Two visions for delivering PCs to emerging nations
616579
One Laptop Per Child and Intel take competing approaches to manufacturing, pricing PCs--and it's not yet clear which will prevail.
127123
Safend, an international provider of endpoint i
681065
A Chinese PC maker has introduced a low-cost PC designed for users in rural China.
748249
Company's $185 machine will debut in India, Mexico and Caribbean and feature browser, e-mail and word processor.
742349
Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c50453)  has announced the addition of "Computer  Hardware in Brazil" to their offering.
497645
SAN FRANCISCO Today the idea of building a custom-designed workstation computer in Silicon Valley seems quaint. In both engineering and scientific markets, inexpensive off-the-shelf systems, coupled with the
218159
(InfoWorld) - Intel Corp. wants to see its low-cost Classmate PC help transform they way students in developing countries are educated. And the company is not alone. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project also hopes its low-cost XO laptop can close the "digital divide" that exists between the developed world and emerging markets. Much has been made of these two efforts, which are often painted as rivals by the media and observers. Sean Maloney, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel's sales and marketing group, recently spoke with IDG News Service about the Classmate PC and the challenges Intel hopes to address with the device. What follows is an edited transcript of that interview. IDG News Service: Is there room for both the Classmate PC and OLPC as efforts to close the digital divide in emerging markets? Sean Maloney: I've spent a good deal of my life traveling around emerging markets and the first thing I want to say is that it's a truly humongous problem. It's an enormous, enormous problem you're talking about. No one company is going to solve this, whether it's us or the OLPC guys, or Asustek, or HP. And no one single approach is going to tackle the issue either. It's very diverse what people want. Even if you pick one country, say India, you're not going to get the state governments having the same opinions on how this should be handled. It's a perfect problem that a Taiwanese economy of scale could tackle. What Taiwan has always done in the past -- with stunning success -- is drive down costs for standardization and mass manufacturing. IDGNS: And standardization helps keep costs low... Maloney: Yeah, if they're standardized it makes field repair easier and logistics easier and distribution chains easier and all that stuff. It's not just about the device. It's also about the education software that goes on it, the role of the teacher in the class, and then someone has to maintain the thing locally. Many of these countries actually want to assemble it and someone has to do the integration, and all of that. It's a broader issue than just the device, regardless of whether it's an Asustek device, or a Classmate PC, or an OLPC. IDGNS: Apart from education, will these low-cost computers help to increase PC penetration in developing countries? Maloney: To be determined. I've spent a lot of time in the last year in emerging markets and the striking thing is how many mid-range and high-end notebooks are being sold. If you go to Egypt or Turkey or Ukraine or Poland or Czech Republic or Brazil or Argentina, you're seeing shopping malls everywhere converting over to selling notebooks. You could see it in China a year ago, where you go into shopping malls that used to sell desktops and now they're full of notebooks. You see the same thing all across India. It is amazing how many mainstream, made in Taiwan or made in China, notebooks are sold in emerging markets. People have the same aspirations and brand aspirations. You can't patronize people and say we get the big one with the 14-inch color screen and you get the little one, that's not going to work. My view is that these things, like Classmate PC, are much better targeted at kids, with a much smaller screen, smaller keyboard. IDGNS: Is the aim to give the students in developing countries basic PC skills, or is computer access the key to something larger? Maloney: It's about the Web more than anything. I have young kids and it's almost obscene: my kids have access to it and there are 2 billion kids that don't. The disadvantage for someone who doesn't have access to the Web is overwhelming. Â
350871
It seems like a great idea: making a computer that's somewhere between the size of a cell phone and a laptop, for people to carry around and surf the Web.
113377
(InfoWorld) - The Kenyan government is launching a project to start assembling low-cost computers that will be sold to many African countries, according to officials. Lenovo Group, Sahara Computers, and Mecer PC have been appointed by the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) to assemble the first 150 computers in the Madaraka line by Feb. 7, according to Kenyan Ministry of Information and Communication Permanent Secretary Bitenge Ndemo. Ndemo spoke last week at a signing event to commemorate the project, which is being launched with initial funding of about $300,000. The first computers are acting as a proof of concept for the project and will be displayed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Conference center in Kenya. The PCs are expected to be priced at $450. The project will adhere to a manufacturing model pioneered in Taiwan, where enterprises will be encouraged to produce machines to guideline specifications with certifications given before export. University of Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, and Strathmore University will act as incubators of the project. Once the first 150 PCs are assembled by the three vendors, students at the universities will be trained to assemble them. "Basically, Sahara Computers will have to supply a full set of components to the three universities, and they will assemble the computers," said Sahara Computers Marketing Supervisor Peter Bremner. The computers will have an Intel Celeron 2.8GHz processor, 256MB of RAM, an 80GBe hard disk, and a 15-inch TFT screen, according to Bremner. The Kenyan government has already removed duties and value-added tax (VAT) on all imported computers and computer parts to encourage more Kenyans to embrace PC technology. The Kenyan Technical Training College (KTTC) will oversee the whole project, Ndemo said. The idea is that the universities will train people who would then be able to assemble the computers on a long-term basis. If all goes as planned, Kenya will become the first country in the eastern and southern Africa to set up a PC assembly plant.
432493
PC vendors will offer bargains to people living overseas, while U.S. consumers won't feel much of a pinch.
567503
Massively parallel processor to 'change the world', apparently
644365
A combined PC, telephone and television is being used in aid projects in India.
504189
THE modern PC is a marvel, isn&#39;t it? Here&#39;s a machine that lets an ordinary person with very little training create a new document, check its spelling, dress it up with graphics, send it electronically
133865
The computing technologies to go beyond Moore's Law
120438
Rural and deprived communities worldwide are benefiting from the increased availability of computers.
423500
Company is working on flexible display technologies.
163329
New report on offshoring's implications from the British Computer Society.