Meet the CherryPal—because, apparently, “it’s sweeter than Apple”—a new slimmed-down, 10 oz (yes, you read that right) desktop machine that relies on flash memory and comes to life (san monitor) on just two watts for just two Benjamins and a Grant (that’s $250 for all you people who failed US history).
While the machine runs a variant of Debian Linux, apparently the idea is that the box is a thin-client, a machine that is essentially just a web terminal running Firefox. The idea is that you run everything you need from “the cloud”— a constant connection to the Internet that lets you access Google Apps, Facebook and whatever else you need.
Reports CNET’s Crave:The closest competition is the Eee Box from Asus, and other low-power Linux-based desktops, which have cleared the way for devices like the CherryPal.
As Max Seybold, the company’s CEO told CNET:
“The great thing is you have Netboxes (and) Netbooks, so there’s a lot of awareness in the market, and (it shows) there is a market for computers that aren’t Windows or Apple,” said Seybold. “The sales numbers for Asus are very, very, encouraging.”
Our perspective?
This has been tried before, nearly ten years ago. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now. We give it less than a year.
The same could be said for the Newton. Good thing Palm didn't let that discourage them.
"Ten years ago" most everyone was still on dialup, and rarely faster than 33.6K. Back then, being online tended to mean America Online. Of course those devices failed, they were terrible to work with. Now, with Google Docs and equivalents, there's just no reason for 40%? 60% of people to want much more.
Now if the darned thing just supported HDMI instead of VGA, people could hook it into their telvisions and save the hassle of having a dedicated monitor!
I would argue though, that it's a lot easier for an internet appliance to succeed in a broadband, always-on world than in a dial-up, pay-by-the-minute world.
I think that the availability of online apps makes this a very different world than 10 years ago.
Wrong:
1) CherryPal does not appear to be associated with any service, therefore is not a loss leader.
2) Hardware is much less expensive these days.
3) No ridiculous keyboard and screen.
4) Not just an internet appliance - it is capable of running regular applications and has local storage.