Tematic, Castle's embedded development team, have boasted of new premises and staff in an announcement issued earlier today. From what we can gather, Tematic have moved about 400 metres down the road from their previous location, in Cambridge, to Signet Court. They've also confirmed taking on new coders after appealing for software engineers.It's believed that Castle have been working with Pace to deploy RISC OS powered set top boxes, appearing at least one major trade show to demonstrate their kit. Castle's Peter Wild assured us that they've been working on "significant improvements to RISC OS", although Castle were too shy to specifically list any further details. Of course, we'll note this is not the first time Wild has said some pretty, um, wild things on the subject of RISC OS development.
He added today, "Our deployment of IP Set Top Box solutions to key clients over the last few months has been successfully executed on time, and are now shipping in significant volumes giving us a very bright future."
This brings us along to Castle's other news this week of yet another limited special offer on the Iyonix. Castle have slashed 350 quid off the price of their XScale powered computer, bringing the price of the basic Iyonix unit (128MB of RAM, 40GB hard disc and plain CD drive) to under 900 quid. The offer expires on May 5th, just weeks before the Wakefield show.
We've speculated on the various reasons why Castle can afford now to cut their prices so dramatically: As hinted by Peter Wild today, Castle could be shipping hardware at such a volume that they can now haggle lower component prices. They could also have new hardware kit planned and are attempting to clear existing stock. They could be hoping to get punters' cash before the May event in Wakefield, in an attempt to preempt any rival hardware launches scheduled for the show. They could also have simply earned enough money now from the Iyonix, released in late 2002, to pay off its development costs.
Hopefully, all should be revealed by May.
Links
Iyonix website