The BeOSJournal spoke with Xentronix's Frans van Nispen, one of the last commercial developers left for the BeOS.

Now that Xentronix is once again developing for the BeOS what is the main focal point for your products? i.e. Sample Studio Pro, Refraction, Other?
1. Refraction
2. Quadrix
3. Other game titles
4. We'll see

Our first goal is to make Refraction a hell of a program. We still hope Zeta, OpenBeOS and B.E.OS work out to have enough potential market.

Secondly, we want to finish our first game for PocketPC, as it is nearly done (only a title screen and menu need to be done, the game is finished).

SampleStudio was sold to the community. We intend to keep it there and are working on setting up our own CVS server and developer resources to aid any developers in accomplishing this.

So the only active role in SampleStudio's development Xentronix is going to play is hosting CVS & text resources? As an aside what does Xentronix have to say to those who wanted Xentronix to continue with SampleStuido? The results from your Poll on the issue is an extremely strong indication the community would much rather have you on the job.
As we sold the sources to the community, and time is spare for us, we need to set priorities.

I would like to finish SampleStudio, but there must be some revenue in it for us. That might be a problem for lot's of people as we did sell the sources.

The decision to place Quadrix 2nd is because it is nearly done (a day, maybe two of work) and it is targeted at the incredible popular PowerPC platform. This way we hope to create some revenue to stay in active BeOS development.

Finishing Refraction is very high priority for us !

Do You think the drops in development & other issues that have plagued Xentronix development in the past will hinder people from purchasing the final products fearing lack of support & attention to possible outstanding issues?
I completely understand this concern, though much has changed in this for me.

About half a year ago, I was working on Refraction, SampleStudio, designing VirtualStudio, designing a full featured Office Suite for Zeta, maintained the libroot interface and kernel designs for Sequel (X-OS), worked on our web-portal and customer web pages AND I had a full time 12 hour-a-day job.

As I dropped a lot of that and now only focus on the things that are possible to manage by one person, and Joyce now does the business relations and lots of the public relations I still have time left to relax.

Xentronix had originally planned on timing the release of Refraction with YellowTab's Zeta. Is this still in the works or has the pause in development put the final code revisions too far back to co-ordinate a product launch?
Initially, we did plan to release Refraction much earlier. The time lines were set to bring a release candidate in May/June, but under the circumstance this has indeed changed.

As we do not know when to expect the final version of Zeta, this is hard to schedule. Our goal is to release a new version for the licensed users twice a month, and the final must be there before the end of this year.

I would like to state that it will be in two months, but I do not know what obstacles come on my way, as I did not write all the code myself.

Does Xentronix have a time line for the product releases laid out?
Not really. As soon as possible is all I can say right now.

What platforms are Xentronix products being aimed at as of now? - & how much of a dialog has gone on between Xentronix the main "Clone" project leads to ensure you have what you need to bring a good product to those platforms?
Xentronix currently focuses on Zeta/BeOS for Refraction. OpenBeOS will be supported by the time it is mature enough, as goes for BlueEyed OS.

Our games are targeted on PocketPC and Windows for now. If enough people buy a license with a BeOS port in mind, we will port our PocketPC game engine to BeOS and all future games will be available for this platform too (triple license for all platforms).

Are the Beta Testers still going to receive & test Refraction up until the final commercial revision or has the early bird license close that & looking to have those who purchase the product beta test the final builds?
We did indeed close the current beta testers program. We had a lot of positive help from our testers and are very grateful to them.

Though we very much got the impression from some people they only were in the beta program to gain access to the latest beta for free, and therefore decided to set the same conditions for everyone. At the same time this allows us to test in a larger group of people and get an indication of the viability of the actual BeOS market.

Well thank you for your time Frans.
Frans: You're welcome.

Wanna go for pizza?
Hell ya!