President tells IBM to develop tablet PCs

President APJ Abdul Kalam on Tuesday asked IBM to join the global knowledge platform by developing low cost tablet PCs and computers based on nano technology.

Addressing the IBM Employees' Town Hall here, he pointed out that the world knowledge platform, consisting of partners from various countries, will enable joint design, development, cost effective production and marketing of knowledge products in various domains.

"Missions relating to energy, health care, knowledge products, electronics, ICT and automobiles can be the focus areas to meet the market demands of the respective countries. Multinational companies, through collaborative efforts, can design, develop and manufacture a tablet PC with multilingual capability and open source operating system," he stated.

He pointed out that students should be able to use the tablet PC as a digital book, notebook and an e-learning device. "The one time investment must make students' life easy and it will give them enough time to be creative in their studies," he said.

According to Kalam, the challenging task will be to configure, develop, produce and market the tablet PC at a cost of $150.

"IBM can think of possible collaborations with Indian industries for the development of integrated hardware and software systems that will be useful to the 300 million Indian students apart from the other common users, professionals and executives," he said.

Similarly, the President emphasised the need for developing nanotech computers.

"Can India and IBM think together to design, develop, produce and market nano computers? Most of the computers of the future and accessories will be micro-sized, wearable and will have wireless communication with each other," he noted.