Forget $500 PCs: How About Free Ones?

Gary W. Tripp

Those $500 network PCs may be a bit overpriced. While industry leaders from such companies as Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft debate the merits of networking-centric computers (aka Web PCs) that sell for $500 or less, others are creating products and services that assume widespread availability of ubiquitous "free" PCs. Of course, these PCs won't really be free. A new service-based approach to computing, similar to that of cellular telephones, provides a computer for free as part of a service contract. Instead of paying for the cost of the PC up front, you receive your computer when you sign up for a service (e.g., Internet access or cable PC). Proponents say such a solution is cost-effective and easy to evolve.

The technology to make this happen alr eady exists. WorldGate Communications (Trevose, PA) has demonstrated a device it calls TV On-Line (TVOL), which displays Web pages that are specially formatted for TV viewing by a cable company's server at the head end. With TVOL, you can launch to uniform resource locators (URLs) displayed on a TV commercial, send and receive Internet e-mail, participate in ne wsgroups, and join chat rooms. Subscribers don't pay for the devices. They just subscribe to the TVOL service for about $5 a month, and they get the hardware automatically, plus 5 free hours of access.

Even free notebooks may be possible in the future. Imagine a device, smaller than a laptop, that when unfolded is 8 by 11 inches, half of it a color display, half a keyboard, and that through the miracle of radio frequency cells connects you to the Internet from anywhere. Although such a notebook isn't available today, the wireless aspect is, at least in certain parts of the country. Metricom (Los Gatos, CA) has ins talled a wireless network that allows connection to the Internet from anywhere in the San Francisco Bay area over a 28.8-Kbps modem. Metricom is also operating in Seattle and Washington, D.C. Don Wood, executive vice president of Metricom, says that it is solving the low-cost wireless access problem (connect rates start at $29.95 a month, $40 with a modem). Says Wood, "If there were a less expensive portable device available, the market for these wireless services would be a much larger segment of the population."

Malcolm Bird, chief executive of Acorn's Network Computing Division (Cambridge, U.K.), questions how many features consumers are willing to sacrifice in exchange for a low-cost mobile device given today's LCD screens and other notebook components. He says such a mobile unit may be viable in the future. "But I think the real solution may be that network computers become so ubiquitous that wherever you turn, there is a network access device." Whether it's a notebook or a PC, your free network c omputer will not hold personal data; instead, it points you to storage where your personal information is kept secure.

Companies such as SureFind ( http://www.surefind.com ), XactLabs ( http://www.xactlabs.com ), and Connected ( http://www.connected.com ) have provided the technology for private secure data storage on the Internet. Unlike with your hard drive today, you won't worry about losing your data or running out of space with these storage services, because your data is stored in at least two secure mirrored sites that provide unlimited space and tools to help manage your data. When you need printed output, copy shops like Kinkos will offer low-cost local printing services. From any public PC phone, a friend's PC, or a free PC that you just picked up at the store, you will compute without worrying about losing your data or running out of storage space.