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[News] Amiga Inc. Xmas GreetingsANN.lu
Posted on 27-Dec-2002 23:27 GMT by Frans (Edited on 2002-12-28 15:11:34 GMT by Teemu I. Yliselä)37 comments
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I couldn't find a mention of this on ANN yet, sorry if I missed it: Amiga Inc's website now has a (backdated ?) Holiday greeting. It's short and there's nothing from Bill, and which "growing Amiga community" are they referring to?

Anyway it says:

Happy Holidays From Amiga Inc.

(24-Dec-2002) Amiga Inc would like to wish its partners, friends and all those in the growing Amiga community a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. 2002 has been about taking the best of the Amiga community, its passion, skill and commitment to excellence, and building for the future. 2003 will be about enjoying the fruits of those labors, and more, about sharing that enjoyment with the rest of the world.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 1 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 27-Dec-2002 23:05 GMT
Well, very brief it is, but at least it's a proof of life! Merry Christmas to you too, Amiga Inc (allthough the christmas is over, at least here in Sweden), and a happy new year!
:-)
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 2 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 27-Dec-2002 23:09 GMT
> which "growing Amiga community" are they referring to?

They must be talking about their customers on the Pocket PC market. Who else can they mean?
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 3 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Troels E on 27-Dec-2002 23:46 GMT
Wow... there's still life at the Amiga HQ (whereever that is?).

Nice to see some sign of life, they have been very quiet lately.

Happy Newyear everyone!
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 4 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Dec-2002 03:29 GMT
Please excuse my clueless here but could anyone of you explain me what AmigaInc is ? Are they actually doing something ?
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 5 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by elektro on 28-Dec-2002 06:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (Anonymous):
I guess they're doing the same stuff as Thendic. Stirring shit up... ahehehehe
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 6 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Dec-2002 10:57 GMT
amiga.com was hacked it seems. :P
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 7 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by KenH on 28-Dec-2002 13:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Anonymous):
What reason do you have to think it's a hack?
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 8 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by TBone on 28-Dec-2002 13:27 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (KenH):
I believe he was joking.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 9 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by JoannaK on 28-Dec-2002 13:33 GMT
Well.. it's short and a bit late. But it's still best X-mas season greeting they have ever done. So, there is hope of things getting better in 2003.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 10 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by spihunter on 28-Dec-2002 14:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (TBone):
Its funny how even one little paragraph from AmigaInc can get everyone
all worked up
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 11 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Dec-2002 15:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (JoannaK):
I agree. This Christmas greeting is fantastic.

Amiga Inc's dedication and hard work over the last year has brought us to the brink of our dreams coming true - AmigaDE is selling like hot cakes all over the globe, AmigaOne is already in the hands of users and OS4.0 is in final testing. The future has never looked brighter for Amigans.

To quote Bill - "passion, skill and commitment to excellence" - three word which, I am sure everyone will agree, perfectly sum up Amiga Inc's performance over the last twelve months.

Looking forward to a glorious future for Amiga!
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 12 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by acg on 28-Dec-2002 15:56 GMT
I just get so tired of hearing announcements, then a reversal of
the action by Amiga, Inc. they did say they would only speak of
things that were "true", and when they made their announcements
it may have been true, but there should be some followup and
confirmation by other parties. (witness the Sharp Announcement,
and the NOkia announcement, and then Sendo went out and sued
Microsoft, and never followed through on AmigaDE)...Now the AmigaOne
which sounds good enough, except there is no AmigaOS4 yet.
Screenshots, and Linux apps arent good enough to keep the
community interested.

This last Christmas announcement is so nebulous it could mean
anything. My guess is that Amiga is going to start turning
out software for anything but Classic Amiga, and keep stringing
the Amiga Classic/AmigaONe crowd along with tidbits, till finally
some hardware/software combination that is both stunning, elegant,
useful,cost-effective,and compact comes along, and the Amiga fans go use
it. After all "Amiga" was about those qualities in a product.

Microsoft hasn't really achieved any of those attributes. But since
they are the only big game in town, they can pretend they have.

Apple is not that either, but it is appears less disjointed than
the Microsoft world.

I say basically, forget it all. See if anyone has a spark of
imagination
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 13 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Hagge on 28-Dec-2002 17:19 GMT
good i didn't missed this....
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 14 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by 3seas on 28-Dec-2002 18:20 GMT
If we can't complain here, where can we go?
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 15 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by cmagnani on 28-Dec-2002 19:13 GMT
I hope for the new year Amiga Inc Close .....

And maybe the Amiga going to be FREE

Tof
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 16 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by amorel on 28-Dec-2002 20:19 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (JoannaK):
Gee, get real. I figured you`d have more clue than this. Amiga`s about dead.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 17 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Dec-2002 20:27 GMT
Muhaha ..
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 18 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Alan on 28-Dec-2002 21:59 GMT
"2003 will be about enjoying the fruits of those labors, and more, about sharing that enjoyment with the rest of the world."

An outdated piece of shit new amiga? new year with more lies and coupon scams and never sending out free T shirts, the quicker you jokes go bankrupt the better,

The Amiga used to be king of the hill but now it is nothing more than a outdated piece of shit, and that Teron board is laughable and a total rip off, only the complete assholes or total obsessed Amiga nutz would purchase any so called NEW (already outdated in the real world) piece of shit machine,

I would rather stick with Amithlon than touch the pathetic new solutions.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 19 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Alkemyst on 28-Dec-2002 22:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Alan):
Alan its one this to insult Amiga.inc for not doing or offering what you want.

But its totally out of order to insult amigausers. who have done nothing to you.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 20 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Alan on 28-Dec-2002 22:22 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (Alkemyst):
Yes sorry the message was out of anger and is not ment to be offensive to Amiga users, it was my personal opinion but was slighty over the top.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 21 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Dec-2002 22:22 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (Alkemyst):
this=thing
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 22 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 28-Dec-2002 23:35 GMT
"2002 has been about taking the best of the Amiga community"

The best = their money?
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 23 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by ehaines on 29-Dec-2002 01:46 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Alan):
Judging from your spelling and grammar, or lack thereof, you are not
very intelligent. So you will forgive me if I laugh at your attempts
to insult me because of my choice of computer hardware.

However, I may decide to sit here and insult all of your purchases from
now on. I will insult you for buying any CDs that I wouldn't, because
clearly it's music that I don't like and therefore a complete waste of
money. I'll insult your choice of vehicle, because I'd never buy a car
like that, and only a fool would pay money for it. I'll even insult you
for buying the computer that you bought, because it's not what I would buy,
so it's worthless. I will do this for you, because you seem like the kind
of guy who would appreciate it. No need to thank me!
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 24 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Alan on 29-Dec-2002 03:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (ehaines):
Yet again it`s ehaines, i wondered when you shit for brains would carry on following me around websites, pathetic totally pathetic, get back to IRC you complete clown.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 25 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Christian Kemp on 29-Dec-2002 07:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 20 (Alan):
May I suggest you stop posting until you can handle your anger?

I had to moderate a handful of your postings today because they were either personally insulting other people, or downright trolling and flamebait. I understand that you are displeased with the current situation, but there are other ways to cope with this than abusive postings on ANN.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 26 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by ehaines on 29-Dec-2002 13:22 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (Alan):
What are you talking about? I've never encountered you anywhere until now
that I'm aware of, and I guarantee I've never been on IRC in my life. Since
you are so confused, I'm thinking you're probably posting while, shall we
say, under the influence, so I forgive you.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 27 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Rob on 29-Dec-2002 17:09 GMT
Its good to see that no matter how bad things get, news will always be
posted in an unbiased way on this site. :)
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 28 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Nicholai Benalal on 29-Dec-2002 17:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Anonymous):
You are joking, right?
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 29 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Tronman on 30-Dec-2002 05:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Anonymous):
Koff, Koff! You're joking, right?? 'DE selling like hotcakes all over the world??' In exactly which world would that be? AI's last effort, the AA Game Pack number one, sold exactly 65 copies, of which I bought the very first one. Using my own credit card, from within my office at my work at the time-Amiga, Incorporated in Snoqualmie, Wa.

AA #1 was/is a neat little product and deserves to sell better than the haphazard Handango/eBay debacle ever allowed it to. (mercifully, most people thought that eBay thing was a hoax-although it was in fact real.) Now its descendent is on Microsoft's website. That is an improvement-at least there it gets a somewhat legitimate marketing attempt.

But lets be real here. Microsoft PocketPC isn't selling as well as Microsoft hoped it would. Consumer resistance to their bloated OS on small devices such as cell phones-where it pretty much gets kicked around by the lighter, quicker Symbian OS-is still considerable.

'Selling like hotcakes' seems a bit presumptuous a claim to make, I think. That is, in the world where most of us live :-)
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 30 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by You figure it out.. on 30-Dec-2002 05:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (Tronman):
http://www.harvlaser.com/pics/amigamap.png
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 31 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by gz on 30-Dec-2002 07:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (You figure it out..):
That map picture pretty much comes down to saying that most of the mudthrowing people still left with this 'community' are the extreme diehard's and zealots, accompanied by companies that are operating in the twilight zone of illegal/barely legal or abuse of userbase/con artist trickery...

Which I'm sorry to say is'nt that far from the truth, ironically :(
That in itself is proof of a rotten fish that's been dead for a long time already but has yet to realize it's gone forever and without a chance of regaining life unless of a miracle. And since when have there EVER been positive miracles in the amiga land? I can only remember negative 'miracles'
Like the crap that we'nt on with dce, boxer, IWIN, elbox picasso96 and the recent illegal code episode, hyperion vs genesi/vise versa, BS as usual (the partypack&coupon/t-shirt etc. coupled with excessive amount's of hyping and almost poetical masterpieses of legal threats and marketing speeches.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 32 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by JoannaK on 30-Dec-2002 13:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (amorel):
Well. It's still best greeting they have ever managed to make. Short, minumal amount of hype and lies.. Much better than those 2000 and 2001. :)

And for 2003. I hope it's better for Amiga (as a community, what's still left of it)... I don't really care so much about AmigaInc. It's obvious where thay are heading, and they have full right to do as they fit.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 33 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 30-Dec-2002 13:33 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (Tronman):
"But lets be real here. Microsoft PocketPC isn't selling as well as Microsoft hoped it would. Consumer resistance to their bloated OS on small devices such as cell phones-where it pretty much gets kicked around by the lighter, quicker Symbian OS-is still considerable."

Huh?
1. PocketPC is overtaking Palm. Fact. Even Palm recognizes this: http://palmpower.com:82/issues/issue200211/gartner001.html

2. Consumers don't care what OS underlies the interface of their phone. Most consumers in North America care about how the phone looks, and whether or not it's expensive. I suspect this is true of mobile users worldwide. As for it being a bloated OS, this depends on whether you think capability is bloat. I'd love to see Palm update their archaic OS to compete. However, they seem content simply adding colour to a glorified address book.

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but let's try to realistic when citing "reality"
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 34 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 30-Dec-2002 17:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Anonymous):
Oh, come on!
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 35 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by acg on 30-Dec-2002 20:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (You figure it out..):
Excellent graphic. Summarizes the whole bunch of baloney. I wish someone would
just come out wiht a product! Gateway, and Amino, could have done well just
by making upgrading to 68060/66 and PPC boards easy, and keeping the apps rolling. Then it could have planned a super upgrade using off the shelf hardware and a ported OS. Then it could have gone "cellphone," etc........

It looked good when it started, but nothing big YET has been realized. I could be
wrong, but I am getting that feeling I had before ESCOM, VISCORP, and
GATEWAY either went under, or gave up on Amiga....I hope Amiga, INC proves
me wrong.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 36 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by tronman on 01-Jan-2003 01:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 33 (Anonymous):
OK, lets be real. I was talking about PocketPC, not PalmOS. In fact I never mentioned Palm, which is losing market share but still, PDA devices aren't selling overall, as well as M$ or other vendors had hoped they would. I was speaking here of Symbian OS which allows for cheaper, lower powered cel phones which still have color, games, camera attachments etc. Symbian is doing this, doing it well, and still has like 80 percent of its market share. This still begs the question, shouldn't 'Amiga Anywhere' mean 'Anywhere'? As in, not just PocketPC?

I should also note that PalmOS does color, multitasking, even 3D games, inside 8MB and 33MHz whereas PocketPC realistically requires 206MHz and 64MB to really wake up. Yeah, no bloat there. I guess that's why most of the cel phones I see which are selling well, don't have the Microsoft logo on them-yet still seem to work just fine. As I hinted before, that is why Symbian is still kicking M$ around in this arena-its still cheaper to make a lower powered phone and not pay the Microsoft tax on it. Right?

You also had no answer to my criticisms of AI's mis-handling of their products when they get them, such as the game pack. The reality is that they still don't have a unifying vision of where they are going, or how in fact to get there. They do however seem to want to sue everyone in sight while trying to get there.

You also mention that consumers don't care what OS is underneath. Doesn't that tend to negate the 'Amiga Anywhere' value add? Especially for developers who have to learn a whole different, and believe me more primitive, development environment when they could just program for PocketPC, bypassing Amiga's 40 percent cut? Or maybe you can make some sense of Tao's 'documentation'.

Lets not forget this while we're here-Amiga don't fundamentally OWN anything! They have a license to reuse and sub-license the Classic Amiga OS etc.-they don't own the patents or collect royalties from them. And they don't own Tao's intent/elate either, upon which everything they do is based. I can also tell you that Tao's technology is, errm, not all of what they told Fleecy et. al. that it was/is. They should have stuck with QNX. At least QNX can access removable media that isn't mounted on bootup.

I'd still like to see them succeed at something more than selling a few PD quality games (granted, some are really good PD!) as accessories to a PocketPC system. Hell, I'd just like to get my back pay!

And finally, anonymous coward, I'm brave enough to at least put my (somewhat well known) nick up here, you can't even see fit to do that!

Amiga's left hand doesn't know what its right one is doing, and without some major management changes it never will. I'm sorry to say that-I liked working with my fellow employees there, they deserve better leadership. I am just being real here. I was there.
Amiga Inc. Xmas Greetings : Comment 37 of 37ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 01-Jan-2003 07:49 GMT
In reply to Comment 36 (tronman):
"OK, lets be real. I was talking about PocketPC, not PalmOS. In fact I never mentioned Palm, which is losing market share but still, PDA devices aren't selling overall, as well as M$ or other vendors had hoped they would. I was speaking here of Symbian OS which allows for cheaper, lower powered cel phones which still have color, games, camera attachments etc. Symbian is doing this, doing it well, and still has like 80 percent of its market share. This still begs the question, shouldn't 'Amiga Anywhere' mean 'Anywhere'? As in, not just PocketPC?"

Not true: there was a dip in handheld sales last year, but this dip was less marked then the PC market. The price point for critical mass in the PocketPC market hadn't been reached yet. Dell and ViewSonic recently brought that price point down, and estimates are that these cheaper devices will cause an upsurge in market. As for your comments regarding Symbian, your market share estimate is, at best, a gross innacuracy. How many phones are available with the Symbian OS? One. The Nokia 9290. How many handhelds manufacturers? One. Psion.


"I should also note that PalmOS does color, multitasking, even 3D games, inside 8MB and 33MHz whereas PocketPC realistically requires 206MHz and 64MB to really wake up. Yeah, no bloat there. I guess that's why most of the cel phones I see which are selling well, don't have the Microsoft logo on them-yet still seem to work just fine. As I hinted before, that is why Symbian is still kicking M$ around in this arena-its still cheaper to make a lower powered phone and not pay the Microsoft tax on it. Right?"

Wrong. PalmOS does color. Multitasking? No. 3D games? No. There are no true 3D engines available for even Palm OS 5. The requirements you list for Palm to run are also wrong, as Palm OS 5 requires ARM based processor. As for bloat, I might point out that Palm OS 5 architecture includes the following layers: The core OS, the device abastraction layer, the hardware abstraction layer, the Palm software compatibility abstractin layer, the software layer, and the API layer. It's not really any cleaner an environment than PocketPC at this point. I'm happier developing with the Palm OS API as it's simpler, but it's also less complete the Microsoft API due to limitations of the underlying OS. Your mention of a Palm OS multitasking has me perplexed, what are you referring to?


"You also had no answer to my criticisms of AI's mis-handling of their products when they get them, such as the game pack. The reality is that they still don't have a unifying vision of where they are going, or how in fact to get there. They do however seem to want to sue everyone in sight while trying to get there."

I had no answer because I have no opinion. I stopped by to read up on what's happening with Amiga these days, and felt compelled to comment on the statements you made. I don't know enough about Amiga, Inc. to have a valid opinion on that particular subject.


"You also mention that consumers don't care what OS is underneath. Doesn't that tend to negate the 'Amiga Anywhere' value add? Especially for developers who have to learn a whole different, and believe me more primitive, development environment when they could just program for PocketPC, bypassing Amiga's 40 percent cut? Or maybe you can make some sense of Tao's 'documentation'."

From what I understand of Amiga Anywhere, it's meant to add value to the platform because it doesn't matter what's running underneath. If the only target platform is PocketPC, then that would negate this basic selling point. Is that really the situation?


As for your other comments, I'd be happy to identify myself: Martin Watson. I've been a commercial developer in the Unix, Palm, and Windows (including WinCE and PocketPC) markets. I'm an Amiga zealot from way back. I bought one of the first Amiga 1000's available. However, I lost track of the platform in the early nineties. I checked here because I've been hearing some noise about the platform. I haven't registered, but frankly I doubt I'll be hanging around. The signal to noise ratio on these boards is a little too far on the noise side.
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