News and Views
by Len Carsner
from the November 2002 issue of the AmiTech-Dayton Gazette
It's that time of year when things start to turn colder, but last week I was sure hell had frozen over. The lead story on the Tech TV Screen Savers show was new hardware being released by Amiga. To say I was shocked is an understatement. Not only that, but the impending release was also discussed on several other non-Amiga sites. Motherboards as well as pre-assembled machines from your specs are available now, with AmigaOS 4.0 to be released in the next several weeks. Truly hell has frozen over, or at the very least Christmas has come early for hard-core Amiga fans.
The Pegasos board has received much attention in Europe, mainly France and Great Britain. The motherboards are available in limited quantities now, while MorphOS will be ready soon, if I remember correctly. It is conceivable that by the first of the year these machines could be in stores alongside the AmigaOne systems fighting for your hard earned dollars. May the best man win.
There appears to be a new release of Voyager on the horizon according to a posting on one of the Amiga sites. Silent for some time, they are promising something real soon now.
A funny thing happened last week on the Amiga News web site. Amiga Inc. announced they would be working with Microsoft to develop content for the Smartphone line of products by Sendo. These are phones designed to run a cut-down version of Microsoft CE. The next message posted was that Sendo had dropped the project because of Microsoft's reluctance to release the source code to them. Looks like both MS and Amiga got caught by surprise!
Have you tried to contact Amiga Inc. lately? Don't bother with any of the addresses or phone numbers listed on their very out-of-date web page. Their offices are closed and the phones are disconnected. Supposedly they are moving to a new location and the old facilities were closed down and everyone given some vacation before the very hectic schedule for the rest of the year. Since Sendo terminated the MS deal, maybe Amiga Inc. might have some spare time that they could use to concentrate on REAL Amiga stuff instead?
Speaking of moving, Merlancia announced they are moving to a larger facility and leasing office space in the old Commodore building in Germany. Why?
In non-Amiga tech news, a scientific study showed that Microsoft products are the least secure of any operating system in the world (we needed a study to tell us this??). MS protested, saying statistics do not favor them since they are more widely in use than other systems and that would tilt the odds against them. They don't deny their products suck, just that they don't like the answer. MS also circulated a memo in-house that stated their anti-Linux activities have backfired as Linux has increased its market share, especially in the business market, a sector Microsoft desperately wants to control. Their anti-Linux rhetoric will cease immediately.