Skorydov develops a slate sized PC

Rashida Bakait

Indigenous technologies are trying their best to carve a niche for themselves. In a same bid Mumbai based company Skorydov has developed PC slate, a handheld PC about the size of a writing slate, which can recognize an individual's handwriting.

It is a light weight device, weighing around one kg, and is positioned between a laptop and a palm top. Speaking to the bureau, Manager for Sales, Pramod Mungekar said that the company has been providing software to the tax sector used in Income tax, sales tax offices.

Elaborating on the feature of the product Mungekar said that the product runs on MIPS processor. For storage the user could use compact flash cards of various capacities. The touch screen panel is 8.2 inches colored LCD with a software keyboard. External USB mouse, USB Keyboard or USB communication device can be used by the USB Jack. It also has a serial I/O port which is used for communicating with desktop PC/Laptop.

Outlining product's variant feature, which make it different from a PDA Mungekar said that the Handwriting Recognition being used with this hardware is less cumbersome than some of the PDA's as it recognizes entire sentence and paragraphs and one can write in running handwriting instead of writing letter by letter. It has a colored touch screen display area of half the size of an A4 size paper.

Priced at approximately Rs 49,900, the product is expected to make its reach overseas too. Mungekar revealed that the company would be endorsing to channel strategy to distribute the product to tap domestic and the overseas market. The talks are in advance stage with Ingram Micro India for the product's distribution, Mungekar said. The other distributors on the list include Redington also.

Commenting on the target sales and revenue generation Mungekar said that company expects around 5,000-7,000 units to be sold in India by March 2002. The revenue generated might be to the tune of around Rs 3-4 crore. But considering the slowdown effect, Mungekar feels that the sales might not reach the set target but hopes better for the product.

Talking about the alliances Mungekar said that Skorydov has tied up with Samsung Electromechanics. Under the alliance Samsung would assist Skorydov in developing bluetooth and wireless devices for the PC Slate.

(CNS)