• silicon.com
• Technology
• Hardware

By Mark Graham, 25 June 2001 18:15

NEWS Energy group Powergen is offering desktops with internet access from home for £8 a month to all its 5,000 employees. Powergen is taking advantage of tax credits introduced in the last budget for companies looking to get their staff online. Firms are offered the tax break as long as the hardware value does not exceed £500 and the company retains ownership. Nick Baldwin, chief executive of Powergen, said the scheme will cost the company £2m, but believes by making his employees internet savvy at home, benefits will flow into how they deal with customers in the work environment. "The utilities business has not been that quick to take up the internet. This will give us the competitive edge," he said. He added that the company will not dictate what staff and their families could access on the internet. The laptops come from HP's Pavilion range. PeoplePC, which offers a variety of services from procurement of hardware and software to managing supply chains and distribution provides the service. It already counts Delta, Ford, Visa and Vivendi among its customers. Both Intel and Ford have had such similar schemes up and running in the UK for some time. Powergen became infamous amongst the online community last year following a security breach which left the debit card details of 7,000 customers lying unprotected on the utility's web server.