EFIKA sale discontinued by Genesi

[MrZoon]

"pleased to announce"? A discontinuation of a sale could only be pleasing to the people who are losing money because of it. Let me guess, when the Efika2 shows up they'll offer an upgrade plan. For two weeks. Then they'll discontinue the Efika and it's Peg1/Peg2 all over again. (Yeah, I know it lasted longer than two weeks, but I'm still pssd at missing the upgrade.) Then Efika3 will be announced, but something completely different will be developed, and there will never be an Efika3.





Make an new (Efika2) Open Client with dual video, flash drive, and 1Gbps, aggressively market it with Morphos/RDC (or Linux/VNC) as a thin client device for under $400 (affiliates program? viral marketing? free 30-day trials?). There's nothing out there that comes close graphics-wise for that price. Focus on this market. With virtualization and awareness of potential power savings in the spotlight, this could be the killer box. They won't have to offer discounts: They can just drop the price because they're selling so many of them. The rest of us who want it for other reasons will benefit as well.

Why dual-video and 1Gbps? I work at a university-based non-profit research company. The lowest resolution machine we have is 1280x1024 - and that's a CD duplicator that sits unattended in the basement. Most people have 1680x1050, or 1920x1200, or dual 1600x1200. We just sent back a brand new $1500 30" Dell widescreen (2560x1536) just because it didn't have dual inputs (oops!). *All* the machines in question will be virtualized within a year. And by then, we may be running at 3840x2400 or something even more ridiculous. Our network is rated for 10G, but right now we only have 1G switches. This too shall pass. People aren't just running Word anymore.

(Obviously, my Mom won't be buying many of these - sell her the current model at the same price but include mouse, keyboard, monitor, an external DVD/CD-RW drive, and some lite apps - she'll be fine with that.)

(Oh, while your at it, add a line of customizable graphic anti-static skins that appeal to everyone from corporate bigwigs to Japanese teens. And my Mom.)

The more features at a competitive price, the more sales, the longer before truly competitive products show up, and the quicker the price drops (which means more sales, faster introduction of even better products, etc.)