Power button "hard to find on PCs" says Intel

WHEN CHIPZILLA showed a slide of the company's "Affordable PC", its latest invention for the good of Mankind along with VIIV, Intel's Esteban Galuzzi made a bold statement: the Power Button in PCs is hard to find.

Power buttons

Luckily, the INQ was there, so we made a mental note of the statement and waited until the Q&A opportunity so he could elaborate. I was also luckily carrying my digital voice recorder, so I have the whole speech by Mr. Galuzzi on file. The words of Intel's general manager for the "Southern Cone" region were this: "You can see that the power button is very big, because it's one of the parts with which people gets more interaction. Everything must have a power button and plenty of times it's difficult to find it on a PC".

Intel's "Affordably locked PC"

After the speeches ended and the Q&A session started, we INQuired: "could you elaborate on that concept that you mentioned saying that the power button is difficult to find on PCs?". The audience laughed a bit at that point -perhaps because they were geniuses who could find the power button on their PC-. Mr. Galuzzi paused and seemed to backpedal a bit, saying: "with regards to the button, maybe mine was a wrong expression, but it's one of the characteristics that appear in every market research study, that people ... seek the power button sometimes and they can't find it, or they press it at the wrong time, and shut down the computer when they didn't have to. I am just repeating what the research studies say".

More power buttons

For those of you who can understand Spanish, audio bits are here at original ambient volume, here a bit louder, and finally there is his response to the INQ question, over here.

Intel's Esteban Galuzzi

We can only wonder if people who are unable to find the power button on a regular PC will be able to do much else with Intel's contraption after managing to hit the "oversized glowing thing" with a closed fist so that "the thing starts doing its stuff" -okay, I admit I'm just especulating on the target user's IQ. But really, who is the target of Intel's "Affordable un-upgradeable locked PCs for the emerging markets"?. After all, didn't people from all walks of life learn over the years how to turn their mobile phones on and off without the help of oversized buttons the size of a plum?. Is an oversized power button the greatest selling point of Intel's "Affordable PC", or is it a solution looking for a problem?. Only time will tell.

Call me an elitist, but I think finding the power button on a standard PC is a low-enough barrier of entry for PC usage. After all, if someone is unable to find the normal-size power button in a PC, how can we expect him to understand concepts like Netiquette, spam, and internet security? µ

L'INQs:
Intel shows OLPC-killer down under
M.I.T.'s Media Lab and the $100 OLPC programme
Argentina government commits to but MIT/AMD's $100 PC
Intel's Otellini takes subtle swipe at the Vole

See also:
Intel to create software development centre in Argentina
Argentina, reversal of fortune
An IT and Telecomms show where?
EXPOCOMM Argentina 2006 coverage (updated list)
EXPOCOMM Argentina 2005 coverage
EXPOCOMM Argentina 2004 coverage