Regarding the cheapPC frenzy MSFT will sell OS licenses. A natural path after that is to purchase the Office suite ... since these users have spent less $ on hardware they may be inclined to spend more on software ? Maffei is traditionally overly conservative and tends to overstate negative possibilities.
Time will tell.
/james
this is frigging ludicrous. If cheapstake Joe heard neighor Dave is making so much money doing day-trading from his PC at home, and cheapstake Joe has no idea how to use a computer. But he has heard so many wonderful things about the Internet, being the place to do business, meet people, find useful information, make money... So he decided to give it a try. He heard one of the promotions from Netzero.com about a free PC if you sign up with their ISP for three years. He happily signs up. He had a lot of fun surfing the WEB, until one day, Joe cheapstake Jr comes home, puts a floppy into the floppy drive and tries to open a MSFT Word document. Of course, the doc can't be opened. So Jr tells his dad: "Dad, I need Microsoft Word to write a report for my class." Cheapstake Joe wonders: "What the hell is Microsoft Word?" So he went to a software shop and found that MSFT office cost $299. Because his kid needs it, so he reluctantly wrote the check for it. He never used it himself and it was too complicated to learn anyways. Six months later, Joe Jr. came home and tried to open another WORD doc. He found that the doc can't be opened because it was created with an upgraded version of WORD. So he told his dad: "Dad, you need to get the Microsoft Office 97, the upgraded version." Joe found out that it cost an extra $99. Being the cheapstake he is, he says "F*&^ Microsoft, I ain't putting down $99 every six months to buy something I never use. F*&^ Bill Gates, he's already 100 billion man, and he still tries to screw an average computer user like me every 6 months. I don't need to give him any more money."
99% of the people who buy these cheap PC have wallets that are tighter than a virgin. If you screw them once and open them a bit, they will feel the pain and not let you screw them again. If they ain't spending money on hardware, it's hard for me to believe that they will open their wallet on software. Don't over-estimate the average Americans IQ on computer literacy, they ain't brighter than the Canadians. And don't screw the innocent virgins either. |
