<incom> Blue Screen of Debt

[Steve Cisler]

<Already the jokes are flying about MS's new cheap
computer for the poor>

>From siliconvalley.com...
Published: Monday May 22, 2006
BSOD in this case stands for Blue Screen of Debt
By JOHN PACZKOWSKI

Now we know why Microsoft was so dismissive of
Nicholas Negroponte's $100 laptop project (see "Hey,
Melinda, what do you call a crank on a computer?
Nicholas Negroponte.") The company's developedits  own
approach to selling computer hardware and software to
emerging markets. Dubbed Microsoft FlexGo, the
initiative lets people buy a PC at retail for about
half its usual cost, then pay off the balance via
hourly usage fees.  Designed to spread the penetration
of PCs in emerging markets, FlexGo lower the barrier
to PC ownership by allowing individuals to take home a
machine with a minimal upfront investment and then pay
off the balance  via pre-paid cards. Buy enough time
and you'll eventually own the machine outright; run
your pre-paid time out and the machine will stop
working until more time is purchased. It's an
interesting approach to emerging markets because it
accounts for unreliable incomes. If money is tight
during a particular month,  the machine simply shuts
down until more minutes are purchased. There's no
default. No one shows up at your door with a
repossession order. "One of the learnings that we've
had is that it's not just that families in emerging
markets have modest budgets," Mike Wickstrand,
director of product management in the market expansion
group at Microsoft told News.com. "It's the
irregularity and unpredictability of their income." Of
course, Microsoft's motives here are not entirely
altruistic. If it's successful, FlexGo will
undoubtedly curb software piracy a bit. And then
there's the money.  Some estimates put the number of
people worldwide who earn enough to buy PCs under the
initiative, but not enough to buy one on their own at
more than 1 billion.  Said Creative Strategies analyst
Tim Bajarin, "There's clearly a potential market for
something like this."

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