Deep joy

[Rik]

El Reg is reporting that MS are planning to charge us 'by the hour' for our use of computers.

Microsoft hopes to charge you for PC hardware and software in much the same way wireless carriers charge you for text messages.

As detailed in a patent application recently unveiled by the US Patent and Trademark Office, Redmond seeks exclusive rights to a "Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience." This would involve saddling PC users with a machine whose components can only be used if you fork over more cash.

Filed in July 2007, the would-be patent describes a computer with "individually metered hardware and software components that a user can select and activate based on current need." And each of these items would have a cost associated with it.

"Beyond simple activation, the user may be able to select a level of performance related to processor, memory, graphics power, etc. that is driven not by a lifetime maximum requirement, but rather by the need of the moment," Microsoft's shameless patent application continues.

"When the need is browsing, a low level of performance may be used and when network-based interactive gaming is the need of the moment, the highest available performance may be made available to the user."

For example, Redmond says, use of Microsoft Office might cost you a dollar an hour, whereas an hour of gaming might be $1.25. An hour of browsing? 80 cents.

With today's PC business model, Microsoft explains, manufacturers and resellers get "more or less a one chance at the consumer kind of mentality." Corporate "elasticity curves are based on the pressure to maximize profits on a one-time sale."

But with Redmond's pay-as-you-go model, manufacturers and resellers can tap your wallet around the clock until the end of time. "Because hardware yields and software duplication costs allow very low cost on the margin of increased performance, manufacturers and software developers may see an overall increase in revenues when their product is available to users on a per-access or subscription basis that reflects actual consumption," Redmond burbles.

That should boost the switch to Linux!

[JB]

Is it just me or is the world going bonkers?

[Rik]

It's not just you, JB.

[Philip]

Is it just me or is the world going bonkers?

not going...........it's gone 

[vitriol]

indeed

[kinmel]

Microsoft hold millions of nutty patents that never make it through to the real world, it is more about locking down ideas to prevent others from developing them.

and why would  the pirates be any less successful at breaking that payment model too.   If the system needs to send out data and get a reply, it is just too easy to divert the data elsewhere, generate a reply that satisfies MS and return that to your PC.      On Vista the fake server scam worked until better ways to circumvent it were developed.

[Rik]

Optimist.

[DarkStar]

I have already been playing with Linux using the Ubuntu 8.10 disc supplied with the Computer Active Linux magazine that came out before Christmas and like it but am finding it a bit of a learning curve. I have said for some while that when (if) I get another computer there will be nothing M$ / Windows on it at all, completely Linux and Open Source as far as possible.
The real problem may be that M$ will make it so that a Linux based OS and a Windows OS will not be able to communicate with each other unless you have a M$ dongle or something similar which you will of course have to pay for. Bearing in mind that a lot of businesses including I believe some Government departments have switched to Linux based OS we could be in for the mother of all cock ups
Then again perhaps it won't happen but I'm already short of breath so I won't be holding on to that

Ian

[Rik]

You think more like me than, Ian.

[kinmel]

We saw what happened last time MS tried to buck the market.  No matter what they claim Vista has not replaced XP.

Imagine designing, manufacturing and distributing all this hardware and software for the charge by the hour scheme.

The Chinese will keep building and selling on the old method and MS and it's MS only retailers will bleed cash as the world simply ignores them.

Remember the old saying What if they held a war and nobody came.

Microsoft might even have to announce redundancies, just like they have now because Vista has failed to sell.

There are millions of patents that cannot find a market.

[Rik]

Interesting point, Alan. If MS tried to do a Mac, they'd struggle I'm sure - the machines would be at a price no-one would pay.

[kinmel]

The software industry cannot even locked down the "pay once" model, imagine the effort that will go into breaking "Pay every day"

The hackers don't recognise the boundaries, Nintendo used a DVD format that they thought could not be read by PCs. Yet within 2months of the Wii being sold, it was discovered that a certain batch of  PC DVD readers made by LG in 1995/6 could read them.  The hackers could now copy any Wii title they wished and the pirates went on to develop the Wii chip addons.

[Rik]

War by any other means...

[kinmel]

War by any other means...

Absolutely and it is a huge industry too

[Rik]

I think I'm going to go back to knapping flints.

[kinmel]

I think I'm going to go back to knapping flints.

No Market, Rik   

[Rik]

There might be soon, alternatively, I will create one - Steve Jobbs has done that pretty well.