[Josh] I ran into Jamin Spitzer, head of analyst relations for Microsoft, at the Forrester Digital Consumer event last week. He promised to show me Microsoft's response to the idea of a low-cost PC for the their world (see previous post)
They're pushing a smart phone solution. Here is a link he sent me on it. You have to scroll about half way down the text or half way into the Webcast to hear the part about the cell phone.
Now Nichalos Negroponte addressed this issue at our event. He pointed out that the screen on mobile phones is too small for these applications. Microsoft also talks about hooking it up to a TV. Negroponte responds that for those third-world children who have a TV set at home (not that many) that asking to use it for the phone isn't really going to fly with mom and dad. Especially if there are two or more kids.
I think he's right.
Microsoft as usual responds to these initiatives by finding some way to assemble the pieces it has to deliver some subset of the functionality and eventually get it right by version 3. And it often works. But here, Negroponte has an impossible to compete with business model -- no profit, distribution by the millions through governments, and a computer designed for kids.
The only way for Microsoft to compete with this is to design and give away cheap PCs. Which they may well do. Stay tuned.
Let me know if you agree with Microsoft that a mobile phone solution is best for the third world -- I'd like to hear from you.
Technorati tags: Bernoff, Forrester, Microsoft, OLPC, Nicholas Negroponte
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