One startup is reimagining the traditional business PC, and the result can be a useful new computing option for entrepreneurs.
Salt Lake City-based Xi3 Technologies has been quietly developing a computer that's roughly four inches by four inches, or about the size of a grapefruit. But what sets this gadget apart from other portable PCs is that the Xi3 splits the core functions of a traditional PC into three separate, easily replaceable components. Think of it as a high-tech equivalent to Ford's model T, which was considered so simple that anyone could repair it.
Each Xi3 device is made up of three separate modules: one for the processor, one for how the unit communicates on a network and a third for power. This means you can upgrade any of these components -- say, to swap out for a faster processor -- with little effort. Just unscrew the back panel, slide out the required part, put the hatch back on and you're done.
Being able to conveniently access individual parts of a computer allows users to upgrade the device as software needs change or when specific parts fail. Entry-level models cost $850 and come with 16 GB of memory built in. Expandable drives are optional and cost extra.
Here are some additional reasons the Xi3 just might find a place in your business:
Size and adaptability: The Xi3 can fit anywhere: crowded desktops, sales kiosks or attached to a high-definition display to support interactive advertising. Dedicated and expensive server rooms aren't necessary to house these PCs. They can be stacked densely in small racks in just about any room or closet.
The Xi3 can also be used as a virtual work station. The company sells an outboard processor ($250) that allows four users to work on a single device. Monitors are not included.
And it can save on electricity costs. The Xi3 requires only 20 watts of electricity to operate compared to most other units that drain 100 to 400 watts on average.
Durability: The Xi3 is built from a forged metal case, similar to how Apple's Macs are made. And the electronic components inside the Xi3 are a level or two sturdier than what is usually found in entry-level work computers.
On top of that, the company says the Xi3 can last up to 10 years. That's more than double the lifespan of traditional PCs.
Bottom line: Despite its cache of convenient features, the Xi3 isn't perfect. Possibly the Xi3's biggest downfall is that it isn't easily portable like a notebook or tablet. These units still need full wall power, a monitor, a keyboard and network access.
Also, at $850, it is roughly double the cost of a standard work desktop. But you can potentially save money over time as the PC could live longer than those traditional computers.
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Comments:
Anyone who can't upgrade a PC right now is gonna be scared to do it with this thing, too.
Funny how so many people knee-jerk into bashing this. It's good to see innovation that evokes a passionate reaction though. Even if this particular product fails, it serves to shake up the status quo. Past-due time to scale down the desktop, that's for sure.
Untrue. There are still quite a few people building their own PCs, swapping components, etc. Just ask ASUS-- they'll be glad to show you the data that proves you wrong.
One of these marketing boondoggles pop up every ten years or so. Pre-pentium computers from AST (or another brand I can no longer remember) were offered with the processor on an expansion board. The intent was to swap out the processor board for a more advanced model. Of course the new processor board was more expensive than a new computer because most of the supporting Intel chips had also changed. Oops.
On another note it seems to be doing the same thing with hardware as Apple does with..well..basically everything. That is dumbing it down to the extent that people who are genuinely knowledgeable with computers don't really have a good idea regarding what is exactly going on. They say that it has 16gb of memory (solid state?) and it mentions having a power supply, cpu and NIC. What are the specs? Could be a good computer if the specs are actually any good but aside from that I really don't see what's so cool about it. It's small...so are netbooks and look at how those turned out.
But can it block?
This is an ASTOUNDINGLY BAD IDEA. There have been a hundred tiny box computers, this is not the fastest but it is the most ridiculously expensive. Nobody gives a CRAP about updating specific components of their computers any more -- that all died 15 years ago. Business school profs and industrial design pros watch this one -- it will be a heroic and disastrous face-plant .... I can't imagine anyone so stupid as to buy one of these things, and, even MORE stupid, to design, build and try and SELL them!
I know right, now they're using the criminally exploitative practice of making a profit... /sarcasm
I thought this is where we were supposed to do our ranting
For certain niche applications, this might be useful, but where most desktops are concerned, this is a product that has little use. For starters, most business people don't want to futz around with maintaining their own PC's. That is why consultants have a place in the world. This will not make things simpler for consultants or bench techs who already have a working knowledge of architecture. In point of fact, this is yet another sacrifice like the Macintosh. The strength of the PC has always been its open - key word there - OPEN architecture. That means that you can bring any of 1,000 cases, from 500 manufacturers together with 500 motherboards from 100 manufacturers, and 50 video cards from a dozen manufacturers, etc. etc, together, and produce a cost effective machine with a customizable power to application ratio, and you can then choose your operating environment, and have a vast number of competing products to choose from for solving business problems. Anything that places a premium on proprietary hardware, operating system, or choice of application software is undesirable. Ultimately, unless this type of architecture becomes reproducible by every vendor making hardware, you end up with a MAC, and unless you are one of the Moonies, what you get with a MAC is a machine that is mostly proprietary, where most of the choices have been made for you, and you have to live with whatever those choices are before you even buy the box Yes, there is a cost in incompatibilities that comes with freedom of choice, and yes, that means that you have to apply a little brain to solving the problems that crop up, but I would rather use my brain than accept the alternative.
...Which is still being used by most people, and as a used older device is fetching high prices on eBay.
Sister, don't make any of the rest of us flag you. Keep your rants to your own blog or diary.
I really don't see the point in this... thing. A Mac Mini wil do better on each point, beginning with consumption and 'rackability'. Linux runs fine on Mini hardware, if you really don't want of the super-performant Mountain Lion. Actually, unless you have a good reason to downgrade your company at high prices, I don't see the point? And for the installation costs, just let the Mini boot...
this is not really that impressive. it's too expensive, doesn't appear to have an HDMI out and to get anything decent requires upgrades to well over $1000. I'm not an Apple fan but the Mac Mini out does this in every way and is a lot cheaper.
She's from Pakistan... so 850$ x 90 Rs 77 K - plus duty and markup > 100K Quite a lot of money for a PC... LOL!
at the end of the day are tech is not ready for this as there internet is slow so why make this when we ent ready
that's the dumbest thing I've read today. If people did not experiment with smaller and smaller technology, at great expense, the computer you typed your retarded rant on would still be the size of city block. But then again there would be no internet.
I was not an IT guy except for a few C++ classes I had when I was still majoring in Aeorospace Engineering... anyhow, I was bumped up to Chief Information Officer for a large NGO in 2006 and switched the whole company over to thin clients running LTSP on Linux. I also clamped down hard on the firewall and content filtering. Suddenly viruses, which used to kill a computer a week, disappeared and staff productivity shot through the roof. We also saved tens of thousands of dollars over a five year period by going that route.
This product will likely fall into a similar niche as thin clients because they are both small, require very little power, and can easily last 10 years or more because processing is handled by the server in the back room. Overall a thin client also has a much lower ROI than supplying an office with these. Let's say you have an office that needs 10 computers, with this thing you are looking at 8,500 bucks on the computers and then at least 500 bucks on a server to share files and perform backups, so 9,000 to 10,000 bucks at least! As a conservative estimation, if we go thin client, we need 3,500 for clients and 1,000 for the server, so we can handle it for under 5,000 bucks (I sometimes purchase "old" thin clients at 15 bucks each without the monitor, so I can and have done this sort of thing for larger offices for well under 2,500). A traditional setup might cost around 500 bucks per client plus 500 bucks or so for the server to backup and fileshare so we are looking at 6,000 or so; albeit, a traditional setup will cost more in maintenance, but everything costs more in maintenance compared to thin clients. I think most IT guys will see this thing more as a tchotchke and won't push it at their clients when they can sell their client a Dell, HP, or Wyse.
I WANT it! NOW! Hope it comes with 20 usb ports and yes I am aware of hubs. Wonder about video cards.
well of course you have to pay 200$ for usb port(XD)
<<" Good lord, why would anyone buy this over a Mac Mini ...">> Why would anyone buy it over a Android.I have huawei sonic u8650 (nothing hacked, or any password isnt stolen by huawei&china) Get a cheap android/mac or used iphone,or a tablet. That piece of metal isnt worth its prize.you can get a cheap, good and used pc for 100-300 euros, and you dont look like a idiot who wasted all his money for a muttler
Stupid rant.
uh, iPad? ...make ends meet ...luxury innovations ...financial crisis
the question is......will it blend?
Extruded Aluminum is NOT FORGED.
But.......will it play Crysis?
Yes, Apple rehired him and he sold NeXt and killed it.
What industry are you in?
Please for heaven's sake give me a break, here the whole world is facing financial crises its difficult for an ordinary person to make ends, meet and here they are wasting time, energy, efforts and skills into something that's hardly practical. Where the hell are you going to find a market for this innovation? These are luxury innovations cannot serve the purpose for PC use. Much previously people in technology have experimented with even much smaller computers than this one, but then how useful were they---Oh!!! please leave me alone,i have gone nuts reading such absurd news---Go ahead keep on making blunders no one can make you understand----
LOL, but it turned out really well for Jobs & Apple. Apple bought NeXT from Jobs, hired him back, as used NeXT's technology to make OS/X and more.
I'm in the industry, this will make them enough to keep going forward but i doubt they will be the next big thing... Should listen to what us sales guys have to say...
I can build an office computer for $400 not even that... and thats for a computer that will last you 5 years if its taken care of
It's like a Mac. Without the "pandering to gays" stigma.
Heh, heh. You're right, Theresa. Steve Job's NeXT computer & this smaller PC are share a cube shape. They also share the dangerous distinctions of being a proprietary design, and having very limited expandability. However, contrary to popular understanding, the NeXT platform was, in fact, insanely successful for Jobs, for Apple and for Apple's customers. Even less obvious, Jobs & his NeXT computer helped change human history forever. Some brief background: Jobs developed NeXT while on forced hiatus from Apple. But talk about making lemons into lemonade! Out of sight & free from of the "legacy" constraints of Apple's architecture, operating system and development tools, Jobs collected the best & most innovative engineers he could, and then challenged them to rethink everything about general computing, including Apple's products. The NeXT team started with the proven core of an entirely different platform, Unix, and innovated a new hardware architecture, an innovative operating system and advanced software development tools. He & his team cherry-picked the most promising under-leveraged technologies, combined them with exciting new hardware and software design, and brought it all together for a broader market. Well, as you know, the NeXT hardware wasn't embraced by its initial target market of corporate IT & high-tech engineers (who used workstations from companies like Sun. Three reasons it flopped with those audiences were nothing new to Steve Jobs or Apple, for that matter: 1. It's New! The NeXT plaform didn't strike old-school IT professionals as compatible in the traditional-sense with existing MS and IBM platforms & engineering methodologies (It was technically compatible on the messaging and data layers, but it was still viewed as too expensive, too risky and (oh, yeah, too threatening to old school careers.) Ignorance & Fear don't run to embrace radical innovation. 2. Like Mac on Steriods! Proprietary Design meant that the literally Black Box was indeed perceived as a risky Black Box. Corporate and Industrial-Strength IT consumers didn't embrace Job's well-known Mac platform. Why would they do that for Steve's NeXT creation? 3. Never Insult a Self-Centered, Conceited and Aggressive SOB when your asking him for Millions of Dollars: Steve Jobs was often brilliant, stubborn and a bully. Those traits sometimes encouraged him to be a self-defeating ass. That was the case when Jobs made his pitch to Wall Street to buy mountains of NeXT hardware. When senior management at some fo the largest firms demurred until further study, he blasted them that were #!*&% idiots and *% #! losers. Get the picture? Oops. Apple eventually bought NeXT from Jobs. They then ditched the hardware group, but used the NeXT Operating System as the foundation for all it's OS-X software going forward. Much of the system & product innovation at Apple, and it's insane growth and profits, has solid roots in the NeXT adventure. Oh, and as for the NeXT helping to change human history: Back when Jobs was peddling his cubes, a guy named Tim Berners-Lee was working on a new concept of linking computers & their users using something he called "HTML" servers and clients. Problem was, he needed better personal system, and better development tools to further develop test all the server/client/graphics software he was creating. To make a short story shorter, Steve Jobs answered his call and gave him some cubes to work with. And the World-Wide-Web-Was-Born. Call it a hunch, but I doubt this new cube will have the same impact.
...and?
Assuming it is on 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 20 days per month it will save 380WHrs per month 380 KWHrs
I get a feeling of deja vu! Didn't Steve Jobs launched something like this with Next way back when... and look how that turned out!
You are missing the difference between Watts advertised on the power supply (which is often around 400 for a desktop) and actual wall power consumption. A normal 400W desktop doesn't use anywhere near 400W continuously if you hook up a Kil-a-watt or similar device to measure power consumption. I think it is more like 50-100, but still 20 is less than that.
What exactly can this cube do that a Mac Mini can't? At 13 Watts power consumption for the mac mini, and upgradeability to 32Gig of Ram, it sounds like this cube is way behind it's time.
Whats the point of this? get rid of bulk? Have these guys seen an iMac?
A similar PC in just a larger format would be more like 150w. 380w is fast CPU, separate video, multiple drives, DVD drive etc.
Which is fine, but get a system twice as big (still small though) at a third the price.
It's their lizard skin and three hearts.
You mean most don't, I think 90% is most. Not that I don't like them being successful, they're a great American company.
And because it's proprietary those modules probably add up to twice the price of a new unit. This is not a real product, this is con VC's with a cool looking product and idea, pay yourself a huge salary, the shut the company down when you don't get sales.
Not like an Apple at all. The case appears to be an aluminum extrusion, not milled from a block of solid aluminum. It will be obsolete soon even if nothing fails. Stop posting press releases.
My experience dealing with businesses is very few to none think that far down the road. They want the cheapest product that will do the job. And I'll bet it doesn't have a 10 year warranty either.
Windows 8 will run just fine on ARM processors. My bet is future work stations will be all in one monitors with ARM processors built into the monitors way cheaper.
On board. It's a cheap unit designed for offices not gaming.
It uses an AMD processor.
Looks like a small muffler, Where's the video card?
At 20 Watts it is 380W less than a typical desktop. Assuming it is on 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 20 days per month it will save 380WHrs per month. At $0.12/KWH it saves $9 a month in electricity (double this if in an airconditioned space). The premium cost of $400 more than a typical desktop would pay for itself in less than four years (2 years if in an air conditioned space).
MegaGorgo, couldn't agree more. This new wave of iTablet devotees that exclaim "I can now do all my work on my iPad !", in retrospect probably didnt need a laptop in the first place, and were probably placated with one to reduce the office "whine factor". If I ran an IT dept my first choice would be a "thin client" for the desktop, and a Citrix or VMware setup for all users. Strict control on accessing external websites, strict control of software installed/licenses, and reduced risk of viruses. Oh and my IT staff will never have to hear, "my kid was doing his/her homework on it, and I think they downloaded a virus or something".
but it's just an intel computer with a custom EFI so it will happily run Windows or Linux (or any other x86/x64 OS) as it will OSX.
Mediocrity defined here.
Modularity has nothing to do with the price here. When you use such a crap CPU, having a pciE x8 (about all it can handle anyway) run from one "module" to the other doesn't cost 900 bucks .
A'ight, you're in charge of marketing and VC funding, I do the rest, 50/50 ? When will you people realize that there is nothing but marketing in that kind of stuff.
don't you mean you have to take it to a Mac store? that is not a feature.
its for small businesses. good concept, fail on hd size and price.
Why even do that in an office. Just ethernet your keyboard and screen to a central server.
then stop complaining and up the game!
major piece of crap . looks like someone put the raspberry Pi in a crapbox and multiplied the price by a beelion .. pitiful.
Really? I can purchase a MacMini with Windows installed? For no extra cost? And Apple will support you in this configuration? Not that I want Windows or Apple on any computer of mine ever again, but I can see why people would be interested in this product though a decent laptop would serve a similar purpose. And I have dealt with the Apple Store before... Well... I suppose they are just as bad as any other customer service centers, so I shouldn't ding them for those experiences. Regardless, again they both underwhelm me at this point, but I can see how someone might be interested in that configuration.
A Mac Mini runs Windows like a total champ, and for $800, you get an Intel chipset with a core i5 at 2.3GHz, 4GB RAM, and discrete Radeon HD 6630M graphics. Don't forget customer support; if there's a problem, you can take a Mac Mini to an Apple Store.
A MacMini is not a windows machine and is just as proprietary. Both underwhelm me, frankly.
Pretty cool concept. Smart. Great energy savings! Reminds me of the Mac Cube (RIP)... Until you see you're paying close to $1,000 per cube with the computing power of a $250 netbook, sans the display. And portability. And battery. Oh, and operating system (unless you're good to go with the standard Suse Linux, assuming you won't be getting any add-on panels to share your cube with another user... which is probably a *good* idea, given the computing power of its Atom CPU, 2G RAM, and 16G SSD).
True. Go into any McDonald's (in the UK at least) and those blue screens you see in the kitchen and the drive thru windows are exactly that - HP PCs on VESA mounts running XP, with a monitor stuck on the front of it. The only difference to what's described above is they are mounted onto poles coming out of the ceiling rather than walls.
I like the idea of modularity, but modularity always has a higher upfront cost. Also, I don't think you will be able to use a Microsoft OS since they will detect hardware changes and make that very difficult unless you get some form of agreement with Microsoft to make the end user not see all this stuff (keeping it transparent to them). :)
More accurately stated "... Able to download a copy of **ANY** movie, foreign and domestic, EVER made in less then ONE minute..." It's also apparently intended for Networking devices like Routers and switches - not so much end-user devices...`
<<" Good lord, why would anyone buy this over a Mac Mini ...">> For starters: "Because - for better or worse - the BUSINESS world's desktops run on WINDOWS!"...
Meh... HP is already selling full-on PCs that are the size of a medium paperback. They mount on the back of any VESA monitor and can then be mounted to a wall using a standard VESA mount. This "cube" still takes up some desk-space while the aforementioned HP will just disappear. If this were *TRULY* upgradable - replace the MB/MEM "module" while keeping HDD/IO "module" and so-on, it MIGHT make sense, but... Overall, it gets a heartfelt "meh" from this 2.5-decade IT guru...
Wow, pricey - $850 for entry level. Energy savings would be trivial if this costs twice as much as a standard desktop PC. If they developed this less "quietly", they probably would have received more feedback telling them it's probably not a great idea. Who wants to buy some proprietary PC when you can get a MacMini for less.
They did once, and it was a failure called the Power Mac G4 Cube.
steve jobs had this concept when he left Apple back in the early 90s called the NextCube it was a failure and discontinued in '93
That was one of the things that I liked about the original Mac Cube - it actually had expansion slots. Ond of my neighbors installed two dual-head video cards for video editing over firewire.
This remindsmeof the Ergo Brick that you could throw in your briefcase and move from docking station to docking station before transportable computers and laptops came to be.
It's neat, but not something that appeals to me. As someone who builds his own systems, which are gaming rigs, this form factor looks extremely limited.
Why are all space aliens so arrogant?
I work on Mac Mini's all the time. Easy...The Mini has been doing this and more for many years and is a device that is probably many times better.
Apple has had the Mac Mini for YEARS and it is about 2"x5"x5". Not sure what the big deal is with this device. Imagine simply taking the processor parts from a laptop...those parts will fit in a cube smaller that what is mentioned in this article.
I have a SONY laptop with a 2-hour long battery life. Supposedly, SONY has a 15-hour battery. I should be able to swap my 2-hour battery for the 15-hour version.
They already did that, 12 years ago! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube
Neat concept, but they are muscling into two developed markets with an unideal device. Thin clients have the visualization market and ITX boards for the small desktop market.
I do no like small cases. Dust will build up faster, and then the capacitors will become hotter and die faster.. I prefer a large case so that at least the computer can breathe.. But I am a gamer. Besides everything stuffed in a small case its bound to run hotter and die faster.... Not to mention future upgrading, I'm sure you wont be able to upgrade everything. You'll have to buy there new model.. Something like APPLE If you don't mind paying corporations 800$+ every few years to upgrade, be my guest... But you could save a lot of money if you thought smarter. I can't even imagine being able to clean the dust out of that thing, not to mention other factors like how big is its power supply? how many usb ports? Also do they plan on releasing driver updates for a long period of time? Or just stop after they discontinue the product.
I've always wondered why Apple doesn't double the height of the Mac Mini, call it the Mac Qube, and allow easy expandability with a removeable cover and accessible innards.
With the Mini-ITX already a well worn-in standard, tiny computing has already been here for years. Just hit Newegg.
Now all we need is a virtual keyboard and a tiny projector and we'll be able to stuff people into cubicles 1'x1'! Ain't technology grand.
"Each Xi3 device is made up of three separate modules: one for the processor, one for how the unit communicates on a network and a third for power." That isn't new. Almost every computer is made up of separate "modules" like that - you can upgrade any component on most computers these days just by buying a new "module"...
modern cpus dont use pins they havnt used pins for a couple yrs now ..............where have you been??? you just showed how little you know about the subject ........just how the manufacturers like it
It won't run Mac OS as Apple doesn't allow to be installed on any hardware that isn't theirs. If you do install Mac OS on it you will be breaking the EULA.
I work on computers systems, CPU's haven't been soldered in 20 or more years! They snap into a socket (and at least on midrange, servers and above) are held in by an arm that closes on the socket, you don't take a soldering iron near the system board. And as far as technology goes, look up Cu-32 on your search engine. Able to download a copy of EVERY movie, foreign and domestic, EVER made in less then ONE minute. This is not pie in the sky, this is already announced by IBM almost a year ago. no more HDA's , the amount of storage on one memory chip will be more than you can ever use. etc. etc Cu-32 look it up! P.S. I was trained on Personal Computers the week after IBM came out with them in 1981.
Not true. Good luck upgrading today's modern laptops and portable devices using only the knowledge of toasting bread. You are talking about big clunky, old fashioned PCs where everything snaps in and out by pressure fittings and screws. Good luck upgrading the CPU on a modern board, I want to see you make 100s of pin point solders to take the cpu off and then re-solder the new one on.
Good lord, why would anyone buy this over a Mac Mini, which has much better hardware in it and can run Windows AND Mac OSX for a smaller price and with Apple customer service behind it? This thing is well over $1,500 once you configure it the same as a Mac Mini, which starts at $600.
My "cousin", as you Earth Humans say it, provided the schematics for this idea. It's been in use for over 250,000 years on eight planets in the constellation Capricorn--(I believe that is what you on Earth call that region).
Yes, that's the shame of it.
It will be featuring Windows 7 8 9 and 10 but will also run Mac or Linux OS so it is no big deal. Pick your poison, format your drive and install your Microsoft Office Software or your OpenOffice slick as snot on a glass door knowb
Hey Macman1138, not everybody in the computer world uses a Mac, just like everybody in the world doesn't use windows or have a Iphone.
It is to simple. It will never be ace[ted bythe computer IT department or the DB department to say nothing of the purchasing department. To simple and to easy, it will never fly
Most computers are useless after 3-5 year. Not because they break. They are slow, utilize obsolete technology, often run an unsupported OS, and are not worth the energy it takes to power them. A monitor and keyboard already take up a bigger footprint than a Laptop/Netbook/Elitebook, so who cares how small the unit is? Plus, a laptop is portable and has a built in battery backup. Also, I didn't see anywhere that said you can upgrade the video card without buying a new CPU module.