December 5, 2006
Chips, cell phones give India a hardware ecosystem
If you think India's tech sector is just about software? Think again. A new tech boom is under way -- one that could transform India into a hardware center with its own semiconductor industry. The Mercury News writes in a special report on India.
"Driving that growth will be cell phones, which are more prevalent than PCs in India. That in turn is creating an ecosystem of opportunities: electronics assembly lines, component parts companies, applications for new-generation gadgets and chips. The government is trying to jump-start a semiconductor industry.
Cheap labor, and savings in logistics and tariffs, make India an attractive place to set up shop, particularly for vendors of low-margin tech products. "If you had to pinpoint one place in the world where you'd want to be if you were a technology company, India would be it,'' said Ryan Reith, IDC analyst who researches worldwide mobile phone use. And everything around India is growing.''
... The mobile phone is becoming the society-changing force that the PC was in the United States. It's far more affordable than a computer and provides instant and constant communication links for millions of Indians, many of whom do not own desktops or even have land-line phones.
Eventually mobile phones will become the the preferred way Indians, and people in other developing countries, access the Internet. This is the untouched opportunity,'' Rajesh Jain said, an entrepreneur and chief executive of Netcore Solution "You've got to get away from the PC-first mentality. How do you re-create the magic of the Internet for people who, for the most part, have not had access to a PC?''
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