Hey - no fair! I submitted this story last week and it got rejected. Oh, well... might as well fill everyone in on the details! The Laptop (as initially planned) is to be supplied by one of HP's key suppliers, but not itself HP branded. Well, at least the initial one was. The units have yet to be delivered (within 45 days of the end of this month says the fineprint in the contract), and frantic discussions are going on behind the scenes to source a better one. After all, a 800MHz VIA is pretty puny and the total lack of floppy / CD at that price point is pretty headache inducing.

Right now there's a tendency to go for one of ECS's Desknotes instead and throw in an external battery pack! There are a pile of different vendor's laptops at the government agency involved undergoing evaluation as we speak. To the best of my knowledge, there have been discussions with representatives from most of the local manufacturers (HP/Compaq is very big in the Thai market), as well as representatives from VIA flying in, but nothing with Dell.

As of Friday, the number of units "reserved" has topped 100,000. That's both laptops and the 1GHz Celeron Desktop which sells for 10,900 Baht or about 250 US$. Oh, did I mention that these units are not subsidised? The only monetary help given by the government is really in the low-cost loans (0.25% BELOW MLR) given to those who plan to purchase these machines through two state-owned banks.

The target is for 1 million of these inexpensive PCs to be sold by the end of the year. That's one million linux boxes in a market which normally sells 600,000 a year. The Thai government is also putting the finishing touches on launching an inexpensive internet account thinggy for up-country folk at 1 Baht an hour in order to get these people online.

The responsible agency (website only in Thai unfortunately) is Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. Support and delivery of these inexpensive PCs is through Thailand's Communications Authority of Thailand. An actual link to the project page of these inexpensive computers can be found here.