In another twist to Netpliance saga, the flood of customers who are waiting for their Net appliance orders to be delivered found out the reason for the delay, and they are not happy.
After realizing that the $99 devices can be easily hacked and turned into low-cost PCs, the company is retroactively changing the terms of sales.
"This is serious misrepresentation," said Michael Griego, a customer who still hasn't received his order. Griego maintains i-opener linux, a site where Linux and i-opener fans share knowledge about the modified devices.
"Netpliance has simply taken orders for a product and then, after the purchase, changed the terms."
Griego said he's received a barrage of email from other customers with outstanding orders who think that terms are being applied after the fact.
To fulfill their orders, customers must accept a new version of the i-opener and agree to sign up for an account using the company's ISP.
Customers who want to pass on signing up with the ISP have two choices: pay an additional $500, or cancel their order.
But buyers who ordered the original device under the original terms -- which did not include an ISP contract -- think that's tantamount to bait-and-switch.
Ken Segler, who first discovered that the devices could be modified to be used as cheap PCs, said he too has been contacted by unhappy customers.
"A lot of people are really upset," said Segler, who owns three of the original orders that were delivered before the hack was discovered last month.
Netpliance created a new version of its product and revised the purchase terms after its newly offered stock appeared to suffer from the fact that the i-opener could be modified.
A circle of technically oriented customers, many of them Linux enthusiasts, figured out how to modify and use the computer, leaving the accompanying Netpliance ISP -- and the revenue from the monthly access charges -- out of the equation.
Soon the i-opener became a cult hit, seen by geeks as a capable computer at a bargain-basement price. Circuit City stores began selling out.
The product was meant only as a customized access device for the company's $21.95 Internet service, so the company changed its hardware to prevent the connection of cables that enabled the modification. It also changed the terms of service to require signing up with the ISP.
Fans of the i-opener had no beef with the change, although in true geek fashion, they were soon working out ways to hack the revised hardware. They did, however, have a beef with the attempt to apply the terms after the fact.
"This would not be a problem except for the fact that they are attempting to make this retroactive to people who have purchased the product in the past," Griego said.
Netpliance officials said that once it had modified the hardware, it had no choice but to contact customers with unfulfilled orders and tell them they'd be receiving a different product.
"We're trying to do the right thing by calling customers and saying, 'Hey we're not going to ship this to you and then tell you about the terms and conditions,'" said Munira Fareed, director of marketing at Netpliance. "All you have to do is tell us this is OK and then we'll ship your order. And if not, then we'll have to cancel your order.'"
But aren't users right to feel a little cheated?
"It's an unpopular decision for the people who are interested only in modifying our i-opener," Fareed said. "And for those people, all we say is, 'Look, we want to work with you, in an organized fashion. We have a developers program.'"
That developers program invites Linux programmers and others to help develop a version of the i-opener to be sold to the developer community without the Internet service.
Fareed said the company simply needs to make up the $499 cost of producing the i-opener, and has no plans to reverse its decision.
