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Microsoft Introduces Pay-as-You-Go Computing
An anonymous reader writes "Geekzone is reporting that Microsoft is introducing a new business model for 'pay-as-you-go computing.' From the article: 'The pay-as-you-go computing model enabled by Microsoft's FlexGo technology allows customers to have a fully featured PC at home by paying only for the time as they use it through the purchase of prepaid activation cards or tokens. Microsoft has been running trials of the program in Brazil for more than a year and will soon be expanding to select markets in India, Russia, China and Mexico.'" This makes me giggle, because it's basically the return of time-sharing; in the past it was for for mainframe systems, but I suppose the same concept behind the mainframe idea would be true in developing countries today with PC systems.
Why does it seem Microsoft is running out of good ideas? Pay as you go computing? How long would it be before you actually pay the amount that a new PC/Windows would cost for this? Is Microsoft going to be the next Rent-a-Center, where you pay $5000 for a PC that costs $500? Or pay $1000 for windows when it is in reality $200? heh, bad idea I say.
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
This makes me giggle, because it's basically the return of time-sharing; in the past it was for for mainframe systems
When you stop giggling you may as well notice both have nothing in common.
One is a payment model for using licensed software (but time is not limited by demand, just by your money), and the other is an early form of multitasking, allowing more efficient use of the mainframe resources.
It's the same tactic used to lease-to-own cars to people who can't really afford them
FTFA:
In other words, if you don't qualify for the loan as per item 1, you don't get to "long-ter lease" the box. So why not just borrow it outright and not be stuck paying per hour? Or take that 1/3 cash down and buy a used PC.
Definatly just shaddy financing with a new lable. Purchase only the time you need only works for a centrally located service. Cell phones work that way because you buy the phone (more or less) and then you are purchasing the network which you phyically don't own. Same with mainframe time. You likely didn't own the mainframe when you were purchasing time on it. The only way a personal computer would be practicle (at least to me) is if it was personal. Same settings, profile, files, etc. And it would likely have to be in my residence. So you can't really have anyone else using it. This doesn't really add up as a concept. Unless microsoft is getting into the Net Cafe business.
From the Microsoft page: "makes it easier for people with modest incomes in emerging markets to buy a full-featured PC for their families"
The true is that "people with modest incomes in emerging markets" don't buy software. Even when buying a new computer, big retails shops bundle Linux, that is removed as soon as people see they can't play games or use Encarta or Word or any other well known software. On the newspapers in Argentina, you see there is a standard fee for "linux removing" (and Windows installing, not advertised). In small computers shops, they preinstall WindowsXP without even asking (without licence). Most software is available for u$2 on CD-R (is advertised on any newspaper and even phone booth).
Only big companies (mostly from overseas) can afford to buy software.
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
... As soon as they read this, thousands of CIOs, PHBs, and Microsoftie system administrators realize Linux IS ready for the desktop, and introduce large-scale plans to switch all their users to ______________ [insert favourite distribution here], stat.
:-)
Panic seizes Wall Street, Microsoft stock dives, NASDAQ tanks, Bill Gates become the 100th richest man in the world, and Congress introduces law designed to protect "American innovation and competitiveness against the evil, communist, terrorist-sponsored opensource software".
Hey, one can dream, right?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
And cue the anti-Slashdot trolls bitching about how we see everything MS does as evil...
They can't do that now, how do you expect them to do that in the future?
Besides, if you look at how it works, you'll see that it really is the shits ... you get a 12-character code every time you want to "add minutes." How much you want to bet there'll be a keygen and spoofed add-time servers if this catches on?
Isn't it getting to the point now where us lucky ones in the first world are throwing away enough old-but-still-working hardware that people in the third world CAN have a PC that works just fine with the right setup and just isn't the latest and greatest quad-core offering from Intel?
I guess it makes a lot of sense from Microsofts point of view.. instead of letting them have cheap home PCs and "free" Windows software (aka piracy), make them pay outlanding sums of money over the long-term without realizing it, while offering the usual sub-standard software and being able to fall back on "ooh, it must be network problems, cause our centralized Office products are perfect!" excuses as required.
Whatever happened to all these $100 PCs bundled with Linux? They can't be much more expensive than a thin-client PC + broadband connection required to deliver the new Microsoft centralised services at any decent speed?
I hope M$ has thought this one through - if they start actually forcing those who cannot afford it to pay for M$ products, those who cannot afford it will quickly migrate to something they can afford, eg. Linux. Perhaps once the end-user moves, corporations will feel more secure about moving and before you know it, M$ isn't turning a profit in either of their two truly profitable offerings any more (Windows and Office)
Will program for karma.
...which will be another $30/month
If the $100 computer with open source software is the liberation theology of the information revolution, this is the indentured servitude of the information revolution.
...why Microsoft is so dismissive of the $100 PC.
obviously you have either never signed a contact before in your life, or you don't have much of an imagination.
This is a really terrible idea. I have one that even better than a pet rock: each year tens of thousands of computers are junked out and replaced by new ones. Know where they end up? At a trash heap. Why not salvage the parts, create a bunch of decent machines out of them, throw on a free OS, sell em for next to nothing to those who can't afford a few hundred bucks for a PC. Sure as hell beats this pay out your butt method. What good is a computer if you can't sit around and play with it for hours on end without worrying about how much it'll cost you?
But has KDE been ported to Windows, other than through the heavyweight Cygwin layer? Or have display technologies associated with *BSD and GNU/Linux been ported to any non-onboard 3D video cards?
I see from all the -1 Flamebait mods that Team99 is out in force this morning ...
The simple fact of the matter is that this whole plan shouldn't be called "Pay as you go" but "Pain as you go."
Its targeted to people who can't afford it and would be better off using a free OS on hardware they can buy outright for the 1/3 down that this thing goes for ... or they can buy a used box if the really really really want Windows.
And what about Total Cost of Ownership... Oh wait, that's Microsoft's TCO, not the users... ;-)
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
When I bought my inspiron 630m it came with 1GB of ram, 100GB disk, 2Ghz Pentium M and the three year warranty for 2300$ [with taxes]. That was when the BASELINE Mac laptop was $2000 on its own, that is 1.5Ghz G4, 512MB of ram, 60GB disk, etc... Upgrading and warrantying the thing would have cost [iirc] about $2850 or so.
I'm not talking about the past, I'm talking about the present where the Macbook is actually a really good value - and you don't need to pay Apple to upgrade the HD since it's so easy to replace.
As for the Mac Mini, it's $699 [CDN] for a 1.5Ghz single core processor with 512MB of ram. Big deal. I could buy a 2Ghz dual-core AMD64, 1GB of ram and a proper case (e.g. one where I can install new stuff) for about the same price.
Would you really buy that for your mom? What about software? That's where the real value of the lower end Macs comes in, very high quality hardware with a great set of software for most users.
And parents would appreciate the MUCH smaller mini form factor rather than that huge holking noisy AMD box. If all they want to do is use emaail and a web browser and manage photos, why choose a desktop?
Remember that I am not talking about more technical users who may well be more suited to the AMD box, I am talking about family members that only get by with computers because you, the tech guy, help them out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think this quote bears repeating, although I don't know who started it:
Like any pusher, Microsoft has been doing its best for some years now to create and retain addicts - they have the infrastructure in place to keep those addicts coming back, and this is just another way to a) increase margins on what amounts to virtual crack, and b) ensure that your junkies don't go up to the next corner for something without as much strychnine.
The fact that they'll have every convenience store in the country turning over rocks for them [increasing the scope of the network] is gravy. It's a profitable idea if they can get the users to smoke that shit.
I'm seeing that in the future, I will not be buying anymore PCs - once these kinds of measures become pervasive to the point where the only [mod'd] hardware only allows the pre-paid software - well, at that point I'm going to have to be working on whatever machine was the last one I had before they took the old chips off the market, so I hope I have the source code.
"The Internet is made of cats."