[ 2011-06-14 ]

The device is being developed by Wipro and a Belgian nanotechnology company trak.in

£20 iPad to the masses
India’s wealthiest software tycoon has announced
plans to produce a £20 tablet computer designed
to bring iPad-style technology to the country’s
masses.

Wipro, the IT giant founded by the tycoon Azim
Premji, said that it was developing a touch-screen
PC device that would cost a fraction of the 29,500
rupee (£400) starting cost of an Apple iPad in
India.

The tablet, aimed at the nation’s rural poor and
schoolchildren, is under development at the
company’s Electronic City campus in Bangalore,
home to a workforce of 11,000 people. A pilot
model should be ready early next year, Wipro said.
It is developing nanotechnology and miniaturised
components to help drive down power consumption
and overall cost, a spokesman said.
Sales of tablet PCs such as the iPad,
Blackberry’s Playbook and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab
in India are expected to exceed one million units
in the next 12 months. With a population of 1.2
billion and 3G technology being introduced across
the country, a huge potential market is thought to
exist for affordable devices.

Ashok Jhunjhunwala, of the Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras, said that cutting the cost of
a tablet PC to such a low level posed significant
technical challenges. “It’s very difficult.
The cost of every single element has to be reduced
without compromising the quality.”

He said that it was feasible using current
technology to manufacture a tablet computer for
about £50 but that significant further advances
would be needed to bring the cost down further.
But he said if the project succeeded, the
implications for India would be huge.

“With the kind of income levels we have in
India, at $35 it would have a huge number of
takers,” he said.

Professor Balakrishnan, chairman of the Super
Computer Education and Research Centre at the
Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, said a
viable device costing under $50 would bring huge
benefits for India’s rural poor, by allowing for
improvements in basic education, including reading
and writing skills.

It would also create new possibilities to supply
mobile banking services to poor families who are
currently excluded from the mainstream financial
sector and would allow for the provision of better
public services from government.

Wipro has teamed up with Imec, a nanotechnology
company in Belgium, to collaborate on the
project.

Mr Premji, who is based in Bangalore, donated
shares worth £1.2 billion in Wipro into a trust,
the Azim Premji Foundation, last year to help
improve state-run elementary schools in India.

Source - The Times(UK)

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