ZETA is an effort to bring BeOS up to date, adding support for newer hardware, and features that had been introduced in other operating systems in the years since Be Incorporated ceased development in 2001. Among the new features are USB 2.0 support, VoIP support, SATA support a new media player, as well as enhanced localization of system components. Unlike Haiku and other efforts to recreate some or all of BeOS's functionality from scratch, ZETA is based on the official BeOS software.
It has contributed to an increase in activity in the BeOS commercial software market, with a number of new products for both ZETA and the earlier BeOS being released, including an AutoCAD work-alike called AtomoCAD.
However, some critics point to a list of goals for the first release that do not appear to have been met (including Java 1.4.2 and ODBC support). Other reviewers point to bugs that still exist from BeOS, and question whether yellowTAB has the complete access to the source code they would need to make significant updates.
The system has also come under heavy criticism from BeOS developers for undocumented changes in the system messaging system. These changes can break compilation of code, and in some cases (most notably Mozilla), break the actual application if any code optimisations are applied, resulting in much slower builds [link].
Additional controversy has come from their bundling of Gobe Productive in a licensing deal which Gobe had disputed.
Although in this product's inception it was not heavily promoted or available outside of Germany (where it has gained some traction), and Japan, it is now available in the North American market at [ZETA Canada]. It is still sold through infomercials and on RTL Shop in Germany, and has a number of how-to books and a regular user magazine available (all in German). Sales figures are unstated, but RTL is said to sell approximately 1,000 copies a week.
