Low priced tablets and a nod to Jobs
Jinfo Blog

By Nancy Davis Kho

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In the same week as the death of Steve Jobs, whose design vision for tablet computing was instrumental in advancing the current wave of adoption, the announcement of a tablet computer that's less 1/10th of the cost of the iPad and targets users in emerging markets has the potential to fuel tablet growth faster than ever.

The Indian Minister of Human Resource Development, Kapil Siba, announced the US$35 Aakash computer on Wednesday (here's a link to some interesting background on the meaning  of the name on the brand naming blog Fritinancy.) According to a piece in PC World, the tablet will be made by Canadian wireless web access product manufacturer DataWind and will be distributed below its expected manufacturing cost of US$50 to college students in India. The Aakash is expected allow basic office applications, online reading and HD video. Rollout is anticipated in March 2012, and the hope is that the production cost will lower as scale is achieved.

The idea of a truly low cost, high functioning tablet computer remains enticing; Amazon's rollout of the US$199 Kindle Fire device last week, which offers web browsing, apps, cloud storage and a colour touchscreen, shows that price points are coming down for devices that offer meaningful alternatives to the US$399-and-up iPad.

It will be interesting to check in with the latest figures on tablet ownership a few months from now; the last time the Pew Research Center published their findings, in June 2011, 8% of American adults reported owning a tablet, a flat growth rate from 6 months earlier and up only 3% from November 2011.

All this competition from newer low cost devices may put the pressure on Apple to continue to innovate and lead in device design and customer experience. But it also means more choice and better quality for the consumer - something that Steve Jobs himself would surely applaud.

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