The thing to know about the BeBox is that it's a cost centre. Every single Be fan who purchased a BeBox to "support the cause" drained limited cash and support from Be Inc. The idea is twofold, this demonstrates what to build, if you're making a new workstation you shouldn't care about what works well in Windows (not this) because SMP is the future, and this demonstrates how it's used, with the breakthrough applications that do not exist in 1995 on software like Windows 3.x or (Classic) MacOS.
So if you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals.
What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with.
Ideally for JLG, this product attracts attention from Cupertino. If Be Inc. flops but Apple hire him back as new CEO, that's fine. If they buy Be Inc. and he gets to cash out and prove he was right too that's even better.
> Every single Be fan who purchased a BeBox to "support the cause" drained limited cash and support from Be Inc.
Did they sell the hardware at a loss?
> If you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals.
If the hardware earns a small profit, and the enthusiast does not call the vendor for support, but creates blogs/video/media to generate user/developer/partner demand, that should be net positive for the vendor.
> What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with.
A variation of this text/sentiment should be included on the marketing page for every hardware "dev board", including Qualcomm SDXE dev device from ex-Apple team, that is attempting to compete with Apple Silicon and x86 PCs.
Sure, they're just examples of compelling software. I can't give real examples of software which compelled users to buy into Be's vision in huge number and made it a success, because in fact Be failed.
In practice there's always going to be a certain element of post-hoc justification as to why this or that software really mattered and how it "couldn't" have existed for other platforms.
So if you buy this and it goes in your spare bedroom because it's cool, maybe you run the demo to show a few friends, you've cost Be money and not helped them towards their goals.
What they want is a two man indie startup buys a BeBox and uses it to invent Zoom, or Blender, or at least Portal or something. Something that creates a significant demand from real users for Be's actual product, an operating system, and which is hard to replicate for the existing 1980s-style single CPU operating systems Be wants to compete with.
Ideally for JLG, this product attracts attention from Cupertino. If Be Inc. flops but Apple hire him back as new CEO, that's fine. If they buy Be Inc. and he gets to cash out and prove he was right too that's even better.