Whitebox vendors in the Asia-Pacific region may warm up to the One Laptop Per Child's decision to open its design, according to market research analyst IDC.
Multinational PC makers, on the other hand, will continue their focus on mini-notebooks, Reuben Tan, IDC's senior manager for personal systems research in the Asia-Pacific region, told CNET News sister site ZDNet Asia in a phone interview.
Earlier this month, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte announced the organization's intention to open-source its hardware design and invite commercial PC makers to copy it. In an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia, Negroponte said the OLPC intends to make open as many aspects of its next-generation XO laptop as possible.
Negroponte added the organization is also working to improve features in Netbooks. Current products, he pointed out, lack three design features: low power equal to or below 2 watts; ruggedness and the ability to be repairable easily; and displays that are readable in the sun. Such features could be made available by "nontraditional vendors."
IDC's Tan noted the OLPC has seen successes in Latin America but penetration is "very low" in regions such as the Asia-Pacific. Mini-notebooks, which emerged after OLPC's XO laptops came onto the global scene, have on the other hand "ramped up quite a lot" in the region.
While the OLPC's endeavor would likely attract some interest from local manufacturers and lead to the vendors incorporating "some of the OLPC designs into their own skills," there is also the challenge of keeping costs down.
"If there's going to be traction, I'd say it comes primarily from local, whitebox vendors in various countries that have existing desktop or nettop lines, who are looking to diversify into the portable area," said Tan. But even so, these manufacturers need to focus on the rural areas of emerging markets, he said.
Big multinational PC vendors, such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell, will continue to focus strongly on the mini-notebook market, said Tan. "There's already that competition in a way...[as] variants of OLPC start to come into the market.
"'What is the target market for this particular product' and 'Will it be competing with mini-notebooks out there'--those will be the questions which these big PC vendors will be asking," he added.
According to Tan, vendors will be most interested in copying its price and optimized operating system--a gap that has not been properly addressed in the mini-notebook market yet.
HP did not respond to ZDNet Asia's queries at the time of writing. A Dell spokesperson told ZDNet Asia the company does not believe in a "one-size-fits-all approach", adding that user demands differ according to markets or need. A Lenovo spokesperson said that it was "premature to comment" as the company does not have details on the OLPC offering.
Vivian Yeo of ZDNet Asia reported from Singapore.
HONG KONG--As software gets more powerful, privacy issues pose an "interesting software challenge," says Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.
Recounting a short history of software development, Gates said innovations in natural interaction technology are making technology more pervasive. "When interaction gets more natural, computers can be everywhere to listen to you," he said, adding that "society will have to have more explicit rules" governing privacy boundaries around software as technology develops.
Gates was speaking here to mark the 10th anniversary of Microsoft Research Asia, one of the software giant's research arms.
Explaining the company's focus on software research and development, he said its $7 billion investment in that direction is necessary to push innovation in a market that is "increasingly software driven."
"Even in a field like astronomy, it's not just looking through an eyepiece but testing theories, and software lets you do that," he said.
Noting that software is extending beyond PCs, Gates said mobile software is a market that is growing rapidly in importance. He added: "Mobile phones are increasingly becoming software-driven platforms, although they were just for voice before."
But it is a hardware innovation that will make mobiles more accessible for high-end functions. Amid developments in phone processors and mobile applications, it is screen technology that holds the key to bridging the divide between mobile devices and PCs, Gates noted.
"As we get screens that can roll or fold out to be bigger, or mobile devices that have small screens but can project larger images on walls, that line between what's a PC and a mobile will keep getting grayer," Gates said.
Another device that is expected to overlap with PC capabilities is the TV, he noted.
"Software innovation will be pervasive; it will happen to other things in our lives, like our cars and our TVs," he said.
Microsoft is working to place its R&D efforts in speech recognition technology to make TV watching more interactive, according to Gates.
In a demonstration shortly after his address, a Microsoft executive showcased a TV that was pulling a video clip from the Internet. He performed a search through the video content by way of speech recognition. This provides more comprehensive search results beyond current methods of running a text query through a video's title and summary,
Beyond these developments, more important for the developing world is in putting computers within reach, he added.
"Digital access is almost becoming like literacy...Children in poor countries need to get it too," Gates said.
Victoria Ho of ZDNet Asia reported from Hong Kong.
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