Magazine, where we hope to answer many of your questions. We are currently looking for those that are interested in developing for our system(s). (As the Tsunami will only be the *first* system we are releasing.)

To answer some common questions that have been asked:

Re bPlan:
Yes, we are working with bPlan on the Tsunami design. The details of this partnership are due out soon. Let it be said that we are designing hardware, not just sitting idle and waiting for others to do our work for us. We have very talented people on staff, both software and hardware (not to mention press relations and marketing) and we are spending our $$$ wisely.

Release dates:
The Tsunami system is expected to be released in it's final consumer form in November to December 2001. We are working very hard to meet this deadline, though we cannot foresee any problems that may arise. The Pilot release will most likely be after the AmiWest conference, not at as we had hoped, as we are currently having a slight fault in the gfx display; We will have a demonstration system at the show. We plan to have a press conference as well as other 'events' at AmiWest, and we hope that there is a large amount of Amigans that think it wise to attend. ;)

We need your talents!:
We are looking for both software and hardware developers. A platform like this cannot succeed without a full range of software to run on it. Sure, the current software will run on our system, but we need a full library of up-to-date software, both multimedia and business applications, to be able to achieve our place in the market.

We have already received orders for developer systems from some very impressive firms and individuals. We hope to grab up as much talent as possible, as it makes sense to have PowerPC software for new PowerPC hardware. We are looking for both the absurdly simple (tiny games or utilities) to the fairly complex (graphics packages, office suites) software titles. An option will be available to have your software included with each unit sold, or special unit packages.

AmigaOS 4/5:
We are unfortunately unable to release details on this currently, however, we hope to do so shortly; most likely at the AmiWest conference.

Let it be said currently that our system both meets and exceeds the Zico specification, as do all of our 'in development' systems.

Our market:
We are designing our Torro systems to be a natural complete system solution upgrade path for current Amiga users (see examples of how/why below) but we are not limiting our products to the current Amiga market or community. We anticipate high sales volumes to the consumer and industrial multimedia markets; Our systems are designed to be as CHRP resembling as possible. We are pitting them against the big names like Apple and SGI.

Our partnership with Blittersoft was only the first step in this process - Working together on the iFusion project will allow us to migrate iFusion to our systems easily, allowing full Macintosh compatibility on our products, both under AmigaOS and stand-alone (later). We are also planning on offering other OS solutions as separate packages including QNX, Linux, Solaris, BeOS (hopefully), and others. We cannot provide MacOS ourselves, but the user will have the option of installing it, and we will also be working on an x86 emulator so that if the user desires he/she can use x86 operating systems including UNiX, Linux-x86, BeOs-x86, and (gasp!) even MS Windows (though we won't support it directly).

We are also working on a firmware OS (think what Exec is to Amiga) that allows not only selection of startup devices via an 'early startup' screen, but also setting up multiple machine states that can be launched with ease and switched between instantly. (Thus allowing multiple OSs to be run at once.) This may not be included with the first launch, but an updater will be available to patch the firmware, which is flash updateable. Speaking of which, your machine state setting will be able to be saved, as well as your other setting, including screen mode and startup volume (individual to each machine state), thus allowing you to start up with those options each time you reboot.

Why is it a natural upgrade path?:
Unlike other machines promised in the past, and other projects in the works, we are working on something that will be completely natural to the Amiga user of today. Features like the ability to read and write to floppy discs and other media in native Amiga formats (880k and 1760k on floppy discs) as well as simple things like the layout of the keyboard and the look and feel of the design of the system all around all total up to Amiga-like. We are trying to make a product that is impressive from the inside and out, not just another ëboxí. Not to say that all offerings that are currently being made are bad. in fact, I look forward to the EyeTech AmigaOne. I know I will buy one personally, and our retail division will carry them. (We have the worldís largest stock of A1200 NTSC systems; other dealers are now ordering them from us.)

The future and beyond:
What lies in store for us, the Amiga community? I canít say for sure, but I feel that the future is brighter than ever; due both to the commitment from Amiga ( a lively bunch of bright and intelligent individuals) as well as out commitment to you, the Amiga community. As always, you come first in our thinking and our product design. This product is designed for you; We wouldnít have bothered if it wasnít.

As always, best wishes to everyone. Thank you for being a customer, current, or future.

Cheers,
Ryan E. A. Czerwinski
CEO - Merlancia Industries (ps)

[News message: 29. Jun. 2001, 15:02] [Comments: 0]
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