AMD Stops PIC Project

AMD has recently announced that they have put an end to the PIC (Personal Internet Communicator) project. As some of you may know, PIC stands for low-end PC integrated in a plastic case and as a product, it is targeted at developing countries. AMD internal sources said that poor sales were to blame for the final decision.

"Revenue from sales of PIC products has not been material and in the third quarter of 2006, we decided to stop manufacturing PIC products," stated AMD officials.

AMD introduced PIC in late October 2004 as a very low-cost solution aimed at the developing countries in order to satisfy communication demands in places where PCs were most needed. The idea, brave and interesting as it was at the time, did not end up well even with all AMD's efforts to cooperate with the governments and large businesses of the targeted countries. PICs had some success in countries like Mexico, Brazil and China where they were used in schools and sometimes leased by telecommunications companies to their subscribers.

In July 2006, AMD shut down the Geode project. Though there were no public statements to justify this, PICs were already doomed since they were essentially powered by Geode CPUs. The end of PIC was just a question of time.

It is quite clear that AMD will continue sustaining its 50x15 initiative, however, there's a complete change of strategy coming. AMD is already taking part in one laptop per child (OLPC) program, where it supplies CPUs for $100 laptops. And if you also add up the fact that Ati has some experience in manufacturing low-power GPUs, you'll see that there are still more to come when concerning OLPC.