NewsBytes: Comdex/Canada - Look For Free PCs, Maybe Running Linux

"Personal computers not only will get cheaper but will quite likely be given away free with other services, said speakers in a Comdex/Canada panel discussion today. Many of those PCs might run the Linux operating system, suggested Michael Cowpland, chairman and chief executive of Ottawa-based Corel Corp."

"Cowpland and other senior people in the Canadian computer industry offered their opinions on a handful of technology questions during a midday panel focused on 'Late-Breaking News.'"

"All agreed that free PCs - given away to facilitate consumer and business use of services such as Internet access - are very likely to proliferate in the next few years. 'This is inevitable,' said Dan Servos, president of 3Com Canada Co. in Toronto. And Chris Scatliff, vice- president for Canada and Latin America at UUNet, said the trend is the best evidence that the PC is becoming an appliance."

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