Jed Pittman

The time of the laptop has come. With the advent of the 100$ laptop project, many people in the IT world scoffed at the notion. However, it was the vision of some that the power of the personal computer and the internet would be available to everyone in the world, regardless of economic status. As someone who has been using the internet since age 14, I can personally attest to the importance of being exposed to the Internet and the computer from a very young age.

I would argue that the benefits of the internet for the young and developing mind far outweigh the dangers and the other costs. The internet has become more and more sophisticated as time goes on. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, there were those that felt that Virtual Reality was going to become something that was the mainstay in terms of computing. In some ways, it has. World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs have made huge inroads among personal computer users even as the original draw to the internet that was AOL continues to take a downturn (not before tons of people cashed in on the stock though).

In the current age, we have considerably reduced the costs of the components that go into a basic personal computer and I truly feel that we have hit somewhat of a floor. Personal computers that are capable of running decent programs and word processors will not drop much below current rates of about 400 US$. The reason for this is the fact that there are so many people within the personal computer supply chain that require a piece of the pie, as it were. The largest cost for computers at this point is the software, not the actual machine.

This fact is the very reason why people are so convinced that Windows will be overrun by linux. However, I am not convinced. Microsoft still does many things right. Furthermore there are many people who have invested thousands upon thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours studying in order to become certified for Microsoft products. These people’s livelihoods depend on Microsoft products and it is unlikely that they will change or push others’ who are ‘in the know’ to go to non-microsoft products or platforms. Furthermore, the support network for non-microsoft users is much smaller that the microsoft users. This type of battle was fought when it came to Apples and PCs and the PC won. I personally don’t feel that this is going to change any time soon.

The near-term threats to the PC will not be able to surmount the barriers to entry: buy-in of the IT professionals, ease of use and support for the user, hardware support and buy-in, and migration of data/process to new systems. I don’t feel that Google is going to shut down Microsoft. Nor do I think that Linux will do it. Each is defeated for different reasons, but at the core, Microsoft’s business remains solid and they continue to innovate. Granted it might not be as noticeable as Google, but with literally hundreds of products, its fairly difficult to keep track of what these MegaCompanies are doing, day-in and day-out.

Cheap computers is a great step for developing nations with developing minds. But I don’t think it will significantly impact the landscape of desktop computing in the near-term. Perhaps another 10-15 years out, there may be some fallout if this project and similar projects take off, but that is a long way out to be worrying about. The current life cycle of innovation in Software and the Internet is frequently under a year. So why waste time as an average person thinking about things that are 10-15 years out. In general, for things like that, it only makes sense if you think you have a great idea and can get way out in front in order to cash in.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.