The £100 laptop

Experts are developing the latest, low-cost laptop aimed at rural China and other deprived areas in an aim to bring computers to everyone.

The majority of the world’s population, who are not online, live unsurprisingly in the world’s most populous country, China. Now the race is on to get this huge number of people using the internet, which would mean that China could overtake the USA in its number of online users by 2009. Therefore many of the big names in the IT world have announced their introduction of a low-price laptop which could be used by many of China’s rural citizens. Beijing-based IT company Lenovo, which owns IBM’s PC division, has recently announced that it will be launching a £99 computer that can plug into a TV and will include educational software. Approximately 60% of China’s 1.3 billion population live in rural areas, and according to the World Bank, 150 million exist on less than a £1 a day, so these cheap computers are much needed. This year Dell has also announced it will be developing a computer specifically for the rural market. Dell will offer the laptop in two configurations, with 40GB or 80GB hard drive, and the Windows XP operating system. Other heavyweights in the race are chip-maker Intel, which have joined with the world's largest maker of computer motherboards Asustek to produce a $200 (£100) laptop. This laptop which will be known as the Eee PC comes in the wake of Intel’s Classmate PC, which was also made with developing countries in mind.

Keen to also hop on the computers for the developing world bandwagon are Microsoft, who have said that they will offer a software package for as little as $3 (£1.50) in some developing countries, in a bid to double the number of computer users worldwide. The package will be made up of Windows XP Starter Edition and Microsoft Office Home, as well as other educational software and will be available to governments which provide free PCs for schools. Another initiative trying to bring computers to the world is the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. This project is creating the inexpensive, durable XO laptop, which is intended to work specifically in an educational context, and will eventually cost $100.

Source:

BBC News