inluminent

I’ve had an Earthlink account since I bought my iMac in August 1998. I signed up for that account for two reasons: 1) I was new to the dialup internet (having been a college student for the majority of the time before that, I didn’t need a dialup account) and 2) It was so easy to do using the script that Apple installed for me on my desktop.

I haven’t cancelled that account, even though I now have high-speed DSL at home, as it allows me the flexibility (for low cost/high quality service) to dial up from anywhere in the country, should I ever be on the road. I probably won’t ever cancel that account, unless the monthly fees become stupid, or free WiFi access becomes more entrenched (and I mean it’s available in rural America by that statement.)

So, when I read that Earthlink is now bundling their startup kit with every new Lindows PC being sold, I thought to myself that they’ve just won a major marketing coup. First of all, MSN will probably never run on Lindows without some customization to the software, and second Microsoft will probably break the access protocols for Lindows OS users, if someone invests the time to get MSN working well on Lindows (no, I don’t mean just plain vanilla MSN dialup service, but rather the AOL like MSN environment that comes with their package).

This might just be a good shot in the arm for Earthlink, though, something tells me their support call volume will go up considerably for a while, as the typical Lindows OS customer is very new to the computer world… and the $199 price tag at Walmart for one of these boxes is a very low barrier to entry.