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 India's
first low-cost personal computer has been launched in the
Tamil Nadu state capital, Madras.
Designed by IT
firm HCL Infosystems, it is priced at 9,990 rupees ($225) and
includes all the basic features required for a first-time
user.
The computer is expected to increase India's level of
computer penetration.
Bringing down PC prices below 10,000 rupees has been the
government's aim for some time. The firm hopes demand will
make the exercise cost-effective.
Cost-effective
IT experts have always maintained that low-cost computers
will help increase the number of users by a large margin.
They also say that internet connectivity will spread across
the country, which would be of great advantage to India.
Federal Minister for Communications and IT, Dayanidhi Maran,
told journalists he had personally tested the new computer
and is fully satisfied with it.
"This PC meets all the basic needs of a first-time user and
it can be upgraded in the future," he told journalists at the
launch in Madras.
SPECIFICATIONS
Processor - 1 GHz
Memory - 128 MB RAM
Hard disk memory - 40 GB
Monitor - 15-inch colour
The chairman and chief executive officer of HCL Infosystems,
Ajai Chowdhury, said the huge demand for low-cost computers
would make the initiative cost-effective for the company.
"When HCL launched computers below 15,000 rupees (US$340 -
£223), the company's market share in PC sales in India was
only 3.7%," he said. "But within 15 months, it increased to
15%."
At present, India has 15 million computers and five million
net connections. The government wants to increase the number
to 75 million computers and 45 million net connections by
2010.
"Bringing down computer costs to below 10,000 rupees is one
effective measure to achieve this goal," said Mr Maran.
He said he hoped other manufacturers would follow suit and
build computers that would help drive prices down even
further.
Chennai, Aug. 1: Dayanidhi Maran’s quest for a “PC for the
masses” ended today with HCL rolling out a computer that
costs Rs 9,990 plus taxes.
At its launch, the information and technology minister
recalled how several months ago he had got IT “big minds”
together, virtually “locked them up in a room” and tasked
them with making a PC that cost less than Rs 10,000.
“Today is a very important moment in the history of Indian PC
revolution with an Indian company giving a fully functional
low-cost PC to our people,” Maran said, giving away the first
15 of these PCs to 15 schoolchildren from his Central Madras
constituency.
“I congratulate HCL for having come out with the right
solution without compromising on quality,” he said. Ajay
Chowdhry, chairman and CEO of Noida-based HCL Infosystems
Ltd., was present at the launch.
Maran said he had personally checked out the PC, which has “a
1 GHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB hard disk, a 15- inch
digital colour monitor”, before unveiling it. It supported
word processors, spreadsheets and had facilities for running
Tamil software and browsing the Net.
“It is good for a start and should take care of computing
needs at home. More facilities can be added depending on
individual requirements.”
More important, the launch was in “line with the national
objectives set in the UPA’s common minimum programme and the
10-point agenda I had outlined in the beginning of my term”,
he added.
This included taking IT to the masses in an effort to bridge
the “digital divide”.
Maran said though computer penetration in India was now at 15
million with 5 million Internet connections, it was low
compared to the population. The target was to increase it to
75 million by 2010 with 45 million Internet connections, he
said.
The new PC would not only speed up IT development, it would
also make an impact in rural areas as the Centre was mulling
an e-governance programme to set up one lakh common service
centres by 2007, he said.
HCL chairman Chowdhry said his company had worked on the PC
for eight months or so and tested it in very rugged
conditions, including the icy temperatures of Leh. In rural
areas where power supply was erratic, a car battery could run
it for up to eight hours, he said.
The cue for the PC came from an IT task force report
—“Roadmap to the Domestic IT Industry” — which detailed the
government’s objective to enhance penetration from 11 users
per 1,000 people to 65 per 1,000 people by 2008, he said.
The expectation of selling “very high volumes” in the
domestic market “encouraged us to look at low-cost PCs for
the masses”, he added.
“Mr Maran wanted us not to produce a cheap product but to
address the bottom end of the PC market, comprising 800
million people whose monthly income was Rs 6,000 in India,
with a high quality product. Rs 9,990 is a magical number we
arrived at in pricing this low-cost PC.”
Chennai , Aug. 1
HCL Infosystems Ltd on Monday unveiled a fully functional
low-cost personal computer at Rs 9,990.
Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister of Communications and
Information Technology, launched the Linux-based PC at a
press meet.
The low-cost PC comes with a 1 GHz processor from
Taiwan-based VIA Technologies, 128 MB RAM, 40 GB hard disk,
15 inch digital colour monitor, 52X optical drive, keyboard
and scroll mouse. It will support applications such as word
processing, spreadsheet, presentation and Web browsing, email
clients and audio-video playback.
It will also be bundled with multi-lingual fonts.
"This is only the start up model, and if someone wants
additional features such as an Internet modem, they need to
add those," said Mr Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman and CEO, HCL
Infosystems.
The company is expanding capacity from 750,000 PCs a year at
its manufacturing plants in Chennai and Pondicherry to
produce around one million units a year. The company also
plans to set up an additional plant, he told reporters. "We
anticipate demand country-wide and are looking at other
places in the country to set up facilities. Customs clearance
is critical for us. The Chennai arm of Customs clears our
imported components in two hours while other centres might
take up to a day."
He added that about Rs 7.5 crore had been invested in
expanding the Pondicherry unit. The company has also
increased the number of channel partners from 800 in January
this year to about 3,000 now, to meet with increased demand.
There are around 100 million Indians with monthly income of
less than Rs 6,000, and the total market size of "bottom of
the pyramid" was around 800 million. This low-cost PC is
targeted towards this category of people. It also has
provision to operate on a car battery for eight hours without
power, he said.
In January 2004, the company had a market share of 3.7 per
cent in the home segment, and today has a 15 per cent share —
thanks to the launch of PCs at Rs 14,990 in January 2004, he
said.
According to Mr Maran, usually Indian companies follow
multinationals to come up with new products. However, now
Indian companies are leading the way, and the low-cost PC of
HCL was an example of this. The government would encourage
low-cost PCs in various e-governance projects. The government
plans to have six lakh Common Service Centre (CSC) across the
country to provide birth and death certificates and land
records. By 2007, there would be around one lakh CSCs in the
country each with a PC, he said.
Low-cost PCs should accelerate the PC and Internet
penetrations in the country, he said. The government's goal
is to achieve 75 million PCs and 45 million Internet
connections by 2010. At present, there are around 15 million
PCs and 5 million Internet connections in the country.
A company official said the company expected to sell about
10,000 units a month initially.
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