We went down to the store the other day to get a thin client. Figured there’d be red ones, green ones, fluorescent.... They’d come out looking like little alarm clocks, or pagers, or teddy bears. They’d be sort of an ‘instant-on’ thing, lightweight, quick, friendly.

But nooooooooo.

So far, the industry’s given us basic retrograde.

See, the talk was about Thin Clients. But when the products came out, they were like Bad Corporate Ideas. The dumb terminal companies gave us ... Intranet terminals. Microsoft gave us a hardware mediocrity called NetPC — and in a fit of chutzpa, brought forth the idea of Zero Administration. And, as a predictable third choice, we got TV toys: like, the Web isn’t real until it’s on TV.

We wanted better. We want better. Not the latest, fastest multimedia-enabled processor or the newest Big Operating System. We want adequate, simple. More like a spoon than a VCR. An appliance, not a "system." Single-function, cheap, idiot-proof, reliable. And looks OK.

Something that won’t drive you nuts. Or run you into the poorhouse.

Something that’ll do one thing well: take you to the Internet.

Hello?

For more on Thin Clients see A Henry Ford Opportunity.