Drobe Launchpad | The Press sucks says MicroDigital

The Press sucks says MicroDigital

Published on 23rd Jun 2003, 18:09:32, source is drobe.co.uk
By Chris Williams

We're in it for the money, apparently

Analysis A lot of eyes were on the European Expo2003 show last Saturday, all hoping for some kind of development news or hints at things to come. Archive editor Paul Beverely was present during the first half of the MicroDigital show presentation, which can only be best described as The Show Theatre Presentation That Went Wrong.

"There's not much to say because Omega is 'basically finished'. They are still working on networking and SCSI, but 'other issues are pretty much squared up'", Paul told us earlier today in a email, reporting on what was said by MicroDigital to the present RISC OS public.

Paul reports that MicroDigital did indeed start shipping Omegas the week after Wakefield as they sort of promised, but only to a select few customers who were "technically aware of what it is they are dealing with". MicroDigital have been receiving end user feedback from these lucky Omega owners. To prove that they are 'shipping' systems, MicroDigital Europe's Frank Kraaij and MicroDigital's Managing Director Dave Atkins handed out Omega and Alpha computers to users who had their names read out.

On the subject of the Alpha portable, MicroDigital launched at the show the 'Alpha Professional Notebook', which has an improved specification and the expected newly weds Virtual RiscPC and RISC OS 4. MicroDigital claimed that "the vast majority of [Alpha] sales is to people who used to use RISC OS".

MicroDigital also faced some critical questioning from the floor.

"In reply to questions about whether XScale would actually work with Omega, David Atkins said that XScale is absolutely central to the whole design of Omega and so they wouldn't have poured huge amounts of money into the project if they hadn't known for certain that XScale would work", Paul continued in his email. MicroDigital then dismissed fears on the technical practicalities of employing an XScale processor in the Omega design.

The accusations
Here's where we woke up and took notice.

Paul reported that MicroDigital claimed that the Press are not technically competent enough to write about MicroDigital. At Drobe, if we can't explain something technical, we've found a system called 'email' and another called the 'telephone', both of which put us in contact with experts who can explain. And by the way, where's the white paper on the ARMTwister technology?
MicroDigital made more comments about the Press including the claim that the Press "are only doing it to line their pockets".
MicroDigital's official policy is that they won't communicate with the Press at all. Seeing as the various RISC OS magazines and websites act as a lifeline between end users and companies, we're just plain confused now by MicroDigital's actions.
Finally, MicroDigital's Dave Atkins remarked, "I'd be able to say more if the Press were not present". At which point Paul offered to leave and did so although we've learnt that other members of the Press remained.

Whenever we, or anyone else in the RISC OS Press, strongly accuses a third party of wrong doing, we triple check everything to ensure our claims are accurate and fair. We all know the price of publishing untrue allegations and depending on the seriousness of the claims, it can end in the loss of readers' trust and litigation.

So we're keen to see MicroDigital's facts behind their accusations. We're mostly concerned about the full time employed RISC OS Press, namely the magazines, who work hard to keep all informed whilst maintaining admirable balance and fairness. These people are the ones MicroDigital are attacking. We are the ones being ignored. You are the ones being left in the dark.

Links
MicroDigital. Give them a call, then email us.
Archive Magazine
Archive Magazine compares Iyonix and Omega

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