Posted on 03/16/2006 7:43:46 AM PST by ShadowAce
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday mocked a $100 laptop computer for developing countries being developed with the backing of rival Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The $100 laptop project seeks to provide inexpensive computers to people in developing countries. The computers lack many features found on a typical personal computer, such as a hard disk and software.
"The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen," Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington.
"Hardware is a small part of the cost" of providing computing capabilities, he said, adding that the big costs come from network connectivity, applications and support.
Before his critique, Gates showed off a new "ultra-mobile computer" which runs Microsoft Windows on a seven-inch (17.78-centimeter) touch screen.
Those machines are expected to sell for between $599 and $999, Microsoft said at the product launch last week.
"If you are going to go have people share the computer, get a broadband connection and have somebody there who can help support the user, geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type," Gates said.
Gates described the computers as being for shared use, but the project goes under the name "One Laptop per Child." A representative for the project did not immediately reply to an inquiry seeking comment.
Earlier this year, Google founder Larry Page said his company is backing MIT's project. He showed a model of the machine that does use a crank as one source of power.
"The laptops ... will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data," according to the project's Web site.
I see no reason a computer cannot have a complete solid state memory of 10Gigs or so and still have full functionality. Not everyone needs all the MS bells and whistles.............
What's to like? The guy from Mass wants to put together this toy then get tax money from the US government to practically give them away overseas. Is it going to have a porn filter? Or just not even connect to the internet? Who knows, but our taxes need to go to helping our children, not those overseas who we are having to compete with more and more every single day.
There's working $100 laptops all over Ebay right now.
AFreakingMen
"...and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type," Gates said.
This, from the seller of "crap in a box." Money sure doesn't buy character.
I don't really like this laptop idea, but Gates doesn't get the idea much. These are designed to automatically work in an ad-hoc mesh network when in proximity, and quality applications are already available for free. About the only point he has is support, but then he's used to an OS that requires massive support.
IT labor costs are getting too expensive in India, so Google is trying to make the next "Bangalore Valley" in Africa.
The first step is to get kids comfortable with technology. The second step is to sponsor computer science classes in local universities. Last step is to build an IT "campus" in Ethopia that employs graduates of said courses and can then become the outsource destination of the West's IT functions.
Yeah, I'm sure people who are busy dodging genocide have time to surf the net.
Yeah, I'm sure that people who can't seem to understand that when you live in a desert, there's bound to be drought, are smart enough to set up a nice little ethernet-backbone network for millions, free of charge.
Yeah, I'm certain that folks who eat the undigested seeds from an elephant's dung will be able to produce the infrastructure (electrical power, phone service, schools, etc) required to churn out top-notch software designers and electrical enggineers like yesterday, because they have a $100 laptop.
Yeah, I'm sure that some kid dying of malaria right now will have his lkife revolutionized because he can get e-mail, spam, internet porn, and a bright, shiny, neon advertizement screaming that he's won a free iPod, for the 13th time today.
Yeah, I'm positive that AOL will extend special "Third-world pis*pot rates" to sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia.
Yeah, I'm almost certain that Google will be avaialble in any one of 123 obscure dialects of Bantu any day now.
You know, I long to see the day when instead of hunting antelope, swatting flies all day or producing more unsupportable children, or whatever it is they do, the impoverished of the world are now devoting their time to writing blogs.
Yeah, I'm positive that bringing computers and the inexpensive computer and internet, to people who have barely digested the technology of the wheel, will vastly improve their lot in life.
I'm absolutely certain that repressive African and Asian governments will eagerly accept, and fairly distribute, these cheap PC's to everyone on the continent(s), and that such distribution will not be influenced by cultural, religious, racial or political motives, and positive that the UN can make sure it's all done on the up and up.
More power to them, but this project is doomed to failure. They mighjt actually succeed in creating the hardware, but the software, infrastructure, content and distribution are all open questions.
You're kidding, right?
This, from the seller of "crap in a box." Money sure doesn't buy character.
Yep. $400 is a huge price differential for most of the world's population. Hell, $100 for a computer is too much for most of the world's population.
Re: Yo-yo, to a certain extent, he is. I've been in IT for 20 years and what I'm hearing vis-a-vis outsourcing is that the Indian well is running dry because of climbing wages (not to mention security and service issues).
I mean take away CD/DVD/RW for plain CD ROM, one USB port instead of 2, A plain old cheap external mouse instead of the touch pads, and a lot of the OS isn't necessary. The BIOS and OS could be merged into one solid memory ROM where it is bulletproof from viruses............It is possible Mr. Gates.....
A $100 laptop is one thing. How will these customers afford phone tech support at $ 69/hour? How many will HAVE phones?
Thanks for the heads up. As I just replied to Yo-yo, I can understand how rising wages might make India less attractive - heck, even China is allegedly running out of people willing to work for almost nothing - but surely there are better places than Ethiopia to look for the next generation of computer programmers?
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