Let the kids have IT

COMPUTERS: PC brands are innovating furiously to come up with machines that appeal to the young.

For 10-year-old Hiren Dulani, a student of AKS International in Chandigarh, school assignments and holiday projects meant longer hours at the cyber cafe. That was when the Dulani household decided to buy a personal computer (PC).

"We left it to Hiren to decide which brand to buy, after we told him the budget was around Rs 25,000," reveals his mother. Hiren chose an HCL computer, having seen one at his friend's house and his school computer laboratory.

In Mumbai, Shruti Passi, a 13-year-old student, wanted a laptop she could be proud of. "I asked my father how much I could spend on the laptop, and then consulted my friends. I bought a Lenovo laptop for as little as Rs 40,000 which I can also use as my personal home theatre," she raves.

She was particularly taken with the machine's sleek looks which, she feels will go down very well with all those who, like her, feel aesthetics matter.

These are a few examples of how PC companies like HCL, Sahara, Lenovo, Acer, Asus and Compaq are changing tack, innovating on price and design to lure tweens and young IT adopters.

Why? Nearly 50 per cent of the 65 lakh new PC-buyers in the 2006-07 fiscal year are expected to be people in the 18-30 age group.

Also, nearly 37 per cent of the 40 million internet subscribers in India are school and college students. A recent NPD report says that kids aged four to 16 all over the globe are using consumer electronics devices six months earlier than they were in 2005.

"Most teenagers either spend time watching TV or surfing the net, and so we need to deliver an electronic screen that takes care of both entertainment and information needs," says S Rajendran, general manager (sales and marketing), Acer India. To this end, the company has launched the Acer

Aspire 3680 series, reportedly the lowest-priced notebook at Rs 19,999. "The idea was to get home users to use a laptop instead of desktops," he says. Sporting a Linux operating system, the Acer Aspire 3680 series is targeted at the college crowd.

Lenovo India, too, is attempting to draw the school crowd with its Disney desktop series. "With a vibrant red skin that sports superheroes from the Mystic Force series, the desktop scores high on its unique children-friendly design," says Rahul Agarwal, vice president (marketing), Lenovo India.

Though the Disney Lenovo desktops do not cheap at Rs 40,000 and upwards, the new packaging seems to have worked, with the company reporting "healthy sales within the first few months of launch".

"Tech-savvy kids demand a lot from their machines "" from gaming to surfing the internet, watching and downloading movies, and streaming videos and music," says George Van Der Merwe, COO, Sahara Computers.

The company is planning to launch an attractively-priced range of desktops and laptops for school and college students.

"We will not be the cheapest but we will provide a decent LCD monitor, multimedia components like integrated speakers and a faster processor to run the rich multimedia data," he reveals.

HCL has the HCL Classmate PC, a lightweight and rugged machine that is intended for daily use and priced at Rs 18,000 and up. "Classroom learning has been revolutionised by our Classmate PC," claims Rajendra Kumar, executive vice president, HCL Infosytems, "taking the teacher-student interaction to new level."

The growing domestic tribe of online gamers (it touched 50,000 this year), comprising mainly of teenagers, has led HCL to focus on this area.

"The HCL Dominator series has been launched essentially for gamers. We have also tied up with leading game developers to offer premium games like Ragnarok on PCs," Kumar adds.

While sales of branded PCs, which have 23 per cent market share, grew 14 per cent, that of unbranded desktops grew 27 per cent to capture 40 per cent share of the market, despite aggressive price cuts by multinational and Indian brands (Manufacturers Association of Information Technology data). But branded players are not throwing in the towel yet.

Asus India is launching its Asus Eee PC 701 notebook, which weighs less than one kilogram, targeted at notebooks users, housewives, senior citizens and kids.

"This will be our answer to the younger generation's demand for a multimedia machine that can share pictures, listen to music with just one click and browse the internet through either wi-fi or broadband connection," says Andrew Tsui, managing director, Asus India.

Looks like PC makers want to address all segments of the desktop and notebook market without compromising on features.

But the downside is that we are nowhere close to getting PCs at less than Rs 15,000 from the organised market.