Ever since I talked with Trevor Dickinson at one of the past AmiWest Shows and he told me that he intended to continue building Next Gen AmigaOne hardware systems, beyond his great X1000 system, I have wondered and questioned, and frankly feared for A-Eon's future sales potential.

Of course, Trevor probably has much better resources that allow him to estimate the current size of the remaining Amiga community, and this information was surely used when deciding to go forward, or to stop after the completion of the X1000. In my mind, the remaining community is somewhere between 1,000 to 3,000 active Amiga enthusiasts and maybe 1/10th to 1/3rd of those at most, might be willing to spend in excess of $2,000 US dollars for a new Next Gen AmigaOne system, but I could be wrong by a large margin. So my estimate is that there could be 100 to 1,000 (1/10 of 1,000 on the low side, to 1/3 of 3,000, on the high side) potential buyers of the new Cyrus based AmigaOne systems, when they are finally released.

I think that it surprised many people, including myself, that the A-Eon X1000 system sustained strong interest and sales which probably have exceeded 500 units so far, with continued production and sales to this date. Given the amount of money that Trevor spent on development costs for the X1000 system (which he admitted could not be recovered from the sales price of the X1000), I was even more surprised that he would want to continue with a second design, the Cyrus based systems currently in development.

My concern and question to all of you reading this forum message is this: How large do you think the market for Next Gen AmigaOne systems is?

Given that only a handful of existing X1000 owners will be willing and/or able to upgrade to a newer Cyrus based system, and given the size of the currently remaining Amiga community, how many buyers do you think A-Eon & AmigaKit will be able to find for their Cyrus based AmigaOne systems, when they are finally released?

I don't ask this question to discourage Trevor, or AmigaKit, or any prospective buyers of their future Cyrus based products (in fact, I support and encourage buyers to purchase these systems when they are available). I like Trevor and Matthew very much as good people and hope that they consider me a friend of theirs. I think that it is a fair question to ask, how large our community is, and how many of those who remain would be interested in spending in excess of $2,000 US dollars, for a new Next Gen AmigaOne system.

Part of my concern for sales of the future Cyrus based systems is that the X1000 has been so successful, that the people who can afford an AmigaOne system that cost in excess of $2,000 US dollars, have already purchased an X1000 and therefore are no longer in the market for another AmigaOne system that cost in excess of $2,000 US dollars (no one knows exactly how much the new Cyrus based systems will cost when finally released, but Trevor has hinted that the price will not be far different than the current X1000 systems on more than one occasion).

If this thread can shed some light on how many people might be interested in buying a Cyrus based AmigaOne system in the future, perhaps this information can be of some use to Trevor and Matthew, in deciding how many systems to produce in their first production run, when the system is ready to release.

I wish A-Eon and AmigaKit all the success and best wishes for the future.

(Please refrain from replying to this thread with arguments about how A-Eon, or AmigaKit should be doing things differently if you disagree with their decisions and direction for the future. That is a topic for a different thread. This thread is ONLY asking how large do you think the remaining Amiga community is, and of those that remain, how many do you think would be interested in spending in excess of $2,000 US dollars on a new AmigaOne Cyrus based system?)

Last edited by amigadave on 29-Mar-2014 at 11:18 PM.
Last edited by amigadave on 29-Mar-2014 at 11:16 PM.

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@amigadave

Quote:

Given that only a handful of existing X1000 owners will be willing and/or able to upgrade to a newer Cyrus based system, and given the size of the currently remaining Amiga community, how many buyers do you think A-Eon & AmigaKit will be able to find for their Cyrus based AmigaOne systems, when they are finally released?

I can't see that Cyrus us really being marketed (if AmigaOnes can be classed as having any sort of marketing strategy ) as an upgrade. The new CPUs don't have Altivec acceleration and the performance increase that will be seen is on the back of system bus improvements/memory speed not an improved CPU. If the Cyrus hits a sub £2,000 price point it will get sales in the same ball park as the X1000, as it will get additional sales from people that think that £2,000 plus for a niche product without SMP support is pushing it a bit! Sam users are probably those that are most likely to upgrade to a Cyrus machine followed by some additional 'Classic' users whose A4000/A4000T/Towered A1200 has finally bit the dust

P.S. A sub £2,000 price point = under $3,327.80

Last edited by BigD on 29-Mar-2014 at 11:24 PM.

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Duplicate posting removed.

#6

Last edited by number6 on 29-Mar-2014 at 11:39 PM.

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@amigadave

If Amiga is still considered both a h/w and s/w combination, then I don't see how one can give an opinion on potential h/w sales without more information being considered.

This would require taking into account how potential customers perceive the rate/status of AmigaOS development and whether that information would influence purchase of h/w in any way.

#6

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This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@amigadave

While the X1000 is an expensive computer, I believe its introduction has expanded the potential market.

When I bought a micro-AOne, the supplies were just about gone, and it was not clear if there would be any new Amiga models. There were a lot of people talking about the death of AmigaOS because there was no new hardware to run it on, and at that time it just might have happened.

Since then we have seen multiple new models announced and delivered. There are couple different models of Sam computers that have established an excellent NG platform that can be built on a budget.

On the high end, we have seen the X1000, and it sets a fair "high end" performance bar.

I do think there is more market, I believe there is a fair patch of "middle ground" between the Sams and the X1000 that remains to be filled. There are still a lot of people predicting the death of AmigaOS, but I doubt there's much that will change their mind.

I believe that the wider variety of hardware choices is already growing our community, and hopefully will continue to do so.

So instead of wondering when the demand for new Amiga hardware has been filled, I wonder how much larger the market will grow as each new model is offered for sale?

Amigans collectively have proved to be a determined bunch, for sure.

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@amigadave
"market for next-gen"

Odyssey 1.23 was the most expected OS4 software, I presume that every actives OS4 users have downloaded it...
500 downloads for rev1 on OS4depot
...
How many of them still have a x1000 ? How many of them will buy a Cyrus ?
Not more than 500.

Last edited by zzd10h on 30-Mar-2014 at 12:14 AM.
Last edited by zzd10h on 30-Mar-2014 at 12:12 AM.

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@zzd10h

Quote:

Odyssey 1.23 was the most expected OS4 software, I presume that every actives OS4 users have downloaded it...

I have not, but I certainly count as "active".

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@amigadave

Big enough that I can still enjoy my favourite OS on new hardware and with fairly regular new software updates.

I had the pleasure of showing my X1000 to a totally new Amiga user who always wanted one back in the day and was intrigued by 'our' stubborn resilience when the Sam & X1000 systems were announced after years of turmoil. After carefully tiptoeing the guy through A to Z I was quite happy when he asked whether he should buy the X1000 or the new upcoming Cyrus (X3000- he said) boards! You see he told me he was silently keeping up with developments even though he never posted on the Amiga forums....it seems we appear like some inbred dogs fighting each other on some forums to 'outsiders' lol

Long story short we're still here & moving forward & that's what counts to me & apparently a few others !

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X1000 I BELIEVE

I personally do not see OS4.1 as a market platform but
more as a developer platform.

The real market is still in the old Amiga market, retro is
in and the amigaclub we have runs on these old systems.

If they could develop a 100/200 euro/dollar Amiga with
OS4.1 then there could be a possible market i think.

Dont forget, the world is in a crisis, for the most of us.

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A1G3-SE + OS4.1 u1 iso (x2)

@Thread

OS4.X is a simple to use, easy to customize, and beautiful OS. It is becoming more modern with each update and still remains backwardly compatible in the way it works with the original version years ago. Yes it runs on PPC processors, but they were designed by some of the best minds in the industry to accomplish what the Intel CPU could not, and in a collaboration between IBM and Motorola. I don't want a computer that requires an IT department to maintain, do you?

Last edited by cymru on 30-Mar-2014 at 04:09 AM.
Last edited by cymru on 30-Mar-2014 at 04:01 AM.

@amigadave

Why so much text when all you wanted is:
"How many of you plan to buy a Cyrus motrherboard ?"

But since you wasted all that time, I might as well waste some more

>I think that it surprised many people, including myself, that the A-Eon X1000
>system sustained strong interest and sales which probably have exceeded
>500 units so far, with continued production and sales to this date.

If there really are 500 A1X1ks out there then their users are very good at hiding.
There is a lot of misleading info on how many batches were produced and how many boards were in each batch that any number you'll see is clearly pulled out of someone's a#### I'd say the fact that Trevor doesn't even try to clear up that mess should be seen as a clear sign.

@lylehaze
>On the high end, we have seen the X1000, and it sets a fair "high end"
>performance bar.

The P6T wasn't anything highend when it was "introduced" in 2006 ... not even in PPC terms. In fact it wasn't even onpar with a pair of similar clocked G4s. The use of newer RAM technolgy allows the X1000 to perform as good as those 2 G4s bolted on a Apple motherboard from 2001.
What it did have going on was being lowpower (rather pointless in a full-size tower system) and probraly being cheaper to produce (also pointless as it wasn't handed down to consumers).

>I have not(downloaded Odyssey), but I certainly count as "active".
*shrug* and others downloaded it more than once for various reason (failed download attempt, reinstalling system...).


Back2Topic:
If the Cyrus is really priced similar to the X1000 than sales outside "Amiga" will be countable on a set of non-mutated fingers and sales inside "Amiga" will be hard due to it not being a real update over most HW allready in use.

Last edited by Kronos on 30-Mar-2014 at 07:34 AM.

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@amigadave

I think the goal is to step out classic users to NG machines

@cymru

I don't see what's wrong with PPC. The only problem is the price, even in bulk. But not looking at the price, there's not much wrong with it.

@zzd10h

I'm an AmigaOne 500 user, a new one so to speak as I only started to use AmigaOS since August last year (and I'm only 22 years old!). I have downloaded Odyssey 1.23 and it's a good browser!

OT: I'm fairly happy with my AmigaOne 500 I bought last year. I'd buy a new Amiga, both to have newer, better hardware and to support the mf and community. But I'm not buying an Amiga at the price of the X1000. But if a new version of the 500 hits the market or even something in b/w the 500 and the X1000(/X2000?), I'd buy it.

Last edited by Vistaus on 30-Mar-2014 at 12:06 PM.

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Proud user of AmigaOS 4.1 on an AmigaONE 500. This is the first Amiga I've ever had so I don't know all the ins and outs of AmigaOS yet, so I'm sorry if I'm asking noob questions and stuff.

/speculation and guess mode ON

I assume most ACTIVE users will have registered at the Hyperion Support forum, I use that as my active user guesstimator*. There are 583 registered users there.

If only half of AmigaOS4 users have registered, there may be up to 1163 potential current NG customers.

If ~500 of this 1163 have already purchased an X1000, then a new market of 663 NG upgraders exists for the Cyrus. It would be crazy to target just this tiny market.

/OFF

As already mentioned by others, the classic community is the real potential market. For this, full HW support, 3D acceleration, media support and seamless UAE integration is a must.

If this arrives with Cyrus, then I know of several classic and ex Amigans who may jump on board. You may know some too...

I wish Trevor, Matthew and Hyperion all the best.

imho, OS4 hasn't market, but in the same time has a good market in Amiga Community.

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@Xmas87

I'm an AmigaOS 4 user and I'm not registered at Hyperion's forum; only here at Amigaworld.

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Proud user of AmigaOS 4.1 on an AmigaONE 500. This is the first Amiga I've ever had so I don't know all the ins and outs of AmigaOS yet, so I'm sorry if I'm asking noob questions and stuff.

@Xmas87

Thank you for your kind words.

A-EON Technology's priority this year is Software Applications for our AmigaONE X1000 customers. The AmigaONE X1000 is A-EON's flagship product and the customers who have bought this product are our number 1 priority. Without new software, AmigaOS will not bring in new customers- we know this and it is central to the business plan.

We are very excited about introducing the AMIStore app store shortly for all AmigaONE X1000 customers. Behind the scenes, we have working with many different developers to provide a new software development platform for the AmigaONE X1000 computer. The results of this work will start to be announced within the next two months.

Cyrus is a side project at the moment and is a product for the future. We intend to sell Cyrus in the future once the drivers and the operating system is ported to it. It will be sold over a 5 year period so it is intended to be a stable, powerful, well supported AmigaOS platform.

One final thing: in the past, talk has been very cheap in the Amiga market. There have been announcements of projects and they have not been released. This has caused a lot of scepticism amongst AmigaOS users. However, despite difficult circumstances, A-EON projects have been very real and come to fruition. I have read with interest the comments in the past year since I have been involved in the A-EON project:

- some people predicted that the X1000 would never be released for consumers- this proved not to be the case
- some speculated that the X1000 would never sell more than 50 units! three production batches later, we are still selling brand new AmigaONE X1000s to new and existing Amiga users.
- some speculated that the RadeonHD driver would not be released, it has now reached v1.0.
- some people stated that the HD Audio 7.1 driver for the X1000 would not see the light of day: customers have been enjoying using it for some time now.


So thank you to all our customers who have joined the ride. We have a dogged determination to provide our customers with the best AmigaOS experience in our power on the AmigaONE X1000.

Last edited by amigakit on 30-Mar-2014 at 12:22 PM.
Last edited by amigakit on 30-Mar-2014 at 12:16 PM.

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@amigakit

One could counter with what other people predicted about those, but what would be the point ?

Lets just hope you/Trevor/??? have learned from what went wrong with the X1000 project and won't be repeating the same mistakes with Cyrus.

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@amigadave

giving a true answere would be consideres as trolling, so I will just post what "true Amigans" would like to here.

There is a very big opportunity to sell AmigaOne systems in the future, when SMP is ready for MP system (I bet it won't take two years) millions of Amiga Users will return.

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AmigaONE. Haha. Just because you can put label on it does not make it Amiga.

I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

@AmigaDave

Slightly off-thread, I own an X1000 and have 4 other OS4.1 A4000's, only The OS for the X1000 is registered and the first OS4.1 I have on my A4000T; the other 3 (paid for originals) are in their boxes and unregistered for when I sell the other 3 4000's. So even a list of users or registered (for updates) OS4.1 owners will be inaccurate. If A-Eon continues to develop and AmigaKit continues to sell systems, I think the market is still "active."