@DrJohn
Nope, it just shows that the community will never learn from past mistakes ....

Sheeee, even the Shark suddenly sounds real, when I read this

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- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@DrJohn

Thank you, yes large sums of money and business partnerships/investments are welcome, feel free to contact me if you are interested.
I am doing this becuase of my love for the Amiga, the first computer I ever used. I beleive that Amiga OS 4 is a superio opperating system and that PoewrPC is a superior processor. This is my way of helping to try to get them recognised.
I am not in this to make money, any money raised from the sale of batches of boards to businesses etc. will be reinvested for the development and manufacture of future boards. The more money we can dedicate to manufacturing teh larger batches we can produce and so the lower the cost. I am considering setting upa not for profit organisation to oversee this, that will only be once the $600 has been met, this organisation will own all of the rights etc. and oversee development, any further donations (towards other devlopment costs or other boards) and be used to manage future projects. It will also ensure that no-one can ever try to make a profit out of these boards.
The last thing I have to say, which is not just to Neko but to everyone in general who doubts this is simply this; If you don't like it don't do it, it's all well and good trying to protect others by discoutraging them but we are all (most ;)) reposnible adults, please don't try to influence the decissions of others, they can make their own minds up.

@Kronos
And how does the shark seem real? I have outlined a valid business proposal using a modification of a board which is allready known to exist which has been developed by a longstanding partner of not only IBM but Sun and other large chip makers. This is similar to the Eyetech A1's, modifications of an evaulation board developed by Mai. Nothing is known about the Shark so I fail to see how this is any less real.

Last edited by digitaldisaster on 13-Oct-2004 at 08:48 PM.
Last edited by digitaldisaster on 13-Oct-2004 at 08:47 PM.

@digitaldisaster

Quote:

You may run a VAT registered company that buys and sells computer parts but that is VERY different to this, do you buiy the chips in, design the boards then have them produced?

No but I do work for a company that does.

You don't see bPlan or Genesi taking "fund raising donations" so they can buy an evaluation board, do you? People will take this statement and remind us all of the phase5 preorder fiasco in order to prove me wrong but OH! You could not do this thread or my point a better favour.

I don't really care what the Amigans decided on in this thread, I don't really want to read 13 pages of delusion; accepting donations is NOT a business plan. Get a loan, buy the board, if it fails you can deal with it yourself. At least you will never have involved a single cent from a community member and you will not be held responsible for that money.

If the project fails, how will you refund the money if you ALREADY BOUGHT THE EVAL BOARD FROM MOMENTUM? The moment you commit to that purchase, and the Gerber files and the rest you get from it, you lose any chance you have to refund your potential customers.

If you go to a bank with a real plan which stands to make a profit, and you say "all it needs is $6000 for the Eval board now, and funding for the first production run", and tell them that you will make a fairly low but reasonable profit in order to pay back the loan with interest, it will take a very stupid bank manager not to accept it.

Don't you dare screw this community over, seriously.. if you stick with the donations and don't come up with a product, THESE PEOPLE ON THIS THREAD are going to be the ones to answer to. I don't think you have a good enough plan to be that confident that you won't have a problem. Remember I work for a company that does electronics layout and manufacture, you may not like us but *shrug* we know how the business is run :)

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Matt Sealey
Genesi, Manager, Developer Relations

@Neko

No you don't see them taking preorders, but then again they sell their boards for a profit, not to aid the community and thus they are on much more stable finacial ground.
I did not say that donations were a business plan, the other workings I have described are, well no they're not a business plan, that would be about as long as this thread, but they are a summary of how this project will opporate.
If the "project" fail it implies that the board was never purchased, in which case the money can be refunded, the "project" has suceeded once the board is purchased, if, beyond that, I can't supply the motherboard for whatever reason the project as whole has failed but the donations servered their purpose which is to buy the board. Everyone should be aware of this when they donate, I am doing my best to make this possible. In this case it would always be possible to auction off the board to the highest bidder either for them to carry on the work or as a peice of Amgia history, the fist, and possibly only, G5 Amiga, complete with working OS4.
You don't seem to get it that the whole idea of this project is NO profit, otherwise I would allready have got the loan and bought the board. It would be possible to run it at a very small profit but then the loan takes a long time to repay and you may as well just have gone full whack and sold it commerically in the first place. As soon as you start paying for the evaluation board using the production boards this stops being the community project which it is aiming to be.
Why would I screw the community over? I have never said there won't be problems, I am confident however that they will be minor.
Yes, I also know how a business is run, but I'm not trying to run one, when it comes to having a board and commencing a pre-production run then I will establish a not for profit organisation to oversee the entire production process and future developments.

@Neko

What is the relevance of this non-for profit community project to what bPlan or Genesi or any other company might or might not do?

If you bothered to read some of the 13 pages of delusion you would see that this is not a business and hence there is no need for a bplan. There is NO refund to the community if the project should not complete after the board has been puchased. It's called a personal (not a buisness)"risk".

Otherwise, your point of view is certainly welcome and noted.

@DrJohn

Simple; it may be a personal risk, but does it have to be a personal risk for 100 innocent community members?

I say business loan SIMPLY because you can get a better interest rate and more favourable terms for a real business plan. Of course it's just as easy to get a loan at 9% for $6000 for the cost of the board, but wouldn't you rather it was 4%?

At a negotiated rate of 4% for 5000UKP, the cost of the loan is CHEAPER than asking users to "add a few percent because of PayPal" or so on.

If Edward wants to do this properly, and act like a charity or benevolent organisation, he should register as such first; at least then users can write off their donation from their taxes next year.

You know if you are dead serious about the project and are willing to add a tiny markup to each board for the mere purpose of covering project costs (rather than soliciting donations and then charging "cost"), I will happily back you up to a bank manager. As long as he gets his money back in a reasonable time, and as long as it costs us nothing, and if it costs the COMMUNITY nothing, what have you got to lose?

Neko

@digitaldisaster

Ok, I just donated to your project. I hope it is a great success.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 15-Oct-2004 at 12:54 AM.

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Sent from my Quantum Computer.

@digitaldisaster

I'll donate some money and time.

@ DD

Let me get over paying for BB2 and I'll chip a few Quid in too.

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I dont suffer from Insanity - I enjoy it

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@Neko

I kindof agree with Neko.. it should be run as a business. You dont have to try and get rich from it, just break even and get enough to do future boards. Work out the finances and get a business loan.

@DiscreetFX amd amigakid

Thanks, I got your donations, I ahve updated the total o the donations page. £74

@The_Editor

Thanks.

@jahc

This is something I have been mulling over, it would make getting financial backign a lot easier, could even taike it to a VC. Does anyone else have any comments on this.
Whatever happens I think the at cost to end users should still apply and money could be made through bulk orders.

@digitaldisaster

The more that people have posted about it, the more sensible it sounds; it does give a more professional appearance to the whole thing.

I still like the idea of having community support - perhaps the ability to have these donations offset against the final price of the board (kind of like a pre-payment, but at whatever amount you want)? Having people donate/pre-pay will give you a definite sense of "worth", that you are being backed by the community.
I'm still struggling to get Moneybookers to validate my bank account, though

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@digitaldisaster

I take it back, I don't think any bank manager will agree with your "at cost to a bunch of people from some website" and certainly you will have to have very good proof of potential bulk orders from customers (who need a 64bit dual processor full-ATX development board? :)

Personally I don't think you HAVE that proof. You can't run a business on wishful thinking.

If you plan to do it, you have to plan to cover yourself on board sales no matter what you do. Even if the markup is so terribly low that it could not be considered retail sanity, you still need to add a markup. Component prices change wildly in the semiconductor industry, one day you'll have a chip costing you nothing, the next it will jump £15 and you need 1000 of them..

The only way you can really orchestrate an "at cost" sales method is to list the board specs on your site, with no price. After you do a production run, then you can solicit orders on your website, and paper-invoice people for the system at the exact amount you consider as cost.

You should provide a full BOM and price breakdown in order to validate the customer price.

Essentially, it's a silly idea isn't it?

Go get a real company set up. Get VAT registered or become a charity of that makes it happier for you; get a loan to cover the initial cost of the development board, which you can pay back through a slight buffing of the cost price (cost + loan interest + price protection for yourself) - it need not be profit.

Neko

I have mixed feelings about this. I would like to see the board available but I can also follow Neko's well reasoned doubts.

I guess we could pretty easily manage to get enough money for the reference board but what about going further.
I have my doubts that the community alone can finance a decent sized production run, so a bank or investors need to be brought in at some point anyway.

The goal is to get the Amiga community a G5 board at a good price (not nessecarily at cost?). I my opinion a good price is something that compares well to what Apple delivers, or a bit more because of the better upgradeability.

There's a lot of things to consider before we know IF it can be done, cost of components, manufacturing, G5 availability, demand for the board and things like that. Guess some can be figured out (maybe not exact) when we get the schematics and developer board.

Are there a mailinglist setup anywhere, that might be a better place to share ideas and concerns?

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@Troels

The best way to go about this would be to fund Hyperion to port OS4 to the G5, and use that as a stepping stone to the new iMac. Better to have a known base to start from, before you start running into "unknown" and "undocumented".

Then you can peel off the bank loan for the board from the initial OS4 sales for that platform. Say £100 for OS4, £10 of that for the board and development costs, you only need 600 sales for the iMac to cover the board alone.

Remember the iMac market is of millions, and a lot of them will buy stuff like this in a shot if they have a chance to run Amiga software (MacUAE sucks, remember).

Neko

@Troels

The plan has always been to bring financial backing in for the pre-production and production runs. It's just how this is done that needs to be sorted outa and that is what is causing me greif at the moment. The idea of selling the board at cost makes it very dificult to bring in fincial backing, and creating a not for profit organisation would probably make it next to impossible.
Momentum wern't very helpfull about costs before but I will try to get some info out of thema gain.
I don't have anywhere to set up a mialing list, if you can suggest somewhere then i gladly will. Yahoo prehpas?

@all

There is a short survey now online at http://www.CustomInsight.com/start/amigafivemarket.asp to judge the demand for and market areas for this project. please get as amny people as possible to complete it.