Bringing computing to India's masses
Published: 05 Jul 2005 13:40 BST
About 200 miles away in high-tech centre Chennai, formerly known as Madras, Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala of the Indian Institute of Technology has developed a $1,000 cash point that can also serve as an Internet kiosk for villages. He has also built a wireless data system that has been exported to Brazil, Iran, Fiji and Nigeria.
Creating a product that cuts costs without reducing functions isn't easy, as exemplified by the Simputer, a handheld computer designed for the masses. And many products face formidable logistical and infrastructural obstacles.
Professor Jitendra Shah, from the Centre for the Development of Advanced Computing, is examining ways to reduce usage of electricity from the grid by setting up solar-powered computing terminals that tap into battery-powered PCs acting as servers.
"We are looking at ways to take advantage of unconventional sources of power. Practically in every village you will find a truck or car battery that you can use when the regular power grid fails you," said Ketan Sampat, president of Intel India. "You also want to design something that is more tolerant of dust."
Living in a material world
The key to success for the $100 computer lies in the sum of its parts. Even though the industry has seen continuous price declines for components — including metal, plastic and other raw materials — many executives believe that manufacturing a full-fledged PC for even less than $200 is probably still impractical.
"We are not able to fix the monitor and hard-drive problem," said PR Lakshamanan, senior vice-president of Zenith Computers, one of India's largest local PC makers.
With these realities in mind, some companies are adjusting their price goals. Xenitis, for example, has come out with PCs that cost just under $250, equipped with an older 1GHz processor from Via Technologies, 128MB of memory, a 40GB hard drive, Linux software and a 15-inch screen.
Via will join in with its own Terra PC in the fall. The Terra comes with the same basic configuration as its Xenitis competitor, but the operating system and the basic applications are loaded on a flash memory chip, not the drive — making the computer less susceptible to viruses and other problems.
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