Martha Lane Fox plans £98 PCs

The latest plan to help get the entire population of the UK online is to push out some cheap PCs for the masses.

Digital champion Martha Lane Fox reckons cost is one of the barriers preventing some nine million poorer families in the country from getting online.

Hence the deployment of cheap refurbished PCs by a company called Remploy. The Register reports that the machines will cost £98, will run Linux and come with a monitor and mouse (possibly a keyboard, too, we’d hope), along with telephone support.

Remploy, which is one of the UK’s leading providers of employment services and employment for those who “experience complex barriers to work”, reckons it will shift 8,000 machines this year. So it’s not going to be a quick process.

Still, no doubt there are plenty of folks who will appreciate these super-budget PCs.