As promised, Barry has amswered the 15 questions on commodore-amiga.org.

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Dammy

@damocles

Thanks.

@damocles

Hm... As much as I'd like CUSA to succeed (more variety is better IMHO, and I don't see CUSA cannibalizing Hyperion's sales since they're going after a different demographic), I am not entirely convinced by the reasoning behind answer #2. They say that if they can convince one tenth of one percent of people to buy their Linux boxes they'll be selling a million units, but how did they arrive at that fraction? sounds more like wishful thinking that a well reasoned business plan. I'd have expected their answer to have been more along the lines of "we ran an analysis of forum posts on slashdot, osnews and five other popular techy sites, and approximately twelve percent of posters have commented positively or very positively on Commodore and/or Amiga related topics. Extrapolating to the general computing public, we believe we could realistically sell between x and y computers to early adopters."

@damocles

Well this prooves that asking one Barry yields just as much results as asking another.....

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

@damocles

Answers to questions #2, #4, #5, #7, #9, #11 and #14 are missing.

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Amiga Developer
Amiga 500, Efika, Mac Mini and PowerBook

@damocles

FAQ Most Frequent Answer " Errr... Dunno. Ask Leo."

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When in trouble, fear or doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

@damocles

Who cares ?

@CodeSmith

Quote:

CodeSmith wrote: @damocles Hm... As much as I'd like CUSA to succeed (more variety is better IMHO, and I don't see CUSA cannibalizing Hyperion's sales since they're going after a different demographic), I am not entirely convinced by the reasoning behind answer #2. They say that if they can convince one tenth of one percent of people to buy their Linux boxes they'll be selling a million units, but how did they arrive at that fraction? sounds more like wishful thinking that a well reasoned business plan.

No, they just said that IF ONLY they could catch (wishfully) at least the 0,001% of the total market of Intel-CPU-based computers sold every year, then it will meaning that they could sell (potentially) even upto 1 million computers.

i.e. IMHO they said that every quantities of computers they will sell from 1 upto 1 million machines [extreme hypotetical target] then it will be a success (from their point of view)...

I wonder who will buy in 2011 underpowered Intel machines with onboard intel graphics, embedded into a fake C64 or Vic-20 case.

In these days it is already difficult to sell undepowered Amiga-PPC machines, just for an "Hobby Market"...

If only they had contacted the community and invested their money to let AmigaOS being developed for normal Intel machines (and I mean modern dual and quad core full of horsepower), then they could have had some chance of success...

...But sure I think they will had had no any success in selling fake retro-computing all-in-one machines re-branded as Commodore and put in a fake C64 case.

That sort of strange C-64 Intel computer machines could be purchased just only some bunch of crazy computer COLLECTORS (and I mean people who collect computer curiosities machines and computer rarities)...

Sure these kind of machines have no any appeal for hobbyists like us, who are faithful to the beauty of the AmigaOS as it is (an OS with elegance, total control by the user and low hardware consumes), and also we are not anymore interested in unuseful Intel hardware neither anymore interested in a logo on a case.

These people who tries NOSTALGIA rebranding commercial attempts have not understood that we Amigans purchase underpowered PPC machines, not because they are Amigas (or branded as Amigas), but just for the simple fact that these are the only machines capable to run the great AmigaOS.

Last edited by Raffaele on 12-Mar-2011 at 11:04 AM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 12-Mar-2011 at 11:01 AM.

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"When the Amiga came out, everyone [at Apple] was scared as hell." (J.L. Gassée, former CEO of Apple France and chief of devs of Mac II-fx, interviewed by Amazing Computing, Nov 1996).

@CodeSmith

Quote:

CodeSmith wrote: @damocles Hm... As much as I'd like CUSA to succeed (more variety is better IMHO, and I don't see CUSA cannibalizing Hyperion's sales since they're going after a different demographic), I am not entirely convinced by the reasoning behind answer #2. They say that if they can convince one tenth of one percent of people to buy their Linux boxes they'll be selling a million units, but how did they arrive at that fraction? sounds more like wishful thinking that a well reasoned business plan. I'd have expected their answer to have been more along the lines of "we ran an analysis of forum posts on slashdot, osnews and five other popular techy sites, and approximately twelve percent of posters have commented positively or very positively on Commodore and/or Amiga related topics. Extrapolating to the general computing public, we believe we could realistically sell between x and y computers to early adopters."

"Hyperion sales" ??? What sales?? They (and all the others) have had over a DECADE to do something. Just what have they done?
There is NO, repeat NO market potential for any viable business plan to succeed that is based on selling to the handful of extremely vocal protagonists frequenting the forums you mentioned. The reason every effort to reboot the Commodore and Amiga legacy failed is just because of this. The response to our efforts, and the hundreds of thousands of replies and comments left by registrants on our website, along with the many positive articles in the mainstream press, is the most important and meaningful analysis that we are basing our business plan upon.

@itix

Quote:

itix wrote: @damocles Answers to questions #2, #4, #5, #7, #9, #11 and #14 are missing.

WHAT??? 15 questions asked, 11 answered, and the remaining 4 will be answered by Leo, as indicated. READ MUCH??

Quote:

As promised, Barry has amswered the 15 questions on commodore-amiga.org.

pardon me, but what does it mean to "amswer" a question? ;P

Last edited by wawa on 12-Mar-2011 at 04:06 PM.
Last edited by wawa on 12-Mar-2011 at 04:06 PM.

@Nimrod

Quote:

Nimrod wrote: @damocles FAQ Most Frequent Answer " Errr... Dunno. Ask Leo."

Exaggerate much?? 4 out of 15 questions were left for Leo to reply to. Is that the ratio you use to represent "MOST" ?? 'Most" usually refers to more than 50%; 4 out of 15= approx 26%. , which most would refer to as "few" or "some".

The only reason I bothered to even reply to this inane post was to show just how negative, slanted and false some of these posts are.

@digitex

Quote:

WHAT??? 15 questions asked, 11 answered, and the remaining 4 will be answered by Leo, as indicated. READ MUCH??

They were not real answers. Just random words here and there.

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Amiga Developer
Amiga 500, Efika, Mac Mini and PowerBook

couldnt really bother to read too much of it, already a question of marketing expectations slammed down to a lotto comparison doesnt sound too clever.
anyway my opinion is, that if they stick to manufacturing of custom keyboards and case replicas adopted to house standard form factor boards they might succeed to certain extent, at least within communities as this. outside there i see little hope.

Last edited by wawa on 12-Mar-2011 at 04:17 PM.

Only interesting thing was that they will not use the name workbench but commodore OS :)

@Kicko

whatever os, i think we all know that there was multiple attempts at marketing commodore branded x86 compatible pcs, and it has never been a success. for what do they hope this time??

@wawa

I would say the big difference this time is that machines are being made that will look like the originals.

There will certainly be a market for that as retro stuff sells.
How big a market, I honestly couldn't even hazard a guess.

If the cost is markedly higher than simlar specced machines, this project may well suffer.

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If your nose runs and your feet smell, you're upside down.

@TiredofLife

as in my above post, i agree that case remakes might become a (limited) succes within so called "retro communities". actually no need to supply internals let alone an os, while modding would seem to be the main aspect of such prodct. then again, the only case remake ive actually seen here being under development is c64. amiga cases have much less recognition value. i wonder if it pays to remake them. however we already being proposed completely new prefabricated cases without any aesthetic link to amiga heritage, except amiga name or boing ball engraved. doubling that doesnt sound sensible.

custom amiga keyboards we might appreciate though.

Last edited by wawa on 12-Mar-2011 at 05:09 PM.

@wawa

That's actually not a bad idea, modded cases with no internals.
I would be interested in one of those.
I agree though, limited success is probably a very good way of putting it.

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If your nose runs and your feet smell, you're upside down.

I think you guys might be shocked at how well these guys do.

Like a lot of people, I'm looking for the nostalgia of owning an Amiga (or really any Commodore product). These guys are trying to tap into that and I think it's a damn good idea. IMO, as long as their prices are reasonable, they will do fairly well.

I hate to say it here but I would totally buy a C64 or A500 clone running a cool, retro looking Linux distro. Again, as long as CUSA's prices are right.