What Happened to Simputer?

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com has published a brief update on the much-heralded Simputer, the Linux-based 'platform for social change' that was intended to bring inexpensive, easy-to-use computers to rural Indian villages. In the last 12 months, only about 4,000 units have been sold -- well below the planned 50,000+ units. Three Simputer models priced from $240 to $480 were introduced by PicoPeta one year ago, whereas the original goal was a maximum of $200. A cost-reduced redesign is reportedly in the works."

Comments

I'd rather have MIT's $100 Laptop

[davidwr]

Assuming I can wait that is.

If I'm in the third world, I can probably wait.

What's the deal?

[Delphix]

What's the deal with these low cost computers over the last few years. First the simputer for poor rural farmers in India that only cost about a year's salary. And more recently the $100 laptop coming out of MIT.

How about we really do something with technology to help these people? Like setting them up with running water, electricity, a house that doesn't leak? Maybe get them enough food or decent medical care... It seems like a waste to invest so much in giving out low cost computers to someone at risk of starving to death the next day or is at high risk of deadly illnesses.

It's a nice goal to have everyone connected. But you have to ask "why?" Are we trying to find a new source of ideas to exploit? I don't see how hooking people up to the net is going to help them out when their basic needs aren't met...

There's the education argument. I'm not sure whether these will provide more access to information. In certain areas it definitely will. But then what do you do with that education when you have no infrastructure to support it... I know it's slashdot and it's all about tech, but hwo about focusing on some tech that would really help people.

Re:What's the deal?

[fm6]

We've had this discussion on Slashdot any number of times, but it never seems to register. I'll try once more.

Yes, most people in India can't afford to buy gadgets. That doesn't mean they can't use them. This is happening already in India and elsewhere in South Asia. The gadget -- a cell phone, a internet-capable computer, whatever -- is purchased by a entrepreneur who resells its use. Or by a group of locals who pool their resources. The gadget pays for itself because these people are desperately poor. They use it to sidestep middlemen so as to get better prices for their crops. Or to obtain weather reports off off the web, so they know the best and safest time to send their fishing boats out. Somebody has a sick cow, goes online for help, and a volunteer vet hundreds of miles away gives them advice.

It's called the Leapfrog Effect. Developing countries don't have all the fancy resources we take for granted, and can't afford to reproduce every step we've taken. So they skip steps. They don't have landline telephones, but they do have cell towers and satellite uplinks. They don't have a decent mail system, but they do have internet access. They don't have newspapers (or the ability to read them), but they do have TV.

That said, they're probably better served by off-the-shelf tech then by specially developed stuff like the Simputer. In theory, the Simputer is easier to use and maintain than a PC -- a major consideration when you're hundreds of miles from the nearest computer store. But that doesn't make up for the extra cost of developing and manufacturing that special gadget.

Re:What's the deal?

[hey!]

How does a poor farmer who has a little spare land to grow a cash crop figure out what the most profitable choice would be?

Where does a rural mother without ready access to health care find out how to prevent and recognize childhood diseases?

Where does a community leader get information on how to deal with the problem of contaminated water supplies, and how to build emergency filtration systems?

Clearly, information is an important even to poor people. It's not that information is more important than clean water -- that's not true even here in the US. But the marginal value of a dollar spent on information may in some cases be greater than the marginal value spent on all the important things you mention, especially if the technology can be made cheap enough.

$100?

[Paris The Pirate]

For a about $50 you could get a 486 laptop with a distro of some for of *nix on it. Hell, enterprise chuck out laptop's all the time. Why doesn't someone just recondition them and then palm them off to India at cost if they really wanna help people out there?

Seriously, $100... why, when you could probably organise computers for India for free with a little international logistics and som..... wait...

Actually scratch all that I just remembered we are capitalists. Silly me.

Re:$100?

[kabz]

If it would be so easy to sell these in the villages, then why aren't enterprising people selling Visors, Palms, and equivalently powerful, web and communication oriented small form factor PCs to India already ?

This really is a serious question. A Palm V will do dialup, and more modern and now cheaper devices do WiFi, BlueTooth, ethernet.

Why did they need the Simputer, when there are already similar devices that would work ?

Re:It's not surprising

[Omkar]

Hmm. From one of the articles, "But local governments often prefer to accept donations from Microsoft Corp. and other companies rather than pay for a new technology like the Simputer." AP. I think this is a somewhat futile project, but it's not clear it's "government-funded boondoogle." Any info?

Re:What Happened to Simputer?

[The Cydonian]

Yeah, as also you get much better Acer PDA's for much less than that, and very good smartphones for approximately the same price, but dont let that confuse you. Starving families are the reason why the Simputer has failed, just as they are the reason why we arent adding 2.5 million mobile users a month.

Re:What Happened to Simputer?

[addaon]

In my home country of the USA, there are many families that do not have enough money to feed themselves. Even so, companies which sell computers to Americans seem to do moderately well.

Re:What Happened to Simputer?

[Omkar]

I believe the idea was that a whole village would purchase one together, or that some governing body would give them funds to do so. That way the village could have much easier access to information about market conditions, weather, etc. I'm not sure if the villagers ended up getting access to the Net after all (having lived in India for a while, I would guess not), but the Simputer project didn't fail because its cost was all that high. As I understand it, it failed because its competitors decreased their prices much more quickly than it could keep up.

Ass-Backwards Economics...

[RexRhino]

OK, let me explain something.

When a product is first developed, that research and development cost, tooling costs, etc., need to be recouped. It is passed on to the consumers when a product is new. After a product has been on the market and recoups those costs, they prices start going down.

In effect, those rich geeks who buy all the fancy toys before everyone else subsidize the development for us poor geeks who purchase the product a few years later for next to nothing.

Making a computer especially for poor people makes no sense. Everyone knows that the killer PDAs of today will be available as $50 knockoffs from China in 2 or 3 years. I have seen old Palm PDAs people were trying to get rid of for $10-$15 bucks.

The whole concept is misguided.

[j741]

Of course it was destined to fail. How can anyone expect verry low-income households, no matter where they are located, to purchase something for which they do not have a need? A computer is a luxury, not a need. It's a tool which enables more complex informational tasks. Those with verry low-income households typically only need simple informational tasks such as word-of-mouth, basic telephone communications, and basic news delivery (currently via radio, newspaper, or TV). Other than providing an alternative method for these tasks, what does a simple computer provide?

And what about longevity and stability? Let's face it, a 20 or 30 year old car can still be useful if it works, but a 4 year old computer is almost useless even for today's simplest computing tasks. Just look at how much the computer industry and social utiliziation has changed in the past few years as related to internet access alone; Broadband, VOIP, P2P, streaming video, these things are still in a massive state of fluctuation as they experience 'growing pains'. Until the 'evolution' of the computer and the way it is used matures and stabilises the appeal of it to those with very few resources is almost non-existant.

Re:Alternatives have more attractive free software

[crottsma]

Most everyone, particularly in third world countries, knows you can take a computer with Linux on it and throw on a pirated version of Windows. Thus if you can purchase a computer with Linux on it, and throw Windows onto it for free, this effectively takes away any incentive for purchasing a Windows computer. In theory, then, a Linux computer will be preferred to a Windows computer, because with the Linux you know you're not paying for any software. The reason Linux computers don't usually sell so well is because, incidentally, the hardware onto which Linux is placed is usually very budget-tight and low-end.

Way OT

[rathehun]

i was a volunteer for the last three months with Oxfam India, in Cuddalore, one of the affected districts of South India.

As part of our rehabilitation efforts, we set up Information Centres, using $700 laptops donated by IBM and CDMA based wireless telephones.

These Information Centres contained a large amount of daily updated information - News, Commodity and Vegetable prices, weather information and forecasts, fish prices, government schemes and subsidies that people were eligible for...

We trained local village women to use these machines - aside:our information centre was coded with XUL and therefore, Firefox, hehe - and they earned a small amount of money from printing out say - a governemnt subsidy application form.

Now - and here is where I get to the actual crux of my arguemnet, the price of technology is not the only limiting factor. Just because something costs less than $200 doesn't mean that people WILL buy it. The content - or the usefuleness of the software will ultimately be the driving force behind its adoption. Once people saw that our product was actually useful, they actually raised nearly half the cost of another machine so that there queries could be dealt with faster!

Otherwise you're just giving them an expensive solitare toy.

It would be better

[Relyt]

It would be better if people would just donate unused computers to these countries. I'm sure the libraries and educational institutions would appreciate them, and they would be free.

Is there a charity that does this?

Re:It would be better

[green menace]

This has been discussed before. Some objections were that it takes alot of work to make sure the systems actually work and the enormous variety of the hardware makes it very complicated. I do think it could be done on a small scale.

Re:What Happened to Simputer?

[ghoul]

Well firstly the model being followed is that at least every village will be able to buy one computer each to check the internet for the best crops to plant and the best time to harvest (high prices).

Secondly there is hardly any area in India where there is systematic famine like in sub-saharan Africa. Sometimes due to droughts or floods temporary famine situations get created. The central government tries to provide aid in such situations asap.

The image of starving Indian children is mostly canned footage from years back usefull to Christian missionary groups who are fundraising and hardly the ground reality.

Nobody is claiming India is as rich as the US but the gap is closing everyday. India has been free of colonial rule for 50 years and is already in space. It took the US 200 years after the end of colonial rule to reach space so definitely the pace of development is faster in India.

Education is tech ..

[torpor]

.. that really helps people.

And if you've got a computer, you've got education.

I find it frustrating that you can't understand this. You may not use your computer for very educative purposes, but for sure the unwashed masses know that, with a little reading and understanding, great things can happen.

A text-file on how to dig a water well and maintain it, for example, is worth countless bytes. Cheap computers can offer information on how to treat disease, in a form that can be easily understood by many, and easily reproduced.

All those wonderful intellectual-property problems of computers are just as applicable to solving the problems of education, you know ..

Do not overlook the importance of education in the role of eradicating the problems of the poor. Many times, Indian villages are so destitute simply because their membership does not know how to manage their environment; computer-based education on such matters can assist the situation immensely.

Applying your standards of computer use to the scenario would only be appropriate if in fact these Simputers were being shipped to decadant well-fed grid-dwellers who don't use their technology to enhance themselves .. whereas Indian villagers with a cheap "Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy" might use it to self-educate themselves very well indeed ...

Re:Old story

[R.Caley]

Erg, throw out PCI for USB?! Who in their right mind would do that?

How many times have you fitted PCI cards in your laptop?

I just installed a fanless firewall machine with no internal expansion slots, but 4 usb ports.

My Zarus talks USB, but I have no idea why I might want a PCI slot in it.