Datawind is disappointed with IIT-Rajasthan, and accused Quad of backstabbing them. (Datawind)

Datawind is disappointed with IIT-Rajasthan, and accused Quad of backstabbing them. (Datawind)

As it could be claimed, Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO, Datawind made a bold move by calling the media fraternity to one common platform and address all the queries just a week before the launch of UbiSlate 7+. Following are the excerpts of the claims made by Datwind…
IIT-Rajasthan showed an unethical conduct

All throughout the product cycle of Aakash, Datawind kept sending them units that met their specifications, which they kept rejecting until they were satisfied with one of them and placed an order for 8,000 units. But later on in spite of placing purchase order, they came up with a set of highly unscientific test criteria without prior intimation. “They plagiarized military-ruggedized test criteria from HP laptops and told us to create a cheap tablet that could resist 4 inches per hour of rain and 20G of force, which as you can imagine is quite impossible, considering the time and price,” Tuli shared. 

Datawind does not owe anything to dishonest Quad

On being approached by IIT-Rajasthan, Quad Electronics went behind their backs and signed an MoU with them to manufacture a “convergence device”. “No one has been able to tell me and question Quad, what a “convergence device” actually means,” Tuli questioned the media present. They are just sugarcoating the fact that they are building a tablet and that is highly unethical. 

To the claims made by Quad that Datawind paid them for only 1,500 tablets, whereas the contract was for 50,000 tablets, for which the company bought the inventory. Tuli explains that the company has paid Quad Electronics for all the units delivered to Datawind, except for the 600 units that remain unpaid by IIT-Rajasthan, thus rejecting all the accusations of Quad relating to payment due from Datawind. 

IIT-Bombay replaces IIT-Rajasthan

MHRD's Aakash project has been now transferred to IIT-Bombay, which is in the process of issuing a new purchase order for 1 lakh upgraded units. “Now that IIT-Bombay has taken over the project, along with our new sub-contract manufacturers, and if all goes well and it passes through testing rapidly, we would be able to launch the upgraded Aakash 2 by May 2012,” he shared. As far as UbiSlate shipments are concerned, we shall try to catch up in the upcoming weeks.

"Aakash" should hit in May

Failed to meet Commitments

Datawind claims that they have not received a single pre-order for Aakash, as the distribution of Aakash is the government's responsibility. "We have received well over 3 million pre-orders for UbiSlate 7, the consumer version of Aakash, and we are receiving upwards of 10,000 new pre-orders every day and we have decided not to share any specific numbers after 3 million as the figure has become absurdly large. Also, we are a small company and such high demand was completely unprecedented so it will take us some time to catch up with the demand,"Tuli reasoned. 

He again emphasized that he is running only two weeks behind schedule in deliveries for retail sales of its tablets, due to the breakup of its relationship with Quad Electronics. "We started taking pre-payments at the end of January, offering delivery in 8 weeks starting end of March – we are about two weeks late from that date. We expect to catch up to our promised delivery schedule by the end of April," he adds. 

Why Datawind is silent to the injustice

Since Datawind owned the copyright of the tablet, Quad Electronics breached Datawind's intellectual property, circumvented their relationship with IIT-Rajasthan by signing a direct MoU with them and selling off their inventory in the open market. Still, Datawind did not fight the breach of contract, as, when asked, Tuli did not have concrete details to share.

He did not publicly reveal the name of the new assembler for Aakash, now after the exit of Quad. The company launched the upgraded UbiSlate 7+ on 26th April, but the question is: can Datawind begin commercial sale of tablets before fulfilling its commitment to provide 100,000 tablets to agencies appointed by the HRD Ministry?