[huridocs-tech] India: Simputer's commercial rollout pushed to July

[***Originally posted on the Global Knowledge for Development listserv, 
Mod.***]

Simputer's commercial rollout pushed to July

By Imran Qureshi, Indo-Asian News Service

Bangalore, May 22 (IANS) The commercial rollout of India's most
promising IT product, the common man's low-cost PC called simputer, is
now expected in the second week of July.

The simputer was originally planned to hit the markets in August last
year. Its release was rescheduled for November and then May this year.

The postponement of the commercial rollout after successful field trials
has not dampened the interest of prospective buyers, with requests
coming in from North America, Africa, South America and the Far East.

"It is taking long because it is a typical chicken and egg situation.
But we have received orders for a couple of thousand units already and
we have tied up for its manufacture abroad as well because the volume
from abroad will explode soon," Vinay Deshpande, CEO of Encore Software,
told IANS.

"We had to entirely depend on internal resources to fund the pilots for
field trials. That roughly comes to Rs.15 million. But the good news is
that we have begun commercial production of the new version that is more
stylish."

Deshpande, three of his colleagues from privately held Encore and four
scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) joined hands to
produce the simputer in 1998.

The scientists have set up a separate company, PicoPeta Simputers, whose
products are being tested in Chhattisgarh for an education project in
association with World Space Radio. PicoPeta's simputers are
manufactured at the state-owned Bharat Electronics while Encore's
products are produced at its sister company, Peninsula.

"Producing 500 units for, say, 10 or 15 parties would cost Rs.10,000 a
unit. And we had already invested quite a lot in developing the
product," says Deshpande.

But the delay has been, to a large extent, fruitful. Encore's improved
version is now aimed at all sections of society.

Apart from the common man's version, it has other versions priced at
Rs.15,000 and a high-end version that costs Rs.24,000. The low-end
product has a black and white LCD screen and 16 MB RAM with MB flash
while the high-end one has a colour screen with 64MB RAM and 32 MB
Flash. The high-end version can be attached to a GSM, GPRS cell network,
wired LAN, a micro printer or even a bar code reader.

"The Rs.15,000 product is inclusive of all taxes. Taxes alone account
for Rs.4,500. But the original target of reaching the common man is
still achievable. If the government exempts taxes for the simputer, then
the cost would fall to Rs.6,500 from Rs.9,000 for the low-end product,"
says Deshpande.

Encore has received orders and enquiries from countries like Kenya,
Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, Canada, Mexico and Argentina.

"We would have two high volume manufacturing units to meet the demand
from abroad and within India. Both would be capable of scaling up
operations," says Deshpande.

--Indo-Asian News Service




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