At the end

Some time ago AMIGA published some concept sketches regarding AmigaNG (it's in this edition). It has to ge empathized, that these are only concepts for the devices of the next generation, which might look that way - or totally different, but the direction can be recognized. In the end the AmigaNG is supposed not to be just a computer, but a bridge between the world of information technology and the audio/video technic. Personally I'm sceptic, if there is a market for this product line resp. can be created in the short or middle term. Let's watch an example of the audio sector: For many comsumers it is not imagineable to buy music in the Internet - and this doesn't mean online-shopping of CDs, but the own expense download of audio data files. It seems to be hard to make them clear, why their music won't be any longer on a real CD with original label, but played from hard disk.

The 'digital convergence', which is the adding of various audiovisual and multimedial devices, is a facinating imagination, but personally I don't think, that this technical revolution can be made within just a few years.

At least in Germany it showed in the last years, that the consumers don't want to have any multifunctional device for many jobs (,yet?). So the experiments of some manufacturers to offer Internet capable TVs, failed - and this not just to the often insufficient handling. For many customers the TV is a device for the living room and the computer belongs in to the bureau (at best). That this idea can change within the next years is not to expect within the next years - even with a gigantic marketing efforts from AMIGA or other companies.

My advice to AMIGA, which is also a request, is not to forget the computer 'itself' in the targeted technical revolution. The AmigaNG as a multifunctional and multimedial control and information center maybe highly topical in 2005, but the users of 2000 'just' want a computer, which is supposed to be superior (to any other systems, at best), which allow them to do their jobs and to surf in the Internet, etc. If the AmigaNG fails in this matter, it is most likely that it also fails in the matter of digital convergence resp. 'Information Appliance', AMIGAs latest topic.

And how do you think about that? Send us your opinions and imaginations regarding the Amigas of the next generation! We'd like to publish them with pleasure in the next edition.

See you next month,

yours

Carsten Schroeder