Microsoft's pay-as-you-go PC plan... patented

In Tuesday's IT Blogwatch, Richi Jennings watches bloggers watch Microsoft hatch plans for metered PC usage. Not to mention more old computer ads...

Gregg Keizer reports:

Microsoft Corp. last week applied for a patent that spells out a "pay as you go" concept under which users would be charged for both the software they run and the computing horsepower they use.

According to the patent application filed last week with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the "Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience" scheme would meter software use and access to specific computer hardware. Fees would be charged against a prepaid or billed account.
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Microsoft's plan would ... monitor the machine to track things such as disk storage space, processor cores and memory used, then bill the user for what was consumed during a set period ... Fees would be lower for low-performance chores, such as writing e-mail or surfing the Internet, and higher for high-performance tasks.

Jack "Neo" Purcher 'splains:

Microsoft may be experimenting with the idea of selling PCs in the same way as cellphones are currently sold, patent filings suggest. A recently-published patent application proposes selling "standard model" PCs at a significant discount, with the rest of the price being subsidized by an unspecified part of the supply chain. The real cost would be shifted into a usage contract, determining how long a person would have to use their machine.

Microsoft admits that a subscription PC would thus be more expensive than a regular one, but argues that the tradeoff would be a longer "useful life" made possible by access to cheaper high-end hardware.

Joel Hruska is downbeat:

Although the specifics of the approved application are somewhat different from the ad-supported "free" PC business models of the late 1990s and early 2000s, a consideration of the merits of the patent identifies many of the same potential problems ... Skip back ten years, and the idea of handing over a no-cost PC system was an idea that drew considerable interest from press and consumers alike ... In reality, the model proved unsustainable.
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Maybe I'm just too old-fashioned, but if there's an upside to this, it seems quite limited. This type of approach to computer billing might theoretically allow a company to directly tailor system capabilities to user needs, but it does so by requiring a huge amount of additional logistical complexity.
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This is a patent application, not an actual granted patent ... the USPTO now publishes all patent applications 18 months after first filing regardless of their status. At present, all 20 patent claims have been provisionally rejected (Microsoft has the opportunity to resolve/restate the claims and resubmit them).

Anthony Ha laughs: [You already did that joke -Ed.]

It’s not clear how seriously Microsoft is pursuing this plan; after all, this is just a patent application ... Still, it’s a compelling idea, if only because it’s a fundamentally different way of selling a computer.
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There are plenty of products, from video game consoles to cell phones, where the initial price is subsidized and companies make up the cost in fees later on. The software-as-a-service business model, where users pay as they go for software via online subscriptions, is working out well for Salesforce.com, despite the downturn.

Still, I’m less-than-thrilled about the prospect of getting billed every time I want to use my computer. That sounds like a recipe for frustration, especially since Microsoft acknowledges users are likely to pay more in the long run than if they just bought everything outright. In fact, that kind of pay-to-use model is exactly what Philip K. Dick skewered in the opening chapters of his novel Ubik, where the protagonist Joe Chip’s electronics constantly demand payment. Dick’s dystopian future probably isn’t a great model for consumer technology.

Donald Melanson recalls:

Apparently, the company is at least toying around with the idea of offering a computer with "scalable performance level components" and selectable software, which sounds somewhat similar to the "managed PC" that Microsoft developed with Korea's KT telecom a few years back. That would effectively let users only pay for the features that they used, with some added graphics performance or storage space simply a few bucks an hour away.
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To prevent folks from "unlocking" the PC, each computer would also come equipped with a security module and metering agent that locks the PC to a particular supplier, and presumably offers up a whole host of other restrictions. Of course, this is a Microsoft patent application and, as we've seen, that hardly assures an actual product.

And finally...

• What the Ad? - Executives So Cra-zay

Buffer overflow:

• Joseph Tartakoff: Microsoft's Ballmer helps fund Obama's inauguration
• Mitchell Ashley: Great Week To Reduce That IT To Do List
• Sean McGrath: Testing - the pain, the power, the money
• the storage anarchist: 1.035: enterprise flash drives get wired!
• John Timmer: How "smart" should a smart power grid be?

Other Computerworld bloggers:

• SJVN: We already had the year of the Linux desktop
• Dan Tynan: Was "Karl Rove's IT guru" murdered?
• Don Tennant: Destructive labels
• Douglas Schweitzer: The not-so “Great Aussie Firewall”
• Preston Gralla: A sneak peek at new Windows 7 beta 1 features
• Shark Tank: Just one more thing...
• Shark Bait: Day Planner Virus

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 23 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• Windows 7 beta blagged by BitTorrent bad boys
• State fights Diebold over e-voting security
• iPhone apps raise a giant stink (puerile content ahoy)