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How can this be? Simple: pick a distribution and stick to it. Let's for the sake of argument say, you choose both Ubuntu. Then introduce the user to the following media options: Ogg Vorbis, Flash, and Ogg Theroa. Two open and one closed option - all undeniably legal in the U.S. If the kids insist on using their iPods with iTunes, this is nothing that Parallels cannot resolve on both fronts. And eventually, introduce to the Ubuntu compatible iAudio7.

As for any other hardware issues: For notebooks, use System76.com. If building your own systems for clients, remember to avoid ATI cards and always test the hardware before demonstrating the new system to the client. Printers and scanners, go with HP printers and their all-in-one options.

Payment and costs to the client - sustaining your business model

Perhaps the biggest myth out there is that you cannot make money from open source, and you are certainly not going to find people interested in using Linux as an alternative to Windows. Guess what, this has been proven untrue thanks to a number of open source consultants out there.

Profiting from such an endeavor, is not all that difficult either. First is the cost to the customer. Obviously setup and hardware changes need to be per incident as far as cost goes. And that is fine, but let's offer to plug them into something passive with regard to a payment to you. For the common household, you provide a cron job (define) backup to an external hard drive weekly, come in every two months to run updates, physically clean the PC and "be on call" with a call-back system should questions arise over the phone. Sounds like a gamble with your time? It's actually not.

The cron job handles the backups while you can verify them in your bi-monthly visit to run the updates -- love to see Microsoft offer this with Vista's latest service pack. You would then charge your client a monthly rate on a sliding scale depending on what you felt was reasonable. And again remember, by and large this is passive income. Hardware issues are really the only things that are going to toss you out of this schedule, and that is a per incident charge.

So let's say that you charged home users a subscription fee of $X for a bi-monthly visit. Depending on the rate, it can be seen as quite reasonable to the client, and in reality, you will rarely spend more than a an hour updating their machine while cleaning it. Now let's say that you have managed to gain roughly 50 ongoing clients over time. This may sound difficult, but when offering something of real value, it's not.

Then you have the business side of things. Verifying data backup, cleaning one-to-three machines (additional PCs at an extra charge) and being available for tech support over the phone if needed via a call-back. Charge the hypothetical amount of $X for bi-monthly service. And we'll say you have about 15 business clients.

Consider this - 95 percent of the users out there are not going to call you with PC issues. It's just not going to happen and with a locked down, properly configured Linux machine. Now I want you to think like an insurance company for a moment. How in the world do they insure everyone without going bankrupt? Simple, they know the majority of their users will only have minor issues while only a very few will have anything serious.

And then we have the frustrated Windows user who sees you every two or three months, dealing with the latest crisis. He is going to see the note you keep stapling to their receipt about this "Linux" option. It won't take a rocket scientist to eventually inquire about this option.

Some things to consider

1. Has this type of business been successful? Yes, just not on a national scale of any kind.

2. What about hardware costs and connectivity issues? These remain separate and reflect the normal hourly rate that an IT person might charge.

3. It seems dishonest to charge someone for simply running a cron-job, cleaning their PC, and running updates for them. Really? Seems to me like they are actually getting a great deal considering what you are doing for them and the hassle they are able to avoid thanks to your efforts.

I am not saying this concept is without its flaws, but it does show how one can indeed redefine the Geek Squad model with something a little more reasonable for the customer.

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