CWPL Rolls Out India's First Pocket PC

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://sify.com/finance/equity/fullstory.php?id=13451017' target='_blank'>http://sify.com/finance/equity/full...php?id=13451017</a><br /><br /></div>"Capitel Wireless Pvt Ltd (CWPL) has launched India's first pocket PC, which runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 platform. The pocket PC E-TEN P300, has built in mobile phone and digital camera...In the global market, lot of such hand held devices are available to help executives meet all ends and ease the way one communicates. Currently, this product is available in Delhi and Mumbai market. Currently, players like Nokia and Samsung are quoting high prices for mobile devices, which are just camera enabled."<br /><br />We've posted on the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=20977">ETEN P300 before</a>, so I'm assuming this is more of a distribution deal. I'm not an expert on the competitive scene in the Indian mobile market, but I do know it's exploding. Mobile phones are huge in India because of its insufficient landline infrastructure, and moves like this may help to give Pocket PCs a better foothold in a rapidly-growing economy. On the other hand, they're pricing this at about $850 USD. 8O

[Aerestis]

I hear a lot about India recently, and China as well. Their economies seem to be improving a lot, which is great.

I'm glad they are improving a wireless infrasctructure and not a land based one. The market must be full of really eager custumers if they expect to be able to sell that at such a high price... 850 USD is a ton of money. I was under the impression that the people of western Asia don't make that sort of money, but I guess they do. Or enough do, that it makes sense to sell the device there.

[Zack Mahdavi]

I think the reason why they're doing a wireless based infrastructure is because putting in land lines is so expensive in India. Most large cities in India were not ever prepared for cables, so things like DSL and cable can be really hard to get in India, if not impossible. In fact, the telephone company usually makes you wait years if you want to get a second phone line.

I think building a wireless infrastructure is good for India, since it seems to be a better way of sending out information to the masses.. plus, their cellular network is already strong in India. I've never seen such good GSM cellular service for so cheap... :)

[Kevin Daly]

That's a high price all right (although that not much more than the price of the iMate Smartpone2 here).
On the other hand, given the size of the Indian population, you don't need to have any great proportion of the population earning high incomes for that sort of thing to be profitable (it's the inverse of the reason "professional musician" and "still living in New Zealand" are normally mutually exclusive).