5 years ago... Ford offers staff '$5 per month' PCs

2/4/2000: Ford Motor Company is offering all its US employees the chance to own a PC with internet access and a colour printer for a nominal fee of $5 per month.

According to chairman Bill Ford, the three-year scheme will help get employees to surf the net so they can check up on competitors and learn the skills needed to assist in the company well into the 21st century. The project is being coordinated by US-based PeoplePC, with computers and printers from HP and web access from UUNet. The offer, open to US employees first, will be rolled out worldwide within 12 months.

2/4/2005: Schemes to offer employees cheap PCs, while often well-intentioned, don't have the best track record to show for their efforts and this one was no different.

Ford got even more excited about it and extended it to another 250,000 staff in its US dealerships before cancelling the programme in October 2002. PeoplePC was then acquired by Earthlink for $10.5m, with Ford selling its 9.5 million share-holding in the company.

More recently, the UK government tried to kick-start a similar initiative, which has suffered from slow take-up since it was launched in 1999.

The government issued new guidelines for its Home Computing Initiative (HCI), which involves UK employers giving their staff new PCs, with the staff paying a small amount back each month out of their wages.

Bosses get tax exemptions and it's supposed to be an all-round win-win situation but take-up of the scheme is still patchy despite successful use of it by high-profile employers such as the Royal Mail.