VIA to launch sub Rs 30K notebook in India

VIA Technologies will be launching a sub–Rs30,000-note-book
computer in India in March this year as part of its strategy for break-ing the
price barriers for offering high-end com-puting at low prices. VIA was
instrumental in intr-oducing sub–Rs 20,000 PCs for the Indian market about two
years ago, which had a ripple effect in the PC industry

VIA will be launching the laptops in partner-ship with the UK
based notebook specialist partner, ACi (Asia). The notebook computer will be
assembled at Bangalore based VXL Instruments, which is also a partner of VIA.
Accor-ding to Ravi Pradhan, Country Manager, VIA Technologies, "The
multimedia laptop com-puter will be launched at cost of Rs 29,999 in the second
week of March through partner ACi (Asia) Ltd."

He added that it would have a hardware configuration of 128 MB
RAM, which can be upgraded to 512 MB, HDD of 20 GB (upgradable to 60 GB) and
with a CPU of one GHz Via Antaur, which could be scaled up to 1.4 GHz.

The notebook will come with a Linux operating system, which
could be scaled to Microsoft Windows operating systems Open Office as similar to
MS Office. The com-pany would target edu-cation and cor-porate segments with the
offering besides SME segment. The laptop, called ACI Ethos V, will be rigidly
built with aluminum top casing suited for Indian condi-tions. It will be fitted
with Li-Ion battery with 1.5 hour back up. The not-ebook computer comes with
one-year comprehensive warra-nty. The notebooks would initi-ally be launched in
Delhi and Mumbai. (CyberMedia News)

Shweta Khanna

New Delhi