[ Thanks to Rajiv
for this link. ]
“When we have free computers in every room, will alternative
operating systems like Linux, Be and Amiga rule the world?”
“It’s not a PC; it’s a ‘Personal Internet Appliance.’ It doesn’t
run Microsoft Windows — matter of fact, it doesn’t run Microsoft
anything. And it will cost about as much as a nice television set,
if your ‘free PC’ costs you anything at all.”
“Much ado has been made about the free-PC movement, which
promises, with Hoover-like grandiosity, to put a computer in every
home at bargain-basement prices. Since February, more than a dozen
deals have been announced — from national chains like Circuit City
and unknowns like Enchilada — that offer up white-box or
brand-name computers for nominal fees, or free, in exchange for a
subscription to an Internet access service. More than 1 million
people have already signed up for computers from Free-PC, 250,000
went for a FreeMac — and that’s just the beginning. The popularity
of free PCs is galvanizing the computer industry to ponder a near
future when computers could literally be as ubiquitous as household
appliances.”