Microsoft Explores Pay-as-You-Go PC Scheme

by Jordan Yerman | December 30, 2008 at 10:38 am

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Microsoft is looking at potential business models for a pay-as-you-go pc, wherein the user would, instead of buying the operating system, would pay for usage of the OS' capabilities.

Microsoft's plan would instead monitor the machine to track things such as disk storage space, processor cores and memory used, then bill the user for what was consumed during a set period.

"A different business model may allow a more granular approach to hardware and software sales," Microsoft argued. "A computer may have individually metered hardware and software components that a user can select and activate based on current need. When the need is browsing, a low level of performance may be used, and when network-based interactive gaming is the need of the moment, the highest available performance may be made available to the user."

So, basically, Microsoft wouldn't be selling you an operating system... it would be renting you some OS capability.

I'm having trouble comprehending why a user would wnat something like this. What about support issues? It's not just a matter of opinion that the Windows environment is fraught wtih bugs and security holes, and Vista is straight-up broken. Also, at what point does the billing outstrip teh overall value of the OS (which, in itself, is disputable, for the reasons listed above)? When that threshold is met, the user is in effect punished for not just throwing the machine away... or switching operating systems.

A bundle of productivity applications, for example, might include word processing and spreadsheet software that could access two of three processor cores and a medium level of graphics performance for, say, $1 an hour.

A "gaming bundle," meanwhile, would make available all the PC's processor cores and 3-D graphics support for $1.25 an hour.

Of course, when the security module gets hacked (and, with Microsoft's security record, we're definitley talking "when" and not "if"), the OS would just be free. So maybe I should be in favor of this.

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