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

Sad News

[fembots]

My sympathy goes to them for failing twice.

I wonder if they did have market research to identify the need? You can't just build and hope they will come anymore.

This reminds me of a joke where a group of settlers came to this island and gifted the chief some pet gold fish as a gesture of good faith, but the chief just ate all the them.

Again?

[monkeySauce]

You mean after 11 days this thing has again failed to win over the Indian market?
Maybe they should set slightly more long-term targets.

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?

[JoeMerchant]

Well, for starters, if a poor village of 100 people can afford just one of these Simputers and a couple of info-CDs, they can have the equivalent of a small library, with reference material on construction, farming, basic medical care, etc.

If this village can manage to sustain the cost of a 'net connection, they are now connected to the "World Brain" where they can access current information to address their needs - not a bad return for a $2.50 initial + $0.50/month per person investment.

Maybe it's not as compelling as a diesel pump to bring up the well water, but it's about the same cost.

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?

[Quixote]

Sigh... once again: India is a big country, with a population of over a billion. Not everyone in India is running around in tattered clothes, hungry and starving to death.

Even if 20% of the people can afford the Simputer, you are still looking at a market of over 200 million; a market roughly the size of the USA.

Please, use some of your fancy 'Intarweb skilz' to learn more about that country. Learn about things like PPP (purchasing power parity) and the fact that India is a net exporter of food. Even if India didn't produce a single grain of food, their stocks would last 3 years. India is also the world's largest producer of dairy products.

In general, thanks to the culture there, people can survive with the most minimal of resources. If cows can run around on the streets and eke out an existence, don't you think people can? And I'm talking about the worstcase scenario here.

Re:What's the deal?

[Neopoleon]

"India is a net exporter of food. Even if India didn't produce a single grain of food, their stocks would last 3 years."

That doesn't mean a thing.

The French are net exporters of soap, but how many of them actually get a chance to use it?

Old story

[fm6]

If you follow the links far enough, you find this story from 2003 that makes it clear that the Simputer has been in trouble for a long time now. (Even before we first took notice of it on Slashdot!) The reason is simple: it costs almost as much as a low-end PC.

This should be a familiar problem. You try to sell a cheaper system by stripping out features. But to get rid of those features, you have to tool up from scratch, and your system ends up costing more money than you save. That's what killed the legacy-free PC, and a lot of other stuff.

Alternatives have more attractive free software

[atomic noodle]

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. (And, this is a dupe, too. The Linux Devices story even links to the same AP article as the original Slashdot posting.)

Re:WTF?

[Omkar]

Yay for duplicated comments! Never complain about the editors again.

$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: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.

Quite Surprising really

[l0ungeb0y]

Practically impossible to imagine that the impoverished and illiterate of India wouldn't be lining up in droves to fork over years worth of wages for something as technologically underwhelming as the simputer.

It's a shame really, I nearly cry at the loss of productivity they never realized by using spreadsheets to better manage their goat hearding.

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.

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.