Mini Android PC - Likely to change landscape of IT

A Disruptive Technology - Awaiting the tipping point..

I heard about the feature rich piece - Quad Core, 2GB local memory, 8GB flash, Android Jelly bean 4.1. Micro SD (32 GB). No. Not a mobile phone or tablet - but a look-like-USB-drive - seems to take care of quite a bit of computing needs.

Check this out.

Mini Android PC

I bought the above mentioned make along with Air mouse (move the remote-looking-key-board like a wand, cursor moves). This has mouse Click 1 and Click 2 button. Bought from India. Commercial and delivery logistics seems to work OK.

Connected to TVs and Monitors with HDMI - works great!

Has wireless - for network connectivity. Again simple to connect.

The Air mouse / keyboard connects through RF.

Supports almost all android apps. Camera works great with Skype.

I was able to load Android apps and view this in a large screen (My TV). It costed me $110. It is a bit of a sting with falling rupee.

Office Mobile, Outlook, on windows - Pocket Cloud, AWS on cloud connectivity, Sugar CRM, SAP on larger applications, AutoCAD on special application - are the few things I tried and works very well.

One can even find a simplex algorithm - as an app -

Simplex Algorithm as an app


Around this time, I noticed something - Mobile OS separation as disruption , as an innovation, is able to provide a much more effective Last Mile Platform (LaMP), pushing OS and other components to the middle (or can we say, the new middle-wares) - For all windows applications, windows connectivity, professional applications, there are apps android.

Then I saw this news from dell

Dell ships Project Ophelia

Interesting. Dell perhaps, can nurture the mini-pc-in-a-stick adoption.

Feels like Blue Ocean opportunity.

Me and some of my friends (Venkata Krishna Naren, Suresh Samuel, Magesh Rajendran, Vikram Viswanathan) discussed few use cases.

It felt like these devices can be very effective for corporations, governments and institutions to address their end user computational environment strategy. It can also be effective for IT servicing and outsourcing companies. With a bit of hardening in the software, IT companies can look at providing secured connectivity at a effectively low cost, to their clients.

Presentations can do away with projectors. One could use large screen TVs / Monitors for conferences or large gatherings. Even for home office, I notice that our TVs are better than some of the large screen monitors even. Application program development or any group discussion, is easy to do when we have large monitors.

I also watched you tube, and TED lectures. Due to HDMI interface, the picture and sound delivery gives a complete experience. This approach can be useful for educational institutions even.

This also brings new significance to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and MDM (Mobile Device Management). This can be significant catalyst for mobile initiative with in corporate.

This can easily support the functions of laptop, desktop, some workstations and the last mile can be standardized on Android. This can connect to all systems in the network, using apps - most of them free.

This is better than thin client - provide freedom of networking local storage to end users. Interestingly key thin clients are be supported through applications.

This may be far fetched idea.. but imagine. if the computing genie is put in small device (which is the current Android mini PC), the display can be anything - monitor, or laptop or mobile phone or tablet, or even wall projection.. connected through HDMI or a hub that connects a variety of displays..

Truly IT Services can be provided from anywhere - as per client conditions.

We are getting the glimpse of the power of disruptive innovation.