Slashdot Mirror
You've Got PC
freitasm writes "Geekzone is reporting on the AOL Optimized PC, a 2GHz Intel Celeron PC with 256MB RAM and 50GB ATA-100 HDD. It'll cost US$299.99 from Office Depot stores, with a commitment of 12-month AOL subscription. More information on AOL Optimized website." There's also a Reuters story.
Though I suppose it is actually on target, if someone only has $300 and can afford the $24/month payment, it might be a simple way to get a PC a little "cheaper" up front. Just too bad it has to be AOL.
Full list of features:
The system is not stocked in store but will be shipped to what ever address you give them at the time you sign up for the AOL service. Which is done in the store.
John
Not that there is anything new to the whole "Get a serious discount on hardware if you get a subscription to [fill in blank] online service", but for some reason this one is interesting coming from AOL, since back when they we're Quantum Link (The old commodore 64 online service back in the 80's) they did a similar thing.
Back in the Q-link days, not to many folks had modems or could really afford them, so Q-link's hook to get you to sign up with them was that they would offer you a heavily discounted 300 baud modem when you signed up for Q-link. This seems like a no brainier these days, but back then it was really something because most online services like Playnet, GEnie, Compuserve, etc all charged you a setup fee AND charged you like $30 for their software.
So, like I said, not that this is new, it's REALLY not new for AOL.
Man do I ever still pine for the days of Q-link and Club Carribe.
"The Wright brothers were the first to fly with a heavier-than-air machine, but boy did they have a lousy plane"
Is it just me or does this seem equivalent to signing away your soul to Satan?
I do tech support for HP. AOL uses their own drivers to connect to their network, and also block off the Properties page of their connection. Thus, we cannot enable the Windows XP firewall, so God help someone who hasn't patched their machine (luckily I can get around this by installing Norton Personal Firewall, which is usually included with our machines). I've also heard that if you want, AOL will sell you a firewall for $3 extra a month or something. So to sum up: Block free included product, sell own (probably inferior) product.
Not to mention that AFAIK their entire technical support division is stationed in India, and I think they have a 3 minute call length limit or something. Whenever people call me and say they were referred to us by AOL, I roll my eyes and ask what AOL actually did before referring them to us. 90% of the time, they did NOTHING. They didn't have them click on anything, they didn't check any settings, and they most certainly did not reinstall their own software. "It's a problem with the modem." "It's a problem with the computer." I've actually heard from customers where they had to hand up on the AOL tech because they didn't take the referral to us and he actually started yelling at the customer! And this service is worth $20+ a month?! God help the person who buys this PC and is RELEGATED to these people...
Please, if you use AOL, consider switching to another provider. You're worth more than what they give you.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If you go to the FAQ on the aol page it tells you that it is an office product from sun microsystems, so they obviously liscensed staroffice, and put their name on it.
This has been discussed. It's not some conspiracy theory or sneaky DNS redirect.
If you type in a non-valid URL, Firefox automagically does a "I'm feeling lucky" search on what you typed. The first result comes back microsoft.com, for whatever reason.
Verify this yourself by typing the same thing into google and hitting search/lucky.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It's been done. Not only that it's been patented.
US Patent 6,629,793 The Emoticon Keyboard