Too poor to buy a PC? BillG has a plan for you.

[Warren Stupidity]

Announced at WinHec, the annual Windows Hardware trade show: pay as you go cards for your home PC. Targeted at third world countries, think of this as a phone card. Living on 2,000/year? PC represents 10% or more of your annual income? No problem, your kids can still get online as you can now get a pc into your home and pay for its use by buying time on it. Just like a phone card, the pc is useless until you buy a flexgo card. Card runs out, pc goes back to useless mode. Microsoft will now be extracting rent from those other 4billion people on the planet who are not currently paying up.

[tuvor]

1. Can't we just GIVE them our castoffs?

Brazillions of perfectly good computers go into the landfill annually.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. No money in that. nt

[MissWaverly]

2. that is not going to work, he's missed the boat

in other countries they have them in the barber shop, for a few rupees you can surf the net,
why would you want to make a major financial commitment to a phone card/use system, the poor
want the net, not hardware.

[kenny blankenship]

3. rent to own!

well not actually to own, just keep renting, and renting and renting.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Exactly. nt.

[LynneSin]

9. True, I would only be ok with this plan if there was an incentive to buy

and that the buyout plan wouldn't include a 29% interest rate like those Rentacenter places have for the computers they sell

[zulchzulu]

6. Solution: Old PCs remade into Linux OS boxes

Linux can run on ancient PCs and Macs...open source free software that rivals Microsoft Office without obese extra code...Gimp rivals Photoshop 4 and other apps that are just cool...

I've helped someone who converts old PCs into Linux boxes for people in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands...the same can happen with other poorer nations...

Best of all, these old throwaway computers have a new life without a byte of Microslop bits in them.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. Hey, I'm a Linux guy

For real. Love it. Dual-boot, but that's only cuz the wife is scared to hell of it.

That said, the notion that the Gimp rivals Photoshop is a bit much. Gimp's a great program, but it doesn't come near Photoshop.

[zulchzulu]

8. I beg to differ...

The most recent version of Gimp is about where Photoshop 4 is... it's got layers, channels, plugins...and it's free!!!