Telecom Lead India: WishTel is in talks with mobile
service providers in India to bundle its tablets, according to Milind Shah, CEO
of WishTel.
The competition in the newly formed and decently
accelerating low-cost market segment for tablet computers is set to deepen, as
manufactures are introducing their sector-specific tablets offerings.
The education sector of India is offering much needed
potential to the device manufacturers. WishTel is among those manufacturer that
has introduced their low-cost tablet duo with their price tags falling between
Rs 4,000 and Rs 5,500. Named after goddess Sarawati, these tablets are launched
especially catering to the education sector.
The company said that through these tablets students can
access up to 3 million books, available on their library platform. The company
is also offering free of cost text books to the students.
The company also added that these tablets have been
designed under the guidance of IIT Rajasthan.
These tablets have been touted to compete with the Aakash
tablet and others in the space, which also include newcomers, like Zync
tablet and the i-Tab by Intex Technologies.
The tablets run on Android 2.2 platform, which is
upgradable Android 2.3, however, the company also offers their Linux OS based
tablets for the same price.
WishTel’s Ira Thing, which offers users a capacitive
touchscreen on a 7-inch display comes with the price tag of Rs 5,500, while a
resistive touchscreen-armed Ira tablet will cost the user Rs.4,000. The
tablets also offer 3G connectivity through USB dongles.
Milind Shah, CEO of the company said that they are in
talks with service providers to offer bundle 3G offers along with the tablets.
The company offers distribution logistics support and
service support in order to provide uninterrupted services to their clients.
Milind Shah, CEO of the company said that they have finalized distributors for
their offerings and will expand the numbers, once they reach consensual stage.
Initially, the company will be catering to the class A
and B cities for their tablets, as most of the services centers have been
established in these cities. Presently, the company has 350 plus service
centers and the numbers will touch 1000 in upcoming days.
Shah said that they have provided their tablets to the
universities and IITs for evaluation and they will move further in terms of
strategy once they get responses from these educational institutes. The tablet
has also been provided to Wikipedia for evaluation.
The development team of these tablets is based out in
Mumbai and the manufacturing units are situated in Maharshtra and Gujrat. The
company has capacity of manufacturing 1 lakh units per month, he added.
Shah said that WishTel also builds higher end products
for sectors like pharma, medical, FMCG and Government. In addition, the company
is also expanding its footprints into home automation market segment, as it
also launched Wi-Fi speakers recently.
Danish Khan
