The product is an Open Source hardware project, which has naturally
used the
Open Source approach to its software development as well. The IISc
has
undertaken the devlopment, with the active cooperation of many
others. Now
that it has reached the kickoff stage, it is possible to reach out
and
commercialise the production. So Encore (as I understand from the
mails, I
do not recall seeing any announcment to that effect, but then I
haven't
surfed thru the site either for a couple of fortnights) is one of the companies that has decided to do this.
Encore has not one of the companies that has decided to do this after the project is over, rather Encore has had vested interests since begining and has been investing on the hardware heavily. So simply put, the situation is like: Encore developed the hardware and the IISc guys developed or rather put together the software, there are just a few instances where the IISc guys have litterally written the device drivers (I had interacted with one of them, a guy called Pai, don't remember is first name though)
If the ex-factory cost is 3k and the retail price is 6k, does anyone
think
this is wrong?
Vickram, the ex-factory costs can't be 3K, just the base component costs are 3K. As in my earlier mail, add the rest of the stuff and voila, you have a "White Elephant".
~Mayuresh