Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Twitter

An industry friend, who heads a test and measurement company in Kolkata, was recently visiting me in Gurgaon. While we were discussing the market in Eastern India, he said the market was growing there, but the entry level configurations of desktops or some networking gear, for instance, was still lower than compared to markets in the Northern or Western part of India.

Somehow the discussion drifted toward laptops, and without any intention of sounding like the Big Brother I told him how last financial year saw a big leap for laptop sales. From 5.9 lakh in 2005-06 to 11.10 lakh. It seemed that just about everyone was acquiring these light and portable computers, and it was no more a status symbol.

I am not sure if it was to prove me wrong, or if it is a mere coincidence, but he was suddenly reminded of something his dad had asked him to get for hima very high-end laptopto present to his friends son. He needed a 2.4 GHz machine with an NVIDIA card, and 2 GB RAM. He wanted my help in procuring it rather urgently, as he needed it within the next 24 hours.

I called up a few contacts in Nehru Place, and everybody said they did not have this configuration, but will be able to organize it shortly. I waited for 48 hours, and then called up contacts in Bangalore and Mumbai as well. Waited for another 72 hours. Finally, when I spoke to a few people from leading laptop companies, they gave me a hint that this was too high-end, and unlikely to be available here. Finally, almost every one of my contacts threw up their hands, and said this is too much to ask for.

India boasts of almost 90% growth of laptop computers, and how it is overtaking desktop sales in several sectors. But the simple fact was that most machines being sold are entry level. Nothing wrong with this, but apparently, high-end users are not on the radar of laptop vendors. And if one or two such cases do come up, there is no mechanism to cater to them. I strongly feel that laptop vendors need to tighten their belt on this account. And they must work out some way by which their channels can service such requirements.

I must also add here that most vendors react very angrily when posed with the question of supporting products that have not been brought from them or their channel partners, or have been brought from outside the country. Does this mean that they will not sell the product that a customer wants, or if the customer gets it from some other source, legally, they will not support it. That is not a fair and ethical trade practice.

When I called up my Kolkata friend later, and casually asked him about the laptop, he said he finally asked something who was going to Singapore to get one for him. "Was getting a laptop of this configuration difficult in Singapore?", I could not resist asking. He just said, "Not at all. In fact, the shopkeeper said he was happy to sell this machine to him. He wanted more people to buy high-end laptops, and would not mind even having it couriered". My Kolkata friend must have been smiling.

The author is Group Editor of Dataquest.
ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in

Page(s)   1