The Hindu : Hi-tech gadgets may become more affordable in 2003

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 30, 2002

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Hi-tech gadgets may become more affordable in 2003

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore Dec. 29. The goodies looked great in the shop windows — but who could afford them? For the average Indian consumer, the year gone by offered a flood of high-tech gadgets which were nice to have, but out of reach. But the entry of aggressive new players coupled with swift technology changes, seem poised to make 2003, a new, more affordable, "ICE Age'' — as in "Information, Communication and Entertainment''.

The entry only days ago of Reliance Infocomm into the telephony market with the mantra "Roti, kapda, makaan and mobile'' appears certain, albeit gradually, to bring down the cost of owning a telephone connection. By cannily offering a package deal where a total service including the instrument, is offered at below what is now the cost of a hand set, the company is targeting thousands of ordinary citizens who had hitherto little hope of ever having a phone of their own. And once all those coloured optical cables littering the roadsides of hundreds of cities are finally in the ground and connected, Reliance hopes to take on the Internet access market — and make it more of a `janata' thing rather than a toy of the urban elite.

A small revolution in the personal computer business has already begun — and India is in the eye of this technology typhoon. Even as a trio of Korea-based IT companies began aggressively marketing a range of budget PCs in this country, the counter culture of Linux — the free and open alternative to pricey and proprietary operating systems — seems to be spreading faster than any one expected. Industry watchers have dubbed 2003, "The Year of Asian Linux'' and one observer — Robin Miller of NewsForge.com — wrote on Saturday: "Next generation Linux development is taking place in Asian countries ranging from South Korea at one end of the continent to India diagonally across... I see an increasing amount of Linux activity coming out of India most of which is in English...'' Many of the budget PC offers — like LG's "My PC'' — come with pre-loaded Linux, thus paring off about Rs. 3000 from the total cost. Indian PC makers like Zenith and HCL have also announced aggressive pricing in recent days and if there is no sharp rise in the price of memory, Rs. 20,000 may well buy a full-fledged multimedia machine with a contemporary specification, in the near future.

The much-touted Tablet PC is already here from multiple vendors — Acer, Toshiba/HCL, HP/Compaq — but while the most revolutionary feature, excellent hand writing recognition, would make this an ideal platform for bridging the `digital divide', current prices, around Rs 1.5 lakhs, rule out its mass adoption. The vendors are somewhat bizarrely touting the Tablet in India as the senior executive's toy. However, a host of Indian software companies are leveraging the Tablet with innovative `desi' applications, albeit for the service sector: Cyber News Service reports that CMS has developed applications for the Police; TCS has created a personal investment manager; Pacsoft has created a school management software and Trivium has harnessed the "electronic slate'' to offer its eCRM (electronic Customer Relations Management) tool.

Budget-conscious Indian buyers may also find that in 2003, it makes sound business sense to buy a multifunction printer (MFP), which combines the operations of a normal PC printer, fax machine, scanner and photocopier. Leading printer players, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Canon have all brought MFPs to the Indian market and the prices here, Rs 25,000 and above, are in many cases almost equal to the dollar-converted international rates. However, high import duties on digital cameras (accounting for about 609 per cent of the final price) still keep them out of reach of the average amateur clicker; the cheapest cameras which give acceptable size prints costs Rs. 7,000-15,000. There are market whispers that 2003 will see China enter the market with affordable digital cameras in the 2-4 megapixel range. (You need a capacity to create at least 2 million dots or pixels for every picture if it is to be blown to post card size.)

The New Year will also see the entry of extremely small portable storage devices — memory sticks that can fit on a key chain and hold the equivalent of an average PC hard disk. However the prices are not expected to fall too rapidly from the current $100-300 apiece. India may not long escape the attention of international music companies who seem to have decided to take on the global teen market head on: by selling music CDs in versions that will not play on PCs, hence making them difficult to copy.

Also being tested is new technology for video CDs where the contents will self-destruct after being viewed once — or after a few days, whichever is earlier. It has been used abroad in the CDs given to the Press as part of the launch publicity of the new James Bond film, `Die Another Day'.

The new year may also usher in a new era when Indian talent in the animated film business receives a worldwide airing.

The Thiruvananthapuram-based Toonz Animation, found global channel buyers for its children's animated serial based on the Tenali Raman stories.

Finally, a new technology niche has emerged that puts hardware and software on the same slab of silicon as an embedded system — and the year gone by has seen India emerge as a key contributor.

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