Read the full article by JASON DEAN and PETER WONACOTT, The Wall Street Journal via China Daily, November 3, 2006.
Lead: "Big technology companies, their established markets maturing, increasingly see their future in a huge but seemingly unlikely pool of potential customers: poor, rural residents of the world's developing countries."
In May, Intel announced plans to spend US$1 billion over five years to improve Internet access in developing countries and train teachers how to use technology. Intel hopes to work with local companies and governments to setup Internet connectivity in hundreds of other villages in China, and is helping deliver computers and Internet access to rural health clinics and schools. Intel has also helped train 700,000 teachers in China and more than 600,000 in India in the past several years on how to use technology in the classroom. It plans to train a million more teachers in China over the next several years. Intel is rolling out similar connectivity initiatives in India.
Motorola Inc., in cooperation with the GSM Association, an industry group, is making specially designed mobile phones priced under $30 for people in emerging markets who have never used them before.
Companies including Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and PC maker Quanta Computer Inc. of Taiwan have joined in the One Laptop Per Child effort. Microsoft is rolling out 50,000 computer kiosks in small towns and rural regions across India over the next three years. The kiosks are to be operated by entrepreneurs who will charge small fees for computer services, such as crop prices or accessing government land records.
No comments:
Post a Comment