India Chooses NComputing Over OLPC, Intel

NComputing has beaten out Intel and OLPC by bagging a deal to supply its products to a massive computer education program by the Andhra Pradesh state government and partially funded by the Central government.

The programme will provide computing access to 18 lakh school children throughout the state. Each of the 5,000 secondary schools will have a 10-seat computing lab with 2 desktop PCs and 8 NComputing systems at Rs. 4,500 per seat.

By choosing NComputing the government will save nearly Rs. 80 crore in up-front and ongoing costs and will also use 90% less electricity compared to a traditional all-PC solution.

Speaking on the occasion, Stephen Dukker, chairman and CEO, said, “NComputing is proud to have been chosen by Andhra Pradesh to fulfill its vision to improve learning and computer literacy throughout the state. At about Rs. 4,500 per seat, our solution is the ideal platform to enable schools, businesses, and governments to maximize their PC investment. We are the world leader in desktop virtualization and the scale of this deployment further extends our leadership position.”

The NComputing solution is based on the fact that today’s PCs are so powerful and the vast majority of applications only use a small fraction of the computer’s capacity. NComputing’s shared computing solution taps this unused capacity so that it can be simultaneously shared by many users. NComputing uses only 1 watt of electricity and is rugged, durable, and easy to maintain.

The computing labs will be used to teach computer skills, office productivity (such as spreadsheets and word processing), as well as subjects like reading and math. The systems will run the Microsoft Windows Server operating system and Microsoft Office Suite.

“India holds a strong position in the knowledge economy today due to the country’s investment in education over the years - and as a country, it is critical that we continue to focus on this,” said Ravi Venkatesan, chairman and corporate vice president, Microsoft India. “Aligning ourselves with the country’s priorities, we at Microsoft India are committed to enabling affordable access to computing for education. Through Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential commitment, we are continually looking for innovative and affordable technology solutions that can sustain social and economic progress. Initiatives such as this announced today that leverage the value to educational computing provided by the Windows Server platform represent yet another solution that can help move us towards this goal.”

The Andhra Pradesh programme is based on an innovative outsourcing model developed by the Andhra Pradesh government. The model is referred to as Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) and requires outsourcers to install, staff, and manage the labs for a five-year term. This arrangement helps ensure that the labs are installed quickly and strict performance benchmarks are met. The five-year period also enables school staff to develop their own skills in managing the labs and honing computer-aided teaching capabilities.

NIIT will be responsible for managing 2,005 of the schools. “Andhra Pradesh is one of the most progressive states to have encouraged early adoption of ICT in schools for enhancing quality of education. NIIT has been partnering with the government of Andhra Pradesh for the last six years, bringing the benefit of ICT to over 5.4 million students,” said L. Balasubramanian, president - school learning solutions, NIIT. “NIIT is pleased to bring the benefit of NComputing’s shared computing technology to Andhra Pradesh. We are thankful to the government of Andhra Pradesh for enabling such a large scale deployment.”

The NComputing solution will be integrated with desktop PCs which will be supplied primarily by Acer and HCL.