Free PCS

[James]

http://www.metronomy.com/

Interesting to see if this business model works ....

I notice they have stopped taking new orders due to demand.

[Tom]

It puts me in mind of two things:

1) there was a company which tried to give away free PCs in return for an ISP dial-up contract. This did not work.

2) I believe that in Japan all mobile phones are given away in return for a contract. This makes sense and their mobile market is much better than ours.

I think giving away PCs, cheap though they may be now, would work much better on the Japanese mobile model - so I predict failure for the Metronomy scheme.

[David]

I guess their target audience is people who don't have or can't afford a PC. Personally, I would find 1min of advertising on my PC screen every 20mins extremely annoying. I suppose you could argue that it's no different than commercial TV but that would only apply to those who use a PC for pleasure rather than for work.

I just can't see this working, especially as PC prices continue to drop.