How PCQuest led to the Personal Computer Revolution in India

Let me give you a very brief history of how this product came about. In 1982, we had started Dataquest.

- PRADEEP GUPTA

PRADEEP GUPTA

Chairman & MD, Cyber Media Group

The question I was asked at that time was: A magazine for Information Technology? Because Information Technology was a fledgling industry, worth less than Rs 100 crores.

The same question got asked to me when we announced in 1986 that we were coming out with a personal computer magazine. Two products for Information Technology from the same media house? It doesn’t make sense! At that time terms like B2B and B2C had not been invented. Otherwise, it would have been very easy for me to convey to everybody that one was a B2B product, and the other one was B2C.

That was the time when PCs had just come about in the world 1981-82. They started becoming big in 1982-83. In India the first PC came I think in early 1985. The total installed base of PCs was just 20,000 when we decided to start a PC magazine. We felt that this was something which was going to become very big, and we have been proved right. Today more than 20,000 PCs get sold every day. A huge transformation has taken place in the PC ecosystem marketplace.