Quoting Chris Frederick <cdf123 at cdf123.net>: > G. Scott Walters wrote: >> Anyone ever heard of Zonbu? > > Not me. > >> Looks to be a low-cost hardware solution that packages some of the more >> popular open-source, linux-based software packages and changes a monthly fee >> to support it. Hardware specs are interesting: >> >> <snipped> >> >> This device was profiled in Forbes, and I've had a couple people ask me >> about it. Here's the appropriate links: >> >> http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/1015/056.html >> >> http://www.zonbu.com/home/index.htm > > Looks interesting. I've been looking at small form factor PCs for a > while. They look very similar to these: > > http://logisysus.com/product/smallest-pc.htm > >> From the Zonbu site: > > Zonbu Desktop, Standard plan, Billing every two years = $412.95 > > Thats standard options after all discounts, plus $358.80 after two years > for more support. Also, their "Cancel anytime policy" warns that if you > cancel the membership service, your device will not give you access to > your data after 3 months. They do have a free/no support option, but > I'd probably want to talk to a sales person before I went with that. > > I guess it depends on what their support covers, but I don't see much > there that strikes me as worth $180 a year. > >> From their site: > > Disaster proof storage - Very doable and cheap. > Free automatic software upgrades - Most linux distros have this. > Unlimited Internet support - You are reading this on a mailing list. ;-) > Remote file access "anywhere, anytime, any browser (no plugins)" - That > just sounds scary to me. > Overnight free hardware replacement limited warranty - Nice, but that's > an extra $60 a year. > > My $0.02 would be that everything looks nice, but personally I'd rather > pay more up front for something without a huge service contract, or > required membership service. > > ymmv, > Chris Frederick > I'm guessing that the questions about this device aren't coming from the technically savvy folks. This looks to be pretty much a managed PC service, a concept which I am a huge fan of for most users. Most users run Windows. They have a tendency to not run Windows Updates, to not have a firewall and to click on shiny executables that get emailed to them. When MS tries to change the defaults to their OS to make it more secure they do it poorly and it becomes such a pain that folks just turn the security features off. Now here we have a Linux based device, ships with auto updates enabled (and hopefully the users can't turn them off), probably a sane set of firewall rules that enables productivity while keeping the threat profile down and a native resistance to all the Windows based malware. You can make lots of arguments about why these aren't going to be successful, the inability to click on those shiny executables may be one of them, but I love the concept. I wouldn't buy one, but I like taking things apart and making them work. That's part of the fun of computing for me (and most of you reading this I assume). For most people, however, they couldn't care less. A computer is just another appliance that they use to do certain things and they are way too complicated considering the simplicity of most of the tasks they want to do. I think that a business model like this will take off eventually as computers get more ubiquitous and there gets to be a tipping point of non-technical folks with computers. Of course, that could just be the business classes going to my head. Josh ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.