Plans
On 26 April 2012 Datawind launched UbiSlate 7+ and Ubislate 7C tablet in physical stores at Delhi. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has announced the plan to launch LTE(4G) Tablet between 3500–5000, with low cost Internet service. This tablet will be an upgraded version of Aakash developed by DataWind. Indian Govt. HRD has revealed that Aakash 2 will be announced in May 2012. Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), DataWind, Wishtel, and Telmoco Development Labs are Interested in bidding at the Aakash 2 contract auction.
The low cost Akash tablet is under trials in IIT Bombay and is being tested against the new specifications.
Indian government hopes also to produce Aakash for export market. On a visit to Turkmenistan in September 2012, the Indian telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, suggested forming a joint venture company which may manufacture Aakash. In this joint venture, Indian side would design the necessary hardware and software of the tablet fulfilling the Turkmen side needs. Besides supplying the low-cost tablets, the joint venture company could market the product to other international markets.
According to allegations made in the Hindustan Times, the Tuli brothers "may have" procured these devices off-the-shelf from manufacturers in China and sold them to the Indian government at the purchase price. Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of DataWind however insisted that only the manufacture of the motherboards were subcontracted to Chinese manufacturers, following which the components were placed in DIY kits which DataWind assembled and sold to the Indian government HRD. Chinese manufacturers allege that they sold "ready-to-use" tablets to Datawind, and that they manufactured the touch screens as well. Tuli, however, insists that the touch screens were manufactured by DataWind in Canada.
Read more about this topic: Aakash (tablet)
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