Microsoft Patent Envisions Free Computing

Dotnaught writes "A Microsoft patent application published on Thursday shows the company contemplating free computers and software for its customers. It suggests 'a service provider such as a telephone company, an Internet service provider, or a leasing company may provide computer systems or components to users at a reduced charge or for free in exchange for targeted advertising delivery.'"

Comments

hello?

[gmack]

Hey microsoft it's the year 2000 calling.. they want their buisness plan back.

Seriously. Wasn't exactly this done already? How can they patent this?

Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents are never filed because someone plans on doing something.

they're filed because someone wants to stop someone from doing something else. this is the case here. I hope it doesn't get accepted.

Re:They tried this already

[nine-times]

Actually, I like everything about this idea except for the words "targeted" and "advertising".

Seriously, if the offer is that someone can data-mine everything on my PC and send me lots of pop-ups, spam, and flash banners, then no thanks. If computers are really cheap enough to make this business model viable, then I'd just as soon buy the really extra-cheap computer myself anyway (if it's cheap, why not?), which means the business model still wouldn't be viable.

This is not MS's plan

[jeffsenter]

My guess is Microsoft is just patenting vague advertising-revenue stuff to block others from patenting it. This does not mean Microsoft actually plans to move to advertising instead of paying for software.

Doesn't anyone read the newspaper?

[swordgeek]

How much did your Sunday paper cost you? Maybe a buck, these days. It probably cost the publisher about $3 to print it, factoring in all of the news gathering and publishing costs. However, they also sold about $5/paper in ads, so they're making a net profit.

Advertising is the primary revenue generator for information content providers. TVs, websites, newspapers, radio, and now computers. The only real difference is that once you get the computer, you have the computer and can theoretically do what you want. Of course, you could do that with a newspaper as well, by ripping the ads out.