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Low-Cost Simputer Fails to Win Indians' Interest

Posted by timothy on from the when-curves-meet-unexpectedly dept.

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."

15 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. I suspect... by Vioxx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...that this submission is an advertisement in disguise.

    --
    Opinions expressed herein do not reflect the views of Merck & Co., and sorry about the heart attacks.
    1. Re:I suspect... by bird603568 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

  2. Time to market by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:Time to market by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    2. Re:Time to market by EnderWigginsXenocide · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. -- 0 1 My two bits
  3. They sold it for the wrong price by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    THIS is 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.

  4. Reminds me of... by Dan+East · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the Jackito (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

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  5. Where do old computers go? by bw5353 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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.

    1. Re:Where do old computers go? by nc_yori · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The sad reality of that situation is that even if a group did exist to facilitate such an effort: there is so much shit involved with exporting computing machinery that it probably isn't worth it. You can't even ship a playstation to certain areas of the world, the rationale being that you could use the CPU in it to guide a nuclear missile or something of that nature.

      I agree that the idea is great. Disposing of computers is an involved and expensive process, especially for older machines that have relatively high amounts of mercury and arsenic in them. There's just too much red tape.

  6. Open or Port The Software! by billstewart · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  7. Re:Good try. by jcr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Indian villagers who blew their life's savings on something that is now basically a paperweight.

    What, did the machines suddenly quit working because the company that built them folded?

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  8. Re:Dell PC completely misses the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    this Yankee Ingenuity.

    The first practical car was invented in Europe, the AC motor was not invented by a Yankee by any means (yankee ingenuity would have given us DC power distribution), Alexander Graham Bell was a Scot you twit.

    This isn't Yankee ingenuity. Most yankees are morons.
    The reason America was a technological powerhouse was because we happened to be the most politically stable over the past 150 years which made this a decent place for smart people to create, wherever they may have come from.
    Even most native born Americans that created technology were outcasts. From my own family's experience, geek stereotyping has existed for all of the 20th century.
    I'll give you a better example than all of yours: the airplane. The Wright Brothers were considered screwball cranks a good part of their lives.
    The US has never fostered a popular culture that supported smart people.

    I am not discounting the value of the American government and geography (that played no small part in protecting us during WWI/II) but your premise is flawed, and your conclusion is overly simplistic anyway.

    Your generalizations are completely meaningless anyway.
    Most Americans don't assume any problem is a technological problem, most Americans (like most poorly/inconsistently educated people) run and put their head in the sand.

  9. I said it would fail 1.5 years back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    For some facts about this bullshit simputer

    The sep 2003 simputer slashdot article. .don't have access to that account anymore.

  10. Re:Surprise by Ibn+al-Hazardous · · 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 done. The battery backup you need to stay afloat is a bit expensive, so it turns out it is a bit hard to bring 'puters to rural India that way (unless you're rich, a business, or some kind of institution like eg a school or a mission or something).

    --
    Yes, I am a biological organism. All rumors to the contrary are just that, rumors.
  11. Better solution... by argent · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.