Assembly of ArmTabs to be launched in late May 2014 in MARS Plant free economic zone

The assembly of Armenian tablets (ArmTabs) will be launched in late May 2014 in the Yerevan-based MARS Plant free economic zone, President of ArmTab 
Technology Vahan Shakaryan said at today's conference when replying to ArmInfo's question.  

He said that the production area provided for the project occupies 500 sq m (not 200 sq m as reported earlier). This will allow considerably increasing the output to 100 thsd tablets within the mid-term outlook. He pointed out that the organizations in Armenian Diaspora have already put in their order for 1050 tablets for the representatives of foreign communities.  

Shakaryan said that ArmTabs will cost twice as less as their brand-name analogues and will thereby gain a certain place in the market. He added that ArmTabs are not going to compete with Apple or Samsung. "That kind of approach would simply be a suicide, not a business. We are working under the B2B scheme and our flavor is to be flexible to the corporate customers' offers. The Minno and ArmTab tablets in Armenia will contain various applications meeting the customers' suggestions", he said. Shakaryan also pointed out that Minno and Instigate are negotiating on export deliveries of tablets 
to the United States. The matter concerns the tablets with the Vostan operating system, which has been developed in Armenia and has no analogues.

Shakaryan said that Minno already has sales markets in the United States, Latin America and some post-Soviet republics. Minno's tablets are produced in China, with components designed in the US and Armenia. So as to be good, they were regularly tested by Armenian specialists, which implied additional costs. As a result, Minno decided to move the assembly process from China to Armenia. For this purpose, it set up Technology and Science Dynamics Corp. (TSD), which is supposed to make investments in Armenia and to organize ArmTab's assembly. According to Shakaryan, ArmTab will be sold not only in 
Armenia but also in some neighboring countries.

By Feb 17 www.armtab.org will announce a free tender for ArmTab's design (external, PSP, chip, etc.). The best ideas will be sponsored, with the best specialists to be given jobs in the company. When asked by ArmInfo when ArmTab will be introduced in the national educational system and how much it will cost, Shakaryan said that the tablets will be introduced in 2015 and will be free of charge. The tablets will be distributed at primary schools to be supposedly used by as many as 40,000 children.

ArmTab Technology was set up in 2013 on the basis of the American Minno company by the co-founded of Minno Vahan Shakaryan. In Jan 2014 ArmTab Technology and Armenia's Education and Science Ministry signed a memorandum for using the tablets in the country's educational system, where in 2015 robotics will become a compulsory subject. ArmTab is the first registered company to have been allowed to carry out activities in the Mars Plant's free economic zone, created by Sitronics in 2011. 

The Instigate Group was set up as a training center in 2004 and specializes in designing of electronic and software systems. Currently the group employs 230 specialists, over 80 students and experimenters from Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor, Stepanakert, Goris, Tbilisi and Javakheti region of Georgia.