Wal-Mart to Offer Wal-Mart Notebooks

ducomputergeek writes "Cnet News.com is running an article that Wal-Mart plans to launch its own line of notebook computers. I wonder if these will run Lindows or XP. We've purchased a couple low cost boxes with no OS's for cheap file servers and they've worked pretty well."

Comments

Somewhat offtopic, but... PCs have gotten CHEAP!

[Stile 65]

There's a neat link at the bottom of the article to another article about $200 being the magic number for PCs.

I've always thought this would be a neat idea for corporations: Several fairly powerful servers, running everything from file sharing to groupware (on BSD or Linux, SMP, etc.). A bunch of cheap PCs with no hard drives and Knoppix-type CDs configured for the company's network. All files accessed via NFS, etc.

Talk about a) inexpensive solution and b) easy support. The computers are throwaways, and you don't have to move data from a broken one to a new one. It's all on the servers. But the computers are still powerful enough to do plenty of processing on their own.

Upgrades are a cinch - distribute new CDs to everyone.

With $200 computers (how much cheaper would they be without hard drives?) it's more than possible.

Hrm.

And the manufacturer is...

[Lank]

Arima, as pointed out in this article. It says here that Walmart has already placed an order for 100,000 notebooks for their test-run.