$20 laptop

India set to follow $2,000 car with $20 laptop

By James Lamont in New Delhi 2009-02-02

India is planning to produce a laptop computer for the knockdown price of about $20, having pioneered last year the Tata Nano, the world's cheapest car, for Rs100,000 ($2,050) a vehicle.

The project, backed by New Delhi, would considerably undercut the US's Massachusetts' Institute of Technology-designed so-called “$100 laptop”. The Children's Machine was the centrepiece of the One Laptop Per Child campaign, an initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte, the computer scientist and former director of MIT's Media Lab. Intel launched a similar product, called Classmate, in response. But the Children's Machine received a cool reception in India.

India's $20 laptop would also undercut the EeePC, made by Taiwan's Asustek. The EeePC was the first ultra-cheap, scaled-down laptop (a new category known as a netbook) launched worldwide through commercial channels. It has no hard drive and sells for $200-$400.

印度正计划生产一款售价极低（约为20美元）的笔记本电脑，此前该国去年率先推出了世界上最便宜的汽车Tata Nano，每辆售价为10万卢比（合2050美元）。

上 述项目得到印度政府的支持，其售价将远低于美国麻省理工学院(MIT)设计的所谓“100美元笔记本电脑”。“孩子们的电脑”(The Children's Machine)是 “每个儿童一台笔记本电脑”(One Laptop Per Child, OLPC)的核心，这一创意是由计算机科学家、原麻省理工学院媒体实验室主任尼克拉斯•内格罗蓬特(Nicholas Negroponte)提出的。英特尔(Intel)推出了一款类似的产品作为回应，名为“同班同学”(Classmate)。但是，”孩子们的电脑”在 印度受到了冷遇。

印度这款售价20美元的笔记本电脑，也远低于台湾华硕电脑(Asustek)生产的EeePC。EeePC是首款在全球范围内通过商业渠道推出的超低价、缩减版笔记本电脑（这一新类别被称之为netbook）。该款产品没有硬盘驱动，售价为200美元至400美元。