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Software Vending Machines
anubis__ writes "CNN details a sort-of software vending machine named 'SoftwareToGo' that CompUSA is testing out in their Seattle, WA, Dallas, TX, and San Francisco, CA stores. The upside to this vending machine is that your CD is burned when you request it, so the latest patches available for the software you're buying might already be included with the installation. The downside, like anything requiring some level of technical aptitude in the US, is that the machines are avoided by the masses of shoppers." This has been in the works for a year or so.
...but as other people noted in the last thread, you miss out on some of the other other niceties. For one, I hate "online" manuals. You can take your PDFs and stuff 'em. I treasure my spiral-bound manual for Neverwinter Nights.
Also, about patches: this would be nice for things that need updated patches, like Windows.... except Microsoft won't sell Windows or Office at these kiosks! Erk.
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
1. Hack into software ATM, corrupt deliverables
2. ???
3. Profit!
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
The public has in the past shown an aversion to these sorts of machines. Complex vending machines look intimidating, usually are hard to use and the consumer if often afraid of "accidently" buying something or "breaking" the machine.
Thalasar
How is this somehow better than downloading the software from the Internet? So I can hold a new CD? I can burn that myself. I really don't see the market unless you are stuck on a 56K modem.
IF I want some burned software I can download it from the net - even after paying for it ;-)
But if I go to a shop I want a pressed CD - these hold longer.
I don't see why it should take technical aptitude. After all, anybody can use a vending machine, and this can't be that much more complicated, right?
And the l33t shall inherit the 34r7h.
You know those little stickers...
"This machine will not release free product"
Then a little picture of the machine falling on a stick figure. Maybe it'll be a Penguin?
There's just no coin slot to insert your payment.
Not games, or most desktop-targetted apps, because you can't burn their precious anti-copying schemes.
.pdf or README file.
And if it was going to be higher-end office type stuff, like OS's or DVD authoring, or ANYTHING that costs 19.99 or higher, and people are going to want the box, the official CD, and most of all - THE MANUAL.
Dead tree manuals are easier to read than some
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Wow. I can't tell you how many times I've said "Gee, I'd really like to buy software from a vending machine at a computer store". I mean, it's so much easier than just pulling it down off the shelf, and there are so few things that could go wrong with this.
OK, sarcasm aside, if I'm going to buy software from a store, I want the box, a paper manual, and all that other stuff that goes with shrinwrap software. If I wanted a CD-R and no printed materials, there are other ways to do it.
I won't use one of these until they're named "v3nd0-ju4r3z" in garish neon lettering.
The question is, will I be able to finger it over the net?
I'm a very active CD archiving person, with live music (think phish/dead/etc, its all legal, but thats really beside the point). In the long term, say 6-8 months, I find that alot of my burned disks become unreadable...which would annoy me alot more if my 400 dollar copy of windows XP pro was burned onto it. I wonder if this is addressed at all by this system, or is the buyer just screwed?
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
One might refer to Microsoft as a Vending Machine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The story is a dupe, the topic is boring, the facts weren't checked. WE GET IT!!
This is the technology that might replace their obsolete distribution model.
--
Ride, shoot straight & speak the truth.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's Razor
lugging all that change.
How many quarters does it take to buy MS Orfice?
Sweet informative mod.
now instead of kicking a machine for your $0.65 snack getting stuck, you can get really mad when your $60 game gets stuck!
The downside, like anything requiring some level of technical aptitude in the US, is that the machines are avoided by the masses of shoppers
He's right on here. Despite being more convienient to a college campus and half the price, people just didn't want to use a machine. There is a different mindset for poeple who know what they want and shop online, most people, however, seem to want to look and touch before they buy.
nt
Which is an interesting parallel to the main shortcoming of Usenet as a delivery system for sexual titillation.
I initially thought this might be a great idea, and one that would eventually be widely used. Imagine a small kiosk in a grocery store, for instance. The footprint is no more than 9 square feet, as all that's really needed is a budget computer with a high speed burner hooked up to a broadband connection.
But within a few years, when broadband becomes ubiquitous, might physical distribution be eliminated altogether?
The other concern, of course, is that of the inevitable virus slipping through as a "patch."
An effective signature identifies a particular user amongst a base of thousands.
"Debian Linux - 6 CD's, $6.00"
"Mandrake Linux - 3 CD's, $3.00"
"Fedora Linux - 3 CD's, $3.00"
"Gentoo Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Knoppix Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Vector Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Peanut Linux - 1 CD, $1.00"
"Microsoft Windows XP Home - 1 CD, $89" This actually might be a good way to get novices to try Linux, especially the Knoppix (or the BitDefender Knoppix based "Linux Defender", which makes an excellent recovery disk)...
How do they expect this machine to distribute the latest and greatest games when the most popular ones are all crippled with things like securom, etc?
...sheet music, that is. I used to work for a music store, and we had a machine for sheet music that was similar to this one. You put in your money, select your song and key, and it prints out.
I don't recall ever seeing anyone using it, which made me mad mostly because I was the one who had to unload it from the truck and it was dang heavy.
People in general are just not going to want to do anything more than push one button, maybe two. It's a lot easier to paw through the bargain bins and the store shelves.
I also just don't trust something like this. Personally, I want to take something physically from a shelf and walk it up to the counter so that I know exactly what I'm getting.
Marketing success is intimately tied - at least in the US - to making products 'stupid friendly'.
It's amazing how stupid people are, and then when you think you've finally got a handle on it, you find out they're even stupiderer.
some software is well over the size of one CD, and even if it is only a couple hundred megs, it is still a pain to wait severasl hours for a download, especially if your connectiojn times out or something.
"like anything requiring some level of technical aptitude in the US, is that the machines are avoided by the masses of shoppers"
Typical slashdot comment. "If the users can't use it, it must be their fault."
What's amazingly obvious in this situation is: if the users can't buy stuff from you, now it's your fault.
I could see this being a good thing for people in areas that are still limited to dial-up connections. Drive out to the local Comp-USA, find a piece of software that you'd normally download, but is prohibitively large, and take the 2-3 minutes to burn it. Pay a small fee, and drive home with your software. I fail to see any real flaws with this plan. It just needs to be more widely accepted by software companies, now.
Speaking of coinslots. You would need one hell of a pocket to lug around enough nickles or dimes to buy some of the software out there.
Er, maybe after I've finished up and washed my hands first.
Who actually pays for Win... *oops*
Do you feel safe sticking $100+ into a vending machine? I mean, it's a pain enough to try and stick a single dollar bill into a Coke machine, but try sticking five or six twenties in there.
Also, these would be targeted like ATMs, but probably with less security. They'll probably sit inside the store, but without the procedural security of a cashier's drawer.
Will the product be cheaper than the boxed version? If not, why wouldn't you just buy the boxed?
In the UK the newsagents / stationers WHSmiths used a similar system a couple of years ago. It was based around an iMac (CRT, no flat panels then) with a touchscreen added, plus a printer setup to print all the labels etc. I think it used an external CD-R(W) drive (it might've been before CD-RW drives were in iMacs.)
I don't remember it having any really eyecatching software, mostly the 10 stuff that no-one ever buys. It did have Mac software though, but still a lame selection.
I have no idea if they're still around, the ones I've been to recently don't have them, but I haven't been the the store where I saw one for quite a long time (Birmingham city centre, if your wondering.)
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
"The upside to this vending machine is that your CD is burned when you request it,..."
So...I gotta wait 4 minutes before I find out the machine has taken my money and now the disc is jammed in the damned chute!!!!!
Ummmm...I think I'll pass on this one.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Provided it's easy (AND cheap) to get software onto a machine to be, well, vended (probably not a word), then this is a fantastic distribution mechanism for those indie devs who'd like to have a presence in a B&M. They don't have to worry about shelf placement, the overhead of boxes, old stock, etc.
The only trouble is how would you advertise on the machine to help direct purchases to your title?
Yeah, they should really make vending machines that take paper money, huh.
See Sig! See Sig Zig! Zig Sig Zig!!!!!
One of our local theaters has a small ATM-sized machine that dispenses tickets in exchange for credit card payments. I find it far easier to use this machine rather than waiting in line. Unfortunately, almost nobody seems to agree with me, so the theater hasn't bothered to repair it since it broke a long time ago.
If nothing else, maybe this can finally get rid of those annoying hardware copy protection devices ("dongles") that we all love to hate...
People just don't buy software at vending machine volumes. $60 is a lot to spend on a program fer the puter for a non-geek. I realize that we all put software in our budgets, but it's not like some bored housewife goes to CompUSA to see what came out and if she wants it. She does, however, stop at a soda machine if she's thirsty. Do you want software ads to be as pervasive as soda ads? There's not enough time in the day to fit all of that on tv.
I was under the impression that software distributors (or publishers, or someone) paid to reserve shelf space.
This doesn't seem even remotely appealing to me as a consumer, either. I'm now going to have to a) wait for CDs to burn and print instead of walking up and picking a box off the shelf, b) hope there isn't a big line at the kiosk every time a new popular game gets released c) lose out on all the happy little knickknacks that used to come bundled with the software (like Blizzard pads). And I bet the distribution savings don't get passed on to the consumer, either.
I recently saw one of these in the store. They're kinda impressive, easy to use, and rather techno-geek aware. Unfortunately, like everyone else said, no one uses them. I imagine it's not because of some desire to pull software off the shelf, but rather, because the only software you can print out is utter crap. I've found better software sold at Goodwill. Sure, I suppose if I wanted a ripoff of Mario Teaches Typing or 101 Card Games, I could use this machine. I glanced through the selection, and out of 300 or so titles to chose from, I couldn't find a single one I would be interested in for any reason -- even if they were free! Throw some Linux distros, a few good MS products (with updates) FreeBSD, porn, movies and music, something worth buying, and I think these machines will take off.
Half the software industry is trying to make all these hi-level security iso so that CDs can't be copied.
Half the software industry is moving toward "Software-to-go" so that software can be distributed easily.
Which is it? You can't have both.
Imagine the kids opening up a generic, burned CD from CompUSA instead of the flashy box with screenshots. You can forget riding home in the backseat of the car and ripping the plastic off to scour the manual. I guess you can stare at the white CD sleeve and get lost in the Times New Roman font displaying the name of the software printed on the front.
In a few years, these are in every CompUSA, but selling those shareware/PD collections, game demos, windows service packs, maybe a linux distro. Cheap stuff, a couple bucks a CD.
They'll make a decent profit off of it, and people will like it because it's easier than scraping download.com.
NOONE is going to stick their credit card in a vending machine and trust it to spit out a $500 photo-editing suite or a copy of Windows Server. Well, some would, I wouldnt.
And as for games, well, people who pay retail prices for games want the box for teh shelf. Besides, as I already said in this story, you cant burn the copy protection.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I wonder if this would create a new venue for DRM on software. Software producers could exclude assigning a CD key until the very last minute... and make that key specific to the copy of their distribution being burned. It's something to think about. Then again it could also allow for massive quantities of disk images to be stored in a single location, and if these machines were ever to become compromized... I will leave that one open ended.
And then they armed me with moderator points and the world mourned.
This might help solve the problem of getting patches on to a recently reformatted machine that is vulnerable. Rather than connect the unpatched machine to the internet, you go to CompUSA to get a $9.95 patch disk that fixes known exploits of the OS.
It would solve the chicken and egg problem -- can't get the patches without going online, shouldn't attach an unpatched machine to the internet.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
... and that's about it.
Seriously, one the most expensive things for a retail establishment is forcasting and maintaining physical stock. It costs in staff(stock handlers), floor space(often more than the retail space), and risk(loss & damage, obsolete or unpopular products). This "innovation" kills two birds with one stone, just-in-time stock management, and customer self service.
My other sig is in the wash.
To err is human. To arr is pirate.
<facetious>
Why would anyone steal 85% of OfficeXP?
</facetious>
why cant they just stick to the downloadable version so that people burn the stuff themselves? RARE stuff? they can be ordered online and deliver to you?
When rolled out CompUSA will have two of these machines in the store. One will be in the front of the stores and used for PC application titles. The other will be in the Apple section and offer mac titles. The people will not have to feed any money into the machine. They will just have to pay for the title on the way out the door like any other purchase. In fact, they will not get their "Unlock Key" until they get their receipt. All CompUSAs C size or bigger will have these by the end of the summer.
This would allow creating programs that would respond only to a single validation code, instead of ones that respond to a whole range.
This could be a cheaper way for smaller companies to distribute their software. The internet is great for distributing without the publishing costs, but having your software in a store would make a difference. Why not market this idea to companies that can't afford the publishing expense of distributing all over the world. I don't think many would give up the manual and box unless the cost was really less. I mean, if I'm in a CompUSA and want a copy of Microsofts latest and greatest, I'd rather walk down the isle and get the box. If they marketed this towards smaller developers, I think many of them would invest in this kind of distribution. For them, just getting in the stores would be worth the money.
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Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
It should be used as a way for people with no or little knowledge of games to discover which ones are in a genre they like. Experienced gamers will either just get it off the internet at any old online store, or will want to feel that box in their hands at the checkout. The only way it would be cool for real gamers is if they can come back with the receipt and a damaged game and pay $5 dollars of so to get a new copy of the game. I would use anything like which extends fair use. Especially cause crappy cd drives eat games.
Open Source Sushi
So the idea of a vending machine for software isn't necessarily the greatest, as consumers tend to go for tangible products as opposed to something in a black box. How to solve this sort of thing?
Simple. Have the boxes out, don't include the software in the boxes, let the consumer check them out (as normal) at the register, and then have the clerk burn them.
Potential problems? Burning time, obviously, especially if the consumer is on a time crunch or buying multiple software products. Up-to-date docs going with up-to-date software also might be a bit of a pain, but those might be included on the CD and the original, printed manual might also be included, maybe in a shrinkwrapped package or something.
The nice thing, though, is that they don't have to download and install the latest patches for the software when they get home, CD keys can be generated automatically, and consumers still have a tangible product that they can keep. Also, if you steal one of the boxes, you just get some documentation and nothing that might actually cost real money to the store.
Just my $0.02.
-- K
This might be good if there is no one already using the machine. If someone is already at the vendor, then I would prefer to walk on by, pick up the product from the shelf, and go to one of the 3 or 4 cashiers.
This doesn't present a solution, it merely modifies the problem. (If there is a problem in the first place.)
Seems a super-high bandwidth hub could be more useful. Or even an in-house server that would locally mirror popular software from the internet that isn't availabe in a package. Could be an additional revenue source for the outlet beyond the packaged stuff.
There's a nice huge refrigerator near the front of the store at the customer service desk. Scattered around the store are a bunch of small blue terminals. You select your software from a touch screen console, browsing through a nice simple menu sorting software according to titles, genre, etc. Once you make your selections, the refrigerator at the front loads a blank CD into its huge burner array, fires up the RAID system to get the ISO, burns it, and spits out the CD. Another robotic arm takes the CD and tosses it into a label printer which churns out a nice label and a CD case. The clerk takes the CD out of the printer and hands it to the customer once they've paid their bill.
If you can't handle getting something from a vending machine then you can't handle the software. Works for me.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
--I'd like to see M$ thow some of their Million$ at allowing patch CDs be sold this way for the nominal $1.00
"This could solve a lot of the software industry's problems," Steinmetz said.
Right. Henry Ford once said (or at least it was attributable to him), "Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them." I don't think people are having problems with software they buy off the shelves that this contraption can solve.A brick-and-mortar store shelf works just like any other store, be it groceries, auto parts, books, etc. The man-on-the-street already knows the protocol for shopping. This thing adds a level of complexity that is unnecessary. Complexity is what screws most people up in the first place.
It is useful if I can download a title because I don't have to leave home. If I have to get out and go to a store anyway, I want the box and the docs to go with it.
Seems to me that, if you already know what you want, these kiosks could be nice. No need to hunt around to find the one dusty copy of Mavis Beacon you want to buy (and you KNOW someone out there wants one).
The problem is that it's damn annoying to browse on these things, and that's where they'll lose the casual shopper. It's the Amazon model - if I know what I want, I'll go online. If I want to browse, I'll head to a brick-and-mortar bookstore and thumb through some books. Borders will also kick me out if I try to shop past closing time, thereby giving me my life back.
Sure, pretty boxes with manuals are nice. But often enough, stores run out of the game, program, or whatever you want. This is especially true if a game is popular.
Also, stores often don't have enough shelf space to stock every software program out there.
A machine like this could fill that void. As long as it does not run out of CDs, it won't run out of software. With inkjets that print directly to CDs, it could print a custom label as well.
With enough security/protection, the store could even put one of these machines outside, to cover those times at 2am when you just have to buy a new game.
I used a similar self service machine when I bought tags for my dogs...no waiting, no dealing with someone to engrave the tags, paid with credit card, no hassle.
Isn't this why we created the Internet?
"we" meaning those propeller heads at MIT or Al Gore or whoever.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
instead of intimidating users with a stupid kiosk thingy, why not have the burn happen right at the register? that'd be awesome. sure, they'd have to be able to burn pretty fast, insert other considerations here, but it'd be pretty cool...
You can take your PDFs and stuff 'em. I treasure my spiral-bound manual for Neverwinter Nights.
Well, you could always print out the PDFs (print the even numbered pages first, flip them over and then print the odd numbered pages). Then, of course, have the resulting script punched and ring-bound :)
The advantage of this approach is twofold:
1. You have an digital backup, without scanning or using Optical Character Recognition to digitize the book.2. You can print out as many copies as you want, and the printed out versions will have all the benefits of a traditional dead-tree book
What about a machine in which you put some quarters, stick a USB drive and it copies software there. Talk about cost reduction! I could use one of these If a urgently need some specific piece of software at 3:00 AM
I've long wondered where there are no music-vending machines like this? You have this small vending machine with touchscreen where you can select albums/songs, drop in your $5 (or less if less/cheaper music chosen) and walk away with a nice, fresh-burned cd in 3 minutes. Takes very little room, no possibility of music theft, no need for security gates.
:)
Cost of hardware very small, built from off the shelf components, software simple, built on free opensource components. Songs would be downloaded over broadband from central location at demand, most popular titles could be cached locally. All the new music would be available on all machines instantly.
There are endless places where machines like this could be used, places where you have some time to kill anyway. Think bus and railway stations (get something new to listen on the road), supermarket queues (machine a bit away from checkout, let your cd burn while you stand in row and get fresh cd from the salesperson in end), gas stations (you get handled a wireless tablet to choose tracks by the refill guy, free cd if you buy a full tank!) etc etc. Cost of distribution virtually zero, meaning high returns for artists, very convenient to customers, they get exactly what they want where they want it.
Heck, someone offer me a contract and Ill take care of both software and hardware. Distributors, any takers?
Okay, so, some book stores keep PDFs of their books around and run off paperback copies at the time they're ordered, rather than keeping a big inventory around. Right?
So, imagine a machine that printed a real, decent copy of a manual, printed a box with art, burned a CD-R of your software, and assembled the whole shebang at the time you ordered it.
Wouldn't that be great? Distribution and warehousing costs would plummet, even if it was only ever used behind the counter. The lowering of those costs means more of the software that today is only available as shareware might become available off-the-shelf at CompUSA.
(Then we need the same thing for DVDs, so you can reasonably get more independent films. And of course for audio CDs, so you can cheaply get a real CD with album art from a small independent label at your local record store.)
I mean, is it too complicated to simply ask the sales person for the software, and have them burn it onto CD?
It's also quite likely they could print a manual if you wanted it, and the whole set up would be cheaper than normal distribution and more effective at selling than a stupid vending machine.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
This is a system that has only one real customer, the merchant. It's sole purpose is to make life easier for the retailer and provides very, very few benefits to the consumer. It has all of the hassle of buying from a brick and mortar store with none of the benefits.
The only advantage of a software vending machine to the consumer is that they always get the latest version of the software. In any reasonably stocked computer store this shouldn't be an issue anyway.
To get a full copy of Doom, my friend and I went to a software vending machine here in Toronto. We had to get $25 in $1 coins, and feed in the 4 floppies. Worked like a charm, albeit slow.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Seeing as how I've had the misfortune of buying software that didn't work (reimbursement still pending):
Who do I approach if the purchase warrants a return?
This is not my sig.
The day that people get their software from a physical vending machine is the day we've officially given up on the Internet.
But what about how cool it would be to get that old Planescape-Torrent disk that you wanted to play but never got around to buying. Or even better the learn chinese 5 dollar disk that sometimes you see at frys and sometimes not. One cannot overlook the 8 million clip art pictures so you have something to give to your father-in-law, for whatever the next gift giving date is.
Sure for the new stuff this might not win any awards, but for all the B-titles this could work out just fine.
What's it called again...?
Oh yea, the internet!
I can download several hundred megabytes in minutes on my 10Mb connection. And that's a common connection speed these days.
For sure, some naysayers are gonna whine how they're stuck on a 300/1200 modem. But hell, they can go back to shagging their sister. (Or whatever they do in Hillbilly country).
Forget buying software using such a kiosk, what about putting something like that in a Blockbuster store, allowing people to buy movies and have them burned immediately to a DVD? They could even pay right at the machine with a credit card, and be able to get a wider variety of content (rare? foreign? pr0n?) than the store would normally want to stock on their shelves.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Think of all the things that could go wrong...
1. Bad burns. Who do you go to if you get a bad copy? Can you get a refund?
2. Who maintains the file server that the vending machine uses. I am sure a rouge CompUSA employee could easily throw a virus or two on the ISOs.
3. How do you get the CD key?
4. Who wants to stand there and wait for a CD to burn?
5. I hope they use a damn good burner, most will wear out rather quickly.
Not a sermon, just a thought.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
It already exists: Kazza
I checked this out a few months ago. I live in Dallas. The system did not have anything I was interested in. Sorry I do not remeber what they had for sale. Quite unremarkable.
Do we know this?
Personally I think this is just another way to charge the same price for less product and less service.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Do you think you'll find porno DVDs in the vending machines in the bathrooms? I can't wait to find out!
Well if I can't get my "Where in the World/Time/Your Mom is Carmen Sandiego?"(r), then I'm not interested.
How is this any different than, say, Mandrake Cooker or Debian SID? With either of these, you can just download the latest patched software straight from the Internet and burn it onto a CD -- and what's more, you can do it all in the comfort of your own home.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Like a lot of folks, I no gottum broadband, still dialup, best connect I get is a 28... I would love to be able to get a fresh burned CD of a distro WITH THE LATEST PATCHES, maybe even use a menu and pick and chose my apps and have it do dependencies, etc, so I don't get the stuff i really don't use or want. I am running FC1 now, and I'm almost done updating it, only some hundred odd megs to go. When is release 2? Oh, yah, next month..... Swell..... just swelllllll
Thing is, it would cost me a lot more to drive to some computer store to get it than to just order it from a clone burner and snail mail it....which is what I do now.
My God! We are reinventing the wheel.
When I had an Spectrum, a company called Labware created something like this. Its name was EDOS. Given that in 1988 computers used to work with cassettes (Spectrum, Amstrad, Commodore 64 & 128...), it recorded software to cassettes.
It was a computer with a tape recorder and was to be installed in software stores. When you wanted a program, the EDOS connected (through a modem) to Labware, downloaded it and recorded to the tape. Software didn't stay in the EDOS longer than the time it needed to record.
Here is a photo.
Where is the revolution, then?
Would you like a buffer underrun with that?
On the other hand one of these connected to sourceforge [or other oss sources] could be a real boon for OSS. The trouble with adopting Linux right now is that for "normal" users downloads are huge. You're right about the $5 price point too. You might get away with up to say $20 before you got into people not wanting to buy anymore. Having printed manuals or at least cheat sheets would be great too.
You could do some really cool stuff with customizing software...imaging getting a customized Linux ISO complete with cheatsheets all ready for your system! You could also print pretty labels on the CD's or even burn "keyed" disks for the dreaded copy protection. A tool like that is definately in the wrong hands...but it also requires some know-how from the sales people too. I'd even go so far as to keep the machine behind the counter and assign a dedicated person to man it....removing the "confusion" factor. Preferably, it should be near the "buile-it-yourself" parts for hobbiests rather than thrown out there for passers-by. Software is moving to a craft rather than off the shelf. The money is in using your knowlage to get somebody the right solution...for them. This machine could help that!
Of course it means that salespeople would have to actually have a clue! rather than being glorified greeter/stockboys they would have to know their stuff and be able to sell it. It'd be a great tool for "penny profits" sales from selling those share ware tools we all use along with accessories like scanners, cameras, etc...rather than pointing customers to ONLY the $400 photoshop for family pics.
In short the machine fills a niche...but not one that's useful for a Mega-store. It would be a Godsend to a local shop that doen't want inventory though...and it'd get customers in the doors again!
To me, that's an upside. No one using the machine means I can use it without waiting in line.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I'm really sick of people saying this - I prefer PDFs
Most PDFs I've seen are formatted with small type in portrait orientation. Most PC monitors have problems with small type and problems with portrait orientation. How much did you pay for your high-resolution portrait monitor?
or some other form of electronic docs.
Why are publishers of proprietary applications so much more likely to provide electronic documentation in PDF format than in, say, HTML format? When will competitive application publishers learn that usability sells more copies than branding ever can?
When will iTunes start selling shareware apps. There's lots of stuff that's $20-30 that really should be $10-25 in the shareware world. Unfortunately, it requires $30 to simply cover the labor of burning discs and mailing them out until you get to 10,000's of units. Also, iTunes has tracking of what you buy...so you can get it again and keep track of moving it between machines...
This could be quite nice for abandonware and niche marketware. A lot of overhead is involved in producing CD-ROMs, packaging, shipping, having a good distribution network, etc. That is why so many good programs become abandonware. At some point it is no longer worth the effort to keep older classics and niche programs in the distribution network and in stock. It would be nice to select some old Infocom text adventures, classic Atari ports, Sierra and LucasArts adventure games, etc burned onto a CD.
There is a lot of great software out there that have disappeared from the shelves over the years and the legalities of getting copies over the internet is a concern for some. It could also be a nice distribution channel for programs like WordPerfect, OpenOffice, etc since many stores only carry MS Office.
My local CompUSA in Hauppauge, Long Island NY has had a Software to go machine for several years. First it was in the aisles, with a rep hanging around it to explain how to use it.
Then they moved it behind customer service about 18 months to 2 years ago and its run by the CompUSA employees there. This may be new in the West coast, but its been around for no less than 3 years.
I drove through CA a few months ago, and I can't understand why Arco is still in business. They operate dirty, run-down stations, most of them only have 2 or 4 pumps while the big boys have 6 or 8, you can't pay at the pump, and they take either credit *OR* ATM cards, but never both at the same store. Why do people who live in one of the most technologically advanced areas of the world frequent these throwbacks to the 1970s?
Since the employees are tech-savvy enough to answer questions about the programs in advance, what if only the employees operate the machine for the entire store. The business problem is inventory - the consumer problem is finding rare/cost-effective titles. Keep a bunch of empty CD cases with the cover art for all the available titles up front for the customers to gawk at and take slips from in order to buy (a la Toys R Us); replenish stock with the machine in the back. Alternatives abound, since almost every electronics store already has a shrink-wrap machine, and affixing theft-proofing tags is easy to do. If there's a run on a game, a customer can wait hours instead of days to get a copy. Combine with previous ideas on stocking glossy manuals for extra in a backroom, or POD cases/cover art. Price is down for everybody involved.
Then businesses get the impulse buy of people who say "Ooh! Abe's Odyssey" combined with the much-improved distribution overhead. CD copiers/printers are almost cheap enough nowadays to make it work - if you can queue up CD printing for overnight, come next morning you're ready to re-stock.
The only way this could be cooler is if they hooked up the vending machine to the Internet, so you could remotely view the remaining inventory. Oh, and hook up a coffee vender, too.
I'm sure this would make hackers oh so happy. How long until someone infects one of these with a nice virus (as it will be surely running windoze). Perhaps you can buy an infected copy of Windoze for a discount?
May as well paint a giant bullseye on the things.
... to a machine, no less.
;)
The mind wobbles.
Q
Already being done
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
I'm sure they'll make like modern gas pumps and give you commercials to watch while your CD burns. It's nothing new--most modern commercial software gives you ads all the way through the install process.
For example, at Inspired-Life when you order a CD or DVD package, it's created on demand. This lowers the overhead of speakers because they do not need to warehouse thousands of their own titles just to get a decent price on a CD. Good idea for software too!
But if I go to a shop I want a pressed CD - these hold longer.
Actually, that's probably not the casel. Pressed CDs apparently often use a material for the data layer that easily oxidizes. Some CD-R disks use considerably more stable dyes. Under normal environmental conditions, those CD-Rs probably last much longer than the pressed CD.
the moment you put down $400 for your copy of Windows, regardless of whether the CD lasts more than 6 months or not.
This is great! Now I can finally replace all my CDRs with $60.00 CDRs!
small flowers crack concrete
I was in CompUSA today looking for a new LCD monitor, and noted that they had some of the SoftwareToGo machines already up and running. Walked over and gave the thing a look-see. Everything is accessed through a touch-screen interface. Browsed through some of the software titles that they offered; it made this horrid beeping noise each time you clicked on the "down scroll" button, and any time you selected an option, more beeping noises. I felt rather embarassed having the thing reward me for making choices by spitting out little ringing sounds; this will probably drive away people who want to browse software in peace. Most of the titles were budget titles, and nothing I was interested in either. All in all, I won't be using the system again anytime soon.
Sure hope it has one. Unless it burns the CD first, and *then* collects your money.
Not that theres any software for sale at a CompUSA store that I'd be likely to consider buying. (Eg, its all for Wintel, which I do not support)
If people are concerned about the wait while the disc burns, this could be a solution:
The machine keeps one copy of every combination or selection already burned.
Face it, people are not going to want to browse through hundreds of titles with this thing - too many button pushes. So there will not be too many titles available, hence no need for a large amount of pre-burned discs.
So, when you push the button to buy disc #12, it pops out immediately... then the machine burns a new copy while you're already out the door.
oh shit. I probably should have patented this.
This space available.
is really for tunes, movies and other "entertainment content" for mobiles and pda's. the problem with downloading this type of content over the air is that (a) it's costly, (b) the transfer rates are low. the vending machines can offer high transfer rates at low immediate cost. so, for example, you can waiting at the train station and decide to purchase a 1hr documentary to watch/listen to on the trip: you download it at local bluetooth/IR/usb rate in, say, no more than 1/2 minute. it's effectively the multimedia equivalent of the railway bookshop or newsstand, and surely profitable: it won't work so well for infrastructure/productivity/etc applications, but will for audio, video, tunes, etc. sounds like a great idea.
"That 'ill go over like a f---ing lead zeppelin" And then Jimmy Page had the good sense to listen and NOT name the band the New Yardbirds. Unlike this BAKAS!
There are other sites that simply claim that, "could care less" is a silly mistake, but these do not (in general) discuss the use of both phrases in literary works as the two links I offer do.
Do not assume ignorance when sarcasm will do!
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
This is news? Cripes, I remember getting shareware from a vending machine at my local Jumbo Video almost ten years ago. But, it was on diskette and I am as old as the dinosaurs.
It's called the internet. It's beautiful. Self-service machines around the world are available in the comfort of your home, you can pay for the software and it gets sent to you magically within seconds (okay an hour or so if you've got a slow connection), available for your use.
And you never had to put on pants.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
I've never bought a copy of TaxCut that didn't require a download of the updated version, even if I bought it in March. This would be a much better way to distribute time-critical programs like this.
there were good reasons why they were created:
More variety of software. If you have programs moved from the shelf to the vending machine, you can use that space for either more software, hardware, etc. I've seen everything from Autocad 2004 ($700+)to really cheap software on these machines less than $10. Nothing to stock, you have an infinate inventory of that product, you never run out. I bought a program from it, and the machine at the front of the store printed the jacket, quick instructions, burned the cd and burned a title on the top of the cd.