At this year’s DigitalLife Exposition in New York City, the editors of PC Magazine demonstrated a cheap, but relatively robust, PC from eMachines. With a 300GB hard drive and Vista Home Premium, the T5234 also has a bargain price tag: $500. The thing is, the price of the hardware doesn’t account for half the system’s real price. When you add in the costs of even a basic suite of software and an Internet connection, owning a cheap PC can end up running you thousands of dollars. These additional costs—not the price of PCs—are the real source of the digital divide.

Sure, $500 will get you a decent system, and another $100 will get you a cheap LCD display. But don’t put that credit card away just yet. If you want to do something with that PC, you will need to keep on paying. If you want Word and Excel, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 will run you $149. Photo editing with Photoshop Elements costs another $99. Protecting your system from viruses with a suite like Norton 360 will set you back you another $50. And keep in mind that after a year your virus definitions will expire, and you will need to pay another $40 every year afterward to keep the definitions up to date.

Although there are still people out there using cheap dial-up connections, the Internet over dial-up is a fate that is just too cruel to consider-even the detainees in Guantánamo have DSL connections. Broadband service prices vary by speed, location, and technology, but a 1.5-Mbps downstream connection generally costs about $40 or so a month. That adds up to another $480 a year!

I am not even getting into the issues of media management, parental control, personal finance, backup, or digital audio tools. But even with this stripped-down selection of software, we have spent another $300. And all these costs are per computer! I have three systems in my tiny New York apartment, plus a few backup systems hidden in the closet. Throw in an Internet connection and the annual outlay for using the system climbs well past $500. And that is without considering the price of electricity, which can add another $10 or $15 a month.

Fortunately, the free software movement offers some relief. There are free-or very cheap-alternatives to almost all the above packages. Google Apps is great for basic office applications, but savvy users should check out Lotus Symphony. It is based on Open Office, but a lot easier to install and use. GIMP is a pretty good image editor; it’s not as robust as Photoshop Elements, but it is free. And although not as polished as Norton 360, AVG Antivirus and Comodo Personal Firewall will do a good job of keeping your system safe and secure, and won’t bill you a dime for the privilege.

Heck, if you really want to avoid the high-priced Windows world entirely, you can download Ubuntu Linux, but I just don’t think that’s a practical choice for most users.

That isn’t to say that free software is always convenient. A few issues back, I explained the lengths to which I went to rejuvenate my stepson’s PC and purge it of spyware by using a collection of free applications and some basic utilities. Many readers wrote and suggested that, given the time I spent, it would have been cheaper if I had simply installed Norton. Point taken. Norton 360 is currently installed and running beautifully. The average user, however, doesn’t have access to a lab filled with software ready for testing.

One thing that works to the user’s advantage is Microsoft’s long-standing strategy to expand the functionality of Windows. Say what you will about monopolies; having a browser, audio player, video player, DVD burner, and firewall all built into your OS does save you money. After all, no one complains about unfair trade practices when Apple bundles iLife with every new iMac.

Soon Microsoft will be taking the same approach to Office applications. Although Microsoft Works 9 will still be sold at
retail for about $40, the company will also release Works
9 SE, a free version that will be distributed by OEMs. Like
a lot of freeware, it will deliver ads to users’ desktops, but
it will also ensure that every user can have basic access to a word processor, database, spreadsheet, calendar, and task launcher.

Businesses small and large have been wrestling with
total-cost-of-ownership issues for years, but consumers
rarely pay as much attention to all the hidden costs, and too many find themselves unable to make full use of their bargain PCs. If we want to close the digital divide, this is where
we must lower the barriers. Otherwise, PCs are going to
stay a lot more expensive than their price tags show.