Creating the world of Personal Computers in India

By Dave Ghosh, SVP- Global Alliances & Channel Sales, LiveHire, Former Editor, CyberMedia

It is the summer of 1992, and I am in Berkeley, California, sitting in the patio of a coffee shop and enjoying the strong flavor of Columbian beans while the cool breeze flowing in from the Bay is giving some relief from the heat. But the heat is turned up even more, since I am in the presence of two great personalities in the world of Personal Computers.

“So, you worked for PC World India?”, one of them asked with his ever-smiling face. I am just overwhelmed to be in the presence of greatness and somehow elicited a yes.

I could never have imagined in my dreams of befriending these two gentlemen, who were instrumental in innovating and proliferating the use of Personal Computers in the 1980s – in the US.

I left India in 1990 with my parents and settled in the Silicon Valley. Having worked at Dataquest and PCQuest from 1985 to 1990, I quite naturally wanted to further my journalistic career in the US. But the economy was just recovering from the recession and obviously with not too many jobs in the computer magazines, I decided to become a freelance writer and started making my rounds to various expos and conferences, trying to sniff out a story.

It was at one of these conferences that I met Adam Osborne – founder of Paperback Software – the publisher of Lotus1-2-3; founder of McGraw Hill/Osborne and Osborne Computers – the very first portable computer launched in 1981 and the predecessor to the laptop computer of today. Adam, just recently divorced was looking for a place to stay temporarily and decided to move in with me! A house we shared for over two years in Fremont, California.

It was Adam who introduced me to David Bunnell, a pioneer in the personal computing industry who founded some of the most successful computer magazines including PC Magazine, Macworld and yes, PC World!

At the coffee shop, David Bunnell decided to nickname me David – feeling that Debasish is way too complicated.“Your publisher is a pioneer too in India – having the guts to launch a magazine just focused on the world of Personal Computers when there was not a captive subscriber market!”, he added. This coming from someone who himself boldly launched Personal Computing one of the first slick magazines on this topic.  At one point, four of the top 10 computer magazines were ones that he’d started.

At this 35th year celebration of PC World India, now known as PCQuest, I cannot help but think how true that is. An average desktop sold for 5 lacs INR in the 1980s and the extremely high cost reflected the low 2600 number of units sold.  Besides the cost there was a strong sentiment and resistance to the adoption of Personal Computers creating unemployment and massive layoffs. It was a mission that no one even comprehended to take on at that time.

Minicomp, HCL, Wipro, Zenith, and many more companies took the lead in introducing PCs to the Indian market despite the extremely high duties on computers and computer parts. But what really spurred the market was how personal computing can benefit productivity for an organization and positively impact individuals – it was an evangelism at its best and no doubt with risks investing in it. The stories on how lawyers, accountants, desktop publishers, travel agencies, banks, advertising agencies, and even a discotheque called Xanadu!

The stories we churned out month after month on successful use and outcomes across every walk of life and then the famous disk we would insert into every issue with tools and apps for free!

We were all comfortably cruising on Dataquest but were excited and thrilled to be a part of the creation we know today as PCQuest. Today we are all enjoying the fruits of this labor. Laptops and PCs are everywhere and India itself has become a giant in not only exporting IT services but building world class applications for personal computing, used by millions across the world. Without doubt, PC World India/PCQuest contributed to the explosive growth of the personal computing industry in India. The power and influence has largely been forgotten in the internet era, but at the time, in the and 1980s and 1990s, were as authoritative and read as eagerly as journals were in the Bollywood world.

Adam left for India to live in his ancestral home in Kodaikanal and passed away in 2003.  David Bunnell and I became good friends and I met him and his lovely wife Jackie regularly at his home until he passed away in 2016. I still remember him flipping through the pages of PC World India and beaming with pride, as one of his own creations changed the world of personal computing in India.

This is part of our PCQuest 35 Years Series on the Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow of Technology.