Meeting With Netpliance 255
Kalin R. Harvey writes: "Last week I wrote an article
which dealt with the i-opener net appliance from Netpliance
that everyone was so excited
about hacking last month. The response from the community
has been great, a lot of people really liked it. So did Netpliance it seems. I was recently contacted by their CTO, Marc
Willebeek-LeMair, and asked to meet with the company at their headquarters
"to brainstorm about the various issues" raised in the article. He described
my article as "intriguing", and I found the message to be very positive
overall; it means they have been listening. It means there is a good
chance that they want to do the right thing.
We haven't set a firm date yet, but are hammering out the details now.
What I want is to get from the /. community and the i-opener-hacker community
is feedback. Put aside the bad blood that has been brewing between the open source community and the company since they decided to thwart the hack. Look honestly at the situation and consider the issues involved.
What would you say to the decision-makers at Netpliance if
you had the chance?"
i-opener (Score:1)
Its all perectly simple (Score:1)
It seems curious that after a detailed investigation into the community you seem to have been totally unable to understand some of the simplest terminology. However, to help you get startted, here's a quick rundown of some of the more common ones here:
pr0n - Slang term for PowerOn/Off, corrupted to also apply to on/offline. Where can I download some pr0n means where can I get some offline downloaders
Flame - An insightful discussion or idea
FlameBait - A comment that evolves into a Flame
Re:What would I say? (Score:1)
Well, let's face it, most people will not be "hacking" their i-opener in the true sense of the word, they'll just be following step-by-step instructions on how to put a hard drive into it that somebody else figured out. If someone does this and thinks all of a sudden they're a some great hacker, they're kidding themselves. I mean, if you just want to solder something, great, but as long as the first thing anyone is going to do is install a hard drive, you might as well have it installed already and stop kidding yourself!
Re:My perspective on this (Score:1)
But they need ethernet!!!! (Score:1)
Re:Change your business model. Now. (Score:2)
Isn't IPC (name in the BIOS) AST's Parent company? You know netpliance probably has to be sure that the suppliers don't undercut them.
Also, I bet that in business dealings, Technical Solutions Corp (TSC... the name in the comments of the bash scripts) is going to be very hostile twoards open source, as they loose a client to the free software community.
Just remember that as you begin to tell them what to do.. there are some forces that we are up against.
What price would them them earn a profit? (Score:2)
realistically, how many of you would really buy one of these at a price allowing them to make a profit?
I wouldn't spend $600 for a small screen, anemic processor, puny RAM. On the other hand, I might spend $400 for a portable LCD with a peppy little processor and adequate RAM for the things it would be used for;)
Prolly not more than that given what even $500 will get these days, either new (cheapie brands grasping for low-end straws) or used (somebody's formerly state-of-the-normal system from 3 yrs ago, now with "only" 64 MB of RAM and 4GB hard drive).
But *under* 400 (even 399) and w/o required ISP? Well, they didn't sell fast at 399, but they may just have been ahead of their time. Home networking is more known / advanced / accepted / buzzing, the i-opener is known as a cool product to play with
Please sell me a modifiable unit for $400 (Score:2)
Netpliance has an opportunity here to beat the rest of the market by months. No one else that I'm aware of is ready to sell anything like this until Christmas 2000. If they would just figure out how to make a little money by selling us modifiable units, everyone would be happy and Netpliance would seal their market position.
Re:What is a "troll"? (Score:2)
I'm not sure your post *was* a troll... but 'I am in the middle of a detailed investigation into the "freeware" phenomenon that Linus Torvaldes started with his Linux operating system' belies a fair amount of ignorance... -- you'll need a little more insight into the history of Freeware pre-Linux before showing anyone your "detailed report".
I shouldn't accept the average
Remember also that the community is not homogenous: some of the "socialist zealots" you speak of will in fact be proud to be anti-commercial, and will have jobs which reflect this. Others may be extremely commercially minded, and will be motivated by the benefits they see Commerce can gain from Open Source methodologies.
By the way -- do you see how you have cost me? By asking a question and posting anonymously you've forced me to reply with an off-topic posting. If I get moderated down and lose karma, it's your fault...
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Re:Let's be honest (Score:2)
For $700, you can already get a nice PC with a decent monitor. Sure, it won't look quite as slick, but it'll be a lot more powerful.
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Re:It's not just the price, it's the cool form fac (Score:2)
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Re:It's not just the price, it's the cool form fac (Score:2)
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Suggestions for Netpliance (Score:2)
Re:My Wishlist... (Score:2)
Adding more features is the wrong approach (Score:2)
Let's think about why the IO's became so successful. It was the price! For me, and I'm sure for many other people, we saw the original story on
Adding a bunch of specialized features can only serve to increase the price and thus make it less popular. For every potential user that needs Ethernet, there are ten people who don't and for whom this feature would be a dead weight waste of money. This holds true for most of the proposed changes on the board. Integrate GPS would be great, for the four people in the world who would use it. The changes may be good for me, but they won't for a lot of people.
I submit that very little should change from the original IO, and anything that does should at least follow these two guidelines:
1. Whatever peripheral is added, make it based on well documented standards.
2. Don't alter the form factor of the case. The fact that the IO was cute was a big selling point for a lot of people, no matter how lame that sounds.
Thus, within the guidelines, I would suggest adding a standard PC Card slot - and that's it- which is of course well supported and an open standard, small (so it doesn't mess with the size/weight), and, needless to say, extremely versatile. Possibly even two (or more) PC cards could be added; one for a hard drive and one for miscellaneous. The IO is certainly thick enough to accomodate a few.
PC Card slots are cheap ($60 for a PC version) and ubiquitous, and could be made to suit everyone's fancy. I think that any proposed addition to the IO should be looked at in this light, and nixed if it doesn't work.
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Open the possibilities! (Score:2)
[nothing new here, really?]
1. Build a light secondary image (say, separate iopener.net) for the hackers and accept them as clients as well. Either sell a secondary set - open with specs for extending [some of] both software and software - with a higher price, or other kind of bundled goodies that fit the needs of this client group. Collect and publish the hacks and use what you want for your future products.
2. sell them here in Finland, too
Re:But they need ethernet!!!! (Score:2)
Re:Set up a wireless NC edition (Score:2)
Even so, those uses are significantly different from what the I-Opener seems suited for as it exists today. For ideas that NetPliance could market the (modifiable) I-Opener for right now, in spite of the less-than-rugged casing, take a look at this list [slashdot.org] of ideas.
Re:Set up a wireless NC edition (Score:2)
The other issue is that the I-Opener is nowhere near to being rugged enough for most of what you suggest. Being able to withstand the abuse of bored little kids on field trips or hyper yuppies spilling double-decaf-soy-mocha-lattes is fiendishly expensive.
There are, however, a lot of applications that it could be used for, as-is except for the addition of an ethernet card and hard drive. (Which I listed in another post.)
Re:$50 ethernet card (Score:2)
Sure, I just bought one for $13 in a retail box at ChumpUSA. I'd really prefer to be able to just order an I-Opener with the ethernet card instead of the modem.
But that's not the point here. I would be willing to pay more for an ethernet card to make it worth NetPliance's while to develop it.
You're welcome to wait, however, until they've recouped their costs and drop the price.
Better customer service, hardware-only price (Score:2)
Customer Service: I understand that Netpliance "got their model beat" by this hack, but I still feel a good deal of animosity against the company for the way that they handled the entire situation. So, specifically, I'd suggest that they react in a careful, planned, methodical fashion to future issues -- rather than the panicked, haphazard, harsh way that they did. Also, I'd definitely invest in improving customer service in general -- long waits on the phone, non-response to email, customer service computers crashing, etc., don't endear geeks like me to a company, so how will Grandma deal with problems? If Netpliance wants to be the Amazon of internet access, they'd better get Amazon-level service.
Hardware costs: Okay, so maybe it's worth more than $99. But you'll never sell it to grandma for $400 (at least not if they've got grandchildren like me who'll advise them to buy a real computer). I'd agree with another poster who suggested a multi-tier structure for purchasing: free for 3-year contract, $50 or $100 for 2-year, $200 for 1-year, $350-$400 for no contract. Honestly, if Netpliance had told me, upfront, after the story broke on April 11, that they'd require a contract, but I could buy it outright with no contract for $300, I'd still have bought it with no hesitation. You simply can't buy this kind of system, anywhere else, now (at least not easily and pre-assembled).
Hardware Improvements: It's looking like I'm going to spend an additional $300 on the box just to add a hard drive, ethernet, and a pair of serial ports (via usb). This is not to mention hardware-level hacks, like a drive LED, external audio ports, and a quiet fan. I'd suggest providing a "broadband" version that includes ethernet instead of a modem (or perhaps have the modem be a module, replaceable by an ethernet module, like on some network switches). I'd also suggest building in audio plugs (line in/out, headphones, microphone) for general use. Serial ports are important to me (IR control of Winamp and a Palm cradle), so adding those makes sense, too. Several people have suggested redesigning the heat sink so the heat flows upwards and out (the current design tends to trap heat) -- an efficient heat sink is always preferable to a noisy fan, but there may not be much you can do. Perhaps use the Transmeta chip instead of Intel clones, for power and heat benefits. Also, maybe consider a larger-screen version (would cost considerably more, unfortunately...)
Software Changes: I really like the idea of the deadicted QNX software with automated updates, etc. However, I do wonder if having a local filesystem (requiring a hard drive) might be good -- I think of the example of Grandma, receiving pictures of her newest grandchild, not wanting to have to download that from the server every time she looks at it. Better to have that local. But you don't want to go too far towards a full-featured computer (unless you wanna support, say, java-office or something), simply because that's not the point of the box (from Netpliance's point of view--some of us may go closer to that, but not all the way).
All in all, I'm impressed with the hardware as it is, but think that ethernet is a real requirement, especially as people upgrade to broadband services. A better, bigger screen would be welcome, but may not be cost effective. Offering a no-contract option at 300-400 dollars would be great for people who want to push the envelope with local, "thinner" computing. And, finally, Customer Service is of paramount importance -- companies live or die on how well they treat their customers, and, face it, Netpliance has not treated anyone -- hackers or grandmothers -- well this past month.
I honestly did not expect Netpliance to last the year, based on the service and bumbling responses we've seen. But attempts like this to get ideas from the internet community gives me new hope. We all need a company like Netpliance, and I wish you the best. Keep your minds open and your hardware/software accessible, and I can promise you the internet community will contribute ideas and fixes back to you.
Thanks for listening!
My question for Netpliance (Score:2)
You agree to return any and all copies of the Service Software and related documentation upon termination.
Please explain this clause. The only software distributed with the i-opener is integrated into the appliance itself. Are you saying that the end user agrees to return the appliance itself upon contract termination? If not, what does this clause mean and how would a person return the service software without returning the appliance?
Absent any explanation, this looks like a sneaky way of your claiming continued ownership of the appliance even after proper cancellation of the service contract.
Thin Clients (Score:2)
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Re:Circuit City and Netpliance (Score:2)
They are hiring linux people! (Score:2)
Offtopic - MSN deal (Score:2)
Did you read the terms of the offer? The offer said that you got a $400 rebate, IF you agreed to a long-term contract, UNLESS you lived in California. Taking the money and canceling the contract abided by the letter and spirit of the law and the offer.
Expansion: Sockets, USB, PCMCIA (Score:2)
The USB port provided a lot of expansion options. Now, should they implement the PCMCIA port, or does USB provide enough options? (Pictures on web sites show what looks like a PCMCIA area without its chips and socket installed) PCMCIA would require case alterations, a difficult activity.
Re:Privacy issues? (Score:2)
This brings up an interesting point. The assumption so far has been that they were selling the boxes as a loss-leader for their ISP service, what if that was only part of their overall strategy of also "profiling" their customers for direct-marketing or directed advertising? (ala DoubleClick, except without having to bother mapping people to profiles, they already have the mappings)
I'll Wait (Score:2)
Please go ahead with whatever onerous changes in terms of service you need to make a buck, but leave the hardware hackable, because in a year or so when you're out of business we'll still be around to make some use of used and surplus i-openers, otherwise they'll all end up in landfills all too soon.
Appliances should not be restrictive. (Score:2)
The more versatile an appliance, the better. That's why washing machines have different cycles and dryers have "delicate" mode. That's why ovens have bake and broil elements. That's why microwave ovens and VCRs are programmable. That's why I can choose a different long distance company for my phone.
Let the customer choose how they want to use it. Sure, give them a rebate or something if they want to sign up with your service but don't take away their option to just buy the hardware and use it as they wish.
Besides, no one has any reason to believe that the i-Opener subscription service would be any good. How 'bout browser upgrades and plug-ins? Seems kind of limiting to me.
Re:Circuit City and Netpliance (Score:2)
Re:Let's be honest (Score:2)
If the total price was $500-$600, I wouldn't buy one - I'd buy two. But I see your point - I'm not sure how much of the market there would be for what I want. The only changes that I'd want would be to have a 100baseT controller, and purchase options to increase the base memory and to preload net-bootable OSes on the flash drive rather than the ISP-connecting QNX.
Re:What would I say? (Score:2)
Matt
Things I Would Ask (Score:2)
Re: the Devcorner 100 programme. The interesting thing for me is that I haven't signed up yet. Two reasons:
Will I attempt to develop stuff for my IOs? You betcha. But given their actions towards the community, will I contact them until after I've done something cool? No way.
- If joining the Devcorner 100 means I get a free IO before I develop something cool, NPLI has the problem of people joining only to get the toy.
- I might join after I develop something cool, but then, I already own an IO for far below its cost, why try to get another?
:-) I'd be happy to give away whatever I developed for it whether or not NPLI gave me a free unit in exchange.
There's a catch-22 here, in that you either already own one, and can prove your worth on it, and thereby join the programme. Or you don't own one, in which case, how can you get started, however good your idea is, after the first 100 units are given out?On to other things - things I'd ask NPLI.
- Why didn't you write up the TOS of March 31st and apply them on the 17th? If your goal was to stop the bleeding of red ink, it could have been done just as well then as the 31st.
- Why did it take you so long to get on the clue train [cluetrain.org] and back off from your policy of attempting to pressure customers who ordered before the 31st into your new TOS? You'd already seen the effects of people talking amongst themselves; we know the hardware under the hood of that thing better than you did. Did you not think we'd talk amongst ourselves and that word of those pressure tactics would spread equally as fast?
- To what extent is the recent change in policy (particularly with regard to orders received before the 31st) the result of threatened legal action, or the result of a fears of a PR backlash among geeks that had started to spill onto CNet and Wired?
- My preceding negative comments aside - it's clear that you're learning. Why you're changing Doing The Right Thing is less important to me than the fact that you ARE Doing The Right Thing.
- So, my next question: What's next?
Finally - four minor bug reports, and some product requests for the future:(No, you don't have to - and probably can't - answer that one publicly. It's just something to think about. You'll note that nowhere on that list is "it was the right thing to do". We're not that naive.)
Your shareholders' interests are protected in the future by the new TOS, and the interests of the community have been protected by a decision to Do The Right Thing for customers who ordered before the new TOS.
We have lots of questions about this product. You have lots of answers. We know what it can do running our operating system of choice; heck, we even know what it can do running Windows :)
Can you create a space for us where we can talk and share information with each other and with your techs? It looks like you're interested. We're very interested.
Bugs:
- Reports of phasing issues with the speakers. If true, the fault might be on the motherboard. Can one of your techs confirm or deny?
- Reports of BIOS-socket unreliability caused by curing of the epoxy goop. Can one of yours (or Quanta's) failure analysis experts look into it?
- Hardcoded root passwords appear to be identical from unit to unit. There's a telnetd running on the machine. Please ensure (at a minimum) that root cannot telnet in from the network. It's been long enough that a brute-force attack could be close to breaking the root password. Yes, we know it uses a nonstandard crypt algorithm. Yes, source for it has already been posted.
- That [user]@netpliance.com password for the initial dialup. It might be wise to find ways of embedding that information somewhere less likely for us to find it. Security through obscurity isn't security.
Requests:Dear Netpliance... (Score:2)
1. 100% of us have to spend money to buy the modified IDE cable(~20), PS2 expansion(~10), plus a keyboard with ESC keys($10). That means, if you sell them for $40 more with these three things, we will be happy to pay.
Keep the Sandisk with original sofware on it, so that we can be tingle with them impressed about how easy they are to use and therefore buy them for our moms.
2. Most of us use it with a ethernet card, we will be happy to buy it through Netpliance rather than, say, buy.com. To save some nuisance of ordering and waiting.I personally think it's the quietest Xterminal I have EVER seen. It will make an office completely quiet. (don't worry about the distro, we'll take care of it.)
3. Pricing. Industry Analyst estimated that the cost of the machines is $350 a piece. Netpliance have been selling these babies like crazy, the average fixed cost MUST go down, plus the free publicity shaved the advertising cost. I suggest Netpliance sell the Dev Kits @ about cost. Why? Because the people who mod thier i-openers are the same people whose suggestions are highly respected from non-technical people.
Would i pay for it if it is $450? No. There are too many fun things to play with, I-opners is just one of them. I'd rather go for a IBM thinkpad 240 at $1064 without the outragous shipping rate, e.g. $40 dollars from NetPliance.
Conclusion: i think it's very reasonable if you sell the original at ~250 shipped. if you put the moded IDE able, PS2 port, standard keyboard and a HD bracket, we will probably pay $300 for it. Shipped. We will take care of the rest from there.
The free 100 machine idea is apparently not going to work, don't go there.
Re:I got slammed (Score:2)
I-Opener isn't the only game in town (Score:2)
Re:How about this. (Score:2)
Sorry, wrong. A tulip-based ethernet port would add at most $20, and more likely $10, to the BOM (bill of material, the cost of the parts in the unit). Labor costs are nil, since the pick-and-place system that stuffs the rest of the parts would handle the ethernet.
Re:How about this. (Score:2)
Additionally, you may add $20 to the BOM by adding Ethernet, but without it, I have to purchase a $50-$75 Ethernet->USB gateway, and have yet another device to futz with.
Furthermore, sir, it is not necessary to be rude when posting. While you pretend to have a login, you hide behind the AC tag. If you are too damn "lazy" to log in, then by rights you should be too damn lazy to post.
Re:How about this. (Score:2)
There is a market, even at the higher price. (Score:2)
We also sold three whole skids of year old Celerons, for use as X-Terminals at a university. Price tag? $550 each. Sell a model for $450 with ethernet, a *nix and X preinstalled on the flash and you sure as hell will take a chunk out of that market.
I bought a bunch of cheapo laptops a while back, to be used in much the same way a geek would use the I-Opener. P200MMX Dells, no HD, 16M ram. Price tag? $400 each. Sell them for $300 totally stripped, no processor, no HD/flash, no keyboard, with Ethernet and a real IDE header. Sell the rest of the components marked up, for those of us that can't live without a 'Pizza' key. I would have bought the I-Opener instead!! you'll make a bigger killing off of geekdom if you can lower the price further, say by offering a model without sound, or without a case for those kiosk builders.
Re:Expansion: Sockets, USB, PCMCIA (Score:2)
- Disk drive if you want to run standalone
- LAN interface if you want to run tethered
- Wireless LAN for couch/backyard/bathtub use
- More RAM/flash/etc. if you don't think there's enough
If you don't mind a cord, USB is fine for LANs. It's annoying for wireless use, since you have this frob hanging off the back -- there are also parallel port wireless 1-2Mbps LANs that have the same problem. I don't know if anybody's done a USB disk except CDROM or floppy; again, these are fine for deskwork and especially for initially firing up the system with your favorite OS (at least until you get it running wireless), but they're made for sitting at a desk. However, there are various PCMCIA-format disks ranging from triple-high clunky to cool and little, which give you standalone capabilities so you can use them unwired and unradioed.The general comments on durability come down to this - it's not a laptop made for bashing by airport luggage handlers or being dropped 4 feet onto bare concrete by postal clerks. It's a friendly device for home use by adults and more responsible children, and sitting on the couch with the kids and cats but not with the large bouncy dog, or sticking in the kitchen as a television-substitute. And that's just fine - I'd like a device like that, and I'd prefer it unwired.
Baiting and Switching and Just Getting Slashdotted (Score:2)
Changing the terms for people who ordered or especially who bought under the original deal is way rude.
Changing the machine design for people who didn't order the things the first couple of days is IMHO a bad idea, but they've got to salvage their business plan somehow; I wish they'd done it differently, and maybe they still can.
What would I say? This: (Score:2)
Example: I put an order in at Circuit City for an I-Opener that I was going to give to my girlfriend as a gift since all she wants to do is surf and check email. I ordered it just before this whole brouhaha stirred up. It's been over a month now and I still have yet to see it because all of CC's backorders have been held until you guys can do whatever it is you want to do to keep the hackers from fooling around with your box. Previously, not only was I excited about finding such a cool little gizmo for my g-friend, but I was considering ordering one for myself to play around with. At this point, because of the incredibly restrictive conditions of use you guys have been throwing around to try to head off "the Linux hacker threat" not only do I no longer want to buy one, but I'm considering canceling my order for the first one, because I don't want my g-friend to get stuck with a huge bill on her credit card if she decides she doesn't really need the service after a month or so, because I think you guys are being just downright stupid about the whole issue and frankly, because I'm tired of waiting around for the back-order to be filled while you guys "fix the hardware" so someone can't fool around with it.
You know what the best thing you could have done about this whole fiasco? Ignore it. Sure, you'd see a slight upswing of sales and downswing of service signups initially as a bunch of hackers bought boxes to play around with, but you know what would have happened after that? Business as usual as the novelty wore off. The hacker crowd is short on attention and big on novelty. Honestly, there's not a lot you can do with such a stripped-down box and once most of the options have been tried, a lot of people are going to want to find something new to play with.
Besides, if your business model is so shaky that a small percentage of sales going to hackers who aren't going to pay for your service is likely to cause it to collapse, you need to rethink what you're doing.
Trying to court the hacker crowd by making a slightly more expensive box that they can buy outright is a good idea, (and I know at least a couple people who say they would buy one for as much as $400, which I personally think is too much) but unfortunately, you've already left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. It's going to be hard to wash that out no matter what you do. (The best thing to do would be to retroactively stop all your silliness, like you tried to retroactively apply this "you must sign up for x months of service" license, but I'm sure at this point, you're seeing how well that works...)
-=-=-=-=-
Re:Change your business model. Now. (Score:2)
I agree. This model should be X based. As someone mentioned before, the market for a cheap, cool-looking remote X terminal is virtually untapped, and I think NetPliance could make a going at this. I'd buy one at its retail price, as long as it was an open system I could configure the way I want it.
Netpliance should work with the linux community... (Score:2)
Netpliance, arrange a meeting with mattdm! (Score:2)
mattdm (the slashdotter I'm responding to) hits the nail on the head when he points out it's the fact that it was so darn cheap, that's all. All the other verbiage in this discussion simply keeps redescribing the network computer, a la Larry Elison. Larry spent too much time describing it all on his own: do we need to rehash it more?
Netpliance used an LCD screen -- that's hot technology that's what made the cheap seem extra cheap -- in a small form factor box. There was nothing "linux" about the hack. On that original hack site, they demoed Windows running also. Netpliance used industry standard architecture... so what? who wouldn't?
thanks for the sobriety, mattdm.
Expand your market at no cost! (Score:2)
A fully functional Linux box, however, would work with any of my local ISPs.
Even at a higher cost, the "hacked" hardware would find a market in places (countries) where they had not been willing (or able) to provide the net service. Too many folks "up north" are net.disabled, often due to hardware cost. A low-cost, highly capable machine (i.e. the IOpener running Linux) would really help ease that.
KNOCK, KNOCK! It's opportunity!
What I would suggest: An "Opened I" variant. (Score:2)
The Iopener hack has shown what has been wanted by members of the community for a long time: a low cost, fanless, computer suitable for use as a terminal or other device, but with a reasonable degree of processing power. The Iopener was the first such device to come along in recent memory, and the first with a decent amount of processing power.
However, it is quite clear that Netpliance can't make a profit at $99, or even $199 for these machines: they are loss leaders for their internet service. As such, it is perfectly understandable that they make it difficult/impossible to use for other than their intended tasks.
But the demand for this box suggests that a slight revision would prove useful: A standard IDE conector, the heatsink changed to include a disk mounting bracket, for a $299-$350 price point. Call it the "Opened I".
The "standard" device shipped as the Iopener could be identical, but without the bracket and without populating (soldering onto the motherboard) the IDE connector, so the $99/199 loss leader device can't be modified without a lot of effort, but the same design can be sold for those who would desire a lightweight full machine, just by populating the connector and adding the mounting bracket.
Especially when ethernet is added (undoubtedly coming soon, so the Iopener can take advantage of corporate networks, DSL, and cable modems), an "Opened I" variant ($299 diskless, but with IDE connector and network booting capabilities) could easily become a very popular hobbiest and corporate terminal, to be plopped down wherever and whenever a small, cheap, low footprint, low noise machine is needed. I know I would buy one in a hot second.
Low cost improvmnt: add PCMCIA, no mem restrict. (Score:2)
Price is the issue... (Score:2)
Re:How about this. (Score:2)
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Re:We are looking for a cheap HTML terminal... (Score:2)
from the server.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Re:Remember the KISS rule, people (Score:2)
Want a bare-bones i-opener? that'll be $299 please. Want a PCMCIA socket, HD Mounting Bracket, & IDE Cable too? That'll be another $65. Want us to install it for you? That'll be another $75. Getting the picture yet, Netpliance? You've accidentially discovered a totally untapped market. Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
For the love of.... (Score:2)
I do think Netpliance will have something going for them if they will listen to their consumers on a whole and act on it within reasonable means. Especially if they were to market this with college kids.... not necessarily with Linux or BSD but it would make life a litte easier (mind you I'd probably grow sick of seeing them...) Do some programming by the river baby!! =)
[Then I'd need a car adapter thingy and a *small* wireless keyboard....hmmmmm]
Nuff Respec'
DeICQLady
7D3 CPE
New Business Model (Score:2)
After all - this would be just like the 'free cell phone' business model: not buying the service contract means you pay $300 for the phone. I think there are a lot of people that would pay $400-$500 for an iOpener.
I would like to buy (Score:3)
1. No ISP requirement
2. No modem
3. 100-mbit ethernet instead of the modem
4. 1024x768x32bit display
5. Modifiable (ie, has an IDE port)
6. Sells for a fair market price, so I'm not screwing i-opener over.
Make that box, send it to Circuit City at $300 / unit, and you'll be selling them by the thousands
suggestions (Score:3)
Of course the other direction is a hard-drived enabled, hack-able PC version priced at a reasonable level.
Re:Change your business model. Now. (Score:3)
Re:i-Opener possibilities (Score:3)
People didn't love it. Hackers loved it. There's a big difference. Netpliance isn't marketing this thing to hackers. They're marketing it to a much less technologically adept person than a hacker. The whole point is that it shouldn't just be cheap, but be so easy that a two-year old could do it. Old C64's while great, were not machines from grandma. Any machine is hackable given the right person. While hackable computers are nice, they should not be the business model. Face it, Slashdot may think it's this superimportant group, but in terms of market power, they are small, and Netpliance is not going to make money trying to cater to them.
My Wishlist... (Score:3)
There are a few changes that should make an iOpener fairly attractive to the linux/geek/hacker community...
PRICE - One of the BIG reasons the iOpener became popular in the first place was the dirt-cheap price. Obviously they were being sold at a loss. For a modifiable unit with no service being sold, expect the price to rise a bit - it'd still be REALLY nice to get a barebones unit for $199 or so, as long as there aren't any service contracts, etc...
ETHERNET - Most geeks/hackers already have an ISP. More commonly, they're paying for broadband access - Cable or (in some lucky areas) DSL. Most already have a computer. We're not going to want to pay ANOTHER ISP bill for slow dialup access. Swap out the modem for an ethernet port, so we can hook them up to the cable/dsl connection we already have.
IDE - Let's face it, this was the enabler for the hacks. If you want to target people who WOULD HAVE bought the machine to hack it, include a STANDARD IDE interface. Not pinswapped, not clipped -- standard. A HDD mounting bracket would be nice, but isn't really necessary if it'd add to the price.
NO OS - Since in the process of setting the machine up, we're going to get rid of the OS anyway (to replace it with Be, Linux, 'doze, or whatever), why make us pay for it in the first place? Save those licensing fees for those who can't install their own OS.
FLASH MEMORY - Okay, this is a bit of a point of contention, I'm sure - but my view is, use cheaper, non-flash memory, and assume that a HDD will be added for storage. Save a bit of money, and lower the cost a little.
TOUCH SCREEN - This would be REALLY cool, but is probably too expensive to implement while keeping the price down.
IrDA - Again, REALLY cool, but probably too expensive to implement at the price point we'd want.
PCMCIA - Since the iOpeners are so small, it'd make sense for them to have a PCMCIA port or two, if only for upgradability/expandability. Not sure how much one or two slots would add to the price, but it'd be a nice addition.
SPEED - Ramp up the processor speed a bit. I'm not saying to run the thing at 600mhz -- just make the thing a little snappier.
If they can do most of that for $199, I know I'd buy at least 2.
Re:Open the possibilities! (Score:3)
The market is very hungry for decent cheap thin clients. At the same time the cheapest offerings for now are above 1000 which just makes you go and buy a laptop or a PC.
Yeah, indeed, so many people have concluded to the death of the network computer ... but sheeesh, have you seen the price? Here in France it's close to 10kFF, which translates to $1600, whereas a full blown PC (128MB RAM, 14Gb hard drive, 17" monitor, CD Burner, DVD, ...) costs less! What's the fucking point?
True Story: in my previous job, they bought me a nice HP X11 terminal, the latest version. ... With a whopping 8 MB of RAM and 1MB video card! 5 year old technology ... list price: $3000!!!!!!! It just wasn't *useable*! I took an old pentium 100 off the scrap pile, put in a slightly better video card (2Mb! Crap but at least usable ...), installed RedHat, and whoooou ... I was flying compared to the beast they had given me. Plus I had a sound card, which HP sold probably for a wonderful price of $500 ... no kidding!!
Separate kb & mouse ports, not a splitter. (Score:3)
I wouldn't use the iOpener with the keyboard/gamepad it comes with. Make it easy to swap these parts out.
I agree, ethernet is better than a modem.
Good luck, Netpliance!
Jon
What people will use these for... (Score:3)
But NetPliance is probably looking for ways to sell the unmodified I-Opener as is without losing money on it. So here is what I'd like to do with an I-Opener:
- Replace the sucky Compaq Portable 486c (256 color LCD lunchbox) in the bedroom for nighttime slashdot reading
- MP3 Player/Recipe computer in the kitchen
- Bathroom Browsing (in the new ofuro!)
- Backyard browsing
- Intelligent Telephone (with the modem)
- Put one in the garage/workshop for reading woodworking tips/looking at digital plans/looking up auto repair info
- hook it up as a voicemail system
- Take 20 of them into my wife's classroom, hook them up to a network with a big fileserver.
These are all tasks (maybe with the exception of the bathroom idea) that I would be willing to pay $250 for the machine, even if I had to pay an extra $25 for the cable/bracket kit to add the hard drive and $50 for the ethernet card to replace the modem.So, what needs to be done:
- Fix the IDE connector (or sell/include the cable)
- Change the heatsink to allow for the IDE cable
- Pre-drill/tap mounting points for the hard drive bracket
- Sell/include a hard drive bracket
- Offer an ethernet adapter (a $50 charge to replace the modem, $75 in addition to the modem seems reasonable.)
Smart things for NetPliance to do:- List all the Linux-info on their web page (drivers to use, etc.) with links, or even make them availble for download
- Set up a forum for discussion of I-Opener mods (Maybe even I-Linux, I-Windows, and I-Other boards)
- Accept that they screwed up before and not try to charge people after the fact for service
- Figure out at what price they can make money on the I-Opener as-is (modifiable)
- Make the case less flimsy
If they do this stuff, I'll buy several.Why join 'em when you can beat 'em? (Score:3)
Netpliance has shown that there is a market for cheap-ass, open thin clients. Even though you're going to double your investment adding the mods to it, apparently geeks are willing to shell out $400-$600 to get one of these things up and running.
So how about a company with more of a proven commitment to Linux and Open Source developing soemthing similar?
Give me a flat screen, minimal hard drive (or large flash ROM, as someone else pointed out) and an Ethernet adaptor. (Would sound be necessary on something like this? I guess it depends on what you're using it for.) Hell, don't even give me a keyboard or mouse -- I can get cheap ones for about $20.
Preload Linux or *BSD, or just open the specs and let someone else do it for you.
How much would something like this cost to make? How much would people be willing to pay?
Re:Let's be honest (Score:3)
You are wrong about the price. Even at 700 it will still sell, though in small numbers.
The current price tag on a standalone LCD is between approx 900 (Viewsonic) and 1167$ (IBM). Add the thinnest mainboard possible and you get a price tag higher than the price of a cheap laptop.
i-Opener could spin this to a big win (Score:3)
What would the target audience think when they hear... (just one spin of many)
"In a world where computer prices are always dropping, computer [geeks] have begged one [city] start-up to quadruple prices, just to get their hands on them. They're called i-Opener, and here's their story... [cut to reporter. interviews include]
[Obvious techie: They were targetted at a non-technical market, but the design was so cool -- and was expandable. When world got out, the hardware types basically bought every machine on the market in two days. I know *I* want one. ]
[Lots of sexy promo footage]
[i-Opener spokesperson: Everyone loves them. We were buried in requests for more. We've decided to make a version of our product available to the technical hobbyist, at a competitive price. It has a few internal hobbyist connectors and the option for a different processor, but it's the same unit.
"But we started this computer to be an ultra-easy convenient and, okay, stylish way for ordinary people to use the internet, without having to learn all that computer stuff We're loyal to our original customers -- the casual home internet user -- and will continue to sell our units at our original bargain price of $100 to anyone who signs our x-year internet user contract. You'll need that internet connection anyway, so we think that is a fair way to tell if you're the type of home internet user we started this company for.
"These units are hot, though. We're fighting to keep prices down this summer, but after that... well, with people already snapping them up at four times the price... well, we can only make some many of these things, and this will be a hot Christmas item. If you want some for the grandkids, better get them now]
Take-home for the layman (target market):
This hot hot hot gadget is cheap, and the geeks are fighting over them like cabbage patch dolls. But I can get one for just $100.
They keep saying its easy. It sure looks easy. Maybe I can use one without my neighbors laughing after me -- I mean even hackers use them! It does look kinda cool.
The company sounds nice, too. They're not milking us. That's unusual. Maybe I should buy their stock
__________
Already said it, but... (Score:3)
"You're stumbled blindly into an undiscovered market with no competitors--the market for low-cost, low-profile low-end graphical terminals for home networks. Thousands of geeks are buying old PIIs and expensive, large monitors for their home networks but would really like slicker, more integrated boxen like your i-opener. You'll have to modify the pricing and hardware, do a bit of swapping out, but you can still provide a low-cost solution with a low profile for this market and make money head over foot..."
Re:Change your business model. Now. (Score:3)
a) A non-twisted IDE-contact (Easy to fix)
b) An ethernet interface
The last one would certainly be an incitament for people to by that version, not the current one, if they where to use it with Linux.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Cheap flat screens (Score:3)
--
It's got to have RJ-45 or Wireless LAN (Score:3)
This sounds really lame, but I want one to act as a "front end" to my home network's streaming MP3 server. Right now I've got a crufty old P100 laptop doing duty, and it can barely run X and XMMS at the same time (I'm serious: I've tried BlackBox and even fvwm). I've got around 20GB of stored music, and I've boxed up my CDs and put them away. I've spent a lot of time on my home network and my music system. So having a front end to that is required -- I can't go back to a regular stereo. When I first saw the I-opener, I thought I'd found that front end.
What I need is a low cost, fairly small footprint machine that can get on a network. Once I have that, I can get Linux on it somehow. I've considered buying an I-opener and taking the 3 month hit for their subscription (even though I won't use it even once) just to get a machine that I can hack into.
I know the "moderation window" on this post is closed (which is that first four hour window one has in which to post such that the comment will not be buried in other posts and which can therefore be moderated up or down), but I figured I'd throw my couple cents in anyway. However, if you do read this, tell them to put in a PC Card slot and let us take care of the rest.
(Hey, I just had a thought: Anyone remember Heathkit? Anyone here remember putting together one of their kits? Well, how about if Netpliance sold "Open Source" kits that included stuff like that HDD mounting plate and such. What they need to do is let people hack into the things and then get all the best hacks incoporated into one -- or more -- kits that people can buy. Sell them the regular I-opener and the kit for whatever extra. Then give them a special warranty and license to hack. It'd be Open Source Hardware, and pretty damn cool. They could even give a couple percent of the proceeds to the guys that first made the hacks that get sold. Since they wouldn't have to assemble anything, there'd be no re-tooling and the only additional SKUs would be for the kits: the BOM for the I-opener itself would stay the same and so would the cost to produce them. And yet everyone would be very happy, because they'd get to play around with a Philips Head and such.)
-B
My advice to Netpliance (Score:3)
My advice to Netpliance is to consider several alternative products based on the iopener hardware but tailored to the Linux/hacker community (and priced at profit making levels):
Each device shuld be essentially the same hardware as the current iopener with only minor variations in the manufacturing details. The devices each cover distinctly different segments within a single market (SOHO users and Linux/*BSD hackers) and could easly be sold at competitive and profitable prices.
The fact that Netpliance was able to offer the iopener at all indicates that it is only a matter of time before someone is offering these products to consumers. There is no good reason that Netpliance should be that someone.
Re:Circuit City and Netpliance (Score:3)
Either they are much cheaper to produce than folks think, or Netpliance just doesn't learn.
The only other difference (so far) with the new arrangement is that they have apparantly clipped 4 of the HD pins, made a BIOS update (which so far no one has demonstrated is "disabled" in any way) and epoxied the BIOS chip.
Well... some sort of soldering iron and EEPROM burner is in order.
Re:Set up a wireless NC edition (Score:3)
I got the same argument from people when I built a field data collection system on the palm pilot -- not rugged enough, they said. Pay $1500 dollars for a rubberized handheld field computer running DOS or some exotic OS, with a low res two line LCD display, they said.
I expect the price for a PalmOS device to go south of $100 pretty darn soon, now, and it turns out they're plenty rugged enough. It's an easy sell becaue its cheaper and the user experience is better.
I expect the same to happen with x86 flat panel computers. Sure, if I had to field a solution today I'd probably find some specialized vendor, but eventually the power of commodity hardware to provide a cheaper and better solution will prevail.
Ideas for NetPliance (Score:3)
1) Deliver the already-promised goods. The original plan said nothing of an ISP contract, or a mysterious 6-8 week Circuit City delay. Some people in my area have postulated that the delay is part of an attempt to get people to call NP about their orders, at which time the new-"upgraded"-model-and-terms-of-service are fed to them. Others think it's merely to give NP time to get all the new gooped-and-maimed IOpeners built and shipped. Either way, NP's not making any friends out there. Give 'em the info straight, guv'nor!
2) If NP *must* pander to the stockholders, then so be it, but have the honor to deal fairly with the people that bought IOs with the understanding that they can be noodled, without an ISP contract. I'd guess NetPliance will easily recoup their losses on all the media coverage and brand-awareness this...erm...situation will give them. What they need to do is turn the situation around, make it positive PR.
3) On that note, opening the IO (no pun intended) is a good idea, as are the new pricing options for no-ISP and extra-hackable gadgetry, but it is not enough. The fair treatment of all customers is a big thing with the Geek Community (witness our love of MS business practices), and the perceived shafting of the Mar 16-20th customers will be a burr in NPs saddle until resolved.
4) The new mods. The Engineer's Motto is: if you can build it, you can deconstruct it. Just as the software industry found with copy protection, any safeguard can be circumvented. How many customers is NP losing while they retool their production lines to goop-n-maim the IOs? Signing an ISP contract at purchase would probably be quite sufficient to legally enforce continued cash inflow (IANAL). What does NP care if their customers tool their IO to run BeOS, so long as NP gets their $$? It's even better if the hackers *don't* dial-in: they don't use NP's ISP bandwidth and phone lines, but NP collects the cash anyway. The only way I could see NP not liking this idea (in my admittedly limited vision) is that they're hoping that ppl will be too lazy/forgetful to cancel if they truly don't want the service.
Just a few thoughts.
Future I-Openers to have IDE header pins snipped? (Score:3)
I just read on one of the I-Opener mailing list archives that I-Openers are now being shipped with the IDE header pins clipped off the motherboard. Can anyone confirm or deny that this is the current policy?
This would be the sensible thing for Netpliance to do to prevent the majority of hacks over the short term. It is a relative quick, simple, and effective procedure.
I put down a deposit at Circuit City on an IOpener as soon as I realized that this was going to be the only way to get one at the $99 price. I've seence been back several times to check on the status, as well as to other Circuit Cities in the Baltimore/metro area. It seems as if there have been no shipments of IOpeners to Curcuit City from Netpliance since news of the hack hit the net. My guess is that there is a team of pinsnippers down in Austin (or wherever the units are built/distributed) opening and altering all units before shipping them out. Either that, or Netpliance just isn't shipping any at all to Circuit City until the fad blows over and people loose interest.
Has anyone gotten an IOpener from Circuit City in the past few weeks? If you did, what was the staus of your pins?
-p.
EASYER win-win situation. (Score:3)
I have a SONY laptop, and I wanted to get an extra (kanji) keyboard. No go, since they won't ship parts to anyone BUT a sony authorized refurb center. A part breaks on my laptop? I have to ship it back, I can't install it myself. From a hacking standpoint, even simple customerization of the Sony laptop will require me jumping through lots and lots of hoops.
OTOH, take a good look at Handspring. I can go to their website, and with a few simple clicks I can order blank springboard module plastics - the same parts used in production springboards. I can get full access to their documentations, wiring schematics of their springboard modules, and software APIs that they have changed in PalmOS to call them. And, guess what, my friend's senior EE project he's building a smartmedia springboard reader. A simple act of selling their hardware and parts to anybody and opening the documentation makes the visor a lot more hackable.
-=- SiKnight
i-Opener possibilities (Score:3)
Re:Circuit City and Netpliance (Score:3)
that way they will make some money off their products,
This is the idea I originally had until I remembered that even at $199 the I-opener is a loss leader. The netpliance originally cost $300 as can be seen at the bottom of this article [iminorities.com] and in this article [epinions.com] it states they upped the price to $300 after using $199 as an intro price. The current price of $99 is a promotion and is not a price the company will be able to maintain for the long term.
Secondly 1 year of service costs $250 ($21.50 * 12) which is about a $100 of profit per year. A more suitable and realistic plan would probably be
- 3. sell the I-opener at $450 to those who sign up for at least 2 years of service. (Total customer expenditure - $450)
PS: We all know that being a loss leader never works out, after all look at what happened to CDNow [zdnet.com].Re:Let's be honest [Something from Nothing] (Score:3)
My gut tells me this is right on target. All the exciting hacks are in the principle of creation: something from (almost) nothing. Or, something completely different than intended.
In this case, there is a feeling of mischeviousness. Almost a kind of "ha ha, so there" against an obvious attempt to build in a dependency which didn't naturally exist (i.e., Netpliance ISP was the only way to use the system).
It's this kind of resourcefulness that encouraged my company to begin using Linux a few years ago: older machines (486 and slower Pentiums) that were in no shape to run NT Server, or Win9x as desktops, could serve as excellent Linux servers for different tasks. The feeling was, "Hey! Let's beat the system." Instead of paying the WinTel monopoly regular tithes (worse, actually) according to a GM-like obsolesence plan (why do you think MSFT started naming OS versions by year? It's like a 1999 Ford Mustang, by now it should feel old--don't you want a 2001 model?).
I'm all in favor of (ethical) hacks. The $400 MSN rebate "hack" was, IMO, not "ethical" because the deal was presented as quid pro quo, but the I-Opener deal was not originally presented as such; the ISP was an option. Only in retrospect did Netpliance add terms to the deal to enforce their "business model".
Slashdot reported on another interesting hack in February: the netBSD port to the Workpad z50 [slashdot.org]. I bought one of these beauties (it really is) and have been following the NetBSD and LinuxCE mailing lists as to progress being made. This was an ethical hack: take a discontinued but interesting machine and make it better. WinCE is pretty awful (but usable for text editing, I found) and the ability to add my native enviroment to this little treasure is too nifty! I never would have paid $1000 for the unit. Not when a real laptop is not much more. But, I did buy at under $400. And, by looking on eBay daily, it seems a lot of people are still buying these things (although the price is going up).
What I'd like (Score:3)
Of course, you'd definitely do well to sell mod kits so that customers do not need much technical skill to plug in a hard drive.
Consider upping the screen resolution. That would be sweet. Definitely an option worth paying money for.
Definitely allow extensive feedback (preferably in a web-based discussion board) for people running Linux et al on the hardware. It could serve as free advertising and tech support.
Basically, have the option of selling the hardware for a profit for those people who want to run Linux on them. That's all we ask for.
Re:Change your business model. Now. (Score:3)
I think you misspelled "nonexistant" as in virtually nonexistant.
People flocked to the i-opener because it was cheap. At $99 or even $200 it's a bargain. But at a more realistic price of perhaps $600, the market dries up again. You and I both might buy one at that price (I know I want one), but there wouldn't be the huge demand that there is now.
That said, I think that Netpliance needs to get its contracts in order. If they want/need people to be obligated for some minimum term of service to cover the initial hardware cost, they need to have it specified properly in a real sign-it-and-mean-it contract with appropriate penalties for early cancellation just like a cell phone contract.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Leave it disassembled (Score:3)
A few requests to Netpliance: (Score:4)
2. Consider creating and selling a "pre-hacked" system that includes a hard drive.
3. "Open" the unit (fully document it) so that external peripherals may more easily be connected and used.
4. Uh, er, add a PC-Card (PCMCIA) slot? (Mainly to make adding Ethernet easier.)
Anything more, I feel, will be "guilding the lily", taking the system far from the current design, and thus possibly losing the benefits of using the same production runs for multiple purposes.
My ideal use for a "hacked" system would be as a convenient Web browsing system to have on an end table, conveniently available to use during TV commercials.
From the basic system, here are the hacks I'd like to add:
1. Wireless networking.
My main system is in another room, connected to a cable modem. It has more horsepower and connectivity than the i-Opener, so I'd like to take advantage of it as easily as possible. While it is no problem running A/C to where I'd put the i-Opener, getting Ethernet there would be a pain.
2. InfraRed I/O.
Possibly a full IrDA port, but anything that would allow the iOpener to easily control my TV and VCR.
3. X-10 Firecracker Interface.
I've just started automating my home, one lamp and appliance at a time, and having convenient centralized control and access in the living room would be convenient.
4. Remote Keyboard with Integrated Pointer.
RF is preferred, but IR will do. I don't need the i-Ioener screen to be in front of me, but the keyboard pretty much has to. (Unless, of course, some future i-Opener were to include a touch screen or a simple pointer device integrated in to the bezel of the display.)
I could do all of this with a retired laptop (perfectly capable laptops can be had for under $500), but they lack, well, style.
While I would never buy the i-Opener service for myself, my computer-phobic father is turning 70 this summer, and I intend to give him an i-Opener to finally get him online in the easiest way possible (he already detests the idea of WebTV).
An excellent product, with the added bonus of being emminently hackable!
-BobC
(The guy who never remembers his
Re:I got slammed (Score:4)
Re:What would I say? (Score:4)
We are looking for a cheap HTML terminal... (Score:4)
Yes, at work, we are moving from character-based apps. to HTML-based apps. This way, we could use an i-Opener derivative as our platform.
We are talking on 500 to 1,500 units here. Serious bussiness.
The requiremets would be an i-Opener with those add-ons:
-Ethernet Card (10/100)
-Bootable Hard Disk Drive (1Gb its OK)
-A way to install any desired OS (Linux/Win-dos would be primary choices) and a browser (Mozilla?)
-Key mapping instructions to links their "unique" keys to our applications (help, mail, web, home...)
-Mouse port
-A range of CPUs to choose from (w/ or w/o MMx, 3D instructions, 200 to ??? MHz
-Nice price
I guess all this is pretty easy to bundle to any i-Opener. I mean, Netpliance can easily substitute the modem for a ethernet card, attach a 2.5" HDD to the IDE port and provide a Y-cordline for a regular KB+Mouse... ot their KB (without the pizza key, please!).
BTW, we are based at good-old Barcelona-Europe (yes, that's why my english looks wierd sometimes
How many corporations wouldn't go for a cheap "i-O-Client"? Not only for HTML but any C/S application will work great with it. You have all the Hospitals, Small bussiness,
I will appreciate if someone can convince Netpliance that they're in the path of a big-bucks bussiness. We are willing to buy some!
Thank you in advance,
Sinner Falcatas
(remove NOSPAM to email me)
How Netpliance can (and CAN'T) make money. (Score:4)
Get real.
First, only requiring three months of service is asking for trouble. After paying the $65 for three months of service, whether I use it or not, I can take the hardware and run. Netpliance gets $165, I own the hardware free and clear. Now some people have estimated the cost of this box at around $300. I'm not very good at math, but I think that means Netpliance loses $135.
Second, ISP service costs money, even at wholesale. If you get it for $5, and resell it at $22, that's $17 revenue. To make up the $201 difference between $99 loss-leader price and $300 cost, your customer has to stick around at least 12 months. That's right, a whole year. (I had to get out the calculator for that.) The service contract only requires three months.
So what should Netpliance do?
Netpliance should figure out a reasonable markup to the actual manufacturing cost of the i-opener and then sell it at that price in a completely hackable version. Maybe even include one of those laptop IDE cables and a hard drive mount inside the case, so it's all ready to go.
Netpliance should then sell the same i-opener for $99, with a service contract that requires at least as much service as will generate the required amount of revenue to bring in a similar amount of money. Maybe a little more, since it's spread out over time. A 12-18 month contract seems appropriate.
Netpliance should then sit back, relax and let us hackers get to what we do best: hacking. Watch the ideas we come up with and our prototypes and maybe even buy some of the ideas, or even hire some of the hackers, for future products.
---
Circuit City and Netpliance (Score:4)
I know that at least 25 of these 28 machines were to have hard drives hooked up to them, I don't know if Netpliance already has the money from circuit city, or if cc is just holding on to it ... all I know is Netpliance is going to see all their income DROP like a brick through glass when these I-openers do come back into stock.
In my opinion Netpliance should have done the following:
1: sell the I-opener at $99 to those who sign up for at least 2 years of service.
2: sell the i-opener for $149 to those who sign up for 1 year of service
3: sell the i-opener at $199 to those who don't sign up for service
that way they will make some money off their products, instead of knowing that they will have to dig themselves out of a BIG BLACK HOLE in the coming 6 months ... put everything back to the way it should be ... heck .. I'd pay $199 for one, it's still better than the old Packard Bell we have sitting on our shelves for $450 ...!
DaiTengu
--------
Damage Inc. BBS
Let's be honest (Score:5)
It's very cool that Netpliance wants to work with us, and if I had extra money, I might buy a $600 device just to affirm that. But realistically, how many of you would really buy one of these at a price allowing them to make a profit?
--
Possibilities abound! (Score:5)
As someone who has had an I-Opener on order since the last slashdot article, I am dissapointed that Netpliance has taken up such a hostile attitude towards the hackers who are essentially developing other Netpliance product lines. I've been watching an I-Opener message board [kenseglerdesigns.com] and there are people doing marvelous things with hackable (and some non-hackable) I-Os. A popular use is to mount the device in a car and use it as a GPS, MP3 player and/or digital dashboard. The "hackers" (term used loosely, no flame por favor) are going out of their way by a long-shot to modify these devices for general use, sometimes costing hundreds of Altarian dollars.
I believe that if Netpliance offered a slightly more expensive general-use I-Opener they would be astounded at the uses the community will come up with, and the ingenuity of the geeks they're trying so hard to thwart may become a key ally in the company's longevity
Would that be a C-to-B business model?
CapnBryRe:Open the possibilities! (Score:5)
1. It has the rumored non-loss-leader price (around 300$).
2. It has no stupid ISP contracts. Yeah right, what the fsck will this ISP offer me here across the pond.
3. It is extensible and has full specs and no M$ fee hanging on it.
4. And if they sell it in Europe of course.
The market is very hungry for decent cheap thin clients. At the same time the cheapest offerings for now are above 1000 which just makes you go and buy a laptop or a PC.
So why don't these people get a clue and start selling a separate hacker/thin-client pack.
Because thin clients have their place more in home than in the office. I do not want to hear any fscking fan and hard disk noise in my room. There is an equipment rack for that purpose...
Privacy issues? (Score:5)
Browsing through the netpliance site, I came across two pieces of information that together make me worry...
From their development job [netpliance.com] listings:
Data Mining Developer
From their add-ons FAQ page: [netpliance.com]
Q: Can I connect external storage devices, such as a ZIP drive, via the USB port?
A: Not at this time. Everything on your i-opener is backed up on our network. (emphasis added)
So... someone with an iOpener contract: does Netpliance mention the fact that your data will be backed up on their network, or contain any mention of the fact that Netpliance may be mining either your backed-up data or data recorded about your network usage (browsing, email) habits? It occurs to me that this may be one reason they are so adamant about requiring people to use their ISP service with the iOpener...
Set up a wireless NC edition (Score:5)
I'd like to see these things adaptible as NCs with wireless networking (perhaps by having a PC card slot) and a small amount of persistent storage, enough to boot a stripped down Linux or BSD.
Here are some applications I'd see for such a setup.
Trade shows information kiosks.
Interactive supermarket and mall directories.
Low end word processing and Internet access workstations.
Interactive museum displays.
Cybercafe terminals.
Warehouse and point of sale application terminals.
I'd like to put one or more of these in every store and restaurant in my nice little suburb's main street, and have a town commerce network with information on stores, sales going on, amenities and services.
It's not just the price, it's the cool form factor (Score:5)
I'm willing to bet that over 75% of Slashdot readers don't buy Dell, or Compaq, or Gateway - they prefer to go to Fry's, or order online from their favorite distributor, and build the exact configuration they want. It's almost a matter of pride. But some of those same people -- not the starving students, of course
Why? Because they have no other alternative that meets their requirements (i.e. small, lightweight, portable.) You *can't* build your own laptop from off-the-shelf components.
This i-opener gives people the opportunity to build *their own* network terminal, with the features they want, with a form-factor that no one else will sell them. *THAT* is the untapped market which i-opener can make money from, if they are smart and nimble enought to take advantage of it.
Change your business model. Now. (Score:5)
1. The cat is out of the bag. Forget about putting it back in. This being said, the confluence of Netpliance hardware and Open source opens up many possibilities:
2. Market two versions of your product: one is your QNX-based model for folks who want easy 'net access. Second version is an "hackable" model. Make it a bit more expensive, perhaps, but let the hackers be hackers and sell them the machine!. Then let them hack all they want and incorporate the best changes in the next generation.
3. Target other markets: schools, colleges and universities could use cheap machines with standardized, open-source OS installed. Target large corporations, who need a computer on every desk, and sell them these machines. With Linux or one of the BSDs, you can overturn the Microsoft monopoly.
4. Penguins are your best friends.... Daemons may be a little bit more controversial, but they are also cute. =)
Welcome to Open Source!
Open Source? (Score:5)
Dear Netpliance,
I think it is great that you are embracing the open source community by
announcing the Developers Corner. I am glad to see the Developer 100
Pilot Program announced, but I feel that it doesn't support an "open
development" process that you describe.
The open source community works at solving problems by working together,
collaborating with each other. People can pitch in and work on part of a
project that interests them and/or is their area of expertise. People
work together on projects, not because they are given incentive to do so
(i.e. free I-openers), but because their project interests them.
The two main problems with the 100 Pilot Program is that...
1. It provides the wrong incentive for people to contribute to the open
source movement. I've already talked to many friends who say that they
will apply to the program just to receive a free I-opener. You can't
expect many contributions from someone who are in it just for a free
I-opener.
Instead you need to target the people who are actually interested in
developing things. One way to do this would be to devote resources to
webpages or discussion forums about specific areas of development. By
doing so, Netpliance would also be able to focus the development that
was going on. Hosting these webservices would probably be cheaper then
giving away 100 I-openers, and the developers would do the work of
creating the sites/BBS's/whatever as they were needed.
A good example of a company devoting resources to an open-source
development is Netscape. Go to http://mozilla.org/ and see what they
have done to rewrite the Netscape source code. Netscape 6.0 is a product
of the Mozilla project; we will have to see for ourselves if it is a
good thing or not. (B.T.W. Netscape 6.0 is much smaller then it's past
versions. I smell an embeddable web browser!)
2. By limiting the number to 100 people and then making it difficult for
others to work with their I-openers, you are severly hindering an open
development process. There are already close to 100 websites on the
internet about modifying the I-opener and the number of people working
with these units is much greater.
I'm sure that you've already recieved over 100 emails from people asking
to recieve an I-opener to turn it into something or other. Once these
are given out this will prevent developers with potentially good ideas
from being able to work on thier ideas.
As I have already said, a better solution would be to host discussion
forums and support the development from the inside. This would better
for Netpliance economically, allow Netpliance to dynamically control
development, and probably give Netpliance a better relationship with
it's open source developers.
Thank You,
Ben
Remember the KISS rule, people (Score:5)
Reading the comments people have posted, a common theme is "Just add [foo] to it". I think this is the wrong approach -- if you want [foo], add it yourself; if the specs are open, someone should be able to figure it out. The most attractive feature of the i-opener is it's price -- start adding more hardware, and you are going to drive the price way up. IMHO, a reasonable price for a hackable i-opener, as-is (or as-was, before March 20th) is around $300-$350. Any significant changes to the design will involve significant re-tooling charges at the factory.
Now, if these folks are smart, they'll make an i-opener 2, which would have 10baseT ethernet, more expansion options, and a slightly bigger case , maybe with an (empty) 2.5 or 3.5 drive bay. They don't really have to add any new components -- just give us the headers to attach our own, we'll do the rest. They can then take the best ideas and sell them as after-market add-ons, to get some additional revinue out of the beasties. They can also make money by selling an i-opener linux distro, optimized to work on their hardware.
An expandable i-opener, with ethernet & documented expansion headers, could go for as much as $500, and maybe a little more. Price is a serious issue with this -- overprice it and it will fail; find a good price point and it will become a standard, filling the gap between a full-blown PC and a palmtop. There is definatly a market to be tapped here, guys -- don't blow your chances to dominate a new, untapped market by being stupid and/or geedy.
(And, btw, reexamine your distribution model -- using only Circuit City is going to hurt you in the long run. Either use the Dell/Gateway model and only sell direct to the consumer, or put the things everywhere.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
TOS badness (Score:5)
I got slammed (Score:5)
They added a $19.11 charge to my credit card 2 weeks later, and I went through a truly awful phone call with them whereupon they asserted they could charge me for things based on their company policy.
(they changed their TOS well after I bought the machine).
Discover gave me a temporary credit and are currently "investigating" the situation. I imagine it will go like this: "NetPliance, why did you charge our customer for something he did not order?", "Discover, it is our company policy to do so." "NetPliance, please hand over your merchant account."
So, for me, tell NetPliance the basics of how money works. Remind them, for their own good, that they need some sort of agreement from the customer before executing a transaction. Yea, remind them that they cannot charge me money just because someone at NetPliance assumed they could. etc.
I fear them.
The above comments and the URL below are mutually exclusive.