Could it be a AmigaONE/PegasosII Killer?

Info at: http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=802

and:

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0412expo2.html

With a processor PPC G4 1,25 GHz
Low-profile design "rack-server-like"
256 MB ram
Combo Drive
Hard Disk 40 or 60 GB
Graphic card capable to output DVI - Analog VGA and Analog TV
Firewire 400
2 USB 2.0
Ehthernet 10/100
iPod Dock
Complete suite of bundle programs to burn DVD minus,

Price: about 800 US$ (571 euro).

Aimed at low-end and SOHO market and planned to be launched worldwide 11 january 2005...

...Could this new Mac, be a AmigaOne and Pegasos II killer?


In the past days I was arguing about this fact with Miky'060 and Dr. Morbius.

Miky'060 said he is not worried about this new Apple Macintosh:

«Persons who choose Pegasos, choose it because THEY CARE what they are buying, and because they prefer it.» He said to me.

Dr. Morbius said:

«Don't worry Raf! People from Linux world buying Peggies, they had choosen it because it has Open Firmware... A main feature of sure importance (for people working with Open Source OSes) which Mac models lack of.»

Now I want to ask to you, readers of MorphZone, about your opinion about this possible competitor.

Ciao,

Raffaele

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2005/1/2 3:00 ]

Bha...io lo vedo più colpo basso per casa MS.
Fino ad ora non ho mai comprato un Mac per motivi economici,pur essendo consapevole della qualità delle macchine Apple,ho sempre ripiegato sui più economici PC.
Perchè mai Apple dovrebbe fronteggiare allo stato attuale il mondo Amiga?non abbiamo giochi,non abbiamo software,non abbiamo un browser degno di tale nome...cioè,sarebbe come sparar sula croce rossa...

Non è un fatto di fronteggiare il mondo Amiga...

Ma di saturare una fascia di mercato considerata appetibile, nella quale gia ci sono AmigaONE e Pegasos...

Pegasos in special modo è particolarmente appetito come server Linux...


Obviously it is not a matter of fact that Apple is ENEMY of Amiga...

Amiga-like platforms are fleas from Apple point of view.

They just want to enter in a segment of the market, they aimed for, in which already insist both Amiga and Pegasos.

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Even less. ThinkSecret reports US$499.

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It is no competitor.

The new Mac is targeted at the "average consumer" market who want a real alternative to Windows. That's only MacOS at the moment. Mainly Windows iPod users who'd be willing to try a Mac if it'd be cheaper.

The Pegasos could still be the nicest multi-PowerPC-OS-machine around for geeks who are using / developing for multiple PowerPC niche-OSes, provided more OSes like QNX really materialize. For people who are willing to put some work into it to get things done or write/compile their software.

With the looming demise of MorphOS (sorry, I just don't believe it will recover from that blow anymore) I see the market for the Pegasos mainly in the areas where Genesi is selling them right now - ODW, SQL servers ... it won't have any significance for consumers. For this kind of application the Pegasos may still be cheap compared to maybe Xserves.

And if I wanted to use Linux, I'd buy an x86 box ... but then again Linux absolutely isn't my cup of tea from my developer point of view.

Apple has needed to do this for a long time now. I think if its true and it in fact happens they will have a great chance to start capturing more of the market. OS X is a fantastic OS and every person I let use my computer falls in love with it. I'd love to see them gain a goos 20% or more share and take off in time.

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No, It's a very serious competitor. It essentially destroys the market for desktop Linux now as other companies will be able to sell the Apple machine with Linux for a much lower price.

The Pegasos is in the embedded development area though and it won't be a competitor there. Also as you mentioned it's sold as a server.

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It's still under active development, the MOS developers just seemed to have forgotten to tell anyone...

Remember MOS existed before Genesi appeared on the scene.

If it's fanless, it could be a competition.

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Not so sure.

There still exists a fundamental difference between
Steve Jobs and Genesi/bPlan.

Steve jobs has a proven track record of not wanting to "share" ...so to speak.

So devs can have a "closed-system-mac" or an "open-system-peg"

reference link:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041229-4488.html

[ Edited by DethKnight on 2005/1/2 5:49 ]

Obviously it is not a matter of fact that Apple is ENEMY of Amiga...

There is no bad blood between the Mac and Amiga communities. And I seriously doubt that Apple has anything Amiga related on its radar scope. Everyone has Microsoft and everything Wintel on their radar scope to eventually pull the rug out from under the behemoth.

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I doubt that there'll be companies who'll do that.

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Yeah, that's the problem. I do believe they still work on it. The problem is how much of a chance their efforts still have. I stopped my development efforts when I felt there was something wrong. Unless they finally tell us how they plan to proceed ... I wouldn't pick them up again, sorry.


And back ontopic ... Think Secret reports iWorks, the AppleWorks (office suite) successor. Supposed to include Keynote and bundled with every Mac (including the headless low-end one we're talking about here).

We were looking for a chance to post something about this. Thanks for bringing it up.

The $499 McMac, the computer Happy Meal of the future!

Could be. We agree with the approach. Tied into an iPod, while leveraging AltiVec and the G4. With the G5 still evolving could be an excellent strategy for Apple. It is an upsell and it might work. In the Apple's fourth quarter, 23 percent of its $2.35 billion in revenue came from iPod sales.

In the meanwhile, you have THIS to think about, which is why we wrote bbrv.blogspot. There is alot to think about here and we still are...

But, we could have a few tricks coming too!

R&B

P.S. iPod + MPEG = ?!?!?!

iPEG! (sorry, no dancing bananas available!)

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OMG! You blog? :D

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Thing is how customizable will the new Mac be? The big advantage of the Peg is it's customizablity.

But sure, pressure on the Peg becomes harder with that cheap Mac. Time for a faster 4447A cpu module and a price cut for a slower G4 or G3. The "old" price scheme for the PegII G3 (299 EUR + tax) was the right way I guess.

If it comes out it will be an iMac model. So that means you get what you get and thats all. About the only thing you should be able to add is more RAM. Its fine for the market they want to attract though. New Mac users and PC users that dont want to spend a lot on a new system to try a new OS in the dark.

«Don't worry Raf! People from Linux world buying Peggies, they had choosen it because it has Open Firmware... A main feature of sure importance (for people working with Open Source OSes) which Mac models lack of.»

Nonsense, obviously this quack of a doc dont know macs.

Whoops...

You are right. I misquoted him.

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Release MorphOS 1.4 to Classic Amiga PPC owners, then release a version of MOS for Mac PPC, finally release MOS for Wintel machines also???



Well at least new Macs could include PPC CPU with the capability of running 2 OSes at same time...

As stated here:

http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/39364.html

[ Edited by Raf_MegaByte on 2005/1/4 16:50 ]

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Advantage for some people but probably not that many. Once you have Firewire and USB 2 you really don't need much in the way of expandability.

The ability to change the CPU is a big advantage though as it means it can be used with parts from different companies, useful for embedded development.

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Yellow dog already do it.


Perhaps saying it'll destroy the Pegasos desktop linux market is a bit overdramatic but PCs were never directly comparable, a new Mac will be and as such rather more difficult to go against.

People who just want a PPC machine to play around with for Linux will be a lot more likely to go for the Mac simply on price grounds.

It's beginning to look like the new Mac will be a complete consumer / SOHO "solution", that is it'll come with all the software you need out of the box including consumer apps and office suite.

I doubt it'll have very good support though or be targetted at server type apps, this is an area where the Peg could be targetted.

Ultimately Genesi need a new machine, Peg II is a year old now. BBRV know whats coming, Cell will turn the PC market upside down and in doing so present big opportunities for thouse who get into the right areas first, but they'll need to be quick because there's a lot of other companies with greater resources who'll jump in.

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Sure, but in the meantime a fast passively cooled 7447A CPU module could gain some interest...

@ Kolla

You're right Kolla, but I did not say exactly what Raffaele reported (we talked about this subject, among many other things, in a phone call). My words, instead, were very similar to the comment posted above by DethKnight.

"If this new Mac will be a closed system (like almost all its predecessors), Linux people would probably prefer the Pegasos2 that, instead, is a 100% open system."

In such a context I mentioned Open Firmware like the basic software component that mediates between (the openness or the closedness of) the hardware and the OS.

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Ummm ... could anybody who bought a PPC machine to use Linux maybe please explain here his motivations?

If I wanted Linux, I'd go x86. The hardware is cheaper and the Linux stuff that's not open source is far more likely to be compiled for x86 than for PPC. So for less money, I get access to the full range of software - why the hell go PPC? Fanless? That's all?

So for less money, I get access to the full range of software - why the hell go PPC? Fanless? That's all?

This is only half of the picture. It's fanless, consumes less power (my electric bill almost doubled with a second PC).
The other main reason (at least for me) for planing to buy a PPC for Linux is that 99% of security exploits is written for X86. With a PPC I'm saved from at least 99% of attacks, which are done by script kiddies, who just download some automated tools for X86 and don't know anything about hacking...
If the new Mac runs Linux (or FreeBSD), it would be a serious competitor, as a Pegasos is too expensive for me at the moment...

hahaha..after the post of "ThinkSecret" apple suit them
http://news.com.com/Apple+sues+over+trade+secrets/2100-1047_3-5513582.htmlhttp://news.com.com/Apple+sues+over+trade+secrets/2100-1047_3-5513582.html

I have thought about this subject for some time, and I think some people have missed a point. IF and only IF this new low cost apple is produced it may drive the cost for G4:s down (or up if demand is greater then supplie). This may make it possible for Genesi to buy their G4 as "extra production".

Then what do I mean with extra production? Well when a compony produces something it is often cheaper to massproduce, this might mean that genesi can say, well when you produce a bounce of G4 to apple produce a couple more for us.