The One year from now thread!

Ok i recently saw this done on another forum and I thought it be good fun to do it on ours, I've sent up an email to remind myself about this thread in a years time.

The idea is you put what you think the Amiga world will be like in a years time, and then we come back to this thread to see how close we where.

So I will start :- in a years time I hope to have an OS4 machine weather it be Sam460 or X1000 I dont know yet, I hope that both machine will have been on the market for a while and that they have done well. I would like to see Timberwolf get it proper release by then, OO for kids maybe getting its first released. It think maybe OS4.2 get announced and the OS4 market is slightly better and bigger with the x1000 out. Other areas of the market I think MorphOS will be on a PowerBook and Power Mac G5, Aros will be a lot more stable and be gaining more momentum, my guess is that CommodoreUSA will be out of the picture by then, Amiga Inc may also be out of the picture by then too. So that's my prediction what's yours?

Last edited by amigang on 29-Sep-2010 at 12:10 PM.
Last edited by amigang on 29-Sep-2010 at 12:09 PM.

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@amigang

The only thing I'm certain of is that I'll be a year older then now.

The way it stands now is... X1000 first batch of 250 may be sold, after that it's likely there'll be no more X1000s. Sam460 will be possibly the only remaining OS4 hardware on sale. On the MorphOS side, I expect at least some announcements about where to go after used Macs and PowerPC, I'm expecting probably ARM, along with broadening the number of used Mac hardware on which it can run. AmigaOS will be further upgraded and some new software added.AROS will be the best Amiga-like OS and will probably see some major upgrades.

All in all I'm not expecting much, only further reduction in the number of AmigaOS users in the next year. Best case scenario the numbers stay about the same as today. AROS may gain new ground, but it depends on which direction these new developments take. MorphOS probably the same as AmigaOS.

x86 Amigas will be just appearing on the market. Their sales depend mostly on their execution and price and since I know nothing of either, it's hard to even predict their future.

Natami will probably be on sale, all depends of price, but I'm not expecting many units sold.

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I predict that this come this time next year A-Eon will have sold more X1000s than anyone anticipated. We will all be using OpenOffice and Timberwolf by now. The OS 4.3 update that came out 6 months ago will be a distant memory as Hyperion begins to release tit-bits off information about its upcoming OS5 release. Commodore USA/Amiga Inc will be releasing the SnowMaker MkIII just in time for Xmas sales in a vein attempt to try and sell more than the 2 Units they sold throughout 2010/2011. Microsoft Windows will still be ####, Mac OS X will be even more eye-candy than ever before as they begin to shift user interfaces away from the humble mouse to touch-screen technology. UK (or should I say just London) will be looking forward to the 2012 Olympics, whilst the rest of the country will be complaining how much of a waste of money it is. Xmas 2011 will see the release of funky (but expensive) must-have kids soft toy; a turtle with wheels and loads of upgrades and accessories including pipes, slides and slopes in the shape of a pond leaf.

Last edited by djrikki on 29-Sep-2010 at 02:05 PM.

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@WolfToTheMoon

Quote:

The only thing I'm certain of is that I'll be a year older then now.

Unless you died, then you wouldn't.

Uncertainty is the only thing that is certain...

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@SpaceDruid

even dead, you still age... Not even going to the grave could save you from the effects of time

Last edited by WolfToTheMoon on 29-Sep-2010 at 04:56 PM.

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@amigang

Quote:

Ok i recently saw this done on another forum and I thought it be good fun to do it on ours,

Ah damn, I thought it was a year since this was started. Now it's too late to ask this last year and look at the progress. AROS, X000, Sam460. All wasted now.

In any case, we will know if the X1000 was a real machine and if it was released. Plus we will know the price! And effect it had. Will XMOS chips divide the A1 community? To have or not to have an X-CORE A1.

Will OS4 be ported to another CPU, can you guess, yes the XCore! Hehe.

Sam460 will be out.

C=USA will surely have a product out. Or will be selling retro custom cases for your PC. It worked for Mitsubishi, so maybe they will do one of theor cases justice and bringback the Colt?

@WolfToTheMoon Quote:

All in all I'm ... expecting ... only further reduction in the number of AmigaOS users in the next year

What do you mean "further reduction"? As far as I'm aware, Sam440 has sold quite well (as far as jump-starting the market goes), and so there has been an INCREASE in number of OS4 users by quite a margin (well, it wasn't massive to begin with, due to lack of hardware before then). I'm sure you'd love to convinced everyone else this isn't the case though, just by repeating it often enough...

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@amigang

That's an easy one...
(thanks to my time machine)

Sept 29th 2011:

OS4:
120 Nemo v2 boards sold, end-user X1000 system with Nemo v3 expected before xmas
<100 460ex sold to amiga users and many more to some embedded product OEM, ACube announced a SAM460GT laptop at the summer show on July 23rd with no definitive release date
OS4.1u3 released in May, OS4.2 planned for X1000 xmas release

MOS:
Running on G4 and G5 iMacs and PowerBooks, partial WiFi support, no BT nor power management support

AROS:
After some disagreement among the developers about whether to maintain API compatibility or add support for SMP, the project split into AROS "Classic" and AROS MultiMedia, the former focusing on netbooks/laptops and the latter focusing on media centers.

OS3:
Elbox released some new accelerator and memory expansion boards and Amigakit sells some 54G WiFi adapter for the Mediator.

Natami:
Still nothing

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@amigang

If I comment on this you will know my Aros plans so sorry, all I will say is Aros will be a lot more powerful and professional then, and a new IMICA will blow peoples mind

X1000 will fall into the hands of clever little sods who will do some cool things with XMOS and a lot of people will eat humble pie over the idea of adding it.

MorphOS will still be going strong on Mac hardware.

The main camps will start to work together.

I will win the lottery, buy out Amiga inc and rule the world of Amiga

Steve

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@clusteruk

Quote:

I will win the lottery, buy out Amiga inc and rule the world of Amiga

Sorry, mate, that's my plan.

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1. c=usa is afloat, no c= amiga, no c= 64 in the classic case available. no support for aros
2. a-eon sold more than 1000 X1000 units
3. a-eon + acube announce a ppc laptop / amigaone laptop
4. xmos is useless
5. amigaos 4.3 announcement (with a little bit of PR : amigaos 4.5), still no smp
6. bill mcewen is alive and shines
7. timberwolf is out
8. Trevor's got a new rare stamp ;)
9. i've got sam460ex (?)
10. i'm the photoshop/illustrator/pixelArt(grafx2?) mastah ;)

EDIT : typo + i've just visited a c=usa page and it's updated and already one of my predictions is realized = no mention of AROS

Last edited by nimrod7 on 29-Sep-2010 at 09:17 PM.

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@nimrod7

Quote:

i've just visited a c=usa page and it's updated and already one of my predictions is realized = no mention of AROS

For me, that's a good sign... If they're serious, they should invest in a proper, modern OS.
The only thing they could do is pay bounties for AROS drivers for their computers, but I've doubt there's any market in for that to justify the spending.

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@amigang

One year from now we will see the usual supects starting thrtead likes this and/or claiming that "2012 will the year of the Amiga"

@ChrisH

Sales for the SAMs (or any othe NG-Amiga) are far to small to close the gap between those leaving and those joining as pretty much all of them have been bought by people allready inside the "Community". You might see a sharp increase, but thats just a bump in a downward road.

Both HW and SW are lacking more and more behind the mainstream (and it's gets even worse if you bring money into it). If and when the SAM460 and X1000 get relased they will again narrow the HW-gap, but that will be undone by the next gen of Intel or AMD CPUs.


So yes, 2011 will be all the same as 2010, just with a few people disapering from the community.

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this is the slightly positive guess:

30.09.2011

Timberwolf and OpenOffice are both in use.

Hyperion have already announced something about their next OS version (be it 4.2 or 5.0 whatever).

Hollywood 5.0 with TCP/IP support is out (and maybe even with some new platform support like Linux or Iphone if Andreas so decides) and Andreas is already in his mind thinking wether he should already start programming the hollywood Webapplet.

X1000 have sold its first batch and have made next batch of machines too.

Sam500 is coming or already out.


Aros on the other hand have took a great jump forward thanks to C=USA business.

C=USA thanks to its Amiga and Commodore names have sold quite nice amount of PCs. its not competing with the top sellers yet, but it is reasonably big player in the market, and thanks to their Aros on delivery decision, there be lots of lots of people who are playing around with AROS. Most only less serious, but some very seriously.

And this have also resulted in some open source and alternative looking guys to start programming something creative for AROS just for fun.


Because of Commodores AROS machines, AROS have become much more known (although still only a niche) and it have also resulted in 1 000 Sold Imicas (and that is of course only a start) since some want the real thing.

some of those want to get even more involved with Amiga or return back, and they will buy even Sams and X1000s, resulting in nice boost to their sales too.


Natami will still be coming, like it always have, but now it will be closer than ever. And especially with all the new people interested in Amigas, Natami guys start seeing there might actually be money coming and they will actually be getting it out in a year.


Thanks to C=USA and its big number sales, Amiga Inc. is geting nice amount of money for they get some fixed price from each sold Amiga named machine (at least i hope so).

This in turn have resulted in amiga.com being up again, and Bill McEwen getting back on his feet.

Although he still wont be able to do much else than survive, his future is looking bright. For after the success of the C=USA, more companies realise the value of name Amiga and all thing related to Amiga and are contacting Bill McEwen to have licenses.

this might result in things like TV named Amiga that is also running with AmigaAnywhere2 (or whatever it will be) and some other mobile phone like gadgets (but not mobile phones) working with AA2 and named Amiga.


Due to increased user base, also Amiga Future is selling more and having much more subscriptions, enough to finally have it in Color, which especially AROS guys are happy about, since quite huge proportion of the magazine nowadays will be about AROS, since thats where is happening most.


Trevor Dickinson will have written his Retrospective 2010 article as well as he is already behind the scenes getting our XLaptop becoming reality and there to finally be Laptop that runs AOS4 (or 5 or whatever).


There be also loads of new users at Amigaworld.net who bought C=USA AROS machines, and there be lots of threads about "What really is Amiga" since there is great confusion amongst new AND old users about what really is Amiga and some will even claim Amiga is dead because of AROS way. That AROS just aint Amiga anymore since its running on Windows machine.


Except for the confusion, I believe things will be somewhat well when compared to last few years.



ps. Clusteruk won the lottery twice but noticed he still didnt have enough money to buy even half of the 100 million dollar worth of stocks of Amiga inc.

edit:

I completely forgot the MorphOS

well, even in my slightly positive view, I believe that MorphOS is going to be the only real loser.

In very positive picture, MorphOS could grow its userbase with from C=USA base, but with just slightly positive view, I dont think that will happen.

If they dont pull any surprise strategy or some other major surprise happen somewhere, i believe that the coming of X1000, and C=USA Aros computers are going to hit hardest on MorphOS, since theres no place for MorphOS to fill anymore except for those who already use it.

MorphOS used to be alternative for Amigas future, MorphOS used to be the one with OS and Machine, it also used to be the only choice to pick if you wanted to upgrade from OS3.9 forward, and it even still was the choice for power user.

However, with lack of new basically specifically for MorphOS done machines (pegasos), with X1000 filling both the specific for Amiga machine spot and power user spot too, And OS4 having been and matured for quite some time, especially with TImberwolf coming too, and AROS machines to some extent (but not completely) filling the spot for cheap entry Amiga, MorphOS doesnt have much to offer anymore for people to switch from "official" - Amiga line, and is on its way to grave.

Unless Amiga Inc. surprises and makes MorphOS become Amigas official line (which wouldnt be impossible after AOS4 been hijacked from them), it would seem to me that the story of MorphOS is on its way to death. And year from now, it is seen as by not having grown its user base, but rather maybe even lost some.

Last edited by Bugala on 30-Sep-2010 at 02:44 AM.
Last edited by Bugala on 29-Sep-2010 at 10:54 PM.

I'm a little more pessimistic myself.

OS4:

I predict that the X1000 will be available to buy and that most (if not all) of the initial teething problems would have been sorted but the hardware including XMOS would still not be fully supported by the OS. It will also be obvious at this point if it is a success or failure (if it's not already). I think Timberwolf although usable will still be some way behind its Windows/Unix relations. ACube would have stopped making the Flex440, the 460 would have been launched but would not have sold in the same kind of numbers as the 440 so they will be looking to leave the party.

AROS:

Still going forward (same as today) although it may have reached that magical ‘tipping-point’ by then and really started to grow.

MorphOS:

I don't see them doing much different to what's been happening recently. More old Mac PPC support added (and existing support improved), more minor OS updates.

Classics (nearly forgot!):

FPGA Arcade would have been released and improved to become something quite interesting. Natami would have released in some form or another but not really got anywhere.

Last edited by NovaCoder on 01-Oct-2010 at 03:58 AM.
Last edited by NovaCoder on 01-Oct-2010 at 03:57 AM.

It just so happens that I predict the future for a living.

Around this time a year from now, A-Eon will still be in business and will be very concerned about the impact AROS is having on their business. Since none of the execs are technologists they will be stumped by this for a while. The effect will be compounded by the noodle-scratcher of a doosey that more than 50% of X1000 owners are primarily using Linux.
Ben Hermans being an IP lawyer will try and find a way to take some of these parties to court, and will be consumed by the lack of a clear target.

There will be many nice tech demos of what Xena can do but no 'killer apps'.

MorphOS will add more PPC Macs to its supported platform portfolio. 3.0 will be shown at AmiWest 2011.

Cloanto will release Amiga Forever 2011 and it will have a very neat new feature. Even though I haven't signed an NDA it wouldn't be fair to reveal it this early. Cloanto is the one to watch.

The community will still be divided and we still wont have a real new Amiga.

Last edited by agami on 30-Sep-2010 at 01:08 PM.
Last edited by agami on 30-Sep-2010 at 04:28 AM.

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@amigang

Here's my prediction for the year to come.

1., X1000 will come out, but become a sales disaster because of its ridiculous price tag and relatively poor OS support (both might improve upon later, if the project survives to that point). The initial X1000 fiasco will not even hurt itself, but OS4 in general, and also hurt Sam460 sales, which still might sell in OKish numbers (considering the market size), but not even close to Sam440EP and Sam440-Flex sales. Software and app wise, I predict the users will still waiting for a browser which is truly "Amiga-alike" and lives up to the competition in its feature set and performance. On the contrary, they might enjoy some imports from the FOSS worlds, maybe a new GUI kit (QT was rumored many times) and some nice new apps along with it. On the long run, maybe even a new desktop. So even more changes for OS4ers. If this will be good or bad for them, time will tell.

2., MorphOS will going on to support more PowerMac hardware, including laptops and G5s. The cheap and "available everywhere" entry hardware will keep on attracting users as did Mac mini G4 and PowerMac G4 support earlier. Initial releases for a specific machine might not support all hardware inside, but its then improved later. Thanks to the 1.5Ghz+ G4s and the raw power of the G5 series, MorphOS will keep its absolute and "average user's machine" performance advantage over OS4. Application wise, MorphOS keeps going on the hard way, with its own API set, and libraries ported to .library format, which means less apps, but more fine tuned. I predict the then-actual version of OWB/MorphOS still holding the crown among browsers and there will be some other polished, well integrated and finetuned new native applications and utilities. So the system will be very much like it is today, and its been in the past few years, just slightly better in almost every aspect (bugfixes, new drivers, new apps, even better performance).

3., AROS keeps on being no schedule and rocking. The project keeps being very promising, as it always been during its history, but fails to provide the breakthrough which gets it on paar with OS4 or MorphOS, usability, stability and compatibility wise. But it will be steadily progressing in a mostly good direction, and keep on getting more polished and more hardware supported.

4., Classic is going nowhere, with only kept alive by nostalgia, library backports from AROS, optimization efforts by individuals, emulation and the demoscene.

5., I don't even mention C= USA and such nonsense, because I really belive that's a scam, or if its not a scam, then the company lacks any potential, and is going to have little to no effect on the Amiga market and world in the year to come (apart from some bikeshed flames on forums), just like other companies who sold Windows/Linux preinstalled x86 PCs with "Amiga" and "Commodore" stickers previously. And there were a few...

For, myself, I see no big changes really. I'll still enjoy my classics as they are and use my by then almost 8 years old Pegasos 2 as my primary desktop with MorphOS, along with few PowerPC Macs as secondary machines. I see myself still being an OS4 skeptic (to put it mildly), and follow AROS with some interrest.

Here. Love it, or hate it, that's what I see to come for the next year.

(Edit: added remark on C= USA.)

Last edited by Chain-Q on 30-Sep-2010 at 09:49 AM.

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@nimrod7 Quote:

i've just visited a c=usa page and it's updated and already one of my predictions is realized = no mention of AROS

Seems for the best. Wonder what spin the "CTO" will put on this though?

@Kronos Quote:

pretty much all of them have been bought by people allready inside the "Community"

Even assuming that's true (I don't think it is completely), that doesn't actually contradict what I said. Because a lot of those in the "Community" were interested in AmigaOS4, but by the time they wanted to get a machine the AmigaOnes were unavailable. In fact, I was one of those people, and I've seen others as well. Additionally, OWB & AmiCygnix (and probably other software) has helped make OS4 much more usable for some people, which leads to more sales.

BTW, presumably you think MOS is on a downward spiral too?

@WolfToTheMoon
Since you didn't response to my reply, I assume you agree with my point, and won't be posting anything like that again.

Last edited by ChrisH on 30-Sep-2010 at 12:14 PM.

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@ChrisH

I'll stick *by original post C= AUS will be a distant memory this time next year as all of their products will go down the toilet. I am not throwing AROS or MorphOS in there as at least they have products and proven creditability. C= AUS have yet to prove anything, but contempt - of course that could (at least in theory haha) change.

Last edited by djrikki on 30-Sep-2010 at 12:41 PM.

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@ChrisH

Everything since 1992 (yes that does include the AGA-Amigas) was a downward spiral, there were a few upwards bumps but the overall trend was down and further down.

Generating new users in reasonable numbersis impossible as I think ChainQ pointed out so clearly, either you stick to being different resulting in fewer apps, or you conform to the standards (VM, QT-Toolkit, shared objects, Cycwin etc) resulting in something close to YALD, just without the benefits of a Linux-distro.

All that with HW that isn't competive, on the OS4-side by performance and price, on the MorphOS side by performance and availability (not everybody likes eBay).


On the other side, lets face it we are not getting any younger

Just browse back into threads (here or and on other sites) a few years old and take a close look at how many of the posters are still active today.

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