@umisef

I think you are being too pessimistic here. You shouldn't judge the current amount of A1 + OS4 users as even remotely close to the potential of OS4. What do you expect when there is no hardware and no OS available to be bought? Sure, we HAD AmigaOne's, but they turned out to be more or less broken (something which ofcourse dampened the sales), too expensive, could only run Linux and were really only, at that time, targeted at developers anyways. And when the OS finally was finished(?) there were no longer hardware to be found.

I think that with lowprice, 100% functional hardware (ACK lowend, Efika?) and an actual finished OS (and a bit of cheap, clever advertising) it would not be impossible to reach a low to mid 5 digit number of users in a reasonable amount of time. .

The fact that the OS currently may not be considered "modern" when compared to Mac/Windows doesn't really matter, it should still be possible to attract new users. You shouldn't underestimate the nostalgia factor, and then theres the "alternative scene", and there will always be people looking for something that no'one else has (but still can do more or less the same things). I'm quite sure the Amiga could find it's niche somewhere, a niche big enough to sustain a market, if things are done right.

@umisef

So, in your opinion AInc was not giving licenses because they think demand is too low and there's no viable market for it. Yet they're prepared to pay large amounts of money for the legal expenses to try and get ownership of the OS. Why would they do that if they thought it had no potential market? Also, what would they have had to lose by allowing OS4 to be sold with hardware other than the A1, and get licensing fees for it, even if it only sold a few thousand? I think your theory is very far from reality. It seems more likely that AInc do indeed see OS4 as something of great value with a potential market, and they want to get it all for themselves, so they profit much more from it by taking all OS sales as well as hardware licensing fees.

Quote:

Or you could adopt Hyperion's view, which has consistently (at least until December last year) been that any hardware other than the A1 and the classics is not covered by the existing OS4 development/licensing contract, and that thus obviously Hyperion releasing OS4 for other hardware would require a new contract between Hyperion and AI

That was not Hyperion's view though. It was AI who insisted on the requirement to control what hardware OS4 is allowed to be ported to and that the hardware manufacturer must pay them a license for this. I'm sure Hyperion would have happily released OS4 for a number of hardware solutions if AI would not have objected.

Last edited by COBRA on 27-Jun-2007 at 12:44 PM.