How about a PC for Rs 5,000? It may sound startling, but that is what Nova netPC from Chennai-based Novatium is all about.
The company is doing a pilot of its netPC that adopts the cable television model.
The netPC is a simple computer that works in a network and does not have local hard disks.
All the software and applications are set up in a remote central server located at the premises of the operator (cable operator or telecom company).
A customer subscribes to Novatium's "computing service" offered by a local operator, paying an upfront amount and later a monthly "pay-as-you consume" fee, according to its CEO, Mr Alok Singh.
Nova netPC is like an appliance. The operator gives the subscriber a keyboard, mouse, monitor and `Nova netPC.' A cable is drawn into the house and connected to the Nova netPC.
With the account already provided by the operator, once the customer types username and password, they are ready to use the PC and explore the Internet, he told Business Line.
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 28 — Here in the Swiss mountains at the World Economic Forum, the annual conclave of world leaders, concerns over a growing digital divide this year have taken a back seat to the challenge of climate change.
Being out of the limelight, however, has not dimmed passions over what the best way is to deploy computers in the developing world. The controversy boiled over on Saturday at a breakfast meeting here where Craig R. Barrett, the chairman of Intel, squared off with Nicholas P. Negroponte, the former director of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, whose nonprofit organization One Laptop Per Child is trying to develop a low-cost computer for the 1.2 billion children in the developing world. His prototype XO computer is designed to sell for $100 by the end of 2008.
Sir, John Gapper's column "Anyone can become the CEO of You Inc" (January 22) relating to the "Shifting Power Equation" under discussion at Davos focuses on the newly distributed power to achieve celebrity. Potentially more interesting is the newly distributed power to create change. Along these lines, the event of the week may have been the 2007 Schwab Social Entrepreneurs Summit that just concluded in Zurich.
...Social entrepreneurship is a relatively new term to describe an old concept. This week it made its first appearance in a US State of the Union address. The emerging field is not without its sceptics. Some question using "social" in the term, stating that anyone who creates an organisation to address a public need is an entrepreneur, pure and simple. Regardless of context or motivations, the positive societal impact of entrepreneurship is to force change in the status quo, driving improvements to the provision of goods and services.
This argument has a good deal of merit. Certainly, it would be a serious mistake to draw a line aroundthe phenomenon of "social entrepreneurship" in a way that excludes for-profit ventures.
India's great leap forward in telecommunications is heralded as one of the country's success stories. But big initiatives in rural expansion and evolution of government policy must gain momentum for rapid growth to continue.
"Getting to the very bottom of the pyramid has to be through transformative change," says Kunal Bajaj, director of BDA India, a telecoms consultancy in New Delhi.
A Light Bulb Goes on, and China Starts Thinking ‘Alternative Energy’
New York Times — www.nytimes.com
Published on January 23, 2007
Mr. Li said that within six months, he expected to have a database of some 300 Chinese start-ups seeking investment partners. One of them will be a company called Ruikang, based in Jiangsu Province, near Shanghai, that handles organic tea, honey and Chinese traditional medicines.
Another start-up that he said was seeking investors is Shenwu, based in Beijing, which makes equipment to capture heat from a heating unit and redirect it for other uses.
Mr. Li said the big challenge facing American venture capitalists is not so much finding viable technology as it is finding capable managers.
Chinese entrepreneurs can "have a different speed and rhythm - everything is different because of the cultural background." He insisted, though, that the situation is changing, thanks to exposure to international businesspeople and intensifying market demand.
"Things are changing, not just because the government is hungry for this," he said of the demand for alternative energy. "The whole country is hungry for this."
For instance, it can help you transfer money, withdraw it, keep a ready balance on tap (ie go shopping), and so on. In other words, it can be like a credit/debit card, or a bank. It is easy to use because all that is required is to swipe it close to another attachment. It is cheap because the cost of a transaction is the price of a short message on the mobile network. It is presumably safe because of the encryption technologies that are used. And it can be near universal in its reach because, very soon, more Indians will have mobile phones than bank accounts.
One of Four Handsets Shipped in 2011 Will Cost Less Than $20
ABI Research — home.businesswire.com
Published on January 22, 2007
The global market for sub-$20 ultra low cost handsets (UCLH) will be over 330 million units in 2011. A new study from ABI Research finds that over 50% of these handsets will be shipped in the emerging markets of Asia Pacific and the remainder in markets of Africa, Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
Remittances from workers overseas amounted to $21bn this fiscal year. Overall foreign institutional investment is growing and funds from overseas Indians are likely to make up a significant portion, JPMorgan says in a report on the Indian diaspora. Real estate is seeing significant overseas Indian investment, both via commercial purchases through funds as well as the buying of second homes.
Get to the 'bottom of the pyramid'
The Economic Times of India — economictimes.indiatimes.com
Published on January 22, 2007
C K Prahalad can take credit for seminal ideas in business and management including core competence which he elucidated in a Harvard Business School article in 1990. His 1994 book Competing for the Future (with Gary Hamel) is also regarded as path-breaking. His latest breakthrough idea is on what he calls the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid.
Under conventional notions of how to run a conglomerate like Unilever, CEO Patrick Cescau should wake up each morning with a laserlike focus: how to sell more soap and shampoo than Procter & Gamble Co. (PG ) But ask Cescau about the $52 billion Dutch-British giant's biggest strategic challenges for the 21st century, and the conversation roams from water-deprived villages in Africa to the planet's warming climate.
