The New Subscription PC Model

July 16, 2007 | by Christopher Nickson

Zonbu is introducing a small new computer that's remarkably green — and sold with a subscription.

How would you like to buy your PC for $99 and pay $12.95 a month to use it? A new company called Zonbu is hoping a lot of people are willing to take the plunge.
 
They’re offering a cigar-box sized PC that runs Linux and uses only 15 watts of electricity, with the possibility of savings subscribers $10 a month on their electric bill.
 
It’s a green challenge, and they can back up their claims by having the first desktop computer to have a gold rating from the Green Electronics Council, in its Epeat, or Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, category.
 
The computer uses 4GB of flash memory, rather than a hard drive, comes equipped with six USB ports, and doesn’t use a fan. Running Gentoo Linux, it comes with Firefox, Skype, Open Office and several games. Data is automatically backed up on remote servers, to protect in case of crashes, and allowing remote access. Users are given 25 GB of online storage, with more available for purchase.
 
In many ways, it’s similar to the way cellphones are sold, and the company sees it as ideal for the second computer on the home.
 
“The market we want to target is the second PC in the home,” said Grégoire Gentil, Zonbu’s chief executive. “If you want to give a PC to your kids or put it in the kitchen, this is a good candidate.”
 
The system sold will be very basic, and sold without mouse, keyboard or monitor, all available as options. To spur developers to create applications for Zobu, the company is selling the computer to developers for $250, without any subscription charge.
 

Post Your Comment...Comments

Elwin Andriol on Jul 16th, 2007 at 11:55 AM:

Although this initiative is very applaudable in the way that it's a viable alternative to many energy guzzling computers and it points to an often neglected but key problem of computers (energy consumption), most of these subscription type of deals have been tried before and all have failed.

At this moment the Zonbu is pretty unique and there are not many comparable hardware platforms around for end users. However, this will change pretty rapidly. At the moment MSI is already selling a hardware platform that is almost the same (the Zonbu uses a Cutebox platform which uses a near identical main board), for around 130 Euros at my local supplier (The Netherlands). Link:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&p...

I wish the lads of Zonbu a lot of luck and I do like the way the advertise their product. Nevertheless, I also think that their business model will be surpassed left and right by less depending alternatives as soon as compatible hardware becomes available to the main stream, which can happen very soon with the current political attention for energy consumption in general.

Scot Case on Jul 17th, 2007 at 9:24 AM:

Just a quick clarification -- Zonbu is not the first EPEAT Gold desktop. That honor belongs to HP, although HP's machine is clearly targeted towards business users. Zonbu can be more accurately described as the first EPEAT Gold desktop focused exclusively on the consumer market. Despite the clarification, Zonbu is clearly a stellar environmental achievement and a heck of a product as well.

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