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[News] Genesi: Update regarding the change to the Pegasos-II

Posted on 22-Feb-2003 18:33 GMT by Senex (Edited on 2003-02-22 22:40:34 GMT by Christophe Decanini)

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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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