22nd April 2012
Telecom Lead India: Datawind, the maker of Aakash tablet, has come out in public and openly criticized IIT-Rajasthan over the Aakash tablets fiasco and stated IIT-Rajasthan's behavior unethical.
Datawind's CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said that the decision to reject the Aakash tablets by the IIT-Rajasthan was made on unscientific grounds.
On the issue of unethical practice by IIT- Rajasthan, the CEO said that the institute imposed military-rugged test criteria for the testing of the tablets. Also, the institute secretly signed MoU with their subcontractor Quad Electronics for the creation of convergence device, which the CEO termed as a competitive device to Datawind's offering.
Tuli confirmed that Datawind has sent a notice to two of the IIT- Rajasthan, Jodhpur faculty members for violation of the non-disclosure agreement.
According to Tuli, the company had asked the HRD ministry to intervene in the matter of rejection of tablets. The ministry in turn asked IIT-R to establish scientific test criteria and accept DataWind proposed upgrade.
Tuli said the government has transferred the project from IIT-Rajasthan to IIT-Bombay for the delivery of 1 lakh tablets. IIT-Bombay has roped in government agencies such as C-DAC and ITI to test the device. The NME-ICT (National Mission on Education through information communications technology) under the ministry of HRD has showed its intention to procure 50 lakh low-cost tablets during the current fiscal.
The CEO admitted that the quality of Aakash-1 may have been found wanting, as the specifications of that device were in keeping with those outlined in the government tender.
Recently, Quad Electronics, the contract manufacturer of Aakash tablet said it has not been paid for its work by the tablet maker, Datawind. Quad alleged that the letter of credit issued by Datawind was dishonored and it has not received any payment for its work.
While rejecting the allegations made by Quad Electronics, Tuli said that Quad Electronics has been paid for the devices it shipped under the contract.
Datawind CEO claimed that his company has cleared all the payments that were due to Quad, except except for the 600 units that remain unpaid by IIT Rajasthan.
Tuli also announced that Datawind is set to commercially launch its UbiSlate7 on the 26 April 2012. However, the specifications of the commercial device have not been disclosed by the company.
The ultra-low cost tablet manufacturer also reaffirmed that they would start the delivery of Aakash2 within next couple of weeks. DataWind has been engaged with another subcontractor, and said that priority will be given to pre-paid customers.
The company also informed that they were getting close to 40,000 calls a day against their capacity to receive 4,000 calls. "We'll catch in two weeks, though the delivery was initially planned by the March-end.
According to Tuli, Aakash will be available to students by May-June. Furthermore, Datawind would bid for developing 5 million Aakash tablets when the Indian government invites tenders.
