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3Com Drops Internet Appliances
Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this article, 3Com is killing the Linux-powered Kerbango internet radio. Also being killed in the dismantling of their appliance division is the Audrey wireless webpad and 3Com's webcam." Looks like yet another opportunity to pick up some gadgets at close-out prices.
Isn't Kerbango the "Internet Radio" that Apple uses in their iTunes app?
If the service goes away, what about iTunes?
I happened to have just worked for a company oriented around selling an "Internet appliance" to the consumer market and there just wasn't a business model that could support it.
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$ chown -R us:us yourbase
Apparently, these device makers believe that they can spit out any old piece of hardware, make it internet-ready, and expect people to snap it up like hotcakes. No one is asking "What can it do?"
I already have a web-surfing appliance. I already have a phone. I can already access information from the web through my PDA. What in the world would entice me to buy something that I've already got?
e-books? heads-up kitchen internet appliance? enhanced washing machine?
Give me something I can use!
Dancin Santa
3Com makes some wonderful networking equipment. They see that there's not going to be much R&D money in the immediate future so they consolidate and go back to what they're best at. Making network cards, routers, switches etc.
This is not news other than "3Com got smart in the declining economy and went back to what they do best and put the R&D onto the back burner."
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
I wonder if they're dropping it because of the .NET competition or maybe they just realized nobody needs a fridge with a T1 connection.
"Of course I speak multiple languages, I know C++ AND Perl." "Spanish?!? Spanish? I don't need no stinking Spanish."
Well, as someone who got a couple of virgin webplayers through the webplayer-coop, I can say that this provides great oppourtunity for device hackers.. The problems with these devices is that they are too limiting, too expensive, or have horrible service agreements attached. When they inevitably fold, you can get them for a small percentage of what they are worth, and use them for dedicated MP3 player, browsers, email terminals, etc.etc..
Bring on the collapsing niche market!
air and light and time and space
Look's like the convergence of the internet and various devices is not going according to plan. Most of these things seem to be mostly ways to enhance marketing content, which tends to turn most people off pretty fast.
I don't know about you, but until they get to be priced like answering machines, they do not provide enough value for the money. Otherwise, the regular desktop computer unit seems to be a much better value. Although this depends on the software load, etc.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Better watch yourself, they'll have to yank your post for including references to the copyrighted materials in the sacred cash cow texts of the Church of Scientology(tm).
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Audrey is no great communicator
But I think it looks pretty cool. It has a touchscreen, serial, USB, built in sound... hm, I was thinking it had pcmcia for wireless... still, for $99 I could think of something to do with it. if somebody comes up w/ it for $99.
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The Kerbango was probably the only internet appliance kind of thing that I could see myself buying anytime soon. I was sort of looking forward to actually getting radio reception in the concrete bunker I live in. I would have gladly paid almost half of what they were asking for the thing. I guess I'll have to make my own out of my old linux box now.
The only thing that I've seen that fits my requirements for a webpad is the powerbook G4. It's a little heavy (5-6 lbs), and runs a little hot, but it gets 5 hours of battery life, is an inch thick, has 802.11b ethernet, a giant screen, and runs linux, OSX (BSD), Mac OS 9, and Windows.
The touch screen is the only thing missing, and I don't miss it that much. It's got the much more efficient "keyboard" technology that full-featured computers come with. Did I mention it's expandable through USB, firewire AND PCMCIA?
I was holding out for a webpad, too, but I realized I'll never be happy with a proprietary, unexpandable, unupgradeable, ISP-locked sub-computer with a cutsey UI. You get what you pay for (especially if you wait 10 years for something nobody ever brings to market).
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
..Unfortunately, I was not involved in any of the organisation of the webplayer effort, that was our savior, Jake and his army of trained monkeys boxing and shipping them out. From what I understand, Jake contacted the distributor (boundless) and said, 'hey, if I wanted to buy about 400 hundred of these, how much would you give them to me for?'. We used the now Yahoo-swallowed eGroups.com to organize the purchase quantitiy and price, and Jake kept a database on his website that was the official orders.
The one caveat was that this whole process took about 3 months- There were delays getting an agreement with boundless, delays on getting PayPal to release the funds to Jakes new account, etc, etc.. From what I understand, there was talk of putting together a FAQ outlining some of the problems we ran into, things to avoid, etc.. Anyone else from the coop here to confirm this?
air and light and time and space
ObDisclaimers: I work for 3Com, but I am currently speaking as my own person, and not as a representative of the company I work for.
That aside, yes, we still make lots of things. We still make lots of NICs (last I knew, every Dell computer ships with a 3Com chip on board). We do still make switches, plus we're expanding to gigabit ethernet over copper. My personal favorite, (since it happens to be what I work on) is the wireless networking that we do (IEEE 802.11b). In fact, for wireless, we just announced two new products just yesterday.
For a web-pad to sell well, it needs to be simple. I don't want a word processor, schedule, notes, whatever... What I want and will pay good money for is a tablet (a'la StarTrek) that is simply a web browser with a couple of favorites. No print capability, no stupid "channels", no "email to my friends", none of that extravagant crap that every "internet appliance" I've seen seems to include. I want to walk around my house surfing at a couple of megs or so speed (not 10 or 100, it's a frigging cable modem) and simply be able to jump to a url (google, yahoo, slashdot) by using an onscreen keyboard or just a favorites list. Give it good battery life (say an hour or two) and I'll let it rest permanently on my coffee table in it's cradle while I'm not using it. 10.4" or 11.?" would be fine. A 12" would be dandy, but I'm not picky. Hell, I don't even thing I need color. Just make the thing thin enough to carry from the living room to the kitchen with one hand. If I want house remote control or anything else, I'll build a damn server in my basement with X10 and a web server with some CGI code.
Dammit.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
Part of what you said is true (about the prices). However, there is a market for this type of device, just not at these prices as is stated in the article.
Personally, I'd love a small internet appliance for about $100-$150 (about the price of a nice jambox) that I could place in the kitchen so that I could retrieve email, look something up on the net, etc. that can wired into my network (with my DSL as the web pipe) at home.
I know my parents would like this too, since they don't particularly want to learn MS Lookout/Windows/whatever and would like basic email and web access in a small appliance you can put on your counter.
Not everybody wants a PC or even a laptop sitting in their kitchen. Something like the Audrey with a network hookup at about $100 would be great.
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"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
In the mean time the price differential should be all the business model a reputable company needs to make plenty of money.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I have an Audrey. Overall, its a pretty cool device for its intended function. But it did deserve to fail.
It was a consumer experience idiot-savant. For example, my unit arrived in a Catch-22 state... you can't access any software until you calibrate the touch screen. You can't see the calibration target because the contrast is set too high. You can't change the contrast because its controlled by a piece of software.
What else? Well, its too slow, too expensive, and it does too many things - making it difficult to explain what it is to the intended audience.
That being said, it does work really well. The browser is probably the most compatible I've seen on any non-PC. The email is easy to use (but too hard to configure for Grandma). It resurrects Push (remember Push?) via Marimba to delivery personalized content so you can just flip it on to get the weather, sports, news, etc. It provides just about the only way that end-consumers can group-sync their Palms.
I think that IAs are a useful product class waiting to happen. I hate it when the failures of one product are seized upon by pundits to damn the entire classifcation (PDAs were considered dead until Palm came along). I just don't understand why no one can make one that works, simply and cheaply.
Not a shadow of a doubt. The question I have is,
Where do I buy one at "close-out prices?"
It's not useless because it has a small screen. Palms aren't useless. People even buy Nokias and little WiNCE and EPOC devices with miniature keyboards and tiny screens.
The price they charged for the things was too high. Just like the article said, "There's an emachine, cheaper, right next to the Audrey display." But "close-out prices" may make it worthwhile. Any leads? Email me or post them!
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
From the article:
Audrey's quick demise--the $499 device debuted in October--is the latest evidence of a growing trend. Namely, consumers don't want simplified computing devices for surfing the Web, or at least they don't want them yet.
Even CNET admits it.
sulli
RTFJ.
Get a visor deluxe. They come with 8mb of ram. Then get a wireless modem. I think they go for $200-300. Total expenditure: $350-$600. In may, you'll also be able to get an 802.11 module. There is already one cellular phone module available, with more to come.
Downsides: modules aren't built-in functionality, so you have to give up one to benefit from another. Small screen. Wireless modem plans are pricey.
Upsides: Visor deluxes take regular AAA batteries, and I get several weeks of life our of my NiMH rechargeables. Palm OS application base, Palm OS functionality. Color is available for an added price.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
3Com can't discontinue Palm, because Palm has already left 3Com.
Palm could discontinue Palm, but I doubt it. Palm is still a moneymaker.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
I have no idea what this was about, who it's by, or how it relates to anything. But it's the first offtopic post I've enjoyed in a long time.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Forget the browser. Just add a "terminal client" (like X or something). Let it run against my "real" computer in the other room/across town. Then you don't even really need a processor to run apps. The tablet is really just a display and input device.
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324006
Commodore Sold around 10.5 million commodore 64's (thats including the 64 module, the SX 64 module, and the C64S module)..
I don't think that Apple has sold iMacs more then Commodore did, but then again - Commodore is dead (as we knew it) and Apple is still alive..
Hetz (Heunique)
3Com isn't ditching R&D, they just realized that nobody was buying the stuff because it is way too expensive, and they can't make any money at acceptible price points.
R&D on wireless connectivity, for example, is continuing hardcore. What R&D is in Audrey or Kerbango? About zip. They're just linux boxen running limited, dedicated apps.
With expensive build components.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
Acutally, you have a pretty good idea. Just modify it slightly. I cook a lot of microwave rice, and I finally worked out a good program for my own cooker. 8 minutes on power level 10, then 12 minutes on 3.
I would love to be able to throw my food in, and hit one button.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
3Com on Wednesday said it will discontinue Audrey, its Web-surfing appliance. Audrey's quick demise--the $499 device debuted in October--is the latest evidence of a growing trend. Namely, consumers don't want simplified computing devices for surfing the Web, or at least they don't want them yet.
OK, we want simplified stuff. But consider that an E-machine does so much more than the Audrey (and the name isn't as pathetic - "Hey mommie, I'm going to go play with Audrey in my room"), and at the same cost. Sure, the Audrey is "portable", but that is rather limited by battery life. And besides, you can't load your own software onto that thing anyhow.
What Mr. User, Joe wants is something that has either a NIC or a 56k modem (why pay for both, you'll only use one), runs an e-mail app and a webrowser, can be upgraded (in case some new "web trick" comes out - al a Flash or something), and COSTS WHAT IT SHOULD!
Basically, remember that your market is people who don't want to pay for a full computer because they don't need it. Don't provide extra stuff and focus on the cost and keeping it useful throughout its life... How do you think Palm does so good?
"Make that cable soldier! Orange stripe, orange - crimp and give me fifty!"
SIG: HUP
Internet appliances were supposed to be the next heavy market for consumer electronics. One wonders if 3COM dropped theirs on top VP of market development...
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
I've looked at all these pretty closely with the following criteria in mind:
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1) It has to fit into my existing home network, work with exiting machines, access my existing files,
2) It has to be portable. This means wireless (802.11b please) and run on recharable batterys.
3) It has to have a good screen, at least 800x600 and half decent input cabablilites.
4) I just want the hardware, i don't want to buy any service to go with it.
After checking out the latest offerings i found exactly what i was looking for. It's called a laptop and it works great! Seriously, if you are thinking about a web pad forget it. Go get an old laptop, anything over about a pentium 133 with a reasonable amount of memory in it is fine as an appliance. Load linux on it, get an wireless access point and pc-card and you are laughing.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
What are we supposed to do now? Pay $960 for a motherboard? PC makers stopped production and component makers jacked up prices because everyone wanted appliances and now appliance makers stop production. Pretty soon we'll be milking our own cows.
Not shy about advertising? Then how come I've never heard of the thing? Not to sound like an arrogant prick, but I tend to keep up with things like this, and this is the first time I've ever seen the thing.
Crikey, does 3Com have rhesus monkeys running their marketing department? What is the target market for the Audrey? Grandma? Grandpa? Not yet -- get them in the hands of nerds and the technoratti. Did they even buy an ad on Slashdot?
Get some buzz going first. This is a neat-o device -- expensive, but I can think up several dozen uses for it once the price comes down.
Now, the Internet radio is plain stupid. It deserved to die.
"Beware by whom you are called sane."
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Having standard hardware did not hurt Netpliance. What hurt them was selling the i-opener at a tremendous loss ($400 manufacturing cost and $100 sales price) in the hope that they would make up the cost in overpriced Internet access fees. If the device had been priced at $450, I don't think that either of us would have bought them to hack. But Netpliance was, in essence, paying hackers $300 to find a way to hack it. At the same time, by only taking $100 from "real users", there was little commitment on the part of the users. They had no big investment in making this work. With high monthly fees (partially to offset the loss from the sale of the units), there was a real incentive for their users, many of whom were older and on a fixed income or otherwise not well off financially, to cancel the service to save money.
Netpliance should have sold the hardware at, or just above, cost and used Linux and open source software. For those that would prefer to make their own box, Netpliance should have made a bootable CD-ROM that could run on a "standard" PC (for which they could have produced a hardware specification). Storage of settings, e-mail, etc. could have been on a floppy disk (or flash in their custom box). They could have even sold a custom keyboard (with Pizza key) for everyone who wanted to put a PC on their network. They could have given the disks away and half the geeks on the planet would have cobbled together boxes to put grandma on the net. Netpliance could have charged a $19.95/month fee for access, push content, software updates, etc. and not started off $300 in the hole. Then when grandma forgot (for the 53rd time) how to send e-mail, they would have fielded the tech support call. And if grandma lost interest, got Alzheimer's, or died in a year, Netpliance would not be out all that money.
It's the AOL model with a twist: You provide pre-chewed content with a simplified interface and lots of tech support for a high price. The difference is that AOL requires a real computer while this could have been done with an appliance at a lower cost while shielding your users from the complexity of the OS in a way that AOL cannot.
The Internet appliance market is viable. It just needs some common sense engineering and marketing to make it work. Selling $400 worth of custom hardware for $100 -- with no minimum commitment for service -- is no way to become profitable. This is especially true when your target market consists largely of people likely to find that they don't use, like, or want Internet access.
The "Internet radio" idea is interesting. Now make one with a channel selector, a volume control, and a one-line display.
They paid 80 million for kerbango and then shelved it. They just wasted 80 million of their shareholders dollars and got nothing in return. Not my idea of smart.
War is necrophilia.
The price at its launch (on July 16, 1999) was not $99 as you claim, but was, instead, $399 as shown in this CNet announcement. At the time, Netpliance was calling it the "Ipad." By December of 1999, they had dropped the price to $199 as shown in this PC Magazine news story.In July of 2000, Netpliance announced that they were raising the price of the i-opener from $99 to $399 as shown in this Netpliance press release and in this CNet news article. At the end of August, after dismal sales, Netpliance lowered the price to $299 as shown in this CNet news article. I believe that they sold more i-openers at $99 than at all of the other price points combined.
Next time, get your facts straight before claiming that I am wrong.
I'll admit, you might have me on cutsey UI, if you're just thinking about stock OS X. But with the option to run Linux and windows, and the likely flexibility of the OS X UI, I can have any UI I want.
m puters in a one-inch-thin sack (to blend my metaphors).
Firewire. USB. PCMCIA. Up to 1 gig of ram. The only things I can't upgrade are the CPU and the video card... It's a damn sight better than Audrey, and a lot more portable than my desktop systems. With my 1.3" thick Cannon scanner, Tascam US-428 and a digital video camera, I can produce a [insert creative endeavor] anywhere that there's enough oxygen for me to run the devices.
I know, you were just joking... but even I'm overwhelmed by the versatility and usefulness of this gadget. It's the 200 lb. gorilla of swiss-army-knives-that-we-call-general-purpose-co
I don't need large brains to have a good time.