Are you using Airtel Broadband at your home? If you are then there is a good news for you. Bharti Airtel has partnered with search engine Google to provide customised services like email, chat, and search to its subscribers.
The Airtel will provide customizable homepage and other services powered by Google. Homepage will include Gmail, Google Talk, Search and all the available google widgets that you can put on your home page screen.
Airtel Broadband customers will be able to access all these services with a single sign-on completely free of cost. Users will be able to use Google's suite of advanced utility and communication applications - NetXpert to manage and troubleshoot internet connections;Desktop & Internet Security Services (consisting of Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, Firewall & Parental Control); Web SMS.
So technically, you just need a computer and Airtel broadband. All the basic softwares that you need to work with will be provided. After the launch of GOogle's Doc and Spreadsheet, you don't even need Microsoft Office at all.
What I don't understand is, why Airtel is emphasising on "providing google services for free" ? Aren't those services already free ? Why do you need an Airtel Broadband connection to have all these services? I don't understand how Airtel will benefit from this. I can definitely see what Google will get out of this agreement, millions of users who will use "Google" as their starting page every time they use internet. Google sure will make $$$$ in advertisements.