Ah - I finally managed to take some time off to update my blog after more than a month - I know, I know but I am going to be a little more organized and touch this almost once a week from hereon. Well anyway I *do* have a little something to post today -

I want to start off by referring to Rajesh Jain's Blog - where Rajesh not only highlights what ails India as a country today in terms of information technology but also paints a vision ( a promising one at that) as to how we can overcome some of those.

As much as I respect Rajesh's views especially on Low Cost or Affordable Computing there are some areas where I fundamentally disagree with him and I will attempt to list down some of those and hopefully offer some strong rebuttals -

1. The core of Rajesh's arguments are based on the premise of "Affordability" - Refer his entry"...Emergic is about realizing Bill Gates’ vision of “a computer on every desktop and in every home” – a vision which has not yet gone beyond the world’s 10,000 large companies and 500 million consumers, most of whom are in the world’s developed markets....."

The key point is - Are "Affordability" and "Accessibility" the same things? If you notice carefully, almost everyday we grapple with this choice in our daily lives - not everybody owns a means of private transport but does that prevent travel today? Not everybody owns a phone but does that prevent communication? I can go on and on but I think you get the idea... The point I am trying to make is - why should a low cost computing model almost always lead to a discussion around lowering the *acquisition cost* of Hardware and Software? Do we always buy something before deriving benefit out of its usage?

Isn't it fair to say that the proliferation of the ubiquitous STD/ISD booth revolutionized communications in India by making telephony "accessible" to the common man? India traditionally has one of the highest cost of tele-communication but I have never seen that impacting us in terms of using it, do you? Similarly is it fair to say that technology penetration will happen only if the cost of IP is discounted?

Let me add another aspect to accessibility - for all of the noise around the Microsoft monopoly, it is fairly safe to say that no other company has influenced as many lives nor has generated as many careers as Microsoft has(how is the point of another discussion but the fact remains). Microsoft "democratised" computing by moving it from being an esoteric science available to a privileged clique to a commodity that can be used and benefited by all. The larger issue is should or shouldn't Microsoft (or any other commercial software company) be rewarded for its efforts?

2. The next aspect Rajesh focusses on is his stress on Thin clients and thick server side computing by re-using older hardware and by building his infrastructure on Open Source technologies - let me address this by taking the example of cell phones -

It is a well known fact that Cell phones today are packed with a whole host of features - cameras, music player, PDA, GPRS enabled mail, Chat, WAP and so on. Add the broadband experience to this and you can see how rich and interactive the device has become. What drove this innovation? In short - user demand for more. As users become more and more sophisticated they also expect to interact in richer and more complex scenarios. In fact isnt it obvious that this innate need for more has been the bedrock of our civilization fueling growth over the centuries?

By evolving a scenario around re-use of older computers Rajesh makes an inherent yet faulty assumption that user needs do not change but remain the same. He also oversimplifies user needs by suggesting that email, calendar, office and instant messaging are all the applications the end user would ever need. What happens when more complex applications are needed? What happens when richer forms of interactions are demanded by the users as they become more and more sophisticated users of technology? (Rail tickets used to be booked manually personally, then through touts/agents, then through computerised railway reservation counters and then finally through the internet - see the evolution as user needs increased?) How will new requirements be met without new investments in hardware and software? Consequently who will pick up the tab of such innovation? How long will "cheap and best" be cheap and best? Is good enough really good enough?

3. Rajesh then mentions that "All the applications are run off the server, with only the display happening on the client side....". He also mentions that "there is no performance penalty even though the applications run off the server." - How? Can it be conclusively proven? The premise of client server computing is that processing is shared between client and server thereby improving the overall performance of the application; today we have highly evolved middleware models which cleanly abstract functionality across layers and help applications be scalable, reliable and performant. Given that the server(s) manage(s) all of the sessions, the applications, the user activities and so on any penalty on performance will only be now moved from the client to the server. Rajesh doesnt seem to provide any strong datapoints to the contrary. Let me look at this in one other way - lets say to support this complex infrastructure if a farm of servers is needed (which does away with performance penalties) then would customers still continue to pay only for the acquisition cost of the desktop (150 USD) or would they also need to pay for the services they are getting out of this amazing infrastructure simply to maintain it? (the answer is obvious isnt it?)

"What every user sees on their Thin Client can be standardized and controlled from the Thick Server itself. In addition, the use of Linux does away with all the virus-related problems. " - This seems to suggest two things - a. that viruses are only a client side problem b. that Linux is not plagued by viruses. Let me just point you to a linkwhich should avoid further debate.

4. Rajesh then says that the TC-TS model is ideal in environments where software piracy is rampant because it is cheaper and not disruptive - this suggests the following -

Software from Microsoft is being pirated primarily because of its high price point - How conclusive is this point? Where are the data points to suggest this? A pre-recorded audio cassette costs Rs 45 and the average cost of a cinema ticket is between Rs 50 and Rs 80 (well Delhi is another story) - has this brought down audio or video piracy? Are the large incidents of power theft and ticketless travel because of people's inability to pay for "expensive" services or is it our innate cussedness as a country?

5. The "Edge Strategy" - Although Rajesh's vision is ambitious it really throws more questions than answers. How will Emergic build an economically viable model around their grand vision of Digital Dashboards and E-business applications at a $50-$150 price point?
Users interacting with Enterprise Applications do not typically fall in the bottom part of Rajesh's pyramid because they are niche users;Enterprises spend a lot around these line-of-business applications because they see it as a strategic investment to increase revenue and cut costs - why is Rajesh's low cost-per-seat computing model in this scenario relevant to the bottom of the pyramid and also how will Emergic provide services around key areas like 24 by 7 support, end-user and technical training, service levels around performance and availability - all of which are extremely critical for Enterprise Applications without sacrificing affordability?

Let me end all of this by asking you a few simple questions -

1. By lowering the cost of hardware and software are we also expecting that all associated services around these two will come down? Will training become cheaper? Will support become cheaper? Will employee costs be rationalized? Will consulting become cheaper? If not, why not?
2. Is lowering the cost of technology the only way to bridge the digital divide?
3. If IP around Information Technology can be asked to be discounted why not IP around engineering and management and medicine? Why is there a hue and cry about the fee cuts in the IIMs? Is Medical education affordable to the common man?

We as a nation have unfortunately become attuned to what I call "subsidy thinking" - that we cannot afford anything until it is subsidised. As much as this was very relevant in the first 50 years after independence, I think the time has come for us to think in fundamentally different and progressive ways; to assume ownership and responsibility to fulfil our needs and desires; to think in terms of balanced global partnerships instead of bull-headed self reliance;