Country's largest ICT showcase gaining pace

CAN'T WAIT TO SET IT UP: A man rushes out with his newly bought computer (above) at the BCS Computer Show 2005 at the Bashundhara City shopping mall. (Below - from left) The Gaming Zone, a busy chapter of the fair; Tecra, one of Toshiba's latest notebooks under spotlight; and engrossed browsers at the Cyber Zone of the country's largest ICT event.. PHOTO: Syed Zakir Hossain

As many as 104 companies has participated this time taking all the four blocks of the exhibition centre at level 7 of the Bashundhara City complex having 139 stalls in an area of 90,000 square feet.

LGRD Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan inaugurated the fair stressing on further emphasis in English language for greater use of computers in his speech. Science and ICT Minister Moyeen Khan and Post and Telecommunications Minister M Aminul Hoque was also present as special guests at the inaugural ceremony.

Although the response from visitors was anticipated to be around 35,000 per day, due to rain and holiday streaks the response on the first day of the show had turned to be comparatively low.

The Zones
The catches of this year's show has been the Wi-Fi zone for wireless internet experience jointly powered by Micronet and DNS, the BCS Computer Show 2005 Cyber Cafe powered by Zip and Sparkle sponsoring the Gaming zone, all on the same block.

Another site worth a visit is the PC experience zone, sponsored by Intel with processors Pentium 4 506 and 630 with HT (Hyper Threading) technology allowing users to have hands on experience in the processor's performance on gaming, music and movies.

Visiting the past
'Evolution of Computing', a stall worth mentioning has been planned by Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS) exhibiting some resourceful antiques with stories and information being projected on the ancient use of technologies and how computing has developed in recent past.

"BCS computer show was basically meant for an exposure to the computer market in Bangladesh and for exhibitory purposes rather than sales which seem to have changed from its concept", said Abdullah H Kafi, former president of BCS and managing director of JAN Associates, the sole distributor for Canon.

Peeking into the world of Notebooks
Leong Chee Keong, specialist - Distributor Business, South Asia, Computer Systems Division, Toshiba Singapore Pte Ltd was on a two day visit in Bangladesh as he graced the pavilion of Toshiba at the fair and showcased some of the latest technologies they have inserted in Toshiba's three new series of laptops.

Toshiba has introduced the smallest laptop in town replacing their mininote with libretto U100 featuring Clear Super View (CSV) technology, which makes the existing Thin Film Transistor (TFT) display 30 percent brighter. It has a 7.2" display with Intel Pentium M, 1.10 GHz integrating Bluetooth, 3D motion sensor, fingerprint sensor, 512MB of DDR SDR Ram with 60GB hard disks and weighs as low as 980 grams.

More to their inclusion are Toshiba's slimmest laptop, the Portege series and the smartest one under the name Qosmio featuring built in state-of-the-art Harmon Kardon speaker with TruSurroundXT technology, TV tuner and QosmioEngine for advanced video experience along with regular configurations.

Toshiba has also launched a new service, Talk-2-Toshiba, in the country on their 20th anniversary. Users can simply leave their phone number on Toshiba's hotline website for help and support center, and Toshiba will instantly get to their reach as Keong mentioned.

Mac World
Aloha ishoppe, authorised reseller for Adobe products had also showcased Apple's recent launch, the iPod Nano, iPod shuffle, iMac and the Mac mini alongside the Adobe product line. The iPod shuffle is available for Taka 8500 for 512MB whereas the nano costs Taka 17,500 having 2GB storage and Taka 21,000 for 4GB storage.

The lowest configuration for the smart Mac Minis is 1.25Ghz G4 combo, 512MB RAM, 40GB hard disk drive, 32MB ATI Radeon 9200 series AGP with combo drive and Firewire and of course it comes with Tiger OS 10.4. It has been priced Taka 45,000, which if bundled with a 15" CRT Display, USB keyboard and mouse, costs Taka 50,000.

Monitors
LG has introduced the highest resolution desktop monitor, 19" F900B at 1600×

1200 with 0.24mm dot pitch. They are also showcasing their very recent introduction in the market, the L1720B and L1520B slim monitors with the highest dot pitch as they claim having 0.264mm priced around Taka 16,000.

Portals
Cyberjob.com.bd is the latest job portal developed by DNS, for which they are collecting curriculum vitas at the fair, which they plan to put up on their website providing the individuals with user ID and passwords. If distinguished from other job portals it features some internship programmes and are providing specialised services such as HR selection and HR training along with some new job types like freelance and tuitions.

"I am definitely surprised with what BCS has come up with this time. It's a huge area showcasing the latest products. I wish the iPod shuffle was a little cheaper then I would have bought it right from the fair," said Atif Hafizuddin, a computer freak at the fair premises.

The six-day fair deserves a greater response due to its outstanding decorations, displays and international brands showcasing on the local platform even though as the the authorities mentioned earlier, none of the Asian Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation (Asocio) members from outside had participated. Overall fair response is anticipated to reach over 200,000 this time breaking the previous years records as SM Iqbal, president, BCS had mentioned.