Bangalore company to launch tab called Stamp with 7-inch display running on MS and Android OS

BANGALORE: A Bangalore company plans to launch an ultra-cheap tablet computer meant for businesses, schools and organisations with mobile workforces. Called Stamp, the tablet will cost around 5,000 and go on sale around the same time that another tablet billed as the cheapest in the world is made available to the Indian consumers.

AllGo Embedded Systems' Stamp, which will be launched in December, is the latest cut-price tablet to enter in the Indian market after Apple popularised the device with its iPad line.

"Around two years ago we realised that there weren't many good tablets at low cost. Bulk of the stuff came from China. That's when we decided to enter this space by offering indigenously designed tablets that suit Indian enterprises," said Darshak Vasavada, one of AllGo's founders.

Stamp, which is assembled at Shenzen in China, will have a 7-inch LCD touch-screen display, with a USB port. It will run on the Windows and Android operating systems. In recent weeks, some of India's biggest companies have launched tablets which cost less than half the starting price of 29,500 of an iPad.

Reliance Communications, Bharti Enterprises and HCL Infosystems' tablets are all priced at between 10,000 and 15,000.

On Wednesday, the Indian government will unwrap a tablet computer called Aakash, to be given to college students at 1,750. The device, made by UK-based Datawind, costs 3,000 to make, but it is being subsidised for students by the government. The product will be cost consumers as much as "a vegetarian meal for two at a five star hotel in Delhi," the Datawind's founder has said without disclosing the actual price.

AllGo's Stamp has been tested in partnership with Microsoft for a device-based learning project, Vasavada said. Earlier this year, it partnered with Education Initiatives, an Ahmedabad-based company, for a pilot project at a Delhi Public School branch in Bangalore.

"We wanted to find out how it would work in the education segment. The students were made to take a test on it and we are happy with their response," he said.

In another pilot project, the tablets were given to field workers gathering information in rural areas. Stamp will be tested in other areas such as logistics, healthcare and field-information-surveys before its launch.