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Meeting With Netpliance
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?"
It's very cool that Netpliance wants to work with us, and if I had extra money, I might buy a $600 device just to affirm that. But realistically, how many of you would really buy one of these at a price allowing them to make a profit?
--
As someone who has had an I-Opener on order since the last slashdot article, I am dissapointed that Netpliance has taken up such a hostile attitude towards the hackers who are essentially developing other Netpliance product lines. I've been watching an I-Opener message board and there are people doing marvelous things with hackable (and some non-hackable) I-Os. A popular use is to mount the device in a car and use it as a GPS, MP3 player and/or digital dashboard. The "hackers" (term used loosely, no flame por favor) are going out of their way by a long-shot to modify these devices for general use, sometimes costing hundreds of Altarian dollars.
I believe that if Netpliance offered a slightly more expensive general-use I-Opener they would be astounded at the uses the community will come up with, and the ingenuity of the geeks they're trying so hard to thwart may become a key ally in the company's longevity
Would that be a C-to-B business model?
CapnBryI will immediately by the set as a cheap X term for my home if:
1. It has the rumored non-loss-leader price (around 300$).
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...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Browsing through the netpliance site, I came across two pieces of information that together make me worry...
From their development job listings:
Data Mining Developer
From their add-ons FAQ page:
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...
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
What I want in an NC is to have the least clutter. I'd like to be able to just plug it in to power and be networked. I don't care about huge network or CPU performance.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It's true that some people saw this as a way to get a $300 PC. ($99 plus hard drive, etc.,) but I think there's another camp which i-opener can reach and make a bit more money. That would be those of us who, like myself, are perfectly willing to spend the money required to get a low-end PC to use as a network terminal,etc in our house, but don't want to stick a big ugly vanilla mini-tower, a 50lb 15" CRT and a rat's nest of cables in every room.
:^) -- will turn around and plunk down $2500 for IBM ThinkPad so they can install and run Red Hat on it.
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.
A couple of quick things:
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!
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Do you think that this is open source? I'm interested in your opinions. Here's something that I just sent out...
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
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'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
The only beef I have with them is what they've done with their TOS. Changing the contract _after_ the units have been sold is a bad mistake, IMHO. If they needed to change their agreements, then it should be done professionally, honoring their previous sales. It's bad business to do otherwise.
I hope NetPliance has everything together now. (sob story ahead-> I bought an IOpener on March 12, was billed for $99 plus shipping on March 12, and never plugged it in.
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.
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