Small is beautiful, thin is in

MARKING TWO decades of personal computing, the Indian IT pioneer HCL, which made its name and fame selling affordable PCs decided to mark its 25th birthday in August by launching a special edition PC called - what else - ``August''.

Powered by a 1 GHz Pentium III, the machine came with a 40 GB hard disk, 128 MB of RAM and a 15 inch LCD flat screen.

As always, HCL with a shrewd eye cocked to the future was saying: thin is in - it's time to say goodbye to desktop-space-hogging CRT displays and say hello to the new thin line in PC displays.

Acer, the Taiwan-based PC maker which has set up assembly in Pondicherry, also drove home the message that small was indeed beautiful. Acer's Veriton FP-2 launched last year, had already said hello to the LCD era - and integrated all the electronics including the motherboard behind the monitor. Now the company has just unveiled its 2001 offering: the Veriton 3200, with an ultra small footprint main body and what was claimed to be the industry's first built in smart-card access and security feature.

In other words, Acer was bringing to the desktop what it was offering to the security-conscious users of its Travelmate notebook range: access only after you swiped your card. The engineering of the PC was also a signal that a new era had begun: advanced maintenance features that enabled the service engineer to strip the PC to its component parts within minutes - and hardly a screw requiring to be turned in the process.

What about the rest of us who may not be able to afford the upmarket prices of these two PCs - but who nevertheless wanted to enjoy the new generation features like flat screens ( and reduced power bills)?

One innovative idea has been brought to this country by the Mumbai based ``Rashi Peripherals'', from Taiwan. This is ``Palladine'' a bare bones slimline LCD PC which allows the customer to `mix n match' hard disk, motherboard and processor. The basic Palladine comes with LCD screen, floppy and CD drives, speakers and switched mode power supply.

This costs around Rs 47,000. You buy the other items and assemble your own PC. This is a new concept even in Taiwan, born of the customer's frustration at having to upgrade memory, chip and drives all the time.

Now you put together a PC of your choice - and a few years down, upgrade only these elements, instead of having to tinker with a lot of extras.

The `thin is in' mantra is also behind recent launches by third party LCD monitor manufacturers like Sharp, Acer and Philips of 15 inch computer displays that you can integrate into the rest of your PC.

The price is still about double that of conventional CRT type power guzzling displays, but prices are expected to fall with demand.

For those whose current budgets make thin PCs still a distant dream, other canny companies, were ready to fill the breach with innovative tie-ups. The prime motivation for many first time PC buyers was Internet access. Which is why NetKracker, the Internet service provider started jointly by Wipro and ICICI, had the nice thought of bundling a budget PC with its Internet access offering.

The result: the NetKracker PC, starting at under Rs 25,000 ( for a Celeron) and going up to around Rs 30,000 for advanced Pentium based models. The PCs were available on easy monthly installments of under Rs 1000, and yes, there was a one year Internet access thrown in free.

To achieve these prices and this spread of market, NetKracker is working with local assemblers of proven record. It was an interesting new niche: a PC at prices close to those of the neighbourhood assembler; but with the reputation of a national ISP player.

Anand Parthasarathy

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Section  : Science & Tech
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