Philips to bundle PDAs with projectors

Rashida Bakait

MUMBAI: For the first time ever, Philips India is attempting to bundle PDAs

with projectors an experiment planned to take off this month. Philips India,

Digital Network general manager Ankan Biswas, said that the concept was being

brought into India as a pilot project. Should this succeed, the company plans to

replicate this effort in other continents.

The PDAs will be bundled with recently launched multimedia projectors

viz.-c-Bright XG2 Impact. The PDAs will also be bundled with already existing

models viz. UGOx-Lite and Proscreen PXG10. To implement the concept Philips

India has tied up with Handspring that would provide their Handhelds.

Ankan Biswas said that Handhelds have the technology to join hands with the

projectors. Commenting on the strategy to reach the users Biswas said that

initially their dealers would target the high range users namely executives. The

Handhelds will be given free with the projectors. "As we want to promote

the concept we will be offering PDAs free with projectors and gradually seeing

the results we might charge for the same in future" explained Biswas.

Biswas said that the success would depend on the efforts of the dealers and

issues of usability, comfort and other aspects are expected to arise. But Biswas

is confident that the experiment will take off well as it has the potential to

add new dimensions to training and education fields.

Philips India is also in the midst of talks with six to ten cable operators

all over India to bring in their set- top-boxes to provide Internet through

cable.