Palm to ramp up India operations

Nupur Chaturvedi

NEW DELHI: US-based Palmtop maker Palm, Inc. is ramping up marketing and distribution in India, with improved availability of and support for Palm models, and local pricing. Palm's chief evangelist Paul Leeper informed this.

Palm is not placing its own managers in India, but relying on its distributor Tech Pacific for sales and marketing. However, Palm's Singapore-based regional sales director, Daren Ng, said that this would, unlike earlier, involve 'dedicated resources' at Tech Pacific, including VP Sanjay Achawal, business manager Manish Lahoti, and a salesperson in each major metro all focused on Palm products.

Tech Pacific has been distributing Palm products in India since early 2001, but with little success so far, partly due to the small market for palmtops. This is what Palm and Tech Pacific say they are going to change, with improved availability, marketing, sales, and support.

Palm said that it's launching newer models in India simultaneously with its launches abroad. These include Zire and Tungsten models, with the Zire 21 at Rs 7,500 ($99 in the US), and the camera-enabled Zire 71 is at Rs 22,500. The pro-oriented Tungsten range gets bigger with the entry of the Tungsten C, Tungsten T3 and Tungsten E, which cost Rs 37,500, Rs 29,900 and Rs 14,900 respectively.

While bringing the entire range into India will help, these are expensive compared to global prices, thanks to duties and other costs in India (for instance, the Zire 71 is at the Rs 15,000 level in Singapore and USA, which makes the Indian price 50 percent higher).

Tech Pacific's dealers will also sell a range of accessories in India, including folding keyboards and USB sync/charge cables. Improved support in India includes a new toll-free number, and an India support page planned for the Palm Website soon.

While Palm has no virtually no offerings in the smart phone range, its upcoming acquisition of Handspring brings in the Treo family of PalmOS based PDA-phones into Palm's portfolio.



"While the taxation, certification and other matters get resolved in India, Palm wants to make sure that the Indian buyer is aware that the products are here, and so is the support for them" said Palm's Australia-based regional marketing manager Lesley McKnight.

Leeper, Ng and McKnight are in India this week to meet with Tech Pacific and its dealers, and with media, to showcase the Palm range of products.



A global two-year slump in demand helped drive the California-based Palm, Inc. into the red. But Palm says that corporate demand is now beginning to recover, a positive sign, even though IDC puts enterprise users at only a tenth of Palm's sales.

(CNS)