AOL Europe has announced separate agreements with Intel and Fujitsu Siemens that will see the company offering discounted PCs as an enticement to subscribe to its ISP services. With Intel, an AOL spokesperson said, the company has entered a joint-marketing agreement that will add revenue to the pot for a pan-European PC discount scheme. This will kick-off this year via the agreement with Fujitsu Siemens, which providing a 500MHz Intel Pentium III and a 433MHz machine to new subscribers to AOL’s UK ISP service, Compuserve 2000.
AOL said no decision has been made about which suppliers will be used in other European markets, but a spokesperson said Fujitsu Siemens as Europe’s largest computer manufacturer, clearly has the capability. The Japanese/German joint venture will supply machines with built-in 56kbps modems, the Microsoft Works applications suite and the Compuserve 2000 client software. Subscribers will pay the full 999 pounds ($1,613) price for the machines via a credit card tele-sales line, and will then receive a 25% rebate credited to their account after the completion of the first month’s subscription to the 7.50 pounds per month service.
The offer is open until June 30 2000, or until stocks last, although AOL’s spokesman said we have plenty of supplies, and we don’t anticipate that anyone will be turned away.
The deal is another potentially important breakthrough for Fujitsu Siemens in its push to join the top three of Europe’s PC maker hierarchy, and eventually to wrest the number one spot from Compaq. Earlier this year the then still Fujitsu Ltd was chosen by British Telecom, the UK internet, to furnish midrange desktops for its own pay-by-instalment internet service sweetener (CI No 3,747).
