900,000 Tablet PCs To Be Handed Out Now: Thai Education Minister Suchart

[Jeffrey346]

The newly declared number of tablets is an increase from the previously agreed 700,000

What was previously agreed was 11,000,000 tablet computers for all primary, secondary, and vocational students...

Thailand would buy all the tablets from China under a government-to-government contract, he added.

900,000 computers.... from China... in five months...

What could possibly go wrong?

.

Here is exactly what will happen. Drop a tablet and it's toast, ready for the dumpster. Guarantee that 90% will be in the dumpster within 30 days.

[volk666]

I am pretty sure that plenty of tablets are made in Thailand as well.

Buy Thai!

For that you'll have to have an auction - decide on desirable specs and prices and issue terms of reference, give companies some time to respond, then hold the auction, then choose the winning bid, then .....

This is simply impossible before the start of the next year so they are just buying whatever stuff Chinese can churn up in a couple of weeks with crude Thai translations of either English or Chinese software.

A few days ago they admitted that they don't have time to develop interactive apps for this first batch of tablets so they don't need things like internet - they'll just preload some textbooks that publishers are expected to produce (and give away for free???) and those won't be next generation digital textbooks shown by Apple a few days ago.

>>>>>

This is a trap - we are expected to treat this announcement as if it was designed to make some sense, discussing it lends it at least a minimum level of credibility.

The purpose of the whole thing is to have a good party with supporters - see the accompanying photo - and to get some budget for the minister to play with. His interests are in the profit margins for himself, not in education or anything. All the big words about caring and learning are just a show for the loving supporters.

Keep fans happy, get the budget, plan for the next career move.

Don't feed the troll - whatever he says about education has absolutely no meaning or credibility, just calculate the losses - only a few billion baht.

[wpcoe]

Good idea, lots of fore thought ,well planned , nice execution in risk assessment. Who pays for the network provider???

it will all be free...

Thailand wires up with free Wi-Fi

The Thai government announced it will be offering free public Wi-Fi in the Greater Bangkok area starting on Wednesday, and the roll out is part of its 30 billion baht (US$957 million) ICT master plan called Smart Thailand.

Thailand's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology Minister pointed out that the Wi-Fi coverage has been planned for city halls in 77 provinces, 878 district offices, 2,010 municipalities, 7,355 tambons (sub-districts), 5,765 tambon administration organizations, 12,355 schools, 1,278 hospitals and 8,269 police stations.

ZDNet Asia - December 27, 2011

http://www.zdnetasia...fi-62303326.htm

Well, there goes the usability of the free Wi-Fi. With 900,000 tablets out there, even if only half of them are Facebooking, that's a lot of bandwidth being used.

But, I wonder what functionality these rather inexpensive tablets will have. Will they be simply glorified book readers with no other online function? Or, they could be "hard wired" to prohibit access Facebook and other web sites.

[volk666]

Well the new Apple / Houghton Mifflen interactive textbooks are really good. I just got the Geometry one for the iPad to help my daughter move ahead of her class more quickly. I was really pleased at the quality and facility of this part book part multi-media app. If this is an indication of the future of Pads in school situations, I am all for it. Imagine one device to carry 40lbs of school books with cut an paste to create reports footnotes and save your research etc.

Yeah, but they work only on iPads, and they are created with Apple proprietary software following Apple proprietary standards and are sold only through Apple owned store, which means they can't be used on any other device. Imagine a world where every child carries an iPad. That would be the world without Thailand on the map.

Nothing is stopping Thai publishers from developing open standard interactive books in ePub3 format which could be read everywhere - phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, at school or at home, but this is not what is happening right now.

[sparebox2]

Tablet should not be distributed to the poorer kids as mostly they are not knowledgable enough to handle high tech stuff. They will just end up playing games or go into online gamling.

The richer kids already have their own iPad tablets already. So no issue on the richer kids (I mean govt no need to give them).

Edited January 26, 2012 by sparebox2

[nurgut73]

1,9 Billion for 700.000 tablets and 1 more Billion for the additional 200.000? The Education minister wasn't really good at Math, was he?

[thaicbr]

Why tablets - because they are trendy? Notebooks give a lot more bang for the buck

Laptops will be obsolete in a few years.

why would they be obsolete.. laptops do more than tablets.. i have both and do use them for different things. example very unlikely that you will get a dvd drive on a tablet.

[sparebox2]

1,9 Billion for 700.000 tablets and 1 more Billion for the additional 200.000? The Education minister wasn't really good at Math, was he?

This is exactly the reason why everyone should have a tablet (not just students). To do simple maths.

Edited January 26, 2012 by sparebox2

[Gweiloman]

Why tablets - because they are trendy? Notebooks give a lot more bang for the buck

Laptops will be obsolete in a few years.

why would they be obsolete.. laptops do more than tablets.. i have both and do use them for different things. example very unlikely that you will get a dvd drive on a tablet.

It's hardly worth the effort to have a laptop just to have a dvd drive.

[RogueExpat]

1.9 Billion for 900,000 machines. Works out at 2111 Baht per machine (what the public pays) - less 40% government mark-up to budget to cover all admin and "other" expenses leaves 1267 Baht (what the purchaser pays) per machine of which the manufacturer will have a 15 percent margin leaves the actual raw cost of the tablet at 1076 Baht per unit.

Can't imagine it would be any good, except for the company with an ongoing service contract.

Ever seen those 1500Baht mobile phones from China?

This will be a real white elephant, all at the public's expense.

[somchai69]

Why tablets?

They most probably give the biggest bang for your buck on the kick-back scale.

Tablets have limited storage and are hard to upgrade.

As another poster points out you can learn to type on a notebook, still a very valuable skill

probably more so than 20 years ago. Almost everyone uses a keyboard now

Why start with the young children? The Mathayom students will surely make better use of a computer.

The young ones should be concentrating on their 3 R's

Are tablets ruggedized for use by small children

Who is going to maintain them? Hardware and software.

This is another area where sw piracy will be rampant, unless the goverment

has done a deal for reduced price packages like MS Office and others

A total mess up as usual, badly thought out and executed

Edited January 26, 2012 by somchai69

[pedro01]

I wish they'd hurry up.

JJ will soon be flooded with second hand tablet PCs and I can't wait to get mine.

[Sailfish1]

Nice thoughts - It is nice to hear that the Thai government is interested in bettering the education of the children. I have never heard such generous thoughts from U.S. government officials.

[miksguevara]

Why tablets - because they are trendy? Notebooks give a lot more bang for the buck

Laptops will be obsolete in a few years.

ridiculous statement

[thaikahuna]

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. Just another way to buy votes and jam bandwidth with the dam_n kids playing games.

Edited January 26, 2012 by thaikahuna

[Basil B]

Presume by free thet means until they send the invoices out, another Thaksin scam.

bet more are deliverd faulty and the few goods ones get damaged as the kids fight over them.

[jeffcool]

A little basic maths says that an extra 1 billion baht for the remaining 200,000 tablets is roughly twice the unit cost for the first 700,000. I wonder why?

It;'s called a government reshuffle......

[Moruya]

I have had 3 Android phones and 2 Android tablets and the difference between good and mediocre is huge. There is probably not much point at the moment comparing most tablets with an iPad as there is still a difference in experience unless you have one of the newer devices running 2.3, 3.0 or ICS.

There are 2 types of touch screens (forget the display type - OLED, AMOLED, LCD etc. as at this price it will probably confine it to LCD) resistive or capacitive. Capacitive gives a much better response and anything less becomes frustrating at times.

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft but they have cornered the market when it come to MS Office. OpenOffice is catching up but still has a way to go - if they had a full version adapted for touch screen/Android that would be good. There are readers that will allow the usual attachments to be displayed but not edited.

The Android email client works fine with Exchange - but that's the only real Office equivalent product that's there today. My guess is that at some stage MS will finally accept the inevitable and develop MS Office for Android - maybe they will wait for Android to support printing!!!

Steve Jobs took a strong stand on not developing iTunes for Android - losing cash (probably not much) on music but probably swaying some users to get the iPad.

All in all Android's strength is the Market. If someone develops educational applications in Thai then it could be a big helper in the Thai education but they are not there yet. If someone developed a whole interactive suite allowing homework to be set and marked electonically then that could be a strength - but that's even further in the distance.

So what will the kids get? Cheap Chinese tablets that are frustrating to use and of extremely limited benefit to the pupil. They will end up either not being used or being used for purposes other than education - Facebook, games, chat, browsing etc. They could even take away from children's education by being disruptive at school, have kids using poorly developed educational software, or having teachers that have not been prepared for them.

2000+ schools with no electricity, the majority without internet. I'd wager that 99% of schools won't have a socket for charging the tablets.

This is going to be a flop I'm afraid and a huge waste of money. Around May time we will be reading articles from journos whose kids have brought one home.....

[Moruya]

Why tablets - because they are trendy? Notebooks give a lot more bang for the buck

Laptops will be obsolete in a few years.

ridiculous statement

Not really - iPads are now outselling HP computers.

When Windows 8 is fully "out there" expect a lot more devices to be simple touch screen tablets.

When Android supports printing and documents are held in corporate iclouds then expect a lot more.

At the moment the only thing holding MS together is the PC/Server combination

[SunsetT]

I find it difficult to use the touchpad on notebooks and netbooks when it is hot here in Thailand, i.e., much of the time, as my fingers r sticky with sweat. Does anyone else have this problem? And if this problem is common to all hot countries surely it will make all touch screen devices such as tablets, difficult and impractical to use except in an air conditioned environment. Or maybe it is only a problem for those not native to a hot climate, and those who r, don't get sweaty hands.

And with my experience of Thai kids, I agree that 50% will probably be broken in 6 months.

[AleG]

Why tablets - because they are trendy? Notebooks give a lot more bang for the buck

Laptops will be obsolete in a few years.

That's just silly.

I shouldn't wonder if using finger painting... I mean touch screens, it takes at least twice as long to type text, fill spreadsheets or any other tasks done with a keyboard and mouse.

I pity the students that would have to write their homework on a tablet.

Yes, you can replace laptops and desktop computers with tablets; watch productivity make a nose dive.

Just because its new and trendy doesn't make it better or more efficient.

[Cuban]

iPad = Expensive Media player.

[jimbeam1]

When I first saw the photo in the OP I thought the lady standing behind Suchart was holding a grenade launcher. I'm not joking.

Yes I was thinking a weapon of some kind?

jb1

[newermonkey]

Wow.. The porn shops will be bursting at the seams within a month!!!!

[looping]

Any details of the spec? Any pre-loaded apps? Teacher training in advance? Provisions for when they are lost / broken / 'borrowed' by older siblings? I'm guessing NOT! Another farce unfolds before our eyes, another sad chapter. Guess the govt do have a long term strategy... Throw the masses a peanut, pretend to help whilst making sure that they stay dumb. What more could we expect from these criminals?

[RogueLeader]

Tablets are consumer devices. Why are they giving them glorified TVs and MP3 players? If you want to learn about computers, use a netbook, which are better value anyway.

This is just idiocy.

[RogueLeader]

Not really - iPads are now outselling HP computers.

When Windows 8 is fully "out there" expect a lot more devices to be simple touch screen tablets.

When Android supports printing and documents are held in corporate iclouds then expect a lot more.

Have you ever tried to do any serious work on a tablet?

At the moment the only thing holding MS together is the PC/Server combination

What does that mean?

[rheinwiese]

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. Just another way to buy votes and jam bandwidth with the dam_n kids playing games.

And the kicker is....we all (the taxpayers) are funding it. PTP vote buying in disguise using state coffers.

[whybother]

Wow.. The porn shops will be bursting at the seams within a month!!!!

The porn shops will be empty. The kids will be able to get all the porn they want on their tablets.

.... Oh, you mean pawn shop

Posted with Thaivisa App http://apps.thaivisa.com

[surangw]

And shortly, there will be an influx of them on display at

Chatuchak Market