The Government of India or GoI isn’t noted for its marketing or product development skills. For almost 45 years, from Independence till 1991, GoI ran monopolies across every conceivable industry. Yet, it developed no product worthy of note.
GoI-funded R&D projects routinely run years over schedule and cost multiples of initial estimates. The most glaring failures would be ambitious defence projects like the Main Battle Tank, the Light Combat Aircraft, and the submarine programme. These are decades beyond schedule, and appear incapable of ever producing equipment that matches the requirements. Even the more successful missile and space exploration programmes have seen long delays and several disasters.
That historical track record makes one more than a little dubious about the tall claims made for the Aakash. The new tablet is the third attempt by an arm of GoI to launch a product to serve the digital mass market.
The Simputer, a hand-held personal digital assistant or PDA, failed to make any civilian impact though the army adapted some of the devices for use as the “Saathi”. “Bhuvan”, Isro’s attempt to provide a satellite-mapping solution, was stymied by a poor interface and poor resolution.
Aakash was developed in cooperation by the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur, and DataWind, a Montreal-based web access device company. It is being assembled by DataWind out of a facility in Hyderabad. It’s dirt cheap, which has led to comparisons with the Nano. That is perhaps unfortunate, given jokes about the car’s “spontaneous combustion engine”.
The tablet’s specs are unexciting. Aakash has a seven-inch resistive touchscreen (800x480 resolution) along with USB 2.0 port, micro SD slot, 3.5-mm stereo jack and Wi-Fi. The operating system is Android (2.2) Froyo. There’s basic multimedia, a low-end 366 MHz processor and a 2GB flash drive. GPRS support allow it to operate as a 2G phone and 3G data support can come through a dongle.
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DataWind says the slow processor is compensated for by compression acceleration techniques and cloud computing. The tablet is pre-loaded with an Office Productivity suite and not much else. It cannot download apps from Android Marketplace, which is odd. There is no camera. The rated battery life is only three hours.
The Indian government will buy the first 100,000 units for $50 and resell these to school students at a subsidised rate of $35-equivalent. The basic device cost is now around $38, according to DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli.
Mr Tuli says costs have been shaved by fabricating and assembling 800 components in Hyderabad, including Korean touch-screens, US processors, Chinese memory and so on . Normally, a tablet manufacturer (the one who brands it) would buy about 50 pre-assembled modules of components. So DataWind may indeed have cut margins if it does assemble efficiently.
From November, Aakash will sell commercially at $60-equivalent. This version may be upgraded to a 600 MHz processor, and offer 3G access. DataWind projects an offtake of eight to ten million units by March 2012. It also hopes to sell more pricey versions in other Third World markets.
A combination of high volumes and efficient component assembly may indeed pull costs down. But price isn’t everything. Digital access is also about features. Aakash skimps on specs and features to the point where it risks being obsolete even before launch.
At the same prices, a consumer has a choice of 3G touchscreen smartphones, with faster processors, access to Marketplace, cameras, and 50-plus hours battery. For Rs 10,000, Airtel and RCom offer tablets with much more high-end specs, far more features, and thrice the battery life. Those prices are also falling.
Even in a value-for-money ecosystem, Aakash may simply not offer enough in the way of value. Also, it remains to be seen if GoI, or individual schools, can create web-based educational content of an order that justifies replacing $0.5 exercise books with $35 tablets. That is, after all, the primary purpose.