Looks like Wal-Mart's experiment with Linux PCs was just that: an experiment.  The big-box retailer is pulling the Everex gPC from its shelves.  So what happened?

From the outside it's difficult to tell, but I have a few theories.  First, I was particularly struck by this quote from the AP news article about the cancellation:

"This really wasn't what our customers were looking for," said Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien.

[Other quotes are available at our own story on the subject.]

This despite them selling out their entire in-store inventory!  The Linux-based gPC is still listed through retailers like TigerDirect and NewEgg, however -- although the former no longer has them in stock [at least as of this writing -- sy] and the latter has the product billed as "The alternative PC for the masses, while supplies last."  That said, there may be more of the picture we're not seeing.

It's significant that there's no information about returns -- which, from what I understand, is not something Wal-Mart habitually provides data on to outside parties.  Perhaps Wal-Mart found a great many people bringing the system back when they found out that their Windows games wouldn't install or run on those machines.  It's telling that Wal-Mart has the Vista (Home Basic) version of the same machine still available (although in all fairness there's no details about how well that's selling, either).

I'm at least partly certain the lukewarm in-store response to the gPC was due to the lack of a display, something I was convinced would create real problems with people who aren't themselves tech-savvy.  People wrote in to disagree, claiming that almost anyone who bought one of these things would know a friendly neighborhood techie who could donate a used display.  To me that sounded too much like wishful thinking: most of us don't buy a car only to find out that we have to borrow the tires from another one.  (You could, but why would you want to?)

Another thing, something that Houston Chronicle tech blogger Dwight Silverman mentioned in his own assessment of the PC late last year: many of the desktop applications that run on the gOS are Internet-based, and will only work best if you have high-speed Internet access to begin with.  If you're on a low PC budget to begin with, he opined, you're probably not going to have (or be able to have) the connectivity to make a machine like this really worthwhile.  And if you do, you're probably buying something more upscale anyway.

I don't think this is the end of the road for retail Linux PCs -- not by a long shot, and not while products like the Asus Eee PC are also available (in my mind, a much better bargain).  I do think this is a sign that selling Linux to the masses is going to require more than just a low price tag -- since, when you get down to it, Linux already has that.

[Addendum: Apparently Wal-Mart is still selling the gPC from its Web site. They've just elected to not stock the gPC in stores, however -- which presumably means that while it has been selling, most of those sales have been through Wal-Mart's online system and not in their actual outlets. That in itself speaks a fair amount about the market for the gPC: it was intended for the masses, but maybe instead it's being snapped up by a more savvy tech users who have a better idea of what they're getting and to what end it can be used.]