The best startup ideas from 2011 (Image credit: Blogsaays.com)

Rafe Needleman at C|net just published an interesting piece on the best startup ideas from 2011. Net-net, he says the following trends made it big through a variety of startups:

1) A focus on bringing technology to the physical world: Products that reach outside the digital realm and enable interactions with the physical world in interesting ways. Augmented reality anyone? Location awareness to tie the information experience with the physical? What about devices like medical monitors and other real world sensors that augment the digital experience?

2) Excellent design: This one is a no brainer. If Apple and Steve Jobs taught us anything it is that well designed trumps not well designed even if the more aesthetically appealing product lags behind on speeds and feeds. In 2012, we remain excited to see how some of Apple’s design philosophy gets “embraced and extended” with PC Ultrabooks. But Rafe’s point is not just about computer hardware. He makes a broader and completely accurate point about design now being super important for the success of a product – hardware or software.

3) Mining data: Both in the consumer and enterprise worlds, data is growing at unfathomable rates. On the consumer end, we have things like photographs, notes, documents, music and videos all moving into the cloud, needing to be searched and organized. And on the business side we have ever-increasing digitization of records and transactions, a larger number of surveillance cameras providing higher quality digital footage than ever before, automated supply chains, enterprise application integration, ERP implementations moving down the chain and into the cloud and so on. There is LOTS of opportunity to mine data and make sense of it.

4) Platforms: True, the platform concept is a tough sell as either a new idea or something that too many people can get off the ground. But if you can build a platform and make it succesful by developing a consumption and supply ecosystem around it, it sure as heck makes for a killer business model with lots of inherent barriers to competitive entry. Facebook, after all, is not necessarily the finest implementation of a social network – just the most powerful and adopted platform of all social networking properties. That’s why Google and others can’t unseat it so easily. Building platforms is IN fo’ sho’.

5) Putting people/consumers in touch with each other: A central theme in the information revolution is breaking down barriers to communication. Theoretically, the Internet puts everyone on earth in touch with any other fellow earthling. In reality, the contact needs to be brokered within a particular context (i.e. education, social networking, commerce and so on). Properties that put people in touch with others and create some value from that contact – whether by enabling consumer to consumer commerce, or learner to learner education – are hot.

What do you think are some additional hot idea memes that took off in 2011? What do you think will stay hot through 2012? We’d love to hear your views.

For more on this, directly from the horse’s mouth, visit C|Net.

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Ally China is pursuing a number of UCAV projects. So is Pakistan...

Since the war on terror started in Afghanistan back in 2001, the United States Air Force has employed various different UAV platforms to target insurgents and the Taliban. Both on Afghan soil as well as in Pakistani territory, with the covert approval of the Pakistan government. Observing the efficacy of UAV platforms like the Predator, the Pakistani military establishment requested the United States to equip it with UAVs so that the war on terror could be prosecuted with more efficacy on the part of the Pakistani military. However these requests were denied repeatedly and America cited the potential use of these UAV platforms in military theaters outside the Afghan Pakistan border (i.e. India) as a flimsy excuse. Faced with these denials, but unwavering in its resolve to achieve its objectives, Pakistan undertook a domestic UAV development program. Even prior to Predator requisition requests being turned down, the Pakistani military had already invested in various autonomous target drones, built both by the private and public sectors. Here at TechLahore, we covered Pakistani drone developments a couple of years ago. In fact, we pointed out that the level of sophistication was such that – in a rather ironic twist -private Pakistani drone  manufacturers were exporting UAVs even to the United States homeland security department for oversight applications on the US-Mexico border.

Since then, much has happened. Pakistan entered into a deal with the Italian firm, Selex-Galileo, for the licensed production of fairly capable UAV aircraft at the Kamra Aeronautical facilities. In addition, the Pakistan Navy also acquired rotorcraft drones from foreign sources. Separately, the Pakistan Army has pursued partnerships with China and has incented local manufacturers to continue to develop more advanced platforms within the country. One of the more promising UCAV projects currently in progress in Pakistan is the Burraq armed drone. Burraq is envisioned as a high endurance, long-range, over the horizon, armed UAV aircraft. For the last four years it has been under development and rumors are now surfacing that it may be ready for deployment. At the recent Zhuhai airshow in China, in which the Pakistan Air Force participated with its JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, Chinese manufacturers also displayed miniaturized lightweight missiles that were particularly suited for carriage on a drone. Various parts of this sprawling Pakistani drone development program are coming together, in partnership with China – weapons development, control systems development, propulsion, airframe, ground stations and much else. The Burraq will only the first in a line of capable, armed Pakistani drones.

And soon. The Burraq, it seems, will be flying in early 2012.

Pakistan's locally produced Falco UAV was built in collaboration with Italy's Selex-Galileo. The Air Force is now looking to arm it with miniaturized missiles.

The Pakistani UAV program is a wonderful example of the breadth of technological capability that exists in the country, its ability to collaborate internationally without relying on problem-ridden dealings with America, and the benefits of investing in local development and local manufacturing as opposed to wiring a ton of money to a foreign country and importing somebody else’s equipment (Saudi Arabia style). As with the JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, Pakistan will discover that the flexibility of owning and running a domestically developed military platform allows unending customization, full control of capabilities, and absolutely no worries with regards to security or someone else knowing its true performance, or even inhibiting the capabilities by doctoring the IFF system or other internal electronics. Not only that, but for private technological firms based in Pakistan a program of this nature creates tremendous economic opportunity. A variety of different inputs, ranging from materials to software to optics to electronics and propulsion technologies are required to build a high-tech UAV. A sophisticated military program such as the Burraq will lead not only to an improvement in Pakistan’s defensive and offensive military capabilities, but also in significant benefits for the economy and local industry.

We hope that in future, with military programs such as Burraq, the continued development of the spectacularly successful JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft and its various space technology ventures, Pakistan will continue to create domestic research and development capabilities which will ensure a brighter future for its people and a credible defense against any would-be aggressor.

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Bustling cities like Cape Town, South Africa, hold a lot of promise for Pakistani IT companies

Pakistan and South Africa have a connection dating back at least 150 years. During colonial times, a large number of people from the sub continent moved to South Africa to work and find business opportunity. Today, there is a significant presence of Muslim South Africans in the business community in that country and people of Sub-continental decent – including those from modern-day Pakistan – are doing very well socially and economically. Since the end of Apartheid, South Africa has entered the comity of nations and has been welcomed by all. In fact, their post-Apartheid reconciliation process and the peaceful manner in which internal conflict was ended is used as a modern-day example of good sense, peacemaking and humanitarianism.

Along with its newly restored international standing and reputation, South Africa has also emerged as a business destination. There has always been a very strong tradition of technological development in the country. During the period they were under sanctions, South Africans achieved numerous technical feats, including their own nuclear programme, the development of high performance aircraft such as the Cheetah, and the continued growth of impressive R&D firms such as Denel. 

Today, South Africa presents rich opportunities for business-people seeking to expand to international markets or forge partnerships at a global level. With per-capita income at over $10,000, a population of about 50 million and rising HDI indicators, South Africa is definitely going places. While there are some lingering issues with crime in parts of the country, cities like Cape Town are incredibly popular tourist hotspots for people from all over the planet.

Traditionally, IT companies in Pakistan have not really looked at South Africa as a strategic destination. However, this may no longer be the case. In a recent interview, Naseer Akhtar, CEO of Lahore-based InfoTech, shared his experience in the country and encouraged other Pakistani entrepreneurs to consider expanding to South Africa. There has been some technology collaboration between Pakistan and South Africa over the last decade, but this has been limited primarily to the defence sector. It would be great to see the partnership develop further and expand into areas of wider economic importance, such as ICT. For South Africa, this would mean access to Pakistan’s developing market, with 180 million people, and access to some incredible talent. And for Pakistani businessmen such a partnership would provide an entry to a middle-income country with a sizeable population and a strong R&D base.

If you have had experience working with South African IT companies, or serving the South African market, do share in the comments section below. In the meanwhile, we’ll stay tuned on future developments in this area.

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Karachi's beautiful Sheraton hotel was the venue for P@SHA's 2011 Information Technology Awards

A big shout out to Jehanara, President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), and her management team for organizing a brilliant event last night at Karachi’s gorgeous Sheraton Hotel.

The 8th Annual P@SHA’s ICT (Information and Communication Technology) awards were wonderfully organized, fairly judged and brilliantly presented. The tremendous momentum and growth of Pakistan’s IT industry is plain for all to see and this Awards ceremony is a great showcase. Each year, the entries have been getting more and more sophisticated and wide ranging. A fair number of new companies have been recognized in the 2011 Awards which bodes well for the industry’s future.

If you’d like to check out the list of winners and learn more about the awards, you should click on over to the official P@SHA Awards website.

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The iconic Cray 1 Supercomputer seen here in all its glory (Photo credit: photofunblog)

Seymour Cray’s name is legend. It adorns some of the fastest, most striking computers ever built. It is synonymous with supercomputing and evokes unparalleled architectural notions that are impossible to ignore for any student of high performance computing. He is perhaps the greatest computer architect ever, and while his area of focus was on the high end and unconcerned with popular computing, many of his innovations have allowed modern day computers to be what they are. Cray, in fact, beyond his statute as a legend is also an example that young engineers and computer scientists should aspire to emulate. He so routinely pushed the edge and expanded the realm of the possible, that he provides an undying illustration of the adage, “Nothing is impossible”.

Seymour Cray is important for another reason. He represents what made America great. He is the quintessential American engineer who came of age in the second world war and then powered America’s rise through the 50s and 60s to become the most powerful nation on earth. He embodies a mix of brilliance, practicality and a roll-up-your-sleeves-get-it-done attitude that is uniquely American. You can lean more about this great visionary and computer architect by reading about him on Wikipedia. But for now, let’s watch him deliver a talk that was thankfully recorded for posterity. Here he is, the man himself, Mr Seymour Cray:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG63r4e6eb8

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An Exciting Future! While we won't quite get all the way here in 2011, things will start falling into place.

I just have a good feeling about 2011. I think it’s going to be a great year. I’ve thought a lot about where the optimism is coming from, and I don’t think it’s all subjective. Very important things happened in 2010, such as the incredibly pivotal visit by the Chinese Premier to Pakistan, Pakistan’s establishment drawing a very clear line with respect to interests it is not willing to compromise, wonderful progress with important programs like the JF-17, the arrival of product-focused Pakistani software companies like Pepper.pk who “ruled the world” with their #1 BlackBerry application, the rapid implementation of That Coal projects under the able leadership of Dr. Samar Mubarakmand and much else.

And in addition to all these things there’s the visible progress one can see unfolding in our cities. For example, with a hundred kilometers of brand spanking new, 6-lane highways (The Ring Road) in Lahore, commuting across the city in 2010 was so much easier than in 2009. New services like Qubee, added to the competition on the broadband side and Pakistan’s cellular market continued to grow with near 100M cell phones now in use in the country. To put things in perspective, that’s more cell phones than the number of people living in the UK and Italy put together!

Also, in defence of my optimism, I have to say that I haven’t fared badly with my predictions in the past. That’s not to say I couldn’t be off for 2011, but here’s a glimpse into the past:

1. Evaluating TechLahore’s predictions for 2010

2. Evaluating TechLahore’s predictions for 2009

3. Evaluating TechLahore’s predictions for 2008

With that prelude, let’s get to it. Here is how I see 2011 unfolding:

Political Predictions

The parliament is not going anywhere. This PM may or may not last, but the Parliament is well on its way to completing its 5 years. I think it will navigate 2011 in tact. And if that happens, with less than a year to go in 2012, term completion will be well within sight and all but certain.

The Congress Government in India will continue to get less popular and Mr. Manmohan Singh’s “clean” image will become a thing of the past. Corruption is going to be a massive story for India in 2011.

Mr. Obama will see an increase in his popularity rating. It currently stands at -12 according to the Rasmussen Reports. We’ll see how he ends the year up in 2011, but my guess is he could be close to neutral territory. This improvement will come from the improvement in economic conditions in 2011, as well as a greater willingness to work with the Republicans in the House.

Security and the situation in Northwest Pakistan

2010 saw a 35% reduction in the number of terror attacks. 2011 will continue that trend. There will be a close to 25% further reduction in the number of terror attacks. The reach of these attacks will, for the most part, stay limited to the Northwest. The Pakistan Army will make moves in the NWA region, but these will not be in the form of a full-fledged onslaught at the scale of the Swat operation.

NATO will begin to significantly ease up on operations in Afghanistan. They will still be there at the end of 2011, but will no longer be looking to aggressively take on the Taliban. Most of the fights between the two parties will occur as the Taliban attack NATO convoys, posts or bases. NATO may retaliate, but will not run a strategic campaign of any significance. 2011 is the year that will see an increase in outreach to Taliban and the beginnings of negotiating at a post-NATO agreement. The biggest priority for the US will now be negotiating an exit for themselves and NATO which will allow them to claim a victory, even though the reality will be far from it.

2011 will see a reduction in the number of drone strikes in FATA, as compared to 2010.

Technology Predictions

Android will end 2011 as the dominant mobile platform. Apple will not be able to reverse the trend that began in 2010. I would predict that Android will go from its current 22.7% of the US smartphone market to close to 33%. Overall, while 30% of the current US population of cell phone users use smartphones, by the end of 2011, this 30% will grow to 45% at least. All these 2010  statistics are based on December estimates from Nielsen.

Tablets will be the major consumer device story in 2011. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. But non-Apple tablets will continue to increase their market share. Today, the iPad has 95% market share, but by the end of 2011, this will be reduced to 75%.

Mobile apps for phones and tablets will continue to attract more and more developer talent. I see 2011 ending with close to 700,000 apps available for all the major platforms. Currently, iOS and Android have about 400,000 apps between them and Blackberry probably another 12,000 or so. Windows Phone7 is so new, it hardly has any. By the end of 2011, you will likely see 400,000 iOS apps, 250,000 Android apps, 20,000 Blackberry apps and about 15,000 Phone7 apps. With tablet apps thrown in, this will get close to 700,000.

Pakistan’s software industry will see a good year. The momentum on the mobile development side will continue, and I see most of the established companies growing their teams and bringing on more talent. There are few metrics available to truly judge this, but we’ll pick a few leading illustrative cases in December 2011 and see how we fared.

Apple will launch the iPhone 5 this year, but it will be a defensive, bug fix kind of product rather than anything particularly innovative to help it leapfrog the numerous Windows Phone7 and Android devices hitting the market on a monthly basis. The biggest issue with the iPhone 4 was the antenna, and so the iPhone 5 will revolve around better antenna performance. Apple will do the usual dog and pony and claim that the iPhone 5 has the best designed antenna of any phone ever made etc. But in the end, the iPhone 5 will not succeed in stemming the tide of Android and Windows Phone7 phones. The important thing here is that 2011 will be the year of the commoditization of the Smartphone. There will be so many makes and models, with so many different OS choices that will offer basically equivalent functionality, that the market will start to make a shift towards the less expensive devices (i.e. Android).

We’ll learn a lot more about Windows 8 this year. While the central themes will be integration with the Cloud, make no mistake, this will be an honest-to-goodness PC operating system. It will showcase better visualization, add support for bigger, faster GPUs and will standardize 64-bit. We may see the first 128-bit mainstream OS among Windows 8′s several SKUs. No release in 2011 though, just more specificity on what the product will be and perhaps an alpha/CTP.

Virtualization, which has commanded the enterprise IT airwaves since 2007-8, will begin to take a back seat to other trends. As services that were once virtualized start to migrate to the cloud and outsource PaaS infrastructures, the value of virtualization in the enterprise will diminish somewhat. Obviously, the level of adoption is tremendous so it will take some time to happen, but 2011 will be the turning point and this will become evident with the decreased “cool” factor and reduced coverage. On the desktop side, inexpensive PCs, numerous new form factors like tablets with native apps and cell phones equipped with projectors etc. will begin to chip away at the desktop virtualization value proposition. I don’t think this shift will be visible enough to most to cause a major reduction in, say, VMware’s stock price (hovering around $90 right now).

Wateen and/or Warid will cease to be an independent operation in Pakistan. Their poor execution has cost them dearly. If it weren’t for the seemingly limitless capital available to them, they wouldn’t have survived as long as they have. They will likely be acquired by another major operator in the Pakistani market.

Netsol stock on the NASDAQ (NTWK) will have a good year, with at least one close above $2.25 during the year.

Financial and Economic Predictions

Pakistan’s GDP will grow by at least 4%, likely 4.3%. The current estimates of two point some are utter nonsense.

The KSE will continue to rise. I expect it to benefit from the improvement in the global economic environment and the greater clarity in the regional strategic equation. I’m projecting an at-least 15% rise, but it could be as high as 25%. If it comes close to the latter, then we may approach KSE’s all-time highs in the 16K range!

The US markets, the Dow and Nasdaq, will see an increase of about 8-10%.

Job data will be watched super closely in the US. There will be some improvement this year, but I don’t think it will be very rapid. My estimate would say a .4-.6% reduction in the unemployment rate by the end of 2011.

The housing market in the US will begin a tedious, painful and slow journey to recovery. With properties having dropped anywhere from 30-70% over the last couple of years, this year will probably see a 5% increase in average home prices.

The Pakistani Rs. will see some weakening this year. It fought off pessimistic estimates of a drop to 100/$ but in 2011 we may see a 5% or so weakening with respect to the US$.

Real estate prices will start to improve in Pakistan in 2011. More importantly, the number of deals being done will go up. I will use the index price of a 1 kanal plot in Gulberg, Lahore as an index when we revisit this in December 2011. The market price is currently at 1 crore 50 lacs.

And there we have it. I’ll revisit some of these through the year as they prove to be false or true. Stay tuned, and more importantly, have an absolutely amazing 2011! Happy New Year!

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$100 Laptops, $135 Android touch tablets and more... they're flooding Pakistan

We’ve been discussing low cost Netbooks and Tablets for the last several years here at TechLahore, and we’ve always felt that the mainstreaming of these devices will be a huge force in democratizing communications, access and learning in the developing world. In 2007 and through 2008, we were tracking Nicholas Negroponte’s much ballyhooed Sugar OLPC project which unfortunately didn’t quite meet the price targets set for it. We also looked at the Intel Classmate PC and the Government’s sponsorship of this effort in Pakistan. All the while, we were quite sure that $100 price targets were not far from being met, not by education-focused initiatives like the Classmate and OLPC, but by run-of-the-mill mainstream budget systems. And that’s exactly where we are now.

Pakistan is awash in ultra-inexpensive Laptops, Netbooks and Tablets of every form factor. Being on a number of local distributors’ mailing lists, we are inundated with ads pitching the form factor du jour, at rapidly decreasing prices. Here is one example:

Cheap computers galore in Pakistan!

For reference, a US Dollar is roughly Rs. 84 in Pakistani currency as of 10/28/2010. So, divide the amounts to get to dollar prices. A Netbook for $110, and an Adroid tablet for $135 ain’t so bad! Low cost computers are a reality today, and you can buy them in quantities of one… not a million at a time as the OLPC programme required. So, now the question is, what will Pakistan’s schools, rural areas and low-income neighbourhoods look like in 5 and 10 years? How will this inexpensive technology help create new opportunities and solve problems that have thus-far remained unaddressed? That’s the 50 Billion dollar question. And we’ll certainly be watching how things go…

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WindowsPhone 7 : Too little, too late? (Photo credit: CNET Networks)

The decline of Windows Mobile in the last few years is one of the most confusing, frustrating and inexplicable tech stories of the past decade. After becoming *the* smartphone operating system, besting Palm, Handspring and even RIM, Microsoft apparently went into a coma. They failed to keep up with emerging competition, like the Apple iPhone, and while competitors refreshed their platforms quickly, Microsoft couldn’t churn out a single meaningful update to the Windows Mobile OS. Apple went from zero to about 30% market share in a few short years and launched 4 major updates to its hardware and software platform. In all this time, Microsoft’s Mobile division could barely muster a sickly 6.5 upgrade forWindows Mobile and a few misdirected projects such as Microsoft Kin. A project which, frankly, was destined to fail from day one due to its complete lack of a well defined audience, the absence a single meaningful differentiator and its uninteresting implementation.

The problem that plagued the Kin speaks to a larger malady that now afflicts Microsoft. What vision is the company executing to? Who forms the focus of the company’s products? Earlier on in their history, Microsoft did amazingly well by executing to the crystal-clear mantra of “A computer on every desk”. They mercilessly drove down prices of computing platforms by commoditizing the hardware and allowing customers to experience an equivalent experience regardless of whether their machine came from a no-name whitebox supplier in China, or an over-engineered IBM workstation class system. They fueled media, information and workflow convergence on a single platform and made the PC the most important tool of the post-industrial age. Remember Bill Gates’ aggressive push for technologies such as CD-ROM? Microsoft, though never  a bleeding edge technology leader, was definitely an efficient engine that churned out release after release and quickly caught up, embraced and extended and made things fit in its overall vision.

So, where is the Microsoft we knew and loved (or at least feared)? What we have now appears to be a lumbering behemoth that is undoing itself by refusing to make important bets and executing to them ferociously, as it once did. While Windows 7 on the desktop is a welcome change from the perpetually-under-assault Vista, a *lot* more needs to be done. Windows 7 hasn’t made the PC interesting again… and unless Microsoft wants its bread-and-butter business to whither away, it will need to figure out a way to do nothing short of that. The PC has to be cool again. It has to be unique and different again. I can check my email on my smartphone, and watch streaming video on an under $100 set-top box. I can browse the web on an iPad and keep up with friends on Facebook on a host of devices. What major capability does my PC give me? As it stands today, it is limited to being a content creation system based largely on its larger form factor, and increasingly less so due to its performance advantage over other devices. This is not enough. The PC must do something no other platform can do. And whatever that unique set of features are, they should apply uniquely to the PC, at least for some period of time.

As things stand today, it is becoming clear that the mobile platform is the primary device of interest for consumer and most business people. Almost all information (or content) consumption - which probably occupies 80-85% of our time - will be done on these devices. PCs may continue to exist for a while of course, but as devices best suited for content creation… a task that occupies a small segment the the time an average user spends interacting with information devices. So what has Microsoft been able to do for this growth segment? As I earlier pointed out, their early success might as well never have happened since they frittered it all away and basically have to start from scratch. The promised WindowsPhone 7  is, in fact, just that sort of a product reset. What remains to be seen is whether Microsoft can win back some interest and start to build a viable Mobile business again. So far, from what I see, the feature differentiators are minor and much of the functionality that existed in the old Windows Mobile (6.5 and before) has gone away (e.g. cut and paste) simply because WindowsPhone 7, as a complete re-write, has nothing at all to do with the versions that were released prior. WindowsPhone 7 has to do something amazing either in software, or in conjunction with hardware, that no other mobile device can do. And without that, it just won’t be noticed in the flood of  Android, iPhone & Blackberry devices.

Here is an example of how Microsoft is attempting to position WindowsPhone 7 - as a more efficient presenter of information. But does this sort of differentiation have any real merit? Isn’t this just like a custom home screen, also available in dozens of open source and paid apps?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFAUTy4wizU

When I see weak attempts such as the above, it makes me cringe. I just don’t think you can push a new Mobile OS - and a non-free one at that - based on trivial features like these. Wouldn’t Microsoft have been better served by something completely ground-breaking… like integrating a Photosynth client on the phone and launching a flagship handset with a built-in micro-projector? Can you imagine the sort of buzz that would create at a launch event? You would take pictures with your phone, Photosynth would use the 1+Ghz processor now commonly found in handsets to immediately stitch the images together and then the integrated pico-projector would show the stitched synth on any flat surface. It would wow the audience no end! And that’s the sort of thing that gets you into virtuous cycles and domino effects. Also, Photosynth is uniquely Microsoft’s. A lot of work has gone into it and its . Plus, the integration of a pico-projector would have been a bit harder for everyone else to follow suit with at least for a few months.

But no, Microsoft is instead betting the future on a slightly better home screen. Ok, then. Let’s see how this plays out.

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The Pakistan Technology Forum: startups, technology, hacking, DIY and much more...

After 3 years of being a blog, TechLahore is making the leap to being a little bit more than that… we’re launching the Pakistan Technology Forum today which we hope will serve as the favourite haunt for local techies, hackers, startup studs and tech business belles. The forum launches today at the following URL:

www.techlahore.com/forum

Head on over, make yourself a free account and let’s start the dialogue! At launch, the following forums have been created, though more will probably added along the way.

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Indian politicians holding a supposed $35 tablet

Here comes another announcement heralding the arrival of an inexpensive computer made in India. Is it the Sakshit? No. Is it the Simputer? No. This time it’s a new red herring… an as-yet unnamed tablet unveiled by an Indian politician, Kapil Sibal, who is currently the head honcho at the Indian Human Resources Ministry. It would seem that what is really behind these proclamations are not technological advances, but in fact bureaucrats and politicians who are desperately trying to best each other with impossible to believe price points. The fact that these prices turn out to be, well, impossible, is apparently a minor detail that we are not supposed to pay attention to.

For the historically inclined, we’ve covered this cheap computer fetish in the past. Here’s coverage from when the Indian press was going wild about the launch of a $10 computer, the Sakshat, which turned out to be a complete lemon.

To summarize, the Indian HR ministry would have us believe that they have chanced upon a secret formula that will deliver a touchscreen tablet capable of running Linux (or Android… Open Office is specifically referred to as a supported application), with 2GB of RAM, a battery and plenty of other features, for the low price of $35. Never mind that India doesn’t build processors and will have to import them at costs set, not by the HR Ministry, but by international suppliers. Never mind that India doesn’t build these touchscreens and that they would consume almost the entire $35 budget at current international prices. Never mind that RAM has a globally-set commodity price which is as closely tracked as precious metals or other commodities, and 2GB of RAM will *not* be available to the Indian HR Ministry for a cost that would be consistent with the $35 price target of the device. When you’re pulling numbers from the air (or from somewhere else) what does reality have to do with it?

But you know what’s even better? “In volume”, says Mr. Kapil Sibal, this tablet will cost $10. Mmmhmm.

When will this product be available? No news. What processor does it have? No news. What kind of touchscreen does it use? No news. How are all these components being sourced from a global supply chain for only $35? No news.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we now have Chapter 3 in the fascinating saga of Indian politicans and their love for cheap, albeit, nonexistent ethereal computers. I am sure this is not what the industry meant when it said we’re all migrating to “computing in the cloud”, Mr. Sibal. You can can extract your head from the stratosphere now. Thank you.

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