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Netwinder now by Rebel.com 51

Posted by CmdrTaco from the amazing-name-game dept.
victim writes "HCC which aquired the Netwinder is now Rebel.com - technology with an attitude. They offer everything from preloaded Netwinder web servers to custom hardware design and build with a heavy commitment to Linux in the enterprise. press release. " SGI, HCC, Cygnus. This is getting annoying.
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Netwinder now by Rebel.com More

Netwinder now by Rebel.com

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  • Re:Missed opportunity (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    $5M just for a domain name? That's enough to pay 50
    good engineers for a year! (though $5M is an upper limit).

    --ac

  • Canada: good engineering, poor marketing (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm an EE who used to work in Canada. Compared to USA, Canada engineering companies seem less competitve, almost like an extension of University. I worked on some great projects but I've never heard what became of them after I left. Canadians need to learn to market their products more agressively. Great technology is useless if it doesn't leave the lab.

  • Here we go again (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 03, 1999 @10:33AM (#1906202)
    In the early 1980's there was a Canadian company called, I think, Bytec, then Bytec-Comterm, then eventually Comterm. They had a totally cool portable computer called the Hyperion which never quite took off. It had an integral screen, dual floppies and a place to store the (full size) keyboard. It was a quarter the weight of a Compaq sewing machine (Compaq was just starting out at the time.)

    It seemed to me that it was another example of a good product which went down the tubes due to loss of corporate identity and the consequential poor marketing. It looks like the same fate is destined for the Netwinder. Is there something about hardware designed in Canada which is related to this phenomenon? Corel -> HCC -> rebel.com, good lord how the hell are you supposed to find information on the damn thing?

    And now the Netwinder name is being given to machines which have nothing to do with the original Netwinder - they're Intel-based boxes! The "real" Netwinder is buried in a sea of .htm (ptui!) pages for competing products.

    Pity.
  • Here at AOL it's all about branding ... Buying Netscape and ICQ etc, it's all about co-branding schemes, and "We are continually bringing STRONG BRANDS into the America Online family". They say stuff like that. Really.
  • from the enterprise security section:
    Intrusion Detection

    The most secure door in the world won't help you if your windows are unlocked. Network scanners probe your system for security gaps in your firewalls, servers and desktop computers. By identifying the potential dangers, scanners let fix the system before the hackers strike.

    I guess this how you cozy up to Enterprise customers. This is how you alienate ISP's who want to buy netwinders, but are run by 'so-called' hackers. Bastards.

    This is just part of the same old argument, but i couldn't use the "conact us" section to register my distaste.

    The proper term is *Intruder*, *Vandal*, *Criminal*.

  • There's even a button that says "POWERED BY NETWINDER". Bastards! Well, obviously not - unless it's that new "strongarm solaris" right. sheesh.
  • Is anyone else annoyed when companies put the oh-so-trendy '.com' in their names?
  • Where is the Netwinder LC (Linux Computer) that was promised for January '99?
  • Hey, Rob, at least the name sounds better than what it was before; one was never completely sure if it was 'Hardware Canada Computing' or 'Hardware Computing Canada.' And it makes somewaht more sense than what 'SGI' stands for now.

  • The page says "Powered by Netwinder," yet the server runs Solaris (and I haven't heard yet that Sun has ported that to StrongARM yet). Go find out for yourself here [netcraft.com].

  • HCC has been tosing money about.

    $ 5,000,000 for www.reble.com
    $ 100,000 per year for James Dean's visage.

    Personaly I think they shuld have boght
    Bob Marleys picture. Now there is a Reble.
  • That's what the logo in the webpage claims. However, www.netcraft.com says:

    rebel.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on Solaris

    linux.rebel.com is running Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) on Solaris
  • Are there and ARM based portables coming? Fast, cheap, linux, sounds good to me.

    I think someone was working on a PDA, but I don't remember the link.

    Ed
  • I don't think the opinion of Netwinders has changed. The general consensus has always been that they're a pretty neat little machine that isn't worth the price except as a novelty. When it first came out the Netwinder was a bit underpowered and a bit overpriced. Since then the power and price of the Netwinder have remained unchanged while the power of PCs has increased and the price of PCs has decreased. Now the company is changing its "image" and offering the same product at the same price (actually I'm just assuming that, prices weren't readily apparent on the new website).

    The Netwinder also lacks the video RAM to be a serious contenter as an X-terminal replacement. With only two megs you're forced to choose between high resolution or high color depth.

  • Okay, Netwinders are small and they run Linux. Outside their cuteness is there a real reason to buy one? As in, is there an actual gain in performance/price over bog standard PC architecture? There seems to be little discussion of these machines. Several Linux fans here in Canada hadn't even heard of the machines despite their Corel origin.
  • "Rebel.com, whose corporate philosophy is technology with attitude..." I think that says it all 8)
  • I've had a NetWinder DM since February. It's the 64 Mbyte RAM, 4 Gbyte Hard drive model. When I ordered it from Corel, I received it the next day. That was a pretty good omen. I hope HCC (aka Rebel.com) can do as well. Here are my impressions of the machine so far.

    First, realize that the NetWinder is still in beta form. Although the hardware is fairly mature at this time, the software is still in quite rough shape. Although there has been a flurry of activity on the developer's site [netwinder.org] since the beginning of the year, the last official release was before the beginning of the year. I'd like to see that change soon. What happened to release early and often?

    The software on my DM is a crazy quilt of different releases. egcs and glib2, but there's no Netscape. It's got some of Red Hat 5.x, but all RPM's have to installed with the --nodeps flag because the software is a crazy quilt. There is no userful configuration tool that I've seen and the documentation is next to non-existent, printed or otherwise. Many things work well, but many other things don't work at all. All this has to be straightened out before the NetWinder is ready to sell to the general public, especially as an everyday workstation.

    Okay, so what's so good about the NetWinder? Fortunately there is a lot of good. It's got to be one of the coolest computers I've ever seen. But, nobody would buy a computer that looked cool if it didn't act the part as well. I'm happy to say that the NetWinder fits the role.

    The hardware is mature even if the software isn't. Built-in features are plentiful. Sound, IrDA, video capture and output (both NTSC and PAL), two NICs (one a DEC Tulip 10/100base), microphone and speaker, parallel (EPP/ECP) and serial ports. Parallel port IDE devices are supported. The originally specified built-in modem and telephony capability is gone (although the connectors still live on my machine). That is too bad, but even without telephony there are sufficient features to make most anybody happy. And the components with which I've had experience all seem to be of very high quality. Hardware wise this is a very nice machine. I feel that alone could assure its success in the market (if the software gets done).

    One feature with which I have quite a bit of experience is the Dec Tulip 10/100base network interface. The Corel developers did their homework on this interface. It flies. My entire network uses DEC Tulip chip cloan NICs. All the machines are quick, but the NetWinder really pumps it out. There is a noticable difference here. The NetWinder can effortlessly saturate my little hub while my PII-300 has to really work to do it.

    The Winder is also speedy in loading large chunks from hard drive. I don't think that this is because of the hard drive, which is a 2.5 inch, 4 GB Toshiba. I believe that the credit goes to intelligent coding, the StrongARM CPU and its support chips. For instance, emacs and X windows load much quicker on the Winder than on my PII-300. This would support HCC's claim that the NetWinder is ideal as a server. After using the machine for a few months in that mode, it still seems fast. I'm still very impressed.

    The NetWinder uses less than 15 watts of power. One of the Corel engineers told me that he got a NetWinder to bootstrap using only one regular nine volt battery for power. I guess it didn't run too long, but it got to the login prompt with no problems. I haven't tried this, nor do I intend to. But, this will give you an idea of how little power it uses. I can see a lot of special applications being made that take advantage of this feature. Solar power anybody?

    Am I glad that I bought a NetWinder? On the whole, yes. I am very pleased with it. This little guy figures prominently in my future plans. I hope that HCC soon will get through the transition and release the desperately needed major software upgrade. In the meantime, I'll let my NetWinder serve up Web pages for my network and do some other miscellaneous things. But, what I'd really like is to use it as an easily packable computer. Soon, I hope.

    Regards,

    Arne Flones
    Long Ship Software

  • It is cheaper than it looks. You save several hundred/year on electricity, a similar amount on air-conditioning, your UPS is a bunch of batteries, and it has a great form factor.

    But it isn't a slam-dunk.

    Cheers,
    Ben Tilly

  • This is a rebel? (Score:3)

    by daviddennis ( 10926 ) <david@amazing.com> on Monday May 03, 1999 @09:31AM (#1906219) Homepage
    Does this quote the "Products" section of their web page sound like it came from a rebel?
    Rebel.com delivers technology solutions for a connected world. We know that rapid technological change, increased connectivity and organizational change pose significant risks to enterprise stability. Whether your enterprise faces expansion into new business areas, acquisitions/mergers or new technology, Rebel.com delivers the people, products and power to manage change with intelligence, foresight and improved return on IT investment.
    Is conformist.com [conformist.com] available? Seems like it would suit these guys to a T.

    D

    PS conformist.com is an incomprehensible site that fills your screen with its windows. Annoying. There's so little actual content on the site that I'd bet they'd be open to a reasonable offer. Call them, Rebels!
    ----

  • Failed to connect

    The host 207.245.35.211 could not be contacted. If this persists, you should contact the administrator of the remote site.

  • The now dead Apple Newton Message Pads were ARM based.

    brett

  • I can't think of anything more worthy of worship than self-proclaimed rebels. No, really.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • I wonder who owns the rights to Jimmy's visage? Does he have some sort of estate left?

    Unrelated, that was one of the worst press releases I've read in recent memory. If I hear someone mention "branding" without reference to livestock, I'm going to quit my job and move to Arizona and live in the friggin desert. Fsck these boomers.

  • And I quote:

    Rebel.com has the people, products and power to deliver capacity, high-availability UNIX®/Windows® NT/HTTP technology that cuts quickly to the core of your IT system needs. We get you up and running - and keep you there. Our custom solutions deliver absolute reliability in today's complex networked environments.

    If this is so true, how come I'm getting broken links?

    I for one won't be buying from them. (yeah, as if I could afford it)

  • Um, sorry to burst your little troll-bubble, but Netcraft [netcraft.com] says it's running Apache 1.3.6 on Slowlaris. That is odd for a company that makes and sells those nifty little NetWinders. Perhaps they're too busy providing 'value-added solutions' for your 'enterprise networks'.

    Mike
    --

  • The logo is completely forgettable and conjures up images of either a men's version of Victoria's Secret (Victor's Secret?) or the online outlet for Beverly Hills 90210. The entire image is too slick and perky for a company calling itself a rebel, innovative or otherwise. If they are trying to rebrand themselves, they are doing a piss-poor job of it.

    The worst part of it is that this inept excuse for a technology company is going to take a pretty piece of hardware down with it.

    - Jeff Dutky

  • Cheezy (Score:1)

    by modok ( 25286 )
    This has to be one of the most cheezy advertising gimmicks on the net right now. I mean
    come on who didn't laugh when their logo popped up. I mean James Dean looks like he is strutting off of a J. Crew catalog (or perhaps some Gap commercial). Hardly what anyone conjures up as a rebel these days.

    Also, talking about rebels, how many IT people want to buy a rebelous solution? HEH.

    -T
  • "The company will pay up to $5 million US for the rights to the rebel.com name - making it potentially one of the most expensive domain purchases in history."

    Heck, I wish they had called me. For $1 million I'm sure I could come up with a domain that wasn't already taken.
  • There was a press release on their site a week or two ago which announced the sale of the Corel Hardware division to HCC. The press release basically said that Corel wants to focus on software.
  • They've got Netwinder i Series running Intel chips, so they could be using x86 Solaris. Don't know why they wouldn't use Linux though.

    Anybody here has got to admit that this sounds a lot better than HCC. This is good marketing, and they've got good ideas for the Netwinder.
  • The LC was delayed to March way back in February (can't remember why), and because of this sale and the name change, it was delayed more. It IS coming, but I'm not sure when. I live in Ottawa, and there was a story in the Ottawa Citizen today that they would be introducing a Netwinder based on Corel Desktop Linux, which they want to intro at Linux Expo in August. I don't think they'll wait that long though...

    My friend's dad works on the Netwinder, right now they're doing a lot of work on a Netwinder Beowulf cluster. The LC is done development, it's just a matter of actually starting to make them and sell them.
  • Seems they are /.'ed allready.

    I got HTTP 50x errors (Internal server error) for a while.

    Hmm. 'high-capacity, high-availability .. HTTP technology'

    If those quotes came from their site that's really sad.

    Breace.
  • The press release is tie-speak if ever I saw it.
    A true, modern rebel would live with "HCC".
    What does James Dean have to do with being a rebel is todays society?
    Fluff.

    Dilbert Rule! http://www.dilbert.com/
  • I thought Corel was betting the farm on Linux this year, having lost the back forty when they bet that on Java a couple of years ago. So why did they sell the Netwinder business?
  • Rebel.com runs on a NetWinder 1000i.

    This is an x86 box running Linux. The firewall is running Solaris. Hopefully this clears up any confusion.



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