A recent post on the Low Cost Computing lists at Freelists.org

Any discussion on "Low Cost Computing" and related issues in various fora and the media is centred around the issue of technological tweaks. This is important as the technology and hardware platform involved in the implementation adds a lot to the bottomline TCO/TCOn calculations. But the question that remains to be asked is - is technology the main factor in this paradigm ?

Low Cost Computing (hereinafter abbreviated as LCC - nothing to do with the academic institution of the same stylised name), in my belief has 4 stakeholders or contributory factors at the very broad level. These are:

[i] the technology
[ii] the institutions/organisations involved as sponsors or 'champions'
[iii] the end-users/target audience
[iv] the content

A successful amalgamation and merging of all these should lead to a homogenous and effective rollout and implementation. The technological aspects of LCC has already been discussed threadbare. Using standardised TCO/TCOn and/or cost-benefit models, it has been proved that LCC is the best way to go forward in cases where existing legacy hardware needs to be modified to provide functional IT education. 'Functional IT education' is a catchall term that is loaded with implications, yet for the moment this will have to suffice.

LCC needs a constant sponsorship from the administration for the entire period of operation. This is important, as, per se LCC cannot lead to a completely snazzy computing experience. This is probably because the aim of LCC is quite different. Thus for every step of the way, beginning from hardware selection, vendor appraisal, toolsets used and funds allocated, sponsor presence is mandatory and required. Perhaps the best way to provide for such inclusive presence is to create a 'project champion' - a concept not alien to practitioners of Participatory Design methods who ensures that the mandate is attained without adding to the cost.

At this point of time, I feel that it is not pertinent to go into the details about the end-users, but for the moment, let us discuss content. LCC is aimed to provide effective IT-education by means of focussed content. The LCC infrastructure thus, in a way functions as the Content Delivery Platform. Content is an aspect that requires involvement of various agencies of the government as well as Special Interest Groups involved in information dissemination. A major cause for non-iterative scaling of LCC initiatives in the ICT4D domain is the poor quality and focus of content. When delivering content through an IT setup, it is required to ensure that User Interfaces are simple enough to facilitate the possibility of extensive User Interaction. This means that UI should conform to standard guidelines and established norms. UI and usability issues are not a subject of this mail, and I propose to take them up in a different mail again. The moot point is that without interactive content, user retention of information is hindered. Content creation requires participatory fora of designers, developers, content ideators etc.

LCC is being implemented on localised GNU/Linux and standard distributions across the country and various places. I feel that we would benefit if the issues were discussed in light of those implementations.


- posted by sankarshan @ 11/15/2003 06:28:00 PM