Industry Leaders on the Five Million PC Landmark

The

year 2000 was a time to celebrate for the PC industry. The Indian PC industry

reached a major landmark in the third week of December 2000: an installed base

of five million PCs. This landmark is also significant because India crossed the

one-million mark just four year, in 1996--12 years after the first PC rolled out

in the Indian market DATAQUEST produced a film to commemorate this significant

achievement which was presented at the DQ Awards 2000. Following are excerpts

from what industry leaders had to say on the five-million mark:

• "Shipment
  
  cost is a huge issue in PC pricing"
  
  
  
  Ajai Chowdhry, chairman and CEO HCL Infosystems

• "The
  
  PC is the preferred appliance today to access information"
  
  
  
  Ganesh Ayyar, former president, HP India and director marketing,
  Asia-Pacific
  

• "PCs
  
  have changed the way we work, think and learn"
  
  
  
  Manoj Chugh, country manager Cisco System India

• "To
  
  be an IT powerhouse, we need 50 million PCs quickly"
  
  
  
  Dewang Mehta, president, Nasscom

• "The
  
  five-million figure makes India an Interesting proposition for both Indian
  
  and MNC players"
  
  
  
  Suresh Vaswani, president, Wipro Infotech

• "The
  
  PC won't remain dominant; next-generation wireless devices will more
  
  exciting"
  
  
  
  Bhaskar Pramanik, managing director, Sun Microsystems