Final thoughts

Final Words

AMIGA again changes its course - Part 2 (by Carsten Schroeder)

After the surprising course correction which AMIGA announced at the show in St. Louis, a month has passed in which every Amiga user has had the time to try to understand this decision. It was eased by the technical update which the company had published mid April. This made it clear that the objective, creation of a hardware independent and scalable operating system, had not changed, but the route and the timing were, as reported in the last edition, basically modified. That at least is what several users, I am among them, believe.

But not only some users had difficulties with the new course of AMIGA - the developers are truly in a fix. Are they now to write programs for the AmigaOS or for the AmigaDE? Because they must consider that the latter will only arrive with AmigaOS 4.2, being announced for the end of this year, but then as well will reach the market in versions for other platforms, especially for x86 computers, and with this possibly will have the opportunity to gain a user base big enough to get established.

Unlike this the AmigaOS 4.0 is to be released earlier in summer, but exclusively for PowerPC computers, albeit it is not even sure that the PowerUp boards of Phase 5 / DCE will be taken into consideration. Accordingly, the number of potential and actual buyers of AmigaOS4.0 programs will be low, and there is the danger that commercial software manufacturers will suffer business losses - their first AmigaOS4.0 products simultaneously could also be their last. Out of this only one conclusion can be drawn: Even if the AmigaDE is going to appear later than the AmigaOS 4.0, from the viewpoint of the market it will make sense to develop only for the former.

By the way, programmers at the moment cannot develop software at all for the AmigaOS 4.0 because there are no developer tools. And they are held back in developing for AmigaDE because parts of the AmigaSDK are missing, for instance the still not available GUI developers system. So it is not astonishing that development of commercial Amiga software, scarcely seen for months, now threatens to collapse completely. Important projects, for example the Wildfire successor Taifun or the games from X-Cellence, have come to a stop, and business enterprises like Titan Computer and Epic Interactive have even announced software for AmigaDE's secret main opponent the - mind you, non-commercial - MorphOS project. That should have set all the warning lights flashing at AMIGA, but judging by the lack of reaction this did not happen - unless the company is preparing another change of strategies behind the curtain.

For me it is important to make it clear that it is not my intention to oppose a PowerPC AmigaOS for ideological reasons. As far as I am concerned, AMIGA can give the AmigaOS sourcecode to Haage & Partner or to the MorphOS team, so that they can go on developing a PowerPC version of the AmigaOS on their own, but without offering any financial and other resources or support. In the recent strategy of AMIGA I not only recognize a danger to the objective of creating a scalable and hardware-independent operating system, but a threat to the survival of the company itself.

Best regards,

yours

Carsten Schroeder