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Apple and CompUSA Working on 'Software on Demand'
pimpbott writes "Apple is working with SoftwareToGo to install kiosks in CompUSA stores to deliver software on demand. Imagine walking into your local CompUSA and ordering some obscure title that nobody would ordinarily stock, paying for it, and walking out with a custom-burned CD-ROM. This not only gets more titles published and available to the public at large by reducing the need for expensive shelf space and other publishing costs, but it keeps embarassingly large, mostly empty software boxes from ending up in the landfill."
It's about time someone thought of doing something like this. Heck, if it catches on, you could probably set this up as a vending type of machine. Imagine going down to the "Quick-E-Mart" at 3AM andpurchasing a copy of an imaging program to help work on the report due first thing in the morning.
Of course, I think that there needs to be some valid way to register or prove that you actually did purchase this software since something like this may cause more piracy and/or fraud.
I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself.
Realistically most software isn't that big, Photoshop is about 150MB, that's a lot to download on my dial-up but who going to drop $700 after just walking into a CompuServ, if you have that money you can have it overnight with FedEx.
And most good software for the Mac comes from Shareware and Freeware developers,and I'd bet, though I couldn't verify, that the average size of those files isn't much more than 20MB.
Otherwise, with the exception of other bloated (usually for the best) by Adobe and Microsoft (which you usually order with your computer anyway) there isn't much that anyone can't download overnight on almost any connecntion, and, as someone pointed out, those times have been dropping because of the proliferation of broadband.
I think it's a neat idea but totally unecessary. Finding Mac software is very hard, especially in non-urban areas (the Circuit City didn't have a single Mac app, except, by chance, the old Diablo which was released in the same box for both OS's), but demand just isn't there for kiosks, especially not at CompuServ.
Apple would be better off having offered a super-secure, super-reliable server to download software from, instead of asking people to drive an hour to get what they could download in that time.