Two news items caught my attention in the news recently: RadioShack selling a $99 Netbook PC (which ultimately costs over $1,400 when you factor in the 2-year AT&T data contract), and Microsoft recently publishing a patent for a pay-as-you-go home PC.

The price of home computers has dropped significantly.  It’s now cheaper than ever to buy a home PC, and with most of the best applications on the web being free or advertisement driven, the only recurring cost is the monthly fee for an Internet connection (unless you’re using a free municipally-operated WiFi service or public hotspot).  It seems like market forces are attempting to drop it even lower, and Microsoft is looking at how to make that happen.

I’ve read lots of opinion articles and speculation before that Microsoft should consider making a "free" version of Windows that is entirely ad-driven, as a way to sway people from switching to alternate operating systems like Linux, or even beat Google to the punch assuming they ever enter the OS market.  The suggestion was that even businesses would consider switching to Vista if they knew that it was free.

Here’s one final rambling note: it seems a bit ironic how AdWare and SpyWare aren’t well tolerated practices for desktop applications, but it’s okay for sites like Facebook to have targeted ads.

Filed under: Cloud Computing, Consumer Web, Hardware, Mobile Web, Windows