Now get this : Pakistani company to build apps for India’s Aakash tablet

World’s cheapest tablet which happens to be designed and made in India will get its content/apps from a Pakistani company called Pepper.pk.

Aakash is the ‘dream’ of many visionaries who wanted to make computing cheap and available to many students across India. Datawind, the maker of the tablet, also has a retail version called Ubislate.

Kapil Sibal, India’s HRD minister has called out the entrepreneurs for building content for this ultra low-cost tablet. The call was answered from across the border by a company called Five River Technologies which also operates Pepper.pk.

Pepper.pk already has more than 150 apps across various platforms and is looking to customize some of those apps to Aakash tablet. LED Notifier, Photo Editor, and Ninja Fruit Bash are some of Pepper’s famous apps. Clearly Pepper.pk is excited about this partnership to port apps to Aakash tablet.

Here’s a video of Pepper.pk’s enthusiasm about Aakash :

Whatever happened to India?

Making apps for Aakash tablet isn’t the same as making an Android app which runs on a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Aakash runs on an extremely low powered processor and RAM by today’s standards. This makes the app making for Aakash even more challenging.

While I’m happy to know that a special effort is being made to bring content to the low-cost Aakash, why did Datawind had to look across the border? What happened to India’s IT prowess and its mobile app development enthusiasm?

Via Tribune | Five Rivers