kaputnik 0 Report post Posted October 14, 2005 Rally an amazing development. HCL Infosystems, an indian firm has woken up to the fact that there are 1.02 billion people living in India alone. So what do they figure - computers in India cost anywhere from $1000 onwards and people in India (the general middle class - the major chunk of the buying populace earn between $200 to $300 a month. So it becomes a severely ponderable task for anyone to go out to the market and just pick up a PC, since it would involve months of saving and sacrificing other requirements. Agreed that, while the standard of living in india is dramatically low, the cost of living is pretty low too. For instance, I remember getting through my college days on about $70 a month which included my food, rent and petrol, with enough pocket money to teat myself to a movie or other goodies every now and then. But buying a computer is like making a major decision and an effort to actually go about saving cash, for the majority of Indians. But bringing the price of a computer down to the average one month salary of the masses of middle class India is a move in the right direction. On the economic front too it makes a lot of sence for HCL and AMD to bring about a PC, ready to go for $130. Even if thay make marginal profits on the units, the sheer numbers of units thay will sell will surely cover up for any shortcomings. Also there will be no real need to advertize very strongly, since the whole of India is extremely well networked. And, as soon as the first person purchases a unit, his/her whole neighborhood will know about it, and word will spread like wildfire. In India, we're all suckers for a good deal. In fact I think I may just invest in another computer, just to try out and improve on my Linux skills (since the new units will be sold with Linux as default OS).Another big boost will be to the education sector, where children (again we're talking about the masses) do not have access to computing or the internet. This will really assist in bringing the country about on the education front, not to mention the exposure it will bring to the young about world views, which will ultimately result in more broadened mindsets.More information on the launch along with the configuration of the basic models is available here. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
organicbmx 0 Report post Posted October 14, 2005 Interesting - just wondering if you think that people will spend the extra £16 to get windows or will they opt for linux? Interesting how many 'third world' [whatever that is surposed to mean!] countries are going toward linux because of the price difference. Could this change the dynamics of computing and computing retailers attitudes, becasue the markets of africa, india, china? are much bigger than europe or north america. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jguy101 0 Report post Posted October 15, 2005 Hey, this is nice! Kinda like MIT's $100 laptop...except the MIT laptop would be free for the popel who got them, and it's really be only for kids. I'm reading the specs now, and that is not bad for the basic system! I mean, 1.6GHz, 40 gig hard drive, 128 megs of RAM...very nice. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
