Simmbook: low cost Ubuntu netbook
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has teamed up with IBM and Indian company Simmtronics to release a low-cost netbook aimed at the emerging market. The Simmbook will be sold for $190 (approximately R1 400) and will be pre-installed with Ubuntu Linux.
Netbooks have proven to be hugely popular around the globe as they fill a gap between smartphones and netbooks but have not been widely picked up in developing markets because of their price tags. Apart from the likes of the early Asus EEE PC, which sparked the netbook market and cost just a few thousand rand, netbooks have often been as costly as a standard laptop. The approach with the Simmbook is to keep the price down as low as possible and ship the device to the emerging market which is not well served by most manufacturers.
The Simmbook is built to take advantage of Internet-based services with IBM Client for Smart Work preloaded. The software includes IBM Lotus Symphony, IBM’s version of the OpenOffice.org office suite, as well as access to IBM LotusLive cloud collaboration services.
Canonical chief Mark Shuttleworth, speaking in a video broadcast earlier this week, said that cloud-based services have the advantage of doing the heavy lifting required in today’s computing environment without having to reside on the actual client. He did say, however, that a key part of this is pervasive bandwidth which exists in some parts of Africa but not all.
Clifford Foster, IBM sub-Saharan CTO, said that “as Africa makes economic strides during a time when new technologies like cloud computing are emerging, the Simmbook netbook with LotusLive, Lotus Symphony, Lotus Notes, and Ubuntu Linux provides businesses with a complete solution at an affordable price”.
Despite its low cost the Simmbook is reasonably well-equipped, sporting an Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of DDR2-667 memory, a 10.1-inch screen, 160GB hard drive, 1.3 megapixel webcam, three USB ports and a three-cell battery.
Shuttleworth said that the Simmtronic “addresses the specific gap around price, performance, quality and value. This is the first time that you have access to a low-cost but high-value solution.”
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