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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.
It seems they've spotted a good niche. From MS website:
In many countries around the world, people face two main barriers to owning a PC: the entry cost of buying a computer is too high and the fixed monthly payments associated with traditional financing are beyond their ability to pay- if they can get financing at all. And even in countries where consumer credit is available, many people are reluctant to incur the obligation of fixed monthly payments because they have unpredictable or variable incomes.
All fair points.. it will be interesting others in the industry take up the idea.
I can't for the life of me imagine how they are going to enforce this except with Trusted Computing. The only way that they are going to prevent someone
* Imaging the drive
* Installing another OS of their choice
* Using the computer as much as they like
* When the agreement ends, replace the drive image.
Ok, if you sick a lawyer on the poor user, you can sting them for their minimum 800 hours fees. But the only way they could prevent the above is by locking the machine down at the BIOS level with TCPM support.
You mean a PC that includes:
An office suite.
A standards compliant browswer
Maybe a simple image editor
And maybe a couple of small utility programs.
Yeah, I guess that would be worth paying for....
I mean, it's not like people are giving it away for free.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
Seriously, who is going to buy a computer and then pay for the right to use it?
Actually, if you follow the links in the article to read how it works, its obvious that booting from a linux DVD bypasses their time subscription/metering servers and all the software components they had to ad to Windows to lock out the user.
Actualy, booting from one of the hacked bootable Windows DVDs (yes, its possible to run Windows from a DVD - you can make your own bootable one by going here :http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) also bypasses their time metering system.
Wow, you have to hand it to the Microsoft marketing guys. Microsoft finds a way to allow banks to squeeze an extra 20% (my guess) out of low-income people, which of course also increases sales for Microsoft, and they manage to spin this as a benefit to those low-income people.
I may be ignorant, but what do low-income people need PCs for anyway? Do they really need sofware to balance their checkbooks, or file their taxes? Are they really cranking out a lot of documents? It seems to me that the real need for PCs in emerging markets is for students. If Microsoft or the banks want to help these students, they should provide them with financial assistance, or no-interest loans to buy them. They shouldn't cripple them with lockouts. "I'm sorry, I couldn't finish my paper because my parents couldn't afford to pay for the computer this month".
MS has been trying that concept for years. Some might remember when Gates introduced the idea that you won't even have to install Office or any Program anymore, you just stream it from the 'net. Someone must've told him that this would mean load times of a few minutes, or we'd have seen something like that by now. But when you look at the Office Document format, you'll notice it is actually a streaming format. Not necessarily something you'd expect in an "ordinary" file format, more something to be expected in a format that is supposedly loaded through a slow net connection.
That MS-Office can't "open" a document until it has loaded it entirely is a different matter. But in theory you can stream docs.
But back on topic. MS has been dreaming in this direction for a while now. After all, look at the advantages for them: First and foremost, full application control. It would even be possible to limit the capabilities later. Currently, you have the "problem" that, if something is possible to the user that the user deems beneficial but you don't enjoy in your software, you have a VERY hard time convincing him to upgrade to the next version, that has more features you want but less of what the user wants.
Then of course recurring revenue. Now, you buy Office and you use it. Forever. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who still has an Office97 running somewhere. Why upgrade? Newer versions don't offer any benefit. The only ones who do actually upgrade are companies that already fell for the "corporate agreement" bundle. But that doesn't offer ANY benefit for the average person.
This is just an attempt to force this kind of "agreement" down our throats. Since, after all, it's just a few cents every time you use your Word...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A $120 case/PSU is far from the lowest end. You can get a "450W Power Supply Mid Tower ATX Case W/ AMD and P4 Compatible front USB 2.0 and Audio 6bay aluminum P4 (Beige) midtower atx" for ~$30 and free shipping. Will the power supply have been put together with scrap wire by child labor in Elbonia? Perhaps. Will the case have sharp edges and rattle? Entirely possible, but there is almost $100 you just "overspent". (Check Pricewatch for several examples)
Many brand new laptops and desktops (check a Best Buy/ComUSA ad) are shipping with 256MB of memory, not 512. That's $15 for PC3200 DDR (this is a value box, remember) $25 for some others, including DDR2. ($25 after shipping at newegg, cheaper can be found on pricewatch)
A celeron D can be had for less than $50 from Newegg.
A 80GB HD can easily be found for ~$50 rather than $60. (NE)
So.. $30 Case/PSU + $50CPU + $80MB + $15 RAM + $50 HDD + $20 DVD/CD ends up at $245 (plus really, a mouse and keyboard would be nice, so we'll say $260). That is still far less than your $400 estimate, though over the $200 mark. I'm sure a few more dollars could be saved with a cheaper motherboard, as well...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I have a question. Forget about M$ for a second. Would you pay a monthly service to make sure you always have a top-of-the-line computer? Let's say that you can pick the OS. You just pay a flat monthly fee and you always have the latest software, and the latest hardware including GPU's RAM, HD, whatever. You would probably want to keep a fileserver somewhere on your network so that You don't have to keep coping all of your p0rn to the new machine. You could also keep a setting file there to so that you can keep all of your settings and bookmarks.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
Here's my Linux experience. The goal I set out beforehand was to install a Linux OS and play quake 3 on it. Plain and simple.
Windows:
1) Insert CD
2) Partition, answer a few questions, etc.
3) Be impressed with interface that isn't bad for 1998.
4) Download graphics card driver
5) Double click on icon, hit 'next' a few times then reboot.
6) Insert Q3 CD, click 'next' a few times, startup game & play.
My Linux Experience:
1) Spend an age figuring out which linux distro to use, sift through conflicting information.
2) Download fedora through recommendation
3) Install fedora - insert CD, answer questions
4) Be impressed with interface that really isn't bad for 1998.
5) Download drivers. Watch it balk as you've not installed something it needs to run the install app
6) Scratch head, search forums, be called a n00b and that it should just be working.
7) Bring around friend with unix (OSX) experience, mess around for 45 minutes not getting anywhere
8) Download Ubuntu from another recommendation
9) Install, answer questions, etc.
10) Run automatix script that sorts everything out for you.
11) Install quake 3 as per the handy online guide.
12) Try installing it again once you've enabled the root user and logged in.
13) Fire up quake 3.
14) Turn up speakers as sound doesn't appear to be coming from them, despite movies playing sound within ubuntu.
15) Scratch head, go to forums, get called a n00b and be told that it should be working.
16) Decide my time is too valuable for all this pissing around.
16) Stick with windows, and wait for the X86 powermac to come out.
I'm happy with my choice, and don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. My 2.5 year old install has never crashed apart from through a hardware failure. I've not had one piece of spyware nor a single trojan or virus. It'll see me through till that powermac comes...
http://www.frenchgeek.com/