Time's Up For Virgin Connect Webplayer

R forwarded to us e-mail from Virgin Connect, outlining that company's discontinuation of service for all the Virgin Connect Webplayers, effective the 15th of this month. They're offering gift certificates to Virginmega.com as a sort of booby prize to participants in the "charter member program." If you have one of these devices, be advised:"Internet Appliance Network will terminate your charter membership and shut down the service as of midnight 11/15/00. Effective as of that date, you are no longer bound by the terms of the Member Agreement. We will send you a letter via U.S. mail within the next 7-10 business days that includes instructions for returning your Webplayer and a prepaid UPS shipping label, so you can return the device free of charge. Your Webplayer cannot be re-configured to work with another ISP." Actually, since all sorts of things can be reconfigured to work as stand-alone systems, I wonder about that. Anyone had any success converting a Webplayer ala i-opener?

Comments

Virgin don't seem to be having much success online

[matthew.thompson]

In the UK they tried to become one of the largest ISPs by relying on their brand-name and providing content - they then offered the service free when that was seen to be the thing to do. Not long after they've decided to pull out of the dial-up market and handed all of the dial up customers to NTL (Who were providing the network anyway) and now they concentrate on the portal and content market. IT looks like something similar has happened with their US venture.

Ugh.

[pb]

First, check your *link*. For a site that only has ten stories a day on its front page, quality control is horrible!

Second, your choice of links didn't help me figure this one out anyhow, since I hadn't heard of the player. I found some info in the slashdot comments too--looks like a cheap-o Cyrix-based box...

Third, I'm glad it's dead, even though I like Virgin in general. I found Virgin Radio soon after I found RealAudio, and I thought their station was pretty cool. (We USians find those UKians so quaint sometimes! :)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Inside the Webplayer

[Jalal]

Sorry forgot to include the address! http://www.larwe.com/techref/webplayer.html

Info on Webplayer

[ejbst25]

I know someone who has one of these..so I was looking into it for her. I found the following info:

• CPU is mounted on the motherboard. You're not going to be upgrading this thing.
• There is a single SODIMM socket on the bottom of the motherboard. It comes with a 64MB CAS2 SODIMM module.
• There is an intact IDE header, marked CN12.
• There's also a CN13, which is marked as the FDD connect, but isn't populated.
• CN11 isn't populated either; it's marked as the CF Card Conn (Compact Flash).
• CN5 is also unpopulated, marked as the IRDA connector.
• The most interesting connector is CN16, marked as the MINI PCI connector. I wonder if there are any mini-ethernet device available. Maybe even a wireless product.
• CN6 is a com port header, in addition to BC15, which is the modem connector. It has the same style modem as the I-O (size & location of the connectors).
• CN19 is unpopulated, and marked as the VGA connector.
• The BIOS chip is also an SST 39F020, the same as an I-O.
• I've removed the DOC and the CMOS battery to try and get into the BIOS. No luck. It still keeps asking for the password.

This was all from this internet appliance bboard and a user "anonyman". I might get around to playing with this. I guess it depends on the term of the agreement and whether or not they *must* return it. Does anyone know the specifics of this deal?

Mr Branson doesn't always win, but he's a good guy

[B747SP]

Richard Branson never claimed to be the Messiah - in fact if pressed, I suspect he'd be the first to suggest that he's a very naughty boy :-)

IMHO, it's a hell of a shame to see Virgin Connect die. Virgin have quite a reputation for being good, fun and revolutionary

On past history though, when things go pear shaped for a Virgin business (and that doesn't happen often) then Virgin will be nice and play fair about it... read on...

Virgin is a branding company. They have lots of different businesses: The well known Virgn Megastores (no longer owned by the Virgin group), Virgin Atlantic, the luxury airline showing the others how to fly, Virgin Express in the UK, the cheap and cheerful airline in the UK. Virgin Trains, Virgin Mobile phones, the list goes on.

In the past few months, Mr Branson has come down under to set up Virgin Blue, the low-cost airline that is seriously putting the cat amongst the pigeons for the long standing duopoly that masqueraded as a scheduled air transport industry in Australia.

One of the first Virgin businesses was Virgin Records. After some initial success, the board of directors decided to float the company on the stock market. A bad decision as it happened, things went ugly, and ultimately the company decided to buy-back the shares and de-list.

At the time, the share price had dropped to some 30% of the original issue price. In legal terms, they could have paid the current price, and got out. Richard Branson took a different stance though. At the original float, he went to the street, and met with individual investors queueing to buy shares in the company. When they decided to de-list, he said "Those people put their faith in me, I won't let them down." He bought their shares back at the price they originally paid. A huge cost to the then ailing record company, but a huge boost to his personal reputation, and the Virgin brand.

So, a significant point about the withdrawal of Virgin Connect - I don't expect it to be an ugly grab-the-money-and-run action that one expects from failed start-ups these days.