Nivio Companion - Review
Nivio Companion
Finally something that can be put to use anywhere you need a spare PC, without the price of licences for software and the effort to guard against viruses and crashes
Computing by default is not known to be stress free. What gets blamed as a Microsoft Windows problem, is actually a problem of badly tuned hardware, and useless downloads and malware installations from the Internet. Malware increases hardware failure, and in extreme cases your computer may stop working completely. Nivio has finally launching the Companion PC that could do away with many of these problems. The Nivio Companion is actually a dumb box, it has no hard disk, no major processing power and not much RAM. Everything you need is stored on the Internet. This can work because we spend most of our computer time online anyway, whether it is using a browser, chat messenger, office applications or email. And the Internet today is always on. So, you can access your data, just like on a regular PC, using the Nivio Companion.
Since the desktop is online, you pay a monthly rental of Rs 249 plus your broadband charges. Nivio currently gives you 10 GB of online disk space, and you will need to rent out applications (example: MS Office will cost you an additional Rs 149 a month), that you want to use. You only pay for the application you use. And in the process get rid of piracy guilt. It consumes only 5 watts of energy; additional energy of about 60 watts goes into feeding your LCD monitor (your PC eats 200 watts just for the CPU). The other advantage is, since you don’t need to install every application that is there (and there is a centrally installed antivirus), chances of your computer getting infected are nearly zero. And, because all your files would be stored in a centrally managed database, you don’t need to keep a backup either. The Companion can also be purchased along with a 15 inch LCD monitor for a combo price of Rs 7,999. To run it, you require a minimum of 256 kbps broadband, but 512 kbps will be preferred. Finally, here’s something that can be put to use anywhere you needed a spare PC but were too scared: of the price to be paid for licences of the software and the effort to protect it against viruses and crashes. No wonder the Nivio won the Technology Pioneer Award at the Global Economic Forum in Davos this year.
More Details: http://bit.ly/open-nivio
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The above review appeared in the Open Magazine, Issue Dated 31 July 2009
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