I think ultimately this one will be decided not by M$ marketing but by how the concept fits into people's lives. And I think Mark is on to something ... most people want appliances, things that do one thing well. And they want complete solutions.
Look at how well combined appliances have done. Some have done well ... the toaster oven - it's a toaster, it's an oven. Some have done astonishingly poorly - the convection oven. Cooks in half the time, uses half the energy. Seemed like a good idea to me. Do you know anyone who has one? My cousin has a microwave oven with a built in voice recorder. The idea is she can dictate into it instructions for the next meal. The kids come home, hit the button, hear the instructions and microwave their supper. I think the owner of the company might have bought one too. That makes 2. I think the idea that one big powerful computer can do everything is fine for geeks (who don't mind managing the complexity). I think most people are totally undone by it (helped along, no doubt, by most contemporary O/S software, which is undone by about 5 concurrent tasks - if the world made any sense, that would be the death of M$ venture into multi-media all by itself). So what does this mean for Slim. It means people want to have complete solutions that come out of the box. While the SB is a great thing for geeks, most people want to open their new sound appliance, plug it in, start shoving CDs into it's mouth, and start listening to music 10 minutes later. I think they accept that they'll need weeks to push all their CDs into it. I think they accept that it'll be wired up to several things - power, the home stereo or theatre, network. I think the stumbling block for many people is the fact that it's an incomplete solution. They still have to supply the computer, the hard disk, configure it, size it, install it, debug it, etc. I think if Slim would private label some small box with a small processor, a huge hard disk, a CD-ROM, a network interface, with a small or no fan and pre-loaded with software, it would make a huge difference. Then a complete squeezebox system would be one base unit and so many satelites. I know, everyone will say, why don't you do it. Aside from the fact that I don't have either the time or the money at the moment, it wouldn't be the same coming from me. The consumer wants to buy the package from one guy. If they buy the computer from me and the players from Slim, they're going to say "what's up with that? Why isn't it all coming from one place? How do I know it will all work together?" I know every posting like this ends up being "why are you telling Slim how to run their business?". I'm not. Really. I'm not telling them to design such a thing from the ground up. I'm suggesting they could private label anyone elses adequate solution, stick a slim devices vinyl sticker on it and make out like bandits. I'm not advocating renunciation of the state religion which, as we all know, is thin clients. But nowhere in the religious doctrine does it say that a requirement for ascent into heaven is that the mass market must supply their own server and configure it themselves. You can still get the benefit of thin client if you supply the fat server. (or should that be phat?) My 2 cents worth. -- Michaelwagner ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michaelwagner's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=428 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=22474 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
