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It gives us the best of both worlds - An offical thread for the companies and the avenue for retort elsewhere.

I don't think you quite got my point --- A-Eon is a company, with a website. That website, currently, is a bloody disgrace. And it was stated almost two months ago that a new website would be put up within a few days. Then Trevor went to Antarctica --- which really is no good reason for the *company* not to put up a website, and which almost certainly did not come as a surprise, but hey, I have worked in small companies, OK, fair enough. Now he has been back for a couple of weeks or so, and still, no website.

Meanwhile, apparently someone at A-Eon put together an FAQ. Not a great one, not one that actually answers even half of the frequently asked questions, but again, better than nothing. However, instead of putting this FAQ up on their very own website, they dump it on AWN. And they don't even do it themselves; No, they have tomazkid post it (which means that the ordinary reader really can't tell who it was created by).

That is mighty odd behaviour. Remarking on mighty odd behaviour, and being concerned about mighty odd behaviour, is legitimate. Telling people off just because they go "that's mighty odd, wonder what's the reasoning behind it..." is just plain silly. Comparing the behaviour to Apple's, and expecting the reader to somehow feel reassured by the similarities, is even sillier.

Nice collection of info and thank you for the effort!

@moaners

LOL! come on...

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@umisef
Quote:

Meanwhile, apparently someone at A-Eon put together an FAQ. Not a great one, not one that actually answers even half of the frequently asked questions, but again, better than nothing. However, instead of putting this FAQ up on their very own website, they dump it on AWN. And they don't even do it themselves; No, they have tomazkid post it (which means that the ordinary reader really can't tell who it was created by).

Well, you got a point there, that can create unnecessary confusion.
So, I did create the FAQ-thread, it could very well have been someone else in aw.net staff.
The information comes from Trevor Dickinson, known as TrevorDick here on Amigaworld.net.
I'll update it in the FAQ itself as well.
This is the first round of the FAQ, the intention is that it will be updated, with questions people email to the amigaworldfaq@a-eon.com email address.
So start emailing the questions


Why the A-EON website is still not up, I don't know.
This is something we on Amigaworld .net wanted to do for our members, from our point of view this has nothing to do with the A-EON website, we have a similar thread for ACube as well, and the reason the FAQ-thread itself is locked for comments, is simply that we want to do it in similar fashion as with the "aw.net official hardware candidates for OS4-thread" a few years back.
You are free to start another thread named "A-EON FAQ discussion" or similar for the comments.

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Of course, I also don't remember Apple saying "We are working on something exciting and ambitious, and you will find out later in the year". Quite the contrary.

Are you kidding? This is what Apple does all the time, they are just big enough to get the companies (press and others) around them to do the dirty work.

Funny to bring up the iPad as an example. There is no knowledge of who the manufacturer is or if this is an Apple design or what the actual main CPU is. Apple has not provided any such information or do you have some secret channels?

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I *do* however remember going to apple.com right after the end of the iPad event, and being greeted by an iPad picture, with a whole website section behind it, including specs, video of its use, and all sorts of other stuff.

I'm sure that if A-Eon's market cap reaches the 12 digit range they'll do that too when they release something.

Meantime, I'm sure they aren't slow just for fun. Have you ever worked at a startup? I have. I've worked in 7 in fact, three of which I was a co-founder of, all of which I was somewhere between the first and 20th paid employee in, and I got in during the companies first year of operation.

You'll often be flat out working on actually getting your product out the door for months or even years at the time, sometimes on shoestring budgets. Sometimes you'll be lucky if you get to spend much time with your family, even.

Hardware projects in particular are capital intensive, and a *lot* of hard work (one of the startups I didn't co-found, but was in fact the first paid staff member in, was an iPad like device about 11 years ago, with the hardware limitations of that era - it ultimately failed a couple of years after I left, but we did get the initial versions done while I was there, and it was *hard* work), and so you focus everything on what matters most.

It's easy to sit on the outside and criticize that something or other hasn't been done quickly enough, but that's usually because you have to be brutal about prioritizing the things that will actually get your product ready first and foremost, because that is 1) going to be the most important thing in starting to bring you revenue - yes, the X1000 will start selling even if A-Eon doesn't have a great web site by then; 2) going to be what makes the difference in signing up partners or investors.

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Have you ever worked at a startup?

Yes, I have. Repeatedly. It's where I like working.

However, as you point out yourself, the life of a startup is one of struggle and hazards. Things can and do go wrong, and what might be merely a a minor temporary setback for a large company may be a terminal blow for a startup.

So if people watch the externally visible behaviour of a startup, and see signs of things having gone wrong (and "we'll have a website up in a few days", then nothing for two months *is* a sign of *something* gone wrong; Might just be that the original statement was foolish, of course... wouldn't be the first time startup management double or triple scheduled developer time :-/), and then comment on those signs, that's normal, healthy behaviour.

Telling people off for doing so is silly. Telling people off by pointing out some (tenuous) similarities between A-Eon's behaviour and Apple's is even sillier --- if for no other reason, then *because* Apple has a 12 figure market cap, a 35 year history and an 11 figure bank account.

I don't expect a startup to behave like Apple. Heck, I don't believe a startup *should* behave like Apple. It wasn't me who brought Apple into this discussion.
I merely objected to people who claim that this particular startup *does* behave like Apple (it does not), and that thus one shouldn't doubt them any more than Apple (even if the behaviour was the same, seeing as the context would be different, a different reaction would still be appropriate).

Just to put this into some context: I recently worked at a startup where, after years of trying to work with incompetent management, one day the entire technical team simply quit (or rather, gave notice, and quit a month later). It has been most interesting to observe that place's external communication since.... Checking the website, this techie-less company just announced a new range with 10 times the capacity of the "existing" products.
Might get the place sold to some sucker. Might not --- but what does management have to lose at this point? Either way, half a year from now, the place is history, so reputation doesn't come into it. Startups are a series of gambles, anyway, so if they fail, they may as well fail with a bad reputation, because failure means end-of-existence, anyway. Companies like Apple, who tend to survive failures, need to be much more cautious.

Last edited by umisef on 05-Mar-2010 at 09:38 PM.
Last edited by umisef on 05-Mar-2010 at 09:34 PM.

@umisef

Quote:

Then Trevor went to Antarctica --- which really is no good reason for the *company* not to put up a website, and which almost certainly did not come as a surprise, but hey, I have worked in small companies, OK, fair enough. Now he has been back for a couple of weeks or so, and still, no website.

Actually he is in Wellington at present and will be attending a meeting of Amiga users (mostly former amiga users who keep on meeting for some reason) next Tuesday Evening in Auckland, so if you want to pop over from Australia and arrive at my place then you're welcome. :) Please don't everybody come, the lounge is not all that big and my skills as a host sadly undeveloped!

Noel

Last edited by NoelFuller on 06-Mar-2010 at 06:00 AM.

I've worked for a number of startups myself. Often the guy who nets the money from investors is a sales and marketing chimp who sells empty promises and the engineers have to try and match the hype. It's no wonder that 90% of all business fail in the first year.

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@Umisef

I generally dont like people with all these complaints, even if the website hasnt been updated, etc, it is not such a bad website now, only thing thats disturbing, is for newcomers needing to push six times until they hit the actual website, this should have been changed a long time ago.

But the a-eon.com/6.html or whatever, the final page, is not bad, it has some factual statistics, and thats all what the guy needs for now until the product is ready to be placed onto the market.

IMHO, your being too PICKY.

Most of us are just PRAYING that it isnt false information, and that there really will be an X1000 board with nice specs to buy.

Mmmmm, curious, while your nit picking on flaws from the user trevor D, what are you doing for the Amiga community again? I must have forgotton thats all.



BTW, Nothing against my fellow Australians, "Aussie, Aussie Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi"
(mmm, JaWohl Deutschland!) hehe. Anyway.................

But I do think you can stop trying to find flaws in Trevor D, when it may not be his own fault entirely, but rather a NOT ENOUGH TIME thing happening.

Also, Hyperion have announced it is official, so that theoretically means, Trevor D may no longer have seen a point to update or upgrade the A-EON website, as it may be placed on Acubes site instead, as A-EON being in partnership, but this is just all theory here.

So take it easy, relax, and wait until the end of Summer(or for us australians winter) before that, there is only dreaming happening anyway, for the good times to come and roll out.

Cheers

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