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Sun Says Hardware Will Be Free
ron_ivi writes "Reuters reports that Sun's President and COO thinks hardware will be free and that people will pay for software subscriptions instead. Reuters quotes Schwartz: 'In our world, you will subscribe to the software and the hardware is free.' 'Directionally, our expectation is that in fiscal 2005 you're going to see a rapid departure from selling hardware, software and services apart.' 'Bill Gates and I agree that within four to five years hardware will be free.' We've recently read here on /. how Gates thinks hardware will be free."
I could easily see a future where if you subscribe to Microsoft products for a year, you get a free PC. PCs are dirt cheap anyway.
The question is not whether or not it's possible or feasible. The question is whether Joe Consumer will go for it? There are already a fair number of things that a consumer licenses instead of owning (DRM music, etc). And it works largely because Joe Consumer is ignorant of the details and relies on the companies to tell him why what they're doing is a good idea.
But once it starts leaving the high-tech market and hitting closer to home, there's more pushback. I'll cite everyone's favorite example of DivX (the players, not the codec). Buy a movie but you only get to watch it a set number of times? Yeah, that worked real well. I'm not convinced giving away the players would have fixed that. Disposable self-destructing DVDs crapped out for the same reason, and for environmental reasons. Why? Because people were used to buying DVDs (and, before that, VHS tapes) and owning them, and playing them as many times as they wanted until they broke or the dog ate them, or whatever. And when someone comes along and says "Sorry, you now need to pay to watch this", they say "Um, no."
Consumers have been used to purchasing and owning computers and owning software (yeah, yeah, it's licensed, we know, but so are videotapes technically - 'Licensed for Private Home Viewing' - and we still talking about 'owning' them). So there might be a fair bit of pushback. However, consumers are equally pissed off at their hardware and software becoming obsolete so frequently. So they might just pull this off if it's plugged as the solution to constant upgrading. Time will tell.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
1. Hardware is "free", software costs money. Analogy would be the cable TV box. You get the box for free, but you pay for the software (programming).
2. Hardware costs money, software is "free". Example would be broadcast media (broadcast TV, radio).
Guess which one the conglomerates like? (hint: 1).
Only time will tell which model succeeds.
Unlike the TV/Radio industry, the content in the computer world can be created by anyone (hence the FLOSS movement). This would seem to tip the balance in favor of #2.
Unless, of course, suitable laws can be passed... and seeing how apathetic the voters are ("look! over there!! shiny things!!!"), it is only a matter of time before writing software becomes encumbered with patents, licensing (i.e. software professionals will have to be "certified"), etc., thereby tipping the balance in favor of #1 above.
I seem to recall a time where you didn't own the telephone in your house either, but the phone company gave you one with your subscription. Anyone know how&why that model changed?
Check it out:
http://developers.sun.com/offers/jedevpromo/
You buy a 3 years subscription at 1500 per year, and they "give" you a "$7000" server.
Excuse me, but for that same $4500, I would rather buy an XSERVE.
First and foremost condition would be that all computers would be the same configurations. While the idea of "appliancizing" computer hardware would be wonderful for the consumer in the long run it's counterproductive. Software is more complex than say a television broadcast. While the thematic content may vary amongst shows, the medium conforms to all TV sets nationwide. NTSC or PAL is the format and there's no straying. Enhancements are only allowed for audio, and now HD is becoming more commonplace; however, new hardware must be purchased to take advantage of the new innovations.
Which brings me to my second point, the lack of true innovation. Software writes will become more or less problem solvers than true code writers where the sky's the limit. By problem solvers I'm referring to the need to find work arounds all the limitations of the hardware to perform whatever the desired task is. Computer configurations change and improve like the wind, but without innovations and improvements, not only in speed, but connectivity etc., we are forced to stagnate. By all theoretical laws we should've maxxed the computing potential power of silicon, yet we still see improvements.
We need forward thinking companies to push the envelope. The elements of design and function are integral to progress of computing. Without invention, originality and breakthroughs we the consumers are doomed to stagnation and a one dimensional world. In turn, software creators are forced to live and operate in that one dimension, struggling to squeeze as much out of a box that they can.
As we've seen many times, underfunded projects are destined to die off. If hardware becomes free and available to all there's no profit. And where there's no profit there's no innovation; therefore, we will create our own stone age.
Peace
These are some of the things molecules will do....given a few billion years - Carl Sagen
These are some of the things molecules do...... given 4 billion years -Carl Sagan
I don't know that buying your own phone+contract is cheaper.
It's not. It's cheaper to just sign away your soul on the contract, take the free (or cheap since it's subsidized) phone, and live with the multi-year contract.
I'm as much against being sucked into leases and subscription business models as the next Slashdotter, but I do have a cellphone with a two-year plan, and the reason was the cost. My options were: 1) buy my own phone and get a separate contract (too expensive), 2) get a contract with cheap phone, 3) get landline phone service, or 4) don't get a phone at all. #2 was the cheapest, and most convenient in every way. After long-distance charges, landline phone service is far more expensive than cellular service, plus the monopoly that runs it around here (Qwest) has the most horrible service and customer support of almost any company in recorded history. And, you have to be at home to use it... what a pain. #4 is just silly unless you have no friends, no family, and no life. And #1 was simply more expensive than #2, and not all that useful either since (in the USA) the phones are more-or-less tied to the provider since all the providers use different technologies and frequency bands (CDMA vs. GSM, etc.).
The problem with comparing phone service to this ridiculous "the hardware will be free" concept that Sun and MS are now touting is that, with phones, there is no viable alternative to getting monthly phone service with some big company. You can't just become your own phone company, install your own phone lines across the country to your relatives, etc. If you want to get along in this society where having a phone of some type is basically mandatory (which isn't necessarily a bad thing; communication makes life a lot easier), you have to pick some company to get your service from.
Not so in computing. The Free Software/OSS movement has been around for quite some time, and is continually picking up steam. If you want operating system software, you can purchase licenses from Sun or MS for $$$, or you can use Linux or *BSD for free (and buy support contracts if you choose, etc.). There's many options. If you're a corporation mindlessly locked into MS software and a 2-year upgrade cycle, this "free hardware" (leased hardware in reality) concept may make some sense, but if you'd rather own your own stuff, and would rather upgrade when you feel you need to instead of when some big company thinks you need to, this concept is useless. In the end, I think both models will survive.
It's a little like leasing a car vs. buying one. I personally see no sense whatsoever in leasing a car, but a lot of people do it for some reason. Probably because the dealership salesmen managed to sucker them into it. For people like me who see no need to get rid of a car after 2 or 3 years, when it's barely broken-in, and would rather keep it 10-15 years and not make monthly payments forever, leasing is useless, and apparently there's enough people like me that leasing, while it exists, competes with buying and still doesn't constitute a majority of new-vehicle sales I believe.
But this schems works if everyone follows. Microsoft can try. XBox are not servers. MS easily can lock them, locked servers are next to useless.
Problem with that DRM game is that China and India won't follow. China is starting boiling its own standards to avoid American patents. Smart ass analysts say "fragmenting the market is dangerous". Well, a potential market of 1.2 billions people with two main languages is not that fragmented. Someone should tell this guys from Big Apple that there is something south of the Statue of Liberty!
Oh, and most of manufacturing is in Asia. America is working hard so that support and engineering will soon be there too. Europe will probably do the same. :(
Now about content.
Bill and Scott think the real value is software and content (music, movies). Problem is that Asia and easter Europe is starting to be good there to. Interesting that Tarentino movie blinks at asiatic movies. At least he is aware, that the strength of america is to be a melting pot. America can lock itself in DRM and get its culture even more inbred than it has recently become. Choice: Oprah or Jerry Springer?
Now about software and service. IBM is using Open Source, Oracle is training ist workforce to Linux. Who needs Sun which tries to force on us its own stuff? Who want slowlaris anyway?
Remember the Boston Tea Party. The asians can start their Asian Tea Party. any day know.
Short of nuking them, America will have to rebuild know how, industries... Who knows? America becoming a poor country, some day some morons from Asia will think smart to oursource in America. And leadership will change again.
A few years back, I was asking myself "will this end up with an asian Tea party". Now, I just ask myself when. I even hope that Europe will evneutally get smart. But we have just voted stupid patent laws for software. :(
Empires come and goes. Europe should be smart not to stay the vassal of the states.
does this coming "appliance era" spell the end of affordable general-purpose PC hardware for residential use?
No. Just the end to warez and code your own adventures. For the vast majority of people their vision for computer use would be more comforting. The human mind ussually isn't goot at more then 5 or 6 choices. When you have literally dozens of choices to be made, most people will not sign on no matte rhwo attractive you make all the choices. thus OSS and Free and in beer software won't be for consumers and never was. Right now, Windows XP pro costs more then the computer I install it on 60% of the time. Not a huge leap to make XP subscription and to giev away the computer.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
--the earliest phones I remember as a kid where hard wired, no jack at all, and they didn't have a dial. Heavy suckers. One of my grandmas had one of the old crank phones, where the mouth piece was on the phone on the wall, you grabbed the single earphone and held it up to your ear, and you cranked it to get the operators attention. We had a normal looking phone though, just no dial. You just picked up the phone, if someone was yakking on it (no one had a dedicated phone, they were all party lines with like 6 houses on each circuit) you asked when they would be done. You picked up a few minutes later, and the operator came on, you gave her-and it always was a her- a number, or just told her a name if it was local. Payphones had dials and cost a nickle. Hardly anyone had a TV yet(we were the first in the neighborhood to get one), but everyone had a big ole tube job radio in the living room and some sort of record player. Those radios threw more heat then the next 10 AMD boxes put together. Smokin! They'd pull the stations though, almost all of them had built in shortwave and commercial AM, there wasn't any FM yet. Not that I remember anyway. I LOVED them things. Had a big ole grundig was my gateway to the world at night, had wires all over my ceiling in my room.
.22 rifle was around 12$. A one speed old heavy bike was about 25$, had enough steel in it to build two harleys I think. Not sure on new car prices back then other than below one grand for a decent one. I know the first house we lived in cost my dad 100$ downpayment, and it was brand spanking new, 3 bedroom ranch with a nice yard in a nice neighborhood. He had a ten year mortgage (I asked him later to find out), which was very common then.
And movies were 25 cents and the only place that had air conditioning. Cokes were a nickle. A new
No, I'd say this is just another sign that the dinosaurs of the computer age (Sun and Microsoft) just don't understand modern consumers or the trends that have plagued every other high tech industry as they gained popularity among the general public.
Raise your hands.... How many people here rent their wired phones? How many buy the printer vendor's ink cartridges? How many people only get their computers serviced (and RAM added) at your "Authorized Reseller"? How many of you non-digital cable customers still rent your cable box? How many of you only use offical Kodak paper for printing photos or Xerox paper in your photocopier? Anyone? Anyone?
Vendor lock-in (monopolies notwithstanding) only works when there is little to no competition in the market and when the technology is sufficiently new or advanced that it has not yet become a commodity item. For example, cell phone technology is still changing so rapidly that there is some degree of lock-in (though the phones are cheap enough that this doesn't prevent people from changing companies). Same goes for digital cable. Within five years, digital cable tuners will be built into most mid-range TV sets. I'm not still not sure how long the commoditization of cell phones will take.
In any case, most people only put up with vendor lock-in for a certain period of time before they get sick of it. When they do, there are always alternatives waiting in the wings. No technology has ever gone from being a commodity to being a subscription service in my memory. I very much doubt that software will be the first---at least not successfully.
What I expect to happen is that we will see progressively -less- incentive to directly use a computer for general tasks. Instead, more and more devices around our homes will become more advanced, and special-purpose computing devices will pop up (TiVo, for example), not with subscription software at all, but with embedded software (which may or may not ever get upgraded).
The notion of software will become ever less important, and hardware will become an even greater driving force in the computer industry. There's no reason I couldn't have a word processor built into my TV set. Heck, there's no reason my cell phone couldn't take dictation.
Admittedly, some of those specialized devices will have subscription models for things like ongoing data feeds (TiVo's channel guides, for example), but that's a far cry from subscribing to the software itself. Also, I don't expect stand-alone computers to go away. Rather, they will provide the central mechanism for coordinating all of those advanced devices. The alternative is too horrible to imagine---vendor lock-in on data storage.... :-)
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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