The Hindu : Pricing of personal computers: lessons for India from Thailand

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 25, 2003

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Pricing of personal computers: lessons for India from Thailand

By Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore May 24. "Everyone talks about it but nobody does anything about it" — American humorist Mark Twain's wry comment about the weather might well apply to decade-long efforts in this country and elsewhere to deliver a truly `People's PC'. Finally, Thailand has done it — and as surging crowds in Bangkok queuing to book the government-sponsored personal computers proved — a key inflection point in the price-performance matrix has been achieved.

In what will be a matter of great interest to lay users as well as Indian hardware and policy leaders, the Thai Ministry of Information and Communication technology (ICT) has achieved something of a global first: It has persuaded a multinational computer player, Hewlett Packard, to create a compellingly priced notebook PC running local language versions of the `open systems' Linux software.

The HP-made `Sudsakorn' notebook will sell for Thai baht 19,500 (the equivalent of Rs. 22,000). For this money buyers will get a portable PC built around a Via 800 MHz chip; 128 megabytes of RAM; a 20 gigabyte hard disk; a 10 inch LCD screen and an internal modem. The model with a CD drive costs the equivalent of Rs 27,500. Both versions come pre-loaded with Thai language versions of the open operating system, Linux TLE 5.0, as well as a business suite, Office TLE 1.02. This is said to be the first notebook offered by a leading international PC maker, preloaded with a Linux software. The cheapest notebooks sold in India start at around Rs 60,000.

Even more popular with Thai buyers since bookings began on May 9 has been the `Sinsamut' desktop PC based on a 1 GHz Intel Celeron chip, with 128 MB RAM, a floppy drive; 52x CD drive, 20 GB of hard disk, a 15 inch monitor as well as 200 watt speakers and a modem or ethernet card. At 10,900 baht (Rs. 12,000) over 20,000 PCs were booked on the opening day and the Thai ICT Ministry is hopeful of quickly selling 1 million PCs. The Linux PCs have been made to government specification by half a dozen local assemblers — and the PC buyers have the right to acquire a standard printer from HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark for the equivalent of Rs. 1800.

As a predictable fallout, the launch of the official Thai models has seen slightly better-spec models from local vendors being offered at prices at least a third below previous levels. Prices of state-of- the-art Pentium 4/1.8 GHz- based PCs with monitor quickly fell to around 19,000 baht (Rs. 21,000) while those with AMD's Athlon under the hood could be had for the equivalent of Rs. 15,000.

Observers say the Thai Government was able to persuade HP to join in the notebook venture by offering to take over the warranty and servicing responsibilities. They also think Dell may shortly respond to the Thai invitation to come up with a comparably priced Linux notebook.

The matter of interest to the Indian industry is that the price points achieved by Thailand are precisely those that were touted for long as what the Indian consumer needed for an affordable PC. But while the Central Government's much touted "IT For All'' policy is already half way through its 10-year span, there has been virtually no progress towards the so-called `Janatha PC'. On the one hand there has been no official will to offer serious fiscal incentives to the hardware industry here; and, on the other, little success in persuading the procession of high profile IT visitors to this country in recent years — Microsoft's Bill Gates, HP's Carly Fiorina, Dell's Michael Dell, Sun's Scott McNealy or Intel's Craig Barrett — to translate pious statements about bridging the digital divide into pricing policies or product developments specific to this country.

The question that the Indian consumer will now legitimately ask is: If Thailand can do it, why not India?

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