There has been lot of saying in regards to the digital divide in India. The DQ Week carried a Feature Article on “Desi PC’s Vs MNCs”. The feature mainly covered the efforts made by the government, public & private sector industries towards the bridging of the digital divide across the Indian Society by providing the PCs at low cost and supporting various projects like tele-medicine, e-governance applications and education aimed at increasing the PC usage in remote areas.

Highly valued, constructive views & concern of Mr. Varinder Singh, MD of delhi-based Millennium Computers, were covered by “The DQ Week”. His vision encompassed the fact that, that while MNC brands like HP or IBM were busy targeting the SMB or the corporate segment but ‘Millennium’ provided IT product and Telecom solutions which clearly left behind the MNC products in terms of true performance and absolute reliability. He clearly iterated that ‘Millennium’ specifically provided loaded services and prevention services which made it stand way ahead of its competitors in IT/Telecom Sector. He was of the view that present customers prefer to deal with a single vendor providing comprehensive solutions rather than having to deal with multiple vendors and millennium surely had a cutting edge over its competitors, as it is into providing one stop solution center for the prospective customers in the IT/Telecom Sector.

He appreciated the efforts made by the government towards increasing PC penetration and bridging the digital divide but showed some concerns with regard to a cumbersome “paper process” involved, while working with Government.

He did add the following while showing his concerns while dealing with Government,” Selling in Govt has been our forte and we possess key competence to address the needs of Government Sector. The procurement procedures in Government are more or less streamlined wherein, barring critical application based procurement, rest all procurement is happening either through open tender or DGS&D. However, we still see a biased ‘mind set’ in Government Sector for opting to have PCs from MNCs and other ‘biggies’. The encouragement needed for the local sector is missing at the moment but with strict procurement guidelines and ‘watch dog’ activities by organizations like CVC – I am sure the future scenario will change to an extent that ‘level playing field’ is provided to everybody,” Presently, ‘Millennium’ is working on various Government Sector focused projects such as GAPP (government assisted PC program) and Rural PC. The company is also implementing various Education and e-learning based programs specifically aimed at the Government Sector.