Frederick Noronha

Freelance Journalist and a founder of Bytesforall

The following is the full text of this article.

Sitting in the palm of one hand, this small computing device that promises to emerge out of Bangalore has generated a mix of hope and pessimism that few hardware products from India ever have. But will the Simputer work as promised?

Fighting back naysayers and pessimists, the teams working on the Simputer - a simple, inexpensive, multilingual computing device that could help take the benefits of IT to the masses - are working on determinedly.

Not surprisingly, after years of evoking surprise and garnering headlines even while on the drawing-boards, the fatigue is beginning to show. For some, the finish-line seems close. To others, the disappointment of the Simputer in meeting its dates of being available for sale sometime at end-2001 is only further proof that this product is indeed 'vapourware'.

On the Yahoogroups! mailing-list set up for the Simputer project, over a thousand members watch-on hopefully. But the inability of techies - and especially techies from this part of the globe - to explain things to a non-technical audience might have left everyone guessing what's going on.

Some months down the line, we'll know who's right. But what's at stake is not just a promised product, but rather a valiant battle to drastically shift the turf in the debate over what role IT should play in India.

It helped make the point that affordable solutions for countries like India will have to come from countries like India itself. That Indians have the skill and talent, if not the optimism. And that the right vision can play a massive role in taking us that critical inch closer to finding our own long-neglected solutions.

The story of the Simputer is not just one about its price (though this is an important issue, as stressed below), and whether it could keep to its promised production schedule or not. There are, in fact, many other vital issues that come up.

But while the Simputer experiment is being watched closely across the globe, a certain amount of impatience is visible from within India itself.

In early March 2002, Reuter reported that the low-cost handheld computer developed by seven Indian engineers to take the Internet to rural masses will start rolling out in May. Originally expected to cost $200, it would now cost $50 more, Vinay Deshpande, chief executive of Bangalore-based Encore Software, was quoted as having told the international news agency.

In India, critics of the Simputer project point to the delays in it hitting the market, the inability to stick to the promised US$200 price level, and some question whether the product would click at all.

Lowering Costs

Much of the Simputers' fate depends on what price it can be put out at. Its advantages are premised on the fact that it could cost about one-third the price of a PC, and about the same as a colour TV set. If buyers could be convinced that this is a useful tool, such a device could reach millions more who are otherwise not touched by computing.

Prof Swami Manohar, CEO of the Bangalore-based PicoPeta Simputers Pvt Ltd, told this correspondent that things are going at a "hectic pace" these days. "The primary challenge is funding. However, we are hopeful of solving that problem. The good news is that, justifying the Simputer licensing model, there are now two companies competing to provide Simputers: PicoPeta and Encore. So there is now a challenge to keep prices down, improve quality and to improve the product and software," he argues.

PicoPeta's first field trials, and first funded project, are expected to start any day now in Chhattisgarh. (See stories from Imran Qureshi for the Indo-Asian News Service, and MobileVillage and from Lincoln Kaye from Slate MSN) "We will be deploying about 75 Simputers, one per panchayat, in the district of Mahasamund. This project is funded by the South Asia Foundation and is actively supported by the state government," Manohar said.

Sounding optimistic, he said: "Our first production units from Bharat Electronics have started arriving. We still have to do lots of testing etc, but should be able to scale up soon.

But to the basics first: what makes the Simputer special, if at all?

DeepRoot Linux CEO Abhas Abhinav, based in Bangalore, argues that one needs to understand the Simputer's main features - text to speech synthesis in Indian languages, pen based input method (called tap-a-tap), portable palmtop sized foot print, Linux powered, open hardware licensing, and the smart-card interface, among others.

"The intended use of these features (and hence the Simputer) is for rural areas... The text-to-speech features, portable size and low power requirements are meant to be of immense use to people in these areas," he notes.

Some applications that have been suggested in the past have been micro-banking applications, rural commerce, and micro-credit applications, notes Abhinav, a young Linux developer spearheading value-added product development projects based on the Free GNU/Linux OS at an equally young Linux start-up company.

But it's not that there are no problems. There are many! Economic, technological, market-related... even the ability to communicate our ideas, and the ability to have faith in ideas originating from the Third World.

Abhinav points out that Simputer would cost Rs 9000 only in quantities of "hundreds of thousands". So, if scale is not attained, the Simputers' utility is likely to be hit by its high price, and low availability of software, he feels.

Abhinav argues the Simputer, like any other mass hardware device, is only economical in very large quantities. And to achieve these very large quantities means that not only should a ready market exist, but consumers (and resellers) should be willing to buy it.

"It should mean extremely high value to them for making them want to buy it and should give them something extra that no competing device/platform gives. To achieve this a rich suite of extremely useful applications and an easy-to-use software development kit (SDK) should exist," says he.

Abhinav's view is that the Simputer has an edge over any palmtop. "Palm tops can't compute in Indian languages and don't have text-to-speech interfaces for Indian languages. They are also not aimed for the mass market that Simputer is and still have a more elitist user community," he notes.

Abhinav notes that the Simputer team has got a "lot of focus" on the low cost mass market computing -- more than any other project or initiative. This could mean a potential of spawning many more similar projects resulting in greater innovation in this area, he argues.

Abhas Abhinav wishes the Simputer team had spent more time - of course, a highly scarce commodity - and investment in convincing others to design software for the Simputer. More of an investment could have gone into usable interfaces, and there could have been less of a focus on specialised hardware and "costly development", suggests the CEO of DeepRoot Linux.

But he feels scalability of the Simputer could pose problems as "there is little scope for further hardware expansion and software is limited by this as well."

"Simputer's utility, therefore, is dependent upon how efficiently the Simputer group can turn the technological value of the product into something tangible for the masses as well... what we have today is a great technological base for doing these wonderful things, but no really usable applications to use it," says Abhinav.

One supporter of the project, not wanting to be quoted, says we need more experiments like these because the hardware needs of India are different that the needs of countries like the US. One parameter for example is affordability and a $1000 PC is 1/30th of the per capita income of an American but is 2.5 times *greater* than the per capita income of an Indian!

But, he argues: "Some people have asked me if the Simputer is a failure and I replied by saying that two years is too short a time frame to judge any new technology. Also, as I understand it, the Simputer is more differentiated at the software level and I think the hybrid icon and speech-based interface is the right way forward for Indian masses."

Guntupalli Karunakar, based in Mumbai who has been working on GNU/Linux-based Indian language solutions and taking computing to the commonman, argues that the Simputer has a potential as a shared community device through its smart-card interface. But he also says, "it all depends on the number and variety of applications that can be run on it".

"One reason I think that has prevented Simputer coming into market early on is because major components (processor, memory, LCD display etc) are not easily available in local markets, and have to be imported. That too, in bulk. So I can't build one of my own even if I have the money. If the raw materials were available locally, we would probably have had 'DIY Simputer kits' if not complete Simputers," says he.

Karunakar voices concern over the fact that since there is no immediate money to be seen, existing players really don't want to take the risk, or waste time and money on it. "They either find the product uninteresting, or are waiting for the small players (read: Picopeta/Encore) to take it to the critical mass level. If it succeeds then they will jump in with all might," he argues.

Sticking to the sub-$200 price promised can be tough though, "at least not this year,” says Karunkar. “It's a chicken-and-egg situation. Unless there's a big demand, Simputers won't be mass manufactured, which means cost will be high initially for the few kits that get made."

Most Haven't Seen One

Attention for the Simputer is also coming from far and wide, though the lack of hardware pieces in the market mean that few have actually seen a Simputer.

Dietrich Mueller-Falcke is a German researcher who did his Phd on the use of ICTs on small businesses in India. He has presented the Simputer as an “innovative idea to bring information to the poor" at the annual meeting of Euforic, a European Development Policy group, that was attended by the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid.

Mueller-Falcke says the Simputer "might be very useful if there is valuable content available, i.e. content management is crucial."

Comparing a Simputer with a PDA would be unfair, he feels, since with a PDA one would still need a mobile phone attached to get online. But, he adds that the Simputer needs to hit the market speedily, "because the PDA market is developing rapidly and with the advent of GPRS and UMTS in Europe, new functionalities will be added soon to these devices".

"(One of the advantages could be the) export opportunity. I would also like to get one! It would be great if export could finance even lower prices for rural villagers. That would be a great economic model," argues Geert Lovink, Sydney-based media theorist and Net critic.

Bruce Girard, a researcher and coordinator of Comunica, a network specialising in the convergence of independent broadcasting and new media is optimistic too. He notes: "The Simputer has design features that make it well-suited as a shared-use machine. The way that low-cost 'smartcards' have been incorporated into the design, for example, means that:(i) your data is keep securely in your own card, rather than on a network and; (ii) configuration settings are portable so if you use the Simputer in the library, at school, in a public call booth, or in another town, you will always have your own interface and data at hand."

He praises the Simputer's design aspects that support its use as a shared-use device -- "a CDA (Community Data Assistant) rather than a PDA". This, he says, opens up new application potential in schools, medical facilities, public booths, etc.

Not All Convinced

There are some who are sceptical about whether the Simputer can deliver. Dr. Akhtar Badshah, Executive Director of the Seattle-based Digital Partners, and an expat of Indian origin, feels this is a product with value, but says, "unless it becomes very user friendly and can attract multiple users it will not work". Badshah argues that "the Linux language has its limitations for interface with other devices. There are today much better designed and UI friendly devices available that can serve the same purpose".

Badshah warns India has still not demonstrated that it has "real capability in producing very good and reliable products in many other fields". Says he: "I think the value of the Simputer is that it focused the debate on the potential of a market that can be tapped. $200 is not low cost and prices of devices are falling all over the world and as I said there are other devices that are available for less than $50 that can also play such a role if adapted."

If he had a say in designing the Simputer all over again, Badshah says he would bring in other partners from others parts of the world to make the device a really great machine with terrific graphical user-interface, one that is good to look at and can deliver results.

He says: "The machine when I saw it could not interface with Windows and that is a big limitation which may have been solved. It is rather bulky. And now there is competition from other sectors."

Technical Director of Archeanit in Hyderabad S. Goswami is more dismissive. He calls the Simputer "vapourware". Says he: "Forget about low cost palmtops, the competition will be from devices like agenda vr3 (check agendacomputing.com)." Simputer got too much publicity too early, Goswami believes.

Ashhar Farhan bluntly calls the Simputer a solution in search of a problem. Start-up engineer Farhan, presently creating peer-to-peer VoIP technologies, says he takes a deep personal interest in low-intermediate (or 'appropriate') information technologies.

He says: "It doesn't fit into any of the standard classifications of a mobile computer. It is not a replacement for personal digital assistants like the palm or pocket PC based systems because it uses Linux which is not meant for instant-on, diskless, graphical interactions of 'bursty' nature (for example, flip open, check a phone number, flip it close). It is also not a replacement for industrial strength robust mobile computers like those from symbol and intermec. The Simputer won't even last a few hours in harsh environments."

He's also sceptical of the Simputer's Open Design. Says Farhan: "its design is as open as an Ipaq or palm design. There is nothing in it to circumvent the most costly part of a hardware design: the premium price of the chips due to the proprietary architecture of the chips themselves. It is like having written GPL software that can compile only on Microsoft's Visual C++ MFC classes."

But, it is really important for him too that this product comes from the Third World. "The fact that we have been able to assemble and operate a complete computer of this level is far more of a technology leap than CDAC calling its networked Sparc boxes a new supercomputer. It is probably the most innovative hardware project we have seen in India. It deserves high marks. I am full of praise for the technological achievements especially sitting in India. However, I have reservations about the social and business potential of this project," says Farhan.

Mayuresh Kathe, the young CEO of Tisya, who has himself been working on a low-cost solution to spread computing in India, questions the relevance of the Simputer "given the size, cost, application set and market positioning".

He says: "Technically speaking, the power packed in the Simputer is a lot more than is required off a handheld. It would have been wiser if they had made something like the Sharp Zaurus (keyboard), or HP Jornada (keyboard, WebCam, stereo sound)."

But Kathe says that "people the world over" feel that India is now ready for investment on the hardware front. During a visit to Taiwan, he found that companies there were ready to setup development and manufacturing bases in India.

"I guess the main contribution from the Simputer would be the fact that it comes from a Third World country. What I found to be really impressive was the fact that, the guys from IISc did manage to do it," says Kathe.

Kathe praises the software effort as commendable, but criticises the hardware initiative as "pathetic". Says Nagpur-based paediatrician-turned-PHP programmer Dr Tarique Sani: "After waiting almost a year for the Simputer to appear I finally opted to buy myself a Palm505. Need I say more? It has been in the making for too long!!"

On the price front, Dr Sani argues that a $200 price tag could make it affordable to the Indian junior executive. "But is the Simputer targeted at them?" he asks. "If we are talking about rural India then it “will not sell” unless the farmer is shown its usefulness, I heard that fishermen around the Indian coast now carry GPS receivers which are just as costly as Simputer - but the usefulness of GPS is immediately apparent...." Sani is CTO of SANIsoft, and co-author of recently published book "Professional PHP4" by Wrox Press U.K.

Says Dr Arun Mehta, of radiophony.com and indataportal.com: "I'd consider a Simputer where I want portability and Indian language support, or need to use smart cards. Unfortunately, smart cards haven't picked up yet, and I suspect that has something to do with the high IP costs that go into each card."

"Technology cannot afford to sit still: what might have been a great design a year or two ago, is old hat today. The Simputer doesn't have the economic muscle behind it for ongoing innovation at the furious pace devices like the Handspring and Palm are exhibiting," regrets Dr Mehta.

"We should first look for a problem, the solution of which makes a serious impact on peoples' everyday lives, and then find a solution for it, which might involve some hardware design,” he says. In Mehta's view, “the Simputer, in some ways, is a solution looking for a problem."

Says Aditya Sood, founder of the CKS-B (Centre for Knowledge Societies), which is closely monitoring the use of IT for development: "The Simputer is an important stage in hardware innovation and thinking in India. Its areas of greatest application are likely to be in process automation and data collection."

But, he feels, since its conception and prototyping, the Simputer has always been vulnerable to Moore's law, which currently has palmtops hovering below the Simputer price. "I think this is a serious issue, because minor innovations like regional language voice with English data entry could dramatically cut into Simputer's potential market," says Sood.

He sees the Simputer's uniqueness largely in terms of the fact that it came from a Third World country -- and that too being envisaged early, in 1998-99. In addition, it is also an open design, based on the GNU/Linux platform, and in Indian languages, notes Sood.

There has been a great deal of hype, as is normal in the technology field, but this is not the real reason for the limited success of it in development initiatives. The major problem, in my view, has to do with inadequate understandings of rural economy and society, which prevents technical designers from understanding what to design for. Superior social research conducted prior to technology development, rather than subsequent to technology development is the key. “One might call this approach 'ethnographic design'," says Sood, whose interests lie in education, the social sciences and design, apart from technology.

Faith Retained

But despite all the problems, there are others who retain their faith and optimism.

Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras, known worldwide for his attempts at taking affordable telephony solutions to the Indian commonman, sees this as an "excellent" tool for urban India, especially with sales and service persons.

Even if he sees the Simputer as not being low-cost as of now, he says "this (the affordability factor) is key and work needs to be done on it".

"Open design is a big plus. Services need to be developed on it. It will have limited use today in rural areas; but tomorrow it can build up," says an optimistic Jhunjhunwala. He points out that there is "no clear strategy and support from the government side (with) different people pulling it in different directions."

Jhunjhunwala however says he would like to see "more hardware integration" in this potentially-useful product. He believes it still needs to make a stronger business case. It could be difficult to sell at below $200, he suggests.

Prakash Advani of FreeOS.com, the Mumbai-based international network supporting all forms of free Operating Systems, says negatives at this critical point of time could "de-motivate" the key movers behind the Simputer project.

"I think it's a great concept. It has tremendous potential but needs to prove its metal fast. It's not important what you compare with it. What's important is if I have a device which can send emails and cost $100 will I pay for something which does email and also allows me to play MP3 for $500?," Advani asks.

Simputer's main contribution, argues Advani, is the fact that is developed in India for the Indian market. So its developers understand the Indian mindset the best. Localisation would be great selling point, he feels.

Advani contends that the global market needs more projects which build products for developing countries like India. "We also need to be users of IT. We export a lot of software but don't use it internally. We need to increase PC penetration, automate everything from government records to banks, etc. As well as web-enable everything," he says.

Advani suggests the Simputer team needs to closely monitor the design of Sharp Zaurus PDA which also runs Linux. "They can definitely take some clues from there such as using Quotopia as the platform," says he.

He says the Simputer team needs to maintain a low price, even if this means losses initially. Otherwise the volumes simply won't come in, and prices won't be able to drop. Delivery on time is important. The Simputer needs to be made "more usable", and could be a better looking device too, says he.

Narasimha Prabhu of iNabling Technologies, the firm that came out with the iStation that was expected to revolutionise email access at a low-cost, views the Simputer as a handheld computer "useful mainly for data collection for field purposes".

"Simputer is much more than a low cost-palmtop. Simputer can have many more applications like text to speech, customized applications for specific target segments," he concedes.

But Prabhu questions whether the Simputer would actually make it as a low-cost product "since it is not yet available commercially". He says: "There is very little funding for innovative projects which are quite risky in terms of business. Most of the venture funding is going into software services or more proven business models in India (other than dotcom related). Infrastructural bottlenecks also contribute to the delays."

Prabhu also argues that the publicity received by the Simputer seems to be bit more than deserved. "Till date Simputer is still in laboratory phase. No commercial operation has started. The ruggedness, pricing all depends on bulk production," he contends. But he concedes that its scalability seems to be good. Software interface and usability will improve as more and more applications are ported.”

"Customer acceptance of the product is yet to be seen," he says. Uncertainty of the market potential, and the fact that "unproven technology" was being tried out could have made industrialists a bit reluctant in coming to support this product.

Hardware Innovation?

Given this background, should a country like India then go in for greater hardware innovation?

Researcher Bruce Girard has no doubts: "Absolutely. India has a distinct set of problems that are often best addressed with distinct technology. And, unlike many smaller countries, it has the human capital pool and the market to allow it to embark on technology paths that will better serve its needs than those imported from the USA or Europe."

Girard contends that successful technologies developed for use in India will also help other less-industrialised countries which share the same infrastructural problems but only have access to technology designed for the conditions found in Europe and the USA.

Jhunjhunwala, who has long argued that India needs to find its own solutions to boost low-cost telephony, says that the country simply has to go in for a greater degree of hardware innovation. "There is no option," says he.

Engineer Farhan strongly believes that India needs to go in for more hardware innovation, his critique of the Simputer approach notwithstanding. Says he: "I would personally like to see a completely GPLed microprocessor design that is scalable (like SUN's Sparc), open and free (like some legacy processor cores), and small (RISC-based, so that ordinary university students can afford to get some silicon made out of their pocket money)."

Adds a not-pessimistic Farhan: "The road to hardware innovation is necessarily through the Simputer. It is an exciting and important milestone in Indian IT history."

Dr Arun Mehta sees it differently. He is upset by the "unfortunate attitude" in India which expresses itself in some variation of the question, "If this is such a great idea, how come nobody else is doing it?"

He says: "We seem to mistrust home-grown technology. Second, I suspect most innovative projects promise the moon when they're trying to get funding, and get there only by the time you have version 3 or thereabouts. Our projects often don't have the financial backing for the long haul. Also, the market in the country is small, and unless we immediately look to marketing at a global level (which needs tremendous marketing muscle too) we're out of the picture."

Says Mehta: "If a project like Simputer were to fail, it would put development back across the hardware front in India, because people would extrapolate from the Simputer and say that hardware development in India is doomed to fail. E.g. the government tried teletext, and it failed: since then nobody has had any incentive to try digital content delivery riding on TV or radio signals."

It's an absolute must for home-grown companies to venture into hardware innovation, in India, he suggests. Some are already doing it - like Web-ezee, Sasken, Inablers, now HP Labs are innovating in this area. "We should expect a wave of new options in the next two years," believes Aditya Dev Sood of cks-b.org.

FreeOS.com's Advani argues that India should encourage more hardware design development but doesn't agree that the country has the facilities to do high quality manufacturing. "We should outsource to China, Korea and Taiwan," he argues.

Prabhu of iNabling Technologies agrees India definitely must go in for hardware innovation - as this would meet the peculiarities of the cost-sensitive local market.

India definitely needs to go in for greater hardware innovation, argues Abhinav. "Hardware innovations are what stand between highly usable computers and affordability," says Abhinav of DeepRoot Linux.

"Again the extent of hardware innovation is limitless. In the long run it is this that will increase the value of a product - not software alone. To make a jump in technology affordability and applications, hardware innovation is one of the best ways India can adopt. We don't have a dearth of applications or need or market - it's all about price and the value of the product at that price," he adds.

Global Internet Policy Initiative managing director Eric S Johnson argues innovation in India has much to lose from "the lack of an infrastructure that would encourage an increase in communications capacity".

Instead of the government trying to "milk the communication sector for revenue", opening up of local loop (wired or wireless), the 2.4-gHz frequency, VoIP, intercity dialling, mobiles and the like would yield rich returns, he told this correspondent.

Has the product been over-hyped? Geert Lovink is one of those who disagree. "Compare this coverage with other IT news items. I would say that there has not been enough press at all (internationally). Simputer is not just a company or a specific computer. It is first and foremost an idea. A concept which needs as much press coverage and criticism as possible," says he.

Abhas Abhinav of DeepRoot Linux says the favourable press has been well deserved. "They at least got the focus shifted to low-cost computing for the masses. And for that matter their objectives were also clear and remarkable. As much as their work," says Abhinav.

To wrap-up, Prof Manohar says PicoPeta is currently making progress along three fronts, keeping its focus as a Simputer solutions company:

• Deployment of the Simputer platform: Extensive field testing of the Simputer solutions in areas as diverse as citizen empowerment, education, micro banking, rural marketing and brand management for FMCG companies etc. "These field trials will be leveraged to generate large demands for Simputer solutions," says Manohar.
• Building alliances and partnerships: PicoPeta is building a strong "ecosystem" by means of partnerships and alliances. For example: The Markle Foundation in the US and GraffitiWorkz in the US for targeting the e-book market, AlittleWorld, to provide e-payment services through STD/ISD booth operators, IIIT-Hyderabad for language technologies.
• Product and technology development: Improving the current product both in terms of price and performance, enhancing the feature set of the Simputer and building advanced versions. Several software tools, including improved IML browsers, IML content creation tools, synchronization of the Simputer with PCs, have been developed and will be tested out in the field trials.

Closely Watched

Even within South Asia, where neighbours are often not friends due to political differences, the Simputer experiment is being closely watched. M. Khalid Rahman, editor in charge of Dawn Sciencedotcom, the weekly feature magazine of daily Dawn, Pakistan's largest daily, is upbeat about the Simputer.

Says he: "I think Simputer is basically a poor-man's computer, and it provides all the basic functions of a computer while giving the price edge to the users."

Rahman argues that in all the SAARC countries, a special branch of "affordable" technology should be dedicated to developing affordable applications and innovations to suit the pocket of the common man.

Simputer, says he, is a "landmark achievement, opening new vistas of affordable technology". As Rahman points out, we in the subcontinent have certainly been falling short of the promise of a number of IT-for-development projects because "our governments fail to think objectively, and our entrepreneurs and are mainly interested in making money by all (fair/unfair) means".

Swedish journalist and researcher, Kerstin Lundell, recently in India to study IT-for-development projects, says the Simputer seems like a very good tool for a traveller in rural areas. She says its promised low cost would be one major attraction.

Says she: "It's marvellous that anybody tries to make a new computer outside the big established corporations. Swedish companies have tried and failed a couple of times. The big mainly American manufacturers are so overwhelmingly dominant."

"I think many majors have had a wait and watch approach to the sector, as it is only coming into its own right now. The major issue, though, I think is whether anyone has the presence, reach and standing to stand behind a new platform coming out of India. If this comes about, I think it will be a fantastic success story," adds Sood.

"Basically, I think it's great and I WANT it to work...," said one US-based researcher, who has been following the potential of this IT-for-development project for long now. With sceptics cynical and optimists ever-hopeful, it's anyone's guess how this promised wonder-product from India will shape up.