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The Cherrypal PC Appliance – $249

Written on July 30, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment Leave a Comment  |  Bookmark and Share

Ready… set… go. Cherrypal. A $249 personal computer running Linux that looks more like a network appliance than a personal computer. Quoted from their website:
“The CherryPal desktop is a tiny PC designed with the user in mind. It does all the things you do every day: surf the web, keep in touch with your friends, listen to iTunes, watch videos, word processing, presentations and spreadsheets, all without the hassle of a traditional PC. It only uses 2 watts of power, lasts 10 years and has 80 percent fewer parts. There’s no software or upgrades to install, no risk of viruses, and no operating system to deal with and free 24/7 support – all for just $249. We’ve created the most affordable, easiest-to-use and greenest desktop computer available.”
A great idea for secure kiosk and standard workstations running simple, web-based applications. InformationWeek is calling this “The CloudPC” as a reference to Cloud Computing-model style of terminals.
And if this wasn’t enough, yet another one of my clients has approached me today on OpenOffice. Instead of forking over $159 in OEM licenses for Office 2003 Professional, they want to put OpenOffice on each of their new seven laptops (running WinXP Pro, by the way, and not Vista). Now, that’s a $1,113 savings in software licensing, and the business owner doesn’t mind the learning curve: she _hates_ sending money to Redmond; she _hates_ Vista; she knows she has options.
So why hasn’t somebody fired Ballmer yet?
R

Andy Gaspard says:

Commented posted on: July 30, 2008

Interesting PC appliance. I have been doing some work with the Sun Ray 2 thin clients in hopes of deploying in the same fashion. Solaris 10 on the back end however not Linux. The price of the Sun Rays are also about $250 or $350 for a model that supports dual screens. The trend seems to be going in the direction of green. At the same time the cost savings to be had by the organizations are staggering. Namely on software licenses, hardware refreshes, and maintenance.

Zach says:

Commented posted on: July 30, 2008

Here’s an interesting article related to another device that a company is manufacturing with similar intent.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/cloud-computing-Ncomputing-terminal,5992.html

Russell Mickler, MCSE | CISSP says:

Commented posted on: July 31, 2008

Thanks for all of these, guys. Do you think that the IT dept is ready to displace the traditional PC with an appliance? Myself, I see this maybe as a small business or a niche solution….

R
http://www.micklerandassociates.com

Andy Gaspard says:

Commented posted on: August 1, 2008

I think that the pressure of containing cost and going green will force IT department to at least consider these appliances. They will never completely replace the traditional PC, however in shared environment, kiosk environments, and even some home telework deployments this solution can work very well. Session management with thin client have come a long way and the ease of implementation will make the appliance viable options for the future.