https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer
Cool.
So with a good wind, and an ARM-enabled Xojo that (hopefully) does GUI apps, I can just about see a future where I start selling a whole computer with my app preloaded, instead of a CD or USB drive.
The goal was reached, and the designs will be released as public domain next year, so more models and competitors will appear. That’s great. It will allow things like you said, embedded solutions. I have uses for some micro server boxes just needing web interfaces for initial configs. And for personal use I intend to use an HDMI one for watching movies, but for this one I wish another model not ready yet, made from another company.
https://forum.xojo.com/22301-pi-challenger
Saw that. Looks like a fun little toy.
And I see it as amazing low cost professional resource.
I didn’t mean to denigrate the device. My day job is also my hobby so my tools are also my toys.
I would say it will be a great competitor to the compute module.
[quote=185892:@Jeff Tullin]Cool.
So with a good wind, and an ARM-enabled Xojo that (hopefully) does GUI apps, I can just about see a future where I start selling a whole computer with my app preloaded, instead of a CD or USB drive. :)[/quote]
Jeff I do this already with Zotac Intel Based Barebones (Model ZBOX-ID18-PLUS-E-SE with Intel Dualcore 1.8 Ghz, HD Graphics, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 64 GB SSD, SD Cardreader, 1 GB Ethernet Interface Win7/8 ready). These little boxes cost me somewhere between 150 and 170 Euros (without Tax) and is capable as dedicated mini-server. One customer put this little box into his corporate network with over 150 Users. Of course there is no redunance but heck when any piece of hardware stops working, he will get just a new Box.
[quote=185892:@Jeff Tullin]Cool.
So with a good wind, and an ARM-enabled Xojo that (hopefully) does GUI apps, I can just about see a future where I start selling a whole computer with my app preloaded, instead of a CD or USB drive. :)[/quote]
A $9 computer is indeed questioning very hard (pun intended) software pricing. Already, when the computer cost less than $500, $99.00 is considered expensive. In the mainframe era, software was routinely priced at 10% that of the hardware. So would $99 be a reasonable price for a CHIP app ?
We already reached the point where Large screen TVs cost much less than the content they deploy to offer a different viewpoint.
I have to trust that we can continue to sell software at something higher than 10% of the hardware,
or there won’t be any content left apart from (poorly) ad-financed Angry Bird clones and pornography.
We have to hope that we are in the position of microwaveable meal manufacturers watching the prices of microwaves tumble.
[quote=185945:@Jeff Tullin]We already reached the point where Large screen TVs cost much less than the content they deploy to offer a different viewpoint.
I have to trust that we can continue to sell software at something higher than 10% of the hardware,
or there won’t be any content left apart from (poorly) ad-financed Angry Bird clones and pornography.
We have to hope that we are in the position of microwaveable meal manufacturers watching the prices of microwaves tumble.[/quote]
The microwave/frozen meal comparison is not quite valid. As terrible as may be, a frozen meal is sustenance and therefore a need. Software is most often a want, or an “I would like”, competing in an overcrowded market with trashy programs, freeware, and other software in general, music and video included.
That said, I have to confess I find the CHIP quite endearing.
This era has ended. For this question, let’s forget the CHIP for one moment. One day a guy woke up with an idea about NEW way simple way of creating a NEW molecule able to disable cancer evolution and kill those defective cells. He reached the lab that morning and in 30 minute using that simple method he imagined, mixing 3 easy findable substances COSTING $1 he could, extract those molecules and produce 10 vaccines proven ok. How much is the VALUE of the vaccine? Believe me, it’s far more than $1/100 or $1/10.
Inversely, I can install a Windows 7 in a $400 Acer and I can install the same Windows 7 in a $1500 Mac. How much cost each Windows?
The VALUE of your solution does not relate to the COST of the hardware carrying it.
[quote=186019:@Rick Araujo]This era has ended. For this question, let’s forget the CHIP for one moment. One day a guy woke up with an idea about NEW way simple way of creating a NEW molecule able to disable cancer evolution and kill those defective cells. He reached the lab that morning and in 30 minute using that simple method he imagined, mixing 3 easy findable substances COSTING $1 he could, extract those molecules and produce 10 vaccines proven ok. How much is the VALUE of the vaccine? Believe me, it’s far more than $1/100 or $1/10.
Inversely, I can install a Windows 7 in a $400 Acer and I can install the same Windows 7 in a $1500 Mac. How much cost each Windows?
The VALUE of your solution does not relate to the COST of the hardware carrying it.[/quote]
If I did not know the value of the software I produce, I would have switched to goat cheese making quite a while ago. Moreover, I even happen to think computer software is a cultural piece, just as well as a book or a song, and should be regarded as such, in spite of vast incomprehension from literary scholars and law makers alike. These people are stuck in the past, and have usually no clue about the intellectual assets of the 21 century. Dinosaurs.
My post was just a reflexion on the growing tendency that places software as a commodity that should be free or near free. A trend that can be damageable to our activity.
guys are you really discussing the worth of a software? And you set this in comparision to the hardware? I do not get it…
[quote=186058:@Tomas Jakobs]guys are you really discussing the worth of a software? And you set this in comparision to the hardware? I do not get it…
Excellent read. Thank you.
My point before was just to voice the concern that end user software as it is distributed in online stores is increasingly perceived as too expensive, probably due to very cheap hardware, and to general perception that open source, freeware and other free software is the reference.
Of course, contractual development remains relatively safe from that unfortunate situation, and that is a good thing.
Incidentally, the same seems to happen in the book publishing industry, where some publishing houses now tend to issue collections with public domain authors rather than to take risk with new authors. The classics cost them nothing in copyrights and have a big image, easy to sell. There goes new creation.