| [News] Interview with Ben Hermans from Hyperion | ANN.lu |
| Posted on 07-Nov-2001 20:45 GMT by Christophe Decanini | 194 comments
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Christoph Gutjahr interviewed Hyperion about AmigaOS 4.0.
You can read the interview on amiga-news.de in English or in German.
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| Interview with Ben Hermans from Hyperion : Comment 79 of 194 | ANN.lu |
| Posted by smithy on 08-Nov-2001 12:47 GMT | In reply to Comment 57 (Hans-Joerg Frieden):
>Fact is, that in spite of offering *free* versions of BeOS to PC
>manufacturers, there was only one series of PC'S where BeOS was actually pre-
>installed, but disabled by default. You call that a success?
If you judge success only by the number of PC manufacturers that pre-install software, then no. But that's not how I judge success in this case. The fact is that the BeOS userbase grew massively after they released the x86 version. They didn't give it away either - there was free "Home" version that was crippled, but you could also get the full version from PC World. Obviously PC World wouldn't have continued stocking it if it didn't sell too.
>So that gives a business opportunity for Distro sellers. What about software
>developers? How many successful software developers exist? Even essential
>projects like DRI are canned because of lack of funding.
PC World also sell Linux software. I have seen various server software selling for up to 100 UKP. Again, obviously PC World isn't going to put products on their shopfloor that don't make money for them. PC World have to pay for their shopspace so they want every last meter to be profitable.
>They've been trying that for years. Yet they didn't succeed. Just have a look
>at QNX. There is so much essentials missing, it cannot even calibrate the
>display correctly.
I agree with you that maybe it's not a rip-roaring success. But compare the relative success of the PowerPC/x86 versions.
>Amithlon is a bad example, as you said yourself. About UAE... It's a bad
>example, too.
>So what? Do they buy Amiga software? I highly doubt that. So they aren't
>interesting from a business point of view. That is what I mean with "users
>arent customers". How are you going to make a living from people that mostly
>dwell on the "good old times"?
Well the fact is that when people buy Amiga software nobody actually knows whether they are going to run it on Amiga hardware or on UAE. I myself have bought more software this year (after getting a usable Amiga system on the PC) than I did last year (after having a semi-broken Amiga).
I am sure I am not the only person who's main use of AmigaOS is through running it emulated.
Also, I doubt anyone is much making a living from AmigaOS software at the moment, but the key question is will they make money in the future? To do this, we need to attract developers (even freeware & shareware developers).
To attract developers Amiga Inc are going to have to sell a lot of machines. I have already written at length why I think they can't sell lots of machines given the route that Amiga Inc have chosen.
We all want to see lots of new software development, especially from the freeware/shareware guys, we just need to consider taking a route to make this happen. |
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