<div class="gmail_quote"><div>Hi,<br> First off, my 'thank you' s are due.. <br> 1. To Rakshat for setting up the Indian distribution. You obviously have the know how of open device and open source which is great. This shop has greatly relieved my anxiety of shipping and customs which tends to become a hassle.<br>
2. To Harry, for the official announcement on Indian distribution.Always good to know that you are buying from the official shop.<br> <br> On the price point: <br> I feel 20,000 for Free runner is very decent, (BTW I am eligible for 15.4K discount so that is very very decent :-) ). Neo has a potential to become the "office PDA phone". Conference calls to the US and other oversea destinations are extremely common in Indian IT industry. neo +wifi+skype = ridiculously reduced cost.<br>
<br> A GSM +GPS (GTA01 like ) box would be great for the rural India if priced around 10,000. Imagine a post man plotting the shortest path to cover all the villages that he has to deliver mail to <br>( <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/south_asia_indian_postman/html/1.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/south_asia_indian_postman/html/1.stm</a> ) with the right features the government might want to buy the neo for them.<br>
A VGA screen with GPRS means the farmer can consult the market price of his crops, and the wealthy ones can lookup Stock market. (Oh, yes. Commodity trading and stock trading are huge in my native village!! but there are only few brokerage houses that are miles away in the town center, one needs to call them frequently to be in touch with the market. The village itself has GSM+GPRS coverage)<br>
<br> Students and universities: <br> Rakshat, have you considered talking to Universities/engineering colleges. There are mind boggling number of engineering colleges in Karnataka(my state) and all of them run some kind of telecommunication course. a couple of neos to each college with a smartly packaged SDK and presentation on getting hands on GSM experience would help you sell many phones. I know I would want to work on such a device If I were a student now.<br>
<br>Regards,<br>-GK<br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: "rakshat hooja" <<a href="mailto:rakshat@gmail.com">rakshat@gmail.com</a>><br>
To: <a href="mailto:community@lists.openmoko.org">community@lists.openmoko.org</a><br>Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 12:57:48 +0530<br>Subject: Re: Freerunner Sale Price in India - Official partner with Openmoko<br><div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Shakthi,</blockquote><div><br>I have been using GTA01 (Neo 1973) my main phone for some time and felt that at its price point (under INR 12000 for GSM and GPS and VGA display) it would make a great phone for the Indian market. Unfortunately with its power draining problems (I carry 2 spare batteries in my pocket) it can not be mass produced (My initial email to Micheal was about reselling the GTA01 in India). <br>
<br>Anyway the good part is that the Openmoko and Qtopia software is GPL and porting these to a GSM only hardware should be considerably easier than writing a new GSM stack! We have plans get it to run on the CompuLab X270em board but thats kind of stalled at the moment. If that works out one can bring out GSM only, GSM+GPS, GSM+WiFi and GSM+GPS+WiFi versions of a phone running Openmoko.<br>
<br>Maybe after the success of the Freerunner (I am quite confident on that as I have seen the software really improving over the last 6 months and the price point is pretty decent too) Openmoko themselves may consider bringing out a lower spec cheaper version.<br>
<br>Right now I think it would be best to support the Openmoko endevour and try and make the Freerunner a great success, both at the market and as a philosphy.<br><br>Rakshat<br><br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br><br>---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: "Shakthi Kannan" <<a href="mailto:shakthimaan@gmail.com" target="_blank">shakthimaan@gmail.com</a>><br>To: "List for Openmoko community discussion" <<a href="mailto:community@lists.openmoko.org" target="_blank">community@lists.openmoko.org</a>><br>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 09:53:15 +0530<br>Subject: Re: Freerunner Sale Price in India - Official partner with Openmoko<br>Hi,<br>
<br>
--- On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 9:09 AM, Harry Tsai <<a href="mailto:harry@openmoko.com" target="_blank">harry@openmoko.com</a>> wrote:<br>
| I am so glad to introduce Mr.Rakshat to you all, actually they are our<br>
| first partner in India market, if you are developer come from India that you<br>
| can buy Freerunner from him directly for reduce your shipping cot and<br>
| customs process effort.<br>
\--<br>
<br>
I would like to thank you guys for this initiative. It greatly eases<br>
our shipping+customs+tax import issues. Yes, I have made my order :)<br>
<br>
I just have one request. If you guys can strip the current model to<br>
just have 1. a GSM (say INR 5k, or USD 125) , or 2. a model with<br>
GSM+GPS (with a reduced price, of course), it will be extremely useful<br>
for the "mass" market in India. I would assume the GSM takes<br>
one-fourth of the total price of the product. Not sure what is the<br>
proportion of the GPS component.<br>
<br>
INR 20k (with four RF components) is quite affordable to most people<br>
working in the Industry here in India, but, a basic, customizable<br>
phone would be really something that will be usable, and affordable<br>
for the "masses".<br>
<br>
Just my thoughts,<br>
<br>
SK<br>
<br>
--<br>
Shakthi Kannan<br>
<a href="http://www.shakthimaan.com" target="_blank">http://www.shakthimaan.com</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote></div></blockquote></div><br>