Індійський мільярдер Мукеш Амбані запустив хмарний сервіс, який може «перетворити» телевізор на ПК / Depositphotos, Jio
Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani, who last year organized one of the most luxurious weddings in history for his son, announced ambitious plans to provide almost all households in India with a personal computer. How? Simply by modernizing existing TV sets.
Recently, the telecommunications company Ambani, who is the richest man in India and ranks 16th in the of the Bloomberg billionaire rankinghas announced the launch of JioPC — a service that offers a cloud-based PC experience through existing Jio set-top boxes (which come free with home broadband service or can be purchased separately for $64).
JioPC is already available in a free trial and on a waiting list. It can be activated as soon as users receive an invitation, connect a mouse and keyboard, and set up an account. Users will immediately receive pre-installed LibreOffice, while access to Microsoft Office applications can be arranged through an available browser.
On the downside — the service does not yet support peripherals such as a camera or printer, but Ambani’s company, Jio Platforms, has ambitious plans (at least on paper) to significantly increase the user base, which will already amounts to about 488 million.
According to Counterpoint Research Director Tarun Pathak, currently 70% of Indian households have a TV and only 15% — own a PC. So, JioPC has a lot of potential, which will have to be supported by proper marketing and education.
Government data, meanwhile testifyreported that the active user base of set-top boxes in India reaches almost 57 million. However, the traditional television (DTH) market is also shrinking as more consumers switch to internet services. As of March, the active DTH subscriber base decreased by 8% year-on-year.
As for the local PC market, it recorded an increase in shipments of more than 8% year-on-year, reaching 3.3 million units — the seventh consecutive quarter of growth, according to IDC. However, PC penetration in India is still relatively low, compared to the US and Chinese marketsfor obvious reasons, such as limited income and the widespread use of smartphones as the main computing devices.
Source: TechCrunch, Jio