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Throw out your old PCs, it's time for Simputers

Madhumathi D.S.

BANGALORE, April 22

EVER seen, heard or dreamt of a hand-held computer that speaks (yes!) your own Indian language, costs Rs 9,000, has no keyboard, no intellectual property (IP) hassles and works wonders for illiterates?

It's no pipedream, no fairytale either, but a small wonder called Simputer -- a simple computer coming straight out of the Indian Institute of Science labs.

Sized 8"x5"X1", the Simputer has taken four dedicated IISc scientists, a corporate CEO and roughly two years to reach the prototype stage and will be proudly unveiled this Wednesday, according to Dr Vijay Chandru, Chairman of the Computer Sciences & Auto mation Department and one of its dream team. Mr Vinay Deshpande, CEO of Encore Software, is the other force behind it.

The Simputer also marks the birth of true enterprise on IISc. Starting with a solutions company, Picopeta Simputers Pvt Ltd, a string of companies is taking shape under the parent, Metastrings. This holding company will be put up by the IISc and CSA's Gr oup4 -- Dr Chandru, Dr Swamy Manohar, Dr V. Vinay and Dr Ramesh Hariharan.

Dr Chandru says empowerment is the idea behind the Simputer. ``Because the problems are all Indian, the solutions too had to come from within.''

The Simputer Trust has received queries from Encore, Wipro, VXL and HP for manufacturing rights. ``The Trust will licence both software and hardware IP under an innovative scheme. In keeping with the original `free and universal' concepts, we have got a Simputer General Public Licence drafted -- one-time licence without fee. IPs on innovation will be valid only for one year and will become public property. We would like to see a million Simputers in two years,'' Dr Chandru says.

Small in size and large in impact, it is opposed to the Western `personal' computer, works on shared universal accesses and has enormous possibilities: micro-banking through co-ops and village post offices, railway ticketing; census; agri information and in schools. NGOs can set up service kiosks using the new 200-km local call subsidy.

Its ingredients are the free Linux OS, a built-in softmodem; an own IMLI lingo (info markup language interface) and a new software using the touch (stick) and voice, along with a smartcard reader.

With options like Web browsing, audio conferencing, voice feedback (and now thoughts of mobile wireless), it has caught the fancy of the likes of HLL and Gillette who could enable their remote-centre sales force.

Churning out technopreneurs

PICOPETA and its present two siblings are only the beginning of the new excitement on the campus, says Dr H.P. Khincha, IISc scientist and Chief Executive of the institute's Society for Innovation & Development (SID). For close to three years, SID has be en presiding over the winds of change on the 90-year-old campus.

Many more ventures will come, mostly in the IT arena, says Dr Vijay Chandru.

For this, SID and IISc are starting an incubator called String Labs, which will work with parent Metastrings to facilitate new technopreneurs. SID will hold equity and profits will go back into the institute.

Already, valuations of other IISc technologies are taking place. Recruitments will be from within and outside, with ESOPs to boot.

IISc, using some of its friendly laws, is also encouraging its faculty of 500 to take time off for such ventures -- without compromising sacred research.

The three business models are in place. Picopeta will be a joint venture among IISc, `G-4' and Mr Vinay Deshpande of Encore. It has been evaluated for a seed capital of $1.2 million and a first round funding of $6 million.

It will write application software, develop full solutions, put the server together. ``We are talking to Governments and the private sector for specific application orders on the Simputer,'' says Dr Chandru.

Bioinformatics start-up, Strand Genomics, has already got $2.5 million of VC funding and a $1-million US contract. They managed to rope in Dr S. Seshadri, IIT-ian and former CTO for Lucent's Network Management Unit, as CEO of Strand.

Manjara, the third, is for datamining and a hot Internet search engine that will work on the clustering principle. A brainchild of Dr Vinay and two dons from Yale -- MIT and Carnegie Mellon Universities, Manjara has finalised a VC funding of $1.5-2 milli on.