Rewind almost a decade. There used to be a product called Simputer and one of its avatars was cutely called Amiga (meaning Buddha), developed by scientists at IISc. It was a handheld device running a Linux core and had a stylus and handwriting recognition. Its closest cousin was the more successful Palm and Handspring Visor.
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| Prashanth Hebbar |
I had tested Amiga for writing and connecting to the Internet using a Reliance dial-up modem specifically made for it. It cost just about `10,000. This was some ten years back. I had written my verdict in The Times of India then that it is a good device but much depends on how well it will be marketed.
Well, it did not do too well. It was a brilliant piece of engineering. It had much going for it except that it was ahead of its time. For people who could afford a palm-top, a Palm was a natural choice though expensive. For others, the utility of Amiga was too farfetched. They just did not believe they would pay `10,000 for a glorified digital assistant. Today, the same crowd is milling about the Internet asking whether to buy an Apple iPad or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Well, in short Amiga was way too ahead of its time for a mass take-off.
In the same TOI review, I had also passed on another comment on another revolutionary device which promised to bring Interactive TV to Indian masses. The technology here too was ahead of its time. Even Bill Gates is supposed to have looked at the technology at a demo on his India visit and acknowledge that the technology was ahead of what Microsoft had at that time in their IP TV.
Today, Amiga is only a memory. However, the other device lives on with a totally different approach to interactive TV technology but again revolutionary. It is far superior to Apple TV and Google TV. It is way cheaper than Rokobox or Slingbox or even the Western Digital set-top box. The big question is how can it hit the masses and bring about the much
needed revolution.
What does it take for a product to capture the imagination of the consumer and make it big? We all know of the critical mass. We know how it is important to build something the consumer wants. We know how pricing it right is extremely important. We know that positioning is the key to success. All this is theory. How did RCA convince that the TV is a radically new medium and made it a commercially successful product?
Every Amiga is finally tested in the marketplace.
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