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WHAT FLAWS REVEALED IN THE $500 SET-TOP BOX
This month, the man who coined the term $500 Internet
Computer, Larry Ellison chief executive officer of Oracle Corp. demonstrated
the device in San Francisco, Calif. The price of the unit had risen
to $650, based on the wholesale price of its components. With mass storage
and a monitor or TV, the price jumps to nearly $1,000.
Ellison countered by saying that the higher cost of the box could be
subsidized by information providers, much as set-top boxes are given
away by cable companies. In reality, a portion of the monthly service
charge goes to pay for the box.
Flaws in the concept of network computing with low-cost set-top terminals
accessing software applications and content from the network remain.
One is, communications firms lack adequate infrastructure.
Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mercury Research, in Scottsdale, Ariz.
claims telecommunications firms lack the bandwidth to supply even one-quarter
of U.S. households with 128 kilobits ISDN (integrated services digital
network) service.
Another drawback for users is the transaction cost to use a program
on the network. Any server access will have a fee to use the software
applet. Now, users buy the software and pay no fee to access a server.
For some users the fee will be acceptable. How many users is the question.
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