What would you say to the new $230 mobile PC from the same guys?
http://www.ncoretech.com/mobilis/index.html

-Vinay

Satish Jha wrote:

I came across Simputer in 2001 and my first response was that India did not have the capacity to productise a simple (and therefore rather complex) device such as simputer. I got to know Chandru and Vinay a little during various meetings at MIT Media Lab and I regard both as first rate professionals. Unfortunately, productising anything like simputer is something that requires a lot more than very fine minds. It requires the experience of dealing with markets, product creation capability and manufacturing prowess at the cutting edge of productivity.

 

The best thing about simputer is simply its name and it gave Vinay an unimaginable amount of publicity and respect. Idea was simple indeed and my initial observation that its a great project but a rather poor product did not win me friends. I gave the example of HP 95LX, a product I had close association with as my younger brother led it for HP in the late 90s and it had become a standard setting product-- they spent over 30 million dollars in acquiring various innovations- some 200- to miniaturise it.. Few products have managed to pack in so much in so little. The story is told in an interview of the month in Silicon India a few years ago and I need not go into that. But the lesson was very simple- simplicity hides complexity and its a very expensive proposition to do so. But more than simply the expense, its also a matter of moving up the expereince curve.

 

Then I heard that Pramod Mahajan was going to turn simputer into a national treasure and I promptly  SMSed him that he just killed it. A technology that requires protection when the average age of technology has shrunk to months is dead before you name it. Luckily the government did not make that mistake. And I kept hearing talks about simputer everywhere and kept advising them that it was a great project and wasted effort at productising it. Vinay did mean to talk but had different priorities.

 

As head of InterMatrix I also advised some of my clients in product creation and realised that often to know what we do not know is the first qualification of a good client. Even more important was the lesson that such clients are rare indeed and one should grab them if one found them. Simputer may have fallen prey to optimism and the false sense of appreciation it got frm those who had little experience to justify their optimism about a product like simputer.

 

Just when simputer was being passed around in MIT Medialab at Cambridge, MA Sandy Pentland exhibited a $50 toy that could do a little more than simputer could even aspire to do in a few years at a several times the price. But it did not lack idealistic supporters.

 

We do need thousands of masters level project like simputer before we will come close to having the capacity to productise. We need several failures before we may succeed too. But most importantly we need to know what we do not or may not know and stop showing our ignorance about something we have never dealt with yet appear just too ready to opine. Similarly, entrepreneurs need to learn a lesson too-- idealism seldom sells products, least of all aspirants to what may have been a product. If it had any potential, there will be many global takers for it even if it had no publicity of the kind it got. A lack of interest by the market forces was itself a good proxy that it may be an idea whose time may have come and gone.. and may come back in some other form!

 

 

> Is Simputer falling prey to low-cost computers?
>
> Bangalore, April. 12 (PTI): Is the much-hyped homegrown low cost
> handheld computer device -- Simputer -- losing out the battle with the
> advent of rapidly falling computer prices?
>
> Simputer sales has been discouraging for the two firms licensed to
> produce and market the device that uses the open source Linux software
> and was developed by scientists at the Indian Institute of Science.
>
> While state-run electronics equipment maker Bharat Electronics Ltd,
> which launched branded Simputer "Amida" could sell only 2,500 units,
> Encore Software has been able to sell slightly above 2,000 devices.
>
> "Sales did not take up as expected," Bharat Electronics Ltd. Chairman
> and Managing Director Y Gopala Rao, told reporters here today.
>
> BEL produces the Simputer for PicoPeta Simputers, a firm owned by the
> scientists who created the much-hyped device and was said to help bridge
> the digital divide in India. It largely targets the retail segment,
> while Encore taps the Enterprise and Government business for their
product.
>
> "World over prices of computers and similar products (hand held devices)
> have come down drastically," Rao said.
>
> He said the inventors have been asked to rework the design of the
> Simputer to make it cost effective and affordable.
>
> Last year, BEL had projected Simputer sales of over 20,000 units which
> includes Government customers.
>
> "There is still interest from Government customers like Chattisgarh for
> the Simputer," Rao said.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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--
________________________________________
Satish Jha
www.aiti-kace.com.gh ;
www.dpindia.org;
www.ehealth-care.net Well!

--
________________________________________
Satish Jha
www.aiti-kace.com.gh ;
www.dpindia.org ;
www.ehealth-care.net

--
________________________________________
Satish Jha
www.aiti-kace.com.gh;
www.dpindia.org ;
www.ehealth-care.net

--
________________________________________
Satish Jha
www.aiti-kace.com.gh;
www.dpindia.org ;
www.ehealth-care.net

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