Intel's Community PC: Enabling IT ecosystem

Keeping in mind the miniscule PC penetration of around 4% in India, Intel Corporation has unveiled its long awaited 'Community PC' offering for the rural parts of the country. More than just the PC, this initiative is being targeted towards creating an IT friendly ecosystem for the region. Bill M Siu, VP-Channel Platforms Group of Intel Corporation discussed the company's strategy about this offering and how will it change rural lives at the basic level.

What is Intel's objective for rolling out the 'Community PC' program? There were other form factors that could have been used like the 'Simputer'. Why has Intel opted for a 'PC form factor' only, as far as this project is concerned?

With the help of this project we are trying to create an IT-based ecosystem that can enable villages and its populace to lead a better life. It is not about giving them a device. It is about building the overall ecosystem, we have a long-term vision. We are here to identify the needs and work with the existing social system in terms of designing services and deliver these services using technology.

When it comes to selecting this PC form factor, we have done that because we are targeting the community. All the other form factors are pretty much focused towards an individual user. We believe that a PC delivers an ideal form factor that can be utilized by a whole community.

Intel is partnering with OEMs like HCL and Wipro for the Community PC. However, HCL has its own products as well that qualify to compete with the Community PC. Don't you think that there would be enough competition within OEMs like HCL to market the Community PC?

There will always be competing products in a marketplace. We are trying to create opportunities not only for the rural population but also for our OEM partners in order to target this vast segment. The Community PC has got some unique features like its design and overall look and feel. This product is consciously designed keeping in mind the harsh conditions of the rural areas.

This sturdy PC can work in temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius and can even run on a battery that can be charged by pedaling (as in a bicycle dynamo) and other means. The battery works as a backup 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. This India-specific platform was developed after taking into consideration the problems faced by a typical Indian rural man - frequent power failure, dust, humidity and varying temperatures. 

To make the PC attractive to lenders or banks, the platform comes with a certificate-based access through a 30-digit code. This feature will allow banks to verify the validity of installment payments against the purchase of the PC.

Is Intel looking at increasing the number of partners — both OEMs and solution providers - for this project within India?

As of now we have partners like HCL, Wipro, Microsoft, Red Hat, NIIT, Yahoo India etc. As we move forward, we are looking at increasing this ecosystem considerably. We are already engaged in talks with other OEMs in order to partner with them for this project. 

We have identified certain key areas like healthcare, education, agriculture and trading. We are looking forward to partnering with local ISVs and other solution providers in order to develop localized content for this project.

Are you looking at taking the Community PC model outside India as well? 

These products originated within India, keeping in mind some of the unique problems or challenges that customers have in this country. However, there are other regions globally like Africa, China or Latin America where there are almost similar challenges. So we would certainly like to take this project beyond the Indian borders in future. We would be looking at countries like China, the African region and Latin America.

At what price point will Intel introduce the Community PC? What sort of revenue model does Intel have for this project?

The pricing for this product primarily depends on our OEM partners because they are the ones who will decide on the end-user price. However, keeping in mind how price sensitive the Indian market is, we would surely want this to be competitively priced in this geography.

We have our regular revenue model, which involves selling the chipset and CPU. So all these PCs will have our chipsets and the CPU.

How will an offering like this change lives within the rural India? When it comes to this demography there is a lot that needs to be done on the connectivity front. How do you plan to tackle this roadblock? 

This initiative is directed towards IT-enabling the community in general. So the idea is to arm them with information that is necessary for them, it can be healthcare information or critical information about agriculture issues. 

The government of India has already announced its plan to have 100,000 Common Service Centers by August 2007. So we certainly think that this is a product, which is ideally placed for such initiatives. 

The government of India has also announced its plans to connect villages with the help of statewide area networks. We are involved in some pilots in Karnataka and Uttaranchal wherein we are trying to provide connectivity with the help of Wimax technology to these rural areas. We are trying to build low cost networks that can support this initiative. We are also partnering with telecom service providers like Reliance and Tata in order to provide connectivity with the help of their mobile networks.