Simputer, taxed back home, tries a Singaporean foothold

The Simputer is being tested by market conditions and the makers are trying to evolve a product that is adaptable, affordable and useful, says Frederick Noronha in this report from Singapore

IT’S held up as an example of Indian ingenuity, but gets heavily taxed by its own government. Now, the technological potential of the Simputer is getting pinned on a financial pact that might make it more affordable for this long-awaited device to be built in Singapore and then imported into India.

Over the past one year, the Simputer team has been strengthening its business links with the distant hardware paradise and tiny city-state. Ravi Desiraju is the ‘Singapore’ face of these endeavours.

Formerly from IIM-Bangalore, Desiraju has been colleagues with others in the Simputer team—Vinay, Mark, Shashank and others. Says he: “Prior to this, I’ve been the founder of a Silicon Valley start-up that was trying to develop a voice-based access platform for the Internet. Something that overlaps with the Simputer. Just about everybody in the world knows how to use a telephone.”

But the firm was taken over by an angel investor, and that’s another story.

“It’s not easy for young companies to break into the territory of service providers, especially those of telcos. Ours was an interesting technology, but we had no platform. Telephone companies are offering services to clients which are behind their times, and holding them to ransom.”

According to ravi DesirajU, the device-controller server has a reliable and automated way of running diagnostics on equipment from a remote office

Through 2001, he kept tracking various kinds of developments, right from handhelds to service providers. Then he ran into the Simputer. It was being developed by people whom he knew very well from his Bangalore days.

Desiraju, who has worked for a dozen years in Singapore, is now CEO of the Singapore-based Encore Technologies

(S) Pte.

In February 2002, a joint venture was signed with the Bangalore-based Encore Technologies. “Encore is the largest shareholder of my company. That makes for a continual commitment to this product, and a share in the fruits.”

This electronics engineer with management training concedes that it might not be right to believe that Simputer would be simply accepted by the masses once out on the market. “We feel the device would first need to be adopted as a platform by various application and solution providers. These applications and services are what the end-user needs, not the device itself,” says he.

Desiraju sees the Simputer having a global appeal.

But, first, some very strong reasons need to be found for using it. This is what he feels the computer has: Simputers have potential in six different vertical or industry segments. E-governance (including kiosk-based solutions), e-learning (as a learning-aid for the student or an admin tool for teachers and administrators), for retail and payment solutions (right from small-shop automation for the village trader, to point-of-sales tasks, or for wireless self-help checkout in a supermarket), and for corporate generic purposes (sales force automation). It can also be used for corporate verticals (in insurance, banking, logistics), or in the embedded field (where the technology of the Simputer could be built into formats other than where a computer is used).

“These requirements exist not just in India and the developing world, but also in the developed world,” Desiraju says.

Singapore was chosen a year back as the international launch pad for the Indian Simputer. This was done for three reasons—global acceptability of a ‘Made in Singapore’ brand, commitments from the authorities there, and the reputation of that island nation as a hardware hub.

“(In terms of production), we are still in an evolutionary stage. Our first responsibility is to make sure that the platform is perfect to the level where it can work reliably in the hands of users,” he said.

So far, some 2,000 Simputers have been sold globally. Prices range from $200 for a monochrome model, to $350 for a colour screen.

Have there been stumbling blocks so far? “We’ve surmounted quite a few challenges,” says Desiraju, without getting caught in details. He hints that this includes rationalising the design of the Simputer, and looking closely at areas which need to improve or where cost reduction could come in.

By early December, the Simputer hopes to go into its third generation product. A potential name for these could be Sethu (a bridge, for the Digital Divide in this case) or Sadhana (meaning, an implement).

Recent changes include the capability to implement wireless networking (with a wireless attachment), and connectivity to a VGA screen, which would help linking up to a bigger screen or projector. Linking to a bigger screen was found to be particularly helpful in schools, for instructor-led activity or for students to share their work.

“We’re also probably the first product to implement both Norflash and Nandflash in a single product. The first is fast in terms of rewrite capability, and is used to implement an operating system on to a handheld. The latter is used for storage. The price difference is substantial. Unlike PDAs, the Simputer does have a file system. Everything is not just one folder,” says he. The Simputer also comes with a built-in CF card slot and a USB slot.

Desiraju points out: “The Simputer’s application is to be used in places where a computer is used. The PDA, however is an accessory to the computer.”

Inspite of the Government of India taking credit for this much-awaited product of Indian ingenuity, pressures on it are not being reduced. “Duty impact on the product is about 42 percent. Even when manufactured in India, certain components attract duty,” says Desiraju.

Prices of components are 20 percent lower in Singapore.

So, ironically, whether the Simputer is produced in India or Singapore, it makes little difference to the end price, even if it’s to be sold back in India.

Desiraju and his Simputer colleagues are now looking forward to a Indo-Singapore free trade agreement, which they expect to be signed in April 2004. This could make goods manufactured in Singapore free of duties back in India.

One of the new products is a Simputer device-controller server. This embedded product has potential use in equipment maintenance. “If you have a reliable and automated way, an engineer can run diagnostics on equipment from a remote office. The ingredients for this were already there in the Simputer. So we created the product using a slightly different software implementation,” he says, pointing to the one-inch thick box that spreads roughly eight by three inches. There are links for a serial port (to link the equipment) and an Ethernet port or telephone line for the network.

The idea is that the Simputer holds on to this server, remotely. Logs are downloaded, and from a distance itself, the diagnositcs are run. Desiraju claims this product has completed successful trials with a US Fortune 500 multinational and commercial deployments will commence very soon.

Since there’s no LCD screen or power management, it’s priced “attractively”. Costing $200 now, he believes it can be produced for as little as $100 when manufactured in bulk.

Today, the Simputer’s business model is looking at two parallel streams. Firstly, the Simputer itself, as a product with various applications. (Currently, he says, 40 application partners have signed up, including 21 in India.) Secondly, the idea is to use the same technology to come up with embedded solutions, and also original design and manufacture (ODM) solutions.

They’ve got their eyes on many companies, to possibly develop products for them. Says Desiraju: “The seed that was planted in the Simputer is now potentially flowering many blooms.”

Deshpande’s repeated reminders are for building a junior Simputer, priced lower and even more affordably. But the end is not to give the common man just a device, but an effective and useful service through that device. Desiraju sees hope in spreading the benefits of the Simputer through India’s widely scattered PCOs (public call offices) or the Wartels in Indonesia (telephone booths) and likewise in the Philippines.

Desiraju reflects the impatient face of the intelligent young Indian, hamstrung by the realities of the global market. Says he: “Out of every dollar or rupee spent on IT, 70 percent goes to the product owners—the Intels, the Microsofts, the Ciscos and the Oracles. 15 percent goes to those who define what IT the customer gets—primarily large consulting firms like IBM Global Services, or PricewaterhouseCoopers. 15 percent goes to those developing the product or implementing it. India’s IT is placed in the last slice of the pie. There too, we have just a 20 percent share of the market. Or a 3 percent share of the global IT pie.”

Can a new drive in technology change this? Nobody can say the Simputer guys haven’t tried.

fred@bytesforall.org