| [News] Genesi: Update regarding the change to the Pegasos-II | ANN.lu |
| Posted on 22-Feb-2003 18:33 GMT by Senex (Edited on 2003-02-22 22:40:34 GMT by Christophe Decanini) | 99 comments
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In a statement at MorphOS-News.de and the public MorphOS-mailinglist, Genesi adresses further details regarding their change to the Pegasos-II:
This is a letter we sent out today to the "inside" group...(sorry no
images!)...
22 February 2003
Dear Friends of Genesi,
We wanted to provide some basic communication this weekend to all
of you, because frankly our focus this past week has been the
Management meetings here in Paris. We hope that this letter will
assist you in understanding more clearly the direction of the Company.
Please feel free to respond directly to us at bbrv@genesi.lu with
your questions. If you understand and share our vision, you can adjust
your effort to become more relevant to our corporate framework if you
desire.
As we have said before, Genesi stands on the verge of enormous
opportunity. We can provide a completely integrated solution,
including hardware, operating system, and a number of (bundled and
unbundled) applications. We can innovate in ways that involve the
complete integrated package, rather than being limited to new
developments within each level by third parties (HP and Microsoft are
not as self-reliant in this way). Genesi and our associates need to
leverage this advantage fully. We are smaller, faster and will be
necessarily more adventurous in our efforts. Do not hesitate to share
your most creativity ideas with these mailing lists. Together, we
believe we can create a substantial and long awaited change to the IT
marketplace.
In the first BIG opportunity to our Company, we are required to
develop using a PPC and MorphOS, a terrestrial Digital Television
receiver with interactive/computing and smart card read and write
functions (to be referred to as the DTV STB). This product will not
require the use of the Articia and we will be producing significant
quantities in the development phase and a special version of MorphOS
(without hurting the complete version). If we deliver the DTV STB in
a satisfactory manner we will be eligible to receive orders for over
one million units. It is a once-in-a-lifetime professional opportunity
for all of us. We need to make the most of it.
Of course, none of this would be possible without the years of
dedication required to bring the Pegasos and MorphOS to where it is
today. We are all proud to be associated with the bplan guys. The
difficulties over the last year have nothing to do with them. It is
the Articia from Mai Logic that has caused us months of delays. It
does not perform to the advertised specifications. Thankfully, Gerald
and Thomas tested and mounted the Aritica on the April2. That is
right -- the April2.
The first patch that Gerald and Thomas developed works as we know,
but there were still bugs. The new Articia (and Teron) is still very
likely to have trouble as more problems were detected after the Aachen
Show and well after the joint work Gerald did with for the new Articia
in October and November with Mai. The April2 brings the Articia fully
to the performance levels it claims to achieve. We have purchased the
remaining worldwide supply of the old Articias and will make 400 more
Pegasos main boards with the G3 CPU. Our G3 Pegasos performs better
than the G4 Teron with the Articia. This will be common knowledge
soon (let the others understand this on their own our word will stand
as testimony to our knowledge and skill). Once produced, we will stop
(we may license production of this version of the Pegasos to Plexuscom
or others). These machines will easily satisfy the Amiga market and
give us the machines we need to seed our developer base while Gerald
and Thomas switch out the old Articia to a much more attractive
alternative (details later). This could be ready by the summer. The
RAM speed of the Pegasos will be as high as any offered in the market
and this WILL attract considerable interest. The DTV STB revenue can
carry us until this point (remember this IS a business we hope you
Developers begin to remember this!).
To repeat a few words from an earlier communication?
If our strategic vision is compelling and our execution excellent,
we will increasingly attract skilled developers. What Ralph, Frank and
the core MorphOS Development Team have accomplished to date is
exceptional, but now we need to establish a professional development
and management system for MorphOS, formally retain the services of all
key MorphOS developers, and recruit new talent to the project. We have
struck on the Phoenix association to develop a vehicle to do this. All
registered Phoenix members must use a special Phoenix logon and
password to have access to the reduced Pegasos pricing that will be
available through <a href='http://www.pegasos-usa.com'
target='_blank'>www.pegasos-usa.com. We need to be somewhat
selective in insuring that these next boards go to people that will
advance in communion with our effort and our internal developers and
Phoenix members will have priority. We will also develop the User
Group program next week and a system for handling Pegasos sales so our
Distributors also benefit.
Our targeted resource/sales markets from the near to medium term
are:
1. Amiga/MorphOS
2. DTV STB
3. LinuxPPC and OtherPPC
We will continue to promote to the Amiga/MorphOS market, as we
have. Our underlying focus should be: broadening and stabilizing
MorphOS, attracting applications and drivers (ports/original
programs), and establishing a Pegasos toolkit. At the same time, <a
href='http://www.pegasos-usa.com'
target='_blank'>www.pegasos-usa.com is working and our online
sales support and information site at <a
href='http://www.genesi-support.com'
target='_blank'>www.genesi-support.com will continue to improve.
If we are lucky we will awaken and attract the slumbering ex-Commodore
consumer market, but that will take some time and we are not quite
ready for mass-market attention. The sites will be there and ready.
Until we are ready with the Pegasos II we will not promote the sites
as much as we could. Plus, we will standardize the Pegasos
distribution network over the next few months taking a semi-franchise
approach. When we are ready, everything will be in place.
On the hardware side we start where we are: the Pegasos. We have
discussed the features: upgradeable, scalable, modifiable (smaller
eclipsis, subsets/modular Psylent/STB), and open, as in Open Firmware
(facilitates scheme for peripheral association/development IAW the
IE1275 standard). We will develop a solid plan and feature set for
each Pegasos envisioned and the corresponding software bundles. The
management review that took place this week was very successful. We
have defined and agreed to our objectives and are now preparing a
solid plan for the future.
NOTE: for 200 Euros and trade-in ALL Pegasos I Users (includes
Betatesters) WILL be able to upgrade to the Pegasos II (just to put an
end to that FUD!).
About Linux and the other targets?OS4 too -- ;-)
Linux people usually want something great for nothing, but in the
PPC market if we can get a design win over the Teron the next price
point is a Mac. As more professionals and desktop consumers switch to
Linux, the future of commercial software on Linux is very bright and
so is our hardware. Functionality will become precedent over cost in
this market. We need a bootable bundled distro and Mac-on-Linux.
Linux will be a major force in the future. Today, it is still
difficult to install software, drivers, set up firewalls, etc., but
because of the generous licensing environment and the massive
corporate support Linux is gaining (IBM, HP, etc.) as well as
government mandates and funding in many countries, it is set to become
the "next big thing". We need to be part of that trend.
Any PPC OS that is reasonable to port with external resources is
interesting to us. We need a Go/NoGo decision matrix. Again, we are
looking for resources and developer talent. For example, while Linux
gets the glory, BSDs are running some of the biggest sites. We have
seen the first screenshots of OpenBSD running on the Pegasos.
Further, there is an increasing amount of interesting open source
projects we could find a way to adapt to our use.
Finally, we are interested in restoring the Demo Scene to the
Pegasos. The traditional and overt message in a demo was technical
skill. The visual effects pushed the supposed limits of the
platform's capability and graphics were skillfully executed. Good
demos are the marriage of advanced technical, creative and artistic
abilities. For the future, we need a new generation of Sceners to be
pulling the most from the platform and the OS. This can generate
plenty of positive attention. Besides the nVidia butterfly lady has
the wrong color wings! This is why we decided to sponsor Equinoxe.<br
/>
All these other things all ultimately bring us back to our key
advantage: a completely integrated solution, including hardware,
operating system, and applications. Management is working hard to turn
this vision into a reality. While the sale of the Pegasos and MorphOS
alone could never sustain the Company we are building, it may one day
in the future. We use the Pegasos today to begin our move to the
future, while insuring the development and growth of the MorphOS.
Things could get pretty exciting if we can get that far. Let us not
forget that 30 million STBs sold last year and they were called video
game consoles.
Please feel free to provide any feedback to us.
Sincerely,
Raquel and Bill
P.S. If you are still confused go here -- www.lagardere.com
-- and select Lagardère Media présente "Focus sur la Télé" on the left. This should help explain everything (even if it is in French!)
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