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AOL's $299 PC
cmj writes "Internet.com reports 'Looking to attract households that still aren't online, AOL is offering new customers a $299 PC system if they sign a one-year $23.90 dial-up Internet service contract.' A click through AOL's ecommerce site reveals the the specs as 1.7 GHz Celeron with 256 MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive, 56K modem, 10/100ethernet card, 17" monitor and Lexmark printer. The PC is running Windows XP, and includes 'AOL Office Powered by Sun'. Also of note is the fact that the $299 appears to be financed at around 22%. The math ( (12*23.90)+299 ) seems to suggest that you can get a $699 computer for $585.80 plus any finance charges. Setting aside the question of whether this is a good deal or not, one has to wonder whether AOL is desperate for new customers and resorting to bribery, or just progressing to the next step of branding. With this action AOL controls everything from the OS to the Word Processor to the web sites their customers browse."
Also, the numbers for how much this computer is worth don't factor the right things in. Anyone who'd go for this deal needs some sort of ISP to begin with, and the $23.90/month may be higher than other ISPs, but does give the customer something of value beyond the PC. On the other hand, is that really a $699 computer?
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
Sounds like it will probably come with StarOffice (or something like it).
Hopefully the low price tag will convince people still using WebTV to actually purchase a personal computer.
I can see this as being killer for grandparents and others living on fixed incomes.
The system specs are decent, considering the target audience is probably not going to be encoding digital video, compiling code, or running photoshop.
The office suite is a nice touch. It sucks to get emailed a MS Office document and not being able to open them in anything but WordPad. I get so many tech support calls related to people not being able to open MS Office attachments. If the AOL office suite includes Excel and PowerPoint clones, all the better.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I guess what I'm talking about are OPTIONS. No, Lindows won't be for everyone either. OTOH, maybe someone would like to have a computer cost $199 instead of $299 and be willing to learn.
And what's the big dealio about Lindows defaulting root for the primary user? So what? So does XP! This can now be changed in Lindows 4.0 just as easily as creating a user in XP. Problem solved.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
uhh.. what about the monitor and printer in ur price quote? ohhh and of course what about AOL Sun Office... can't forget about that bad boy..
So pay it off the first month. BOOM! You get the PC for $299. You only get charged interest if you float the balance.
"$299 with a $20+ a month lock-in contract, so what they really mean is something closer to about $450."
You're exaggerating by leaving out the fact that they're getting AOL access, which millions of people are paying $20+ a month for without getting a cheap PC. If you think that AOL service is worth nothing, then your math works, I suppose, but...
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Funny, a few years ago I was thinking
"compuserve and the like are offering these great deals because no one will be on dialup anymore"
Now it seems that dialup is going to be aruond for a long time.
AOL needs to keep their name in the game this why they are doing this. Also this is the best time to do this. With the holiday season they will really rack up.
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You could build your own $500 computer that would be most likely faster, and not contain all that shitty pre-installed AOL crapware that will slow you down further. And, you wouldn't be signed up for AOL service. (And who the hell wants that.)
Or, for the Maccies, you can get an eMac for $750 (Student Discount) which has a CD Burner, 40gb hard drive, and 1ghz processor. (Also doesn't contain gobs of pre-loaded poo.)
I'm not so sure though... At $99, Nintendo is still making a profit (small... probably) off their cube and you are in no way obligated to purchase any additional games. AOL's deal requires that the computer be financed over a 1 year period. $24 a month for dialup internet can be a pretty big turnoff.
So how will getting Windows XP improve this situation? I'm not being an ass, I'm serious. What's the alternative? Keep in mind, just because Lindows defaults to open root access doesn't mean AOL couldn't lock it all down as part of THEIR default image, right?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
It is not surprising at all. When I did Apple T-Supp I would field about 10 maybe fifteen calls a week from AOL users who were using AOL as the only App on a G4 or whatnot. They couldn't open an attachment, couldn't print, couldn't unstuff a file that AOL stuffs couldn't find AOL's prefs in the toolbar. And when they wanted to write a letter would e-mail them selves...
Back on point Let AOL build the whole car they will have to support it and their T-S is so good they all deserve a long vacation in India, or Brazil, or whereva'
--
Whats right is what is left after everything else has gone wrong
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That's a good idea, but I'd bet that there is in the contract saying that the buyer will pay a certain fee if the loan is payed off before a certain time. This is a common practice for auto loans -- if the finance company isn't guaranteed that they will make a certain amount, the loan isn't worth their time.
I doubt it. As long as AOL gets paid their $24/month for a year and you don't bother AOL for tech support on the computer, I don't think they could care less what you do with the computer.
You can get dial-up Internet access with no AOL bullshit and a cool PC starting at only $20/month from PeoplePC while paying NOTHING down.
You can buy a PC for $200 at wal-mart.
go AOL. tsk.
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Have you ever used AOL? Would you like to be stuck paying for AOL for a year even if you don't like it just to get a "new" PC? Sure, you can install Linux, but try to get support from AOL if something needs to be replaced under warrantee, and forget about even getting on to AOL with Linux.
The terms of the deal are clear. It's your choice whether you want to take the deal or not. Sounds like you've already decided you don't want to - that's your prerogative. Someone else may decide it makes sense - that is their prerogative.
Mmmm.. Donuts
It's not just a good idea. It's frighteningly good if they can pull it off. Have you ever heard this response? I have.
"What OS do you have, Mac or Windows?"
"I think it's AOL."
Imagine hearing it a lot more.
I think that this is really the big point. ISPs have surprisingly good customer loyalty when you consider how little difference there is between one dialup service and another. I guess that a big part of it is just the hassle of switching email addresses. In any case, AOL knows that many of those people who sign up for one year of service will continue to get service from AOL for the forseeable future, bringing in a lot more revenue than the subsidy on the computer. It may be an especially good idea if Microsoft is succeeding in attracting newbies away from AOL by making it easy to sign up for MSN from Windows.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Somehow I do not think they are targetting active Linux users with these deal. Their target market is those people who are basically computer illiterate, but want to get on the web/email without the hassle of going down to their local Best Buy to buy a computer, and then sign up for internet access. This is similar to what a lot of mobile phone carriers do. They bundle a phone with a contract.
" You could build your own $500 computer that would be most likely faster..."
/. readers, it is appropriate for many other people. Parental Controls may not be your cup of tea, but for many parents they are essential. Additionally, while AOL isn't "cheap" at over 20 bucks a month, keep in mind that most broadband ISPs charge at least twice that.
Don't be so naive. You are NOT the target consumer for this product - this is aimed at people who aren't tech-savvy. Anyone who can put together a computer will always be able to do a cheaper and better job on their own. People who cannot [read: most people] must buy a premade box, and this isn't really that terrible a deal for them. While AOL service isn't the right choice for most
No one expects a computer nerd or technophile of any kind to get this for themself, but for fixed-/low-income novices and parents, it's actually quite reasonable.
Oh, and preloaded junk can be uninstalled or the machine can be reformatted.
GL
As someone else mentioned, Mac OS X is the one consumer OS that gets this right: root isn't even enabled by default, and sudo is the only way to act as root without mucking around with NetInfo.
Yeah but once you break in you can easily enable root. My mom has OS X, and she forgot her password. I created a new user, gave it admin access, SUed to it, enabled root, changed the root password, SUed to root, and changed her password.
If Lindows didn't have that stupid security flaw, it would be a better choice for machines like AOL's.
As long as people can install unsigned applications, stupid people will get rooted, no doesn't matter what you do. Just pop up a dialog box asking for the root password.
This is no different to cell phones.
This post patent pending.
Well, for people experienced with the internet, I agree that a cheap ISP is the best deal, because all you really need is TCP/IP routing and a mail server. But for someone who wants to have their hand held, AOL's not a bad start -- it's certainly The plain internet access ISP's have gotten better over the years, but it's still easier getting AOL working than installing and configuring PPP, web, email, etc., individually.
Personally, I'd go straight to broadband rather than dial, but that's 2x as much, and we're talking about people who don't want to spend that kind of money on the internet.
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Just because you can get around it, doesn't mean it isn't a scam.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Ok, first of all I know many small firms that use AOL (although it is usually AOL Broadband), second of all AOL does a lot of good for the net. AOL scans every email for viruses and doesn't let any through that has one, but rather they notify the sender, they also have great spam filters. Its very user friendly, and their DSL uses PPPoE so its easy to connect to through a router and then the client machines can jsut pop up AOL and connect throguh the LAN connection which is free (yes it is, i've done it on computers, and yes more then one person from the same acocunt can be using aol at the same time). It helps stop the spread of email worms, does excellent spam filtering, and gives the user every means of modern communication that he/she may need, at the tips of their fingers. Yes its not the most slashdotty type service where people use slackware simply becuase its hard to set up (not trying to start a war here, but thats what it sometimes seems like, where as debian, or gentoo in my opinion are better and easier to set up) AOL is no worse then MSN, except that AOL tries to do some good on the net and are very innovative. BTW, all kinds of music and media are available on AOL too at no cost. It realy is pretty nice and impressive, most of my family uses it. I dont use it, but most users love it. Oh yea AOL also are the nice guys that opened up the TOC protocol after it was the most popular protocol, unlike MSN who forced their protocol on users to make it one of the most popular then locked out everyone else. AOL also supports open source as is seen by the AOL Server and the fact that all(or most) of their servers run Linux. And if you IM ZolaOnAOL (that is AOL's chat bot, it was made by AOL and it isnt jsut some hackers bot) and ask her, "What is the best operating system in the world?" , She'll promptly answer that Linux is. Why are you guys so against a corporation that supports the Open Source movement (true they dont have a linux client, but thats because of the lack of market, it wouldnt really help anything if they did, through the other things that they are doing though, it is helping us) They hate MSN jsut as much as anyone else. We need to support corporations that support us and open protocols/software. Everyone needs to open their eyes. Just my 2 cents.
$299 + 12*$23.90 = $585.80
I do not think they are losing money supplying a low end computer for over $500.
I see, and it costs AOL nothing to provide internet service for a year?
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I used to work in a camera store that sold cell phones, too. (Don't ask me why a camera store would bother will cell phones, because I'm still not sure.) One thing I learned: mobile phones still cost the phone companies more than the 99 dollars they sell them for -- the companies are swallowing the cost of the phone because they hope to make it up with a few years of phone bills.
It works, too, because... (wait for it)... people don't want to change their phone numbers. (Another reason the cell companies dislike number portability). AOL is assuming the same thing will happen with their service -- customers will decide it's too much work to change it, stick with AOL for years, and repay AOL's investment.
(Besides, AOL is an evil megacorporation. If they don't make their money back, they'll just find a way to write it off on their taxes.)
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Great. Until now, when a client told me that their "aol wasn't working", I understood that to mean that they were having trouble with their internet connection. Now, it might mean trouble with their hard drive, cd, monitor, office suite, keyboard, ...
Evil is the money of root.
AOL is basically taking the model the cellphone industry uses and applying it to online services. When you get that oh-so-wonderful "free" phone, your contract finances the phone. If you lost the phone and tried to get another one, that phone would be at least $150. All that AOL has to do is run credits and take security deposits and they're all set.. only...
Oh wait, the people who have credit to do this probably have a computer already, and the people who really need the el cheapo computer with the crappy internet service won't pass credit.
Good luck AOL.