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Compaq Signs License with Be for Net Appliance
breadmold was the first to send us the press release from Be. Compaq has licensed Stinger, Be's software platform for Internet appliances, which Be describes as "Be's software solution designed for
the creation of appliances that deliver
information and entertainment over the web.
Based on BeOS, Stinger is fully customizable,
offers a complete browser and supports
popular streaming audio and video standards." Note that the license says Compaq *can* pre-install and distribute it. It doesn't say what Compaq is actually planning on, but does hint that the two companies are planning work together.
I'd like to see more operating systems in the marketplace and I like "appliances" (in theory) but this press release is devoid of any information. I'd really like to know which "popular streaming audio and video standards" stinger supports. I'm guessing they mean Quicktime (hmm, calling Quicktime popular borders on a "forward looking statement" too).
Check out the disclaimer of "forward looking statements" at the bottom of the press release.
What happened to Jini or Java or whatever? Besides whats the point of networking all of your appliances together. It seems like a big waste of time to me. I mean so you want to make a couple of pieces of toast or warm up a bowl of soup in your microwave. What are you going to do? Hop on your computer wait for it to boot up and then program the silly microwave to cook for 2 minutes on high?
This is ridiculous. Of course not. Appliances need networking like I need another hole in my head. Why can't we find more useful things to put the efforts of our brightest minds at.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
"yourname.com for $55"
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
Perhaps I'm just a little mistaken on the concept, but why would you need Internet ready Appliances? I believe that network ready appliances would be wonderful. The ability to monitor everything as it goes would up productivity greatly, at least for me. Having my TV be able to tell me that the oven has reached the desired temperature, or even a central panel that indicates great temperature changes in the refrigerator. This would be really cool for me, but the Internet? It's not necessary for Maytag to monitor these things from a remote office.
I guess what I want is a more intelligent X10, and not multiple gateways into my life for the manufacturers whose products I have purchased. If you've seen it, the commercial where the repairman shows up at a house and tells the owner that the refigerator is "about to have a problem" freaks me out.
I associate Be with a high quality product, but I am not so inclined with Compaq. I have always had performance problems with Compaq and am wary of the marriage.
- tokengeekgrrl
"Internet Appliance." Makes it sound like a retainer for your PC, or some kind of bizarre horror-movie add-on (of course, this is because they're not called "colostomy bags" anymore, they're now "ostomy appliances." Ewwww).
On the upside, combining one of these with an AIBO and one of those sub-dermal GPS chips leads to the ultimate in slack computing:
USER: "Beer me."
AIBO: "What kind of beer?"
USER: Sam Adams / Guinness / Coors / whatever
AIBO digitally checks the fridge, makes sure you're stocked (if you're out, it will purchase some online from your pre-defined list of vendors), trundles to the fridge, and brings it to you, homing in on your GPS signal.
Just think, attach a port-a-potty to AIBO and you'd never have to stand up again!
Rafe
V^^^^V
Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
I think it's great that Be may have a niche here. I know that I'll probably get flamed for saying this, but Be isn't terribly likely to make it as a desktop environment. (No more, anyhow, than the Batmobile is likely to make it as the everman's car.)
:)
But as a 'net appliance OS? Fantastic! It's so much more powerful and flexible than WinCE (or whatever they're calling it these days), and, of course, it's not made by Microsoft. (I'll get flamed for that, too.
Rejoice!
There is precious little technical info available about Stinger (except that it's based on BeOS). But here is a screen shot of Stinger running on the iPad at Comdex.
Internet Appliance != Toaster connected to your computer. Go to www.benews.com and search for Stinger to get a better idea of what it is. Don't judge something lame until you know what it is you are judging.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Well just to add my two bits about a few posts on this thread... there has been lots of press about Stinger actually. Someone above mentioned that they couldn't find anything about it. Try: http://www.benews.com/search?Type=%25&string=sting er That's a link to www.benews.com and some of the articles they've had on Stinger and its display at the last Comdex. As far as Internet appliances go, if you haven't heard of internet appliances, consider yourself out of touch with the future of computing. Personally I hate the idea, but for institutions like schools, colleges, etc. and for public installations, internet appliances are strongly desired. They are cost effective and specialised to deliver internet content with a fraction of the maintenance and security issues. That's the theory anyway. And lastly, the comment regarding Be not making it as a desktop OS... all I can say is, think again. It is far better situated than any of the Linux distributions to do so. On the other hand, if you feel it won't make it as a competitor to MS Windows, then perhaps you feel nothing will? That's not to knock Linux at all. I am a definate Linux supporter and am happy to see Linux making a strong stand in the server market. But let's face it, not everyone has the where-with-all to work in Linux these days. It is a medium-to-advanced level OS.
If technical elegance alone was the only determining factor for a technology, we'd all be programming in Scheme on NeXT boxes.
From the press release:
Stinger is Be's software solution designed for the creation of appliances that deliver information and entertainment over the web.
Wouldn't one want "appliances" to receive information and entertainment? Is that a mistake? Is "deliver..over" Net-marketing-speak for "display..from"? Or are they really making broadcast appliances?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
a browser, email, newsgroup, IM, etc. device that's as easy to use as plugging in a toaster or, more realistically, programming a VCR or any other household appliance, or an Internet vehicle as easy to use as a car w/little or no techie knowledge required.
Boojum
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Let's see here, Compaq is already pushing...
Windows (98/NT)
Digital UNIX / Tru64 UNIX or whatever its called this week
Open VMS
Linux to a certain (small extent)
Yes, this is what Compaq needs to shoot them back to profitability, another damn operating system to support.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Be can announce "strategic partnerships" 'till the cows come home, but it doesn't make them one whit more relevent to, well, ANYTHING.
Be is truly the Amiga of the late 90's. Just as poorly marketed. Just as poorly managed. And just as dead.
So.. Since BeOS is not open source fat-time (the guardian of cheese and open source) was urged to murder the salesman? If this is what Open Source(TM) is to become, I want no part of it.
I believe we're talking about any item which can be used to connect to the Web. Think PDA's and Cell phones, or perhaps your "Internet Ready" Standalone MP3 player, that hooks into your standard stereo component system.
I believe IBM has termed it 'ubiquitous computing'. Whatever. It means that things that could benefit from being hooked up to the net will have the capability. It doesn't mean your fridge is going to be running Jini.
--sugarman--
As you might expect, www.be.com has some information. Basically, Stinger is the BeOS trimmed down for internet appliances. They've demoed it on NatSemi's webpads using Opera at a couple shows.
Take it easy. This is just some lame attempt at humor. Chuckle and move on. Thanks...
-BrentPerhaps I'm blind. I could find nothing at http://www.be.com/ that gives details about Stinger. Could you provide a specific URL?
How is Linux, presumably your OS of choice, supposed to make inroads without convincing companies to support 'another damn OS'?
-lx
Generally, Compaq's shortcomings have been in the area of making hardware too proprietary, and really really inflexible. Other than their PCs(which suck more than any PCs since Packard Bell), most other Compaq products, i.e., servers, appear to be pretty nice. Plus, if Compaq is going to get into the net appliance arena, being proprietary and inflexible is pretty much the norm - you can't install NT on a palmpilot, or Linux on a WebTV, etc.
-lx
I'm afraid ol' Be, Incorporated is kinda in the habit of unfortunate alliances. Their first shot at the Internet Appliances brass ring was with the sleazy, unproductive, and eventually bankrupt Microworkz. Their deal with Real Networks was announced only weeks before the RealJukebox debacle. They manage to make Intel a major investor, and AMD snags the high-performance crown.
Watch for news that Opera has been involved in ritual cannibalism or something any day.
Here we are, once again reading fud spewn out by a Linux user. Frankly, for a group that chalks up every criticism of their OS as fud and whines endlessly about how oppressed they are, it's intensely hypocritical.
"Be is poorly managed, poorly marketed, not open-source, will never get anywhere, is already dead," etc. I don't know of any better example of maliciously spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The same types of things have been said about FreeBSD on slashdot. What accounts for this kind of illogical behaviour? Obviously, the user, developer and application bases of both BeOS and FreeBSD are growing steadily.
My personal theory is that these people are simply neophobes who have to somehow justify the time invested in their own personal favorite OS by bashing any others. The reason they don't use other OSes is not because they haven't tried them, or don't know how to use them, but because all other OSes suck, and aren't even worth a look.
But I'm open to other theories...
-lx
Maybe Compaq wants to use stinger as the alternative for WinCE on handhelds and other small non-PC devices?
Be-v-Ce?
--
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Apparently, the inside story is that BeOS actually takes something like 2 minutes to boot on the WebPad (maybe longer). Not too impressive for something which should be "instant on" (even more surprising considering how amazingly quickly BeOS boots on a typical desktop PC, but typical desktop PC's have much faster CPU's than the MediaGX in the WebPad). Then again, back in the old days (DR7 anyone?) it ran like a champ on a BeBox Dual/66 with 8MB RAM. Today, on that same BeBox it needs 32MB, and well, it feels pretty sad. QNX sounds like a much better platform for this sort of thing, but they have even worse marketing than Be, so who knows.
Oh, and don't forget Windows CE. It may be a lousy platform but at least MS has the marketing muscle to convince some vendors to jump onto anything they release.. Then again, with the runaway success of PalmOS, a CE monopoly is certainly not assured.
Finally, has anyone looked at NewDeal lately? Terrible name, but it's basically GEOS, if anyone remembers that product for the C64/Apple][/286 days. Very tight code (when it first came out for PC, they bragged about how they wrote it mostly in assembly!) They sell a product that'll connect a 286 or better PC with as little as 640k RAM (2-4MB recommended) to the Internet, including web browser, and email. They also sell an office suite and a BASIC IDE (very much like VB) called NewBASIC. Sure, it's all 16-bit code, but wouldn't that be the ideal choice for an "Internet appliance", and not something like BeOS that really wants a Pentium II and 32MB RAM?
I just wanted to point out to all of the people who on every Be related post point out that Be is the multimedia OS. Well, I think it is going to be a much different situation when we get the SGI direct rendering in X and/or XFree86-4 out in a few months. Also, the SMP support in linux is going to improve considerably with the 2.4 version of linux, which is also forthcoming. KDE 2.0 promises to be better than ever, with KOffice moving right along. We already have the support and development interest of the two best gaming companies on the planet. Figure in that linux is being backed by corporations like SGI, IBM, Intel, Compaq, and RedHat (now with enough money to make things happen), it is free, and that we have a large and rather annoying user base who is forcing the hardware vendors to write drivers as well.... This seems like the recipe for a serious desktop OS in the immediate future. For the time being Be has a great architecture which is unmatched, but it does not have the support and momentum that linux has. OS/2 had the same thing and look where that is today. This is the thing about linux, not only does it rock now but it's development methodolgy, userbase, and recent wall street and media success mean it is going to really fucking rock later. That is why linux is a competitor on the desktop... It is a revolution... It never stops coming back around and getting in Microsoft's face.
Do you know what kind of a hit the Batmobile would be if it was actually for sale, especially if you could buy it at a fraction of the price of a normal car (as is the case with Be)?
it's a good thing that Be is partnering with Compaq on this. Why? Mainly because Be's architecture is more suited fo an appliance market than Linux is. Linux's kernel is great but would have some problems in the web appliance arena. The Linux kernel is a single monolithic kernel and for any component to be patched or changed you need the source of the kernel and the patch and then you need to recompile it. This may be fine for me sitting on my PC with my 10gb hard drive but it's not practical for a web appliance with 16mb of flash memory. Be like WinCE uses a microkernel which makes all the different parts modular. If there is a patch it can be downloaded and installed in the time it takes to download the patch and reload the kernel. Besides the kernel, who would want a multi-user web pad. I highly doubt I would buy a portable web pad to log into it through telnet. The multi-user sense of a web appliance should be just difference Ui preferences.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
...Steve Jobs and the rest of the Apple crew that followed him to NeXT went ga-ga over SmallTalk when they saw it along with the Star interface. Objective C is C with SmallTalk OO syntax throw in. It really is the best of both worlds, 'course there is Sather...
BeOS may be to bloated in it's present form but just as QNX can be configured for it's intended target so can BeOS.
:) QNX is one of the highest profile real-time kernel vendors out there(even before the GW2K/Amiga deal.) They've been advertising in Dr. Dobbs for as long as I can remember.
I can't really see a need for DirectWindow in a palm device. And with the limited screen real estate, at such a low resolution, do we really need all of that OpenGL in there?
As for QNX having worse marketing than Be...you have heard of them, right?
As for QNX in a net appliance, I think if you talk to people who are actually in the real-time embedded market who have used QNX, you'll find that QNX is not the most recommended kernel.
I believe that development of BeOS started at the same time as Linux did. If anything, Be made a break from everything else that was around in '91. Wasn't Linux designed with the intent to be what Tannenbaum's Minix wasn't? As for the desire for open source, didn't that start when Bell Labs pulled source licenses from universities in the 70s? Didn't the whole movement for "free speech" source start with RMS in the early to mid-80s? And for that matter, if you asked RMS would he tell you Linux is actually riding his bandwagon and not the other way around?
Or, it can be a fridge, like the ScreenFridge
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
When is slashdot going to update the Be logo they use!?!?!
We'll have to wait and see what happens, I guess..
Linux is not a multi-media OS. It doesn't function as nearly as well as BeOS does with such software. Let's see, linux is at best a command line operating system with a Windows manager like MS Windows. BeOS is a truly graphical OS, with strong CLI functionality. BeOS is Mulithreaded, can handle files up to 18 petabytes (I know, ridiculous to say, but could Linux handle a media file as well as BeOS that is around possibly a 1gig? Doubt it). Sure, Linux has the momentum, BUT, not because it is easy, not because it has mass appeal, but because it works well for the tasks it is suited for (server OS, NOT A DESKTOP OS), and, of course, it's open source, which somehow calls to mind the 60s and Free stores and such. Linux is also superior to anything for multi-user environments. Sure, its got the edge on BeOS on those things. But BeOS is faster, MUCH MUCH MUCH easier, and is just a more pleasant DESKTOP experience than any flavor of Linux. So don't claim BeOS is dead, it will always have a niche, and hopefully it will grow. The ideal solution would be a world in which Linux acts as the server for everything and BeOS is a desktop OS for everyone else.