“Microsoft may be experimenting with the idea of selling PCs in the same way as cellphones are currently sold, patent filings suggest,” Electronista reports.
“A recently-published patent application proposes selling “standard model” PCs at a significant discount, with the rest of the price being subsidized by an unspecified part of the supply chain. The real cost would be shifted into a usage contract, determining how long a person would have to use their machine,” Electronista reports.
“Buyers might alternately be asked to pick from general packages, such as office, gaming or browsing bundles, each with a different hourly rate; expanding functionality would require switching to a new package. Controlling a person’s ability to use their computer would be a new security module, locking a PC to a given supplier, while also restricting functionality,” Electronista reports.
More info and links in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Don’t the Windows sufferers already pay enough in frustration, stress, and lost productivity?
to Regular Reader,
that wouldn’t be an issue; Windows PCs cannot survive more than a single or two day without a crash/reboot, so that gaming machine couldn’t possibly stay up for two weeks without some kind of failure…
Seriously, the subscription model just begs to be ‘discovered’ by Microsoft. I say, they are the perfect candidate for ‘exploring’ it in their usual style. Let them do it. It’ll be fun to watch!
Why doesn’t MS just start selling MS branded machines via Blue Hippo?
Brought to you by the same people that say people would rather rent music.
Greg you beat me to the punch (duh MS doesn’t make computers) but the article does not say directly if it is a MS patent (most likely but then again maybe not).
Rental software, well nothing out of the ordinary development wise considering the interdependency of operating system/hardware/software application.
On the marketing side though, well you can smell Balmer’s Zune from here.
“Roll Up, Roll Up!
Pay Here to Enter Hell”.
(This has to be said in a W C Fields voice… with fairground effects.)
And the pusher says “The first hit is free.”
Nothing but disrespect and ill will for the consumer.
This sounds way too much like the computer hardware and service outsourcing approach used at my workplace. Roughly $200 per month for a computer with a standard software load, ethernet network connectivity,MS Exchange email account, and dial-up help desk with a three year hardware refresh interval. That is $7200 over three years!
Give me a Mac with an AppleCare extended warranty and volume discounts on a shopping list of software titles as a starter. Add in some type of reasonable, cost-effective email system (not MS Exchange, please) and it will cost a *lot* less than $7200 over three years. Plus you could sell the Mac to recover some money to kick off the new three year cycle. Very few Mac users need a help desk.
Am I the only one old enough to remember the days when AOL, MSN and others would give you hundreds of dollars towards your purchase of a PC as long as you signed up for two year contracts?
I remember buying my in-laws an e-machine this way and having it come out to about $49 after the subsidy.
Also, I listen to XM radio and already they are advertising this. The story goes somewhat like this:
“As long as you have decent credit and the ability to pay $29/month for twelve months, you too can have a Dell computer.”
It isn’t brought to you by Dell, but the company offering it uses the Dell name in the advertisement.
The one thing that I used to hate back in the early days of the Internet, before broadband when we all used dial-up modems, was the services that gave you so many hours or so per month, or charged you per hour like a telephone company might (I’m looking at you CompuServe and AOL). Considering how much time the average computer user spends on the Internet per day, that would rapidly become costly. Thank goodness for unlimited always-on fiber optic and broadband networks for a flat rate per month, or at least until they start throttling certain web services.
Also, always-on connections aren’t exactly a good thing in terms of Windows PC users. That’s a constant high-speed pipeline that malware can use to get to their machines and make their life hell. They’d have a much easier time if they all used 14.4k modems or lower, like the old days. For optimum protection, don’t connect them to the Internet or any network, or don’t turn them on at all. That’s the best Windows security package money can buy, because it’s free.
@ macmac
I think your basic premise is correct. Apple is headed that direction. Cloud computing and iPod/iPhone/iTablet?? is all heading that direction, and .me is the enabler. It’s not marketed under OSX but to make an Apple netbook/tablet successful .me
(or something like it) becomes a major factor. Which BTW, is pay annually, and the device COULD be subsidized by the .me contract.
It’s not that you couldn’t own the device outside of the .me contract but the richness of the experience will evermore become more tethered to it.
Watch.
Millions of North Americans sign up for a 1, 2 even 3 year contract for a cell phone.
You can’t blame Microsoft for thinking the same people are stupid enough to do the same for a cheap PC and internet access.
I think it would work if it was done with a Mac and you got to keep your Mac at the end of the contract.
would you have to pay for time (CPU and human) used loading protection software?
Microsoft seem DETERMINED to do everything they can think of except write a decent operating system.
I have read it twice and I’m still shaking my head in confusion. I don’t get it? Why?
Keep the sheep in the pen. Microshaft will force you to rent the machine of their choice installed with only their software. You will have to use them as your ISP, use only Liveservices-Search,Gaming exc. All businesses custom apps will only be able to be coded in .Net using DirectX or M$ APIs.
Than of course Internet access an Email to confined to Exchange-Outlook. Data will be forced to be stored remotely by MicroShit will access granted only With Azure.
If that isn’t scary enough, the computers (Mac,PC,Linux) you or your business already own will not be allowed to network with or use any services or peripherals at all.
Hope you have a nice life as a sheep because MS certainly will!!!
In the UK there are quite a few “free laptop” offers from the likes of Carphone Warehouse and Tesco.
Just sign up for 2 years @ £30 per month and you get a free laptop. £720 over 24 months. Not bad. Shame the laptops are Dull or Acer… there was a rumor were going to be offered for free, but it hasn’t happened so far.
Microsoft seem DETERMINED to do everything they can think of except write a decent operating system.
MS has spent the past 27 years trying to write a decent OS. We’re still waiting.
So after that kind of time, even a company as inept as MS will grasp the obvious:
If you can’t build it better, then sell it better.
Seems indicative of microsh*t having done projections on their windows revenue stream going forward and realized that is it in downturn, perhaps because of the hefty slug for that piece of sh*t that is windows in its 237 variations of sh*t. Hence the idea for a new revenue stream to milk customers probably for more, but in smaller bites. Sounds like microsh*t’s trying to do the ‘killing an elephant (ie. windows users) from a thousand ant bites’ rather than killing the elephant with one great slug as they’re doing at the moment with the monster price for a chrome plated turd like vista …man they are stupid. But this is a good thing.
I am not sure why anyone considers this information “news”. Gates stated publicly approximately 5 years ago that it was his intention to move the computer software industry to a “pay as you go” service. Some how I suspect that it may not be very successful. The model was used by timesharing services back in the beginning of computing and businesses found it to be unacceptable as there is no way to control costs.
why is everyone so frustrated with this business model? Apple already uses parts of it.