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[News] Genesi comment about their near- and midterm strategyANN.lu
Posted on 17-Feb-2003 08:22 GMT by Senex80 comments
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In the ANN-Thread Plexuscom and Genesi to Cooperate on PegasosPPC for CeBit Release Bill Buck & Raquel Velasco of Genesi made the following statement regarding their near- and midterm strategy: If our strategic vision is compelling and our execution excellent, we will increasingly attract skilled developers (like you). 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 third-party vehicle to do this too. It is not much more than a concept today, but we are starting to see ideas solidify on the mailing lists and there is a good deal of potential there. We need to be somewhat selective in insuring that these next boards go to people that will advance in communion with our effort. Hence, our new pricing offer through Phoenix for $299/299 Euro (understanding the fluctuations?if it becomes a big difference we will adjust).

Our targeted resource/sales markets from the near to medium term are:

1. Amiga/MorphOS
2. DTV STB and Pegasos STB
3. LinuxPPC and OtherPPC

We will continue to promote to the Amiga/MorphOS market, as we have. Our underlying focus will be: broadening and stabilizing MorphOS, attracting applications and drivers (ports/original programs), and establishing a ?Pegasos? toolkit. At the same time, the "Pegasos Network" is working (ex. www.pegasos-XXX.com) and our online sales support and information site at 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 for ?prime time? 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. (You might also want to check out www.morphzone.org)

On the hardware side we start where we are: the Pegasos. We have discussed the features: upgradeable (G3, G4, Dual, etc.), scalable (stackable boards), modifiable (smaller ? eclipsis, subsets/modular ? Psylent/STB), and open, as in Open Firmware (facilitates scheme for peripheral association/development IAW the IE1275 standard). We have developed a solid plan and feature set for each Pegasos envisioned and the corresponding software bundles. The management review actually begins today in Paris. The bplan guys arrive today as well as others.

It was the Pegasos that convinced our largest customer to go ahead with the DTV STB project. It is worth hundreds of thousands of Euros to us and it is what IS creating the opportunity to do everything else. It is still based on MorphOS and a PPC, so our Developers will be insured a stable business partner and an increasing stable environment for development and the future. In this case the potential is enormous and the development contract itself produces the profit equivalent of more than the sale of 1000 Pegasos mainboards per month. Can you understand the benefit this brings to all efforts?

The Pegasos STB is just a Pegasos (and something else again), but it is focused on another market. It actually aims more at breaking down the digital ?Berlin Wall? between countries in Europe and North America and countries everywhere else that are not so affluent (Mainland China, India, Latin America, Africa, etc.). We could sell this product as a "computer" that uses the television in the home already as a monitor (like computers of the past we have known). From the hardware side, it is a relatively simple development for us. A CD drive and a hard disc would be optional. There would be keyboard and remote control options (a users existing keyboard or mouse could be used as the Pegasos is already compliant with open firmware standard IEEE1275). Of course, this would create an interesting market for memory sticks (see www.plexuscom.com). There are hundreds of applications already running on the Pegasos, including many games and all in many languages (thanks to the ability to run Amiga applications).

Our thought is that PCs do not have the same penetration in these areas as in Western countries for years to come simply because of their cost. With volume we'll be able to undercut them without sacrificing functionality or speed. We think the potential could be running into millions of units. BTW, last year STBs of video games sold nearly 30 million units (PlayStation2, Xbox, and GameCube). We are not at that level yet, but we could be and we can offer more applications than games (and no special attachment for the Internet either).

About Linux and the other targets..

Linux people usually want something great for nothing, but in the PPC market if we can get a design win over the competition 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 have a Go/NoGo decision matrix (that gets more tuned as we advance). Again, we are looking for resources and developer talent. For example, while Linux gets the glory, BSDs are running some of the biggest sites. The OpenBSD port is being undertaken now (we got the first screenshot last week). 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 (and maybe BreakPoint if we can sort something out this week).

All these ?other things? all ultimately bring us back to our key advantage: a completely integrated solution, including hardware, operating system, and applications. The new Management Team is working hard to turn this vision into a reality. They will be presenting the first plans this week. 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.

Hope you appreciate how early we got up to write this!

We will be very busy this week ? not too many more posts or emails will be answered.

Best regards,

R&B
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