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Be Liquidation Sale 169

Posted by timothy from the lights-that-blink-from-be-on-the-brink dept.
Anonymous Squonk writes: "Be's homepage has a message stating some of the details of their impending dissolution. One little item of note mentioned was 'Public Liquidation Auction January 16 (details to follow)' Who knows what kind of geek goodies might be available at rock bottom prices? Perhaps this could be our last chance to get our hands on a BeBox!" How about some of those nice LED CPU meters?
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Be Liquidation Sale More

Be Liquidation Sale

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  • I want... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Frac ( 27516 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @02:56AM (#2751242)
    I want the minutes of the board meeting where Jean said "screw apple. we're intuitively obviously worth so much more than that."

    Heck, that memo would probably raise more on Ebay than what they got from Palm..

  • LED CPU Meters (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How about some of those nice LED CPU meters?

    FYI, these come automatically with many high end non-Linux servers including HPs, SGIs and DECs.

  • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • To be or not to be...

    I guesse now we know the answer to the question.

    It's too bad because BeOS could have been a great os for media production had more companies adopted it. Before they began developing the music production version of debian I don't there were any OS's that could match be's great audio latency.

  • /. (Score:2, Informative)

    by fliplap ( 113705 )
    Oh yeah, I'm sure you'll be able to get stuff real cheap now that this has made it to slashdot. Should have kept it to yourself. On a side note, if you want real cheap hardware checkout your local university surplus store, they usually have some real nifty things at reasonable prices.
    • Old massively parallel mainframe. Equivalent to a cluster of like 500 486's<SMALL>**</SMALL> or one Pentium 3. Get it now for only $500.
      <P><P><P><P>
      <small>**This would not be an effective way to heat your home.</small>
    • On a side note, if you want real cheap hardware checkout your local university surplus store

      This is true, I once bought a PDP10 for $3 USD at a university auction. No joking!

  • I'm confused. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Schwarzchild ( 225794 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @03:08AM (#2751259)
    Mr. Gassée serves as a director of several private or publicly traded companies such as 3Comm, Electronics for Imaging and Logitech.

    Is this a typo? Isn't this supposed to say 3COM or is there a 3Comm?

    • Re:I'm confused. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by liquidsin ( 398151 )
      What's this all about? Someone asks what appears to be a sincere question (since they didn't post as AC...) and gets modded as flamebait? So by modding it down, the people browsing with higher thresholds won't see the question, it won't get answered, and thus continues the cycle of ignorance on slashdot...way to go moderators...

      flame away, I've got karma to burn
  • why don't they just auction off their remaining surplus... or something in that sense...

    • What to expect (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )
      I'm afraid people are reading too much into this auction. Expect office furniture, partitions and cubical related stuff, telephones, maybe some development tools and licenses (which might be good), promotional items (shirts, logo items), potted plants, company vehicles, office supplies, and maybe some outdated old equipment shoved off in a closet that they hadn't disposed of.

      Much of the good stuff is pretty scarce by the time you get to these auctions. If any employees didn't get paid you can rest assured that they grabbed some goodies to make up for it. A shirt and maybe a decent office chair would be all I could hope for.

  • I for one know everybody is going to be trying to get a hold of the wonderful codycam [sakoman.com] which allowed all us BeOS users to get a little peak inside Be Inc. Sure hope they put it up for sale, I would donate it to the OpenBeOS [sourceforge.net] project and have it sent around to all the developers homes and make them use it for a week then send it to the next developer.

    Long Live OpenBeOS!!!

    • What is the obession with sites having a 'webcam'. you can buy them cheap at any store and set up your own.
  • From what I hear from friends at BE they auction is going to be like a tech garage sale. They will be auctioning off computers, desks, lamps, chairs, servers, racks and lots of extra parts. I may call up my friends and have them pick me up some servers and racks cheap.

  • Not Too Cheap (Score:2, Interesting)

    by b1ng0 ( 7449 )
    I've been to a couple of dot com auctions hoping to pick up hardware at great prices. Unfortunately idiots with their company check books stood by purchasing as much as they could without regard for price. People were paying the same price for two totally different machines!

    • Re:Not Too Cheap (Score:5, Funny)

      by jheinen ( 82399 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @03:29AM (#2751285) Homepage
      Exactly. I've been to a few dot com auctions hoping to pick up some hardware on the cheap, however the stuff almost always ends up going for more than the cost of the same hardware new. For example, I was at one a while back where they had about 30 600 Mhz Gateways. That model had recently been discontinued and was replaced with a 750 Mhz model, which listed for something like $650 brand new. The used ones at the auction went for $800+.

      I think what happens is that a company sends some clueless lackey to these things with instructions simply to buy some computers. They don't even bother checking what the stuff is actually worth.

      Here's a new business model; start a company and buy a bunch of hardware. Play Quake for a few months with your friends and then announce that the unfortunate business climate has forced you to close up shop. Hold an auction and reap the profit. Repeat.

      • Re:Not Too Cheap (Score:4, Funny)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @08:36AM (#2751511) Homepage Journal
        Heh. I went to a bicycle auction as a kid. The city police auctioned off unclaimed bikes, some of which were in pretty rough shape. They knew how to run an auction, some people were paying more for bikes than they were in the store. We later got one out of the paper for a fraction.

        There's a kind of auction fever that people get caught up in and if you're selling it's a good thing, if you're buying they you'd better learn to keep your trap shut, lest your friends find out and laugh at you. Lots of this goes on on eBay. I've sold items for insane amounts, but also sold things for far less than they are worth. You never know who's going to show up.

        A bit of strategy if you're there competing with some purchasing drones. Walk around and audibly critique items, i.e.

        "Oh, bummer this is the model without an internal power supply. It's as good as andfill."

        "I think this one smells burnt, probably one of their parts boxen"

        "This looks like the model which electrocuted workers, I wonder how it did that, could be a serious liability."

        "Well no wonder they went out of business, this model is 5 years out of date and costs a fortune to maintain."

        "Wow, I didn't know anyone even used these anymore, they only run a very expensive operating system based upon Cobol!"

        • At the last police auction I went to, I walked away with 2 mountain bikes and a 4 battery mag-lite; all for a dollar each. It seemed everyone knew not to bid and wait until it was over then offer a buck.

      • For anyone that doesn't believe the above post (that people could be sooo damn stipid) just spend a little time on ebay! I wish we could see the bid history so you could tell if they're complete morons that can't take two clicks to find out how much the equipment is really worth, or if they just (still idiots mind you) get caught-up in trying to win and overbid something awful.
      • This isn't too dissimilar to the ebay phenomenon. I sell quite a lot on there simply because it goes for so much more than any by any other means

        I think 'auction fever' really does play a part in this
    • You're right there.. I went to the auction for Data Prophet last year. People were buying 386/486 10" laptops for 500 + .. Paying 500 for P2 computers.. And many of them WERE from companies with the company check books.

      I managed to get (from someone) a 50GB Onstream tape drive and controller for 20 bucks. I did pick a bunch of Citrix server software (still shrink wrapped) and a copy of Visio for 30 bucks too.
    • Did anybody look like Doonesbury ?-)

  • evilla prototypes (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Sivax256 ( 221355 )
    You know they have a few prototype evilla's laying around, I would not mind picking one up so that I could take a baseball bat to it. Or maybe a picture of JLG standing next to one with his head down in shame for his bad idea to "Focus Shift" the company down the tube.

    Long Live OpenBeOS!!!

    • a picture of JLG standing next to one with his head down in shame for his bad idea to "Focus Shift" the company down the tube.

      Yeah, it would have been much nicer of them to go out of business many months ago trying to sell regular BeOS. (They were burning 10 times as much cash per month before the focus shift, and still not bringing in any money -- you do the math.)
      • BeOS was coming close to being ready for main stream, if they could have held out till the microsoft case was at this point they could have secured some major pc sellers to install BeOS right next to Windows. And buy this time they should have BeOS 6.5 out which I am sure would have had multiuser, java, opengl rewrite, bone. All the stuff they dropped to try and make BeIA. It was almost Be Inc.'s time to shine and they blew it, with PE being released they had TONS of new users, and at that same time the company had already given up on its growing user base.
        • BeOS was nice, but face it, there was no market for it as a general desktop OS, and as you point out, it was years away from being feature-comparable to Windows or MacOS.

          The "focus shift" that killed Be was when they abandonded being a nitch "media OS" and thought they could take on Microsoft. Willful suicide or stupidity?
        • BeOS was coming close to being ready for main stream, if they could have held out till the microsoft case was at this point they could have secured some major pc sellers to install BeOS right next to Windows

          OK, but re-read my post. My point was they COULD NOT have held out this long. Burning 10x as much cash per month means they would have gone belly-up 10x faster then they did.

          The only hope for BeOS fans like myself is if Palm will license it to BeUnited (doubtful), or if OpenBeOS can stick with things long enough to get an open source imitation of BeOS going. (Eventually that could pick up the same momentum as Linux.)

  • signs? (Score:3, Funny)

    by discogravy ( 455376 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @03:52AM (#2751310) Homepage
    are they going to hang out a Be For Sale sign? is that some fighting-terrorism-with-zen thing?

    maybe now there'll be some more BeBoxes for sale...

  • Slashdot an auction?! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Darth Paul ( 447243 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @05:02AM (#2751356)
    Between all the kids yelling "FIRST BID! FB!!!!" and the people holding up big pictures of a guy spreading his backside, nothing's gonna get sold.
  • The Amiga is still around :)

    Ive lost count how many times they've been sold now.
  • Thanks for the ride, Be, it was a great one. You will be missed.

    *walks out grumbling a crude statement involving Palm*

    • Re:... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 )
      A great ride? Man, I rode it from $6 a share to $3 a share. Wasn't so great for me! :)

      At least I knew when to fold it, and didn't get stuck holding the bag at 10 cents a share. (My friend who was investing with me wanted to keep holding, I held his portion until they hit $2 then sold his share anyway, I told him it was for his own good.)
  • ...any monitors from Be.
    Remember how they treat their equipment?
    They drop it off the roof then videotape it from two perspectives, coming & going. Makes for an impressive MM demo, but somehow it doesn't rival the descent of their stock price in the final days (ouch!)

    Be RIP

  • Ooh! Must have a BeBox! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @09:39AM (#2751669) Homepage Journal
    I'm needing a replacement for my single-CPU doorstop. Two screamin' 66 MHz PowerPCs ought to hold my office door open twice as well as the PowerComputing Mac clone does now.

    - A.P.
  • But since a BeBox was based on PPC,
    Could it run MacOS? Or are the machines not interchangeable?
    And, are there and DVD programs for BEOS? Cause if it can play 3 mp3s at the same time on my p120, I'm sure a DVD would kick butt on my p2 400.

  • Dumpster Diving and My BeBox (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jaydho ( 98032 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @09:46AM (#2751692) Homepage

    I recently sold for $1119.00 the BeBox that I bought my freshman year for $600 used. This marked first time I've ever bought a computer and it increased in value. Here's the eBay auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=1302540562 [ebay.com]

    Though this auction could be nifty, I don't think you're going to find any BeBoxes laying around Be Inc. mainly due to this little tidbit: Interesting history: David [Cantrell] obtained this BeBox from Be's offices in Menlo Park, CA. It was being discarded and he "rescued" it from the trash heap with the help of a former Be employee. It lacks the CPU load LEDs on the front, but other than that, it's still in great shape.
    http://www.bebox.nu/beboxnames.php [bebox.nu] and scroll down to see the original post.

    You did good work with BeOS and will be missed by many.

  • Be, Inc. has announced that it will be changing its name to Was Incorporated shortly after liquidating all of its assets.

  • my BeBox (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tdrury ( 49462 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @09:52AM (#2751711) Homepage
    When I worked at Georgia Tech, I had enough money in a project that I decided to buy some multiprocessor boxes to test out their capabilities as a real-time data acquisition box. I bought two boxes: a BeBox and an OS/2 box from Indelible Blue.

    I was on vacation when the BeBox arrived so two co-op students unpacked it and decided to give it a whirl. Just for grins, they opened it up to look at it before powering it up. What a lucky break. They had a lot of trouble sliding the case off and couldn't figure it out. Then one of them noticed a metal bar wedged between the frame and the shell. They gingerly removed a foot long metal bar that was about 1/4" square in cross-section that had what looked like paint covering about 4" of one end. It looked like something that was used to stir some paint or resin. It was laying across the back of the motherboard.

    Needless to say had they powered the box up, the bar would have shorted out a lot of the conductors. We would have loved to know how it got there. It certainly didn't look to be any part of the box that had simply come loose.

    Aside from that the BeBox was fun to play around with. I think it still is serving MP3s in another lab.

    -tim
  • Doesn't this story look [slashdot.org] familiar?

  • Probably not. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrbill ( 4993 ) <mrbill@mrbill.net> on Wednesday December 26, 2001 @11:54AM (#2752136) Homepage
    You wont be getting any BeBox parts, I can almost guarantee you that. I had a BeBox back in '98 that was missing the plastic "diffuser cover" from one of the LED CPU meters, and *nobody* (not even
    people @ Be, who were very helpful in looking) had spare parts. Emails from people @Be indicated that most all of their people had switched to BeOS/Intel, and there were no spare parts for the BeBoxen left - and this was 1998.
  • With less than 2000 ever made (roughly 1200 66mhz and 400+ 133mhz machines, I believe), you're last realistic chance of getting one for less than the price of used car was several years ago. I have no doubt that up to 2 or 3 dozen machines will be available at this auction, but the faact that it's been posted on slashdot has surrely locked in the prices at something above $2500 per. Besides, you'd prolly just try to install linux on them.
    • Anyone want to make me an offer? Almost mint condition, only the gray pegs on top are broken off (stupid design) otherwise many PC manufactures could learn from this box; The HD are mounted SIDEWAYS, so you dont bleed all over the box when trying to plug in the drive cables, and it got plenty of space, maybe I'll fit it with an ATX MB someday, which of course will be dual CPU. :)
      Thank you mr. Gassee, it was fun, shame to see you go. Now, can I bid for the be.com domain?
      J.
  • For those of you looking for dot com (and other computer-related) auctions of stuff all the time. Check into DoveBid [dovebid.com]

    No, I don't work for DoveBid nor do I have any interest in them. Just something I stumbled onto awhile back.

  • "Due to the circumstances, the web site has been reduced to the links that appear on the left. "

    maybe I should do that to my website, you think I could get $11M out of it?

    -shadoelord
  • Hmmmm.... since they're auctioning, did anyone else notice that eBay in pig-latin is "Be"?

    Hmmmmm.....
    --jw

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