Pakistan is known for a lot of things. However one of the areas it isn’t known for, is innovation in hardware, which is why when Sohail Abid (@sohailabid) sent a Tweet out about Alternate Gear and their Slate PC, we were intrigued enough to get in touch with the company.
Waqar Qureshi is the Managing Partner at Alternate-Gear and is the person responsible for the design, development, strategy, investment of 3G Mobile Touch Screen Slate PC, and USB-Net share Routers. Though he has lived abroad for much of his life, his area of expertise has always been Telecom infrastructure Amps, GSM, CDMA/Evdo, WiMAX, HFC, FTTH and LDI.
His company launched the 3G Slate PC in Pakistan in July 2009 along with launched the first 3G USB-Netshare Router to share bandwidth from PTCL’s EVO, Worldcall Dongle, Wi-tribe, Wateen, Qubee, Telenor, Ufone, Warid, Zong dongles with 250 subscribers. As with many professionals working abroad, when family called, he returned with the willingness to experience a new market.
The Touch Slate is an Intel Atom-based 3G PC that has a 667mhz processor. It’s got 2 USB interfaces, a sim card slot, a 10.2″ TFT LCD Touchscreen that has a resolution of 1024×600 and a high def camera. You’ve got WiFi and a battery that lasts 2.5 hours with an optional add-on that can take you up to 10 hours. It’s 226.3mm in length, 166.9mm wide, 24.7mm high, runs Ubuntu and costs less than $500. But that’s not the best part; what is, however, is the fact that all this is made in Pakistan.
With so many other existing brands, what made you think of creating a Touch Slate PC?
There is no competition out there right now — they all are in design stage. Apple’s iPad is designed for internet browsing and multimedia, whereas Alternate Gear’s TouchSlate is designed for handwriting-to-text-conversion and is a complete replacement of a laptop or desktop.
You are running a Linux Ubuntu Operating System on the laptop — Considering the Ubuntu penetration into the consumer market, what’s the target audience for this?
We have customized the UBUNTU OS to feel and work like Windows OS. One major reason was the price of Windows 7 for touch screen is approximately US$ 110, which is 1/4th the price of the complete machine, and we have yet to find a customer willing to pay for the Windows OS. We installed Open Office and can install all Windows-based software through WINE, hence all Windows machine file formats are supported and interchangeable with those on our machine without any issues.
Could you talk us through the technical specs you have used to build the machine?
The idea was simple: to simplify the use of computer hardware and software to the extent that anyone with the basic need for using the machine for drawing, handwriting and emails to the sophisticated use by skilled professions. The technology will remain valid for the next 5 years. Despite a 25% compounded Sales and Income Taxes, the price will be comfortable for even the student community in Pakistan.
Why have you selected an Atom-based processor for the Touch Slate PC?
The main reason is to have easy access to a reasonably-priced platform which will continue to evolve over the next 5 years with multiple vendors and suppliers.
What about battery life and performance? How would you rate it as compared to a smart phone or available Netbook?
Battery life is a maximum of 2.5 hours. We compromised on battery to keep the price within our target of US$ 500. We do offer a car charger for Rs. 1,500 and an external 20amp USB battery capable of providing power for 10 hours for US$ 100 as peripherals.
If it is such an efficient and thin client, what is stopping it from having its architecture replicated by existing brands, which might help make it scalable and perhaps even cheaper in terms of manufacturing?
As you know many people are working on their own designs: Blackberry, Samsung, Nokia, Dell, Toshiba, Microsoft and each targets a different type of consumer. Our target is the average Pakistan.
Do you think people are aware of the product?
We are a small company and our motto is simple: honest business with complete, no questions asked refund policy during the warranty period. We’re hoping our business methodology and our product spread will help get the word out virally.
Source:http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=815728EA-1A64-67EA-E4090599643E9285
