Perhaps you've heard of Free-PC.com, the firm that's giving away computers to anyone willing to wade through a pile of targeted advertising. But you probably haven't heard of PC Free.
Former Nashville songwriter David Booth hopes to change that. The 43-year-old CEO of the Antrim, New Hampshire-based PC Free is singing the praises of a new service he hopes will woo the vast masses of Americans not yet online and shake up the whole computer industry in the process.
"What we are doing is challenging the existing paradigm in our industry," Booth said. "No, not challenging -- breaking."
What he's selling is Internet access, complete with a fully rigged PC, color printer, and software, for US$40 a month. Sick of the service after two months? Cancel at any time. This is not lease to own.
"We anticipate a tremendous response," said Booth. "There are 38 million homes in the US without Net access. We aim to get half."
Booth's basic business theory is simple. Computers and Net access are becoming a ubiquitous utility, like cable television or cell phones. You don't pay separately for a cable set-top box, so why should you pay for a computer? All the widgets should come with a simple service fee.
It remains to be seen whether computerless consumers will willingly pay out an extra 20 bucks a month to get both Net access and the PC to use it. Booth believes they will.
In late January, PC Free launched what he called a "tremendously successful" pilot program in southern New Hampshire and aims for a full rollout in Boston in March. The company is currently working in tandem with Metro 2000, a New Hampshire-based ISP. As the subscription base grows, Booth plans to supplement income by charging for ad space or selling goods on the computers' locked-in default homepage.
"The plan seems feasible," said Schelley Olhava, a consumer-PC analyst at IDC Research.
Pundits have long speculated that ISPs would eventually give away computers as part of a service offering, much the way cell phone companies give away phones. In the last few months, computer prices have finally dropped low enough to make the business model click.
"The whole industry is really talking about this model quite a bit," said Olhava. "The buzz is definitely there."
Booth isn't the only one betting early on the buzz. Another New Hampshire firm, an ISP called Empire.Net, just rolled out its own combination PC-Net-access offering. And it's only a matter of time before the big boys get into the game.
"By the end of the year, we'll be seeing similar programs from the major computer vendors and the major ISPs," said Olhava.
So how can tiny PC Free, with just five full-time employees, hope to compete? Analysts said it could be awfully rough going. But Booth said the competition is already behind the curve.
"We will get everybody first. Maybe we're not the smartest people in the world, but we're the people that have spent the longest on this."
