US Supplies Computers to India
We all know that it’s usually cheaper to buy goods and services in emerging economies or large economies such as India or China. But one US-based company has been selected to supply computers to India!
NComputing Inc. is based in Redwood City, California, and they specialise in low-cost computing solutions. They have been selected to provide computer laboratories to 5,000 Indian schools in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, which will result in 50,000 computing seats in schools. This equates to computer access around 1.8 million children.
The state of Andhra Pradesh will be hiring IT firms in the coming months to build the computer labs for them, using the NComputing technology. The apparently chose the NComputing X300 solution – this allows up to seven users to computer share simultaneously as if each person were usingtheir own computer.
NComputing’s chairman and chief executive, Stephen Dukker, said; “NComputing is proud to have been chosen by Andhra Pradesh to fulfil its vision to improve learning and computer literacy throughout the state… at about 70 dollars per seat, our solution is the ideal platform to enable schools, businesses, and governments to maximize their PC investment,” he said.
Chief marketing officer of NComputing, Raj Shah, said; “With the modernization of India’s economy, students are eager to learn the computer skills that will prepare them for the digital workplace… But most government school students have never even had the chance to type on a keyboard or click a mouse.”
The labs will held the Indian children learn office skills such as spreadsheets and word processing, as well as academic basics like 2 of the three R’s.
NComputing, states their goal is to “make desktop computing affordable for everyone,” and provides similar low-cost computing to more than 90 countries, giving kids in poor and developing computer capability. Other similar companies include the non-profit “One Laptop per Child” (OLPC) project, backed by Advanced Micro Devices, eBay, Google and News Corp. Interestingly, Intel Corp. pulled out of OLPC last January, to develop its own low-cost computer, the Classmate PC – so apparently there IS money in these things (we can’t imagine they are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, surely?). After all, estimates say that a billion affordable laptops are required by pupils and teachers in poor and developing countries.
