I see nothing wrong with that. The sale price should reflect what customers are willing to pay so as to maximize profit, not what the actual cost is.

Indeed. And if you look at it from a cost basis think about what a fortune 50 company would have to do to get an IT department to design and deploy an appliance like this. A lot more than $500 I bet...

I've made a fine living doing just that using Sheeva's and alix's before that and Soekris before that. Corporate IT is completely unprepared to do what it takes to wrangle these little embedded monsters. If it hasn't already got a web gui, they're more or less sunk. $520 is a bargain to (ahem) plug and play.

They're not trying to fool anyone by saying that they've made a magical new product. Its straightforward software, as a service, in a can.

Well the 'elite' version is ~$750... that's getting pretty ridiculous when I could and have built something similar with openwrt a pelican case for ~$80 + the 45 or so minutes to tear the router apart and flash openwrt on to it.. As an added bonus it comes with a webui

$520 is a trivial cost for business security, if it saves a few hours of figuring out how to create an equivalent it's worth the money.

Then there is dealing with the mindset that a cheap approach to security is not going to be as good; it's not an area people like to cut corners.

Are you selling it?

What are you using for 3G in your $80 box?

I never had to use 3G, just an connect to an unbroadcast SSID of the router. If I was really determined to have 3G I would tether a pay-and-go phone to a usb port, but I don't see the usefulness of 3G when I have wifi..

You said similar for $80. Does your busted pelican box look as innocuous as this thing does in an average corporate environment?

Have you done a lot of large scale corporate pen tests? I used to do a lot of pentest/wireless audits for IBM. Sure I could sit in the parking lot of Dr. Bobs Dermatology's practice and maintain a decent signal strength to his wireless network. But what are you going to do in downtown Manhattan when the client is on the 25th-35th floors of a building in the financial district? Does your pay as you go phone fit into your classy corporate looking pelican box? How does that pelican box look now that there is a second cord running out of it to charge the pay as you go phone?

Now do you see the usefulness of built in 3G?

PS: I just noticed that you have posted your description twice now. Is it $80 or $100?

You would use a 15$ usb 3g modem, just like I assume the pwn plug does.