Free Linux Based Web-Appliances (From Spanish Bank)

El Blasphemouso Padre writes "According to this Reuters story Intel is building 250,000 AOL-Branded Web-Appliances to be given away by a Spanish bank. It runs Linux and soon many people in Spain with no computer will say hola to Tux!" Gotta wonder what the actual cost is on a box like that if they can give away a quarter million of them.

Comments

The cost is almost irrelevant

[JanneM]

Actually, for a bank, the cost of giving away terminals like that should be a fairly good deal. The cost of staffing the banks with tellers, security and other costs make it a huge win for every customer that chooses to do their routine businness via the web rather than in person. An estimate I've seen is that every bill paid in person will cost the bank about $2. With five bills a month ($10), the perminal will probably have paid for itself after 2-3 years. Considering that somebody who has switched to internetbanking probably will continue to use it, a one time cost per customer of $300 or so is probably a good bargain.

/Janne

AOL and Users

[ScumBiker]

Basically, anybody with a pulse can use AOL. My 14 year old daughter refuses to use it anymore, stating "All it's good for is chatting and I can get that for free everywhere else! I think AOL is for people that are to stupid to understand how to surf the real internet.". Smart kid... Anyway, I think it's pretty cool that they chose Linux for the base OS. Does this mean we're about to get bombarded with AOL for Linux CD's, offering 5,000,000 hours (useable only in the first month, of course)?



Dive Gear

A MS nightmare

[Alien54]

This maybe the start of something that could turn into an AOL/OS. (much rumored for many years) Even though based on Linux, it would be sure to give MS the cold sweats. Most people do not care what the brand name is beyond simple functionality.