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Low-Cost Simputer Fails to Win Indians' Interest
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."
...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.
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.
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.
"Why would I want a computer for my Sims," one man asked. "Two hundred dollars seems like a lot for imaginary people."
No need for the racist remarks.
The post you were replying to was obviously a troll - but what the hell was racist about it?
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.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
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.
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!!
Starsucks
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.
Not every effort to do a Good Thing is going to work out as one might hope. My hat's off to the people who did this project.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Indians are caucasians, which makes it even more puzzling, and confusing.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Is anyone actually surprised? Look how Windows XP Starter kit has been doing!
or frogurt.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
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.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I'm not surprised it failed, but that ain't the reason. When we're talking about people who don't know a computer from their elbow, Windows is a niche OS too. They don't even know what an OS *is*.
I had blogged about Amida approximately a year back. The conclusion: serious marketing and pricing issues.
More than mere navel gazing.
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.
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.
just because someone mentions guns doen't make it a troll, the WWII "liberator" pistol was real.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
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
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.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
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.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
They appear sell it only to verticals, such as the army:
l e_id=2701&cat_id=908
http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/article.jsp?artic
Look at it realistically. Some old P2 is going to do a rural place far away no good. $16-$32 just to ship it there. Then plug it in where exactly?
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Not all Indians are Caucasian. Come Chinese are caucasian which makes things more puzzling and confusing.
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?
http://chrono.posterous.com/
So what features were removed -- colour screen? -- it never had one. In any case, the idea was never about eye-candy but simple practical business and educational use, and low power consumption. You, and "prostoalex" are comparing two quite different devices. The article cited does not mention the cheap Dell handhelds he linked to, apparently Prostalex imagines Indians can buy from Dell online and get them delivered by FedEx for the same price he can. Dell India doesn't even sell handhelds.
Maybe they should try to outsource the design to the USA :-)
Table-ized A.I.
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-protected liberty so much, I would almost prefer to live in a third-world country - they have more of those small, friendly villages than we do, with the Internet and all.
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.
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..
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
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.
You minimize the advantage of using standard batteries as though it doesn't matter. That's a big part of the reason I still use a Palm IIIxe and my Tandy Model 102.
It would be insanity for Indians to spend $2000 on a round trip plane ticket from India just to buy a $99 computer at Fry's.
You didn't bother reading who these computers were targeted to, huh?
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
Help fight continental drift.
Nice thought to bridge the technical divide created by poverty and government policies that are just this side of malfeasance. Half the planet has yet to use a phone and they're trying to get rural peoples to spend 2/3 of their gross annual income on a device that will somehow make up for the shortfalls of their poverty and lack of access to education. They may be poor but they are not stupid.
a slut did tulsa
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. 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. I highly encourage you to check these talks out.
with all the millions of spare parts (warehouses filled with PII chips) in the world do third workd countries really need to settle for custom stripped down machines when they could build full machines that are a few generation out of date for about the same price...
there must be loads of inventory that companies would love to have a tex-efficient way of getting rid of...
Get your torrents...
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.
For some facts about this bullshit simputer
.don't have access to that account anymore.
The sep 2003 simputer slashdot article.
and some 70% of the country doesn't know what a computer is either or what it is used for
Why is there so much of this drivel posted about this topic?
People in India aren't retarded monkeys, you know. Seriously. They have things called 'cities', and 'automobiles', and even poor rural folks go into the city to sell their shit and see rich urban Indians using their cell phones and laptops.
India is not some sort of medieval wasteland of mindless serfs who run away because they've never seen electricity before - it's just a country with a lot of people who can't afford most luxuries that we take for granted, and quite a few people who can't even afford necessities. They still *see* the technology, and they know it exists.
I think it's similar to the famous Yugo failure. 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.
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.
[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.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
That was the most excellent link so far in this thread. Thanks a million!
Most people who can afford it (and even some who can't) have a cell-phone. Sometimes I suspect it is more of a status symbol than anything because just because most people can afford to buy a cell-phone...few can afford to buy the air-time needed to actually make use of it. Regardless, landline phone are pretty much usesless in this part of the world.
Computers on the other hand are (I think) still a tool for the rich. Those who do have access to computers mostly use them for email, and not much more at the moment. Infact most people I know are much faster typers on their cell phones to sent text msges than they are on a regular keyboard.
IMO any device that is so called "stripped-down" or is missing parts is doomed to fail. People are just as intelligent here as anywhere... it is just that most are extremely poor and lack the education to make use of such things.
One last thought. We have the technology now to give people computers, power them with solar power, generators, even a treadmill... the greater problem is giving people a reason to want to use these things. Why does a subsistance farmer need a word processor? Implementation is easy, its the long term sustainabily that is the hard part.
I like to compare working in a developing county much like space travel, you have to bring everything with you because you never know what might happen. Don't even get me started on the woes of trying to get decent internet access! ;)
Up to the mid-1990s telecommunications were a state monopoly in Brazil, and a fixed phone cost the equivalent of $7000 in some areas, a cell phone went for about $4000. Today you can get a fixed phone installed for about $15 and a cell phone for $70 in ten installments.
So what, will you ask? How does this help someone who has no running water? Take a typical illiterate single mother living in a slum? It means she can advertise and sell whatever skill she has. It will still be very low-paying jobs, because she has no sophisticated job training, but she can get more for it. Instead of working for one employer at $100/month she can do jobs for different people at $15/day.
Technology is always useful. And technology that enables one to be more productive is always better than handouts. There are many well-meaning people in the rich countries who would better learn this very simple lesson. Give poor people a technology to become more productive workers and they will get their own running water.
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 health insurance is in the same boat. No one wants a "restricted plan" even though all but the wealthiest really buy such these days.
MIT recently announced that they are launching a new program to develop a $100 laptop--a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. http://laptop.media.mit.edu/
Although these are very low end systems according to the specification "500MHz, 1GB, 1 Megapixel.", still I feel they can be of great help in education in third world countries.
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.
"Whoosh!"
ROTFL! Best AC post ever.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Every time they figure out how to grow cash, the government changes the bills . . . besides, the Secret Service gets cranky about it, too . . .
hawk
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.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
There are some charities that recycle old computers overseas. In many ways these acts of charity are really just a low-cost disposal option. Sure there are some places that could use these, but many can't. You are not going to find a reliable power source in most 3world countires even in hospitals etc. The common man does not have power in his hut.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The UK Police do. Still need a timer for the 20 secs....
Sigs are for wimps