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.

Comments

Innovative strategy

[goldaryn]

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.

The Palladium Killer App

[Dr_Barnowl]

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.

Re:The Palladium Killer App

[karlandtanya]

Give the man a cigar!

Now, the question becomes whether you can extract 1/3 of the value of the PC in parts.
Question is only valid for the components that don't require TCPA to function at all.

What--TCPA required in individual components? I thought this was just a motherboard thing so we couldnt' run Linux and pirate CDs?
Guess again, Sunshine.

Wanna upgrade your monitor?
Sure. But don't bother trying to find a local source for that Lucky Goldstar monitor you found on that Korean website.
Only [Dell/Gateway/Microsoft/Walmart/Cosco/YouNameIt] monitors (rebranded LG monitors at three times the price, natch) will work, though.

Man, this is freakin' fantastic! Hardware compatability (no--hardware functionality--this keeps getting better!) will be strictly at the whim of the vendor.
Five years from now, "obsolete" won't mean "still does what it did when you bought it, but there's shinier stuff on the shelf this week"

"Obsolete" will mean: Vendor support for this version of hardware has ended:

• Due to privacy/security/safety/regulatory/end-of-lifecycl e (take your pick or add your own)... concerns, the following models and versions of [product] have been removed from the list of supported hardware.
• [Company] holds in the highest regard your rights as a consumer to maintain control and possession of products that you own. However, please note that the following functionality must, by law, be disabled for non-supported hardware:
  1. Connection to any other hardware, including network devices.
  2. Connection to any wireless network to which any other hardware is connected.
  3. Installation or execution of any licensed software.
  4. Playback, Recording, erasure, or transfer of any media.
  5. ...
• This protects the rights of all consumers to access shared resources without risk to security/privacy/.... caused by unregulated or "rogue" devices or persons.
• We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and direct you to our new line of supported products, avaliable at....

DMCA already means you'd be insane to risk hacking your hardware to get it working again.

And recycling laws will mean the hardware has to go back to a licensed recycler
So, don't try to sell it to a guy what knows a guy what can get it workin' again...

a fully featured PC ....

[eggoeater]

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.