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Pah! Though this did remind us of the online laundry service...
By silicon.com
Published: 12 November 2003 16:45 GMT
12.11.98: PCs will become so cheap that companies will be giving them away, according to the creator of publication MacWeek Michael Tchong.
Speaking to the Streaming Media '98 conference in the US, Tchong explained that the desktop will be recognised as a primary marketing space for large corporates.
He said it will become a way to target advertisements to a specific audience and even went on to add that Coke or Pepsi could end up being sponsors of an office suite.
Jamie Snowdon, industry analyst at Input, said: "It will probably happen," but there will be "hidden costs". He compared it to buying "a digital TV for £200, when the real price is around £400".
Snowdon said the idea of having the best PC technology available for free within five years "is laughable". He added: "I can't see Intel giving their chips away for nothing."
12.11.03: And so the analyst turned out to be right. There are some very cheap PCs about but the market hasn't followed the mobile phone route. Not even monthly subscriptions for services such as broadband have seen the carrot of a very cheap or free PC.
This story is interesting because, for one thing, it's nice to follow up at the end of what at that time must have seemed the distant future but also because it brings home some of the optimism and uncertainty of business models during the bubble.
Upon hearing this forecast the silicon.com team were reminded of perhaps the ultimate dot-com pitch. A company in California set up as an online laundry service. Over the web, it would arrange the picking up and return of clothes.
That doesn't sound remarkable but here's the good bit - its model didn't involve charging for the service. Oh no, it would do it for free but it's database and CRM technology would be so strong it would allow others to cross-sell targeted products or simply be able to sell on detailed demographic and behavioural information.
It didn't survive, funnily enough.
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