Starr Computers’ Mike Mohan reflects on the days when his company pioneered the assembling of computers here in Guyana and began marketing the ‘locally manufactured’ machines under its own brand – Starr. “That was 20 years ago and in those days we had to assemble the motherboards from scratch,” he said. These days, motherboards are modules. You acquire them and you install them as a part for a computer.”
He recalls too the days of working with the constraint of unreliable power supply. “It was tough and sometimes more than a little frustrating,” he says.
In those days the company’s output was a mere three computers per day. Currently, its technical department can churn out up to 100 computers daily.
Mohan says he believes that part of the responsibility of the local Information Technology sector is to reduce the knowledge gap between the sector itself and local consumers. “Not that merchants who import and sell computers do not provide a service,” he said. “But what Starr Computers has been able to do is to create a relationship between Guyanese and the sector by offering a computer under a local brand. I believe that is significant.”
Over more than two decades Starr’s technicians assembled not one but three brands—Tech Media, EDI and Hurricane—under agreements with local outlets. “I suppose you can say that we started those companies out in the IT business,” he says. He knows, he says, of at least one instance in which a Starr brand, produced more than 18 years ago, is still in service today — in the office of an attorney at law.
Not too many people outside the industry would be aware that two decades ago Starr’s model competed with Packard-Bell, IBM and the other established brands. Mohan says that it was more than worth the effort and the time since “in those days the branded computers were high-priced. We were offering a cheaper local brand.”
Mohan pauses to count what he considers to be the achievements of Starr Computers’ pioneering efforts in his fingers. “We created employment; we served as a training ground for local technicians; we gave the country brands of their own and we put other companies in business.”
Starr’s General Manager Rehman Majeed recalls that even in those early days Starr’s brands were sold “under strict warranty. That was how confident we felt about our product. In those days we offered free service.”
When he reflects on the evolution of the production process Mohan says that Starr’s blue ribbon accomplishment has been being able to keep pace with the requirements of the industry. “We’re about solutions,” he says, “and we believe that we have made a reasonable success of it.”
He alludes to one of the company’s recent brands, The Starr X-Finity, a computer which, he says is “affordable” for Guyanese at $69,000. “We are particularly proud of the fact that we have been able to provide a locally assembled computer. It makes us feel good about ourselves and about the role we are playing in the Guyana IT sector.” More than that Starr has entered into an arrangement with a local commercial bank that enables Guyanese to acquire desktop computers without having to spend a fortune to do so.
While Starr’s Brickdam operating complex markets several internationally reputed brands, Mohan says that his technical team is still focused on providing domestic solutions to local IT challenges. His ongoing efforts to introduce internationally renowned companies – like Lenova and Panasonic – to Guyana through distribution arrangements is coupled with efforts being made by his own technical team in Guyana to continue to develop a brand that can hold its own on the local market.
