Tao's Elate is available as a standalone product, or hosted on a variety of other OSs such as Linux or the spread of Windows systems. Elate gets around the problem of binary compatibility between different CPU versions of the OS by providing it's own 'virtual processor', which applications are compiled to - you can thus make a single binary and run it on StrongARM, PowerPC, MIPS, x86 or whatever else is running the Elate system. It's similar to the Java Virtual Machine, except the speed issue of the JVM (particularly on low-end systems) is circumvented by the conversion of native code as required. In addition, Elate supports the use of heterogenous multiprocessing, the ability to use multiple processors of different architectures. Finally, Elate provides comprehensive Java support fitting into 2MB of storage - a boon for both desktop machines, and devices such as network computers, mobile phones, MP3 players, or palmtops.
Combined with Phoenix, the future of the Amiga is shaping up to be a formidable force for redefining the way people use their computers. There's a change going on, and who better than us to be the trend- setters, just like the Amiga A1000 set trends back in 1985? Amiga's package, with the Elate core, and Phoenix's package, with the Neutrino core, offer complementary visions... neatly taking the Amiga we know and adore, taking the creativity and fun, and pushing the platform a great leap forwards. It's a dynamic relationship, a creative relationship, similar in many ways to that between the free Linux and BSDs, supporting each other's efforts, embracing the differences, daring each other that little step further each time. I don't know about you, but I go tingly just thinking about it... but maybe that's just me.
Aren't all these projects splitting the development community, confusing users, wasting time when they could be working together? Developers have the option to support any (but hopefully all) of the options available, if you're a user and you want your favourite application supported on these platform, let the developer know - with the selection of possible systems, and portable coding, future development could very well give Amiga developers the chance to aim towards a much broader market.
It's true to say that publicly available development resources aren't available for anything except AmigaOS (and by extension AROS) at the moment, but in a way this gives a good opportunity for
