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Free IBM Computers For UK Households

Posted by timothy on from the always-a-catch dept.

Albanach writes "The Scotland on Sunday newspaper is reporting that UK firm Metronomy are offering 200,000 IBM PCs free of charge to UK households. Of course, there is a catch - advertising. Accepting the terms and conditions will get users a free IBM PC running Windows XP, but they will also be required to watch three minutes of TV style advertising for every hour of computer use and undertake to use the PC for a minimum of 30 hours per month."

8 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. Installing Linux... by Tet · · Score: 3, Informative

    There don't appear to be any technological barriers to just accepting the PC and reintalling the OS with something sane. Contractually, however, you're agreeing to watch the ads, so if you're not doing so, I suspect they'll just come and take the PC back. Also note that the PC remains the property of Metronomy, and is loaned to the end user for a 3 year period, thus they're well within their rights to just end the loan period early.

    --
    "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
  2. Re:doomed to fail? by ameoba · · Score: 4, Informative

    You're probably thinking of PeoplePC.

    --
    my sig's at the bottom of the page.
  3. PC Worth 800?! Hardly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    IBM Thinkcentre 411 inc vat

    You just need to look at IBM's own website to realise that a same spec PC is 411inc vat - nowhere near the 800 this news article is claiming it's worth!!

  4. Re:doomed to fail? by ron_ivi · · Score: 4, Informative
    Sounds like old news to me... Here's an article from the good old .com days.

    Free PCs, but not a free lunch: "Free-PC.com of Pasadena, California, plans to give away 10,000 Compaq ".

  5. Re:Why the U.K.? by nstrugnell · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know you're just trolling but I'll bite anyway as someone has modded you insightful.

    FYI:

    Unemployment in the UK currently stands at 5%, compared with 6% in the US and 10.5% in Germany which puts the lie to your 'everyone is on welfare ' claim. BTW, Brits don't say 'welfare', it's call the dole which makes me suspect your claim to be British.

    Inflation is at 2.6% compared with the US at 2% and Germany at 1.2%, however wages have increased 3.6% whicg puts the lie to your 'no-one has any money' claim.

    And finally, the UK is running a budget deficit of 1.9% of GDP compared to Germany at 3.7% and the US at 4.6% (and Japan 7.7%). Not great, but better than most.

    On the whole, the UK has ridden the downturn better than most countries.

    Anecdotally, I used to work for a US s/w firm in the UK - when the firm folded with the tech crash, every single UK employee had no problem finding other work - to this day many employees in the US are still unemployed or at least under-employed.

    Cheers,
    Nick

    PS All figures are from the Economist indicators section for November 22nd-28th 2003.

  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. Re:doomed to fail? by bryhhh · · Score: 3, Informative

    In much the same way that they get TV shows in return for those shows being periodically interrupted by advertisements.

    I paid for my TV set, I paid for my Satelite decoder. I pay a monthly subscription to recieve digital television broadcasts, I pay for terrestrial TV license (Yes, I live in the UK), Yet i still get adverts.

    However as I own a TiVo, I never actually watch them.

  8. Re:doomed to fail? by evilmonkey_666 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yeah, but in the UK local calls are not free. So these 'free' isps cut a deal with BT and get a share of the phone call.

    --


    - PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.