The Hindu Business Line : Novatium to launch NetPC using mobile's processor

HOME devices will step up broadband penetration in the country. Broadband is waiting to boom in India, and once operators enter and compete, it will be affordable too, promised Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala, who heads the Telecommunications and Computer Networks group (TeNeT) at IIT-Madras.

Fixed line-of-sight transmission can enable broadband wireless to take off in the near future, he said.

Tenet is set to launch the Novatium NetPC, a basic computer, within a month or two. NetPC uses a mobile phone's processor, thus lowering the price heavily. "The price of a mobile's CPU is only $25-30, so the cost is much lesser," Dr Jhunjhunwala said.

The company is targeting cyber cafés and small enterprises as primary users of the network PC. The computer will ship without a monitor. Similar to a thin client, the network PC connects to a server. It will work on all operating systems, including Windows, Solaris, Linux and Unix. "We recently migrated all our systems to the network PC. We are able to work in the same way as we were with desktops," he said.

When questioned about the computer's specifications and how they planned to distribute it, Dr Jhunjhunwala declined to reveal more information, preferring to wait until the launch.

Novatium is a company incubated by a telecom group set up by the faculty of IIT-Madras.