Leadership By Numbers

Category IBM/Lotus Open Source Ubuntu
For most of the world, Apple's iPad is an expensive and pretty tourist-gadget that saps up Internet bandwidth, uses a proprietary OS, doesn't have a lid and lacks a keyboard. I applaud its style for the executive suite and those enthralled with IT-chic, but it's more about New Age minimalism than social change.  It's utopic, both in the fiction of the imaginary Utopia island of political perfection as authored by Sir Thomas More, as well as by "u-topia" being a Greek pun for "no place."
 
If you want to learn about a revolution, then you need to know about the Simmbook and an interview I had with Managing Director, Indrajit Sabharwal of Simmtronics, along with IBM's Antony Satyadas. The Simmbook is a pared down netbook that fits in with a family of products from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung. Its feature set is equal to its cousins offering a 10-inch netbook, and the build quality looked good (I'm hoping to have a chance for a hands-on review copy). What makes the Simmbook unique is pure economics. The substance of Simmbook's potential isn't found in being another micro-laptop, it's in the context of its marketplace and its partners. Think of it as the front-blade of a bulldozer.

• It is manufactured at a lower cost than comparable units
• It's packaged with Ubuntu, an open-source operating system
• It includes IBM's Lotus Symphony, an open-standards office suite
• Canonical, the creator of Ubuntu, is providing commercial support for Symphony
• The Simmbook is tailored for distribution into developing economies, with Simmtronics working with regional channel partners

Simmtronics Seminconductors is a 20 year old electronics manufacturer, with production facilities in India and Singapore. They are mostly known for their motherboards, memory modules and graphic cards. The Simmbook is where they have put all the pieces together, to enter the laptop market with a low-cost netbook. Indrajit pointed out that "because the motherboard and memory is 25% of overall cost," Simmtronics has a competitive pricing edge.  By removing the expense of a Microsoft operating system, and relying on Ubuntu (Windows XP is an option, at an increased expense),  Simmtronics has created a mobile computing device with 1 G of RAM, Intel Atom processor and a 160 HD that will be selling in the neighborhood of $250 US.

This is no WalMart Linux, or an import with an edge in cheapness. Simmbook represents the melding of an open-source, open-standards platform produced for emerging economies, and sold through partner channels into other developing economies. Writing "emerging" for Indian technology makes me wince, unless of course, I borrow from Gartner Analyst, Brian Prentice and accept that the developed economies are themselves "submerging" in our current recession. There is nothing substandard with Indian manufacturing, and the integration of open-source architecture has forged a strong union with the hardware build and the software stack. The Simmbook is witness to this new trend:

Countries like India are not technology backwaters. It's a country brimming with software engineers and companies that have been highly successful in exploiting their ability to work for much lower wages than developed nations. If a local open source supply and demand equilibrium can emerge than I would think we'd see an explosion of comprehensively designed and supported solutions.

If such a scenario unfolds, the ramifications are significant. The unencumbered availability of open source coupled with the global capabilities of Indian service organizations would make these projects just as viable in developed countries. These so-called emerging economies, therefore, become both the development centers and test markets for a base of open source projects that can shift the balance of power in the US-dominated software market.

In the process of adding Canonical's open-source Ubuntu to the Simmbook, Simmtronics was introduced by Canonical to another partner: IBM. That relationship has matured into a global agreement to preload IBM Lotus Symphony as part of the "IBM Client for Smart Work." Symphony is an ODF compliant office suite, based on open standards, which matches well with the intention of the Simmbook providing an enterprise-grade device. IBM's "Client for Smart Work" is a fascinating blend of hosted services and inexpensive devices. Pradeep Nair, director of IBM India Software Group, explains that this is a solution that "brings together the strengths of cloud-based collaboration, virtual desktops, netbook devices and open source, supported by a strong ecosystem of business partners, to help Indian innovators harness the next wave of growth."

So, now does it make sense to look at the Simmbook with renewed respect ?  It's the bionomics of the open-source, open-standards culture; world-class manufacturing expertise that understands developing economies;  the Fortune 50 resources of IBM; and a partner channel which is building out innovative, integration solutions that includes Virtual Desktop Infrastructures.

The next generation of Internet use will be built from the likes of the Simmbook, creating new markets and new opportunities.  I can easily imagine hearing the diesel engine starting to rev up as this bulldozer begins to rumble forward.



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