Larry Ellison's Next NC -- But Not Yet For You

An Anonymous Coward (and numerous others -- thanks) have written with news of Larry Ellison's (not Oracle's) new venture. "$199 for Network PC (w/o monitor). Local storage in flash memory, operating system on CD only. (No HD). 64M ram, 266Mhz Pentium-Class. Small Footprint." Added to which, cr@ckwhore added this link to ZDNet coverage of the device and pointed out " This thing costs $199, and has more power than the i-opener or that other websurfer thing ... get the tools back out ... this one is coming apart soon!!" The gimmick is that for now, no one can buy one for personal use (must wait till later in the year) -- but you can pay to contribute a NIC machine to a public school.

Comments

I think this is a Good Idea

[Sloppy]

The more I think of this, the cooler it sounds. I hope he actually follows through on the idea of getting these into schools.

Schools don't (in theory) have the legacy needs of businesses. They can really use whatever works best, instead of having to conform to Microsoft formats. And if Johhny brings his homework back to school and it's in MS Word format and the school computers can't read it, well, that's just too bad. Sorry, Johnny. Save it in RTF or some open format next time. Make it a habit for life, Johnny.

Think about it: kids growing up using lil' Linux boxes... Most of what mainstream society considers to be "normal" is really just a matter of what they're used to either by random chance or clever maniacal plotting, rather than choice. That's why Windoze is considered "normal" these days. (How sad!) Change what people see every day, and you'll change what they are.

And look at the donation angle. This is a way for people like us to directly subvert Microsoft's strategy of using the education system to indoctrinate the next generation. Instead of having to work through the political system to convince the school board to buy a fleet of [pick your favorite non-Wintel platform], you can fight piecemeal, just a little bit at a time, by whipping out your credit card. No muss, no fuss. Hey, I'm a lazy slob and I don't know how to lobby. But I wouldn't hesitate a minute to drop $379 on the middle school a few blocks away. At least I'd know what I'm getting for my money, unlike the situation with taxes.

Of course, one terrifying possibility is that Microsoft would make a bootable Windows CD for these machines and then donate those to the schools. Hmm. Maybe Larry ought to put the OS on a ROM. Not that it would slow down a real hacker, but at least it would make bastardizing these things nontrivial.

Good job, Larry. Focus on the schools. In five to ten years, the business market will be ready too.

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