>> All, who can tell us something about ... the GEOS operating system
Frank ... I first used GEOS a very long time ago ... let's see, must have been in the mid 80's. It was at that time trying to compete directly against Windows 1.0 and the GEM desktop from (?) Digital Research ... it's been awhile but I still probably have some floppies around here somewhere. ;-)
I liked it a lot.
I had it on a lightweight PC ... an 8086 or a 286, I forget, and it provided a very useable WYSIWYG editing experience very comparable to what Windows had at the time. I used it preferentially over Windows for some kinds of writing because of it's relative speed and nice look.
As you can see from the screen shots, GEOS has a nice looking desktop ... simple and clean. If one can extrapolate from the past, it's internals are efficient if somewhat limited. It's monolithic structure allowed it to have a very crisp and responsive feel quite unlike general multi-processing, multi-threaded OSes. The app design was clean and well thought-out, especially so for the time.
I take this to mean that GEOS can provide a acceptable and pleasant first-user experience ... far less intimidating than Windows.
I would have a long list of questions about it's "post out-of-box" quality:
- compatibility with popular file formats (doc, xls, jpg, gif), especially those of Microsoft applications. Notice that the web desktops are immediately supporting Microsoft Office style document formats ... they recognize they can't exist in isolation from the MSOffice world.
- programming model: GEOS back in the 80's was a closed model. You couldn't develop new apps for it. This is a major reason why it died out ... in those days, a developer who had a cool GUI app idea could target Windows, GEM, or GEOS ... Windows was far and away the most approachable platform.
- quality of apps: I would have to assume that whatever I got in a GEOS box today was all that I would ever get ... there being no market in add-on software. So I would have to be really convinced it would serve my needs. This is progressively less possible as users become more sophisticated.
Competition:
Unless there are some really sharp technical guys behind GEOS, it doesn't stand a chance of competing with new desktop platforms. These platforms will be at the center of many future software changes, and unless GEOS is backed by a very agile technical team and some sharp marketing, it cannot stand in the face of Linux, Java, and web desktops.
Competitive scenario:
User walks into Kmart. Sees 4 PCs lined up.
- Compaq Presario 999 with Microsoft Office $999.
- eMachines i700 with free NuoMedia Web Desktop $599.
- Packard-Bell Celeron with Linux $399.
- Global PC with GEOS $299
The point is that the OS and desktop are free now or are rapidly becoming so, except for Microsoft.
This enables furious competition in low-end machines, as the COST of the machine is driven solely by the price of commodity components and the PRICE follows lines of marketing leverage. Wheelers and dealers will have a field day.
Things I'd want to see:
- aggressive open-platform initiative on the web
- strong technical team behind GEOS OS
- future-looking GEOS design to compete with Linux, Java
- lots of incentives to pull developers
- ISP providers tie-in, free web service (others will have it)
- some important content tie-ins: e.g. free New York Times
As you can see from
geoworks.com
GEOS developer pull is much weaker than the competition.
Absent this sort of thing, GEOS will again subside, as it did back in it's first incarnation, and return to Amiga status.
The company's statement about it's e-commerce initiative appears to me remarkably naive and blindly optimistic.
myturn.com
The shift to e-commerce offerings of the company's products will allow it to compete with higher end products offered online by IBM (NYSE:IBM), DELL (NASDAQ:DELL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HWP), Compaq Computers (NYSE:CPQ), Apple Computer (NASDAQ:AAPL), as well as a host of resellers including EBAY (NASDAQ:EBAY), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Outpost.com (NASDAQ:COOL) and others.
They are simply too late with too little as far as the web goes. Any other Taiwanese entrepreneur who can strike a deal with Yahoo could eat their lunch in a minute. And if Dell decided to spinoff a micro-DELL, combining their infrastructure with low-end margins to create future Dell customers ... well. A prospective investor might also want to consider why IBM, etc are fleeing the low-end retail market.
Might be something to trade on news ... but it doesn't look like a competitive investment vision in this market. |
