It's bee a long while since the last issue of DoubleClick, and a lots has changed regarding the future of the Amiga.
The latest news is that QNX is the OS partner for OS5.
What part QNX, and indeed the current AmigaOS, will play in the next generation OS is still unclear, but the important point is that QNX is *not* the new AmigaOS, rather, it will form the kernal of the new OS, which Amiga Inc can then build on to produce an (Amiga like) OS 5. Amiga Inc have stressed that as much of the current Amiga OS abilities will be carried over, and replaced if they can be improved (eg, so while we might not get ARexx, we'll get REBOL instead, say).
It may be sad to say goodbye to the current Amiga kernal, but QNX really has all of the Amiga's advantages, and more. It's incredibly small and efficient (a demo for PCs runs off a 1.44MB Floppy, including web browser), and QNX can boot from a 100k ROM. Of course, 32bit pre-emptive multitasking is there. A huge advantage of QNX is its stability - QNX is used in applications such as machines in hospitals, and on the space shuttle, that is, where the OS crashing would be a life or death situation. It's also a realtime OS.
QNX wasn't the first choice - there was a delay, and as such the Developer boxes will arrive sometime in '99, although Amiga Inc assure as that this won't result in a delay in the final machines. BeOS is suspected as being the initial choice, but this hasn't been confirmed. In some sense, it is good that it wasn't BeOS - Be want to compete in the desktop OS market anyway, so they'd be reluctant to give their kernal to a would be opposing OS. QNX on the other hand isn't traditionally used in the desktop arena.
Needless to say, this sparks off the 'Will the new machine be an Amiga?' debates once again, but would you rather they stuck with OS3.1? Yes, we all think that OS3.1 is a great OS, but it's still lacking in many areas - and why should we complain if Amiga Inc want to develop (far) further ahead. Indeed, you could argue that OS3.1 isn't really an AmigaOS because it's somewhat different to OS1.0. Looking at other platforms, Apple have plans to produce an all new OS (Rhapsody) that integrates MacOS with Next (or something like that).
It's still unclear what emulation possibilities this new machine will have for current Amiga software. Sure, you'll be able to run UAE, but ideally you'd be able to run classic Amiga software transparently, without the need to launch a separate emulator, in the same way that PowerMacs ran 680x0 Mac software without problems.
The state of affairs here is appaling. As if the Amiga wasn't in enough difficulties, you have problems such as these where by even though there are people wishing to buy A4000Ts, they are unable to, and forced to elsewhere. The Amiga still makes the best buy for the high end video market - in fact I believe that Newtek were shipping A3000s with Video Toasters because they couldn't get hold of A4000s. The BoXeR still hasn't been released - this effectively means the only way to get an Amiga is to buy an A1200, and expand, which hardly makes things cheap...