Simputer: ‘it’s like the Mahatma made it, Steve Jobs is selling it’

‘‘This is computing as it would have look if Gandhi had invented it, then used Steve Jobs for his ad campaign’’, The New York Times said, calling the Simputer the most significant innovation in 2001, ahead of gleaming titanium PowerBook PCs and the latest Windows operating system.

As with all computers, its utility is limited only by imagination:

» The South African government wants to develop a small ultrasound monitor, plug it to a Simputer and track fetal development in rural areas

» In Italy, they plan to link it to a low-cost video camera, which would use special software to convert text from, say a signboard, and read it out to the visually impaired user

» And our postal department has considered the Simputer to free money orders from the tyranny of the endless Indian wait. With a cheap smart card (Rs 50 or so), villagers could simply endless Indian wait. With a cheap smart card (Rs 50 or so), villagers could simply swipe their money into a postman’s Simputer. It order could then be sent over a telephone line to the other end of India.

Despite its versatility, the Simputer — apart from having fallen victim to typical Indian indifference to anything home-grown — was never commercially slated to be the next Big Thing.

Still, a joint venture in Singapore will manufacture between 10,000 to 50,000 Simputers. But that’s chicken feed compared to what a Wipro or IBM could do. Corporate interest is decidedly low because of the Simputer’s egalitarian ambitions.

Using free Linux software, the Simputer runs on three AAA batteries. Cost: between Rs 10,000 and Rs 23,000. Duties and taxes make up between 25 and 35 per cent so, if the government chooses, it could be even cheaper.

The imminent launch will be a giant leap forward for the Simputer, which the world has hailed as the machine that could finally give life to that old cliche: a computer for the masses.

Rajiv Chawla, Karnataka’s additional revenue secretary, has some ideas on how the Simputer could do that.

The biggest pain in a farmer’s life often comes from his land record, a document that is a vast nationwide fount of corruption. In Karnataka, Chawla has taken away much of that pain by spearheading an effort — the largest of its kind in India — that’s put a massive 20 million land records online. Chawla’s department wants to go one step further and release its officers from their musty dens. To do that, the revenue department is running tests on the Simputer.

The Simputer’s development is a case study of using Indian brain power. It was born in the formidable labs of Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science, which charged nothing for intellectual property valued conservatively at a million dollars. Engineering students at four IITs are now being offered internships to develop software applications.

Yet, of the three small Bangalore software companies licenced to make the Simputer, only one, Encore Software — where Garg is a vice-president — talks of an imminent launch. Disheartened by a launch deadline slipping repeatedly over the past year, one of the Simputer’s makers, requesting anonymity, told The Indian Express: ‘‘It’s best to stop talking about the Simputer until it actually comes out.’’

Luckily, not everyone thinks that way.