back to article Start-up outfoxes Apple, Dell and HP by offering stock options with PCs

God bless Silicon Valley. Where else will you find a PC start-up offering stock options to create faux communities? Earlier this week, we brought word of CherryPal, an intriguing Mountain View-based company that wants to do nothing less than rewire the PC market. It's got a 10 ounce "desktop," which runs on a low-power …

COMMENTS

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  1. Mathew White

    Ah, they have no capital.

    Well, I'm guessing they are offering stock because they don't have any cash yet/left to bribe people with.

    Out of interest, have they stated what [they think] their company is worth and how many shares the lucky prostitutes, i mean reviewers, will get?

    They might have more luck offering a crate of stella.

  2. M Wade
    Linux

    Works (-ed) for Microsoft!!!!!!

    Its not any worse than the programmer-crack of offering EXPRESS (Free) versions of all of your Visual Studio languages AND then hosting/blogging (Usenet) sorts of sites to get people to "write" about it. Heck the VS2008 Express has the entire suite of software of the VS2008 Pro version just stripped back a little bit.

    Not any worse than offering CTPs that strangely don't time out when expected.

    Last time I looked (months ago) Windows LIVE was still giving away websites (crappy ones, but still free).

  3. Henry Wertz Gold badge

    $3,000 PC? Doubt it.

    They really shouldn't claim this machine will outrun a $3,000 PC. People may well benchmark it and tear them a new one. But, based on spec of a dual-core 400mhz PowerPC-based chip, it should certainly be pleasant enough as a desktop. A notebook based on this would be great, with a good battery the battery life would be insane.

  4. Andrew Tyler
    Paris Hilton

    I'm in.

    It's clearly revolutionary. It's going to change the face of computing as we know it, all while being good to mother earth. Most all of my friends have them pre-ordered already and we're going to camp out all night waiting for the delivery trucks to come. All of the hip people are going to want one, and the trendsetters will make sure to have one early. I even hear that Paris is ordering one in pink!

  5. Kai Hauschildt
    Coat

    Where do I sign up?

    Free kit /and/ stock options for a little creative writing?

    /me looks for the box of integrity and tosses it in the corner.

    Mine's the one with a little Devil (tm) on both shoulders.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What is wrong with this idea...

    nothing really, thanks I am off to find one of the ads.

    I cannot believe the cynical retort to this approach.

    If I am lucky enough to receive said product gratis, I will be giving it a fair evaluation, and no matter the actual review of the product I will place it surrounded by marketing features to encourage purchase.

    The product looks quite good, in my opinion.

  7. Marc Lawrence
    Thumb Up

    Has anyone followed through?

    Is there a second email stating that in order to get access to the product, you need to wire a transfer to a Western Union account somewhere?. Perhaps their phone number contains 419?....

    Ok perhaps it is also a serious enterprise. Many SOHO NAS systems use similar chips and are quite powerful these days; except they are often limited by clumsy implementation designs (fixed ram, slow bus, no video etc). It would be great to see it outperform the new Atom in terms of battery life.

  8. zcat

    yahbut..

    "They really shouldn't claim this machine will outrun a $3,000 PC. People may well benchmark it and tear them a new one."

    Not a problem. Nobody will ever see that review, due to the search results being flooded with paid-for blog and social network astroturfing that started months before an actual machine was available for review.

    Bloody genius!

  9. Pavlovs well trained dog

    sounds Nigerian

    Are you sure this isn't a Nigerian scam..

    Dear blogger,

    My super intelligent uncle developed a new line of PC's that is faster than anything out there, but uses no power and produces no heat and costs buttons.

    We just need $50m to get it going and then you can have $5gazillion in return.

    send cheques, I mean blogs, to ....

  10. Steve

    Free stuff!!

    I can whole-heartedly recommend this product to everyone. In tests it outperforms it's nearest rival by up to 28% at whatever it is this thing does. I currently have three and each one came in a colour and had its own wood based storage solution. Only a week after using this product, I went from 14 to 3729 friends on FaceSpace!

    But, I found out from a guy I know in Second Life whose cousin works at the factory that they'll be hard to get hold of because they accidently used some secret military processors in them so they're super powerful and the government are trying to buy them all up before the Iranians can get hold of any. Honest.

    Now gimme stuff!

  11. Wokstation
    IT Angle

    Hey, at least they're being honest

    It's not like it's unheard of practise. A tad sneaky, yes. Underhanded? Maybe a touch... but at least it's better than having drones of PR agents, isn't it? This way at least the geeks get a shot at some of the rewards of PR-dom, or something.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    Count me in

    As long as it can run decent stuff like XP.

    What, can't get my coat and worship Bill ?

  13. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Testimony from a satisfied customer

    I've been using <insert product name> for years and am supremely satisfied with it. My whole family is also using <insert product name> and it has revolutionised our life. We are happier, more productive and richer because of <insert product name>.

    I wish them luck. We all know that the x86 architecture is very inefficient and we'd all like mobile devices with longer battery life.

  14. Ash

    Perhaps it's powered by...

    http://atomchip.com/_wsn/page3.html

  15. Gordon Pryra

    I swallow for a fiver

    So for a free little box O trix(tm), I would do far more than lie on some forums O.o

  16. Gilbert Wham

    Yup

    ^^^ What he said. I don't care if it's rubbish if it's free. Anyway, even if it is useless for its intended purpose, Hack-A-Day et al will be full of useful repurposings as soon as anyone gets near one with a screwdriver...

  17. Daniel Kluge
    Stop

    Back to 1999

    Are we in a Bubble again already?

    We have no product, but tons of pre-IPO stock-options for those loosers who believe they might be the next Marc Cuban.

    And oh yes, the most annoying time waster of a website in a long time.

    So, the MO is:

    1. Find some VC funding

    2. Build hype

    3. Repeat until popping up on all the hot company lists

    4. Flip it to someone with too much money

    5. Profit

  18. K
    Thumb Up

    Whats new?

    Its the only way to get to the top these days, all the competition is doing it, so its only natural for them to follow!

  19. A J Stiles
    Alert

    Interesting idea

    One of the problems with communism has always been that that when the bolshie workers control the means of production, the poor sods who only have to buy the product end up losing out (think British Leyland). And one of the problems with capitalism has always been that when a bunch of faceless shareholders exhibiting borderline-psychotic selfishness control the means of production, the poor sods who only have to buy the product end up losing out (think ..... well, pretty much any privatised company really).

    Now, if the means of production were controlled by the people who purchase the product .....

  20. Charlie van Becelaere
    Jobs Horns

    I for one

    welcome our new, sweeter-than-apples overlords!

  21. Eric Dennis
    Alien

    I'm in

    Sent them an e-mail. I'm in. Whatever it is, if it runs without crashing and I can install apps that work, I'll definitely give it honest reviews and post on it!!

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It is a good way to spend the marketing budget

    They could hire a marketing company and pay them a ton of cash, or just do it this way.

    This way is much stronger, and they will limit the number of people who can get involved, i.e. get the free machine.

    The cherrypal looks quite smart, and the cloud computing idea is going to be interesting as well. That is maybe where the speed claim is coming from. Processing shoved to the server. Really we are having the return to thin clients, or as I like to call them Lean Clients, or Fit Clients.

    The servers probably won't be green in and of themselves, but overall they will produce a net green effect, allowing processing to be centrally managed, rather than having powerful processors consuming power, but being left idle.

    A lot of good ideas in this little box of tricks.

  23. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Alien

    AI Significant Difference for SocioPolitical Regime Change.

    "So, the MO is:

    1. Find some VC funding

    2. Build hype

    3. Repeat until popping up on all the hot company lists

    4. Flip it to someone with too much money

    5. Profit " .... By Daniel Kluge Posted Thursday 19th June 2008 10:12 GMT

    Back in 1999 probably, Daniel, but in the Now, Profit is Loyal Servant/Master Slave to <Run>

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