- Saturday, 28 November 2009
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The problem with political jokes is they get elected - Henry Cote
Gartner claims $100 netbooks are years away
INDUSTRY WITCH-DOCTORS at Gartner proclaimed on Monday that $100 netbooks for use in developing countries won't appear on the market for at least two to three years.
The purveyors of IT management technocrats' backside-covering research publications also warned that vendors seeking to market low-cost computers in underdeveloped regions risk underestimating the infrastructural and social barriers to successfully selling such products.
Among barriers to adoption, Gartner cited lack of electrical power and Internet availability, teacher and student training, localised content development and access to technical support.
Those factors might thwart inefficient and less-than-resourceful third-world governments' education programs, but they won't prevent the adoption of appropriate technology that's made available and marginally affordable to poor but enterprising people, given a chance.
It also mentioned that arranging needed financing of netbook acquisitions would have to be addressed by vendors.
Apparently Gartner hasn't heard of micro-lending operations such as Grameen Bank, which is already financing thousands of bootstrap enterprises successfully in third-world countries.
Small, affordable netbooks are already seeing takeup in education and consumer segments in less developed areas of the world. Businesses haven't been buying them, though, because they don't offer the capacity, performance and features needed. And they can afford better.
Gartner also said that netbook vendors ought to position their systems not as computers but as Internet access devices.
As though poor gold miners in the Amazon basin don't already have cell or satellite phones that keep them updated on the latest price of gold in London.
Unfortunately for Gartner, its prediction seems to have been almost overtaken by events, since a netbook selling for merely $130 (in lots of only 100) tipped up just yesterday too.
We'll be willing to wager that some qualified buyer willing to commit to purchasing 1,000, or not too many more, of those little boxes might get them for $100 apiece.
If not, electronics industry over-capacity and market forces amidst a very turbulent world economy should show Gartner's prediction mistaken in much less than two to three years.
We're thinking that, like cellphones, small but reasonably useful netbooks should become available in some areas for about $100 or less within no more than six to eighteen months.
Gartner's often wrong, but this is the first time we've seen it shown to be arguably in error on the very same day it released a pronouncement. ยต
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or almost a laptop since it has no storage
http://www.jointech.com.hk/jl7100.html
... because here's one at $99, and you don't need to buy 1000. You can buy just 1. 

http://www.jointech.com.hk/jl7100.html

see also

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8624&Itemid=1
They're just proving to everyone that they don't know what they're talking about: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8624&Itemid=38
http://www.jointech.com.hk/jl7100.html

Sure it's WinCE based, with just 64MB of storage, but if you've got Office,mail, IE, and even MSN, and few media apps for images/sound/video - what more do you need? Just plug in USB stick for more storage, or stream from the WWW.

For 99$, it ain't bad!
new world by opening e-mails from sources other than Microsoft and Intel.
No shame found though!
Man I need to turn in a resume at Gartner. I can make wild ass predictions too. Now I want to get paid for them.

Expect the resume soon Gartner. I predict you will hire me after you read my resume too because its full of fictio... errr.. facts! Yes FACTS!
What do you call this
http://www.jointech.com.hk/jl7100.html
Claiming IT development of any kind being years away is like "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill

Gartner seems to see the costs of IT and not the benefits. Emerging markets will build infrastructure that is appropriate for them and do not need to replicate costly mistakes made years ago in established markets. They can skip wired and go wireless, for instance. Smaller machines need far less power so solar or wind can supply power without the need for a massive grid.

Another technology that is available in cities that is not widely used in established markets is the thin client/server. Internet cafes and such can use thin clients and use a bunch of the $100 machines and a single more powerful machine to the work. This permits a school or a cooperative or a small business to use a lot of IT very inexpensively.
Hang on there, did it really take them this long to worry about Internet accessibility ?
I mean, heck, we've only been hearing about low-cost-notebooks-for-the-3rd-world for, what is it, three years already ?
You say Gartner has often been wrong. Well, if they've been right only as many times as they've been wrong, then it means that, as a forecasting business, they're worthless and you could arguably replace their forecasts with flipping a dime.
Or is it the summer student that drafted this one ?
Personally, I wish they would just shut up instead of publishing embarrassing statements such as this one.
WinCE doesn't give enough software compatibility. It's either Linux or full Dimdows--nothing else is going to give you a proper desktop experience.
I have a different angle on this. I had been thinking of the prospect of converting a DVD player design to a third world computer with addition of a USB ports, software and JAVA/Linux (touch screen webpad or laptop design for Portable DVD players). It turns out that DVD chipset makers are loath to open up their chipsets to third part development.

It then occurred to me the PS2 could do this and more, and having paid for it's R&D and manufacture development, it could be sold cheap. The PSP design adds more to this, and would be suitable for a $100 laptop. These products could be sold in upgraded 1GHz versions eventually, and would give Sony a whole new market for old software and hardware (cheap $1 downloaded-$10-$20 games). I hope Sony is listening.


Wayne Morellini.