[Arm-netbook] EOMA, Improv etc

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 3:56 PM, peter green <plugwash at p10link.net> wrote:
> Boris Barbour wrote:
>>
>> if I understand correctly. What would be the easiest (=cheapest) product
>> to build? I'm guessing a mini-
>> pc, since there is no screen to integrate and no real space constraint,
>
> The problem is you have to answer the question of "what does this proposed
> new product offer that products that are already on the market do not".
>
> I know you will say "the ability to replace the CPU card and avoid throwing
> the rest of the product away". However there are two problems with that.
>
> 1: we are talking about a new unproven product line. What confidence does a
> potential customer have that there will ever be a second generation of CPU
> card?

 i cannot answer this question as it stands, because trust is
something that *you* have to give.  the decision to trust is *yours*,
not mine.  so the honest answer to that is whether *you* trust *my*
committment to the project's success.

 now, i can point you in a direction which will allow you to make that
decision, bearing in mind that it is down to you.  i am a complex and
gifted person with a lot to learn about communication and people,
often keeping silent when i should not, and speaking out truthfully
when people do not wish to hear.  but... hey, i am usually well ahead
of the curve when it comes to computer innovations.

one day something that i do ahead of everyone else will be highly
successful and for once i might even be the one that benefits
financially enough from it to be able to keep it completely under my
control and on the course that i know will bring the full benefits
that i originally envisaged.

> 2: it relies on their being significant value in the product OUTSIDE the cpu
> card. If the rest of the product

 products PLURAL peter.  please take a look at the community ideas
page on the rhombus-tech.net wiki:
http://rhombus-tech.net/community_ideas/
 and when doing so, please bear in mind that this project has a
decade-long timespan.  unlike other product family design concepts,
this one is not on a desperate
design-it-as-fast-as-you-can-sell-it-as-fast-as-you-can-before-the-CPU-is-overtaken-by-competitor-products
lifecycle.

> So since the modularity advantage is rather theoretical at this point you
> have to offer something compelling outside of the modularity, whether that
> is some unique feature, better performance at a given price point than has
> previously been available or something else. Improv simply didn't offer
> that, it had a substantially higher price point than the cubie2 which had
> the same hardware and was already on the market.

 which means that you have misunderstood the concept, and the full
value of the concept.

 the first thing you need to understand is that a comparison of a
short-term development board to a long-term PRODUCT FAMILY concept is
at best completely misguided, and misses the whole purpose of this
inititative.

 allow me to illustrate through some simple statements:

 if you want only cubie (or other developer boards at the lowest
possible price), you are at the wrong web site.

 if you want a tablet, and a pc, and a laptop, and a games console,
and you want to operate all those machines simultaneously, and you are
happy to throw them in landfill and replace them each when even the
slightest component breaks, you are at the wrong web site.

 if however you want to save around 30% on the cost of two (or more)
equivalent monolithic products, because you are happy to SHARE THE CPU
CARD BETWEEN PRODUCTS, then you are at the **RIGHT** web site.

 if you want to upgrade those products in the future, saving over the
lifetime of SEVERAL products on eco-waste in the process by being able
to recycle the older CPU Card, you are at the **RIGHT** web site.

 does that give you a clear enough distinction between the EOMA
concept and the monolithic limited product concept?

 the committment of customers to EOMA product concept is a *long-term*
one, it is *not* a short-term "buy the latest and greatest fashion
product and discard it in landfill when bored with it" one.

 that's why our relationship with that large billion-dollar factory in
china is so important, because we have the possibility to influence
them in their product ranges, and due to their size their own
bureaucracy is making it very challenging to keep up with the
fast-moving pace of the ARM world, now.  our product concept allows
them to create the same "shell" on a *DIFFERENT* much longer timescale
than the CPU cards, which, in bulk, they can make plenty of and then
switch very quickly to a new CPU **WITHOUT** having to totally
redesign an entire [monolithic] product range.

 so it is a good match.  they get it.  but they *cannot* commit to an
R&D budget. at all.  they don't have one.  at all.  they only do
ready-made designs (made by other people).  and then make 100,000 to
10,000,000 of them :)

 l.