> I assume that it's about time to ask these:

> 1. What's probability to have AmigaOne board bundled with compatible tower
> case?
>
> 2. Will there be preorders, if yes - then?
>
> 3. Choise of CPUs available directly from you.
>
> 4. Will the optional hardware (such as sound card) be shipped by you?
> (I guess there are another people who prefer to by all the optional
> hardware from you and not to deal with local PC distributors)



OK. Its time to go over the manufacture and distribution arrangements again.

The AmigaOne -1200/4000 came out of work that we were already undertaking on
the Predator-Plus, but substantially revised to make it fully compliant with
the Zico specification from Amiga. Whilst the Predator-Plus was our own
(Eyetech's) product to sell directly and via the distributors which we
selected, the AmigaOne 1200/4000 is to be 'open availability' - that is
available at the same price and under the same conditions to any bona fide
Amiga dealer worldwide. There will be no territorial 'exclusives' either in
the UK or elsewhere.

How does this work in practice? Well the development and manufacturing sides
of the AmigaOne 1200/4000 are being undertaken by a consortium of companies,
including Eyetech's industrial systems division, Escena and others. There is
open accounting between consortium members and a contractual undertaking as
to how the costs, risks and margins on the manufacture of the boards will be
shared, and on the cost price to dealers. The prime concern of the
development/manufacturing consortium will be to make sure as many boards as
possible are sold in order to recover development costs and generate
economies of scale.

All dealers, whether existing competitors, partners or otherwise, of any of
the manufacturing consortium, will be able to buy the AmigaOne 1200/4000 at
exactly the same price as Eyetech's retail division does. This will ensure
wide availability and price competition amongst the dealers and the best
deal for end users. The only constraint on dealers is that each dealer will
need to buy boards in minimum quantities of units, cash with order, and have
at least one physical, named person able to support end users who buy the
product. Dealer margins at recommended end user prices are sufficient for
the dealers to be able to provide this level of support.

The manufacturing consortium will sell bare boards to dealers, for them to
add their own SDRAM, I/O & graphics cards, cases, storage etc. We will also
make the specification for the CPU slot open , so that other companies can
build cpu modules, in addition to the ones the consortium builds. The pinout
has been agreed (last October) with bPlan so cpu modules manufactured by
them should work in the AmigaOne 1200/4000 and vice versa. We will also be
making the adapter boards which carry, as one example, the 'mac-type' ZIF
cpu/cache modules available to dealers for them to fit there own cpu's. In
fact our philosophy is to build adapter boards which can be used with any
G3/G4 modules which are readily available either new or second user (eg from
mac owners upgrading).

Individual dealers will have the option of what specification and how many
cpu modules to buy from us and from the other cpu module suppliers. We
expect that most dealers will sell both the AmigaOne boards/cpu's and fully
towered, ready to roll systems. They will be able to buy the Eyetech
EZTower-Z4 (or equivalent towers from other manufacturers) if they wish to
sell a system with an AmigaOne and A1200 integrated in the same case
(necessary to run OS4.0) or a system with an AmigaOne 1200 board in an ATX
case (without an A1200) for retargetable applications from OS4.2 on. As far
as Eyetech's retail operations are concerned we will certainly offering both
'board-only' upgrades and custom built ready-to-run systems.

As well as the choice of cpu and memory you will also be able to add
(specified) PCI/AGP graphics, networking, modem (ISDN), firewire, SCSI and
sound cards either buying them direct from your dealer or elsewhere. Some of
these cards will have drivers provided with OS4.x and some will be provided
by third parties. In addition the on-board 2xUSB and 4xUDMA-ATA channels
will have drivers provided as part of OS4.x

As far as preorders are concerned, our retail operations are certainly
taking 'no-obligation, no charge' preorders to help them decide on the level
of initial demand for the AmigaOne 1200, and I imagine other dealers are
doing the same. However we have also stated that final pricing will not be
released (by the manufacturing consortium) until the board goes into final
production so that we can set the best possible price based on optimising
component pricing, exchange rates etc.

Hope this helps/clarifies



Alan

Eyetech