Editorialities
by Eric Schwartz
Dayton Area Amiga Gazette
Dayton, Ohio
In the lack of hard news, we're usually left to speculate and complain about the Amiga and its future. This is nothing new, dating back to the days of Commodore, but under the Amiga company, it's a rather different beast. Under Commodore, we would moan about how they would drag their feet on new technology, and how the managers castrated the engineers' visions to save a few bucks and aim for perhaps the wrong markets. Under Escom, our main problem was that they dropped off too quick, pulling the rug out from under the Amiga just when it was nearly ready to jump up a level. During both buyouts, we speculated on who would end up with the Amiga, and what they would do with it, only to be blindsided by a buyer we didn't expect. Under Gateway, we mostly complained that their vision for the Amiga didn't really mesh with our own, not to mention the fact that the vision seemed to reset to square one with every change in staff. Under the new Amiga company, we complain that they seem to barely have any idea what they plan to do, and change direction along with the wind.
To their credit, Amiga does seem to have a vision. The problem is that vision seems to have almost nothing to do with the visions of the original creators of the Amiga computer. As I see it, their vision is to create a software interface that would allow someone to create software, be it game or application, once, and through the "Amiga" environment, run on practically any hardware or operating system without modification. I can see this as being attractive to many software developers. They would save development costs and increase sales, and their software could run on Windows, Mac, Linux, Palm, Amiga, and who knows what else without the cost of porting. Amiga also picks up a nifty little license fee in the process. It's a nice plan, with a fair chance for success. The main problem is the people they may need for initial sales have little to no interest in that dream. They are the past and current Amiga computer owners, and they want hardware and an operating system. Therefore, Amiga feels obligated to tell us what they think we'd like to hear, especially because their vision is taking longer to reach fruition than they'd hoped. They scramble for every bit of seemingly good news, and act as though they're taking credit for each development, even if that development is not really part of their plans. We wait for Amiga OS 4.x and the AmigaONE board, which gives the impression of a unideal choice. We have the AmigaXL and Amithlon for Intel-based machines, which is a distinct detour from the path (unless it is unusually successful, which would likely make it the new path). We wait (not quite as long) for the non-brand-name Amiga, the PegasOS board with MorphOS, which is actually a good representation of the old Escom/PhaseV plan for Amiga, rather than Amiga's own plan. As I've heard, Amiga actually tried to adopt MorphOS as the new Amiga OS more than once, to be deterred both by Amiga's selfish software allies, and their own desire to claim credit for developers' hard work. With this kind of track record, it's hard to invest much confidence in Amiga. I wish them success in their true vision, because it has the potential to help the world of software. If it were up to me, I'd give the hardware and OS franchise to Bplan and MorphOS, and make sure we had the means to run software made for the Amiga Digital Environment. Even if that's not the real plan, it might just happen anyway, depending on which way the wind blows.