February 29, 2000
Chennai
February 28, 2000
Nitya Varadarajan
Encore Software develops low-cost Net-access device
for rural areas
Bangalore-based Encore Software Ltd is bringing out a low-cost Internet
access device with the object of making it accessible to rural and
semi-urban areas, according to Shashank Garg, vice-president,
software development. Speaking to The Financial Express, during a
seminar on affordable telecom and IT solutions, Commsphere - 2000, he said
that a trust had been formed by some of the company's founders to work on
this technology.
The low-cost device will be a palm sized one 4x6 and can be used for
surfing the Internet without the need of having a computer. While a
personal computer works out to around Rs 30,000, this palm top will
cost around Rs 6,000 to Rs 10,000. It can have other applications apart
from surfing, like a digital organiser etc. Encore will be developing
the prototype ready by April, though the complete device will be ready by
June-July. The device will be used for a number of community-based
services by having small servers in taluk offices etc from which
files can be accessed, Garg said. If the concept is found successful
and manufacturers take it up, volumes could bring down the price
further, Garg said. However, Encore will help in devising a range of
applications for the palm top and manufacturers could opt for their
specifications.
The device will have a touch-screen device rather than a keyboard
and will also have voice facility if needed. Encore is also working
on radio software. Currently, there are chips for frequency
demodulation and amplitude demodulation. The software can be
used for demodulation, to decide on the channel frequency, channel
selection and decoding of content. Only the receiver would be
necessary Garg said.
Encore is primarily product development company and an EoU. In
its previous avatar, it was known as NCore Technologies. This was
merged with Encore Software, a listed company but the focus continues
to be product development. The company gets its revenues from licensing
its products. It has targeted a revenue of Rs 9 crore for the period
of December 1999 -June 2000, its first year of operations. The key
areas of focus for the company is in digital signal processing and
embedded systems. It has its own Voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP) product.
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