The Hindu : 'World has bought a billion PCs'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 03, 2002

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'World has bought a billion PCs'

By Anand Parthasarathy

KOCHI JULY 2. Someone, somewhere in the world, recently bought a personal computer and helped the Information Technology industry cross a historic milestone because it was the one billionth PC.

To reach this landmark it has taken about 25 years. But such is the scale of the information explosion that the two billionth PC is expected to be sold within six years. These are the findings of a survey just-released by the Gartner Group in San Jose, California, capital of the original "Silicon Valley'', where the mid 1970s saw a handful of enterprising companies assemble cards based on the just-invented microprocessor and sell it as a do-it-yourself computer kit.

The first such computer kit — "Altair 8800'' — came in 1975 from a company called MITS, which soon went out of business. The "Apple'' computer in kit form came soon after but it was the design created by IBM, with the hardware integrated by Intel's Andy Grove and the operating software co-written by a then garage-level company — Microsoft — headed by Bill Gates, that delivered the world's first PC in 1981.

Since then, the U.S. has accounted for 394 million or approximately 39 per cent of all PCs made; another 25 per cent has gone to Europe; and, Asia has absorbed just under 12 per cent. However, most commentators, mulling over the Gartner findings today, were agreed that Asian giants, China and India, were poised to become the biggest PC buyers in the near future. Christine Riley, head of a research group called People and Practices, was quoted by CNET News as saying that Indian consumers still seemed to want to keep office and home computing separate. Smaller, less intrusive PCs were needed for this market, she added.

Perhaps, this is already happening. The India-made "Simputer'', a bare-bones hand held computer that works off penlight cells and talks with the user, has just been released in small numbers in Bangalore and has been hailed as one of the major global achievements in helping nations bridge the "digital divide'' between the technological rich and poor. However, gross PC penetration in India is still rather small, and till the fiscal year ending March 2002, 7 million PCs were estimated to be sold here, which means about 7 PCs for every 1,000 people.

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