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Gateway Makes Store PCs Work Overtime
from the good-uses dept
It seems Gateway has realized that all those display model computers in all those stores they have all over the place are really doing nothing most of the time, and it wouldn't hurt to try to make a little cash off of them. So, now, they've teamed up with United Devices to sell the computing power from all those machines to be used in distributed computing projects. In other words, since those machines mostly sit there and look pretty, they'll now be processing things for folding proteins or other such distributed computing problems. The cynical (and I might be included among them) might say that this is the equivalent of Gateway pulling pennies out of the fountain, but if the computers are just going to sit there, they might as well be put to use for a good purpose.
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Gateway - Seeing the Forest and Trees
I think this is bigger than just pennies this time. I'm willing to bet that all laws of unintended consequences come into play here and what Gateway actually accomplishes is a consumer-level introduction to GRID computing. You have to figure that the average Gateway Country Store shopper is both savvy enough and tough enough to walk into a high-pressure sales environment - and that they are willing to devote the time to do this. What that indicates to me is someone who might be more than a little interested in seeing "what's under the hood" so to speak. That type of consumer will probably be attracted by the networking experiment itself. If only a few of them take that knowledge and replicate it in their businesses (accounting, supply chain, CRM, etc.) and in their personal lives (gaming, chat, home networking, etc.), then Gateway may have hit upon the "killer app" that the Internet and Broadband have been lacking. Watch this story to develop into a "Grid Networking for the Masses" phenomenon.
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Gateway selling cycles
I would have been a little more impressed if they had DONATED their cycles to some project like Folding@Home or Genome@Home.
I guess free advertising and good will isn't worth the effort anymore.
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Re: Gateway - Seeing the Forest and Trees
GRID computing, now that's a good idea, do you want to know who they got the idea from? Look no further matrexstation.com
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