amiga-news.de - Weekly Q&A's with Fleecy Moss

06.Apr.2003
AmigaWorld (ANF) Weekly Q&A's with Fleecy Moss - episode 4
The English online magazine AmigaWorld has published episode 4 of the regular questions and answers session with Fleecy Moss, CTO at AMIGA, Inc. (Update 2012-03-17, cg: as the original document is no longer available, the following content was moved into our database):

1) AutumnSun: does AInc has any plans for a very low cost Amiga? i.e. erverything on board + TVout and possibly only some flash-memory (but optional external HD)

Fleecy: Amiga is actively promoting the benefits of AmigaOS4 and beyond to many companies who have great interest in seeing a resource frugal, high performance multimedia OS on the PPC and other architectures. We are talking with such companies about all manner of devices, not just desktops.

At least one of our AmigaOS partners tells us that they are working on a device similar to what you describe with the intention of seeing it run some form of AmigaOS4.

2) ssolie: How do you plan to support Amiga users groups with the launch of AmigaOS 4.0? Press kits? Free posters? Anything like that?

Fleecy: We have a staged public approach to this, although private contacts are going on all the time. The new Amiga Power Platform website needs to go live first and work is progressing on that. We will then use that to capture as much uptodate user group information as possible and then bring these together in a user group forum where we can share our strategies with them and get feedback from them.

What we want to do is create a single core marketing pack for any user group but which can then be tailored by that user group. Obviously there are a core set of requirements but each group also knows its domain better than we do and our role has to be one of support whilst allowing those groups to prosecute their own plans.

MichaelMerkel: some questions concerning OS5

Fleecy: Before I answer these, I need to point out that AmigaOS5 is a work in progress, and a long term product goal. Many will criticise me for even agreeing to try to answer these questions since it breaks our policy of don't say anything until it is ready but I would point out that these are not official statements or press releases. They are me trying to give an insight into what is going on in an effort to satisfy the requests for information by the community. Whether people believe them or not is upto them. There is no intention here to mislead, only to inform but plans, timescales and focus will always change.

3) MichaelMerkel: some questions concerning OS5 - are you already working on it and what is going on currently?

Fleecy: Yes we are already working on it, but that comes with the rider that working on it can involve anything from concept, planning, design, blue skying, whiteboarding and prototyping. Code does exist for it and it runs but will it be in the final release? I cannot say at this point.

4) MichaelMerkel: some questions concerning OS5 - when will it be ready? (please more precise than "when it is done(tm)")

Fleecy: We aren't even ready to give a release date for AmigaOS4.0 yet so I certainly can't give even a vague date for AmigaOS5.0. We have at least 3 planned revisions to AmigaOS4 itself before we get to AmigaOS5.0

5) MichaelMerkel: some questions concerning OS5 - will OS5 be a completely new os from ground of or will it be based on some sources?

Fleecy: AmigaOS5.0 will mark the first time when there is no more Amiga Generation 1 technology in the AmigaOS. It will be 100% Amiga Generation 2. That said, Amiga Generation 2 will include many parts in its Opportunity Analysis, including a full review of the existing AG1 elements for each domain.

6) moood: Will there be any Amiga-Anywhere/AmigaDE-players for any Symbian-devices (like Nokia 7650/3650 and Sony Ericsson P800) anytime soon?

Fleecy: Amiga Anywhere already has a prototype running on Series 80 and we are working hard on a commercial release for series 60. We are working with partners to a timeframe of commercial release to coincide with new handset releases and so are dependent on their timesclaes.

7) sgm: Which markets are targeted by AmigaOS4 and AmigaDE?

Fleecy: The AmigaDE is marketed as a total content solution, which means content on a device, whether that be on a dedicated device, in a player on a device or host transparent to the device. It's targets are thus any device that needs content, Smartphones, PDAs, STBS, desktops. It isn't being marketed as a complete environment for those devices, although we have had interest in such a deployment.

The AmigaOS is marketed as a platform, which means it is a combination of HW requirements and Operating system and Application layer. This immediately points to the obvious desktop but the bigger markets are in other device classes, STBS, Information Consoles and solutions.

This will all come together as the AmigaOS and the AmigaDE slowly integrate.

8) alx : In the features PDF, there is planned support for the catweasel's joystick and keyboard ports. Will OS4 be able to use floppy drives connected to it, to read old-style Amiga disks?

Fleecy: There is no reason why this shouldn't work. It just requures an AmigaOS4.0 native driver.

9) MetalJoe: Will OS4 be bundled with a developer kit CD? If not, will the OS4 SDK be made available for free?

Fleecy: It will not be part of the user distribution but will be available as a free download or as an at cost CD. This is subject to change though as our developer support strategy evolves.

10) jurassiccamper: How does Amiga plan to get the platform up to date in terms of internet technologies so we can at least have a pleasurable and equal online experience? Eg: Real Audio / Real Video, Java, Plug and Play networking to other Amigas / Macs / PC's.

Fleecy: As I said before we are closely watching the Apple strategy with Safari. We have had contact with Real Networks and other providers of Internet technology but most provide the same answer. Show us a viable platform or show us a lot of money. Both are not available at the moment.

The solution is to improve what we have in stages until we have that equal, and then better online experience and that has to start from the ground up. AmigaOS4.0's network capabilities are an order of magnitude better than they have been in the past. Next we have to expand the media capabilities, followed by the user environment itself. As each one of these falls into place, the horizontal technologies can be implemented, which make use of these core vertical technologies.

We have made it known that we are looking at excelling in the 90% of desktop computer usage by the average person and Internet is obviously a major component of that usage. We hope to provide a major improvement in the area in AmigaOS4.1.

(Copyright © 2003 Amigaworld.net. All rights reserved.
Originally available at http://amigaworld.net/modules/fleecymoss/index.php?cat_id=5
You may freely redistribute this article, providing that a URL is provided to the original source,
and the copyright notices remain intact) (ps) (Translation: cb)

[News message: 06. Apr. 2003, 21:28] [Comments: 0]
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