The $10 laptop is now available only in dreams !!

It was a claim that anyone with a reasonable amount of computing knowledge would have debunked under normal circumstances – a laptop for $10 or under Rs 500. You don’t even get a decent memory stick for that price, or even the cheapest of mobiles!The grand $10 laptop that was the Indian goverment’s only IT achievement claim so far has flopped miserably.Now the government has ordered 250,000 laptops from OLPC foundation. This is a HUGE egg in India’s face now . This is totallly dissapointing . See below what Rediff says about the issue .

The ‘$10, world’s cheapest laptop’, developed in India has been given a quiet burial with the government placing an order for 250,000 XO laptops from the Nicholas Negroponte-led One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation.The $10 ‘laptop’ had turned into a major bone of contention with the global IT industry and experts blasting the device that was earlier projected as a challenger to the $100 laptop of the OLPC project.Meanwhile, Satish Jha, OLPC India president and CEO, was quoted in the media as saying that the OLPC XO laptops “have been ordered for 1,500 schools (throughout the country) and the deliveries will begin in June.”

What is the story behind these $10 laptops ?

(Source :rediff)

The announcement was made by no less a person than Rameshwar Pal Agrawal, secretary, Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Also, the government has been talking of low-cost computing devices for quite some time now – the prices of which would be much lower than former Media Lab’s director Nicholas Negroponte’s $188 XO laptops which are part of the One Laptop Per Child global project. So, despite the disbelief and the ‘Oh Yeah(s)?’ on the Net, observers both in India and abroad keenly awaited the launch of the prototype in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. After all, nobody would want to risk pooh poohing a low-cost computing device which could effectively and eventually bridge the ‘digital divide’. However, when the contraption was finally launched, it fell extremely short on expectations – some called it nothing short of a joke, even ‘hoax’.

Was the criticism justified? Probably not, if one understands the context. A lot of work was put in by students of the Vellore Institute of Technology, scientists in Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, the IIT-Madras and the involvement of PSUs like Semiconductor Complex Ltd. The end product came with 2GB storage memory, Wi-Fi connectivity, ethernet port(s) and USB connectivity. But it did not have a screen. So if you wanted to display the data stored on it, you would need to attach a compatible output device using the USB ports. And the computing device called ‘Sakshat’ turned out to be 10 inches long and five inches wide and cost around $30. So it was still less than Rs 1,500.

Besides, the idea was noble. The Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Human Resource Development has earmarked around Rs 4,600 crore (Rs 46 billion) to promote the use of Information and Communication Technology in teaching and learning processes. Approximately 20,000 institutions of higher learning are expected to benefit from this. To achieve this objective, the government said it would support the development of low-cost and low-power consuming devices through field trials – one of these was ‘Sakshat’.

But, then, why call it a laptop? This is probably the main reason for so much confusion. IDC India Lead Analyst (P C Research) Sumanta Mukherjee, says: “Should it be possible to provide a notebook at a customer price of Rs 500, the final impact on the PC market will depend on the functionality. While affordability is a key driver to enhancing PC penetration, it certainly is not the only one – relevance of the product, cheap and reliable broadband in deep interiors will also make a difference.”

The success of a computing model, according to Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst, Gartner India, revolves around a friendly operating system and application-ready device. “If these requirements are not fulfilled, users graduate to higher models very fast,” he explains. Perhaps, he suggests, the nomenclature for such devices (referring to the Rs 500 laptop) should be changed.T here’s much merit in this line of thinking. When one pictures a ‘laptop’, it creates expectations of a minimum configuration and form factor. History is a good teacher (anyone remembers the Simputer which did not take-off in India?). Muddled thinking should not result in diluting a noble cause.But we still did it ! Hooray !!

Conclusion :

The simple people of India and a lot of deserving students and schools have been taken for a joy ride . Their expectations have been ditched royally . What they are getting is ten times costlier !! Sakshat has turned into just that Sak – Shat , need I say more ! This time we have done it ! What did these school students do ? They didn’t even ask for anything . We just told them a HUGE and gave them an early shock into into the world of dirty politics ! So much for inspiring the young and motivating them to run the country !!

See you in the next !

Bye !

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