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.

Comments

Kerbango in iTunes?

[nbvb]

Isn't Kerbango the "Internet Radio" that Apple uses in their iTunes app?

If the service goes away, what about iTunes?

Internet Appliances are bullshit

[KingAzzy]

They're 20% of what a "real" computer is, at 80% the price. There just is no value in these and they're just an extension of the bullshit Larry Ellison spouted out a few years back about the "network being the OS". Maybe in 10 years when everybody is wired up to the net via fiber to their houses but as the situation stands right now, forget it.

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.

Re:Internet Appliances are bullshit

[Mike Buddha]

They're 20% of what a "real" computer is, at 80% the price.

This is always what got me. I don't mind a limited use device, but the advantage to this is usually low price. Now if they could drop the price to 20%, or even 30% of a computers price, I'd buy one, or even two.

I was particularly disappointed in the price of Kerbango, that was something that I really could have used and the old "TFT monitors cost so much" argument doesn't hold water here. I don't even think the device has a hard drive. How did they justify the $399 price tag on that?

Back to basics

[HerrGlock]

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

Re:waitaminute!

[underwhelm]

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).

Why they don't sell...

[eric2hill]

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.

Re:Why they don't sell...

[BrK]

The problem is that everybody has their own idea of what makes a good IA. What you want is not what I want is not what they want, etc.

To say that you'll "build a damn server in my basement" kinda shows that you're not looking at this is the right perspective. Audrey came in colors like "linen" and "blueberry", to say that it wasn't targeted to the "...build a damn server in my basement crowd" would be an understatement :)

Audrey was meant to be used by people that were afraid of too many computers, or didn't realize that you could take a $300PC and a $600 14" LCD monitor and do so mcuh more for just a few more dollars.

I think that Audrey could have survived, but it needed a backend in the home. But this backend needed to be more-or-less hands off to the homeowner. The backend had to be more like a magic black box o' technology. The really sad part is that the black box is just around the corner, but Audrey won't be here to enjoy it.

What to do now?

[heroine]

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.

Re:NetPliance

[fmaxwell]

While QNX was a pre-existing operating system, it was/is hardly an industry standard. Just look at the dearth of software, commercial, open source, freeware, shareware, etc. available for it. Choosing an OS that does not enjoy industry-wide support is suicidal.

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.