As financial inclusion initiatives and e-governance programmes gather pace, Simputer, the symbol of India?s inexpensive computing invention, may be poised for a comeback. Developed a decade ago and aimed at bridging the digital divide, the inexpensive hand-held computer hasn?t sold in large numbers.

Its developers say a market is now opening up for the role it was meant for originally ? that of an all-in-one device, which can be used in rural areas of the country. It is useful where laptop computers may be unwieldy, or as a shared computing device for the local community.

Today Simputer has two emulators. One is a device made by Bangalore-based Encore Software Ltd and the second is ?GeoAmida? owned by Mumbai-based company Geodesic Ltd, which had acquired the start-up company Picopeta Simputers in 2005.

The products are distinct from each other, though both have evolved from the device built by a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 2001.

?Since then, the Simputer itself has evolved and users have evolved,? said Vinay L Deshpande, chairman and CEO, Encore. ?What we have been doing is updating the technology. Those days we didn’t have a fingerprint reader. Now we do.?

The two companies see a potential role for their products in the unique identification number programme or Aadhar, with the capability to integrate several technologies.

Geodesic expects demand to grow for the variants of its product as some of the pilot projects come up for implementation. ?In 2010, it will peak,? said Kiran Kulkarni, MD, Geodesic. It has sold some 15,000 units of the GeoAmida in 14 months.

?It has come full circle. Now there is a major shift as it has become an enterprise device,? said Swami Manohar, who was part of the IIsc team that developed the Simputer along with Encore.

Manohar’s start-up Picopeta Simputers Ltd had built its own product branded ?Amida? whose development ran parallel to Encore’s device. Amida was renamed GeoAmida after Picopeta was acquired by Geodesic.

?In 2004, there were no handheld devices of this sophistication in the market.? ?This is the time for devices like the Simputer, in applications it was meant for,? said Encore?s Deshpande, whose company has been able to sell only about 10,000 – 15,000 units all these years.

?In the next two months I think the picture will be quite different when we will actually have orders. There is one project where there could be as many as 6,000 Simputers required. The customer has specifically said it needs a Simputer.?