Now that Cuba is out of the control of Fidel Castro and is in the hands of Raul Castro, some things are definitely changing; one of those things is a lift on the ban of computers. Though it’s probably very exciting for Cubans, there’s only 1 model of PC being sold, and its just a bit more than underwhelming.

Blorge writer Leslie Poston recently covered the lift on the ban of computers over at Tech.Blorge.com, and it is indeed a step in the right direction for Cuba. Admittedly, very few Cubans will be able to use the new PCs, which boast less than stellar specs

The single model that is being sold now is QTech tower, filled with an 80 Gb HDD, 512 Mb RAM, DVD-ROM, and the Windows XP operating system. The gray and black tower is coupled with a clunky CRT display and your run of the mill black mouse and keyboard combination.

The whole set will cost Cubans a pricy $780, which puts most Cubans out of the group of people who can afford the desktop in the oppressed nation. It seems unlikely that the prices will lower much further anytime soon, as capitalism is an economic ideal that Cuba tends to frown upon.

The machines are loaded with XP, undoubtably because of the lower costs of the software as well as the operating system’s ability to perform on computers with less impressive hardware. Technically even having Microsoft Windows XP loaded is a violation of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, but the U.S. doesn’t really have anyone in Cuba to negotiate the violation.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm under Legal, Microsoft, xp.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.