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We do have a lot of candidates like ASUS and Disney bringing out netbooks designed specifically for children. The Magic Blue and Princess Pink versions of the Disney Netpal netbooks are available for $350. Dell’s Latitude 2100 is another contender. It comes in a range of pretty colors for the little ones, and has a rubbery case and even sports an anti-microbial keyboard, just perfect for kids. The Linux version of the Latitude 2100 is available for $369.



While these are reportedly fantastic and tough netbooks with safety features and fun applications for children, they simply don’t fit into the OLPC kind of scheme due to their high cost. Who do you think can bridge that gap? So far no one has come closer than the shanzhai. They are the masters of price reduction and emulation of designs. The kid-friendly Latitude 2100 netbook, for example, was re-hashed by Zhongchi with their ZC-A80 netbook. We had a look in an earlier article. While we are not sure how much this model will cost, it is likely that there will be more of these products from the shanzhai.

Also in an earlier article, we explored how the shanzhai manage to ‘knock together a cheapo shanzhai netbook’. Bringing out cheaper shanzhai versions of an OLPC design is not a distant dream from the manufacturing point of view.

NetbookStation recently reported a $98 Windows CE netbook from Lanyu in Shenzen, China. The 7-inch netbook with a 266mHZ ARM processor and 128 MB of RAM is definitely something that fits the bill. “…people who could not otherwise afford a computer can now be mobile and connected for less than $100. Or even further, elementary school students — who would assumingly have little sense of responsiblity — can use mobile machines with less risk to the school”, says netbookStation. We checked out the potential of the 7-inch Lanyu eBook LY-EB01 here.

Many consider shanzhai products as mere ‘knock-offs’ of the original with reduced performance and much lower prices. Hundreds of shanzhai firms would surely disagree. They do have their own designs in addition to the ‘knock-off’ products. They work with minimal capital and in modest settings with a very low margins and have their own distribution channels, different from traditional channels. This considerably reduces the price of their products making it difficult for anyone else to compete in terms of pricing. This could work in favor of the shanzhai qualifying as a candidate in supplying $100 netbooks to children in developing countries.

In the Peer to Peer Foundation blog, Kevin Carson explains how he thinks the shanzhai could make Negroponte’s dream come true. He said, “The shanzai are efficient: one shop of under 250 employees churns out over 200,000 mobile phones per month with a high mix of products…” .This would well work for netbooks too. Carson added, “Most of these phones sell into third-world and emerging markets: India, Africa, Russia, and southeast Asia; I imagine if this model were extended to the PC space the shanzhai would easily accomplish what the OLPC failed to do.”

The OLPC program is more than just the supply of appropriate laptops, however. The OLPC work with governments to provide educational software in local dialect that fulfills the educational program’s needs – as well as just the laptop. The shanzhai are not set up for complete programs where the laptops are just a tool. But they are capable of providing the tool at a good cost. Whether or not shanzhai products would meet FCC regulations or have the necessary legal rights to sell outside of China are also big hurdles. But hitting that USD 100 price point – that the shanzhai can do.

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