This time, the ICT agency is incorporating the lessons learned from its initial setback, particularly on the price factor, and is renaming the program as "Philippines Computer for All (PC4All) Initiative."

In a press briefing attended by CICT chair Ramon Sales and Commissioner Emmanuel Lallana last January 15, the agency said it is pouring R350 million to procure the PCs that are now undergoing testing.

Unlike in the first part of the project where the price of a PC was pegged at R15,000 to R18,000 – a figure deemed too high for an entry-level computer -- the new equipment will be sold at a targeted price of R8,000 to R10,000. The package already includes the CPU, storage device, CRT VGA color monitor, keyboard, mouse, and software.

Another departure from the program’s initial phase is that Intel is now completely out of the picture, replaced by AMD and VIA chips. Also, the computers will not be offering a Windows system as an option but will come pre-installed with a Linux OS, OpenOffice applications suite and Mozilla Firefox browser.

The PCs, the CICT said, are Internet-capable and network-ready. One distinct feature of the budget PCs is their very small form factor will only require a small space on a table or desktop.

The agency said it is in the process of assessing the following devices: Red Fox AMD; eWay TU/TK; VIA ITC34EEL; and Gigabyte T7. The Red Fox AMD computer will be field-tested in February, and the VIA-powered computers (eWay, Eden, and T7) soon after.

According to Lallana, it is likely that the CICT will deploy different PC models in various environments.

"There are locations in the country that we can deploy PCs which do not have hard disks, like some of the models that we have shortlisted. Others require a hard disk. So it will depend on their locations."

Lallana said the "significantly" lower price of the PC would allow them to buy twice or at least increase the number of PCs which the agency had initially planned.

The PCs, which are currently available only to government and educational institutions, will be mainly deployed to public secondary schools.

"Clearly there’s a need to increase the PC-to-student ratio in the country," he said. "While these entry-level PCs maybe the equivalent of Picanto in the car industry, it still brings you where you want to be and gets the job done, which is to bring literacy in schools."

The "PC4All" project is a joint undertaking by CICT with eWay Technology Systems Institute for Information Industry (Taiwan), VIA Technologies, ADOC Partner Office Phil., Philippine eLearning Society and Red Fox AMD.