Slashdot Mirror
Meeting with Netpliance
Kalin Harvey writes: A while ago I posted an announcement
on Slashdot asking for feedback to take to Netpliance regarding the i-opener
and their relationship with the hacker community. Since then I have
met with Netpliance and basically concluded that a lot of the dialogue
we were having about the company was missing the mark. Netpliance
is a different company than many of us thought and basically don't have
the ability to sell vast quantities of i-openers to the hacker community;
their whole focus is the service, on many devices, not just the i-opener
hardware. However, they also are big fans of open standards, and
would love help to contribute to an open development model and see the
embedded linux appliance market grow. They are also already making
commitments to working with the open source community. You can read
my full account
on linuxpower.org
I don't really see why a company would care if someone "hacked" apart their product. I understand their are cases where the service they sell is the money maker, but otherwise, who cares... not me.
Those little boxes are awesome. I want thinking of getting a WebSurfer so I could telnet to my machine while still on the couch... but on a 32 inch TV...
We need to see more "open sourcing" of hardware... so I don't have to dig around to figure out how to get my Furby to speak of things past. I really didn't know what to say here... my bud, PB, says they should attack intruders. He is funny in the head.
Ryan
"Don't nargin your MEX files!"
...this is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen online in quite awhile.
See you, space cowboy...
I read the article and applaud netapliance's attempt to bring the internet to "Grandma" as the put it. It really is a noble venture and hope they do succeed. But they must admit that they have stumbled upon something that they shouldn't ignore because its not in their original "business model" and thats the need for a small utility computer. They say that they have only a limited supply of the i-opener computers and it would hurt their market projections if they were to be sold to individuals or companies outside of their target markets.
Its a strange world we live in when companies actually reject customers who are Willing and Able to buy their product in the hundreds.
bpd
--
I read the article and all I came up with was a resounding duh. The author acts as if it is a surprise that Netpliance was selling the terminals as a loss to gain market share to later recoup the cost on charging for service. Well ...Duh, they were selling a PC for $100 - $300 (depending on what discount you got). It was obviously at a loss.
Personally, I have begun to grow tired of these so called emissarys of the open source movement who make the open spource community seem like raving fanatics or clueless cheapskates. It doesn't take a genius to realize that Netpliance was always planning to sell the service and to go there and ask them to change their entire business model to satisfy a bunch of geeks who are not part of their target audience is ludicrous (heck, some ISPs still don't support Linux). It seems to me that if Open Source advocates want to be taken seriously by corporate interests they should be conversant with basic economic concepts and have an idea of real-world business practices. If this doesn't happen then corporate interests will continue to view Open Source advocates with disdain, suspision (sp?) and distrust.
Then again, do we reallly need corporate interests to satisfy all our wants? For example, if all you want to do is hack an I-opener, buy it, pay the $20 a month (if you're a good hack you make that much in an hour or two at work) and hack away. I'd simply see the $20 as a payment plan, similar to what I have on my car as opposed to buying a service (which it half is).
I had the opportunity to use one of the I-openers yesterday. I was getting my oil changed and the place had one for customers to use. The software continued to lock up and the proxy server that netpliance's ISP used couldn't find a thing. After several reboots I finally made it to a website and it took forever. I believe embedded Linux is the best thing that could happen to those machines. Cool little gadget, that's for sure.
It seems to me that Netpliance knows it handled itself very, very poorly, and is now attempting to satiate the teeming masses of Open Source developers that it has alienated. Unfortunately, bald faced propaganda such as this does nothing for me. This article reads like it was written by a NetPliance PR person. I don't want some warm, fuzzy article about a company, especially one that up until this point has treated everyone I know with contempt and deception. They just think everyone will believe it because it's posted on a domain with "Linux" in it. "Mandatory" retroactive service agreements, collecting addresses and credit card info from Circuit City, the list goes on and on. After stunts like these, they're going to have to earn their respect, not lie to everyone even more. Granted, acknowledging that we (as a market) exist is a step, but regardless of how nicely they're doing it, they're still brushing us off. They're ostensibly giving us the finger, the whole time hiding behind their "SEC Filing" and "FCC Regulations. Take this quote for example: They also risk violating FCC regulations if they sold certified devices that they knew would be modified. That is the sober reality of the situation. *Every* electronic device has to be FCC certified in order to be sold, from my TV to my computer, to my toaster. There's tons of websites on modifing every single aspect of computers. Does that mean that Dell is in violation of FCC regulations when Joe Schmoe decides he wants a bigger hard drive, or a different OS? Not at all. They're selling a certified product that falls within certain parameters; once it's in the hands of the consumer, it's out of their control. The FCC knows this, so claims like this are absurd. The bottom line is, NetPliance gave this guy a line, and bought into it 100%. You'd get less biased information off their home page.
you only suck because you think you suck. Tomorrow is made today. The thing about the computer industry is that you can learn it on your own, and still be sucessful in the long run. If you think that the only way to work in the Computer Industry is to get a degree and be a cog in some company than maybe you do suck. But let me impart on you the most important lesson that I learned from college, "there is more than one way to get a solution".
bpd
--
Their behavior with regards to how they handled this whole situation gives an obvious clue to the nature of the company. The author of this piece must not have much experience dealing with the teflon warriors, since the article read like some marketing drivel.
Sorry if this seems harsh, but it's true, this is a company that talks up open source, and open standards but controls the user's experience completely and goes with a proprietary OS for the device. Which is fine in my opinion, but coating the board with epoxy? That's ludicrous. Retroactively applying charges to consumers who didn't authorize them? Criminal.
The fact of the matter is they don't give a damn about any of us, they're driven by pure greed. And not "good" greed (where they'd ramp up and try to supply those of us who'd want a device without the strings), but bad greed ... hoarding the devices to ensure they have excess to maintain maximum profitability.
In my opinion, they're just another AOL wannabe, and can't see past their next fiscal year. This is worse than anything else they've done. Just another company exploiting the net by trying to reduce choice and enhance their control.
Am I cynical? Sure, from experience. Maybe I'm wrong and they really have a great vision and want to empower the consumers with great technology and yadda yadda yadda. More likely they just want as much money as they can possibly get.
I'm very glad to see this on /. I'm starting to feel that this community has a tendency for knee-jerk reactions to a lot of topics.
I'm basically a liberterian, I believe that information does want to be free and that we should have the right to do just about anything that doesn't hurt another.
However the overall tone, especially in the last few weeks has seemed to me to be a little extreme. There's a lot of @!#@ the man going on. Jon Katz's lastest rant is probably the best example of that.
The best part of having a community of very smart people is the possiblility of a dialog that considers issues from both sides.
We need to remember that netpliance probably has a staff with plenty of geeks just like us. They're not corpratist, they not looking to get rich by raping hackers, they're not making toxic chemicals or crack cocaine. They will simply be out of business if they sell $400 boxes for $99.
Rather than condem them for doing something that when we stop and think kinda makes sense, it's better to do as Kevin did and approach them rationally.
An mod-able i-opener at a price palitable to both hacker-consumers and netpliance is something we want, netpliance going out of business because we've bankrupted them is not good for them, us, or society.
ok, now tell me why I'm wrong
Netpliance is doing wonderful things. I'm dead serious; they're one of the few companies I've seen who I've really gotten the sensation that They're Getting It.
But they're a perfect example about how a corrupted market can affect even non-corrupt entities such as Netpliance.
Consider the $300 to $400 rebates that have been applied to computer prices across the country. It's a nice way to subsidize the cost of a computer--"and all without the government stepping in". But suddenly prices are no longer as advertised; you can't even look at a computer product anymore without looking for the fine print to see what it REALLY costs.
More than any other market, technology abuses the core concept that what you buy is A) What you think you're buying and B) Costs what you think you're paying. Old Man Murray(the ridiculously brutal commentary page at www.oldmanmurray.com) recently savaged Origin Systems for, as they said, "They've broken the sacred bond of trust between gamer and gaming mega-corporation: that there is actually a game in the box you're purchasing."
You just don't get that in other industries, but a combination of clueless newbies who don't even know the primary purpose of what they're buying and intensely focused techies who don't care about anything *besides* the primary purpose of what they're buying has fostered an environment where technology companies feel free to make bolder and bolder moves against basic consumer presumptions. The FTC, afraid to put the brakes on "the engine of the New Economy", is afraid to step in, even when scams such as UCITA are propogated and computers get advertised at blatantly false prices.
Netpliance doesn't sell boxes, folks. They sell a damn cool service. For $99 down and $20 a month, you go from Zero to Net Connected. Obviously this requires hardware, which Netpliance was willing to provide at a loss. The same happens for Cable Modems and DSL, for that matter. That's what they wanted to do, that's what they're built to do, and that's what they would be doing, if the rest of the market--if the big boys at AOL/Compuserve, and Microsoft, and Prodigy, and everyone else--hadn't defined customer expectations as a computer at a couple hundred bucks as long as you got that net connection "you were going to get anyway" through them.
Once the market had been polluted by the big players, where do we get off raging against a little guy with interesting hardware who did nothing else but enter the market they created?
Yes, it's a scam. But with the ridiculous fear against doing anything about it in government, what is nothing less than bait-and-switch has become a standard for an entire market. In such an environment, who wouldn't expect Netpliance to package their service as a product? It's easier to sell, they didn't invent the scheme, and honestly it gets cheap computers into people's hands, which is a major goal for everyone.
Now, things went wrong for Netpliance, but that's because they went the extra mile and designed a genuinely interesting piece of hardware to accompany their service. To be honest, they should license the design to another company--VA? Point of Sale? Hello?--and let them deal with the hassles of the product market, while they sell their service for $99 and $20 a month. But the FTC will have to step in and enforce honesty in the market first.
Expect this to happen when high speed networking hits critical mass *or* when a downturn in the economy makes large numbers of people cancel their modem Internet service.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I bought two netpliances from CC on 3/15 and still have not recieved any news on them. I purchased these outright and signed no contract. How do they know whether or not I was planning to hack them. They were available at compusa for a while, and I still did not have any news about my units. Does a company that treats is customers like this deserve your business? I think the beef most people have is that they are not honering the original sales agreement that most people had. That is certainly my problem with them. Changing terms of sale before any money has changed hands is not a problem for me, It sucks but I feel they are within thier right to do it. There are allot of people out there that are being shafted by not gettting units they paid for. Aside from that, what do they think they can do to keep this unit from being hacked? Other than contractual service agreements not much. I and several of my friends have acsess to smd equipment and I really can't see that they could do anything that could keep hackers out, if they wanted in bad enough.
It seems to me that reverse-engineering iOpeners -- or any other "razor and blades" network hardware -- is a very dangerous proposition for *nix advocates in the long run.
Thin clients have an interesting effect on Windows sales -- they potentially remove Microsoft from both the workstation and server market. After all, whenever anyone uses a thin client to access a network resource, they are largely unconcerned with where the data is coming from -- only that it's there (stability) and available (performance). Any time stability and performance are of greater importance than interoperability with Windows and ease of administration, Unix and Linux are more likely to be used as servers.
If we successfully drive these companies out of business so we can save a couple of hundred bucks on Intel hardware, we open a crack for Microsoft to get in and stay in, at the expense of the average user, and at the expense of *nix.
Every debate needs a strong dose of skepticism- and this post provides it in spades. But it's also important to understand the bias of the skeptics as well. The author's website includes a very passionate article that (among other things) displays an extreme and deep distrust of America's power structure of elite, wealthy corporations and individuals, especially when it comes to control of information through mass media outlets. This posting is extremely consistent with that worldview- which I must credit him for. On the whole, I'd agree with him, when it comes to large, multinational corporations.
/. posting, I checked with my local Circuit City, and they were backordered by 16 units. Multiply this by all of the retail outlets they sell through, and it represents a huge and overwhelming surge in orders that they were obviously not equipped to deal with, and that would not generate the ongoing service revenue they needed to meet their financial goals. Most startups are structured financially in a way that would not tolerate an deviation from the plan that is this large. If they missed their early service revenue targets by a significant margin (for any reason) they would be crucified in the public market, and they would effectively no longer be a going concern as a business.
As a counterpoint, I also would say that I don't think startups are in the same league. My bias is that I've worked for several, and understand that environment pretty well. I believe it's highly likely that Netpliance did not "give this guy a line", with the implication that they somehow mislead him about their true agenda or intent in order to generate positive press. I do think the author of the original article could have been a bit less star-struck and written a more balanced account, but I'm guessing that didn't happen because of inexperience about the functioning of startup businesses.
Here's what I'm guessing happened with Netpliance. I believe, as a whole (like many startup Internet companies) that it was formed by smart, well-meaning people who are passionate about a vision, which in addition to having some socially redeeming values (bringing the Internet to the masses) is potentially highly lucrative. I'm guessing that the demand for their appliances caught them completely by suprise, and likely posed a short-term, very serious threat to their financial viability as a business. This is something that, due to the way the investment community works, they would never admit to publicly, unless they *HAD* to. If they *HAD* to, SEC regulations would require them to distribute that information broadly and publicly. You can understand why they wouldn't want to.
Why would they have been in financial jeopardy? After the original
I don't think they made an unreasonable decision, given the circumstance. Being a "nice company" to a large community outside of your target market at the expense of the company's existance is just not an option. Their original misstep was to err on the side of being a nice company, and not lock people into a mandatory service agreement. Should they go out of business because they failed to forsee that the geek community would be so interested in their hardware? I don't think so.
Before you think I'm a total Netpliance apologist, understand that I was burned by this as well- I ordered a unit, and I had it canceled. My experience was that this was handled fairly smoothly, even if there wasn't a lot of communication about it. I understand that many people were handled less smoothly, and we can definitely fault Netpliance for not implementing what was a necessary decision in a way that was less disruptive. But accuse them of lieing to this reporter and "giving us the finger" is a bit much, even for a skeptic.
Yeah, there *are* so many of us that we would drag the company down financially, aren't there?
How many people are actually going to hack the hardware? Perhaps they should sell the 2.5 inch drives with the units to make up the cost.
I thought the concept was interesting, and that they would freak on a few hundred people actually hacking thier hardware that they would change the system to prevent it. How much did that cost??
get real, ala metallica (sux).
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for saying that. You left out "self-appointed", but otherwise you are spot on! It is embarrassing to read articles like this one. Not only did the author display his (and the general geek audience's) cluelessness about econ, but then he decided to embrace the "let's be grownups" movement and dressed his piece in "suck to the suits" style, with the result that it begins to read like an ad. I don't want to attack apple pie or motherhood, but instead of "oh, how wonderful is Netpliance", isn't a more appropriate geek question something along the lines of, how can our mothers, who produced us, be so clueless about computers? :)
Please, just keep writing about how to take the covers off of boxes, or have intelligent econ geeks explain econ.
...I think Netapliance can have its cake and eat it to. What the hell am I talking about? I am talking about a well planned restructuring.
Granted the Open Source community is hungry for their hardware, and from the article it seems that large institutions are hungry for the devices aswell for a variety of applications, Xterminals being the one mention in said article.
So we have two distinct markets that can be approached with two different products, one being the Subscription service, the second being the hardware. Currently they are taking a loss on the hardware inorder to sell the subscription service. Why on earth don't they restructure themselves so that they can sell the hardware to both markets and minimize the loss? It may fall into the boring catergory of innovative accounting but the gist is, if you lossing say 400$ per unit in one market and making 100$ per unit in another your total revenue increases and your total losses are decreased. Makes sense to me.
And in the long run the proliferation of such hardware would be a benefit to the company on the whole. It could spawn a new catergory of computers with Netapliance being at the forefront.
If they are only worried about their bottomline, then they should crunch the numbers. They are shooting themselves in the foot.
bpd
--
Come on, don't be dense.
There's nothing wrong with a business model based on a service contract. Moreover, there's absolutely nothing wrong a company attempting to make a profit. Obviously, that's what NetAppliance is doing -- and this article does a great job explaing what, up until now, has been a fairly confusing picture of their business model.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion of service contracts, but I'll say this: I'm bothered by the implication that "service contracts" are somehow "less moral" than, say, an outright purchase.
It seems that open-source zealots often want to quantify the morality of profit-making. If you make profit by method X it is somehow "less moral" than if you make profit by method Y. (This is, of course, assuming that both X and Y are legal means of making profit in the first place.)
I understand (or think I understand) the attitude of the faithful when it comes to open source, open access, and a close adherence (and understanding) to the bazaar model: that's fine. I understand that. I understand that these are cornerstones in the so-called movement.
But I've yet to see a lucid explanation of how the "morality" of different types of profit models plays into the acceptance of a product into open source channels and into the (so-called) movement. I suspect it has something to do with how the profit is made versus how the product is "consumed".
But to outright cast aspersions on a "service contract" model simply because it (for good or bad) locks a person into a monthly payment is, IMHO, absurd. So long as the contract is legal and clear -- and so long as both parties accept it -- then it would seem to me a valid (i.e. moral) way of making profit.
You seem to indicate that this is not so -- please explain.
chris
They are not selling hardware, per se. The main piece makes it clear that the guy went there thinking that, and was educated a bit.
The software is a key element -- they are licencing it to other companies. IMO this is the main thing they are selling. They are mainly in the business of selling very easy to setup/use/maintain internet software. But they are also not just selling software.
They are also selling support -- handholding -- the ability to call them up when things go wrong, and have them fix it.
But in fact, what they are selling is a mix of all three of the elements above. Unlike AOL, they are targeting a fixed hardware bundle. I don't think I need to explain to geeks how much easier that makes things for them, in terms of writing the software and offering support. So, it makes these things cheaper.
Why sell a mix of things like this? Because what (most) people buy when they "buy a computer" is not the computer itself, or the software, or the support -- they are buying a service, a bundle of abilities that collectively make their life easier.
What geeks don't understand about computerish stuff, is that we don't see this market the same way as normal people do. We see the individual things in this market as having value intrinsic to themselves. So to us, something like the i-opener is cool -- it has value for us separate from what-it-does, but simply based on what-it-is. Yes, part of that is the fact that it is cheap, but part isn't.
Normal people don't think this way, about computers. They simply want a service at a price low enough that it makes sense. Netpliance thinks it has identified a way to provide a service -- a bundle of hardware, software, and support -- at the right price, so that they can make a mint. Maybe they are right. Maybe not. But either way, the idea that they would be interested in the desire of geeks for cool toys is silly. The market for providing cool geek toys is large, but already saturated with players.
Regarding Don's point the market is corrupt, that selling computers with rebates for ISP subscription is bait and switch: that is a very arrogant attitude. It assumes that the common person is unable to read, or understand, the fine print. Yes, I agree that it is annoying to have to read the fine print to find out the "real" price for a system. But I am a big boy now, and I can do so. The idea that I am somehow superior to some "common person" in this ability is offensive to me.
hands down, especially as far discless web brousing by grandmas are concerned. Linux/netscape just doesnt compare in that regard.
& as such, it exists only to provide the maximum possible dividends to its shareholders (makes me wonder why they don't all just deal heroin then)
I agree completely. So, why does Netpliance not sell $400 boxes for the more sane price of $400, contract-free and not filled with epoxy? Or even $500, with a tidy profit?
For the layfolk to whom these are originally intended to be sold, $99 and a service contract of X years would work fine.
Right now, with demand being what it is, I can understand their stance. When supply catches up (and it must, else this all becomes a non-issue), not selling more-expensive multi-use boxen is foolish and laughable.
There exists a prime market for small, low-cost, reliable computers. The I-Opener is solid state, with no moving parts (aside from the easily replaced keyboard).
At a factory near here, they once had text-based terminals running over serial lines to (presumably) some sort of UNIX host, which were scattered about the plant, even on the production floor, for data entry and reporting and whatever else they needed them to do. Recently, the serial lines were replaced with Cat5, and the terminals turned into tiny little WinCE boxes with either bulky CRT monitors or hideously expensive flat panels. The requisite wire-mess doubled from three (keyboard, power, data) to six (keyboard, mouse, video, two for power, and ethernet), bringing with it all the joy of flakiness as the cabling degrades over time.
Given the specific nature of the business (baking cookies), the software is undoubtedly custom, and thus could be built to run on any of the multitudes of real multiuser operating systems existing today, perhaps even on the legacy hardware they already had. X11 would flow over the network instead of whatever bit of proprietarity the WinCE things talk. And at the end of the wire, would be an I-Opener, booting some free (or low-cost), stable operating system (or just a light-weight X server) from flash. Money would be saved, things would work in a stable fashion, and there would be much rejoicing.
I don't see this falling to the same pitfalls as other so-called thin-clients due to the following differences that I percieve. Firstly, it can be inexpensive (traditional thin clients didn't really help out the initital investment cost). It is flexibile (flash). It can run standards-based protocols, such that The Guru In The Back can run the same applications in the same fashion on a desktop PC. Applications run on a central host, rather than at the individual workstations. And finally, it's *plenty* fast enough to display all manner of business graphics, and likely will continue to be until the next big paradigm shift in display technology.
The author of the article to which we're all replying states that if Netpliance were to go this route, they would be eaten by a large company with razor-thin profit margins. However, given the demand for these devices, Netpliance becoming a serious player themselves is almost inevitable.
So, perhaps if they're as smart as they think they are, they should look at a bit of diversification. Adding 10/100 ethernet, socketing the flash, and swapping pins on the IDE header shouldn't take too much time or money to implement, and the rest of the box is already built. They may consider themselves to be a service-oriented company, but the name Netpliance speaks otherwise.
Kid-proof tablet..
Everyone wants LCDs, but only at a price they can afford. Therefore if traders rise there prices higher than than what people are willing to pay, demand drops off very steaply. So basically the the supply & demand price curves are not finding their equilibrium. So they have to cover costs through the service agreement. If this was a set-top device with 'video out' & 'VGA out', I'm sure they'd now be selling them outright (at an higher price), as well as selling them with a service contract (at an initial lower price, but with monthly charges as well). As they would be able to supply as many as demand warrents.
Its a strange world we live in when companies actually reject customers who are Willing and Able to buy their product in the hundreds.
I'm pretty sure this statement demonstrates how out-of-touch with real life markets and companies many members of the slashdot community are. One cannot sell a product in quantities measured in hundreds and expect to make a living, much less a profit.
-- Speaking for myself.
When you honestly look at the big picture, you have a company who's idea was to bring the Internet affordably to many people. In the process they stumbled upon a very useful product beyond their original vision. My question is this: If so many people want to hack these little boxes to do something they're not really designed to do, they why not start your own business? Develop your own little thin client and run Linux on it and sell it.
Now I am not saying go out and rip off the i-Opener design or anything, but if this is such a popular device, why doesn't someone else come along with their own and market it to corporations and schools?
I'm not saying that Netpliance isn't nuts for not jumping on this chance to fill a clear market void, but if it isn't in their mission statement, then why fault them? They are pursuing the audience they set out to, and they're well within their rights not to drop one market for another. I applaud Netpliance for not seizing a quick buck but standing by their business model.
"I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure..."
Does anyone know where you can get a 10" LCD panel with a standard VGA connector for about $100? (mediocre quality will do)
The cheap LCD panel is the only real "value" to the hacker in all this. The rest of the parts for a cheap "thin client" is all off the shelf stuff readily available.
The cheapest LCD screens on the market are $500 or more because the lowest models are 14" active matrix displays sold to people who will be sitting in front of them hours on end.
No one seems to see a market for the lower quality ones for use in cool geeky toys. Who do we convince otherwise now that NetAppliance has failed to step up to the plate?
Why aren't VA Linux or Penguin Computing filling this niche?
--Aaron Greenberg
There is nothing wrong with a business model that uses contractual revenues in the future to subsidize an up front outlay. This is commonly done in cell phone contracts. In that case, there is legal language that you sign. The contract has cancellation fees and cancellation is rigorously defined.
Netpliance did not choose this model. They chose to simplify the up front purchase without requiring agreement to a contract. They didn't want to scare away customers who aren't sure if they really want to make this kind of committment. They chose to sell through outlets (i.e. Circuit City) that were not able to handle prcessing a contract.
Companies should expect that their customers will act in their economic self-interest. If you need to compel behavior to protect your business model, you need to put it in a contract and not resort to shady tactics like charging people for services that they did not authorize or retroactively changing your terms of service. Netpliance can't have it both ways: wanting not to scare away people who are afraid of a committment and enforcing a committment that people have not made.
Their business model is broken as designed. It is based on a fundamental contempt for their customer. They do not deserve our resepect. If they need to compel behavior after the sale, they need to execute a properly drafted contract.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
These guys made a huge PR mistake and are still trying to cover their asses - and not doing a good job of it. If they really care about the Open Source community like they say, why did they start clipping pins, pouring epoxy all over the board and changing the root passwords?
Netpliance is a cowardly company and they don't deserve to survive because of it. The market will take care of them shortly.
And, the author of the original critique was pointing out that there is a commonality among the "emissaries" in the tone of the pieces they/you write wherein you endorse i-opener or whoever: guess what? to an MBA, the difference between i-opener, Apple, Palm, AOL, Be and whoever is, some have selected hashing, some use binary search, and others use btrees. That's all. There's nothing particularly original or clueful about any of their strategies. The market conditions differ, and the execution varies, ... and it's even interesting to learn when you don't know it. But it just sounds dumb for you to endorse them.
(and as an aside quibble: "familiarity breeds contempt" does not refer to meeting people, but to living in close quarters with them.)
Anyway, to the folks in this forum who say i-opener is a hardware company so they should sell hardware... is your cable company a hardware company because they give you a cable box? You have to think about the staff required to interface with customers and the money invested in the various infrastructures you need to support your sales and support model. Hardware, software, content, services... these are completely different things which is why we see different companies doing them, and having different cultures. With the current i-opener model, when they deliver a box to a grandmother, they get to go to wall street and say, "it cost us X to deliver this, but we expect to see Y+Y+Y+... coming in monthly". That "+Y+..." is the key to the value of this customer. If they start selling hardware alone, it'll be "we spent X to get Z". Wall Street prefers recurring revenue because as you expend more effort to get more customers, the stream of cash coming in GROWS. With non-recurring revenue, you need to keep working for each new bit of revenue. It's hard to grow sales that way.
here it is for all you 1+ers:
This thread started with a pretty insightful post I thought.
I can agree with you that many of the points I made about the economic viability of Netpliance selling hacker boxes seem pretty obvious. But at the same time, this was something that wasn't immediatley grasped by a lot of people out there. Just read the feedback that I got from slashdotters on this issue overwhelmingly asking them to sell hardware to hackers at a reasonable price as a sound business move.
I thought it was important to speak to that response since it was obviously indicative of how a lot of people felt. Looking back, I can't say that I regret writing the article the way I did.
Spending time explaining what a majority of people wanted explained may have made me look amatuerish in some ways, but I thought it was important to do considering the tone of the debate up till now. I personally agree with most of what you said above, and the article was partly an attempt to help make these economic concepts easier to understand by the masses of open source people out there, because /yes/, that is something we need.
Thanks,
Kalin
PS. I certainly don't purport to be a spokesperson, or "emmisary", for anything but my own perspective.
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