Asus to launch PDA phone with GPS

AsusTek in India will be launching a PDA phone with support of GPS (Global
Positioning System) navigation. Priced at around Rs 35,000, the company claims
it to be India's first PDA phone to have GPS support. The model-P535
tri-band PDA phone- incorporates full wireless functionality, GPS and high
quality auto-focus camera in a compact form-factor. The tentative plans are to
launch this phone in the month of January 2007 along with the appointment of a
new national distributor for this product.

Originally developed for military use, GPS now has a wide range of civilian
applications like tracing addresses in a foreign land, tracking distance and
speeds on road trips, treks or while jogging. The P535 offers the capabilities
of GPS in a compact, handy form-factor.

Asus would also be introducing the world's first wireless Skype music phone
to the India market. Apart from the Skype support this phone, called the AiGuru
S1, connects to any computer using 802.11b+g wireless broadband technology and
can be used to listen to music from the computer.

Along with the P535 model, the company would be launching the P525 Quad-Band PDA
phone also. The P525 quad-band PDA phone incorporates Push E-mail, Wi-Fi support
and built-in numeric keypad to deliver a complete mobile business solution. The
phone also integrates use of Skype's VoIP service.

Andrew Tsui, MD, AsusTek India, said, “We will be soon announcing an
appointment of distributor for our phones.” Company insiders informed that the
company has already finalized on the distributor but is not ready to disclose
the same as formalities are yet to be completed.

While the company is ready to present the PDA phone as a first time phone
launch from Asus, the channels are not convinced of the same. According to them,
this is actually the second time, Asus is disclosing plans to launch phones in
India. The first time such an announcement made was in February 2005, wherein
the company had displayed two mobile phones and one PDA phone in Mumbai. These
phones never entered the market. When asked about this, Tsui said, “Those
phone model were signed up for an OEM contract arrangement and hence were not
marketed here.”

Meanwhile, Asus has announced its plans to invest Rs 10 crore on expansion in
India. In the first phase of its expansion plans, the company will shift to a
larger office in Mumbai. This shifting is scheduled for the first quarter of
2007.

“Our growth plans aim at the expansion of not just the office but also of
our capabilities of sales, marketing, service support and channel operations,”
said Tsui It has also tied-up with RT Outsourcing Services as its service
partner for its LCD monitors and notebook PCs.

With this tie-up, Asus expects to cover around 24 cities, which includes
Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Cochin,
Hyderabad, Pune, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Dehradun, Siliguri, Indore,
Coimbatore, Ranchi, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Jamshedpur, Raipur and Surat.

This initiative has been taken by Asus India as a measure to improvise and
expand the service to its end customers. RT Outsourcing offers integrated
helpdesk, repair and logistics services for IT, telecom, and CE businesses
verticals and has a centralized state-of-the-art call center in New Delhi and
one refurbishment facilities each in New Delhi and Bangalore.