AMD aims half the world by 2015 with PIC

AMD formally unveiled a new business strategy called the 50x15 strategy,
wherein it hopes to get 50% of the world's population online by 2015.
"The same percentage will apply for India," says Ajay Marathe,
Corporate VP, CIO, President, AMD India.

To fulfill this long-term and ambitious plan, the company has made a global
launch of a new Internet access device called the Personal Internet Communicator
(PIC). It also announced a tie-up with Tata Indicom to take the 50x15 mission
forward here in India with this product. Under the tie-up Tata Indicom will
market and sell the PIC along with a broadband Internet connection to customers
across India.

While the suggested global price of the product is around Rs 12,000, Tata
Indicom intends to sell the PIC using a different pricing model, which is yet to
be finalized.

"To
start with we will test market these product in four cities and in a couple of
weeks we will decide on the pricing structure," says Shahi Kalathil, Head -
Broadband Business, VSNL.

The PIC runs on a specially designed Microsoft Windows operating system
fitted with Windows XP-extensions. It allows only limited operation like web
browsing, e-mail, instant messaging and word processing. No additions or
deletions can be done to the software. The PIC can also play multimedia files
and show PDF and PowerPoint files.

The PIC works on an AMD Geode GX processor, with 128 MB DDR RAM, 10 GB HDD,
keyboard, mouse, monitor, modem, Speakers, 4 USB ports, AC/DC adapter and
Network adapter.

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