This looks like the second coming of the IOpener, minus the snazzy flat screen monitor, and costing a hundred more.... how long do you think it'll be before folks find the way to add that extra harddrive back in??? Of course, the idea has already failed once, so it probably will leave a bunch of orphan NIC machines.... Bill Ward -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ellison to unveil $199 Web appliance Ellison's startup New Internet Computers, run by Gina Smith, will donate 1,100 machines to Dallas schools. By Don Clark, WSJ Interactive Edition May 8, 2000 7:57 AM PT New Internet Computer Co., a closely held San Francisco company owned by Ellison, will unveil a $199 machine that is designed to do little more than surf the Web and send e-mail. Ellison, chairman of Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) and currently in the running for world's richest man, will show off the device at an event in Dallas that will include donations of more than 1,100 machines to schools there. The start-up will initially focus on the education market. It will sell machines to schools through its Web site, and allow consumers to purchase and donate them to schools designated by the company. But Gina Smith, a former ABC-TV technology correspondent and Ziff-Davis reporter, who is New Internet Computer's chief executive, said it plans to offer a consumer version later in the year. "When we come out with a consumer computer it will be the easiest to use machine on the planet," Smith said. She is quick to acknowledge that the venture will face skepticism. NIC, as both the company and the product are called, is a second version of an idea that already flopped. Ellison, a bitter rival of Microsoft Corp., began campaigning in 1996 to replace personal computers with $500 devices that he then called network computers. He also formed a company called Network Computer Inc. to make software for such devices. Few people bought the idea. Prices of conventional PCs plunged to the point that the simpler systems offered little savings, and few corporations were eager to dump their existing Microsoft application software. Things got so bad that Network Computer Inc. changed its focus to interactive television and its name to Liberate Technologies Inc. Ellison, not ready to throw in the towel, took back the rights to some software as well as the Network Computer name. Critic at first Smith, 35 years old, had interviewed Ellison for TV reports and newspaper columns, and was critical of the original vision. "It was way too early," she said, "and it was aimed at the business market, not at the consumer market." Yet she listened when Ellison proposed in October that she change industries and run a nonmedia business for the first time. After running a radio talk show that helped consumers with computer problems, Smith said she had definite ideas about how to make a simpler system. She took the job and moved with a small group of hand-picked industry executives to an office in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood. Smith also changed the name of the company to New Internet Computer Co. to stress the Web as an important focus of the device. The original network computer was based on a proprietary operating system and required a server system that managed a group of desktop machines. The NIC, by contrast, uses a version of the Linux operating system that is stored on a CD-ROM, allowing each machine to work independently and communicate to the Internet through a modem or an Ethernet network. For $199, users get a small black box that has a 266-megahertz microprocessor and 64 megabytes of memory. The system has no disk drive -- a major source of reliability and security problems in schools, Smith notes. A monitor isn't included in the $199 price; the company will sell one for $129, or customers can use one they already have. "Gina understands better than most people the computer novice, the nongeek," said Mitchell Kertzman, Liberate Technologies' chief executive. On the other hand, he concedes, she has no experience operating a computer business. "She bears the burden of performance, as does Larry," he added. Rob Enderle, an analyst at the research firm Giga Information Group, said that NIC faces stiff competition from others working on information appliances. Among them is America Online Inc., which is working with computer maker Gateway Inc. on a system that connects to the Internet and doesn't use Microsoft's operating syste The initial NIC donations will be funded by Oracle's Promise, a charitable arm of the company that pledged in 1997 to spend $100 million over 10 years. Besides NIC's Web site for placing machine orders, www.thinknic.com, Oracle is setting up a site called www.think.com that will offer collaboration tools and other resources for students and teachers. -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
