A patent was published on December 25th that was filed by Microsoft, back in June 2007. As is usual with most issues relating to Microsoft, this publication has caused a lot of controversy, with one school of thought slating the patent as the most ridiculous, lame brained idea MS has come up with to date and can only spell the end for them. The other school hails them as visionaries and agree that although the concept will probably not work at this stage, Microsoft is looking far into the future to ensure their survival.

So what’s all the fuss about? The basic idea is to make a computer more affordable to people by cutting out the high end start-up costs associated with buying a new PC. The end user is supplied with a free or highly subsidized PC and pays for that portion of performance or time they actually use. Microsoft is quick to point out that the user may end up paying more for the PC than if they just bought it straight out, but argue that payments can be deferred and they get an extended use or life out of their PC.

The scalable PC will come with a user interface that allows for the unlocking of performance levels i.e. hardware components; as well as software and service options such as e-mail, word processing and the like. The more performance and applications a user needs, the more the individual will pay.

In a cloud computing environment this type of approach is ideal. Especially for businesses just starting up, that don’t require or can ill afford large servers or high end hardware, that will initially sit idle, while the business is in its infancy. Later as the business grows and develops they can increase their computing requirements and scale up very quickly if need be.

However, herein lays the biggest flaw to Microsoft’s proposal. The computer will have to be powerful enough to be fully scalable and cater to every user’s requirements. This means the PC will be expensive, as it will have to be built with high end components. In many instances these PC’s will never be used to their full potential and perfectly good hardware will idle away and eventually become obsolete. Somebody will have to pay for these expensive, intentionally crippled PC’s and that can only be the poor uninformed sap that buys into the scheme in the first place.

This proposal will probably also cut out almost the entire enthusiast market and most gamers. With the release of so many resource hungry games, even modest high end systems battle to keep up and going by Microsoft’s “you pay for what you use,” gamers may be forking out the most for their requirements.
History has shown that simplifying a users experience beyond a certain point has never worked. The use of terminals and network computers has proved to be no more effective or cheaper than the full PC’s they were supposed to replace.

What is also worth noting is that the concept Microsoft is purporting, is not new. In fact most Mobile Phone contracts work on a similar basis. Whether the patent is ever granted, remains to be seen. If it comes to fruition there will certainly be a lot of resistance to it both on a corporate and user front.

Is Microsoft filing this patent just to prevent anybody else from doing it, so they can continue to flog their software the same way they always have? Do they genuinely think this can work in the near future and are keen to roll it out? Or are they visionaries and know something about the future of computing that we don’t? Time will tell.