Condemned to repeat history, it seems the archetypal techie aims
to switch off too many problems with one magic circuit design! Each
of these noble endeavours first develops an entire system based on a
technology derived through many cycles of observing trends in the
developed markets and dovetailing functional needs with
progressively advanced features, adapting the latest applied and
basic research en route. They then seem to homogenise some kind of
minimal version of those functions for first-time-computer-user
markets, to produce a micro-wonder that gets outmoded before its
birth.
Instead, would it not be a better idea to make cheap
microprocessor and assembly language trainer-developer kits and
overcome barriers in marketing these to institutions, community
bodies, ICT organisations, etc? The 8085, it seems, survives only
for this. This CPU chip has outlived its advanced descendants and
shifted gears from a once-ruling PC nerve-centre to running embedded
controls, yet it offers a simple and cheap learning curve to this
day. Plenty of supporting chip-sets, cards as well as study
materials are available. As the developer using the 8085 gains
experience and confidence, it gives way to a vast range of modern
chipsets as per its application.
Need for Open System
Instead of a closed system of ace developers with mega budgets
(initially, at least) working in exclusive R and D facilities,
against time and competition in fierce secrecy and doling out
tempting interim versions that generate, needless hopes, is it not
time for a more integrated, across-the-board open system? In most
cases, developers in the super-developed world may not even realise
how many diverse sectors of industry are at work – devices,
materials, machining and tooling, packaging, logistics,
operating software, applications software, peripherals, systems
integration, commissioning and maintenance support.
Local beneficiaries can develop and standardise their own systems
with a little help from local institutes. Given sound grounding,
they would be able to discover or conceptualise afresh, specify and
order appropriate components and materials too. Such locally
nurtured developers could upgrade these products and develop the
ancillary support sector more effectively and in tune with local
needs. And we have lessons from our own history to suggest that this
is viable.
B and W television technology was passed on to small-scale
industries in India during the 1970s via the Central Electronic
Engineering Research Institute (CEERI) by readapting a circuit and
standardising local sources of components, materials, testing,
assembly and quality control procedures. This got the local industry
going and later the need for CEERI involvement was obviated on this
front. Other consumer electronics also entered the Indian
market similarly, with the ETTDC and DoE facilitating ‘canalised’
imports of components and kits and pushing local manufacture, with
stipulated indigenous content for each piece that was licensed to be
manufactured. Further, phased broad-banding of licences introduced
other products like calculators, electronic weighing machines,
cassette-players, compact music systems and eventually the colour TV
and VCR.
As a result, we saw a flourishing consumer electronics industry
until the late 1980s with declining import content. Exports also
began to take off despite export promotion zones not being as
streamlined and helpful in their systems as today. However, this
industry was soon fettered by licences placing caps on production
capacities, quotas for essential imports and the government’s
attempt to promote the public sector as sole supplier of critical
semiconductor devices and components. The very policies that had
first nurtured the local industry became fetters with the public
administration lagging behind the pace of production and demand
growth. Then, with the growth of the colour TV, big players eyeing
India and the burgeoning of satellite-relayed broadcasting networks,
a possibly pressured ‘liberalisation’ killed all this with free
imports of ‘screwdriver technology’ or knocked-down products across
the board and a continuing ban on component imports.
Yet, even though nearly all brands and kings of the 1970s are
dead and replaced by global brands, we are never short of help
in getting our TVs, VCRs and other entertainment products serviced
as needed. Authorised service centres are, at best, franchisees or
indirect associates of overseas manufacturers. This also
keeps our e-waste levels lower than some other
developing countries. Such is the gain of an open system
instead of one controlled by a ‘big daddy’ desperate to protect his
brand, having gambled millions on presumed requirements and
speculative solutions.
To a large extent, since the 1980s, our telecom industry emulated
this with indigenous development of the EAPBX, RAX and MEX by the
Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) as well as selected
joint and public sector units to speed up all-India telephone
access. This eventually led to opening up the industry to
both corporate and small-scale private sector players, paving
the way for later entrants like the global cellular and internet
service providers.
India abounds in the ingenuity of re-conditioning and servicing
entire machines including electronic plain-paper copiers and
electric typewriters, wherein local machinists and moulders have
been tapped by ingenious local repairers, into re-fabricating parts
and sub-assemblies of imported machines, whose manufacturers have
shut shop, or phased out production.
Even if this practice is questioned by big manufacturers and
their networks, it has saved large amounts of capital invested in
the many thousands of photocopy and typing shops all over India. It
has also saved the reputation of the big names that hid behind fine
print, no doubt legal, to leave thousands of customers in the lurch
for service and spares.
Coming back to PCs in developing countries, we need to be
compatible with our customers’ systems if we are regularly
interacting with them as off-shore developers of software, graphics
or carrying out a BPO task. For that we need to be able to import
the same equipment, software, tools and technology bases that our
clients in the US or Europe need. And dispose them if needed to keep
pace, writing off the loss against value added and opportunity cost.
Typically, the smallest BPO start-up offers a market for 1,000
branded PCs from the EU/US. Likewise the smallest software house
start-up means a market for 100 branded PCs, and servers with
development suites; a small start-up content house means 50
multimedia workstations – plus data storage and networking
solutions. But all our daily computing tasks do not need the same
kind of advanced Windows or Linux environments, neither the high-end
application software nor hardware. Intermediate and appropriate
solutions can be developed for the local market too, but with wider
local participation.
Globally, standards are set by consensus across all
manufacturers, users, stakeholders and actors in any given sector.
Why then must half a dozen people sitting in Cambridge, Palo Alto,
MIT or IISc conceive of the electronic solutions for a developing
world they never see, and who still believe they are getting it
right? If the standardisation process affects beneficiaries and the
population of potential users is larger in developing countries than
parts of the west put together, these potential users must also be
part of the standardisation process. There cannot be a shortcut and
I wonder how many billion dollars will be wasted again and again by
this refusal to learn from history.
As the old adage goes, give him fish and he will be hungry in no
more than a few hours; teach him to fish and he is hungry no more.
Email: uditnc@gmail.com
