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Handhelds Hardware IT

Low-Cost Simputer Fails to Win Indians' Interest 193

prostoalex writes "The Associated Press looks at the Indian low-cost Simputer project and registers it as a failure. Picopeta sold 2,000 units over the past year, while Encore Software sold 2,000 Simputers. Only 10% of the devices were bought for rural areas, which the device was originally designed for. The reason? The companies need to sell quite a few simplistic monochrome devices to allow for the low price tag of $200. Meanwhile, anyone can buy a powerful device with a color screen for $199 from a major vendor."
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Low-Cost Simputer Fails to Win Indians' Interest

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  • I suspect... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Vioxx ( 831107 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:42PM (#12130039)
    ...that this submission is an advertisement in disguise.
    • Re:I suspect... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bird603568 ( 808629 )
      didn't P. T. Barnum says something along the lines "and publicity is good publicity"? THe good thing is that people KNOW that cheap computer are possible.
    • by ShaniaTwain ( 197446 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:51PM (#12130088) Homepage
      But sir, have you ever tried Dell Brand Computers(TM). They are reliable and priced just right. Thats why I recommend Dell Brand Computers(TM) to all my friends and neighbors even though the little plastic bits may start to fall off after a brief amount of time. I find Dell Brand Computers(TM) to be absolutely rock solid and reliable despite the few times that they have destroyed all of my data or spewed toxic gasses into the air. I just think everyone should know that Dell Brand Computers(TM) are absolutely fabulous and they make me horny! go buy a Dell Brand Computers(TM) now! NOW!! before they're all GONE!!
  • Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bostonsoxfan ( 865285 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:42PM (#12130041)
    I don't find this as a surprise at all. This was doomed to fail because they didn't really have the full backing of a major company. At least someone is trying to cover the technology gap but it will take more time with lower prices in the semi conductor industry.

    But if it is for rural villages how do they expect to power these units. And what about dust and computer illiteracy, those things would be bigger obstacle than cost in general.

    Move on people nothing funny here.

    • Re:Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:12PM (#12130208) Homepage
      No, it failed because people want REAL computers, and REAL computers are CHEAP. Why fool around with a toy?
      • Exactly! Who in their right mind would buy a
        no-name computer w/linux and w/mono screen
        when they can get a name brand computer w/MSFT
        and w/colour screen for $1 USD less?

      • No, it failed because people want REAL computers, and REAL computers are CHEAP.

        No, it failed because poor people don't have any money to spend. [Which is what certain hoity-toity types would call a "tautology".]

        You can't squeeze water out of a rock.

    • Re:Surprise (Score:5, Informative)

      by DRWeasle ( 605307 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:12PM (#12130209)
      Just because it is a mud hut does not mean they don't have electricity.

      I have done allot of traveling to 3rd world countries and been to too many villages to count. But the one thing that always surprised me was the number of TV's. This is true for South America as well as African countries. Usually they were small black and white TV sets. But they were on every night.

      Maybe not every hut had one but the families were always willing to share. They set them up on small tables out side and then everyone would gather around to watch.

      The top 4 thing to watch are:

      Soccer
      Baseball
      their version of the soap opera
      American TV

      People in those small villages are also very friendly.

      • Re:Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:13PM (#12130215) Homepage
        The thing is, if there are frequent blackouts or brownouts, it doesn't hurt a TV the way it would hurt a computer.
        • That is very true. The PS in TV can handle a brown out fine and it is easily seen, so the set can be turned off.

          The prower problems cause more of a issuefor the people not seeing who won the soccer game.

        • Re:Surprise (Score:2, Interesting)

          But the simputer is a handheld, so it has a battery. You plug it in, and while there is electricity it charges.

          The thing you write about blackouts is what I percieve as the biggest hurdle for stationary 'puters in rural India (having been there). You need to have a rather big battery backup to get any job done on computers, since it isn't good enough to shut down gracefully on a power failure. If you do, all of your day will consist of computers going up and down, and it will be rather hard to get anything
      • Re:Surprise (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03, 2005 @11:26PM (#12130602)
        They SHARE TV with the neighbours? Man someone must alert the MPAA since they are showing American Shows. Sharing is so wrong. The TV set must strictly be for the consumption of the ORIGINAL buyer. If we don't stop these sharing commies, where will the world end?
      • As to the TV habits and small-town friendliness, it's the same way in much of the United States. The more things change...

        I'm convinced that the main differences between third-world countries and the US don't lie in culture, lifestyle, etc. They lie mainly in diet and medicine. And the likelihood of political upheaval, but we have the same thing every 2, 4, or 6 years (and it's gradual enough that nobody has to nail anyone to anything to accomplish it).

        If I didn't love steak and constitutionally-pr
      • Better solution... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by argent ( 18001 )
        If they have a TV, they need a computer that'll use THAT as the screen. Remember, Amaericans didn't jump straight from desktop calculators to handhelds... and computers you plug into your TV were a big part of how we got here because they could be built *cheaply*.

        India needs Amigas.

        No, I'm not kidding. Coolest computer ever. Tremendously capable OS, and you could build one out of three chips cheaper than a Palm III today.
  • Ok didn't this happen with the 486DX and 486SX? The problem is the price, you can sell anything if you price it correctly. Even to the point of having to destroy perfectly working CPU's to keep up demand.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:45PM (#12130056)
    "Why would I want a computer for my Sims," one man asked. "Two hundred dollars seems like a lot for imaginary people."
  • WTF (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Profane MuthaFucka ( 574406 ) <busheatskok@gmail.com> on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:49PM (#12130080) Homepage Journal
    You mean a project to create a low-priced commodity failed to compete successfully against something that is already entrenched as a low-priced commodity? That's unpossible!

    I wonder what this means for my own startup company. We're going to make a lot of money selling inexpensive versions of pencils. Since people all over the world spend almost nothing at all for pencils, and there's really not much opportunity to improve a pencil, I'm sure my company will be a great success.

    • I think one of the big things people have to look at is Why would these people want a computer in the first place?

      I'm doubting many of the people in the world have any need or interest in a computer. Most of us use computers to do computer things. Few of use really have a need for a computer. That is if you moved us to a place like where they were selling these, and we took on the general lifestyle there, I doubt many of us would need a computer.

      You can't sell anything to a person if they have zero intere
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:50PM (#12130083)
    So you can't get support if you import one. Plus I doubt they'll be localised appropriately.

    Also, prices vary region to region - the same PDA costs 1/3 more in the UK for instance.
  • Time to market (Score:5, Interesting)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:52PM (#12130102) Homepage Journal
    Blah. It kinda reminds me of when the US government decided that a mass produced gun would be a cool idea. They made a handgun that could fire one round and then be manually reloaded (but generally wasn't), added a "comic strip" of instructions and put it in a plastic bag to be dropped from aircraft in areas that were under seige. The price for each gun was so rediculously low that it was possible to make millions of them. There's probably still millions of them sitting in military warehouses.

    Now that's the way to make manufactured "aid" systems. Doing the same with computers would be simple.

    • They made a handgun that could fire one round and then be manually reloaded (but generally wasn't), added a "comic strip" of instructions and put it in a plastic bag to be dropped from aircraft in areas that were under seige.
      what?! Care to explain or cite?
      • Re:Time to market (Score:3, Interesting)

        by QuantumG ( 50515 )
        I read about it in the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Guns. The instructions were in "comic strip" format, without any words, so they could drop the guns anywhere and people who couldn't read or didn't speak english could work the gun.
      • Re:Time to market (Score:4, Interesting)

        by EnderWigginsXenocide ( 852478 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @11:54PM (#12130727) Homepage
        The GP is referring to a .45ACP Caliber single shot pistol made out of stamped metal components. These were dropped in large numbers into nazi occupied europe. The idea being that the small pistol could be easily hidden, then used to kill a regular German soldier and facilitate the resistance fighter in taking a better weapon from the corpse of the German (or Italian) soldier. The weapon wasn't meant to be a combat weapon as to reload one had to partily disassemble the weapon and use a stick to poke the spent shell casing out of the firing chamber before loading a new round. I don't recall if this weapon even had sights or not.
      • what?! Care to explain or cite?

        Google for "liberator pistol". Made of stamped steel and some very simple parts, by the Guide Lamp division of General Motors. If you can find one, it'll cost you about $2000 - $3000 US - they're that rare. I've seen one in ten years that wasn't in a museum.

        As someone else said - the point wasn't to use it as a combat weapon, it was to shoot someone _with_ a combat weapon so you could take their gun and use that. 7 shots of .45 ACP were in various places inside the st
    • Re:Time to market (Score:5, Informative)

      by maetenloch ( 181291 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:07PM (#12130184)
      You're probably referring to the Liberator [pacbell.net], a single-shot .45 pistol, that the US manuafactured during WWII. Supposedly they cost less than $5 to make and were designed to be dropped behind Axis lines to allow resistance members to kill an enemy soldier and take his weapon. Today they are extremely rare and are worth up to a $1000.
    • Re:Time to market (Score:4, Informative)

      by Chrontius ( 654879 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:27PM (#12130284)
      The liberator pistols (and probably the Vietnam era Deer Guns too) have been melted down as scrap. The Deer Gun had to be reloaded by poking out the spent shell casing with a stick and then reloading by hand with one round of .45ACP. The Vietnam version, called the Deer Gun required its user to unscrew the barrel to reload its single shot of 9x19mm parabellum.

      More [dodnetwork.com] info [www.nfa.ca] can [pacbell.net] be [securityarms.com] found [pacbell.net] right [soonresources.com] here. [tripod.com]
    • just because someone mentions guns doen't make it a troll, the WWII "liberator" pistol was real.
    • I always thought something like this would make a good self-defense weapon that is the only one that everyone can legally get and carry concealed. Something that might kill, but probably won't. A would be rapist will not take a 10% chance of getting killed and 50% chance of a wound that will hurt and raise questions in a hospital. After all, he might miss and his victim might get lucky. And the victim is threatened anyway, and will feel that escaping or fighting back is safer than doing nothing.

      On the oth
  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:53PM (#12130106)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Though you can't help but think about those 200 poor Indian villagers who blew their life's savings on something that is now basically a paperweight.

      Indian villager to his wife: "Look what I bought us! It's called a simputer. It will take us into straight into the 21st century and magically improve our lives! We won't be able to buy food for a year, and I had to sell two of our kids to the Nike factory, but finally, we will live like rich westerners, writing emails and surfing the web!"

      Two months later:

    • It's not dead yet, four years to design and build and take market using no money and working as a collaborative group over the internet sounds familiar.

      Designing a computer that is built to LAST and has cheap solid state replaceable components may be ahead of its time but it is not a dumb idea.
  • heh.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aeron65432 ( 805385 ) <agiamba@nOSPAM.gmail.com> on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:55PM (#12130124) Homepage
    Is anyone actually surprised? Look how Windows XP Starter kit has been doing!
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 03, 2005 @09:57PM (#12130137)
    THIS is [geeks.com] what they should have sold over there. This is a 16MB Handheld PDA w/Built-in 56K Modem people! And the price (which is the most important thing) is BELOW 25 BUCKS.
    • From TFP:
      # This product was tested and it may crash your ISP...
      # ...connection or amount of email you may have received.

      That sounds like a fine product. Plus I can buy a pallet of 486s for that money. And, before you ask, I can make THEM run Linux. :-)
    • by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:36PM (#12130335) Journal
      It looks like a cool device for $25. But it's really a $100 device that didn't sell (so maybe it wasn't all that cool, or at least not enough cooler than a Palm to get market share.) That doesn't mean you can mass-produce it at a profit for $25 - it means that somebody's got pallet-loads of the things that they're selling off to get back some money for them, and when the pallets are empty, they're not building any more.

      It's kind of like all of those Internet Appliance things that didn't sell back during the boom, but were fun for hackers to pick up cheap and modify.


      • [OP] This is a 16MB Handheld PDA w/Built-in 56K Modem people!

        [billstewart] But it's really a $100 device that didn't sell

        The following tidbit may indicate why these things are such a bargain:

        Notes

        This product was tested and it may crash your ISP...

        ...connection or amount of email you may have received.
        Any explicit mention of potential ISP issues should raise a red flag.

    • Why do these inexpensive devices always look like cheap toys though? I can't quite put my finger on why, but I feel more comfortable using the form factor of the more expensive models over these things you can buy in a supermarket even though it appears to be about as feature filled as a palm from 4-5 years ago.

      For the same reason I fail to be interested in any of the offerings from sharper image ever.
  • by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:03PM (#12130167)
    First off, the Dell outlet isn't in India. Second, a PC uses a lot of power, is big and fragile. A Simputer is, OTOH small and uses only a little power.

    Having never been in India, but I did spend a lot of time in third-world Africa, I think the biggest issue is that the third world does not really get a huge gain from computers. The typical third-worlder does not need to write spreadsheets or take digital pics and does not have an urge to contact his buddies over IM. The typical third-worlder does not have a phone (heck hasn't even used one) has no running water or electricity. $200 is a lot of money - might be a whole familie's yearly income. Would you buy a PDA for $50K? Rather spend it on some food/medicine or a new sheet of plastic to put on the roof.

    • by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:22PM (#12130257)
      I completely agree. What people need is clean fresh water, better agricultural technology, basic education, birth control, health care, access to capital, roads, electricity... sure, computers are on my list, but only if you've already got all of those other things.

      Now, what I'm gonna say here may not go over well with the Slashdot crowd. I think America has done really well with technology- semiconductors, cars, aircraft, the A/C motor, the lightbulb, the phonograph, the telephone, TV, the PC, etc. etc. For each of these, America either did it first or made the first practical version of the technology. And America has prospered in large part because of this Yankee Ingenuity. But I think that Americans have drawn the wrong lesson from this- they automatically assume that any problem is a technological problem first and foremost. Throw enough high technology at it, and it'll all be sorted out. Well, it's just not that simple, and this misconception creates major problems whether we're combating poverty, or Iraqi insurgents, or what have you.

      • But I think that Americans have drawn the wrong lesson from this- they automatically assume that any problem is a technological problem first and foremost. Throw enough high technology at it, and it'll all be sorted out.

        You mean like e-voting? (dons flak jacket)
      • clean fresh water
        Technology.

        better agricultural technology
        Technology.

        health care
        Technology.

        roads
        Technology.

        electricity
        Techhnology.

        When you say that they need all of those things, you ARE saying they need more tech. Maybe not "a PC in every living room", but most assuredly with a higher level of tech that they have now. How do you design a better water purification system? Or irrigation for crops? How to control efficient distribution of vaccines? How to get that knowledge to the villiage doctor?

        Be

        • When you say that they need all of those things, you ARE saying they need more tech.

          No, the technology isn't the problem. The resources are the problem. What is needed for more reliable water supply, for instance, is generally someone to come in and fit a low tech pump and show everyone how to maintain it.

        • Maybe not Technology as much as education.
          The idea behind the Simcomputer was really to help education. I think we are missing the point that. The best way to educate somebody is with a teacher not a computer.
          It also comes down to money. You have to have enough of it to pay the teacher, buy books, and the villagers need enough that they can spend time learning and not just surviving.
          Yes your right Technology is every thing from fire to the Internet but I think we need to start with the basic tech.
      • Actually, rural farm computing can have a significant impact [wri.org] as long as it comes with effective communications.
      • I would disagree. I've seen various programs on tv about farmers using computers to watch the prices for various produce, so they can haggle more effectively when they sell it at the market (or more importantly don't get ripped off).

        Also access to the wealth of knowledge on farming etc is invaluable.
    • I've never been to India either, but I've got a Indian friend who studies rural development there.

      Computers are actually a big win when they get one for a village. A huge problem in India is competing land rights. The only documentation for who owns what is probably buried on paper in an office 100 miles away, and it's quite possible the people who are interested can't get there (too poor) and couldn't read it if they did. A single low powered computer can keep track of these sorts of things- you only

    • I have lived most of my life in Brazil and I have seen plenty of mud huts in my life. Sure, the poorest people do need running water, sanitation, basic education, etc. But giving them welfare doesn't solve their basic problem which is the inability to earn a decent living. In my 40+ years of life I have seen a huge gain in living conditions among the poorest people in Brazil, and cheap phones have benn a big factor in this in the last decade.

      Up to the mid-1990s telecommunications were a state monopoly in B

  • I had blogged [industelegraph.com] about Amida approximately a year back. The conclusion: serious marketing and pricing issues.
  • Reminds me of... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:18PM (#12130239) Journal
    the Jackito [jackito-pda.com] (aka Tactile Digital Assistant). You can't help but wonder why in the world someone would buy one of these devices when you can get so much more hardware for less cost. I guess it's a matter of national pride with these "homebrew" products (Jackito = France / Simputer = India).

    Dan East
  • by bw5353 ( 775333 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:21PM (#12130249) Homepage
    Does anyone know where the bulk of old computers go? There must be millions of computers that are discarded in the economically rich part of the world each year, because they are "out of date". Is there no program to sell them cheap to people in the third world?

    To me there would be a clear case of market economy here: rich company wants to throw away computers. Poor school in third world desperately needs computers, and is willing to pay an amount > 0.

    What is the main bottle neck? Shipping costs? Even for laptops? Security risks with data on old harddisks? It cannot be support or licencing issues, as the locals often surely would be more than willing to use a free OS, which they support themselves.

  • by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Sunday April 03, 2005 @10:32PM (#12130305) Journal
    The Simputer folks designed some really cool software for use with low-horsepower machines where people use a wide variety of languages and alphabets and village-appropriate applications. It was cool stuff, and apparently they were better at that than they were at hardware design. Sounds like it's a good time for them to recognize what they're good at and what they're not good at, and port the software to newer commercial PDA platforms and/or open it so other people can port it.

    I can't tell if that $199 Dell can support USB adequately or not - too many PDA devices know how to be a USB slave that can be updated by a computer, but don't know how to be a USB master than can drive printers, modems, etc. But it wouldn't be surprising to see hardware that can do that well in a similar price range - if not now, then wait 3-6 months.

  • They appear sell it only to verticals, such as the army:

    http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/article.jsp?articl e_id=2701&cat_id=908 [cxotoday.com]

  • Anyone could have bought a $99 PC at Fry's this weekend and picked up a used CRT for less than 10 bucks. Why bother making a special low-cost PC when regular low-end PCs costs are low?
  • Another reason for the failure might be that when you live in the rural part of a third world country, easy access to computing and the Internet might not be your highest priority in life.



  • Linux-based systems like the Simputer have a problem competing against Windows/x86 machines in third world markets.

    The problem is that Windows-compatible software is effectively free, due to piracy. And, even if it isn't strongly marketed locally, that software is made more attractive by all the money spent promoting it elsewhere.
  • too bad (Score:3, Informative)

    by Punto ( 100573 ) <puntobNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday April 04, 2005 @01:28AM (#12131116) Homepage
    the simputer seemed to be the only option for a (low priced) PDA with linux and a USB host port.. I bet there's a lot of early adopters in the 'first world' that are willing to buy the first batch in order to archieve the volume they want..
  • Let's be honest...can people who don't know how to read need PDA's?
    If a learning tool was the objective then why not just use an old terminal.
    A live distro even would have been better, as it would reduce hardware costs to what ever was available.
  • by bstadil ( 7110 ) on Monday April 04, 2005 @02:09AM (#12131270) Homepage
    MIT's Multimedia lab led by Negroponte is working on a $100 laptop project for poor people that seems to have a fair amount of financial backing. More here [chron.com]
  • by supersat ( 639745 ) on Monday April 04, 2005 @02:34AM (#12131354)
    I'm really not surprised this wasn't a success. A lot of companies blindly go after "emerging markets" without really understanding them. In particular, price isn't as big of a deal as some people think it is. For example, people vastly underestimate the buying power of people in India. Even if everyone was able to afford a computer, what would they do with them? They have no training, no experience, and no support infrastructure.

    Interestingly enough, there are some business models that work well. Take the "village PC" model. One person in the village buys a computer (possibly with village assets), supports it, rents out time on it, etc. Everyone in the village, regardless of their technical expertise, benefits from the technology. This model has also worked well for mobile phones.

    Last quarter, there were two good talks on technology for emerging and "invisible" markets here at the University of Washington. The first is a talk by Eric Brewer (UC Berkeley) entitled The Case for Technology for Developing Regions [washington.edu]. An abstract, video, and MP3 of the talk are available from that site. The other talk was given by John Sherry of Intel's People and Practices Research Group. PowerPoint slides, an abstract, a suggested reading list, a discussion wiki, and more can be found here [washington.edu]. I highly encourage you to check these talks out.
  • *Rollseyes* (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iehnll ( 842250 ) on Monday April 04, 2005 @02:44AM (#12131397)
    Do companies get it yet? Rural or less economically powerful countries don't want watered down computers. They don't want to be treated like second class computer users. They don't want a gimped version of windows when they can pirate a fully functional one. They don't want cute small, yet utterly useless computers. Those who don't have computers now, either cannot afford a several hundred dollar computer, or cannot afford even $200. And those without electicity don't have a need for one.
  • Yugo failure (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 ) on Monday April 04, 2005 @04:37AM (#12131792) Journal
    I think it's similar to the famous Yugo failure [wikipedia.org]. The flawed premise in "cheap computer" or "cheap car" strategy is that people in the market for sub-$5000 car or sub-$200 computer are actually willing to buy them brand new. No, they are not. People in the market for a cheap car will rather go for a 5-year old Ford. People in the market for a cheap computer will either buy something second hand or try to build their own system. Especially that you still have better service options with a 5-year Ford than a brand new Yugo - or a second hand Dell or Compaq than a brand new Simputer.
  • Consumers rejecting intentionally dumbed-down computers is an old phenomena. IBM tried to introduce a "student computer" called the PC Junior in the 1980s that received great ridicule. It had lower compacity in every component, not to mention the infamous "chiclet" button-less keyboard. Consumers would rather pay a low price for an older computer or one that could be upgraded, rather than one intentionally reduced. Even though this is effectively the same price and capacity as the reduced computer.

    US
  • Duh.

    I've been saying just this for years. Dell has had a $199 model Axim for something like 3-4 years now, since before the Simputer was ever in production. And originally, the Simputer was even more costly. It maybe an X30 sans wifi now, but Dell has had $199 PPCs since the debut of the X5 Basic.

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