I mean yes, you cannot rent the usage of Microsoft Office (and i might think neither Windows) to third parties (let’s call them users) legally on your own (there might be a special license or permit you can buy maybe), but, as with all things, this is exactly what happens on many internet cafes all over the world and “business centers”.

The legal alternative would be renting computer usage while using FOSS.

Yes, prices might vary (in some places it might be too much for most of the people, where $1 means the meals of one family for a day or an hour on such a place) but at least the revenue gets to be kept inside that country, region or town.

The model Microsoft has patented is really broad in approach (you might rent one or more applications, procesor cycles, et al) as it does not determine a particular scenario where this might be desirable:

First, if you get a PC with this, you would need the means to deploy the software into it, maybe the web? That’s expensive on top of the charges for computing time or power.

Second, if it is that you have to go to a center where there are computers that work under this model, as with gasoline, prices might vary from station to station, a lot.

Third, judging by the hourly pricing, for somebody who doesn’t have a PC, to be expected to know what to do with it in little time is ridiculous and most profiting.

Who will judge and enforce the combos for computing power, time and applications? Some Internet cafes are sometimes too slow for a reason.

When the Microsoft Windows + Microsoft Office combo is more expensive than a whole computer (one can get a computer around here for $150 but Windows costs $175 and Office 2007 BASIC costs $220) and when you don’t see them distributing $3 licenses to people in poor regions one starts to wonder if all this “good will” isn’t just for profit.

Two solutions to this would be:

a) Linux on lower specs PC’s that might or might not be subsidized. It’s free OS plus free apps.

b) A low power PC that runs something like Morphix Kiosk embedded with just Firefox, Flash and Java and maybe a button that leads to a configurable startpage with links to Online Apps, like say Picnik, Meebo, ThinkFree Office… or whatever. The money would be made if the Internet Connection charges were low enough so anybody could pay for it but high enough that in the volume the ISP gets some revenue as well. This might be even subsidized by donations or the State.

Pay as you go Software is not new, we had it in the past (there was a site where you could use a computer via browser-based-vnc-like and run openoffice for free but they would charge you for the hour if you wanted to use Microsoft Apps).