Broadband News
News, views and analysis
Profile: Silver surfer creates laptop and broadband service "for people who can't stand computers"
22 Feb 2010 | 18.48 Europe/London
A laptop that 'even your granny' is supposed to be able to use and which comes with broadband and support for just under £35 per month became available today in a bid to get more silver surfers online.
Andrew Holmes, co-founder of The Broadband Computer Company claims its Alex laptop (named after Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone) has been designed “for people who hate computers by people who don’t like them either, but know how useful they are”.
It is the result of a study with volunteers lined up through Help The Aged in to what silver surfers find annoying about computers and going online.
Silver surfer feedback
The result is a service which combines online access, through ADSL wholesaler, Murphix, with a £400 15.4” screen laptop with 1Gb Ram and a 160Gb hard drive from Clevo, one of the world’s biggest OEM laptop producers.
“We had one hundred volunteers who were over 55 and were happy to tell us what they didn’t like about computers and we acted on that and then got their feedback on what we’d done,” he says.
“We have a very simple to use Linux operating system which has the top and the right hand side of the screen permanently devoted to icons for the computer’s applications so you don’t have to close down programmes or go off looking for the next thing you want to do. In fact, all the programmes are running in the background all the time so you don’t have to have the email client open but the next time you open it, it will be up to date with any newly-received emails.”
Usability key
One of the big issues among the test user group was usability, as well as a fear that the computer, which they had managed without all their lives, was either not needed or could start to take over their social life.
Hence, the Alex system is designed to be very clear and everything that is viewed on the computer can be automatically attached to an email with the click of one ‘send’ button which gets round the problem of hitting ‘attach’ and then having to find where the file is stored.
Alex comes with a word processing, spreadsheets and a PowerPoint viewer, although far and away the biggest uses in the test group were email and web browsing.
Holmes claims that all the test group were swayed by the easy-to-use design of the screen and points out that for those that do have problems there is a six day a week helpline included with the Alex package.
“We’ve made it as stripped down and as simple to use as possible because if you were learning to drive you wouldn’t want a Masserati, although that’s frequently what newcomers to computing are expected to cope with,” he says.
“We’ve got packages that allow you to buy our support service on its own on your own computer, or you can add it to an Alex laptop and if you don’t have web access you can get that provided too.
“The key to our system is that ever user has a USB stick that remembers who they are so the screen is presented with their documents. It means several people can use the same machine, or any other Alex, and it will always be personalised for them. The system also comes with 10Gb of back up space. The laptop is constantly saving to this space as well as its own hard drive so you don’t lose any data.”
Costs and plans
The Alex laptop officially started selling today and can be bought outright for £400. The support service is £9.99 and the support service with broadband (up to 2Mb) is £24.99. Customers can also buy the computer one month at a time with support and broadband for £34.99 per month for two years. Then, the computer is paid for, and the monthly bill will be £24.99.
Holmes believes that he and his partners’ lack of IT skills (neither are computer specialists) means they have created a computer non-technical computer users can use. He estimates that there are 12.5m adults in the UK currently with no access to a computer at home or who have one but are not confident enough to use it.
Hence, Holmes reveals the company is working on a desktop version of the Alex.
Andrew Holmes, co-founder of The Broadband Computer Company claims its Alex laptop (named after Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone) has been designed “for people who hate computers by people who don’t like them either, but know how useful they are”.
It is the result of a study with volunteers lined up through Help The Aged in to what silver surfers find annoying about computers and going online.
Silver surfer feedback
The result is a service which combines online access, through ADSL wholesaler, Murphix, with a £400 15.4” screen laptop with 1Gb Ram and a 160Gb hard drive from Clevo, one of the world’s biggest OEM laptop producers.
“We had one hundred volunteers who were over 55 and were happy to tell us what they didn’t like about computers and we acted on that and then got their feedback on what we’d done,” he says.
“We have a very simple to use Linux operating system which has the top and the right hand side of the screen permanently devoted to icons for the computer’s applications so you don’t have to close down programmes or go off looking for the next thing you want to do. In fact, all the programmes are running in the background all the time so you don’t have to have the email client open but the next time you open it, it will be up to date with any newly-received emails.”
Usability key
One of the big issues among the test user group was usability, as well as a fear that the computer, which they had managed without all their lives, was either not needed or could start to take over their social life.
Hence, the Alex system is designed to be very clear and everything that is viewed on the computer can be automatically attached to an email with the click of one ‘send’ button which gets round the problem of hitting ‘attach’ and then having to find where the file is stored.
Alex comes with a word processing, spreadsheets and a PowerPoint viewer, although far and away the biggest uses in the test group were email and web browsing.
Holmes claims that all the test group were swayed by the easy-to-use design of the screen and points out that for those that do have problems there is a six day a week helpline included with the Alex package.
“We’ve made it as stripped down and as simple to use as possible because if you were learning to drive you wouldn’t want a Masserati, although that’s frequently what newcomers to computing are expected to cope with,” he says.
“We’ve got packages that allow you to buy our support service on its own on your own computer, or you can add it to an Alex laptop and if you don’t have web access you can get that provided too.
“The key to our system is that ever user has a USB stick that remembers who they are so the screen is presented with their documents. It means several people can use the same machine, or any other Alex, and it will always be personalised for them. The system also comes with 10Gb of back up space. The laptop is constantly saving to this space as well as its own hard drive so you don’t lose any data.”
Costs and plans
The Alex laptop officially started selling today and can be bought outright for £400. The support service is £9.99 and the support service with broadband (up to 2Mb) is £24.99. Customers can also buy the computer one month at a time with support and broadband for £34.99 per month for two years. Then, the computer is paid for, and the monthly bill will be £24.99.
Holmes believes that he and his partners’ lack of IT skills (neither are computer specialists) means they have created a computer non-technical computer users can use. He estimates that there are 12.5m adults in the UK currently with no access to a computer at home or who have one but are not confident enough to use it.
Hence, Holmes reveals the company is working on a desktop version of the Alex.
This sounds like an excellent plan! Just hope it can still help people who can't get a decent connection, there are so many areas of the UK that can't. Maybe it could report back on these areas to add data to the samknows database of notspots?
22 Feb 2010 | 19.31 Europe/London