Free personal computers sounds like a deal too good to be true - but it is happening in the United States and could be less than a year away for New Zealand consumers.
Jon Barker, the general manager of local PC rental and leasing company easyPC, said he hopedto be able to make an offer in about six months.
He expected companies like his own would soon offer PCs to consumers in the same way free cellphones were available today. The PC user would sign up for a minimum-term Internet connection and pay for the online time.
In the United States this week, Free-PC announced it would offer customers a free Compaq personal computer, free Internet access and free e-mail - if they agreed to receive electronic advertising on their PC desktop.
The company's Internet site was swamped with requests to sign up for a trial involving 10,000 computers.
The concept is made possible by the ever-decreasing price of PCs and a boom in sales of goods and services via the Internet.
In New Zealand, other computer companies and direct marketers doubted whether the population was big enough to support such an e-commerce venture.
