Bangkok Post (12 Nov 2007)
Low-cost notebook computers once considered for mass purchase and giveaways by the Thaksin Shinawatra government are rolling off the production lines in China.
The first of the XO laptops being built at a Quanta Computer facility in Changshu are destined for Uruguay, marking a milestone for the charity group founded by Nicholas Negroponte in Massachusetts two years ago.
"Against all the naysayers ... we have developed and now manufactured the world's most advanced and greenest laptop and one designed specifically to instill a passion for learning in children," Negroponte said.
A challenge for the organization has been that governments have not backed effusive words of support with willing flows of cash to buy laptops for children inside their borders.
Mr Negroponte at one time thought he had convinced Mr Thaksin to buy one million of the small, unique notebooks in order to give them away to Thai school children, the original aim of the initiative worldwide.
But Mr Thaksin and his ministry of information and communications technology never had any strong interest in acquiring the computers, which - while cheap - are very different from the standard Windows-type computers available in Thailand.
In August of 2006, Mr Thaksin claimed that "every elementary school child will receive a computer that the government will buy for them, free of charge, instead of books, because books will be found and can be read on computers." But he was clear that this plan covered locally assembled Windows-type machines, not the laptops from the world project.
The Sept 19, 2006, military coup put paid to the last chance that the Thai government would purchase the machines. Then-ICT minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, who does not use the Internet, was unimpressed with the machines.
And Education Miniser Wijit Srisa-arn was dismissive from the time he entered the military-appointed government. "The project is not urgent and not in my education reform plan in the one-year timeframe, which focuses on improving education quality for teachers and students," he said a year ago.
Nectec chairman director Thaweesak Koanantakool helped a project to test the machines in the field in Thailand only two weeks after the military coup, but by then it was clear the project was dead in the water in Thailand.
Still, as recently as February, Mr Negroponte insisted Thailand would be among "the first batch" of five countries to shell out $200 million to buy and give away a million of the computers.
With the price of the "$100 laptops" now at $200 or more, there is no chance Thailand will participate in the programme.
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