[geeks] Be

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 03:29:11PM -0400, Tim H. wrote:

> I figured after selling off Be for 11M, after Apple had offered him
> hundredsM a few years ago would make JLG crawl in a hole somewhere and
> pout, especially since the sale was less than a year after he tried to
> convince the world that BeOS should own both ends of multimedia
> pipes,(Content creation and embedded set top)  I guess some of these
> guys just plain can't be stopped.  

I thought his plan made sense.  I mean, there were some impressive
products released on the content creation end (final scratch, the
Roland DV7 or whatever, numerous audio tools, etc) and it just made
sense for set tops/embeded multimedia also (like, fast audio and
video, etc).

I think the major problem was that they released to little too late.
For instance, even incomplete limited hardware support OpenGL in a
hardware accelerated window would have kept me from giving up.  But,
BeOS 5 came out and it didn't introduce much new to most people.

If they could have just gotten the darn TCP/IP stack fixed (just rip
it from FreeBSD if need be.  That's what MS did), and released decent
OpenGL (limit it only to Matrox cards if need be, and take the GLU
from SGI), then they would have made it to a place where they could
have cut staff and held for quite some time.  Or so I would have
thought.   But they kept all the new stuff internal and held their
staff until it was too late.
 
> I think he has picked the wrong market or at least delayed to long
> again.  Last time around he tried taking on some combination of
> Apple/SGI/Amiga territory, but didn't really make a dent, this time he
> is gonna take on the Evil Empire on handhelds, and I think he is gonna
> get stomped again.  Too bad, I'd like to see an alternative to Linux or
> WinCE on handhelds, and PalmOS just isn't it.  

I think that there is a lot of room for work in handhelds.  And quite
a bit of the stuff in BeOS would be usefull for some of what is
needed.  Does that mean JLG is the right man for the job?  I don't
know.  After Be I'm worried.  But I think the other Be people have a
clue.  I'm not so sure about the Palm people though.
 
> Oh well, I'll keep my PalmOS Handera cause it works good for reading
> books and carrying personal info, and leave all that cool whizbang
> multimedia junk to people who can afford it.

A iPaq running what ever or some other wizbang multimedia handheld
(anyone see the new CLies?) would be fun to play with, but for
usefullness I'd rather have my IIIxe.  Although the screen on the most
basic B&W CLies is really amazing.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd