Free-PC is dead! Long live the free PC

2000-02-03

Not every good idea stands a chance of working in these topsy turvy-technology days, as discovered US startup Free-PC. The company was bought last November by Emachines who put the final nails in the Free-PC coffin by relinquishing all rights and responsibilities to the computers that had been handed out as part of the “free” deal.

Why the Free-PC model failed is a matter of economics and timing. Economics because the company founit could not generate the advertising revenue it required to cover the costs of giving out hardware. Timing because, well… have you seen what is just around the corner?

Samsung have just announced a disposable PC, which is likely to be based around Intel’s “system-on-a-chip” codenamed Timna. The device will be completely sealed and will retail at around $200. That’s pretty cheap for a PC.

Historians may well determine that Apple was to blame. When the iMac was released onto an unsuspecting market, the punters rushed to purchase a computer which was self-contained and, above all, simple to use. The trend was followed quickly by PC suppliers such as Dell, Compaq and AST, all releasing non-user-serviceable computers in rapid succession. Once the trend was started, products such as the one announced by Samsung became inevitable.

In the here and now, it is worth taking the wider view into account. Samsung’s move signals the removal of the final barrier from public perceptions about the nature of the PC. It is a device, just like all the other devices which are coming to litter our lives – the mobile phones, PDAs, set-top boxes, games machines and the like. As such it will take the same characteristics; this change of status signals the death of the PC as we know it. Out with the expensive computer which requires frequent, complex administration; in with the affordable, low-maintenance device. As such the PC looks set to be treated as any other device: to be sold, low cost, bundled with other deals such as subscription services and software packages. In the UK the hardware is often given away with such bundles: for examples, the latest mobile phones may command a premium of £100 or so, but last year’s models are given away as a sweetener.

Free-PC may have had the right idea, but as so often with technology, they came to the market too early. Come Christmas next year, when Samsung’s disposable PCs hit the shelves, the time will be right for companies to take advantage of the free PC model. By then, the chances are we will have stopped thinking about the PC as “the mainframe in the dining room” and it will take its rightful place alongside the rest of the gadgetry.

(First published 3 February 2000)