Intel plans to establish a platform definition center in Bangalore, India, to define a new PC platform appropriate for the
Indian market and other emerging markets in South Asia, it announced Monday.
"Just as the Centrino was a platform we developed for the global market, we are developing, though on a smaller scale, a new
platform for markets in India and the rest of South Asia," said a spokeswoman for Intel. The design for the platform will
be done from the ground up, and Intel may even design new processors for the platform if it is required, she said.
The Santa Clara, California, company has already started similar initiatives in Cairo, Egypt, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, according
to the spokeswoman.
A number of vendors have indicated that they are introducing computing technologies specially developed for emerging markets
such as India.
Via Technologies, a hardware vendor in Taipei, plans to introduce a range of low-cost computer designs aimed at users in emerging
markets. The company's Terra PC project aims to bring to market three different devices using Via processors and chipsets,
Via's country manager for India Ravi Pradhan said last month. The products are likely to be priced at between $100 and $250,
and will be introduced first in India in September, he said.
At introduction, the Via products will run the Linux operating system to drive down costs, although at a later date the company
may consider also offering Microsoft's Windows operating system on the products.
The Intel team working on identifying the requirements of its new platform will include ethnographers, and the key design
objectives of the platform will be to achieve very low cost, low power consumption, ease of use and ease of management, according
to the spokeswoman. In India where power supply in rural areas is often erratic, the low power requirements go far beyond
what is offered on some of Intel's current low-power platforms, she said.
The products will be sold through Intel's existing channels, the spokeswoman said. In India, Intel already has a large channel
of vendors of unbranded PCs, called Genuine Intel Dealers (GIDs), some of whom have a reach beyond India's urban markets.
The commercial model for the deployment of these products would depend on the research of the team at the platform definition
center in Bangalore.
"They may for example find that a community-owned Internet kiosk type of platform may be the more suitable," the spokeswoman
said.
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