Amiga Inc once threatened Genesi that actions would be taken against the MorphOS team because of “stolen IP”. Genesi realized Amiga Inc’s poor situation at that time and answered by entering a lawsuit against Amiga Inc on a different matter, a broken contract. Amiga Inc was already bancrupt in practice and had no means to put up a fight, so it would be an easy match (and indeed it turned out to be a match won by walk over).

Amiga Inc was founded by some IT Bubble enthusiasts (Bill McEwen, Fleecy Moss, etc) but THE REAL CAPITAL came from a serious Venture Capitalist. The VC realized that Amiga Inc was lost but understood that there would still be some value to collect from its corpse. They sent out a guy called Garry Hare to save what could be saved and do the best out of the situation. He realized that Amiga Inc had started a project, AmigaOS4, that was not in the scope of what they got their money for, the Amiga DE, so he decided to get rid of those assets in order to once again streamline their focus on the only product his employers (the VC’s) is interested in, the product that has got a real chance of success, “Amiga” DE. These assets was also threatenned by the many claims from former partners, employees, etc. On April 23, 2003 he transfered everything we know as AmigaOS - all of Amiga's right, title, source code, and all versions, from the "Classic Amiga Operating System" through AmigaOS 4.0 and all subsequent versions – to Itec LLC, a newly founded company for the purpose of holding and later selling off these assets.

There was this one BIG problem though - All employees (as in SW engineers, project leaders, business developers, etc (not talking about fanatic working for free webmasters (where did that guy go BTW?))) and human resources in Amiga Inc was lost, so in order to restart the Amiga DE project, Garry needed to connect fresh blood to this project. He went around, passing out business cards on trade shows etc, trying to connect with people who would offer some sort cooperation. Naturally, Garry came in contact with Genesi (a friend of Genesi got one of the cards and passed it forward to them). They did some talking.

OK, back to Genesi for a while. MorphOS (not OS4 too for that matter) is not developed by a big, highly paid, work force, but by a quite small amount of enthusiasts pretty much working for free. Genesi has however sponsored the MorphOS project by hiring some consultant developers from the community for specific parts of the MorphOS projects etc. Genesi has also tried to add value to MorphOS as well as support the few remaining Amiga SW developers by giving them Pegasos machines for free, creating the Super Bundle, etc. But while Genesi was investing considerable amounts of money into the Amiga/MorphOS community, they have never managed to get real ownership and real control over the MorphOS. MorphOS is still owned, maintained and developed by “The Official MorphOS Team”. This is naturally a kind of threat to Genesi (at least a limitation), since they may come up in a situation where they make grand business plans for the OS, connecting partners, entering deals, etc, just to see “The Official MorphOS Team” refuse to take part in that. Genesi could wake up in a situation where they are hold hostage. That won’t do. Of course, cooperation is the preferred way, and MorphOS is the preferred OS, but they also need some kind of backup plan. AmigaOS4 could very well be such a plan.

When BBRV realize that the Amiga Inc actually is trying to get rid of the AmigaOS (actually, they already HAD transferred it to Itech) to focus on the Amiga DE product, a plan begin to take form. They create a new company (maybe through a decoy company, possibly TOGETHER with Amiga Incs former VC’s, I don’t know), they called it KMOS Inc, and it is this company that takes over the AmigaOS and all related IP assets. This way Genesi has secured its investments in the Amiga community – they will have an Amiga OS on the Pegasos and any future HW products no matter what, as well as access to some interesting technology for future Eclipsis style products (read on to the Amiga DE further down). This “Kill-MOS” or “MOS-Killer” also functions as a counter threat against “The Official MorphOS Team”, rendering THEIR threattening position during negotiations to a minimum (Genesi has an alternative OS, but MorphOS has no alternative hardware). “The Official MorphOS Team” was of course not too pleased about this, but what could they do? They could play the few cards they have during negotiations, like threattening of going public with the situation, and they almost did. They made these little hints recently, like publically distancing themselves from Genesi by posting publically as “The Official MorphOS Team” instead of “Genesi”, as well as move the MorphOS site back to their own, pre-genesi style. Maybe it worked, I don’t know, perhaps all has come to an agreement now when the site is back at Genesis house, and everyone is happy now?

Well, where were we? Yes, we were at the point where the newly founded company KMOS just took over the AmigaOS assets. At this point we see a lot of changes, in a matter of only a few weeks, even days. Fleecy Moss and his regular rantings suddenly disappear, so is that annoying webmaster. Silencing those has almost been a promise from BBRV. The notorious Club Amiga dies a sudden death, R.I.P, not to be missed by anyone. Also “the monthly magazine” is put on hold. The lawsuit suddenly ends, everything about it goes silent, everyone seems happy with the situation, and KMOS says it will honour its ruling. Hehe. Only to make the painting a masterpiece, they actually engage Garry Hare as a director in this company! Alltogether, this has truly been a knockout-punch to everyone throwing shit at BBRV for their ambitions to bring OS4 to the Pegasos, for their true story about Garry Hares business card, and all the people who actively has worked for a community split by separating OS4 from the rest of the community, through anotherworld.net and other things, people like Fleecy Moss, Ray A Akey, Mike Bouma, Mikey C, Dave P, Ben Hermans etc. They just don’t know it yet, which just makes it sooo beautiful!

This post on wrongpla.net (http://pulp.wrongpla.net/news/article102.html?2a90b1cef055335bd23914332765e298=fe50306f72d548d9193fc476c53539f3) is actually not 100% a joke, the tone and writing style of course is, to make the post fit in among the other articles on that site, but its based on a deep underlying truth. This is what makes the situation so clever and funny to the ones who understands it (this will become clear to everyone later on). At this point (meaning right now, this minute), probably not even Hyperion knows the real story behind KMOS and its future plans for AmigaOS, but the fact remains, AmigaOS will come to Pegasos. Of course, it will first be fully released (in a final release) on the A1 hardware, just to honour those who invested their hearts into that HW, if for no other reason. No-one wants to piss off any more Amiga community members. But when Amiga DE gets running on it and bundled with it (it WILL get running, both on AmigaOS and MorphOS), it will upgrade to version 5.0 and things might change a bit, who knows? We all know one thing though, no one at Genesi is very happy with Alan Redhouse and Eyetech. Despite what many people thinks - Genesi is quite neutral to other people and organizations on “the red side” and actually wouldn’t mind cooperating with lots of them since they realize that they are skilled developers, but Eyetech could not bring ANYTHING positive, and they have caused LOTS of trouble for Genesi in the past, too much for them to be able to forgive. At some point, there will be a final blow to shut them down.

Well, what about the Amiga DE then? Well, Genesi (as well as the co-funders of KMOS probably is, for the obvious reason below) is actually quite interested in the Amiga DE idea. There is no secret that Genesi early on recognized the potential in mobile computing and communication. The Eclipsis was a concept they thought about very early on, and they still plan future HW reference designs based on that idea. Amiga DE would be a perfect tool for this, especially if Garry Hare is successful in his mission to connect many partners to this project. Genesi has allready created a support website for the Amiga DE for future use (http://amigade.pegasosppc.com), they have hinted in several posts that they have been in contact with TAO about it, and earlier this summer Garry announced:

We have now acquired Amiga Inc. We finished this aquisition in the last few days. There are several reasons for it: we have a responsibility for building a brand and we need control over it … In short term we will focus on Amiga's DE products and we will announce extensions to it and move DE into the market immediately.

I think they will succeed in this. The circle is closed, the hostility morphed into new interesting partnerships. It only took the removal of certain people out of the picture, and voila! The future looks exciting – for allmost all of us!

(Note: This whole post is of course intended as a joke. Slow day at work. Thanks for reading this far! ;-))