Computing in India, or the disappearance of the $10 laptop
How many Web sites have to repeat a story before it finally, at long last, becomes the truth? Not enough, as Tim Conneally has learned, in this story about how far the omission of a zero can take a news story.
I wanted to wait until the hype of the "$10 laptop" died down before I dove into the subject, because it was such an appalling mixture of doe-eyed optimism and sloppy reporting, that I simply could not touch it without turning it into an indictment of journalism as a whole. Instead, we look at what $10 really will get you.
Last summer, India's minister of state for higher education, D. Purandeswari, spoke of a project in India that aspired to bring a $10 laptop to all students. Naturally, this story was swept up by the press with joy. However, two days after the announcement was made, the Indian government's Press Information Bureau changed the transcription to say, "To enable students make most out of the advanced technology; the Government also aims to provide 100 dollar laptops to students. Research in this direction is being already carried out at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras." (full text here) Apparently Minister Purandeswari had read a typo in her presentation.
And apparently the majority of the press missed that memo, because last week we heard a deluge of reports about the mythical $10 laptop's unveiling ceremony.
The catch was there were no specs, no photos, and apparently only one first-hand account upon which all reports were based. Personally, I was shocked that we were still hearing about it. We have scarcely seen the $10 dumbphone (though we have seen the free, government-subsidized one), so a laptop in that price range is just unfathomable. Even a week after the unveiling, we've only seen one blurry photo of something that looks more like a test build of a CherryPal PC than any kind of laptop. Furthermore, the device shown was reported to cost between $20-$30.
Intel would not go on record to discuss the purported $10 laptop, other than to mention that whatever project the Indian government is working on is focused on college-level learning institutions. Intel then reminded us that it has done four pilot tests of the Classmate PC in India, and local OEMs HCL and Wipro offer both clamshell and convertible Classmate units in India at present.
The chipmaker is working with Educomp, which also last week announced its move into the low-cost computing solution for "tier 3 cities and towns" across India. Tier 3 cities are classified as those with smaller populations and economies such as Hyderabad and Chennai.
Educomp is setting up what it calls "Vidya Prabhat Schools" in the north Indian cities Bazpur, Kashipur, Bahl Parav, and Gadarpur in Uttrakhand. These schools will use systems such as the Smartclass infrastructure and the MagiKeys software suite. They are expected to be open for admission for the 2009-2010 school year, and cost an average fee in the range of Rs. 700 per student per month.
Seven hundred rupees amounts to 14 US Dollars. Now we're getting real with what that much money can buy.