HP to join hands with NIIT for CBSE tutorials

With campuses across the country going Wi-Fi and institutes making laptops mandatory for students, Hewlett-Packard which sells its own range of notebook PCs along with the Compaq brand, plans to make inroads into the school-student segment as well.

In collaboration with NIIT, Hewlett-Packard (HP) India plans to conduct pilot studies to launch online tutorials and mock examinations for students under the CBSE system.

Under the agreement, NIIT would provide the content while HP will pitch in with the required hardware. HP had conducted its first pilot study on 20 schools in New Delhi recently and plans to conduct similar studies in other parts of the country in the coming few months.

"In June we will conduct a pilot study in the South and the West with schools following the CBSE curriculum and plan to launch it across the country following the studies," said Shubhodip Pal, Head Marketing, HP India.

The education module includes automatic generation of an electronic result card following the examination which gets sent directly to the preferred e-mail ids of the parents.

In the second phase, the company plans to launch the same with other education boards including ICSE and state boards for which it would get into dialogue with respective state governments.

The company is also looking at setting up a rural footprint for its desktop PCs which according to the latest IDC estimates occupy 16.7 per cent market share in the consumer segment.

A van activity programme to reach tier III cities and those under 10 lakh population has been flagged off in Punjab and Haryana which has covered 60 cities in a month. The van carries desktop PCs, notebooks and other HP products which are marketed directly to the consumers.

The next phase is set to begin in Gujarat, which according to Pal is one of the biggest growth markets for HP with over 60 per cent growth, which is higher than the average national growth.

Mumbai contributes around 24 per cent of sales for the company while Maharashtra and Gujarat contribute close to 16 and 18 per cent respectively.

In Gujarat, the van programme is set to commence from the first week of May 2007 and will see two vans reach 43 cities in the state.

The company plans to focus on its Compaq brand's desktop PCs for the programme.