MAYBE YOU ALL ALREADY KNEW THIS... but I just discovered that Walmart.com is selling new PCs for $200. Two new PCs, actually: the Microtel SYSMAR417 with a Lycoris (Linux) OS on it, and the Microtel SYSMAR550 with no OS loaded. They're both Duron 1.2s with modest hard drives (20 gig), no modem and no floppy... but shit, it's $200!

(Don't go to your WalMart store looking for these systems -- they're available on-line only.)

Microtel is a California company and seems to do actual assembly there, though I'm sure they buy their boards from Asia. Lycoris is a Linux distribution from a fairly new company in Redmond, WA of all places (maybe that's why its front page looks so much like Windows XP.) Both companies seem to be looking for other resellers.

Now I'm sure that there's a market to be made in NE Ohio -- heck, in my neighborhood! -- for a sub-$250 new PC with a user-friendly Linux system. Is some Cleveland entrepreneur already checking this out? Is anyone out there trying to figure out how Microtel does it? How about the guys from the Open Source Society?

Or is this one more piece of northeast Ohio's consumer market that WalMart wll get to keep all to itself?