http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/33963.html contains the following :


Microsoft recently broke its global pricing policy for the Thai market,
offering steep discounts in the Royal Kingdom for its Windows and Office
products. From a report at Linux Insider, we learn why.

First-time computer users are flocking to a government-subsidised
programme to bring cheap PCs to the public. Although pirate copies of
Windows and Office have a street price as low as $4, the information
ministry's scheme of selling PCs loaded with Linux and OpenOffice for
$250 is a runaway success. A million new PC owners will be using Linux
within the next few months.

"Charging Thai consumers nearly $600 for Windows/Office is the
equivalent of charging US consumers $3000," notes the report. But even
at the right-sized price of $37, Thai first-timers are preferring Linux.
Which also cites Linux's superior Right-to-Left support as a reason why
the ministry's computers are popular.

>From the report we can draw several, and some surprising conclusions. As
a business model, charging a software licence fee against a comparable
free rival is now, perhaps, a risky proposition. The oft-cited factors
of global brand appeal (Microsoft is one of the world's most recognised
names) and integration count for little in emerging markets.

This isn't to say Microsoft will disappear in a puff of smoke: with a
cash pile of $51 billion, it isn't going to go away anytime soon. And it
can conceivably switch, as IBM did, from dictating the market to shift
to a services model where it maintains legacy code: keeping it just
about up to date for incumbents to count the costs, and find it cheaper
to stay where they are. Microsoft's most valuable software asset right
now is not any of the interesting file system or user interface
enhancements in Longhorn that it unveiled at PDC, it's Windows Update.
Keeping the worms and viruses at bay is going to be a full-time job:
probably one that ensures Microsoft's long-term survival.

But in terms of simple economics: when a piece of software with an
expensive licence fee is pitched against a free rival of equivalent
functionality, the software with the licence fee will lose. And this
particularly applies to emerging markets in the East. Here in the
occident, we expect to hear "exit costs" to emerge as the dominant theme
of Microsoft marketing in the coming months and years.

We also have an anecdote to offer, which might be useful.

Alt-F4?
This reporter gave up Mac OS X for Ramadan. Well, sort of. Fasting is
good for soul, to be sure, which explains why 2.5 billion people around
the world practice it in some form, but my reasons weren't so
high-minded. Not having spent more than an hour at a time at an x86 PC
in the past three years, I was curious to see what was going on in the
Windows world. I have no great revelations that you haven't heard: yes,
Opera on Windows is incomparably great (and makes Safari look like, to
paraphrase my colleague Ashlee Vance, a grey rectangle). And yes, the
hardware is much better value and feels dangerously cheap. (When I began
to burn a CD, the USB bus failed: Windows reported that there had been a
"power surge" - and disabled all the USB devices).

But all this, you already know. However, I found that moving from a
coherent (although still flawed, as John Siracusa points out this week
in his latest heroic installment) the user interface on Windows is a
very jarring experience. There are many patches, spyware and virus
checkers to install, nothing is ever quite predictable, and the system
guides the user over a barbed wire fence. Ctrl-W now closes many
applications windows, but not all. Alt-F4 closes the others. What should
I press?

Now this is relevant, we figure. The new PC users in Thailand have only
some muscle memory of legacy systems, which levels the playing field in
unexpected ways. Linux on the desktop is still immature and infuriating,
but for a new and resourceful user, the legacy is as much of an
encumbrance as it is an opportunity. And here's the key.

Linux Insider reports that most of the new Linux users are expected to
stick with their PCs thanks to the fanatical level of support provided
by the Thai Linux user groups. Gartner predicts a 70 per cent stick
rate: which is quite extraordinary, given the power that is so often
attributed to factors such as branding and incumbent advantages.

So here we have two related phenomenon. A government is prepared to look
after its people and subsidise a low-cost PC initiative, which
enfranchises a new middle class. (Thailand's infant mortality rate
doesn't look to shabby compared to some laissez-faire countries, such as
the United States). And community based support groups, which are very
much part of software libre's growth, hold a huge advantage, here. The
report cites Thai language support as a key factor in Linux's
popularity: but this didn't appear out of nowhere over night.

Asked to "think local", Thailand has provided an intriguing and
successful solution: a community-based model that atomises concepts
we're used to thinking of as important, such as "brand". It's a new way
of doing business, and we look forward to seeing how Western companies
adapt, given that the potential market is so large in Asia.

And is it too early to declare the software licence dead? ®


- posted by sankarshan @ 11/15/2003 06:38:00 PM 0 comments

 
A recent post from Fred Noronha to the BytesforAll list

IN A WORLD WHERE THOSE WHO CAN'T TEACH, I.T. CAN

>From Frederick Noronha

CAN IT AND THE INTERNET help teacher's teach better, design courses better,
build improved learning environments, and support the learner more
adequately? Yes, say the experiences of technologists working in various
parts of India on issues such as these.

Online content is leading to flexible learning, web-based course-ware is
being worked on, as are novel authoring tools for course-ware design. There's
even attempts to design a ditigally-enabled self-learning course for adults.

These are other initiatives came up in a little-noticed international
conference on online learning, held some months back at Mumbai, called
Vidyakash. Let's look at some of them:

Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services points to it's authoring tool called
eVOLv, as a possible means of promoting e-learning. Madhuri Sawant of TCS
says this is a world with a "learn, unlearn and re-learn" mantra, and the
need for updating knowledge is very strongly felt in a changing world.

eVOLVe has a video window which displays a movie. It gives audio too.
Synchronised information appears in an adjacent window. Thumb-nails allow the
learner to navigate through the course. There's an inbuilt quiz tool -- to
test the learner's knowledge. Streaming video technology shortens download
time, and helps cope with bandwidth constraint. You get the transcript of
the script, in sync with the video. There are also other functionalities
that you can avail of while learning -- links, email, help and note-pad.

IIM-Bangalore, the Indian Institute of Management from the garden city, has
also been working on its own model of e-learning.

Say T R Madanmohan and Jai Ganesh of IIMB: "The Internet has enormous power
to improve the educational process. By using the Internet, education can be
personalised to each user, so that each student is given a targeted set of
materials based on his or her specific educational goals and previous
achievements. At the same time, the Internet allows material to be updated
dynamically, which creates an up-to-the minute resource for students."

IIMB, a 30-year-old institution considered to be one of India's best
business schools, keeps in touch with its alumni through e-mail and other
forms of feedback. They've been trying to address concerns of alumni for the
need for upgradation of skills.

So, their customised model offers tailor-made material, study guides,
activities and discussions formed around existing material -- textbooks,
CD-ROM resources, or tutorials. Online interactions and discussions occupy
about half the students' time, with predetermined content filling the other
half.

There are other solutions, like eCollege (an e-learning software and
services provider). Suggests the IIMB team: "Technology has created a
powerful set of tools for us to use in the educational world... Based on
the experience, technology is not the limiting factor, but making inroads
into the habit of learning (is). Most of us are habituated to lecture-based
and other direct methods, and most of the assignments are group-based."

IIMB's researchers also point out that some academics and educators "are,
and will, continue to be opposed to e-learning in principle. Academics and
educators have expressed concerns regarding the perceived loss of control
over the education process that can result from the out-sourcing of
e-learning campuses and courses, and the possibility for lower-quality
learning outcomes. Some of the concerns may be genuine and need to be
addressed at an institutional level."

Meanwhile, Acharya is an intelligent tutoring system for teaching SQL.
Acharya provides an "intelligent problem-solving environment" where students
can try out solutions to SQL problems posed by the system, and get
qualitative feedback. This has been focussed on by Sandhya Bhagat, Latesh
Bhagat, Jojumon Kavalan and M Sasikumar of NCST at Navi Mumbai.

Says this team: "The essential differences of an intelligent-tutoring system
and a computer-based tutoring system are in the level and detail with which
the subject is represented and the use of a student model.
Intelligent-tutoring systems were a dormant subject during the last decade,
after a long period of significant interest among the artificial
intelligence community."

In their paper, they describe the architecture of Acharya -- using Java
servlet technology and a web-based front-end and POSTgreSQL at the back-end.
They argue: "Acharya is based on guided discovery. A student should be given
opportunities to discover things themselves, rather than being told about
them."

>From Rajasthan, we are told of Prabodh, a distributed online Hindi grammar
teaching-learning system. Prabodh is an intelligent tutoring system, which
tries to teach elementary level Hindi grammar following the principles of
pedagogy. It allows geographically-scattered expert tutors to create lessons
and exercises, based on Hindi grammar concepts, through GUIs (graphical-user
interfaces) in Hindi, which are then stored at the server. Any student or
teacher can use these sets of lessons. This experiment has been described by
Madhavi Sinha and Rekha Govil, of the Apaji Institute of Mathematics &
Applied Computer Technology.

>From Kolkata in eastern India, computer scientists and professionals are
working on 'flexible learning' models. This could bring in just the right
amount of online content, to the right learner, and at the right time.

Using this, an online learn can call up the appropriate amount and type of
learning material when it is necessary and useful for his or her work and
performance, suggest Diptendu Datta of Aunwesha Knowledge Technologies,
Chandran Mujumdar of Jadavpur University and Shymal Majumdar of the
Technical Teachers Training Institute.

They suggest separation of content from a delivery strategy. So far, they've
developed a GUI-based tool, implemented with Java Swing, that they say "may
be" used to define strategies. Currently only parts of the strategy can be
generated by this tool, they admit.

In Bangalore, Janardhanan P.S. of Hewlett Packard's Indian Software
Operations has been looking at how to generate a 'natural sounding' voice
browser.

Online learning applications, he suggests, can be deployed on voice portals
for which telephones are the access device. Telephones, after all, are more
ubiquitous, more mobile and more affordable than computers with Internet
access.

But text-to-speech conversion systems need to produce outputs resembling
human speech. "Generating natural-sounding speech from text is successful
only if the synthesiser understands the context and mood in which the
sentence is to be spoken," says Janardhanan.

So, the way out is incorporating moods of the context into VoiceXML
documents. But considerable research is needed for "modelling prosodic
parameters" for each of the moods, he says.

>From Navi Mumbai and NCST again comes a report on 'Chaatra', a student
monitoring and learner profiling system. Chaatra tries to answer how a
student's overall understanding of a subject is, whether the student lags
behind in some particular topic, if so for what possible reason, and whether
some modification in the course needs to be carried out. It also shows
whether there are any significant patterns emerging on a student-by-student
basis in the class as a whole.

Researchers at IIT-Kharagpur have been working on automatic "query
refinement" for online learning. NCST in Belapur (Navi Mumbai) has come up
with Sandesh, a "response management system". To reduce the email load on a
person, , it offers an intelligent system that tries to understand the
content of an e-mail, and try to find a response for it. If a suitable
response is not found, the mail may be directed to the person concerned.

With so much happening in the field, there seems to be scope for potential.
But is there enough space for an exchange of ideas to happen in such a way
that the best workable ideas get into full bloom? (ENDS)

- posted by sankarshan @ 11/15/2003 06:37:00 PM 0 comments

 
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 0 comments

 
Just decided sometime back that the implementation and roll out of IT in schools and other places needs to be structured. Time is too precious to be lost in experimenting with methods and models in order to adapt and adopt them to the current locale. The best way of getting people to exchange ideas is through a mailing list, and thus utilised Freelists.Org www.freelists.org to set one up. The following is the initial mail to the Free Software Foundation of India - West Bengal list and of course that very dear FLOSSToday.

Hi,

One of the most important means of ushering in a change in social dynamics is to ensure that the 'digital chasm' is bridged. There are many lists dedicated to record and comment on the processes and studies. Thus the question might arise - 'Why another one ?' I feel, as do many others, that making IT available at the school level is the key to dissemination of knowledge and bringing about a change in the power matrices. Low Cost Computing is the cornerstone of ICT4D implementations. Keeping this objective in mind, this list has been
created to address the very niche domain of 'Low Cost Computing'

At the beginning the motivating factor was the intended rollout of F/L OSS based low cost computing technology based on local language in West Bengal. But, I hope that this small step will lead to a healthy exchange of ideas, models, case studies and processes on a global scale ensuring that a true community of knowledge sharing is created.

The aim behind FLOSSToday was to bring about a cohesive nature to the fragmented world of F/L OSS developers, enthusiasts and volunteers. The aim of Low Cost Computing can be stated to bring about a group of like minded individuals to share knowledge and tools, exchange technological insights and analyse processes in making IT happen at schools and related levels with minimum invasiveness and cost.

The list somewhat deliberately encourages ideation from the worlds of F/L Software and Open Source Software development models with the hope that a synergy can be attained for a greater good.

Some important starter info:

- Users can subscribe to your list by sending email to lowcostcomputing-request@freelists.org with 'subscribe' in the Subject field

- To post on this mailing list, simply send email to lowcostcomputing@freelists.org.

- Users can unsubscribe from your list by sending email to lowcostcomputing-request@freelists.org with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field

- View the list's information at http://www.freelists.org/list/lowcostcomputing and your list's webpage (once it is setup, sometime soon) at http://www.freelists.org/webpage/lowcostcomputing

- Online, searchable archives of your list are available at http://www.freelists.org/archives/lowcostcomputing Each list's archive is automatically updated as new messages come in.

- There's a FAQ at http://www.freelists.org/help/faq.html that might be helpful for first time users

I would request you to kindly spread the word and let us all pool in our resources, talent and energies to integrate ideas about Low Cost Computing. At the end of the day, the following quote seems relevant and pertinent :

Collecting data is only the first step towards wisdom, but sharing data is the first step towards community. - Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Thank you,

Warm regards

Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay
(sankarshanmukhopadhyay at vsnl dot net)


- posted by sankarshan @ 11/12/2003 08:39:00 PM 0 comments

 
The sad state of news channels
The media these days has become intensely annoying and irritatingly irresponsible. Given the absolutely overwhelming number of news channels on air, it is inevitable that all of them would try and squeeze the last drop of 'news' from any story. But it seems that some common code, although unwritten, which existed even 2 years back is being slowly breached.

Take the recent case of the carnage in North Bengal. Gruesome scenes permeated the event and lasted for days. Newspaper reports of the bloodbath indicated the amount of shocking pictures that could be visualised. Yet the channels gladly put them on air.

Even a year back such unabashed and brazen shamelessness was not evident. I remember the time when even the sanitised Gulf war that came to the Indian viewers through The World This Week used to be preceeded by a warning about scenes of graphic nature. Not any more ! Mr Prannoy Roy's own channel has been often guilty of transgressing the line between news and morality and much less said about the local channels the better. For the lack of news and headline making stories, these resort to tactics that are the domain of the so-called 'yellow press' milking every story for what it is worth.

Indian viewers spend a considerable amount of time glued to the TV sets and while these might not directly induce the events, the rising trend of violence in society do tell a sorry tale. Accountability should be enforced by ensuring that offending channels are censured. Punitive action although bordering on tokenism, might go some way in cultivating the public perception of the channels and force them to clean up their act. The sooner that happens - the better it will be...




- posted by sankarshan @ 11/10/2003 04:15:00 AM 0 comments