From PIOS to Met@box

> just wondering, what happened to company called Pios, when there is no web site. Is pios now know as metabox?

Basically. At the shareholders' meeting on August 19, the shareholders voted to change the name from PIOS Computer, AG to Met@box Infonet, AG. The primary reason for this was beyond our control -- the trademark lawyer PIOS retained in Germany failed to discover that another company had applied for the PIOS trademark, roughly two week before we filed.

> And why so change after so much long time spent on Pios One development.

Again, it's beyond our control.

> Is Pios One computer project cancelled?

No. However, we are not large enough to do everything at once. Since the beginning of the PIOS One project, we've been, in some way or another, either chasing or being chased by the MacOS. PIOS' main income has been PowerMac "clones" (using Motorola and UMAX motherboard, and first others', then our own CPU modules). This market is, soon enough, coming to a permanent end, as there are roughly 25,000 UMAX motherboards left, they're the last ones in the business of making these, the only with a license, and they are not continuing in the Power Mac market. Because of this, and Apple's former decision not to license, we're caught without a large market product. The PIOS One, with MacOS, could have had a broad enough appeal to very likely follow up and even expand on our MacOS business. Without it, we have BeOS and Liunx -- both fine operating systems, but not necessarily large enough markets, today, to carry us on this single product.

Meanwhile, we negotiated exclusive rights to a unique data-over-television broadcast system, working in conjunction with the German telecom group that funded the original research on this. They approached us about building a low-cost player, ironically very similar in concept to the PowerAmiga machine we had envisioned while working for Amiga Technologies.

This is now the Met@box, and it's the product our investors are the most excited about, thus the number one priority. The machine-formerly-known-as-PIOS-One is not cancelled, but won't get additional work until the Met@box work is done, hopefully early this fall (at least on the hardware side). I have been assured by the highest level management that there's still interest in completing the PIOS One. While this additional and unforseen delay is unfortunate for all the fans of the work we're trying to do with the high-end systems, obviously building a new system to our ruin serves no one.

> Will be Pios/Metabox interested in AmigaOS NG?

Quite. The Met@box currently runs Liunx, but something like AmigaOS NG would probably have been a much better choice, had that been an option. We also looked at using the BeOS here, but Be, Inc. clearly doesn't understand the licensing differences between a $500 set-top computer and a $1500 desktop. We couldn't affored BeOS here, and quite frankly, the networking support in Liunx, more critical than you might think for the way it handles its unique networking tricks, is more mature under Liunx anyway.

Most of us are Amiga fans from long ago, still, and we're certainly interested in the directions that AmigaOS NG will take. Given the flexibility of the PIOS One architecture, it's quite possible that we could support any and all CPU/MMC/etc. magic they're planning for the Amiga NG reference platform. This could give us the first system on the market, if we get the details in time. Obviously, it has to stand as a sound business decision.

And as much as I'm sad to delay the One again, I'm also glad to see the company working to stay alive. After years of stupid management decisions at Commodore, I'm certainly more than prepared to make the right decisions, even if they're not the easiest ones for me personally.

--
Dave Haynie | V.P. Technology, PIOS Computer | http://www.metabox.de
Be Dev #2024 | NB851 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One

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