Low-cost PCs

EE Times reports on the low-cost PC market in India: “Aiming at India residents with no PC experience, Novatium is developing the Nova NetPC, a thin client expected to cost just $100. The PC is now in beta-stage development and will reportedly be maintenance-free and appliance-like. Novatium’ three founders include Analog Devices’ chairman Ray Stata, Ashok Jhunjhunwala of the Indian Institute of Technology, and Indian entrepreneur Rajesh Jain.”

Novatium’s vision: “As you read these lines, 600 million people use computers as an extension of their lives. Yet, this very impressive statistic hides a remarkable market-truth. The benefits of computing have been largely limited to developed markets and the top layer of emerging markets. An untapped vibrant market of atleast 1000,000,000 users exists. For these users, computing must be radically different. Only such an innovation can take the benefits of computing to them. In October 2004, Novatium was formed by three admired visionaries to realise this new world of computing.” Read Rajesh Jain’s analysis of the opportunity with The Next Billion PC Users.

In the last few weeks, I have had conversations with a number of friends in the Venture business about their India strategy. One thing is clear, that, once this next Billion PC Users join the electronic universe, a new generation of market opportunities will open up in a way that we have not even begun to understand yet.

Forget the Enterprise Sales Force and the blue-print for building highly predictable business applications companies with Autodesk, Cisco, and HP as your beta customers.

Think Consumer.

Think SME.