World's largest chip maker Intel on Wednesday launched a personal computer platform that was conceived and largely designed in India to suit the rural environment.
The PC, conceived by the Platform Definition Centre set up in India in June last year, is one of the many platforms for specific uses that the group is working on.
"The group is working on more affordable solutions and PC platforms for specific uses like in area of education. A series of new platforms are coming up," Amar Babu, managing director (sales and marketing) for South Asia said.
Apart from India, Intel had set up platform definition group in Sao Paulo in Brazil, Cairo and Shanghai, William M Siu, vice president and general manager (channel platforms group) at Intel said.
The sturdy PC launched on Wednesday can work in temperatures of up to 50 degree celsius and can even run on a battery that can be charged by pedalling (as in a bicycle dynamo) and other means.
The battery works as a back up in areas where power supply is erratic. The PC can also operate in high dust environment and in surroundings, where there are lot of insects.
Intel has positioned the personal computer as a community PC that can be used in citizen service centres and other applications like education, Babu said.
The government has set a target of setting up 1,00,000 citizen service centres all over the country.
He said the platform has been provided to computer manufacturers like HCL and Wipro, who were expected to roll them out in a few weeks.
The PCs will be priced between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000, Babu said.
The applications for PCs will be developed by independent software vendors like TCS, Microsoft and Red Hat.
"Intel is providing a platform and ecosystem for such a PC," Babu said.
He said the PC platform was tested in 14 states before it was offered to PC manufacturers.
Intel is also planning to take this PC platform to locations where conditions are same as that in India.
"We hope that one year from now it will be a success story well beyond India," Siu said, adding that the company would like to see it proliferate across the world.
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