Datawind clearing mist on "Aakash"
As it could be claimed, Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO, Datawind, made a bold move by calling the media fraternity to one common platform and address all the queries. Following are the excerpts of the claims made by Datawind…
IIT-Rajasthan showed an unethical conduct
All throughout the product cycle of Aakash, Datawind kept sending them units that met their specifications, which they kept rejecting until they were satisfied with one of them and placed an order for 8,000 units. But later on in spite of placing purchase order they came up with a set of highly unscientific test criteria without prior intimation. "They plagiarized military-ruggedized test criteria from HP laptops and told us to create a cheap tablet that could resist 4 inches per hour of rain and 20G of force, which as you can imagine is quite impossible considering the time and price," Tuli shared.
Not only this, they floated a limited tender (excluding Datawind) for a tablet in which they did not include the mil-spec list.
Datawind does not owe anything to dishonest Quad
On being approached by IIT-Rajasthan, Quad Electronics went behind their backs and signed an MoU with them to manufacture a "convergence device". "No one has been able to tell me and question Quad, what a 'convergence device' actually means," Tuli questioned the media present. They are just sugarcoating the fact as that they are building a tablet and that is highly unethical.
To the claims made by Quad that Datawind paid them for only 1,500 tablets, whereas the contract was for 50,000 tablets, for which the company bought the inventory. Tuli explains that the company has paid Quad Electronics for all the units delivered to Datawind, except for the 600 units that remain unpaid by IIT-Rajasthan, thus rejecting all the accusations of Quad, related to payment due on Datawind.
IIT-Mumbai replaces IIT-Rajasthan
MHRD's Aakash project is now transferred to IIT-Bombay, which is in the process of issuing a new purchase order for one lakh upgraded units. "Now that IIT-Mumbai has taken over the project, along with our new sub-contract manufacturers, and if all goes well and it passes through testing rapidly, we would be able to launch the upgraded Aakash 2 by May 2012," he shared. As far as Ubislate shipments are concerned, we shall try to catch up within the upcoming weeks.
"Aakash" to hit in May
We are currently in the process of providing IIT-Mumbai 100 test units, which would hopefully be approved post-haste and the Minister would be able to launch it in May, but if it doesn't meet their specifications and changes have to be made, then it will take more time. And it will be a gradual rollout, starting with around 20,000-50,000 and to ensure that all two crore university students get them in their hands, it should take about two years.
Failed to meet Commitments
Datawind claims that they have not received a single pre-order for Aakash, as distribution of Aakash is the government's responsibility. "We have received well over 3 million pre-orders for Ubislate 7, the consumer version of Aakash, and we are receiving upwards of 10,000 new pre-orders everyday and we have decided not to share any specific numbers after 3 million as the figure has become absurdly large. Also, we are a small company and such high demand was completely unprecedented so it will take us some time to catch up to the demand," Tuli reasoned.
He again emphasized that he is running only two weeks behind the schedule in deliveries for retail sales of its tablets, due to a break up of its relationship with Quad Electronics. "We started taking pre-payments at the end of January, offering delivery in 8 weeks starting end of March- we are about two weeks late from that date. We expect to catch up to our promised delivery schedule by end of April," he adds.
Why Datawind is silent to the injustice
Initially, it came to news that Datawind had sent a "legal notice to two professors of IIT- Rajasthan for not honouring the agreement. He then clarified that what he had sent was a "legal warning" - and not a legal notice. But for whom it was meant?, he could not clearify.
Since Datawind owned the copyright of the tablet, Quad Electronics breached Datawind's intellectual property, circumvented their relationship with IIT-Rajasthan by signing a direct MoU with them and selling off their inventory in the open market. Still Datawind did not fight the breach of contract, as when asked, Tuli did not have concrete details to share.
He did not publicly reveal the name of the new assembler for Aakash, now after the exit of Quad. The company is all set to launch the upgraded UbiSlate 7+ on 26th April, but the question is: can Datawind begin commercial sale of tablets before fulfilling its commitment to provide 100,000 tablets to agencies appointed by the HRD Ministry?
No matter the efforts were made to clear the air over controversies surrounding the production, procurement and quality of the much-hyped and claimed low-cost Aakash tablet, it has still not served the purpose fully. All eyes are set on the launch of the awaited UbiSlate 7+, if its specifications are at par with Aakash, then again the product undoubtedly would hit the headlines…
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