Bill Gates
scorned MIT's $100 Laptop Project which is supported by Microsoft's rival Google.
The $100 laptop project seeks to provide inexpensive computers to people in developing countries. The computers lack many features found on a typical personal computer, such as a hard disk and software.
"The last thing you want to do for a shared use computer is have it be something without a disk ... and with a tiny little screen," Gates said at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in suburban Washington.But Search Engine Journal's
report may remind the people the power of $100 Laptop together with Wirtely, and Gdive! Snips from the article:
I do think that consumers will be interested in the $100 computer (there’s already considerable evidence). The current “hand-crank” design may have less appeal to certain consumer segments than it could but design elements can be changed over time. Alternatively it may indeed turn out to be a product for emerging markets (I don’t think exclusively so). That’s still millions upon millions of potential customers.The thing that struck me tonight all about all this was that a kind of global vision for Google comes into focus. People have been speculating for the last couple of years about a GoogleOS or a GooglePC. There’s no GoogleOS, per se — although there is GooglePack and the deal with Sun regarding OpenOffice. And now there’s the Google acquisition of Writely. And then there’s GDrive.
Let’s put aside the major, major privacy issues that may prevent GDrive from really hatching into a full-grown butterfly. Having made that very important qualification, let’s step back and look at the really big picture here:
1. Low cost computers that don’t have big hard drives (say the $100 laptop or similar device)
2. Ubiquitous high-speed access (see GoogleNet or FON)
3. Web-based consumer software apps (e.g., GMail or Writely)
4. Virtually unlimited personal online storage (GDrive)
Now you see where I’m going.
This is not to say it’s the same place that Google is going. But from one point of view it’s certainly a compelling roadmap. Google thus would be the network and host most of the necessary software. Google and its allies would thus replace Microsoft as the primary computing platform — swapping the Internet for client-side applications. Microsoft sees the storm clouds on the horizon and that’s why I among others believe it’s pushing Live (in addition to the market segmentation value there).
Tags:
Microsoft,
$100 Laptop,
Google,
software
