Tao have been around since 1992. Tao have two great products that will be the strengths of the new Amiga. Intent JTE is the best Java virtual machine in the world. When Scott McNeilly of Sun proudly held up a mobile phone on which a Pole Position clone could run on Java at the JavaOne show, he failed to mention that it wasn't Sun who had written the engine. It was Tao.
Intent is certainly quick enough to consider programming full applications in it.
The most important part of Ami however is Elate. Elate is a Real Time OS designed mostly for embedded applications. Elate has been designed with portability in mind. The OS then converts the VP code into something understood by the hardware Elate is running on. This might have reminded you of Transmeta's Crusoe chip, which takes x86 code and converts it into code understood by the chip itself.