iPad fails to attract Indian exec

By Ojas Sharma   |   Tuesday, 20 April 2010, 22:31 IST   |    3 Comments
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iPad fails to attract Indian exec
Bangalore: The tablet mania had started ever since the day Apple announced its mysterious new invention. Since then, a number of companies have tried to make their own product to stay in competition. Companies like IDC and JooJoo have already launched the so called "iPad killer", and many more companies, including Samsung, Nokia, Notion Ink and HP, are ready to launch their own tablet soon. Apple has beamingly revealed that its latest creation has already sold 300,000 units on the first day. However, when it comes to India, it is a known fact that Apple never really concentrates on marketing its products aggressively. Apple has still not launched iPad in India, and seeing the recent delay in launch of iPhone 3GS, we are not that hopeful. But you never know, iPad might just come to India faster than 3GS. Considering this, Siliconindia decided to conduct a survey amongst the high level executives of few companies just to check if they would really be interested in buying iPad. What we found out was even worse than what we expected. Almost 9 of 10 people said they would not be interested in buying iPad. "I haven't really used iPad to comment on it, but going by the features I have seen I would rather go for combination of iPhone and notebook," said M. A. Madhusudan, CEO of Virgin Mobiles. Madhusudan feels that nothing can replace BlackBerry for checking mails and it is more convenient to carry notebook around, which has many more features and power than iPad. iPad uses the same operating system as iPhone. In layman's term, iPad is just a big iPhone (or fat iPhone, as it is called by many experts). Majority of our survey respondents confirmed that even if they do buy iPad they will not use it for business purpose. "I will buy it for my mother because it looks very simple to use. But I would not use it for business. I don't think it can replace BlackBerry," said Siddharth A Pai, Partner and Managing Director of TPI Advisory Services. Pai believes that if Apple wants to make iPad successful in India then they would have to reconsider the pricing. "Key to Indian market is value. Pricing has to be low. If Apple brings downs the price to 15K for India, then it will sell like hotcakes," he said. In India, apart from few Apple fans, and tech enthusiasts, we expect the most number of iPad will be bought by application developers. The flexibility of Apple store has already seen many startups churning out great applications and being successful as well. "I will only buy iPad to try out development on iPad applications," said P. Ravi Kiran, who is Founder and CEO of Golive Gaming Solutions. Apple has been claiming that iPad will change the gaming scenario. So we asked Kiran if he thinks iPad is the next gaming platform to look out for. "No, not exactly. iPad is not for either casual gamers or hard core gamers. It does not support Adobe flash either. I don't think that anyone will buy iPad just for gaming purpose," he said. However grim the survey might look we are not denying the fact that Apple's iPad is an innovative creation. We are sure it will attract many tech enthusiasts who want to keep themselves updated with the latest gadgets. Samir Bangara, COO of Indiagames says that he will buy but only for entertainment purpose. "The price of the base version is very reasonable, but not that much of 3G version (which is around $800). It is a great netbook and e-reader combined. I personally am buying a kindle and waiting for a while before buying the iPad," he said. Bangara feels that the 10 hour battery life of iPad is very well suited for entertainment. Apart from all these aspects there is one another reason why iPad might not sell that much in India. iPad will face tough competition from the IITians founded Indian company Notion Ink, which will soon launch its tablet Adam. Powered by NVIDIA TEGRA 2 Dual Core Cortex A-9, Adam has a 3.2 MP Swivel Camera and 10.1" capacitive touch screen. On top of that, it will also support Adobe flash which will give Adam a distinct advantage over iPad. We estimate the price of Adam will be suitable for Indian market and will sell more than iPad.