Another day, another low-cost PC from Intel

Can someone please tell Intel that enough is enough, already? Sure, it's important to respond to local needs. But it's really not necessary to roll out a new platform for every single country in the developing world. However, it might be too late, since it looks like Intel is intent to do exactly that. For the third time this week, the chip giant is touting a new PC platform, this time moving the action from India and Brazil to Mexico (where the new platform was introduced by CEO Paul Otellini, shown at the right in Argentina). The company's latest salvo in its challenge to the OLPC project is a small, low-powered box to be powered by Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft's "lite" version of Windows. The PC, to be built in partnership with the Mexican telecom company Telmex, will include a hard drive, USB and PS/2 ports, VGA and S-video output. (Intel and Telmex also announced an initiative to donate 5,000 PCs to Mexican schools.) The PC is being developed under yet another Intel initiative (after India's "Community PC" program and Brazil's "Edu-wise") called the "Discover the PC" program, which will be devoted to affordable PCs for countries such as Brazil, Egypt, Ghana, and Nigeria. Let's really hope Intel doesn't come up with a brand new design for each of those countries.

[Tim Quernemoen @ Mar 31st 2006 1:56PM]

Yah man, enough already, I'm tired of companies competing to service the "developing world" with products that might, OR MIGHT NOT improve their lives. Sucks...

The part that really bugs me is that all these people will have to learn Windows. I don't see how learning Windows will help anyone get a job or anything.

And the monopoly rolls on...

[Daniel @ Mar 31st 2006 1:57PM]

Am I the only one who finds the practice of making what looks like an informative link about the subject of the post into a plug for your own site's track record of coverage abhorrent?

Surely there must have been better ways to link the readers of this post to information about the OLPC project than to give us a list of all the previous engadget posts on the topic. Let the project speak for itself!

[Sean @ Mar 31st 2006 2:32PM]

And i'm assuming they are doing this for Argentina also...as the picture is of a man standing in Cordoba Argentina.

[BSTalker @ Mar 31st 2006 2:38PM]

I wonder if these will come with the windows IE trojan inside?

5000 hijackable boxes from a webpage.

Seriously this will create a nice IT support economy... no wait I doubt that I'm sure they already have there own IT support plans.

On that subject does anyone else feel MS have held Vista for 2 years just to get their 'bugs' out of it?

Roll on somebody installing Linux and open software on these! :)

[Paul @ Mar 31st 2006 2:44PM]

Given how many different platforms and form factors there are for the US, why should three platforms for developing regions be considered excessive?

Take India, just by itself. Don't you think the needs of a rural village with no power lines (but with cellular coverage and a government mandate to start using "e-government"), an urban shopkeeper buying his first PC (because his distributors are moving to supply-chain tracking), and upwardly-mobile urban parents looking for a PC for their children (but who still have less purchasing power than a comparable US family) are all different?

You can't lump "developing regions" into a homogeneous mass. In spite of what some people seem to think, it's not about airdropping pallets of the cheapest possible PCs into villages of grateful illiterate peasants. It's a lot more complicated than that, and there are places where IT can actually be useful.

(Now, if you're really just making snarky comments because you're getting roll-out announcement fatigue, well, that's a different story...)

[Marc Perton @ Mar 31st 2006 2:47PM]

Gracias, Sean! Post has been updated to refer to Argentina. (And, Paul, I have to cop to at least a little roll-out fatigue. Three platforms in one week! OK, Intel. We get that you're serious about this market. Now take a breather.)

[daschupa @ Mar 31st 2006 3:15PM]

To me, it would make more sense to get a bunch of the discarded PII or PIII computers from corporations and just ship them off to Mexico. At least it would be recycling. Of course it wouldn�t be a new computer the size of a Buick, but with the extra cash maybe you could buy them some, ya know, food or clean water.

[Poopmaster @ Mar 31st 2006 5:09PM]

Daschupa nailed it. I know of corporations that would have annual dumpster dates where they would toss fully-functioning hardware that had been fully depreciated. Why not load up a C-54 with that stuff? Advantages? It's already made and it works. Sure, some stuff is too old to use, but why waste things when you can just let someone else use them? If you ask me, Apple should jump all over these markets and hit them fast before Microshaft moves in. They could be a great place to dump old computers that aren't really that old, build local goodwill, and get a superior product into the hands of the masses.

[Tim @ Mar 31st 2006 9:09PM]

Why don't they just relabel the UMPCs as OLPCs, they're the same thing anyway, just overpriced. ;)

[jogadu @ Mar 31st 2006 11:44PM]

Now I realize, they're collectable.