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Vendors have been selling inexpensive personal computers for years. Dell has offered models that are more-or-less disposable – the case is sealed, and the repair costs may exceed the computer’s actual value.

Business Week reported on 9 October that sales of ultra-low cost PCs are growing, especially in Asia and Latin America. One popular market for these computers is in schools, where students need durable computers. Some models lack hard drives, relying on flash memory and network storage instead. This 16 June 2006 ZDNet article describes an Intel project to design similar computers. The article also points out some of the distribution challenges in these markets. Weekly payments, microloans, content filtering and asset control systems are important features.

The One Laptop Per Child initiative provides similar computers that run the Linux operating system instead of Microsoft Windows. This 4 October article in the New York Times provides a brief overview of the XO project, and Laptop Magazine has an extensive hands-on review. Wikipedia has an article, of course, and it notes that Intel has redirected its ultra low-cost PC program to support the XO project.

As this spec sheet shows, the XO computer is not a fast device. Its power usage is only 2 watts, which is less than some PDAs and smartphones. The XO’s battery can be recharged in several clever ways, as described in this list from OLPC News.

Ultra-low cost PCs aren’t supposed to compete with standard consumer and corporate models, so the key success factors in this industry may become quite different than those found in mainstream PC markets. The XO is inexpensive, easy to manufacture, and easy to deploy in local schools.