At its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 2006 (WinHEC) gathering today, Microsoft announced FlexGo, a program aimed to lower financial barriers to owning a PC in emerging markets by letting users pay for use of the machine over time, either through subscription plans or pre-paid cards.
“Today there are already more than 1 billion prepaid mobile phones used around the world, so we know FlexGo enables a familiar and comfortable pay-as-you-go model that works for people with variable or unpredictable income,” said Will Poole, senior vice president of the Market Expansion Group at Microsoft. “Offering unprecedented flexibility of PC ownership will bring high-quality personal computers within the reach of hundreds of millions of families and small businesses in emerging markets so they too can enjoy the many benefits PCs bring in education, entertainment, communication and productivity.”
