Intel Vs. The $100 Laptop For The Bottom of The Pyramid.

Why does one approach have to be best? Why not let the market decide? Why not have options?

Seems like this is a perfect opportunity for prototype-iterate. The social/cultural/economic fabric is enormously complex in India (I'm assuming rural India even more so, or at least further out from the assumptions of the designers and even the researchers). Putting new tools into that environment is inherently unpredictable. Let's have these companies try a few different things, see what gets adopted, adapted, co-opted, rejected, and let 'em all iterate and evolve their products and business models and see where that goes.

Steve, I think you are right that we can let the people decide what they want. However, the "path to development" is littered with technocrates that have tried to bring "development" through technology alone. The reason: they have neglected the specific developing country environments they were working in and they have simply ignored the communities they were addressing. It's nothing else than bad design... The so-called development community is just starting to really understand and respect the role of community ownership of "development solutions". Yet, many new-comers to the field are repeating the old mistakes, particularly in the field of Information and Communication Technologies.

Intel on the other hand is trying to avoid reinventing the wheel and is trying to first understand communities before designing "solutions". That sounds like a good, even if not pefect start.

Anyways, ultimately it will be the market or communities that will decide... But it would be nice to see several value propositions compete that respect good design method principles from the start in order to avoid wasting money in the name of development (which has been done for decades already)!

Cheers, Alex
http://www.businessmodeldesign.com

Talking about successful technology adoption in rural communities check out Grameen Phone in Bangladesh. A truly impressive and community & entrepreneur driven approach that has generated a 500 Mio USD telecom company!
http://business-model-design.blogspot.com/2005/10/innovative-business-model-design.html

The approach of Intel 100$ PC is really a step ahead to the BOP market capturing as more and more MNCs are finally appreciating the invisible oppurtunity which was earlier being higly ignored and avoided. Organizations have to connect themselves to these areas and it can be done with the helop of IT as it's the only fastest and cheapeast way of communication. The starting of Kiosk in rural areas is an effective iniative taken up by the combined effort of government, local entrepreneurs, SHGs, Private organizations and NGOs. At present the computers being used by the Kiosk are of normal configuration and most of the features or hardware supports are not of any use to them. So a cutdown can be made in that area. What they require is a computer which can be used for internet, normal wordpad and to print or scan. In some of the area kiosk operators even teach local kids how to work on a computer, MS office and C++. Currently the cost of infrastructure required per Kiosk is high , but with the launching of these cost effective PCs and Laptops it can be brought down to a minimum level. But while manufacturing, comapnies must be highly cautious about the exact need of the local people. Intel with its strong business model, human resourse, infrastructure and experience is surely going to produce a better product for BOP. With more and more people getting IT literate especially in South India, this would be a remarkable achievement. Moreover the Internet Penetration with better speed should be a moajor concern. Atlast with the market saturation at the Tiers1 and 2, poors are not begging bowl of the system they are an oppurtunity which have emerged as a very strong contender of the consumer market presently

I think its not fair to compare the two approach because they are absolutely different in nature.
Though both are catering the emerging markets as Low cost computing device there is a inherent difference in the two concepts.
100$Laptop enables mobility of computing. It best suits people on move.
Intel's approach is catering to People who dont need to be mobile.
So what would ultimately decide the sucess of the concepts is whether people are wanting mobile computing or standstill and what is their percentage.
i think both are needed in emerging markets like India. It can fail if it is not marketed properly.