Advanced Micro Devices plans to unfurl next week a blueprint for building a low-price computer aimed at providing Internet access to people in so-called emerging markets.
Dubbed the Personal Internet Communicator, the machine is geared toward families who make the equivalent of between $1,000 and $6,000 annually. Three companies in India and Latin America will be among the first to market versions of the machine, an AMD representative said.
The Personal Internet Communicator, or PIC as AMD calls it, will cost about $249 without a display. To reach that price, AMD selected several standard PC components, including one of its own Geode x86 processors, 128MB of Samsung RAM and a 10GB Seagate hard drive. The company also specifies a version of Microsoft"s Windows CE operating system, fitted with Windows XP-extensions, allowing it to provide consumers with a graphical interface, e-mail, Web browsing, instant messaging and word processing. The PIC machines will also be able to play multimedia files and show PDF and PowerPoint files, AMD said.