India's computer sales

With rise in disposable income and job stability, India's computer sales is projected to grow at 35 per cent in FY12, more than double the pace in previous year, according to hardware association MAIT. As per its latest estimates, the sales of personal computers — desktops, notebooks and net books combined —– are expected to cross 12.6 million units during 2011-12. There is an important rider to achieving this target, though. The study only gauges the pent-up demand in India's market, that is, the keenness by households and enterprises to buy PCs, and MAIT admits that a lot hinges on factors like broadband penetration, interest rates and inflation influencing SEC B and C buying, as also the cascading impact of the global uncertainty. Any adverse incident could act as a spoiler, it cautions. For the year ended March 2011, the total PC sales rose 16 per cent to 9.31 million units. The the notebooks and net book sales growth continued to outpace the desktop segment. The desktop sales stood at 6.03 million (60.3 lakh) units, a growth of 9 per cent. On the other hand, notebooks and net books together recorded a consumption of 3.28 million units, about 31 per cent higher than the previous fiscal. That said, FY11 notebook growth rate is lower than previous fiscal (the segment had grown 61 per cent in FY10). “…Sales have really picked up across all product segments thanks to the stable economic growth and the increase in disposable income despite inflation,” Mr.SandeepNair, President of MAIT said on the FY11 performance of the hardware segment. The press release from MAIT further said that PC unit sales in FY12 would be driven by “conditions of increasing mobility among consumers”.

During 2010-11, the laptop sales growth was primarily driven by household purchases, which accounted for about 57 per cent of the total notebook sales and registered a growth of 32 per cent. The notebook sales among establishments grew 27 per cent. The net book sales crossed the 0.3 million unit mark for the first time, notching a growth of 80 per cent over last year. Again, the net book purchases were largely driven by the households which accounted for almost three-fourths of the total sales in this space during 2010-11. Notably, for the first time, the household and establishment buyers contributed equally, that is 50 per cent to the total desktop sales in FY11. Households contribution to the desktop market increased to 50 per cent from about a 42 per cent during the previous year, the statement revealed.. Sales of servers registered a decline of 14 per cent in FY11 as the contribution of purchases from medium sized establishments fell from 42 per cent to 15 per cent. However, MAIT did not elaborate on what caused this sharp fall. The printer sales grew 15 per cent during 2010-11 to 2.87 million units, led by laser printer and inkjet printer purchases. Dot-matrix printer sales registered a decline. The sales in this segment at 0.35 million declined by 3 per cent. The number of active ‘Internet entities' crossed the 13 million mark in March 2011, a growth of 36 per cent over the year-ago period. MAIT defines Internet entities as establishments/individuals with Internet connection. An entity could house multiple users. Interestingly, the optimistic forecast by MAIT for the India PC market comes on a day when global research firm Gartner has lowered its earlier projections for worldwide PC shipments for 2011 and 2012. Gartner has said that global the PC shipments may slow to 3.8 per cent growth in 2011 and 10.9 per cent growth in 2012.

Google's Android - software development easier because of the underlying instruction set and processor optimizations

Intel is running scared, as PC sales continue to slow and successful mobile platforms shun Intel chips. Intel's response has been to buy companies such as Wind River and McAfee in unrelated industry segments, then promote the Intel "ecosystem" as a consistent platform that will make software development easier because of the underlying instruction set and processor optimizations. Or so Intel software chief Doug Fisher argued unconvincingly today in a presentation to journalists. Reality begs to differ: Apple succeeded quite well in adapting the Intel-based core Mac OS X to the wholly different chip architecture of the ARM processor used in apple iPhones and apple iPads. You could argue Apple is exceptional, as it had ported Mac OS X previously from the IBM PowerPC architecture. But it's not just Apple that's willing to leave the familiar but pricey, power-gulping Intel architecture in the new era of mobile devices. Google's Android runs on ARM processors, as do RIM's BlackBerrys, Nokia's various (mainly Symbian) devices, and devices running Microsoft's Windows mobile Phone. Even Windows 8 is supposed to run on ARM chips for tablets, though at the price of not running legacy Windows (7 and earlier) applications. Intel has ported Android to Intel chips, and a really bad port is available from View Sonic proving that the chip architecture is not the gating factor. After all, Google Android apps run on both Intel- and ARM-based chips, and so far there's no demonstrated advantage of Android on an Intel based tablet rather than an ARM-based one. So what exactly is the Intel architecture or ecosystem advantage that Fisher says lies at the heart of Intel's software strategy?

The portfolio of software vendors that Intel has assembled are credible providers, but they really offer no synergy with each other or with Intel. Some, such as McAfee, are focused on yesterday's problems, notably the security shortcomings of the Wintel platform. That's not Intel's or Microsoft's fault -- that platform was created in a very different world. Mac OS X, apple iOS, and Android have their own security issues, but their architectures are inherently more secure (well, maybe not Android). They leverage knowledge and techniques that debuted in Unix, a world not starting on Intel architecture and had from the get-go more concern over mission criticality. If McAfee and its competitors become critical products in mobile phone devices, that would simply indicate a failure of the mobile platforms (client and cloud) themselves. Another sign of a "not getting it" strategy was clear in Fisher's evasive nonanswer to the future of the open source MeeGo mobile phone operating system that Intel (and before it, Nokia) mismanaged. It makes perfect sense for Intel to want to expand outside of the chip business. But it's not clear that it yet knows how, at least when it comes to software.

India's Information Technology sector

Anytime anywhere access of internet may soon become a possibility, as envisaged in the draft of the first National Policy on Information Technology, 2011. According to the plan, internet access will be extended to kiosks in government offices, post offices and bus stops. It also plans wireless access in public transport. India has about 1OO million internet users, the third largest in the world after China and the US. The policy aims to expand the user base using optic fibre, wireless and Wi-fi. "India's Information Technology sector engages about 2.5 million people and is worth about $88 billion now, 80% of which come from exports. We want to make Information Technology tools and accessories accessible to all segments of society including all categories of differently-abled people," an official at the Ministry of Communication &Information Technology said, on condition of anonymity since the policy is still in drafting stage. To upgrade to the new internet protocol, IPv6, the government is making a national plan under the policy. The IPv6 road map will aim to connect all electronic devices with each other via the new protocol. Low-power consuming devices such as tablets and smartphones will be given preference for computing in villages . As a policy, the government will now make use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter to reach out to the masses.

The Department of Information Technology has already released guidelines on use of social media by government officials, which guide babus on how to use Twitter and Facebook to communicate with citizens. The government has also realised that there is duplicity between data collection methods of National Population Register and the Unique ID Authority which is leading to wasteful expenditure. The policy aims at integrating the NPR and UID databases. This will simplify flow of funds to citizens under the public distribution system and national rural employment guarantee scheme. Alongside the Information Technology policy, the government is also preparing the first National Policy on Electronics, which aims at setting up semiconductor wafer fab facilities in the country. Three invitations by the government to set up a fab in the country have been ignored by chip makers, who are reeling under excess capacity in fabs around the world. The demand for electronics in India is expected to shoot up from $50 billion currently to $4OO billion by 2020. But domestic production of electronics is only $20 billion, which the government plans to increase to $75 billion by 2015 and $3OO billion by 2020. "India's electronic import bill is expected to overtake its oil import bill by 2020. This means, we have to encourage companies to manufacture locally than import," Sam Pitroda, advisor to Prime Minister on innovation and infrastructure told ET. The preamble to NPE (National Policy on Electronics, 2011) notes that while India's electronics production accounts for only 1.3% of world's produce, China's accounts for one in three electronic items made in the world. The new policy aims to change that.

Developed Framework

At a time when the social media is said to have spawned revolutions across the world, including our very own Mr.AnnaHazare movement in this last year, the indian government looks set to use the medium as a governance tool. Indian information technology department has framed guidelines for social media interaction with government organizations to optimize use of the popular communication tool to connect with citizens. The guidelines - stressing on issues like professionalism, openness and privacy for government functionaries - have been uploaded on the ministry's website and stake holders feed - back is invited within this month. "From Non Resident Indian to civil society activists, social media has become the preferred choice for communication for all kinds of people, including those who misuse it. Yet in the indian government , especially due to some past experiences like the Mr.ShahshiTharoor episode, there are misgivings about its use. Without guidelines people are not very sure about how much to reveal and what to reveal. Hence, we have developed this framework and put it up for public consultation," says Mr.ShankarAggarwal, additional secretary in the ministry of communications and information technology. The framework revolves around seven core values. It says that an official while commenting on issues should clearly identify her/himself in professional capacity, refrain from making personal comments or comments about draft legislations /sub-judice matters, not to reveal personal details of self or others and be open to both positive and negative comments though it may not be essential to respond to all of them.

China Wireless Technologies - global operations and help us enter European and American markets

The tablet market is set to heat up, come November. Coolpad Communications Pvt Ltd, an arm of China Wireless Technologies, is planning to launch in India a tablet which would be cheaper than anything available in the Indian market now. "Tablets would be coming by November, and we plan to price it aggressively, even below Rs 13,000 at which Reliance is selling now. We have just launched it in Indonesia last month in collaboration with a local service operator," Sami Al Lawati, managing director of Coolpad Communications told DNA. Coolpad Communications was created in 2009 as an exclusive distribution agreement for with Reliance Webstore Ltd. China Wireless, which is one of the world's first and largest manufacturers of dual-mode handset (CDMA and GSM) brands, retails handsets under Coolpad brand. China Wireless would firm up its plans to set up a research and development facility in India by March-April, which would come up at an investment of `100 crore and employ 300 professionals. It now has one R&D unit, in Shenzhen, employing about 2,000 professionals and the Indian facility would be a base to venture into the European and US market beyond China and Southeast Asia that it currently caters to.

"For us India represents the factory for brains and that has made us decide on creating our own research and development facility here, which we will use for all of our global operations and help us enter European and American markets. And then many be a manufacturing facility in 3-4 years," Al Lawati said on the sidelines of the launch of its fully-loaded android CDMA phone. The investment would be made by China Wireless and not by the Indian arm Coolpad Communications as the research would be carried out for global markets. The research facility would be working mainly on the Android platform for the future smart phones, he said. China Wireless sees itself has a developer of break-through smart phones and not seller of mass-market phones. "We specialise in high-end phones. In China we sell around 360,000 units at an average selling price of around `12,000 while our competitors like Samsung and Nokia sell for `3,000-4,000 a unit," Lawati said. Its stress on research has been paying off well as seen in the growth of its 3G smartphones. China Wireless's turnover in the first half of 2011 (January-June) has risen 44% with sale of 3G smart phones reaching 44,33,000 units up from 14,20,000 units in the corresponding period of 2010 as it moved away from developing 2G smartphones.

business sentiment - Western Europe is not only struggling through excess PC

Research firm Gartner slashed its growth forecast for the global PC market this year to 3.8 percent from its earlier forecast of 9.3 percent, citing slower economies in Western Europe and the United States. "Western Europe is not only struggling through excess PC inventory, but economic upheaval as well," Mr.RanjitAtwal, research director at Gartner, said in a statement on Thursday. "U.S. consumer PC shipments were much weaker than expected in the second quarter, and indications are that back-to-school Personal Computer sales are disappointing. An increasing pessimistic economic outlook is causing both consumer and business sentiment to deteriorate in both regions. We're expecting consumer spending to tighten in response. Business spending will also tighten, but less than the consumer space."