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A sponsored free PC?

Submitted by Dinesh on 15 November, 2005 - 15:32

The Hindu has an article on the possibility of a Subsidised/Free PC named "iT" making it into the Indian market. The idea behind this project is that these computers will be distributed for free but are supported by - for want of a better term - "Adware".

The keyboards that come with these PCs have a set of large and prominent keys that link to the services provided by various companies. These companies in turn pay large sums of money to be linked via these keys, thus offsetting the price of the computer.

The company behind this project is Asia Total, based out of Hong Kong. However, the actual manufacturers are Taiwan based Biostar.

It might also be worth noting that calling this a PC might be a slight misnomer. The (rather incomplete) specs are as follows:

  • 7 inch monitor with built in speakers.
  • No hard drive, but 40MB storage onboard.
  • 1 USB port.
  • 56k modem, which can apparently be changed.
  • Card reader.
  • Windows CE.
  • Keyboard and optical mouse.
  • 1 year warranty.

A UK based company named Metronomy [dead link atm], tried something similar last year.

Comments

The Metronomy project failed btw :P I'm sure these will "sell" like hot cakes, but I can't say that there is either enough bandwidth or decent content available atm to actually make this work as intended.

Nice story :)
-K