Research group Gartner says the Indian government's dream of a $100 laptop will not be a realistic target for the next three years, and that the pursuit of such a price point could be detrimental to companies chasing the mini laptop market.

The report follows the announcement by D. Purandeswari, minister of state HRD, in the inaugural session of e-India 2008, an international conference of IT solution providers and government agencies. The Indian Institute of sciences in Bangalore and IIT-Madras have already started working on the design of web-connecting machine.

She said that, as a part of special project to encourage technology enabled education, the HRD (Human resource development) ministry is working on designing $100 laptops.

Initial reports that the machines were to cost a mere $10 can be explained by one sloppy journo missing a zero off his copy and several thousand others cutting and pasting his mistake.

The Editor of the IT Examiner is paid $10,000 a week and the '0' key on his PC has a tendency to stick. X