OK, so, after I thought about it for a while, and read the other comments, here are my 2 eurocents...

First of all, I agree with those who pointed out the fact that 1000$ for a development system with support ought to be next to nothing to most businnesses. OTOH, Neko spoke about getting some recognition from thousands of developers on a weekly basis (in the most optimistic case). So I think he was speaking about "small" developers that might get interested in MOS. BBRV, instead, were speaking about major partners, about whom we don't know anything yet. I'd bet that any major partner has the possibility to buy a Pegasos, and I think that Genesi would even offer them free boards, if there is some concrete interest...

Anyway, if there is a "strategic" need to have a MorphOS demo available on PearPC, so be it. PearPC is rapidly evolving, and while it might not be half as good as running MOS on native HW, it has already reached an usable state. I saw that one of the most reported critics was that MOS isn't really ready for prime time. I think this is an overstatement: MorphOS definitely lacks a good web browser, and in my opinion, also a good packaging (i.e. while a native TCP/IP is not integrated, some form of emulated one - even a demoversion would do - should be there, as well as some of the freeware "essentials"), and some features are still not implemented, but it already is a good OS. I know several people using it as their first (and in some cases, only) system. Of course, if you were going to show it to the "others", you would need most of the 1.5 features (like the updated Ambient, since the default handling of different filetypes is a "must have" for everyone out there). But then I'm pretty sure you would have one of the leading "alternative" OS. And then, what would I show? Well, I would show what it can do, and basically it can do most things an OS needs to do: Internet programs (aside the well known browser problem, MOS has some small gems, like AmIRC, YAM, AmiTradeCenter, ...), Multimedia support (how many filetypes are not recognized by mPlayer or Frogger? and with the aid of plugins like Euphoria, doesn't AmigaAMP or ANR look very good - well with some skins ANR looks very good by himself?), the high degree of configurability, USB support (hot plug of an USB joypad while using your favourite emulator), and all the rest (applications, games, demos). If things are not running at full speed, it's not a problem, I think the point is to show that MOS is already at a good point. And the Amiga compatibility as well, because MOS has an advantage against most new OSes, and it's that the MOS user can already access to hundreds of SW titles, something none of the other alternative projects had since the beginning (and it's what hampered them, in the first place). Of course MOS is not at a point in which it can be compared with Windows or MacOSX or Linux, in terms of third party support. But then, whom else can?

Honestly, though, I don't have great expectations from all of this. But there is definitely the need to get the word out. As I had the possibility to attend at a MOS showing to people outside "our" community, I can tell that the general consensus about it is that it is already very good. Sometimes people can't believe at the speed some operations can be performed with a simple and "slow" 600MHz (like handling PDFs). After all we would not be here if we wouldn't believe MOS is a good system... far from perfect, agreed, but very nice indeed. Although we're all waiting for the 1.5 to be released before hell freezes over!

Kind regards,
Andrea