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[News] Thendic/Bplan announce the BETATESTER and Team Betatester!ANN.lu
Posted on 04-Aug-2002 20:43 GMT by Frodon185 comments
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The full announcement is available in the Read More.

Just a clarification to avoid misinterpretations:

For 1000 Euros you get a complete system, not only the motherboard (So you get: Motherboard + CPU + Memory + Harddrive + CD-Rom drive + Graphic Card + Tower + PSU) Announcing BETATESTER and Team Betatester!

The time has come for Thendic-France/bplan to start selling machines. We are not going to call it the Pegasos for now. We are going to call the pre-release version of the Pegasos with the pre-release version of MorphOS for PPC: BETATESTER. MorphOS may not be ready for regular computer users, but it is ready for developers. This coming weekend we will begin to sell the machines directly from Thendic-France. We will sell all 15 machines we take with us for the SLACH PARTY CONTEST in Bordeaux to people that agree to join «Team Betatester». We can take as many orders as there is interest. We have decided to do this because in two weeks we will begin to receive delivery of the first *1000* lot of BETATESTER mainboards. These will be completely configured and ready to sell to developers who join Team Betatester by Thendic-France. (Note: any mainboards not sold as BETATESTERS will be sold with firmware only to our Linux distributors).

You can purchase a BETATESTER for 1000 Euros (tax not included).

Team Betatester will be composed of people who do/agree to do the following:

1. Purchase a BETATESTER for 1000 Euros (tax not included)
2. Sign an NDA
3. Sign an Agreement not to sell the machine (we will purchase back all machines that need to be sold for any reason).
4. Provide a minimum of two bug reports per week (including negative reports) until the conclusion of the BETATESTER program (approximately 12 weeks).
5. Agree to test applications as required/time permits
6. Test new peripheral devices including the Thendic Smart Card Reader (for secure FTP access, online payment and loyalty programs), the DataPlay disc drive and the ComCam and associated viewing software.

Team Betatester members may also agree/become eligible to port applications to MorphOS for hire by Thendic-France/bplan.

In exchange, Team Betatester members will receive:

1. A MorphOS for PPC v.90 T-shirt
2. A free copy of the commercial release of MorphOS for PPC v1.0 when it is ready.
3. A discount on the Betatester G4 upgrade
4. Access to the Betatester FTP for updates, fixes, test applications and application releases.

and of course a BETATESTER with a TWO-YEAR WARRANTY for Hardware!
The SLACH PARTY CONTEST 15 BETATESTERS will be available for the contest from 12:00 Friday to 18:00 Saturday. As the Slach Party, the contest will be monitored and open during the entire 36 hours non-stop. Individuals/contestants may enter multiple times, but priority will be given to first time participants, second time participants, third time, etc. in that order. We will have a sign up sheet by hour for each of the 36-hour blocks. If a block of time is unassigned others may then fill-in/wait-list as machines become available.

The Contest is basically being held to:

1. Announce the beginning of Team Betatester
2. Develop a logo for the BETATESTER and Team Betatester.
3. Promote the SALES of the BETATESTER

The objective of the contest is to create the best «BETATESTER» logo using Candy Factory Pro on a BETATESTER (that is a pre-release Pegasos) in a one hour period. All submitted logos must include the word Betatester

The Judges for the Contest will be:

• Raquel Velasco
• Gerald Carda
• Rakesh Raghoebardayal
• Mike Bourgeoisat
• Johan Ronnblom


All the logos will be presented to the Judges Saturday evening at 1800. The First Prize award a BETATESTER -- will be presented the same night at 2000. All participants will be required to agree to our contest rules to be eligible. The rules are:

1. No outside data will be allowed to be loaded on the machine.
2. The time limit will be one hour.
3. Only the Candy Factory Pro can be used to create the logo.
4. All logos become the property of Thendic-France/bplan and can be used on our websites.
5. Contestants may enter more than once but never at the expense of another who has not had an opportunity.

All rules will be followed and anyone not doing so will be immediately eliminated at our discretion from the competition.

Another Contest -- we will also begin a contest where people can submit names for the eclipsis, the handheld version of the Pegasos (see "eclipsis" at www.thendic-france.com. If you submit a name you are eligible to purchase a MorphOS T-Shirt at a very reasonable price :)

and a bit more information!

Over the next couple/few months there are a series of shows that have been planned. Here is a list of what is planned today:

• 7-8 September, A-Expo in Tain l\'Hermitage (France)
• 14 September, BETATESTER I in Frankfurt
• 21-22 September, Pianeta 2002 in Empoli (Florence, Italy)
• 21-22 September, AmiGBG and GGS-Data Show (Gothenburg, Sweden)

During October, we will also set-up BETATESTER conferences in London and Moscow. Unlike the other events, the BETATESTER conferences will be our events. In all cases, we will divide up our team as required to support the events. All of us will go to the A-Expo. At the A-Expo we will also sell BETATESTERS to all that agree to the Team Betatester requirements.

When someone else hosts the show we will organize ourselves, as we will this weekend for the Slach Party. We will demonstrate BETATESTERS and hold a contest.

For the developer conferences we host, they will be one-day affairs and include a dinner we will hold that evening.
Admission to the full day program will be based on a pre-order/payment for a BETATESTER. Purchasers may pay at the door, but must agree to the Team Betatester requirements. No one who has not purchased a machine will be admitted.

A different MorphOS T-Shirt will be released at each event: v.90 Bordeaux, v.91 Tain l\'Hermitage, v.92 Frankfurt, v.93 Gothenburg/Empoli, etc. When the Pegasos is ready for commercial release we will have v1.0 (and we will offer for sale the entire collection).

If you have any questions you can email us at bbrv@thendic-france.com.

Best regards,

Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck
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