Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

Product That Prides: iPad and India’s own Kindle

Posted : January 28, 2010 at 9:27 pm [IST]

The techies in US and world over appear to be talking today of only one product iPad that Apple’s Steve Jobs unveiled. Will it be as popular as iPhone or iPod? Anand was the first to send the message as he had been talking about it with a lot of expectation for a long time. Apple has become a benchmark of the tech products, and all its products have been unique.

A brief description of iPad is as follows
iPad is a half-inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds, with a 9.7-inch capacitive touch screen IPS LCD display, and it’s running a custom 1GHz Apple “A4″ chip developed by the P.A. Semi team, with a 10-hour battery life and a month of standby. It’s a revolutionary device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading e-books and much more. The cheapest will be $499 in US (around Rs 25,000). I don’t know when Indian enthusiasts can have iPad and at what price. However, I enjoy immensely the excitement of the younger generation about these gadgets represented pretty well by Anand.

Kindle, the e-reader of Amazon is another product that is making waves in US and perhaps world over wherever Amazon has launched it.

I was amazed to read a news item in business page of Times of India today.

“A 34-year-old Indian is looking to revolutionize the way the printed word is read in India. Ahmedabad-based Vishal Mehta, a former employee of Amazon, is launching a product in India, which could challenge the hegemony of his former company’s Kindle in e-reading.”

I wish Vishal a success. It will be a great product for book lovers, if he can tie up with the publishers and other service providers including Amazon. And if he can cut down its price, it will be a great example of reverse innovation. He will have a market of millions world over. India badly needs such product developments. However, I shall feel really bad and pained if it turns to be a fraudulent claim.

The people, particularly the students and teachers, world over badly need a really cheap laptop. Many have been attempting for it. It started with the initiative of ‘One Laptop per Child’ (OLPC), the MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte’s non-profit effort that conceived a no-frill $75 or $100 laptops to be produced in millions to meet the target price.

The government of India had announced a project of even $10 laptop (Rs 500). And I don’t know what happened to it. I wish the scientists of all the IITs, IISc, CSIR, and DRDO or company such as HCL Infosystems could have made it happen.

- Indra

Category: Uncategorized, Industry/Management |