Whistle sold InterJets; you could have bought one then.  There is
even an aftermarket for setting a root password, adding more disk,
adding more RAM, and adding additional connectivity options, like
a faster modem (if you have the old box).

As far as the Cobalt stuff goes, NetBSD runs on the x86 RAQ and
Qube things, so getting FreeBSD going would probably be trivial,
if someone hasn't done it already.

FWIW: I agree that this model is fundamentally flawed; I think
the current dearth of funding for the ASP boondoggle and the
crashes left and right of the companies trying this model are
good indicators that it's not a long-term win.

That said, it's my opinion that IBM could sell InterJets with
little risk, if they wanted to (you can buy a Cobalt box through
REQCAT, the IBM internal purchasing facility, but not an InterJet).

IMO, there are other revenue models that _will_ work; I have an
outsourced service I've been working on, and I've identified 7
revenue models, only 3 of which are traditional, and only 1 of
which smacks of an ASP (I'm willing to commit to trying it, even
knowing in my heart that it'll fail, to get V.C. buy-in, after
which I'll convert to one or more of the others before letting
the mandate burn enough capitol to hurt me, since I know at
least two of them are killer models for that type of service; I
would find this route disingenuous enough that it'd be very
distasteful for me.  I rather think I can find a V.C. with brains
or at least a healthy fear of ASP models these days, anyway).

This is my problem with the so-called "Internet appliances"
that make you sign up for service from a particular provider,
and then deeply "discount" the hardware -- actually not giving
a discount at all, but instead amortizing the cost over the
service contract lifetime.

The companies that are selling these things, and then bitching
about people hacking them (because people want cool hardware,
and are willing to pay to play with it, if they are early
adopters) are missing the whole point.

I'll state this as fact: It's the applications that your
customers apply your product to _in spite of you_ that will be
"_the killer app_" for your product, not all of the nice little
corrals you've assembled in your stockyard to guide them into
your preferred revenue pens.

Or to make it short... sell what people want to buy, _not_ what
you want to sell.

Or a little longer.. to _hell_ with what you intended for your
product, if your customer wants to use your nifty multifunction
wrench as a hammer, then you should probably make a decision as
to the relative size of the multifunction wrench and hammer
markets.  Once you do that, you get to decide whether you want
to sell both hammers and multifunction wrenches, add a hammer
head to the end of your multifunction wrench, or say "to hell
with it! I'm a hammer manufacturer!  Print up new business cards!".

Broadcasting the information you need, or offering it for free
through any internet connection that they already have would
turn the box into both a high demand item and a commodity over
night.  I tend to think that broadcast would be more viable
(less moving parts to hook together the hard way), but you'd
have to lose a lot of your window through the standardization
needed to get the buy-in.  Your margins would go from 30-40%,
down to 6%, as other people built boxes to use the same info.
You might be able to get away with this if the lifecycle of the
product was guaranteed to be 3 years or less, by offering the
service part toll free. Actually, I think the timing window on
this will open in 2002, given the conversion schedule for
digital broadcast (at least in the U.S.).  If you could get
the local broadcaster to provide the programming data as part
of their signal, then 6% is OK, if you expect a lifetime of 3
years or more, since it all averages out.  You'll just have to
content yourself with being a Walmart instead of a Woolworth's
(yeah, hard decision, that).  If you could build brand, then
you could probably charge a premium for being a premium product,
in peoples minds, whether or not in reality.

Put another way: do you see a lot of VCR+ codes being published
in your local television guides, or the hardware for it out
there?  How successful was DIVX?  Pushing standards is not cheap,
and tends to benefit your competition as much as you, unless you
are prepared to execute on a dime; most sane standards are only
tactical.  Attempts to make standards into something strategic is
usually not sane, unless you already have a monopoly.

                                        Terry Lambert
                                        te...@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.

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