Demand for sub £100 PC?

[Skree]

I just bought a Samsung R20 laptop a few months ago for £450, brand new, 2 yr warranty, vista, 2gb ram, c2d etc

I see the purple shirted fools selling toshiba laptops, albeit a bit carp for £299. Been a while since i looked at the uber budget desktop market but £300 seems about right for a full system.

This laptop of mine is pretty excellent. It came with windows vista and a lot of other software which i can use nice and easily. It plays most of the games i'm likely to buy, i can go on any website and download nice freeware programs to use for it. It's a damn good pc, and although i paid for mine outright, you can get credit just about anywhere these days.

People would look at your £99 pc and the older ones would think back to early macs. Everyone would think "why so cheap" then they'd ask a computery friend about linux, who (knowing how useless anyone who'd buy a £99 pc is) would tell them to forget it as nothing windows works for it. They'd see it's cheapness, even stacked up against the cheapest crap you see in pc shops now, and walk away. You might have a point with PC's that come with all the software they'll ever need included, but it still wouldnt be interoptable with windows. It sucks, but bill gates has nontechnical people by the dongles.

anyone who would be interested in a linux based pc would NEVER buy a PC which cost £99 new. They might build a pc out of cleverly sourced parts for that amount - i've built a base unit out of 2nd hand parts for £16 back in the day. Anyone who would be interested in a £99 pc would be scared off it by A: the cheapness, and B: Linux OS.

If you offer it with optional cost extra windows, it isnt a £99 pc anymore. PC's that plug into TVs are a good idea but it's already been done. The only way you could sell £99 PC's is to sell "refurbished" pcs. End of.

 

[Bes]

I think there is a market potentially.

However, I personally think you should use the £99 as a gimmick or a 'hook' to get the customer's attention, and then push a monitor/ keyboard/ mouse pack at them as an option for an extra £50 (£149). Quite often (In my experience) people will happily add 'bolt-ons' "Oh it's only an extra £10 here, there kind of thing.

As a side, I believe there are other office distros which offer better compatability with MS Office. I also think Ubuntu (with a freindly skin and a nice 4-page A4 colour booklet explaining how to use Firefox, Office Apps, Thunderbird, etc) is also a viable alternative.

I do think however, Dell will come along and hammer you if you ever start making money from this.

I am not going to say it will be a rip-roaring success, but I think there is some potential here & I'll leave you with a thought:

Would you ask a bunch of obese or stick- like characters for advice on how to become Mr Universe?

Of course not.

So to draw an analogy, would you ask for business advice from a bunch of people who collectively have virtually no experience of running a business or selling directly to the markets you are attacking on whether a business idea would work?

 

[Syph]

I've only just noticed this thread, so forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but why not just stick an advert in some shop windows of this £99 machine and see if you get any interest?