ArsGeek

I recently had occasion to ask Gregoire Gentil, CEO of Zonbu, a few questions. If you’ve been living under a rock, Zonbu is a small, quiet, OSS running, environmentally friendly computer offered at $99 with various subscription plans. We’ve featured this wonderful little device several times here on ArsGeek.

AG: When your development team moved from concept to a beta product, how much emphasis was given on green computing versus functionality? Where there any sacrifices that were made in the name of power consumption?

Gregoire: Our team works creatively and diligently to develop the optimum technology solution for our target market. By selecting the VIA chip set, we got an amazing low-power platform that uses less than 10% of the electricity consumed by a traditional PC. With open-source, we were able to really optimize the software for our specific hardware platform. The conclusion is that we can provide a very compelling environment with all the applications consumers needs and they work perfectly well.

AG: I imagine that this product has brought in a good deal of interest. Are you seeing interested parties from the open source side as well as home consumers and non-experts?

Gregoire: Yes, we are seeing a tremendous level of interest from the open source community as well as home consumers and non-experts. The open source community appreciates our effort in leveraging their labor of love to benefit a wider population. In return, we have sponsored a few open-source projects.

The consumers appreciate our effort in providing an affordable, hassle-free, and eco-friendly computing experience, which also appeals strongly to educational institutions, small and medium businesses, and environmentally responsible organizations.

AG: The toughest sell with this may be ownership. In the past people have viewed their computers like they view their cars – as their own, where they control how much computing power is available and keep their files locally. How are you addressing ownership and privacy?

Gregoire: Zonbu customers own their Zonbu PCs and their files regardless of where they are stored. We don’t sell a rent machine. We sell a service.

And we think that customers are more and more used to pay for monthly recurring service such as mobile phone, Tivo box, Netflix subscription.

As for the privacy, before backing up their files on the online servers, Zonbu encrypts them with the strongest encryption algorithm. We also think that consumers are more and more ready to store their files in the cloud because they value the advantage they can get from it: they can access them anywhere anytime.

AG: This is clearly a good product for those families or individuals looking for a second or third computer. How do you feel about the growing trend of computers in almost every room of the house? Do you see this or future products playing a major role in this?

Gregoire: Zonbu is committed to satisfying our customers’ needs and wants through nonstop innovation. We definitely plan to offer products and services that support the growing trend of multiple computers in a home.

Our recent addition of a built-in WiFi as an option for Zonbu Mini is a clear example of us supporting this trend.

AG: With a desktop pc now available from Wal-Mart for $200, how do you plan to keep Zonbu competitive? Are you looking at adding additional services through your subscriptions in the future?

Gregoire: I think that it’s worthwhile to take a closer look at the $200 Wal-Mart PC:

- First, I’m not sure that it’s as green as they claim. How can you be a low power machine if you use a noisy 300W power supply? Do they have any EPEAT rating so far? Do they have a take-back program?

- Secondly, I’m skeptical about the innovation they offer. This PC seems to me like an Ubuntu distro with a green background and two GMail/Youtube shortcuts on the desktop. I would be very happy to see which innovation they have introduced, which patches they have sent upstream to the open-source projects, how they thank Canonical (the editor of Ubuntu) of doing all the work for them.

- Thirdly, this OS is mentioned as an alpha product on their website, so I’m wondering about the true stability of their product.

That being said, this move enables to pull a few interesting conclusions:

- Open-source is reaching the mass market and it will certainly grab a significant share of the desktop market.

- Everex (the hardware manufacturer of this PC) is once again at the leading edge of the market by offering a low-cost Linux system.

Our positioning and mission are a little bit different. Affordability is important but we also want to tell to our future customers: “with Zonbu, you get a fully managed PC for a small monthly fee. We are ready to take care of the hassle of managing your PC. You don’t need to worry any more about all those problems. And we are providing a full set of unique features like remote access and collaboration.”

Thanks to Gregoire for his time and to all the folks at Zonbu for their hard work and for putting out a product that’s open source, Earth friendly and fun as all get out to use.

Technorati Tags: zonbu, zonbox, linux, green computing, gregoire gentil, linux, open source, hardware

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