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Netpliance Sponsors 100 Creative Mobile Computing
Halcyon writes: "The maker of the Flat Panel Linux Box for $99, Netpliance once again gains the interest of the open source community by posting the winners of the Pilot 100 Program. The program originally started by the development department of Netpliance in order to tap a new market created by these $99 Internet terminals turned portable pc's. Some skeptics of Netpliance have speculated that these refurbished machines are a cheap way to conduct R&D through easily bought community members, but I don't see any of the winners complaining. Decide for yourself. " What's strange is that they are trying to get people to put Linux/*BSD on machines, when I had thought that's what they were trying to *stop* before.
...what kind of demand they have for their little LCD box. If I were in Netpliance's shoes, and I saw the field day that hackers had with those boxes, I would have no idea how to begin because apparently people want to use my box for things other than dedicated net access. What would be the easiest way to see what people want to do with the boxes?
Why, just what they are doing now, of course. If you look on that page, you see all the things that people (potential customers) would like to do with the i-opener if they had the chance. It is a marketing coup: you get 1) free programming through the power of open source, 2) free promotion throughout a possible target audience, and 3) happy potential customers. What more could a company ask for?
The inquisitor has spoken.
Check these little "BookPC" boxes out... They use the same i810 chipset as the iPaq, but include both a floppy and CD-ROM drive (or DVD-ROM, depending on configuration). It is possible to buy them with no OS installed (which is what we did). You can find more info on them here:
http://www.pal-tec.com/BOOKPC.htm
We bought ours through buy.com, and they were also significantly cheaper than the iPaq. Performance between the iPaq with a P III-500 wasn't significantly different than the BookPC with a Celeron 500.
I'm one of the people that got into the pilot100 program, and I have to admit, most of the projects, including my own, were kinda weak. I don't know what all got submitted (Netpliance: Post all submissions!) but a lot of the ones chosen were exactly the same. "I want to configure an IO to play Mp3s"
What can I say though, I'm getting free hardware for the first time in my life. More than I can say for any other company. And, I'd like to actually see if I can pull of my project, in some form atleast.
Don't get me wrong - other developers - some of the project ideas were also really cool. But the majority was same ol same ol.
Some skeptics of Netpliance have speculated that these refurbished machines are a cheap way to conduct R&D through easily bought community members...
So what? This is the whole idea of releasing source code. The community gets cheap, cool xterms, they get cheap R&D. If a big Open Source project starts, sure they lose some code control, but in exchange they get an R&D Department that dwarfs MS, et al.
That's the reason Netscape released its code. Everyone benefits. You get vastly improved R&D and mindshare from the developer community. They get control over the code development, and a product that they want badly enough to be coding for themselves. Customers get peer-reviewed security and stability, feature rich and inexpensive products. Stockholders get improved profits due to quality and lower development and support costs. Everyone wins. Except your closed source competitors.
I'm not sure I would call myself a Netpliance skeptic (I'd love to see a computer that even my mom could use), but there is nothing wrong with pursuing a profit for their shareholders. This move maximizes that profit, so more power to them.
If this hurts your altruism gland, just remember that that stock price will be people's retirement plans and college savings funds. Or that when people make more money, that they tend to give more to worthy but unprofitable charities.