Mysorean

In the previous post, we saw why the market for PCs will not grow just by cutting cost. As such, no market can follow just the “Low-cost” strategy and increase the size of the market. You do need innovation on every front. And we, at Novatium, believe that we are right on course with the innovation.

Novatium is working on developing a hardware technology platform that will form the basis for any kind of an access device. The access device could be a computer (or a thin client in IT terms), an entertainment-plus-computing box (or an IP Set Top Box) or a handheld communcation device (You want to call it a PDA?). Why do we call it an access device? What does it access? Let me answer that now.

There’s a concept called grid computing. Essentially, it is nothing but your client-server architecture scaled upto monstrous levels. The grid might be at a single location or at various dispersed locations with the appropriate network architecture. The grid will consist of several bytes of storage space and switches and routers and all the critical network components. Also, there will be various forms and sizes of content on the grid. Okay, looks like I am complicating this grid concept. I will try another route.

Imagine an electricity grid. You have a generating station, it could be hydro, thermal, etc. type. Then you have a combination of step-up and step-down transformers to deliver the right voltage to our homes. You also have various kinds of wires (high-tension, low-tension, etc.) running around everywhere again with the same intention of delivering electricity to our homes. Similarly, in a computing grid, you will have a cluster of servers that have a lot content and storage space behaving as your generating station.

If this grid doesn’t explain the grid I am talking about, then I give up! :)

The issues that get automatically taken care of by the grid include: OS upgrades, Anti-virus runs, application administration and every other conceivable exercise that you need to run yourself on your PC right now, will be available at a phone call’s distance. That too toll free! ;) Computing will no longer be a techie-dominated area! It will be a service very much like your telephone services. Thus providing a hassle-free experience for the customer. I am considering that this will be affordable to everybody like the mobile phones of today.

It is this grid that our access devices will “access”. These access devices are built on a hardware technology platform built by Novatium base-up. We have put together various pieces of hardware and integrated them together to perform the functions that we want it to perform.

Looking at Nova NetPC, the computing-grid access device, the various functionalities that it will be capable of are:

1. Basic computing:

   Productivity suite applications like OpenOffice, MS Office, etc,

   E-mail clients like Thunderbird, MS Outlook, etc,

   Browsing on browsers like Firefox, Netscape, IE, etc.,

   Instant messaging on messengers like Yahoo!, MSN, GAIM, etc.

2. Value added computing:

   Audio/ Video streaming: Voice chat, Webcam conference, listening to music, watching movies (on the grid, not from CD’s)

   Data Mobility: USB stick functionality

   Local Peripherals access: Printers, scanners, etc.

Nova NetPC, is the first among the various products that Novatium will be launching. Hassle-free, easy-to-use and affordable are the keywords. To take computing to the next billion, this is the kind of innovation that we are betting on.

Next post: The Utility Model

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