[Rant] Open letter to Fleecy Moss and Amiga, Inc. | ANN.lu |
Posted on 18-Mar-2003 15:16 GMT by Seehund | 83 comments View flat View list |
I sent Amiga, Inc. and Fleecy Moss an open letter in response to his statements on AmigaWorld.net and in Total Amiga Magazine about the hardware market restrictions imposed on AmigaOS. You can read it here.
|
|
List of all comments to this article |
Open letter to Fleecy Moss and Amiga, Inc. : Comment 74 of 83 | ANN.lu |
Posted by samface on 19-Mar-2003 22:12 GMT | In reply to Comment 56 (Iggy Drougge): "A software provider, nothing more, nothing less."
No, they are software developers for carefully chosen computer hardware that meets specific requirements on the behalf of the hardware vendor. Noone but them decides which hardware they want to support. The piracy argument is only one of many arguments such as end user support from the hardware vendor, hardware and OS bundling issues, etc. I mean, picture this:
- Apple customer service, how may I be of assistance?
- Hi, I have a Powerbook and it won't boot at all I'm afraid.
- What happens when you try?
- It says "Error: unable to initialize harddrive".
- What version of MacOS do you have?
- I don't have MacOS, it's AmigaOS4.
- OmegaOS? I'm sorry but we only support MacOS users.
- It's "AmigaOS". Anyway, it's obviously not the OS but my hardrive that is malfunctioning, right? I mean, if it can't even initialize the harddrive, does it really matter what OS I run?
- I'm terribly sorry but I have no idea in what way your OmegaOS operates and I therefore cannot help you. I advice you to phone your OmegaOS customer service, maybe they can help you.
- But, the *Amiga*OS customer support told me to call you because this error means it's a hardware issue.
- Our hardware was never meant to run anything besides MacOS and if you do try running another OS it's at your own risk. Try installing MacOS and then call back if it still doesn't work.
- But, how am I supposed to do that if the harddrive doesn't work?
- I don't know. The error might have occured when you removed MacOS to begin with and like I said; we can no longer guarantee that your computer will operate correctly when run another OS than MacOS. I'm sorry but I can't help you. Thank you for calling, bye.
- But, but...
*click*
That's just an example out of many. Amiga Inc. and their partners want to provide their customers with better customer service than that. They want their customers to have full support for their OS *and* hardware as a complete package. They also want to bundle the OS with the hardware because 95% of all operating systems sold are bundled with and/or preinstalled on the hardware and it's a proven fact that noone has ever managed to remain a profitable business through selling a seperately sold OS only. They also want to have close cooperation with the hardware manufacturer in order to achieve guaranteed interoperability with the OS.
What they don't want is bad reviews and sales because of poor interoperability and customer support. Neither do they want people to pirate copy the OS. Sure, the ROM can be cracked but nevertheless, it will make it more difficult and therefore hopefully reduce piracy.
On top of that, we have the compatibility issue. Removing the hardware ROM code will NOT make the OS more hardware compatible. There is no universal hardware standard on the PPC hardware market compatible enough for an OS to run unchanged despite different hardware manufacturers. The ROM code is not to be blamed for the OS not running on a certain piece of hardware, period. Anyone saying differently obviously has no idea about what he or she is talking about.
To sum things up:
1. It won't affect the OS hardware compatibility.
2. It won't affect the price of the OS nor the hardware.
3. It will guarantee compatibility, interoperability and customer support for both the OS and the hardware.
4. It will be bundled with and/or preinstalled on the hardware.
5. It will be sold seperately to those already owning AmigaOS4 compatible hardware.
My question to Seehund is; what IS your problem, really? |
|
List of all comments to this article (continued) |
|
- User Menu
-
- About ANN archives
- The ANN archives is powered by #AmigaZeux. It was updated daily (news last: 22-Oct-2004; comments last: 18-May-2005).
ANN.lu was created, previously owned and maintained by Christian Kemp, www.ckemp.com.
- Contribute
- Not possible at this time!
- Search ANN archives
- Advanced search
- Hosting
- ANN.lu was hosted by Dreamhost. Sign up through this link, mention "ckemp" as referrer and he will get a 10% commission on any account you purchase.
Please show your appreciation for any past, present and future work on ANN.lu by making a contribution via PayPal.
|