Virgin.net has won exclusive UK ISP rights for PeoplePC, the supplier of corporate PCs-for-the-workforce at home.

This could add a "further 30,000 Virgin.net customers in 2002", but of course, the figure is contingent on the uptake of PeoplePC's offers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. We are instead supplied with marketing waffle.

"We have selected Virgin.net as our ISP of choice going forward, because the company has similar brand values to ours (etc. etc. etc.)" Proper English next time, please.

In the UK, PeoplePC runs so-called employee connectivity programmes for Powergen and Countrywide Assurance, enabling customers to 'give' or to offer net-ready PCs at home at subsidised prices as a benefit. (But who really benefits when the employee is always contactable for work through email?). PeoplePC's biggest deal is with Vivendi Universal, which is dishing out PCs for the home to 90,000 employees worldwide. ®