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Amiga

Amiga announces relationship with Corel 65

Posted by Hemos from the build-the-apps-and-they-will-come dept.
Stephen Williams writes "Amiga has announced that it is working closely with Corel, to ensure that the next gen Amiga box has some apps ready for launch when the hardware is released. The press release is here. "
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Amiga announces relationship with Corel More

Amiga announces relationship with Corel

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  • Just as I suspected... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Call me a cynic... but honestly... how can they (Amiga) deny it's not just another UNIX distribution now?

    For Corel apps to run with minimal porting, it's gotta be pretty DAMN CLOSE...

    To heck with Amiga.

    (BTW: First post.)

  • Relationship Announcement (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I Eric Thurman, announce my relationship with Catherine Ewald.

  • Re:This is just vaporware. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Uhm.. You don't follow the news, do you? Corel sold the Netwinder long ago, and got damn much for it (25% of the company that bought it).

    As for Corel Linux/Linux apps/Amiga apps. They're all part of the same strategy. Don't you remember that Amiga will be using the Linux kernel? Nada porting problems any more. And their Linux strategy has been fairly consistent all of the way: make it easier to port to Linux (by helping out with Wine, check out all the patches they've submitted the last few months), and suddenly the work of porting has dropped dramatically. And once they have their app, they are a LONG way towards a simple Linux distribution: Take Mandrake, or RedHat, or Debian, or whatever, add the Corel apps, and do some work on putting together a more cohesive environment, and voila, another product.

    The importance of this is huge: Microsoft pushed WP off the desktop because of they delivered the OS. By promoting Linux, and now Amiga, and helping add momentum to an already rapidly growing movement, they are pulling the carpet out beneath Microsoft, by taking a page from Microsofts own strategy.

  • Jim Collas walks into a bar.
    Bartender: What will it be Mr. Collas?
    Jim: Gin and tonic.
    Bartender: One Gin and..
    Jim: No, I want a Beer.
    Bartender: Okay a Beer.
    Jim: Beer? I wanted Vodka.
    Jim (thinking to himself): How come I never get a drink and people don't respect Amiga?
  • Amiga wants apps for their new platform. Corel has apps, but perhaps doesn't want to deal with porting to QNX (although you would think it would be a relatively easy task). So, Amiga drops QNX and goes with Linux.

    It really sounds more and more like the new Amiga will in actuality be a Linux distribution.

    --

  • Call me a cynic... but honestly... how can they (Amiga) deny it's not just another UNIX distribution now?

    You could say that, but then couldn't you say just about the same thing about Mac OS X? Having a Linux source compatibility layer could give you a lot of apps quickly, not to mention dev tools and the like. Then have good but non-x86 hardware (say the Transmeta chip), good 3-D graphics and audio, no legacy hardware, built-in 56k modem and fast ethernet (simplifying the interface even further), and just USB and Firewire peripherals. Bingo, you have a Linux compatible system with no installation hassles, no hardware worries, and you haven't really invested that much to get it.
  • Okay, but what would make this distinctively Amiga? Why couldn't I go out, get the same pieces of equipment, and build the bloody thing myself?

    How many home-built Macs do you see? Only x86 stuff is easy to buy and build by parts.

    Let's make a few guesses about what it has and then see what that implies. Assume a Transmeta or similar chip, fast but also capable of x86 emulation. Assume ATI Rage 128 with all the All-In-Wonder capabilities, 3-D sound, IDE and USB for standard device plug-in ability, Linux kernel with special Amiga GUI.

    You have a baseline machine that is capable of quite nice 3-D and sound, so every game written for Linux can take advantage of them. All systems are capable of MPEG-2 capture (ATI's stuff does this) and display, so it's easy to do video editing. You can run Linux apps and Windows apps at good speed, so there's plenty of applications. All the dev tools are pretty much free to both the Amiga folks and the users, so becoming a developer is cheap. And you can cross-compile on this same machine, using the x86 emulation.

    You could do most of this on a Mac, but it would be quite expensive and you would still (until OS X) have a fine GUI on top of a lousy kernel (and no Linux apps.) You could do most of this on a PC, but you would have to set it up yourself (do any PCs come with the All-In-Wonder), which novices aren't willing to do.
  • What are they doing that is tied to the platform? Are they planning on using any of the specialized hardware the new Amigas are supposed to have or what?

    Nobody outside of Amiga knows for sure, but as long as everyone else is speculating, I'll throw in my two cents.

    Amiga seems to have pretty ambitious plans for the time frame that they're working in; I seriously doubt that they can get half of what they've announced done by the time they ship. Either that, or their ship date is going to slip badly. I wouldn't be suprised to find the initial release of the Amiga OE to be little more than Linux (probably Debian/Corel) with Workbench hacked on top. I'm sure Amiga loyalists would damn this to hell before they even tried it, but I might like it. :-)

    The other possibility is that they've been planning this for a some time, and already have a significant amount of coding done. This seems less likely.

    In any case, most of the special features and capabilities the Amiga probably wouldn't be utilized by an office suite, at least not initially. OpenGL 3D dancing paperclips? I hope not! :-)

    TedC

  • It's a communist plot -- that's why their ball is red.

    TedC

  • Or is there a major Canadian thing going on here?

    What other big companies are there in Canada that Amiga will team up with next? (QNX, and Corel are known, what else is up there in that frozen wasteland?)

  • The new Amiga will be based on a Netwinder, with an ATI video chip set, with Corel software, using QNX for the OS, with a logo by User Friendly [slashdot.org], in a case shaped like a Maple Leaf.

    It will be on sale in Duty Free shops to American Tourists, and include a free bottle of Canadian Wiskey, but of course, you can import the Netwinder and Wiskey, but not any Crypto Software [slashdot.org].

    Yes, this is a troll. I live in North Dakota, and I am SICK of dealing with your damn quarters sneaking into my change and jamming our Coke machines... :P

  • Perhaps they have aspirations? You hadn't heard about Corel Linux? It'll be developed openly, based on the best distribution currently available (Debian), and made much easier to install.

    Looks fine indeed.

    A pity about Amiga, but once again, if their marketing ineptitude doesn't kill them their community is going to destroy them. That community just never learns. But then neither does Amiga.

    QNX learned their lesson well, though -- that was a BRILLIANTLY timed propaganda piece to force Amiga to reveal just the wrong amount of info at just the wrong time. If QNX had waited, Amiga would have had a complete development environment -- or at least acceptable docs -- ready with the announcement. QNX wouldn't have gotten much publicity, and the Amiga community wouldn't have split.

    -Billy
  • Maybee I'm too old to remember but as I recall there where several WordProcessors available when WordPerfect (from WordPerfect Inc. not Corel) was released. Although WordPerfect was certainly the one that got a lot of attention.
  • What other big companies are there in Canada that Amiga will team up with next? (QNX, and Corel are known, what else is up there in that frozen wasteland?)

    Um, let's see : Softimage
    Discreet Logic
    ATI
    Matrox
    Nortel
    Bombardier (owns learjet)


    Don't forget that the Space shuttle came about in part because the Avro Arrow project was cancelled under pressure from the American Government. Most of the engineers ended up down at NASA.

    Oh, the telephone ? Don't forget where it was invented...

    Sheridan College...

    And best of all, Terrence and Philip !

    Jes Corbeil
  • Sorry, I forgot to mention that Metrowerks (Codewarrior) started life in Montréal, and that Alias|Wavefront and Hotline are both in Toronto.

    Jes
  • Selective memory. I can't stand Red Green. Now kids in the Hall...
  • Frozen wasteland? Check your geography!
    That frozen wasteland is called the Arctic, not Canada (and believe me, it's hot today!)

    And besides, many great innovations and technologies come from Canada (we're just so poor that we have to sell it to the US to make *some* money out of it). Want a proof? Think of the Avro Arrow, one of the most advanced fighter planes of its times, the Space Arm used in the NASA shuttles, the telephone, the Netwinder :), etc...

    And if this was flamebait, I was caught! :)

    And if my reply looks like flamebait, don't get caught!

    Patrix.
  • I thought that the announcement the other week was that the Linux Kernel would be the heart of the new AmigaOS, but the rest of the system would not simply a Linux distribution, but rather Amiga's Operating System libraries, tools, et al.

    Now, I'm not much of a developer, but it would seem to me that most of the work in porting to AmigaOs would be to make WP interact with AmigaOS system libraries, not with the Kernel itself, as such it would not resemble "WP for Linux" anymore.

    There are one of two things going on here:
    1) The PHBs who issue press releases don't understand the technical differences between Kernel and OS.
    2) AmigaOS will be just another Linux distro, with nifty Amiga E-theme.
  • Now is Corel working to create more Linux based apps (PhotoDraw, Paint, blah blah, etc.)? What are they doing that is tied to the Amiga platform? Are they planning on using any of the specialized hardware the new Amigas are supposed to have or what? I mean, it seems like this is something they would have been working on already, but Amiga Inc. is just milking for publicity.

    Now, let me say that I am excited about the new Amiga and hope that it does well, _but_ it seems like there's just been a lot of hype recently (and over the years). I've always had a soft spot for Amigas (since my A1000), and I'd love to see them do well, but do they actually have anything going on here?

    Harlequin
  • Finally the secret-frankenstein-51-world-wide-even-around-
    corners-nano-alien-sweet-cray-red CPU is leaked.
    If it was'nt such an important secret I'd have posted the above sooner. Cheaper, faster, funner!

    The great thing is it's better than TransMeta.
    ...even in caps!

    "It's over; it's MP3!"
    JoeT
  • Great reminder!
    If one really wanted Wordperfect, one could run it with UAE on anything.
    I think that the OfficeSuite or CorelDraw is gonna make WP5.1 look kinda old.
    Even to oldtimers...

    "Guess the CPU yet? It's in there!"

    JoeT
  • Just another well timed tidbit of information to keep up the hype in the hearts and minds of Amiga enthusiasts. But I think it does shed some light into the timing of the though process that lead Amiga to dump QNX for Linux. There's no way something like this will have just come up in the last few days. Deals like this one with Corel and who knows how many others must have been instrumental in convincing Amiga to jump ship from QNX.

    Of course, it could also be a bone thrown to the Amiga community after QNX and phase5 announced their own development partnership which sounds like a great big "fuck you" to Amiga Inc.. There are interesting times ahead.

    Now, did anyone else notice how amiga.com makes a big deal of the whole Corel "arrangement," yet Corel's site doesn't say squat? Amusing.

  • It's hardly a stretch of resources, or a "spreading too thin" to add Amiga support to their lineup. With Amiga using a Linux Kernel, all they'd have to do is dump their Linux product over to the boys at Amiga and let them do a simple port. Problem solved.
  • Who do you think you are, Terry c0cksey?
  • Damn. QNX. Corel. ATI. What's next?

    Does dangerous things to my already exaggerated patriotic streak.

    (... and yes, it was damned hot today ... )

  • That's odd.

    My last posting was in response to something utterly ridiculous, and now that post is gone... and mine appears in the main "root" thread... completely without any context.

    I'm assuming it's because the stupid commentary I was replying to was moderated below my threshold, but it looks damned strange.

  • Bah.

    Back on those days, WordPerfect was WordPerfect, and Corel was Corel. Not one and the same.

    Besides, I remember when WP came out for the Amiga. Compared to programs like excellence! that were out at the time, it was laughable.

  • Canada is corrupting our children, luring them into it's propeitary hardware traps with pretty graphics, and then teaching them dirty words!!

    I mean, look at this "amiga" thing! it isn't even a real OS! it's just a linux window manager and a bunch of fart jokes!!

    If it's war they want, it's war they'll get!!

    -mcc
    if you don't get it, don't worry about it.

  • You do not understand. If you think the Amiga is outdated, that's fine, because most of the recent announcements have nothing to do with the Amiga that you remember.

    If you think you have already found the Ultimate Perfect OS that will last for the next 1000 years, then I understand why all news will bore you (though I wonder why you bother to read Slashdot at all). On the other hand, if you think there still may be new frontiers, and if you're interested in that sort of thing, then it is foolish to ignore the Amiga-related stuff. The two sides of the Amiga schism that is happening right now, are both composed of people that are fed up with the status quo, and who think that all of today's OSes suck (including the Amiga!). Are you sure you don't want to watch?

  • You have forgotten Nortel Networks (formerly Bell Northern Research, Nothern Telecom and just Nortel). They are huge up here AND now down there, since they bought out Bay Networks. So add one of the worlds biggest and best networking and telecomunications companies to the conspiracy and the world may have a highly networked, graphically excellent (ATI), highly supported free (as in speech) Linux based OS/hardware platform.

    Yes, soon you will be ours! And then we'll give you socialized medicare whether you want it or not!

    All part of the master plan, eh?

    (It started with Molsons and ends...?)

    HaHaHaHaHaHa!!!! (Manical Laughter, eh)

    "Sait porte l'epee..."

  • Hey man, if I had to sit an look at Mrs. Cowpland all day (and night), I'd probably mumble nothing but gibberish too. If you have'nt seen her, you should. Go to the Ottawa Citizen and do a serch on Cowpland...I will guarrantee lots of pictures of the lovely Mrs. in slinky, barely existant clothes.

    If I were married to her, I wouldn't care about much else.
  • So by next week Deron at SoftLogik should be announcing that the beta version of PageStream 5 for Linux is almost ready and that for just $50 you can get a copy. Of course this time the full version really will be released in just 2 months and this time it will really have all the promised features.

    OK, that's very obscure, I know.

    Really, I would love to see a port of PageStream to Linux, but I don't want to wait 3 years for it to be finished again.
  • Okay, but what would make this distinctively Amiga? Why couldn't I go out, get the same pieces of equipment, and build the bloody thing myself?

    None of this makes sense to me. I don't see how they're going to stay 'Amiga' with off-the-shelf software and hardware.

    Unless they get an exclusive deal with Transmeta, or whoever's making the chips.
  • Great. Without the Debian distro the Amiga ball would wear that red hat. which doesn't look good.

  • But this corel-amiga alliance is older than it looks. The very first 3rd party Word Processor for the Amiga was WordPerfect.


    --
  • ...they've made a deal with ATI to supply video stuff, another big Canadian player.

  • Any thing is better than star office.
    Let me sum up star office.

    Windows on top of linux.
    Who ever wants to use staroffice needs write
    privalages to the staroffice directory.
  • It really sounds more and more like the new Amiga will in actuality be a Linux distribution.

    You're forgetting their supposedly very exciting non-Intel CPU.

  • I know Corel has done a lot of "platform agnostic" work getting their apps to run on everything. Perhaps they have aspirations of a Corel OS based on the Amiga OS to give their apps a centerpiece and elevate themselves to true MS competitors, even if they aren't. Seems like everyone but MS is going to a *NIX base nowadays. Wonder why :P
  • Now, did anyone else notice how amiga.com makes a big deal of the whole Corel "arrangement," yet Corel's site doesn't say squat? Amusing.

    CEO of Corel was on CBCNewsworld couple of days ago saying nice things about Linux. He[copland] did not mention Amiga at all. They[corel] may still think Amiga=Linux.
    For Inside Info on Corel Read FRANK. [/:-)
  • QNX are now dealing with Phase 5 and the Power up project to produce a new system that is compatable with the CASSIC amiga but probably not the NEW unless IBM make one heal off a PPC chip that can cope with emulating the new chips that Amiga intend on using.

    As for the Canadian theme you`ve all got too much of an atlantic twang for me, but I don`t care as long as it gets my amiga back !!!!!!

    If you don`t like the Canadian thing then dont buy one and that goes for anyone else who is whining out there (sorry but I've taken as much as I can stand and this British worm is for turnning!!)

    Anyway back to reality .... I'm sure it`ll b a nice ride, heck it can't getr any worse!!! So it you've got the guts join the Amiga ride.. otherwise you can be a girly woose and go on the M$ kiddy (read safe) one instead

    ;)

    Back to the future with AMIGA!!!!
  • Funny how Corel is trying to outbound products, and majorly interact in the development of all those "Alienated" OS'es in the land of the beast.The flirting they had (and they still do have with linux is obvious!) and that they're opening the doors for the Amiga market sure as hell shows one thing... Corel is out get appz market on utcasted OS's no matter what ground!
    there is a Deja-Vu in the air... do i smell... *cough* office.
    u know what they say... can't win? Move to another terrain... a more slashed and friendly... terrain ;)

    ===========
    how many downloads does Word Perfect have For linux... ? thats right!(well thats according to download.com... can't say for sure).

    anyway just my individual pt. of view... my have the right to agree otherwise...
  • So i see the bashing has already begun of Corel
    and Amiga and we havent seen one piece of hardware
    or software from them both. Why dont you give it
    a chance before knocking a company like Amiga
    who is at last finally sticking to its promises
    for a change?

    For all those concerned of why Amiga didnt choose
    Linux, they considered Linux way too proprietary
    for their needs, and QNX was the obvious choice for
    them. Sadly, im one of those who would have like
    to have seen Linux on it too, but hey, its just
    a pipe dream.

    So stop being the bully..and give these two
    a chance....maybe something GOOD will come out
    of it and Corel will dump Microsoft (a snowballs
    chance in hell..but hey, you can dream, right??)

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