Indian Babus Are No Steve Jobs
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 21 October 2011, 02:50 IST   |    25 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
Wait! Hold the champagne, as all of this raises a lot of questions which are yet to be answered. What kind of marketing plan does the government have in mind? How will distribution work? Will students using these tablets have access to connectivity? Have content partners been identified? Keeping aside our typical doubts, we wonder if the device could be a game changer. India's involvement in the digital space has been gloomy. We have no iconic brands or products in that dome.
akash tablet
Nevertheless, if this move gets tangled in a bureaucratic web, it possibly will just fall flat as yet another gimmick. This sarcasm of many experts strengthens from the extraordinarily low price of the device and collapse of many other such exercises undertaken by the government in the past. Cheapness never guarantees customers. It's not the first time India is out with ultra cheap initiatives. We still are not out of Tata Group's Nano car that sells for under $3,000. The much hyped Tata Nano, revealed 2 years back, is still a disappointment. Many in government egged on the belief that Indians principally care about price, as one-third of the Indian population lives below $1 a day. Price is cared more than the value. Therefore, projects like Tata Nano are wished to replicate in public sector.