“When you haven’t got the dough, try pay-as-you-go. That could be a potential axiom for the nifty business model launched in Brazil today by Microsoft. After several market trials, the company is announcing the release of computers powered by FlexGo, a technology which lets users pay by the hour using cards bought from local vendors,” Parmy Olson reports for Forbes. “If you’re familiar with the pay-as-you-go method for cell phones, FlexGo uses a similar system. A customer who buys a FlexGo-powered PC would pay half the normal retail price at a shop, and would from then on purchase multicolored pre-paid cards to get hourly access to the computer.”
“The users would type in the card number via a program in Windows, and if they card runs out, the computer stops working. A PC that normally sold for $600 would go for around $300 with 10 hours of usage time included, and the pre-paid hours would go towards paying off the computer,” Olson reports. “In a statement Microsoft, led by co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates, said the new method brought ‘the flexibility of an Internet cafe into the home,’ and allowed users to avoid high fixed-monthly loan payments required to finance a PC.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: An interesting idea. Rent-to-own personal computers. Eventually, users pay off the PC and own it outright. It could be used as a way to get a more expensive PC than one could afford to buy – sort of like vehicle leasing.
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