Technology and Telecom Musings

Language Sms

2009-10-05T07:29:00.001-07:00

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Nokia bets big on text based services in India

2009-09-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

Nokia bets on an entire series of text message-based services for India. This is a approach difference from Nokia. The idea is to be customer-driven, not just technology-driven. While it’s not flashy, but it is smart.

Nokia Life Tools enabled “We Meet” social networking will not require the user to have any data/GPRS plans for connecting to friends and networking around. The application specifically developed for Indian markets bypasses GPRS connection, which is still a prohibitively costly option in India and allows one to chat/IM through text messages. While IM is available to users through Telcos/ Chat portals, “We Meet” differentiates itself by software “threading” the messages in chronological order, making it easy to follow the conversation. The effect is something like an instant messaging conversation, but at the fraction of the cost and on devices with no data plans. We Meet is also designed to be location-aware. But instead of pricey GPS, which is typically found only in high-end phones, it tracks people’s location via towers. The system works because, in India, operators give cell towers geographic names. even low-end phones can detect the basic vicinity of specified contacts and display the information in the form of a word or phrase. When people move, the location updates. “It’s not a digital map, but it serves the same function.

Nokia is also organizing a mobile texting based marketplace. Called “MoMart” for “mobile mart,” it consists of product listings delivered by text message. Interested buyers would subscribe to the service and specify the goods they want; the program would then push matches directly to their phones. Listings could be text-only or include an image embedded into the message. They could also be targeted to particular areas using cell-tower location technology, enabling buyers and sellers to meet in person. The programs run on Nokia’s Series 40 software platform, giving them a potential audience of hundreds of millions of phones.

Nokia has some experience it can reference. Last November, the company introduced a set of mobile programs called “Life Tools” that provided agricultural information and educational material to people in rural areas. Life Tools routes information to users via text message and was tested in India before being publicly released. However MoMart and WeMeet target urban users and encourage people to communicate with each other, not just consume content pushed to their phones.

Naturally, there’s an end game to all this work. Nokia hopes users will get hooked on doing more with their phones. Consumers who sign up for his apps will be more likely to adopt data plans in the future. When data plans become mass market, these users can easily transition.

Nokia's social networking bets

2009-09-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

Acquires CELLITY

July 2009: Nokia acquired mobile software firm CELLITY.the deal promises to bolster its social networking competencies–cellity’s Address 2.0 solution enables users to import all their contact data from a wide variety of sources (e.g., cellphone address books, Outlook, Twitter and social networks) and store it in one place, simplifying voice and data connections across the mobile and web platforms.

Acquires Micro networking site PLUM
If one were to believe Nokia Conversations, Social networking is trending to Micro Social networking and that is a trend that Nokia seems to be investing in through its acquisition of PLUM, the micro-social network startup.

Plum will compliment the Nokia’s Social Location services, with the acquired assets becoming part of Nokia’s Services unit. Plum develops and operates a cloud-based social media sharing and messaging service for private groups. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, where users can collect hundreds or thousands of friends, Plum targets smaller social bodies. It is suited for families, co-workers, neighborhoods, sports, schools, faith and any other existing social group. Plum is like Facebook for families, but more private and intimate.

Nokia asks a very different question, a thought provoking one in the age of multiplying networking: Is there a fatigue filling in maintaining large networks?

Quoting Nokia Conversations: “Are we reaching a threshold now where we begin cutting back on the size of our social network contacts pool? Or do we keep collecting connections, and is the skill then in the segmenting those people and customizing the sorts of experiences we want to share with some groups and not others? Does the blurring of the lines between the personal and professional in these social spaces require more privacy customization?”

Business logic wise, this is being seen as an effort to expand the Social Location services approach central to its Ovi Store virtual app marketplace. The positioning is different from Facebook type mass networking to individual and restricted network of families. Augmented with Nokia’s impressive device penetration there may be some promise in the story. We will watch the space for more.

Ref:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/nokia-acquires-microsocial-networking-firm-plum/2009-09-11?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss&cmp-id=OTC-RSS-FMC0#ixzz0S2aMJeUU

http://www.techspot.com/news/36191-nokia-acquires-plum-a-microsocial-networking-startup.html

Nokia's acquisition of Dopplr:Where's the business sense?

2009-09-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

Nokia has been on an acquisition spree lately. Celity, Bit-Side, Plum and now Dopplr. One hear’s about the acquisition of Palm a well. That’s been on air for some-time now and we still don’t seem to have any definite answer on that.

2009 Acquisition of Dopplr

Dopplr, a travel social network site headquartered in London, owned and operated by Dopplr Ltd. in Helsinki, Finland is rumored to have been acquired by Nokia. The travel social networking service is based on the idea of “intention broadcasting” where you publish your intention to visit somewhere in the future, thus making happy coincidences in your social network less and less coincidental (and thus happier, more efficient). An year ago, Dopplr was voted by ReadWriteWeb to be one of the top ten international products of 2008. (Read here).

The purchase price is said to be between €10 million and €15 million. The site has never grown to huge usage, but its core users are passionate about Dopplr. This is in contrast to Tripit, which has a larger audience and caters to the same socialize-while-you-travel idea.

The problem with this idea seems to be that, it belonged as part of something bigger, not as a standalone site. There is too much social capital that is required for yet another “community” website. One single purpose did not warrant another log on, another bit of data input. The idea was nicely executed, however, but not compelling enough on its own. The flip of this is that Dopplr may add up to Nokia’s world well and would get the threshold volume it always lagged.
Interestingly, in 2008, Nokia purchased Plazes - another location-based service with social networking roots. Plaze offered users the opportunity to share locations and activities with friends while geotagging the sites they like. Dopplr serves a similar purpose; however, friends are meant to meet up while traveling.

If this sounds familiar it's because services like Foursquare and most recently Gowalla have gotten iPhone users into the habit of checking in and leaving tips at their favorite haunts and watering holes.

With Plazes in 2008 and Dopplr in 2009, both serving the same purpose, I wonder how Nokia has visioned its advance in Travel social networking. Admittedly, it does seem to have little of any worth in two acquisitions of same nature without doing much on the first one.

Presenting Om Malik’s reaction to Nokia’s acquisition strategy:
“…Nokia was bereft of direction and purpose. You can also extend that argument to Nokia’s acquisition strategy. The company has been buying up tiny companies, hoping to get a bit of web services magic. Unfortunately, all these acquisitions are like Band-aids applied on a cut carotid artery — they wouldn’t do much good unless Nokia has a platform that’s developed specifically for the mobile Internet.”

Ref: http://gigaom.com/2009/09/23/dopplr-commits-hara-kiri-sells-to-nokia/

Indian Telecom Story (Part XVII): Inching to 500 million subscribers by September 2009

2009-09-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

Indian mobile operators added 15.1 million users in August 2009, their second-highest monthly performance ever after 15.6 million that was recorded in March 2009. India had 456.7 million mobile subscribers at the end of August, data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) showed, meaning about 40 percent of India's billion-plus population now has a phone. Total telecom subscriber base increased to 494.17 million at the end of July from 479.07 million a month before.

Tata Teleservices with its Tata CDMA and TATA DoCoMo GSM services recorded the largest number of net subscriber additions. New tariff plans such as per-second billing introduced for GSM customers helped it add a highest-ever 3.4 million subscribers in August.

Bharti Airtel, India's top mobile operator, added 2.8 million users in August to take its base to 108 million. Second-ranked Reliance Communications added 2.1 million to increase its base to 84.1 million.

No. 3 Vodafone Essar, controlled by Vodafone Plc, signed up 2.2 million customers to have 80.9 million.State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the fourth-largest mobile firm, signed up 1.3 million to reach 57.3 million, while fifth-ranked Idea Cellular gained 1.5 million to cross 50 million.

Ref: http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idINIndia-42657320090923?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Indias_telecom_subscriber_base_crosses_479_Million-nid-60534.html

Profiling Booklet 3G, Nokia's foray into Netbooks

2009-09-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

Another dumb dead piece of meat from Nokia stable?

The Finns are turning up the heat and in style! Two back to back announcements on the mobile computing front seems to have turned the spotlight on Nokia World event on September 2nd at Stuttgart, where it will unveil atleast one of the two new flagship devices on which the fortunes of the beleagured Mobile giant would seem to rest. Lately Samsung, Apple and RIM have taken a lot of sheen away from Nokia lately.

The first would be Nokia’s first foray into the wworld of netbooks, with its Booklet 3G. Nokia Booklet 3G is based on Intel Atom processor, features 10.1” screen, weighs 1.25 kilograms, measures “slightly more than two centimeters” and supports 3G/HSPA and Wi-Fi connectivity as well as A-GPS support. The netbook also sports Nokia’s broad suite of Ovi services. Besides, the mini-laptop comes with an HDMI port for HD video out, a front facing camera for video calling, integrated Bluetooth and an SD card reader. It is rumoured that Booklet 3G runs Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, an operating system that lacks certain security and other features that enterprise users may require. Moreover, the system features 10.1” screen, low-performance Atom processor, lacks DVD playback, but weighs 1.25kg, just like a fully-fledged business-oriented ultra low-voltage notebook. Overall, those peculiarities do not make Nokia Booklet 3G as a good mobile PC for travelling.It does pack a 12 hour Hercules battery which is so in line with Nokia’s DNA! The 12 hour battery is a dream and a differentiator in a world of netbook wannabees!

The world of netbooks is becoming increasingly crowded and the party will hit the deck with the iTablet that is scheduled sometime early next year. So long, it is a rat race and Nokia joins the hoard. While there are many views on which way the device evolution is leading upto, my take is that netbooks are just another step in device evolution and this evolution would finally end somewhere in the smartphone space or thereabouts. In that respect, Nokia could have done better getting its smartphone portfolio and user interface in order, rather than descend into the crowded spaces of Netbooks. We will watch how the Booklet with the Nokia tab does for Nokia. If the prices are as indicated, around the $799 range, then this like the N 97 could end up becoming the non starter. Granted that the device looks neat and dapper, but it is only incremental in what it brings to the table not radical enough.

Overall, it remains to be seen, whether Booklet 3G becomes popular. But at this point it does not seem to be a successful return of Nokia to the world of x86-based personal computers. Instead, Booklet 3G looks like a test vehicle to investigate the needs of Nokia’s clients.

Watch the Nokia Booklet 3G on the following YouTube Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw-pOvORKY4

The cost of cloud computing

2009-09-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

Featuring an analysis of the top 3 cloud computing companies by Dion Hinchcliffe in terms of current pricing and feature sets.This is probably one of the first time a cost, feature benefit of cloud computing is being examined and from the looks of it this space is gong to get red hot in future.

Lessons from today’s cloud computing value propositions

Taking a look at all this, I’ve come away with five conclusions about the top providers of cloud computing today given their current pricing and feature sets:

Amazon is currently the lowest cost cloud computing option overall. At least for production applications that need more than 6.5 hours of CPU/day, otherwise GAE (Google Apps Engine) is technically cheaper because it’s free until this usage level. Amazon’s current pricing advantage is entirely due to its reserved instances model. It’s also the provider with the most experience right now and this makes it the one to beat with low prices + maturity. However, expect subscriptions from Azure to give it a run for its money when Microsoft’s cloud platform formally launches in a few months (probably November).
Windows costs at least 20% more to run in the cloud. Both Microsoft and Amazon offer almost identical pricing for Windows instances while Google App Engine is not even a player in Windows compute clouds. There are undoubtedly cheaper offerings from smaller clouds but they are less likely to be suitable for enterprise use, though certainly there are exceptions.
Subscriptions will be one of the lock-in models for cloud computing. Pre-pay for your cloud to get the most value and you’ll get great prices. But you’ll be committed to providers for years potentially without a way to leave without stranded investments.
Better elasticity does not confer major price advantages. GAE is one of the most granular of the cloud computing services, only requiring for you to pay for what you actually use (for example, you have to commit to at least an hour of compute time at a time from Amazon) but does not provide a major cost advantage for large applications.
You can’t pay more for better uptime and existing SLAs are not sufficient for important business systems. It’s unclear why, given open questions about cloud reliability, why no vendors will offer differentiated service where enterprises can pay more for a better SLA. The best you can get right now is also the worst, or 99.95% uptime. This is about 4 hours of expected but unscheduled downtime a year. For business critical applications, this is still too much. This will end up being an opportunity for other vendors entering the space though I expect the Big 3 listed here will improve their SLAs over time as they mature.

Wikipedia goes with "Flagged revisions": Emphasizes importance of discipline in Crowd Sourcing

2009-09-02T08:53:00.000-07:00

Crowd-sourcing to create an online repository of data/information has been a masterstroke from Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia! However, monitoring content in flow and validating data to be “clean” is key to building credibility. A little bit of censorship/discipline of data may actually favor Crowd-sourcing and content democratization!

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia launched by American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales in 2001 with the idealistic intention of being an online repository of all human knowledge, announced this week that it would have to abandon one of its founding principles. To combat a growing amount of vandalism on the website, all entries would be edited before they go up on the site. Wiki announced this on August 31st and will conduct a pilot run over the next fortnight to assess the data validity, cleanliness on these lines.

Previously, any user was allowed to make – almost – any change to any entry: this was hailed as part of the democratizing power of the internet. But a sharp increase in false information – particularly in relation to people still alive – has forced a rethink.

How did the Wikipedia work before?

Wales has been feted as a brilliant business mind and social innovator for tapping into a popular impulse to add to public knowledge that few people knew existed, and even fewer publicly predicted.

Wikipedia still works largely by allowing anybody to login as a user and click on an “Edit this page” tab at the top of an entry. From there it’s simply a case of making changes and saving them, albeit according to a policy on “biographies of living persons”.

Any changes are then filed under the “Edit history” of the page, and the IP address – a numbered identity that shows where the change has been made from – is also kept on record. Pages that contain unverified information are highlighted.

Wiki introduces “Flagged Revisions”

The new policy is referred to as “flagged revisions”. It allows editors to adjudicate (mainly through reference to other news sources) on changes made to the pages of a living person. The flagged revisions will be rolled out by September15th,2009, and Wikimedia, the non-profit organisation that runs the website, will monitor users responses over the trial period.

A team of “experienced volunteer editors” will oversee amendments to such pages. “We are no longer at the point where it is acceptable to throw things at the wall and see what sticks”, said Michael Snow, chairman of the Wikimedia board.

And Mike Peel, its UK spokesman, clarified the intention: “Anyone can continue to edit these articles, but the work of inexperienced editors with less than three days’ experience will be subject to review by more experienced editors”, he said. “This is our attempt to create a buffer to ensure that editors do not commit acts of vandalism.”

Microsoft and Apple ready for war in portable media players

2009-09-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

The war of portable media players has just gotten hotter!

On 24th August 2009, Microsoft anounced the touch screen version of the Zune portable media player which was announced on 26th May, this year was ready for launch and has been christened Zune HD.According to a report on Cnet, Microsoft will launch Zune HD’s sales campaign on 15th September at a price point of USD219 for 16GB and USD289 for 32G in 2 color options of black and platinum. Amongst others, Zune HD will offer several features that are not found on the iPod Touch, including an OLED display, HD radio, and high-definition video playback (using an optional dock accessory). Other new fetures will also feature Internet Explorer Web browser to work hand in hand with other Wi-Fi features (song sharing, Channel streaming, and Zune Marketplace browsing).Zune HD’s browser is optimized for the touch screen with an onscreen keyboard, but there’s no word on whether it will be capable of streaming Flash media (used by sites such as YouTube and Pandora), a capability that is currently lacking in the Safari browser for the iPhone and iPod Touch.Another interesting feature of the Zune HD will be it’s ability to integrate an HD radio tuner which can also transmit artist and song data, very useful for it’s existing FM radio song-tagging and download feature.Other regular features like a photo viewer, games, podcast management, and Zune Pass music subscription integration. Another significant improvement compared to Zune’s previous models will be it’s battery life. Microsoft said that it can have 33 hours of music playback and 8.5 hours of video (with Wi-Fi deactivated). High battery life will be significant since Zune’s previous models are none other than their poor battery performance.Microsoft also plans to dramatically beef up the video download selection of its Zune Marketplace online store, and use the improved storefront to power the movie and TV downloads available to the Xbox gaming console. The new storefront will support movie rentals that can be transferred to Zune hardware (similar to iTunes movie rentals) playable from either your computer or from the Zune HD.

If Microsoft was trying to steal the thunder out of Apple’s media event on 9th September, it almost succeeded. Almost! Apple’s reply came barely 48hrs after Microsoft’s declaration. Zune HD would be met with a fight and Apple would launch the newest versions of iPod Nano and iPod Touch to counter Zune HD! The big story would be the addition of Cameras to both the iPods! Also featuring would be the introduction of iTunes 9 with elements of social networking built into them. Rumours have it that Apple’s iTunes could carry support for Blu-ray discs, visual management and rearrangement capabilities for App Store software.
http://www.gizhq.com/2009/08/24/microsoft-and-apple%E2%80%99s-market-warfare-goes-hardware-with-zune-hd-portable-media-player/
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/08/08/apple-itunes-9-details-blu-ray-app-organization/

Google innovates on maps to show highway and arterial traffic

2009-09-01T03:20:00.000-07:00

Google Maps Will Now Show You Traffic Conditions on Back Roads

Google Maps added another nifty feature that will show live traffic conditions on arterial roads (non-highway roads) in selected cities. Google Maps will also show traffic patterns on main highways as well, helping see the least-trafficked route is for commute between two points.

To enable this feature, the user needs to zoom-in on the city and click the “Traffic” button in the upper-right corner of the map. This will give the traffic conditions of both arterial roads and highways. The colors correspond to the speed of traffic green is little to no traffic, yellow is medium congestion, red is heavy congestion, and red/black is stop-and-go traffic.

Google says that this feature can also be accessed on Google Maps for Mobile, which is particularly useful when trying to figure out the best route on the go. Google also shed a little bit of light as to how they crowdsource traffic info via Google Maps on mobile phones. On enabling Google Maps with My Location, the phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast the user is moving. When Google combines travelling speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, they can get an idea of traffic live conditions. They continuously combine this data and send it back to you for free in the Google Maps traffic layers.

Google assures users that they only use anonymous speed and location information to calculate traffic conditions, and only do so when the user has opted to enable location services on his or her phone.

Profiling Windows Mobile ( Part I): Does Dual platform make sense?

2009-08-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

Windows Mobile is old. The basic UI and underlying technology is the same today as it has been for years. Windows Mobile is not exactly the best mobile solution around. Neither is it “exactly profitable” according to Steve Ballmer! All too often Microsoft has been accused of not having a coherent Mobile strategy. Android which is about a year old now is far more “happening” and “exciting” according to smart-phone users and smart-phone makers. The case in point here is HTC conversion from WinMo to Android. Now, there has been a lot of noise around Windows Mobile 7.0, the purported OS that will resurrect Microsoft’s flailing fortunes with its Apple iPhone like interface, browsing and experience. This one will be Microsoft’s answer to Apple.Microsoft will take Winmo 7.0 to market by Q3/4 2010. That’s a bloody hell of a wait.

Windows Mobile may not be irrelevant, however, it needs a technology facelift — and it needs it now, not a year from now. That is where, Winmo 6.5 intends to step up as a placeholder. Microsoft is expected to officially launch Windows Mobile 6.5 on October 1, 2009 and add an upgrade version with a touch interface in February 2010, the sources indicated citing Microsoft roadmap.Microsoft will not phase out Windows Mobile 6.5 from the market but will lower the OS price, when it launches Windows Mobile 7 scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2010.

This also means that for sometime after the launch of Winmo 7 both the platforms will be around together. Microsoft will be using a “dual-platform” strategy to compete with Android and the iPhone. Winmo 6.5, due to be rolled out October 1, will compete with Android, while WinMo 7 will compete with the iPhone. One cannot also deny the fact that Winmo 6.5 will not compete against Winmo 7.0 and it will take some degree of product planning with the Microsoft product teams to minimize collateral damage between 6.5 and 7.0. For the Microsoft team, 6.5 followed by 7.0 also gives them the following advantages:

Windows Mobile is entrenched in its current form and that inertia is going to be difficult to overcome.
At the same time, there’s pressure to compete at a lower level with a lighter and savvier OS — something 6.5 really isn’t able to pull off

However from the consumer perspective, 2 legacy systems is a bad idea-as Microsoft has proven over and over in various arenas. The other option may be to take 6.5 off the table, focus on 7, provide updates on the current 6.1 version but make sure enough soft back-compatibility to let businesses make the changeover once Winmo 7 is unveiled.

Ref:
http://jkontherun.com/2009/08/20/can-microsoft-turn-the-big-windows-mobile-ship-around-in-time/
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/08/19/microsoft-to-pit-windows-mobile-65-and-7-against-one-another/
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090819PD210.html

Nokia, Apple head to head on Internet Tablets

2009-08-25T07:38:00.001-07:00

Nokia is to have another go at convincing customers they need a tablet PC in their house according to spy shots that have turned up on the internet. Called the Nokia RX-51, the handset, which looks like an XL version of the N97 just released are from an Indonesian website claiming to have got their mitts on a prototype. According to the websitewhere the details were first posted the new model will have a screen resolution of 800 by 480 pixels, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Ziess lens on the back, slide out qwerty keyboard and Wi-Fi. It will run on an OMAP3 ARM Texas Instruments chipset. A SIM card slot also looks to be present.

Not surprisingly considering the history of the company’s N800 and N710 models it will run the Linux Operating System based on Maema 5. Nokia is expected to launch a range of new devices at Nokia World in September. Nokia’s 2009 roadmap shows some interesting devices rather than just more handsets. Could this be launching next month? If that had to happen, Nokia could have a faster “to the market” time compared to Apple which is also expected to showcase the iTablet sooner!

While the RX 51 is only a dirty shot of the final piece, the product architecture is sadly reminiscent of the N 97 form factor, while if the Apple iTablet Pic leaks are to be believed, the form factor is a refreshing change. Add to the mastery over the UI that Apple has and it looks like this showdown is already heavily swaying towards Apple’s prodigy. I would have assumed that Nokia would like to recreate the earlier WiMAX tablet designs which it had shelved an year back. But that doesnot look like to be the case. By designing the Tablet so close to N 97, Nokia is actually stealing all the technology glam and flaunt quotient that Apple seems to be positioning itself on.

Earlier, market researcher Richard Doherty, claimed that Apple has developed two protoype tablet computers: one essentially an oversized iPod touch carrying a 6-inch screen and a second one with a larger screen. Apple has developed prototypes of two different tablet machines — one that resembles a large-sized iPod and boasts a 6-inch screen, and another that features a larger display. The larger prototype is able to run all Mac applications, and allows for video and audio editing and graphic animation, Doherty says. The 6″ one , which looks like a larger iPod, lends itself to watching videos, playing games, and reading e-books. Earlier,Apple had been rumored to have investigated screens for its tablet prototypes ranging from 4 inches to 12 inches, although most rumors have pointed to a screen of approximately 10 inches for Apple’s planned launch product.

Indian Telecom Story (Part XVI): Net GSM Subscriber addition (July 2009) is 14.39 mln.

2009-08-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

The pace of growth of Indian Telecom Industry is any where fom abetting. Its infact kicking up pace as evident from the July 2009 figures of subscriber additions.

Indian mobile telephone operators added 14.38 million users in July, the fastest pace in four months in the world’s quickest-growing wireless market, data showed on Thursday.

India had 441.7 million cell phone users at the end of July, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said in a statement. It is the second-largest mobile market in the world after China.
July’s subscriber additions by Indian firms were the biggest since March, when they had signed a record 15.64 million users. They added 12.03 million users in June.

Sector leader Bharti Airtel added 2.8 million users in July to take its base to 105.2 million. Second-ranked Reliance Communications added 2.4 million customers to increase its base to 82 million.

Vodafone Essar, controlled by Vodafone Plc, signed up 2.2 million customers and had 78.7 million users at end-July.

Microsoft:Difficult moving ahead of IE 6 and XP

2009-08-24T08:45:00.001-07:00

Microsoft has the likes of Linux, Apple, Google, Mozilla as competition on the OS and browser fronts. However, if July figures of browser market shares from net applications are to be believed, Windows XP and IE6 are the biggest threats to Microsoft! In them, Microsoft deals with an Operating System and Browser that refuse to die (much to Microsoft’s discomfort)! MS is all the way up-to IE8 and IE8 is splashing around as the safest amongst browsers (Read here). However it is IE 6 launched in 2001, that remains the leader in browser markets. MS is not amused by the mass of people who refuse to give up IE6.

There are a number of reasons Microsoft isn’t happy with the IE 6 holdouts. First is that they might be easily swayed to Firefox.

IE 6, after all, is so ancient that it doesn’t even use tabs. It’s clearly inferior to any modern browser. Put it next to Firefox, and anyone would want to switch. IE 8, by way of comparison, stacks up well to the most recent versions of Firefox.

In addition, Microsoft has built features into the latest version of IE 8, such as Web slices, that are translatable into increased traffic to Microsoft or Microsoft partners, which in turn translates into cash. The more people that stay with IE 6, the less revenue for Microsoft.

Beyond that, developers have gotten so sick of having to maintain their sites for IE 6, that they may eventually simply stop supporting it. That could clearly be disastrous for Microsoft. In fact, developers are so fed up with IE 6 that a group of developers have formed a group called ie6nomore as a way to try and get people to leave the ancient browser behind.

As for Windows XP, that presents an even more serious problem. Every consumer and every enterprise that doesn’t upgrade from XP represents money being taken out of Microsoft’s pocket. The problem goes beyond people who don’t upgrade their existing PC. There are plenty of XP users who won’t buy new PCs because they don’t want to give up XP. So it’s not just upgrades that Microsoft is losing out on, but new sales as well.

A little scratching behind the surface throws up interesting insights on how MS is unable to chain the twin monsters it had fostered so long. Microsoft caused this turmoil and now they have to deal with it.

Microsoft Vista and Windows 7 are poor excuses for wasting a total of nine years in development. The results are a dozen versions of the same OS that “eats resources like dinosaur eats leafs, has a performance of a Yugo, but generate costs that rival a custom made Maserati”. Even the innovations haven’t been exciting really: A UAC that covers up the still present security holes and Aero that doesn’t work on most systems.

IE6 has been around for a long time, because Microsoft wanted it so. XP will be around for a long time, because Microsoft didn’t produce anything after XP that is worthwhile to use. Microsoft is about to make itself irrelevant out of lack of user understanding and lack of innovation. 9 years of inaction after XP and IE6, relentless versions of the same old XP and IE and a failure with Windows Vista has made customers extremely skeptical about incremental innovation at Microsoft, so much so that there is a reluctance to trust Microsoft’s promises with the Windows 7! It is reasonable to expect that with thousands of developers, millions of dollars spent, and nine years of development time Windows Vista would perform drastically better than XP on the same hardware. That has clearly not been the case with Windows Vista! Users are unwilling to pay for the same performance that he is currently getting with XP. The argument being that after so many years after XP came out, Microsoft couldn’t write an OS that is better than it, but they have not been able to. This could be a hurdle with acceptance of Windows 7 as well. Microsoft needs to watch out!

We’ll have to wait until October and beyond to see whether Windows 7 can solve one of Microsoft’s biggest problems — its aging operating system and browser and jump start its innovativeness in product philosophy!

Is Internet Explorer 8 the safest browser?

2009-08-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Tests by NSS Labs comparing popular browsers for their ability to block web sites pushing malware and phishing have put IE 8 on the top of the other 4 browsers tested: Apple Safari 4, Google Chrome 2, Mozilla Firefox 3, Opera 10 Beta.
While the modest 80’s is a good score compared to the others, it still isn’t enough to make up for a secure net browssing experience. Even if it were 100% (not a realistic possibility) the protection is but one layer in a well-designed system of defense-in-depth. One would still have to use anti-malware protection, DEP, ASLR and up-to-date patches on the system as just some others.
The details of these tests, however do show that Microsoft updates its lists much more efficiently than others, 3 of who use the Google Safe Browsing API. At the end, it’s not just the API that matters, but also about how you use it.
So for once, this is “One up” for Microsoft!
Ref:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351669,00.asp

Gmail: Steaming forward on unlimited memory and Apps bundles!

2009-08-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

Gmail nudged past AOL Email with 37 million unique visitors compared to 36.4 million visitors for AOL (comScore estimates). This puts Gmail in sight of the No 2 player, Windows Live Hotmail, which has 47 million unique visitors. Yahoo leads the field with an impresive 106 million monthly unique visitors. For once the Google Yahoo Microsoft rankings change tags (Google leads the Search market shares over the other two by a heavy margin).

Over the last 6 months, Google’s unique visitors count increased 25% compared to Yahoo’s 16% increase and Hotmail’s 8% increase. AOL lost out the race because of a 22% decline in its Monthly unique visitor count!

While one of the primary lures of Gmail has been its unlimited memory, the race ahead for Google will be decidedly mainly on its ability to keep pumping new enhancements through Google Labs!

Earlier, in the month of July 2009, Google finally took off the beta label off Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and GTalk. Gmail which was launcheed on April, 2004 has become Google’s most popular non search application.The reason for Google to take off the beta label is primarily marketing, since it sells these Google Apps bundled together for businesses for $50/per user/per year. While the removal of the Beta tag doesnot impact individual consumers, the presence of Beta Tag was certainly an issue with business consumers!

Google Apps are now used by nearly 2 million businesses and they account for hundreds of dollars in revenues for Google. For the enterprise customers, Google is also adding two new features: The ability to delegate access to an email account to another person such as an administraative assistant and enhanced retention features for compliance purposes.

Google versus Twitter versus Facebook (and Friendfeed)

2009-08-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Facebook, then is on a roll after a whopping $50 million acquisition of Friendfeed in cash and stocks. World’s largest social network just boosted their technology in real-time updates, conversations and search.
And right after the acquisition news came the update from Facebook that they are rolling out the new Facebook Search which will enable users to search for status updates, photos, notes, images and links. Facebook has effectively nipped one of its major shortcomings in the bud: to somehow index and arrange the millions of data flowing through the social network.
Let’s have a showdown between the three giants on the web right now.

Facebook vs. Twitter
Twitter has been the leader in real time search till now, but by making Facebook real time searchable they have challenged what Twitter wants to do: to be the pulse of the planet. And the FriendFeed technology and interface has always been acknowledged as the best; combine this with the content of 250+ million members from Facebook and you have got yourself a fast, accurate and huge search engine; the true pulse of the planet.
Arranging real time information has always been difficult because it is hard to differentiate the conversations from the chatter. There are times when the relevant talk just gets buried in a flood of useless chatter. The new Facebook will crawl the last 30 days of news feed and bring you results.
Of course, it’s not as if Twitter is going to shut down just because Facebook added some new features. Users have spent months in building relationships and networks there; they won’t shift easily. And I still stand by the idea of using @twitter_handle for calling users and connecting them in 140 words.
Can Facebook duplicate this too?

Facebook vs. Google
You think it’s a co-incidence that the Facebook acquisition and new real-time search engine news were announced on the same day? Entirely wrong, my friends.
I have been a long time believer in the simple fact that if there’s any potential in the future of search, it is in real time. And Google has just been backslapped by Facebook. As I said, the real time search capabilities of FriendFeed combined with the huge mass of Facebook is a power to reckon. The data was always flowing in the Facebook pipes, someone just needed to mine it.
Does the fact that Google also announced new tweaks in the search engine change tilt the showdown in their favor? Well, maybe slightly. But you can keep making search load faster or even give more results; if you can’t tell me what’s happening 5 secs ago then I am not interested. We are all impatient by nature.
Money wise, if the Facebook and FriendFeed brains can crack the real time code, then they can convert the millions of comments and links sharing into billions of keyword searches. And there in lies the business model.
If you look over at Google’s court you will see Google Wave coming soon which promises to be the new definition of web communications. And they are still the forerunners in indexing data accurately (though Bing might be catching up, especially after the Yahoo! deal). Google Android and Chrome in them hold high stakes in transforming how our future generations will see the web, mobile or otherwise.

Google vs. Twitter
I don’t think there are many debates here. Unless Twitter learns how to index the links that flow around in their pipes, most of the talk on Twitter is just chatter. They are definitely the winners here in real time search, while Google leads in quality. And let’s not forget that Twitter still hasn’t found out a monetization plan.
So, this was it; a complete breakdown of the what-is-what of internet. Facebook and Friendfeed will be the beginning of very exciting times on the social media and internet scenes around. Watch this space!

Gartner:Worldwide Q2,2009: Devices and Smartphone Market shares

2009-08-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Inventory Destocking Continues with 13.9 Million Units Shed by the Channel

Worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 286.1 million units in the second quarter of 2009, a 6.1 per cent decrease from the second quarter of 2008, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone sales surpassed 40 million units, a 27 per cent increase from the same period last year, representing the fastest-growing segment of the mobile-devices market

Gartner Findings

Despite the challenging market, some devices sold well as consumers who would usually have purchased standard midrange devices either cut back to less expensive handsets or moved up the range to get more features for their money

Touch-screen and QWERTY devices remained a major driver for replacement sales and benefited manufacturers with strong, touch-focused mid-tier devices.

The decline in average selling price (ASP) accelerated in the first half of the year and particularly affected manufacturers that focus on mid-tier and low-end devices, where margins are already slim.

The recession continued to suppress replacement sales in both mature and emerging markets.
The distribution channel has dealt with lower demand and financial pressure by using up 13.9 million units of existing stock before ordering more.

The gap between sell-in to the channel and sell-through to customers will reduce in the second half of 2009 as the channel starts to restock.

Nokia maintained its leadership position, but its portfolio remained heavily skewed toward low-end devices. Its flagship high-end N97 smartphone met little enthusiasm at its launch in the second quarter of 2009 and has sold just 500,000 units in the channel since it started to ship in June, compared to Apple’s iPhone 3G S, which sold 1 million units in its first weekend.

The right high-end product and an increased focus on services and content are vital for Nokia if it wants to both revamp its brand and please investors with a more promising outlook in ASPs and margins.

Samsung and LG both had a very strong second quarter of 2009 with sales of 55 million units and 30.5 million units, respectively. Samsung’s touchscreen devices, qwerty phones and smartphones drove sales in mature markets, and Gartner expects it will continue to gain market share in the second half of 2009 to close the gap with Nokia. Gartner expects LG to keep moving into lower-tier devices to drive growth in emerging markets and be well-positioned to take advantage of China’s 3G rollout as it can deliver good-value-for-money devices.

Motorola’s sales of 15.9 million units were slightly better than expected, but its presence has rapidly concentrated on the Americas, and it has lost most of its share of the Western European market, where it sold fewer than 1 million units in the second quarter of 2009. Most operators and customers will be waiting for Motorola’s new Android-based products planned for the fourth quarter of 2009.

Sony Ericsson’s market share dropped 2.8 percentage points year-on-year in the second quarter of 2009 but its volume dropped 41 per cent. Although the market environment was challenging, Gartner attributes Sony Ericsson’s poor performance to its uncompetitive range of handsets.Sony Ericsson has neglected to exploit key trends such as qwerty products for messaging and e-mail, internet browsing and navigation.

If SE wants to build the presence of its three new products announced this quarter in the channel and capture Christmas sales, the products need to come to market early in the fourth quarter of 2009,

Smartphone sales were strong during the second quarter of 2009, with sales of 40.9 million units in line with Gartner’s forecast of 27 per cent year-on-year sales growth for 2009
Given the higher margins, smartphones offer the biggest opportunity for manufacturers. It is the fastest-growing market segment and the most resistant to declining ASPs.

Apple’s expansion into a larger number of countries in the past year has produced a clear effect on sales volumes, as have the recent price adjustments on the 8GB 3G iPhone. Sales of 5.4 million units in the second quarter of 2009 indicated a 509 per cent growth in shipments and helped Apple maintain the No. 3 position in the smartphone market, where it has stayed since the third quarter of 2008. Apple brought its much-anticipated new device — the iPhone 3G S — to market at the end of the second quarter of 2009, but its full potential will only start to show in the sales figures in the second half of 2009.

At the high end of the smartphone market, HTC remained in the No. 4 position behind Apple, where it has been since the third quarter of 2008. It reported lower expectations for the second half of 2009 due to product delays and now expects 2009 revenue to decline by low- to mid-single digits year-on-year, far below its previous outlook of 10 per cent annual growth.

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Symbian held 51 per cent share, down from 57 per cent a year ago, while RIM and Apple grew their shares year-on-year. Android’s share was just under 2 per cent of the market and more Android-based devices will come to market in the fourth quarter of 2009, intensifying competition in the smartphone OS market, particularly for Symbian and Windows Mobile. Microsoft’s share continued to drop year-on-year to account for 9 per cent of the market in the second quarter of 2009.

Microsoft licensees HTC and Samsung continued to add features to their own interfaces, on top of Windows Mobile, to create more competitive products and make up for the usability constraints of the Microsoft platform.

This quarter also saw the debut of the long-awaited Palm Pre based on the new web operating system.

This device attracted a lot of media attention but showed mixed results at the cash register as sales only reached 205,000 units. Palm currently ranks tenth in the smartphone market and Gartner remains concerned about its ability to gain traction outside the US market, where its brand is less strong.

For the remainder of 2009, manufacturers must offer products with the features that consumers and operators are demanding most strongly — like touchscreens, focus on user interfaces and application/content ecosystems — and work hard to keep operators loyal.Competition is expected to intensify in the second half of 2009. Mobile operators are likely to drive competition among manufacturers as they start selling e-book readers and mini-notebooks from other manufacturers to foster mobile broadband subscriptions. Operators are also starting to subsidise e-book readers and mini notebooks on contract and this means that there will be less subsidy available to drive sales of mobile phones and smartphones. In turn, operators will demand lower prices from phone manufacturers, which will be under even more pressure to deliver strong feature sets at the lowest possible price.

Reactions on Facebook-Friendfeed: Robert Scoble

2009-08-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

Robert Scoble, American blogger, technical evangelist, and author, profiled the Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed and was one of the first people to interview Friendfeed’s founders post the acquisition event. Here’s presenting his reaction and comments to the acquisition:

1. This is Facebook firing a shot at Google, not at Twitter. Twitter is mere collateral damage but Facebook knows the real money in real time is in search. FriendFeed has real time search. Google does not (although it’s bootstrapping there very fast, some of my FriendFeed items are showing up in Google within seconds now). Facebook has 300 million users. FriendFeed and Twitter do not. Google has Wave coming, along with some other things this fall and that forced a shotgun marriage between FriendFeed and Facebook.

2. FriendFeed is dead. I will keep using it until Paul unplugs the last server, which could be years, but let’s be honest, the FriendFeed engineering team will make a MUCH BIGGER impact if it gets real time search working for 300 million people.

3. FriendFeed’s social graph? Unknown what happens to that. Facebook doesn’t allow me to have more than 5,000 friends unless I move them all over to my Facebook Group, which I guess I’ll start doing now.

4. Facebook’s news feed? If I were Zuckerberg I’d keep the one they have but roll in some of the nice FriendFeed features like real time comments.

5. Places that this marriage is great?+ Profiles. FriendFeed doesn’t have them, Facebook does, so this makes everyone on both sides of the fence better off.+ Applications. FriendFeed doesn’t have them, Facebook does.+ Friend management. Facebook’s management and privacy features are lots better than FriendFeed’s were.+ Photos and videos. These are things that FriendFeed didn’t do much of, and relied on other services for.

6. Things I’m sad about?+ FriendFeed’s groups were better for me than Facebook’s were.+ FriendFeed’s community was geekier and more fun, for me. No (or almost no) celebrities, very few jerks, lots of engagement that I don’t get on Facebook, and no spammers.+ FriendFeed’s rules were much looser and I’ve never heard of someone legitimate getting kicked off of FriendFeed. If there’s one part of Facebook that scares me, it’s this one.+ This guarantees that no developers will jump into the FriendFeed pool, at least not now. Too many uncertainties. So, if you were waiting for a great iPhone app, or for Seesmic to get FriendFeed capability, I doubt that will happen.

7. What does this mean for Twitter? Well, Twitter’s search really sucks compared to FriendFeed’s, so Twitter will hunker down, I’m sure, and get its search up to par. On FriendFeed you could do far better filtering and you can look back to the beginning of FriendFeed, while Twitter only shows you the last few days. On FriendFeed the search was also true real time.

8. What would I do if I were at Facebook? I would get real time search done as fast as possible for all users. I would find a way to get FriendFeed users into Facebook (and bring their social graph’s with them, we’ve worked hard to build those graphs and they are different than the ones I’ve built in Facebook already). I would look at building FriendFeed as an R&D garden for Facebook. Let the FriendFeed team iterate and build fun stuff, but then have the 800 employees at Facebook take the innovations and roll them into FriendFeed.

The future of social media (in context of the Facebook - Friendfeed marriage)

2009-08-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

The Facebook and the Friendfeed marriage could have much larger future implications on social networking, content indexing and real time search. In the triangulur contest between Google, Facebook and Twitter, each of these players had one big speciality. Facebook has bad search for the vast quantity of content generated by its users worldwide. Google has good search but is not optimized for breaking news or user generated content. Twitter has adequate search for its content, generated by a small percentage of its users generating to keep the rest of the world up to date on breaking news; however, at 45M users it’s dwarfed by Facebook’s 250M users.FriendFeed has a powerful search engine on status and aggregates from multiple sources, including Twitter and Facebook, but doesn’t have the cache of any of the aforementioned players.

So Facebook + FriendFeed combination becomes interesting because 1) it allows Facebook to tap into the real-time stream of consciousness that Twitter does so well, and 2) it acquires a real-time search engine to further support its efforts to improve search (which has been in beta testing since June), including the recent incorporation of Microsoft’s Bing. This, on the surface, would seem as though the “Face-Feed” combination is taking direct aim at Twitter (#1) and Google (#2). (or is it the other way around?)

It’s clear that social media is becoming a core asset that the big players want to protect and cultivate. Once the dust settles, it will have a fundamental impact on how brands communicate with consumers.

Enter Blue Ray

2009-08-14T06:04:00.001-07:00

Having lost the video format war, Toshiba Corp is now getting into manufacturing of Blu-Ray disc products. The Japanese electronics maker had backed the high definition video format, HD DVD against the Blue Ray Disc association. The Blue ray association is backed by Japanese rivals Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp. This move is reminiscent of Sony’s strategy after its Betamax videotape standard lost to Panasonic in the 1980’ss and Sony then ended up making VHS products.

It was speculated that Toshiba may skip making Blue Ray products and instead try and develop an even more sophisticated video technology. This move could also have been because of the fact that Toshiba has registered its biggest loss ever (444 billion yen, around $3.5 billion) in the last financial year. Given the economic sluggishness Toshiba may not be keen on investing into a higher order video format standard and has taken to the Blu Ray instead.

State of Social Networking Sites in India

2009-08-14T05:59:00.001-07:00

According to Internet market research firm comScore Inc., the country had 34.6 million Internet users (who access the Web from their homes/offices) in June, of which at least 65%, or 22.61 million, accessed social networking sites. This is a trend that is in line with the global trend,where social networks and blogging sites have dislodged personal email in the hierarchy of the online world (Nielsen 2009).

Social networking sites started gaining traction in India some three years back with the rising popularity of global sites Facebook and Orkut.Soon, Indian sites caught on; Ibibo.com, Indyarocks.com, Bharatstudent.com and Bigadda.com emerged.Today a dozen and more Indian websites exist. The Indian Social Networking scene is suddenly a hot cake and everyone wants a piece of it.There are atleast 12 or more websites in the mrket.

However,the two global first-movers —Orkut and Facebook—account for at least 90% of the market, according Gartner India. That leaves very little headroom for the “others” to partake their audience and advertisers. The Social media story is likely to pan out into a lot more fringe players in the next 1 or 2 years before the ineviatble shake out happens. Everyone is experimenting with different things (to make money from advertising). Some things will work; some things won’t.

“A big percentage (of these networks) will not survive.” says Ashish Kashyap, CEO at Ibibo, a social networking site that has positioned itself as a talent-showcasing platform. “There is no space for ‘me toos’…you have got to differentiate and solve a problem.”

From the first estimate of a user myself, Differentiation and Stickiness would be based on the following factors:

1. Site Followers: Users and Content beget more users and better content. While the threshold for a site business model would vary on many factors, it is important that target volume users are met within a optimum time frame.

2. Rich user experience at the site which would include real time communication, Chat, Applications,Video, Audio, Games,Blogs, User generated contents and reviews and more.

3. Site USP: The age old paradigm of positioning the platform will be crucial in establishing the site audience and stickines.

4. Relevant content and user discussion/interaction on subjects.

5. Accessibility through Mobile Texting / internet mediums: The best exmaple of this is the Facebook mobile which allows users to access a lite version of Facebook for the mobile phones. Better still are user updates through SMS texting on their mobile phones, which is also being used as a key service proposition by a few Telecom operators.

6. Content localization/Vernacularization: While most of the internet users are urban and the medium of communication is thus English, India being India, the importance of vernacular content would be an important volume builder in times to come.

7. Celebrity endorsers: When BigAdda had to launch, all it did was to sign up Amitabh Bachchan as a blogger on its network. Traffic on the site multiplies (though most of the ecelebrity blogs are actually quite unreadable and narcissist in my opinion.

8. Building Communities around the content and the website

9. Content co-creation with the user

Facebook buys out Friendfeed

2009-08-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

Facebook, the largest networking site in the world is all set to buy Friendfeed, an up-and-coming social media startup, lets people share content online in real time across various social networks and blogs. The deal is worth $50 million with $15 million in cash and $35 million in Facebook stocks. Facebook had in 2008, tried to snap Twitter for $500 million.This is yet another major partnership deal after the recent Microsoft-Yahoo search deal.

What Facebook gains in this acquisition is the engineering talent at FriendFeed, rather than the actual product, which has won critical praise, but lagged in popularity compared to Twitter.FriendFeed was looked upon as close competitor of Twitter, microblogging service for the same task – sharing information online.FriendFeed’s 12-employee team will join Facebook family. The four founders of FriendFeed – Paul Buchheit, Bret Taylor, Jim Norris and Sanjeev Singh, will take senior positions in Facebook’s Engineering and Product teams.FriendFeed’s four founders are former Google Inc employees who count well known products like Gmail and Google Maps among their accomplishments.

Commenting on the post-acquisition process, Marc Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, stated that in the present FriendFeed will work as it is as long as the founders lay out future plans for integration of both services. Facebook’s FriendFeed acquisition is buzzed as directly challenging Google and leap frogs Twitter

Commenting on the acquisition, Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang said that the having the founders of Friendfeed on the Facebook team would be beneficial for Facebook in the long run, because the 4 founders were very competenet in building scalable, social applications. Owang also commented that Facebook must make the content generated within Friendfeed more accessible to the public instead of only to closed networks of Facebook friends, so that Facebook can sell more ads.

This is in line with Facebook’s policy.Earlier this year, Facebook announced changes to its privacy controls to allow people to make their status messages and posts viewable to a broader Internet audience.

Where does that put Google and Twitter?

Twitter has been facing some problems like the recent worm and DDoS Attack, database upscaling issues. People cannot see their tweets older than two days or to a week if they don’t tweet frequently. So having that glittering five figure updates is pointless since you’ll never get to see your first update.

In May 2009, Google was eyeing to acquire Twitter since the search giant was interested to venture into real-time search. However, the indexing of old Twitter updates for real-time search results has been quite an issue lately. If Google buys Twitter then all the search excellence can be used for tweaking Twitter’s search code.

Facebook will now make use of ex-Google’s excellence in expanding Facebook platform to the next paradigm: Real-time search. Google and Twitter could quickly need to tie up for mutual partnership on Twitter’s search technology. Else, Facebook and Friendfeed could prove to be a more formidable threat than Microsoft and Yahoo Combine!

Ref: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Facebook_Acquires_Friendfeed_To_Fight_Google/551-105429-643.html;
http://in.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idINTRE5794Q420090811?sp=true

Why HTML 5 is important for mobile development

2009-08-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

Reproducing a Blog from Jason Grisby, VP Mobile and Web Strategist, Cloud Four on the emergence of HTML 5 as the future in Mobile Development, over running Microsoft (Which according to him has no mobile strategy) and Blackberry as the competing startegy.

Ref: http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/08/heres-looking-at-you-html50_03.html; http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/08/heres-looking-at-you-html5.html; http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/08/heres-looking-at-you-html50.html

With the effective cancellation of the W3C's XHTML2 project, HTML 5 emerges as the foundation for future Web development.

And, under the pressure of mobile Web development, it will very quickly become very important, says Jason Grigsby, Vice President, Mobile and Web Strategist, at Cloud Four, a Portland, Oregon Web and application development shop.

In a blogpost today, Grigsby writes "At the risk of being accused of wearing mobile-tinted glasses,HTML5 is going to big a deal and it will be relevant much sooner than people think."

That's because, Grigsby says, HTML 5 provides a range of key capabilities that mobile developers targeting the new breed of Web browser will enthusiastically embrace. The key HTML 5 features include: offline support, via the AppCache and Database APIs for storing stuff locally on the device; Canvas and Video to simplify adding graphics and video to a page while ignoring plugins; advanced forms, which can handle tasks like field validation on the mobile browser; and the GeoLocation API, which Grigsby points out is not actually part of HTML 5 but often crops on phones that are supporting HTML 5.

Not being a developer myself, I've been aware of the XHTML2 controversy but haven't followed it closely. Grigsby has a serveal links to sites which go deep into the merits of both standards.

But his more technically more fluent post, with the added insight of actually being a code writer, reflects the basic theme of of our recent coverage: that the most modern browsers, many based on the Webkit engine, coupled with HTML 5 support, offer a very simple to use platform for building very sophisticated mobile Web applications. The same basic technologies in fact are being embedded in both Palm's webOS and Google's just-announced Chrome OS for exactly those same reasons.

The two key players in the HTML 5 development are the W3C's HTML Working Group and the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). That latter was specifically formed to develop HTML and APIs for Web application development.

Grigsby says that's an important emphasis, one that seems at least for now somewhat orthogonal to the debate over the current HTML 5 shortcomings, principally it's lack of extensibility. While important, that's less of an issue for mobile application developers, if I read him correctly.

He also counters those who argue HTML 5 is irrelevant for the moment because it's not supported by Microsoft Internet Explorer, Grigsby argues it's that very fact that means mobile will drive HTML 5 adoption: "The iPhone, Google Android, Nokia, and the Palm Pre are all based on the open sourceWebkit browser engine. Those phones represent somewhere around 65% of smart phones sold."

It's not clear, he argues, that Microsoft even has a viable mobile strategy, since it's principal Windows Mobile implementer, HTC, has publicly indicated it expects the Android OS to be on half of all the mobile phones it ships in 2010. UPDATE: Jason tells me that the HTC move is rumored, not a fact.

The real obstacle to HTML 5, Grigsby says, somewhat surprising is RIM's BlackBerry OS, with its companion proprietary Web browser. But for both platforms, he notes, Opera's browser is available for download. "And Opera is one of the leading developers of HTML5."

Fixing Nokia

2009-08-06T00:57:00.000-07:00

Reproduced from a Forbes article by Lionel Laurent:http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/27/nokia-mobile-motorola-intelligent-technology-nokia_print.html

No one at Nokia is sleeping easily these days.

While reporting a second-quarter sales drop of 25% and a profit dive of 66% earlier this month, the mobile phone giant admitted that it had to "develop new skill sets." And how.

Despite its weak quarter, the Finnish company is still at the top of the sales charts, moving 100 million units on a quarterly basis. Industry watchers are worried that it is starting to look a lot like Motorola in the mid-1990s--a mighty incumbent losing its edge to rival upstarts. There's concern that Nokia is a hardware whiz living in a world increasingly dominated by software; and despite its forays into online services and application stores, it needs a big refresh to catch up.

So, what should Nokia do?

Improving its user interface for handsets would be a good start. Nokia's Symbian operating system is still widely used, but the "S60" interface is showing its age. Gartner Research analyst Carolina Milanesi says that while Apple's rival iPhone interface is very smooth and "horizontal," requiring only one or two steps from the start menu to perform a function, S60 takes the user "deeper and deeper" into a Web of choices and processes. The problem is exacerbated by Nokia's attempts to shoehorn S60 into new touch-screen phones, whereas Apple's system used touch-screen technology from the beginning.

A better interface would also help Nokia close the gap between its online services, which offer everything from applications to music, and its technology-rich handsets. For instance, Nokia's high-end handset, N97, has a more powerful camera, better map navigation and wider multimedia capabilities than the latest iPhone. But N97's less sophisticated interface limits the user's ability or desire to connect with Nokia's services, giving Apple a clear advantage.
DnB Nor analyst Fredrik Thoresen says the gap makes it nearly impossible for users to access Nokia's online services. "It's a hassle. I've never done it," he says.

It's surprising that Nokia has fallen behind, given that it first announced its foray into online services back in 2007 with an app store it would call Ovi. Indeed, the company appeared ahead of the game in controlling the end-to-end chain from hardware to software. But integrating these services has proven difficult, partly due to resistance from network operators--fearful that Nokia is stealing their thunder--and also because Nokia's user base is so broad that even something as simple as a one-stop online shop threatens to become an unwieldy behemoth.

But if Nokia can keep hammering away at Ovi, which launched in May, giving it mass-market appeal with an improved and easy-to-use handset interface, all the company would need to add is a killer touch-screen design. Oppenheim analyst Nicolas von Stackelberg thinks Nokia should use capacitive touch technology, a la iPhone, which responds more accurately to the finger's electrical conductivity.

In terms of Nokia phones' display screens, MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen says the ideal size is 3.5-inches, which would make playing games and browsing the Internet a lot easier. He also believes Nokia should release more touch phones at $200 and below, like the music-oriented 5800 and upcoming 5530, to gobble up users in low-end emerging markets before Apple and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion get there.

"The game of migrating new features into cheapie phones is the one that turned Nokia into a behemoth in 1997 to 2007," says Kuittinen. "That is the game that must be the core of the comeback plan in 2010 and beyond."

And a comeback is exactly what Nokia should be planning. For the past two years, the company has rested on its laurels in the face of Apple's success. By admitting it has new skill sets to learn, perhaps Nokia is ready to fix its problems, catch up to Apple and maybe even surpass it in the software and design arenas.

Let's hope Nokia can silence, once and for all, its comparisons to Motorola.

Yahoo: The road forward?

2009-08-06T00:32:00.000-07:00

A new era at Yahoo began the minute when Carol Bartz signed the agreement with Microsoft, giving the right to conduct searches on Yahoo’s huge network of Web sites to Microsoft in exchange for 88 percent of the revenue generated by Microsoft’s Bing. Having finally offloaded its search business to Microsoft; all Yahoo has to do is figure out what comes next.
Yahoo is first and foremost a media company and is in the business of attracting as many people to its properties in hopes of selling lucrative ad deals on those pages. While Google is has the best combined relevant search results and efficient advertising, the ads on pages model has not always worked on the internet.
The tie up with Microsoft Yahoo seems to signal that Yahoo doesn’t have the ability or the will to take on Google directly. Carol Bartz has been arguing that the company should focus on what it does best and leave the technology to others.”We’re not a search company,” Bartz had said earlier, discussing how Yahoo is a different company than Google or Microsoft. Now that she’s made that distinction official, what is Yahoo?

It’s where people find relevant and contextual information.”It’s news, it’s sports…home page, mail. It’s a fabulous place.” (The definition thus being very diffused). That’s a content company, turning the focus to how Yahoo should produce the kind of content and services that will keep existing users coming back for more and attract new ones to the site. One wonders if Yahoo just turned itself into a bigger version of AOL.
On the services side, some areas, like Yahoo Mail, Flickr, and Messenger, are clearly where Yahoo is unlikely to take its foot off the gas pedal. Same for Yahoo’s mobile strategy, a part of the Internet that is very much up for grabs, unlike the more mature PC-oriented Internet experience.
So Yahoo isn’t getting out of the technology business entirely. Yahoo will continue to need ways to keep its new home page hooked into the wider world of social networking, real-time communication, and things not even thought of yet, and that will require smart, savvy engineering.On the content side, Yahoo will have to figure out whether it needs to expand its current offerings, pare down some of the less frequently used products, or tap the outsourcing strategy in this area as well. There’s been quite a lot of turnover in recent years at Yahoo, but there are probably enough people left who remember that the last time Yahoo tried to play a prominent role in designing its own content, it didn’t end well.
Is Yahoo on a path to becoming the world’s biggest content aggregation site?There’s enough guaranteed revenue in the deal to keep things quiet for a while, but it’s going to take two years–at minimum–for it to substantially shape the company. What will Yahoo look like then?
Ref: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10299313-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Heres looking at you: HTML5.0

2009-08-03T23:56:00.000-07:00

Continued from earlier posts
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/08/heres-looking-at-you-html5.html
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/08/heres-looking-at-you-html50.html
The Pressing Need for HTML5 is More Features

HTML5 needs to move past simply providing geo-location and offline storage and into more of the device characteristics. The Palm Pre’s WebOS had to forge forward in defining its own APIs for accessing things like the address book, camera, and accelerometer.
This problem is only going to continue to become more pressing. People are clamoring to develop mobile applications that take full advantage of the capabilities of devices.

Smart Phones Do Not Equal All Phones

It is important to note that while HTML5 will be very important for smart phones, it won’t reach feature phones for sometime. Therefore, content publishers should continue to work with device databases for content adaptation.
Again, web application developers can make different choices and tradeoffs than content publishers. If one is building an application that combines cameras with geo-location information, one has already narrowed which handsets you support.

Features will Drive HTML5 Adoption

One can take a learning from moving users from HTML working drafts to HTML 3.2.A large part of it is due to the fact that you could do things in HTML3.2 that you couldn’t do in previous versions.
That’s not to say that recent web standards like XHTML haven’t provided new features, but that none of the new features were game changers. Geo-Location is a feature that can create businesses. The same is true of access to other device characteristics.
For this reason, web developers who start looking at mobile development will not shy away from building using HTML5 even if it limits their audience.

The Mobile Perspective on HTML5

From a mobile perspective—and perhaps from the perspective of web applications generally—HTML5 cannot come quickly enough.
As Vic Gundotra, Google Engineering vice president and developer evangelist, recently pointed out, not many companies are rich enough to develop native applications for all mobile platforms.
The mobile web provides are the best hope for building a cross-device mobile ecosystem. HTML5 is a critical piece for the mobile web.

Here's looking at you: HTML5

2009-08-03T01:53:00.000-07:00

Continued from earlier post: http://ronnie05.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/vvlj/

Lack of Extensibility

One of the new things HTML 5 sets out to do is to provide web developers with a standardized set of semantic page layout structures. However, the new elements may not be entirely forward-compatible, as they are constrained to today’s understanding of what makes up a page. An extensible mechanism, although less straightforward, would offer more room to grow as the web evolves.HTML5 does add new elements like header, nav, article, section, aside, and footer which expand the structural definition of a page, but does not provide the level of extensibility that people have been seeking.

Documents versus Applications:

From a future perspective, HTML5 is seen as a document publishing, however, in its present avatar it is painfully evident that it lacks the tools it needs to describe the documents sufficiently.

There is also a burning need to address the short-comings of HTML for web applications —especially when it comes to being able to build rich web applications for mobile devices.

While most of the smartphones in the world use the Webkit in some form or the other and HTML 5 will have to build upon this platform as a base, it is worth bringing to notice that Webkit Does Not Equal HTML5 Support… Yet

To be clear, just because a device uses webkit does not mean that it has the latest version of Webkit and can use HTML5. Recognizing the market share of Webkit is important solely as an indicator that a significant portion of smart phones will have access to HTML5 sometime in the near future.

There is great incentive for mobile operating system vendors to upgrade to the latest versions of Webkit. They see the success that the iPhone has had and the fact that one of the main contributors to that success was the browsing experience. They understand that not many companies can afford to develop native applications for all of the various platforms which makes the features of HTML5 attractive.

Because of this, expect browser improvements are a high priority for mobile operating systems.

Here's looking at you: HTML5.0

2009-08-03T01:40:00.000-07:00

World Wide Web Consortium’s decision to not renew the XHTML 2 Working Group charter effectively means that XHTML 2 (as a web standard) is effectively dead. In its place as the future of web development stands HTML5.

Given the emergence of "mobile internet" as the next revolution in internet medium, HTML5 is going to big a deal and it will be relevant much sooner than people think. Adoption of HTML5 will be driven by the needs of mobile, not the needs of desktop developers.

When Can We Use HTML5?
HTML5 did not really matter until IE supported whatever new standard for mobiles or IE no longer has the majority of the market share.

Given the fact that IE doesnot have a mobile bias, the smartphone growth will drive HTML5 adoption. The iPhone, Google Android, Nokia, and the Palm Pre are all based on the open source Webkit browser engine. Those phones represent somewhere around 65% of smart phones sold.If you look past mobile phones to other mobile devices like the iPod Touch, Nokia’s internet devices, and the upcoming Google Chrome, you see that Webkit is even more broadly distributed.

The two major platforms not using Webkit are Windows Mobile and Blackberry. Some of the capabilities of HTML5 are available to Windows Mobile users via the Google Gears plugin.
Blackberry has its own specialized browser not built on any of the major browser engines. It only recently started handling html, css and javascript reasonably well, but still is insufficient and buggy compared to other browsers.

Fortunately, for both Windows Mobile and Blackberry, Opera’s browser is both available and popular. It is consistently one of the top if not the top download on mobile applications sites. And Opera is one of the leading developers of HTML5.

HTML5 for Mobile
HTML5 is a critical step for mobile web application development. Some of the key elements that it provides are:

Offline Support — The AppCache and Database make it possible for mobile developers to store thing locally on the device and now that interruptions in connectivity will not affect the ability for someone to get their work done.

Canvas and Video — These two features are designed to make it easy to add graphics and video to a page without worrying about plugins. When supported by the phone’s hardware, as is the case with the iPhone, they provide a powerful ways to get media into a page.

GeoLocation API — This is actually not part of HTML5, but is a separate specification. That said, it is often bundled together because the mobile phones that are including HTML5 are generally supporting the GeoLocation API.

Advanced Forms — Even simple things like the improvements in HTML5 for forms could make life easier for mobile applications. Fields that can be validated by the browser are improvements for mobile devices. The more that can be handled by the browser means less time downloading javascript code and less round trips to the server if validation can be found before the form is posted.

Most importantly, nearly all of the hybrid applications frameworks—Phone Gap, QuickConnect, RhoMobile, Titanium Mobile, and others—rely on HTML5 features to provide a rich application experience.

Anticipation @ Apple: iTouch takes the digital connect further

2009-08-01T03:18:00.001-07:00

Digital content has been available for years, but the right vehicle to consume the content has been lacking. Will Apple bridge this gap with the iTouch (iTablet in a first few posts)

In March, Reuters reported that Apple had ordered a substantial batch of 10 inch touch-screens from Taiwan to be delivered in Q3 of 2009. In April, the Wall Street Journal reported that Steve Jobs was actively involved in the development of the Tablet. In July, the China Times reported that Apple will debut their new product in October for $800 after agreeing to production deals with Foxconn, Wintek, and Dynapack. TheStreet.com is reporting that Apple will release a subsidized Tablet through Verizon. In the July earnings call, Apple management went out of their way to trash the netbook space but they refused to deny the coming Tablet, saying they will only release products that are ‘innovative and that they are proud of’. These are all reputable sources that seem to unveil the secrecy surrounding the pending product. Will the tablet have a substantial impact on Apple’s core business? This device is taking its place at the high end of the iPod family; it will be a larger version of the iPod Touch. This product won’t fall quietly into place however. The iTouch Tablet launch is primed to be the most significant in the history of Apple.

1) Apple Finally has an App Machine. Steve Jobs has mentioned that he has never seen anything like success of the App Store in his career. If he is saying that, then I’m saying that this 9.7 inch iTouch that has been designed to optimally utilize the apps will become the flagship Apple product. We are witnessing a transition in the way the Internet is used. Mobile content requires a tailor made user experience that is not efficiently delivered by the traditional website model. Although we have grown accustomed to navigating the Web by browsing websites on our PC, consumers are showing an affinity for the App Store model. Mobile Apps are designed for usability and the 1.5 billion downloads thus far from Apple’s App Store clearly demonstrate a user experience in high demand. The trend is in place that shows consumers will desire an app rather than visit a website. Perhaps we will one day see that apps are more popular than actual websites. The unspoken secret about the iPhone is that it wasn’t designed to become the ultimate App Store device. The screen is too small. The order of operations for the iPhone are phone first, iPod second, Apps third, and Internet browser fourth. This new iTouch is principally designed to take advantage of the App Store gaming, books, news, entertainment, social networking, etc…

2) Mobile High Speed Connectivity. Until now, a truly portable Internet device hasn’t been possible because of the scarce network availability. Verizon’s new Mi-Fi technology appears to be changing the landscape as it enables a Wi-Fi connection anytime and anywhere. It’s looking like this iTouch will mark the beginning of a relationship between Verizon and Apple. The anytime and anywhere connection will allow this product to serve as an up to the moment e-reader. By next year, we will all be wondering how the newspaper industry survived as long as it did with its outdated paper delivery model. The iTouch will replace newspapers, magazines, and books. Imagine a college student not having to lug around his $600 worth of textbooks each semester. Imagine not having to load up on magazines at the airport. The digitization of education and media has arrived. This is the first device that caters to digital readers on the go. Amazon’s Kindle was such a poor attempt that it’s not even worth analyzing. Same goes for the netbook fad.

3) Free Communication. Why do I think the iTouch will be more significant than the iPhone? Because the trend of communication technology is being routed away from wireless cellphone carriers and towards the Internet. Through the use of Skype you can make phone calls over an Internet connection and through the use of Apple’s iChat you can communicate by video for free. There are no overage charges, there are no hidden fees, you just pay for your Internet connection and communicate at will. The rumors are swirling that the next generation iTouch will include a camera and a microphone thereby making this capability a reality for Apple customers.

4) No Carrier Exclusivity. There is no doubt that iPhone sales have suffered because of the exclusivity agreement between Apple and its carriers. In the United States there are millions of Verizon and Sprint customers who would love to have the iPhone but don’t want to switch to AT&T . It appears that the iTouch will be openly available. All those people who wanted an iPhone but couldn’t make the carrier switch will flock to the iTouch Tablet. Apple will struggle to produce enough of these to meet the demand.

Being a member of the iPod family means that this new iTouch will be announced at the typical iPod refresh event during the first full week of September. The euphoria of Steve Jobs being back on stage introducing a revolutionary new product will cause the stock to surge ahead of the unveiling. Seeing adults stand in line while wearing their pajamas in the early morning hours to purchase the first iTouch Tablet will cause the stock to react again in October. The conclusion is simple. Apple owns the tech revolution. The rise of the dot-coms got out of control at the beginning of the decade for all the right reasons but the infrastructure wasn’t ready to justify the digital transition. Now that the infrastructure is ready, society will embrace the iTouch Tablet in a way that might even surprise the visionary himself.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/151137-why-apple-s-itouch-tablet-will-become-its-flagship-product?source=yahoo

Mobile Cloud Computing: The next big Mobile Innovation

2009-08-01T02:30:00.000-07:00

Apple’s iPhone has sparked a new consumer interest in mobile applications. The number of mobile app stores and application offerings are growing rapidly.However, limited processing power, battery life, and data storage will limit mobile application growth in the mass market, even among smartphones. This is one of the key findings of a study by ABIresearch. These would thus be limiting factors to user experience on a mobile phone. http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1003385

Device fragmentation and memory currently limit the level of sophistication developers can deliver through mobile apps. By contrast, running mobile applications in the cloud will free up mobile processors while also enabling developers to create just one version of their application.That is where applications that connect to cloud resources are much more likely to be successful than those that run only on the mobile device.

Mobile application developers today face the challenge of multiple mobile operating systems.Either they must write for just one OS, or create many versions of the same application. More sophisticated apps require significant processing power and memory in the handset. Using Web development, applications can run on servers instead of locally, so handset requirements can be greatly reduced and developers can create just one version of an application. This trend is in its infancy today, but ABI Research believes that eventually it will become the prevailing model for mobile applications.

Cloud computing will bring unprecedented sophistication to mobile applications.To mention just a few examples, business users will benefit from collaboration and data sharing apps. Personal users will gain from remote access apps allowing them to monitor home security systems, PCs or DVRs, and from social networking mashups that let them share photos and video or incorporate their phone address books and calendars.

Thus, Mobile cloud sync is emerging as a major new category of wireless services. Apple, Google, Nokia, Microsoft, Palm, and others recently introduced mobile cloud sync services and all mobile operators and ISPs are racing to keep up. While current solutions are fairly basic, open source is enabling more flexibility and innovation among these folks because it is so easy to adapt.

ABI Research has predicted that the ‘cloud computing’ model will soon catch up and by the end of 2014 it will be delivering annual revenues to the tune of $20 billion.

However, intermittent network availability could pose a big challenge for the adoption of the ‘cloud computing’ model. A cloud-based application stops working if you lose your connection. New programming languages such as HTML 5 could come to the rescue as they can enable data caching on the handset, allowing work to continue until cellular signal is restored.
Ref: http://ipcommunications.tmcnet.com/topics/ip-communications/articles/59519-abi-research-mobile-cloud-computing-next-big-thing.htm;
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10300564-62.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Social Networking Figures double (2005 - 2007)

2009-07-30T11:46:00.001-07:00

This doesnot come as a surprise after the explosive growths registered by Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. According to a Forrester research, the number of social networking users in USA has doubled since 2007.

55.6 million Users – or just less than 1/3rd of the population – in the US now visit social networks at least monthly. That’s up from just 15 percent of adults in 2007, and around 18 percent last year.

At that level, social networking is now more popular than instant messaging among adults, which 54.3 million people report using. However, watching video, online shopping, and email are still more widely used than social networks.

WiMAX: Last mile internet connectivity in difficult to access places may be its USP!

2009-07-30T11:43:00.001-07:00

The number of people grabbing their Internet access through WiMax is expected to jump to 50 million by 2014, says Juniper Research.The growth in WiMax stems from areas unreachable or unserved by broadband cable or DSL thus underlining the importance of WiMAX as a last mail broadband alternative.

WiMax is a wireless technology that delivers broadband speeds over the last mile, ideal for locations where cabling is not available or feasible. Faster than current wireless 3G technology, WiMax can also serve large metropolitan areas as it covers a wider area than conventional Wi-Fi. Referenced in the report, the most advanced WiMax standard, WiMAX 802.16e, delivers greater throughput than other WiMax standards.

While large-scale WiMax deployments have been delayed, many providers have so far been successful in countries ranging from Pakistan to the U.S. In the US,4G Clearwire wireless networks used by Sprint, Comcast, and other providers, run over WiMax.

The global deployment of WiMax will drive its growth. The larger number of WiMax subscribers will be in the Far East and China region, says the report, due to that area’s early adoption of the technology.WiMax gains in Western Europe and, to a lesser degree North America, will occur in areas underserved by DSL. Growth in Africa and the Middle East is likely to surpass that of Western Europe, says Juniper, gaining 15 percent of the overall WiMax subscriber base by 2014.

“WiMAX 16e will have opportunities not just in developing countries, but also areas of developed countries where the DSL coverage is weak or nonexistent,” said Howard Wilcox, the author of the report. “The key for the industry ecosystem now is to overcome the challenges and ensure trials evolve into commercial services quickly.”

Profiling the slide at Nokia (Part III)

2009-07-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

Dan Carter’s blog says it all. http://www.worldofnokia.co.uk/2009/07/nokia-loosing-its-grip/

The blog illustrates how Nokia looses the big game from a consumer perspective, with the most vociferous fans now slowing conceeding to the fact that Nokia’s smartphone challenge is outplayed and outsmarted by other worthy competitors.

To quote Dan,” Through thick and thin I have been promoting Nokia, Blogging about Nokia, Talking about Nokia and Buying Nokia!. However more and more recently my eyes are being opened to the rest of the Smartphone world and it is clear to me there are other phones out there that will do the job I need them to do, and maybe in some cases better?.”

Dan adds, “The problem I seem to have is with the Symbian OS not evolving enough compared to other manufacturers. Apart from some transitions and Feature Pack updates the OS looks the same today as it did 3 years back with the N95.”

The last when Nokia was able to make waves with its smartphone was the N 95. However, there after, N 78, N 79, N 82, N 85, N 86, N 96 and now the N 97 havent really given audience the kicks they were worth! Another user Ashutosh Timary comments, “You can almost predict what nokia is going to churn out next and not only that, even without playing with the new device, you can almost feel the experience.”

HTC Hero with a new Android OS and ‘Sence’ system, is a very sexy looking OS with a great piece of hardware packaged in one phone. The Hero has a large touch screen, HSDPA, 5 Megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack and looks like a real multimedia phone.

Another prime case is that of iPhone 3GS which has been selling out all around the world despite being very over priced for the specification. The N97 beats the 3GS in pretty much every area apart from usability of the screen and the OS.

Does Nokia have any more smartphone winners in its portfolio? No probably.. All current Nokia devices seem recycled.

Nokia are starting to become boring with their same devices repackaged and using the same OS over and over again, especially when other manufacturers are doing such a good job at getting things right.
Ref: http://ronnie05.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/nokia-ii/;http://ronnie05.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/nokia-i/

Would MS Azure start a new new cloud price war?

2009-07-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

Earlier today Microsoft unveiled it’s pricing model for its forthcoming Windows Azure cloud services platform. What’s interesting about the pricing model is that they seem to be taking direct aim at Amazon Web Services.

To recap, Amazon charges 12.5 cents per hour for a basic Windows Server instance in contrast Microsoft’s stated that their price will be 12 cents.They noted that the service will remain free until November. I should also point out that it still isn’t clear if comparing Windows Azure to Amazon’s Windows EC2 is a fair comparison given the rather drastic differences in functionality.

Microsoft calls Windows Azure a “cloud services operating system” that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Platform. They’ve also said they will offer a private data center version of Azure that will be capable of being hosted within a “private cloud” context. This will be most likely as part of their upcoming virtual infrastructure platform “hyper-v” possibly as a virtual machine image. Currently to build applications and services on Windows Azure, developers can use their existing Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 expertise with the ability to easily run highly scalable ASP.NET Web applications or .NET code in the MS cloud.

Microsoft officials had previously indicated that Windows Azure pricing would be competitive, but the price differential may be more symbolic than material. At their published rates, if you ran a Window server in the cloud every hour of the day for an entire year, you’d save a mere $43.80 going with Microsoft. Indeed, if penny pinching is important, Amazon Web Services actually has a cheaper alternative, though it’s not Windows. Amazon charges 10 cents per hour for “small” virtualized Linux and Unix servers.”

The half cent price difference is quite certainly material for those running larger cloud application deployments. A few cents can quickly add up. The move indicates that Microsoft is certainly not afraid to subsidize its cloud pricing in order to take a larger piece of the cloud market and with the large cash reserves Microsoft is said to have, they can certainly afford to engage in a price war. The bigger question will be how other more closely related cloud platform providers will adjust their pricing models? Right now all signs are starting to point a cloud price war. Time will be the best judge!

iPhone users most satisfied lot (A US study)

2009-07-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

Though Apple continues to hype the iPhone and the multitude of applications available through its App Store, iPhone users are indeed the most satisfied smartphone users and exhibit the strongest brand loyalty, according to a recent survey compiled by analytics firm Crowd Science.

Of those surveyed, 40 percent use a smartphone and one-third of those are iPhone users. The iPhone users gave Apple’s smartphone a 73 percent overall satisfaction rating, compared with a 52 percent satisfaction rating from users who had a BlackBerry device from Research In Motion and 41 percent who were satisfied using another smartphone.

Further, iPhone users plan to stick with the device, according to the survey. Fully 82 percent of current iPhone users would buy an iPhone again, compared with 39 percent of BlackBerry users who would purchase a BlackBerry again. Additionally, the survey found that 38 percent of non-iPhone users would switch to the iPhone for their next phone purchase, compared with 14 percent of non-BlackBerry users who said they would get a BlackBerry as their next phone. One final iPhone stat: Ninety-seven percent of current iPhone users surveyed said they would recommend the device to someone else.

Of the total sample, four out of ten use some type of smartphone and one-third of these use an iPhone.Among those possessing a smartphone, most use it for both business and personal purposes (71 percent), with only 3 percent who use it for business only.”

IPhone users exhibited higher overall satisfaction with their phone than Blackberry and other smartphone users

IPhone users exhibit a strong loyalty to the brand. An overwhelming majority of iPhone users (82 percent) would purchase an iPhone again. As for non-iPhone users, almost four-in-ten (38 percent) would switch to iPhone for their next purchase, while 14 percent of non-Blackberry users would switch to Blackberry for their next mobile phone purchase.

While there are irregularities in the data collection mechanism and iPhone users have been given more weightages (compared to Blackberry, which numerically is larger than the iPhone), the results could be looked at from a “directional” perspective.

Ref: http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/numbers-iphone-brand-loyalty?img=2

How Microsoft is underprepared for next gen computers?

2009-07-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Microsoft’s Windows is still shipped on 97 per cent of all new PCs. Thanks to the emergence of new classes of portable, internet-connected devices, a potentially disruptive sea-change is now under way in the fastest-growing areas of personal computing and Windows is not exactly in the driver seat on this ground.

As a PC operating system, it turned out that the world did not need, or want, Linux. The ubiquity of Windows guaranteed that other software developers would write their programs to run on it, creating an effective barrier to entry for others trying to break into the market.

That market dynamic has also helped Microsoft to hold its ground so far on netbooks, the new class of small-scale machines that have been the sole bright spot in an otherwise shrinking PC market. While early netbooks came with Linux and were designed to act mainly as simple internet devices, they have since been recast as scaled-down versions of the familiar, software-heavy laptop.

Yet this victory has come at a cost, and has exposed a flaw in Microsoft’s development plans. With most netbooks incapable of running the Windows Vista code, it was forced to use the older Windows XP operating system. And with prices far lower than for standard laptops, Microsoft has already seen an erosion in the average price it gets for Windows.

A second phase of the netbook wars is now looming. Google’s Linux-based Chrome OS, announced this month and planned for the second half of next year, is designed to carry through on the original promise of netbooks: to let users do all their work on the web through a browser. The web is thus a platform for applications and the operating system becomes less relevant.

Other operating systems designed for the web are also in the works. The Linux and Intel open-source project, known as Moblin, will be available in a range of machines before the end of the year.

The backers of software platforms like these see netbooks as the thin end of the wedge. Getting a foothold on small laptops is the first step to expanding into a wider range of internet devices – including the emerging class of tablet computers and so-called mobile internet devices (MIDs) that many in the industry hope will eventually create a new personal computing market, between today’s PCs and smartphones. Maemo, Nokia’s Linux-based operating system for portable tablet computers, is also pitched at this market.

That convergence promises to bring another dimension to the emerging software platform war.

Smartphones have seen a wave of software innovation, with the emergence over the past two years of a number of new purpose-built platforms: Google’s Android, Palm’s Web OS and a version of Apple’s OSX for the iPhone.

Microsoft is suffering because some of its licensees are looking to do more business with Android.

Designed for the power-constrained world of mobiles, these smartphone operating systems could start to invade a bigger piece of the personal computing world – particularly if the low-power Arm processors on which they run move up into larger, netbook-style devices.

Even in this shifting world, though, the power of Windows could be a deciding factor. If it released a version of the new Windows 7 to run on Arm-based processors, Microsoft could still be well-positioned to ride the wave of new devices.

Refernce: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ec988a10-76e8-11de-b23c-00144feabdc0.html

Indian Telecom Story (Part XV): Net operating margins at Risk

2009-07-30T11:19:00.001-07:00

An extension of an earlier post, which has discussed the problem of reducing operating margins for Telecom Operators in India in the of falling ARPUs and high operating expenditures; this post profiles the predicament for Airtel. If Airtel being such an established player in the market is facing a crunch in its operating margins, the performances of other marginal players and new comers could be under serious doubt!

Airtel registered a 17% YOY revenue increase. However, its quarterly sequential revenue growth seems to be tapping out at 1.19%. Thus the revenue growth is slowing down. Net profit is up 26% but that is mainly because of lower financial costs and spends. Operating profit margins are reduced from 30% in last year to 27% this year.

The concern for Airtel is that the growth in number of subscribers is hitting a plateau. With more competitors, the subscriber figures growth may actually dip. The ARPU has decreased 20.6% YOY. With both these numbers going south, it would be difficult for Airtel to keep up its performance in the next few quarters.
Applying the same analogy to other operators and the new comers, one would expect some congruence in the statuses. The overall market situation is same in all cases and thus the performances would not be very different for other operators. It is in this context one needs to evaluate the price discounting options that the new operators are resorting to. It may be a short cut to establishing a quick base but sustainability and profitability are very big questions. Couple that with the high initial spends of getting a toe hold in the market, the break even seems to be distant. Ask Virgin Mobile for validation.

Is it R.I.P Moore's Law? Big Blue doesnot think so!

2009-07-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

Moore’s Law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who in 1965 said a silicon chip’s number of transistors, and therefore its processing power, would double every 18 months. The longstanding high-tech principle that processor performance doubles every 18 months came under question last September, when Intel scientist Paul Packan published a paper that stated chip engineers hadn’t found ways around microprocessor design barriers for chips sets to be manufactured after this year. Since then, the Semiconductor Industry Association has predicted that chip performance will continue to increase over the next 15 years, but doubts about the physical limitations of silicon chips remain.
What Gordon said was the model is driven by the cost reductions that are allowed – the science takes the technology into more and more devices and the volume will explode because the cost comes down, so it is an economic model (more than just a scientific model).

Thus it looks as if the industry has reached a threshold point where the cost of making tools required to keep making smaller and smaller components has finally outstripped the ability of vendors to sell them profitably. Hence, is it R.I.P. Moore’s Law?

IBM doesn’t necessarily think it has — Big Blue says other things besides clock speed will work to increase performance.

IBM says it is taking a more holistic approach to its semiconductor research and development. Instead of focusing on clock speed, the company says it is deploying and developing a number of new processor technologies that do the job better.

Alternate technology involves copper interconnects are more power-efficient conductors than the aluminum interconnects currently in wide use, meaning a chip will take less power and run at a lower temperature for the same clock speed.
Another way to increase performance is to improve memory capacity and improve its ability to move more data faster to a processor. IBM this week announced new memory technology that increases the amount of data that can be stored in a memory chip. Lange said IBM has developed a way to break a memory density barrier — or SF82 (squared) barrier — by finding a way to completely immerse the memory trench, that part of its memory chip that stores data bits, in silicon and shrinking the size of the trench.
Increasing memory capacity by making memory cell components smaller and increasing the amount that can be stored in a single chip makes it possible for IBM to build processors with larger amounts of integrated memory. Integrated memory cuts processing time because the chip can fetch data from close at hand, rather than having to reach out to the main memory of a system across a much slower bus. Bus speeds are lagging processor speeds by factors of four or five, a gap that isn’t likely to close any time soon.
IBM is also working on improving network efficiency by implementing network processors, which it says can analyze data more quickly, for devices such as routers. These check the contents and destinations of packets through specially designed circuits rather than software, improving effectiveness, speed and reliability.
In terms of advances that do directly affect pure clock speed, meanwhile, Lange said Big Blue has developed chips with features as close together as 0.05 microns in its labs.
The current industry standard is 0.18 microns and will move to 0.13 microns next year and 0.10 microns in about 2003.

Ref:http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,2076881,00.htm; http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10002761/moores-law-reaching-statute-of-limitations/

No Future for Apps Stores? Web browsers is the way to go?

2009-07-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Apple customers may have downloaded 1.5bn applications from its AppStore in the past year for their iPhones and iPod touches, but the service does not represent the future for the mobile industry, according to Google. Vic Gundotra, Google Engineering vice president and developer evangelist, maintains that the web would win and users of mobile phones would get their information and entertainment from browsers in future. The case in favour of web based browsers is the lack of platform uniformity. Having different support for all of the different mobile platforms from Apple’s AppStore to those of the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android and the many variations of the Nokia platform is nightmarish.

Google forecasts a move to incredibly powerful browsers, which would be platform independent. A vast number of applications can be delivered through the browser and there are huge cost savings by shifting to a single browser window from individual company based platforms.
Quoting Gundotra, “We believe the web has won and over the next several years, the browser, for economic reasons almost, will become the platform that matters and certainly that’s where Google is investing.”

Advances in the browser being introduced through HTML5 standards meant that web applications could tap features of particular phones such as their accelerometers. An example is Safari Webkit-based browser on the iPhone allowed positioning technology on the phone to be used and Google’s home page can now display where users are located. Webkit, which Apple had turned into an open-source project, was also powering the browsers on the Android and Palm operating systems.

While Steve Jobs had hinted two years earlier at open source development of a common platform. The timing then was not right. The rate of innovation in the browser [over the past 12 months] is surprising. Steve Jobs really did understand that, over the long term, it would be the web, and it looss like that is how things will play out.

http://www.mobithinking.com/blog/no-future-for-app-stores

http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2009/07/app-stores-are-not-the-future-says-google/

Google's effort at offsetting Carbon

2009-07-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

Google logo on search on the day of Solar eclipse (22nd July 2009)

Only a few days back, I had posted a blog on Yahoo’s efforts for Carbon off setting. http://ronnie05.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/9834/. Google is also following suit in terms of efforts to neutralize carbon footprint.

Ambient Cooling is one of the approaches highlighted in the article http://www.reuters.com/article/gwmTechnology/idUS338804957820090722. In its Belgium data centre, rather than using internal air-conditioning for cooling the hardware, the company is relying on the normally low atmospheric temperatures to provide all the free cooling its servers need. The climate in Belgium will support free cooling almost year-round, according to Google engineers, with temperatures rising above the acceptable range for free cooling about seven days per year on average. The average temperature in Brussels during summer reaches 66 to 71 degrees, while Google maintains its data centers at temperatures above 80 degrees. On days, when the atmospheric temperature is above the data centers temperature, Google will turn off equipment as needed in Belgium and shift computing load to other data centers.This approach is made possible by the scope of the company’s global network of data centers, which provide the ability to shift an entire data center’s workload to other facilities. As a result of its use of outside-air for cooling the data center, Google will save tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in cooling costs, while also cutting back on the greenhouse gas emissions tied to the electricity used to run the chillers.

Indian Telecom Story (Part XIV): Can pricing differentiate new Telco services?

2009-07-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

Of late, the number of foreign operators who have entered the Indian shores is impressive. Global Operators like MTS, Etisalat, Sistema, Do Co Mo have started offering their services to consumers.

However, what is disappointing is that all of these operators have yet again taken the price route to establish themselves in the market. Sample Tata Do Co Mo in Karnataka/Bangalore for instance. They have innovated on the talk times, charging consumers for seconds of usage instead of minutes of usage. This squarely means that if I make a call for 3 minutes and 20 seconds through the network, Tata Do Co Mo charges me for 200 seconds of usage instead of 4 minutes. That is very good news to the consumer. A rough calculation and analysis of my call minutes showed me that over the last 24 hours or so, I had actually used 2381 call seconds, while my operator would be charging me for 59 minutes/ 2940 seconds of usage. Going by the Minutes of usage concept, I was paying for 10 minutes that I did not use. These were the residual seconds that I was charged for! That is a 19% waste of my money! The seconds of use is thus a terrific value to the consumer. No wonder than that Tata Do Co Mo had signed on 400,000 users in the first week of launch.

Now let’s flip it over from the business perspective. Many of the new entrants have deep pockets and hence are keeping the advertising and media happy with marketing spends. However, a deeper analysis leads me to think that the approach is likely to be very short term. Here are the reasons that I put forth for the same:

Without Pan India presence it is very unlikely that these new entrants will find a lot of business segment consumers (who are typically high value)
Thus these price based promotions will land them with a base of medium of low and medium value consumers.
Even if we assume that this may attract new subscribers to the services, but the ARPUs will not be sustainable and profitable.
Such promotions do not act as differentiators or entry barriers in the long term. It wont be long before Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance and older players follow suit leveling the ground.
If anything, this tactic only serves to lower/break the floor prices of the services.

Lowering the cost of ownership has been extremely successful ploy in terms of expansion of the Indian Telecom markets. The ARPU today is around the theoretical $5 break point. In mature markets an ARPU under $5, does serious harm to the bottom-line. In a growing market like India, the strain of a decreasing ARPU may not be significantly visible presently. However, with markets maturing, the focus will shift from growth to sustainability. The new classes of consumers are mostly rural and their ARPU would be well below $5 (probably $3-3.5). Managing bottom-lines at such low levels of Revenue per user and increasing costs of acquisition will prove to be a challenge.

I had expected a higher degree of service innovation by the new players. I had expected that they we would see some exciting innovations around value delivery. It could have been Internet, VAS or the MVNO based delivery. By playing the price route, the new players seem to be playing it right to the incumbent’s advantage. I have always thought that in absence of compelling value propositions that the consumer is willing to pay a premium for, it is always cost that the consumers fall back upon. It seems that branded value services are one of the most obvious businesses that the current Telcos are missing to capitalize. Lets then wait for the discontinuity from the current price based business model to value based ones!

Apple: What Next?

2009-07-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

Apple’s Q3 results have been very good! The thought is that this is Apple’s brightest hour and having hit the peak, there is no way but a gradual slide down. However there is more in the communication from Apple on how they let their own products cannibalize themselves and how they are innovating the future! Apple COO stops short of naming iTablet as the next from Apple Stable

Ref: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124820913514969595.html; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124821056118269783.html; http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/07/21/live-blogging-apple-earnings-2/

Apple has been heaped with praises for its non-conformist strategy and super-hit portfolio of products which have upstaged the industry incumbents. The Q3 results declared this week have been Apple’s moment in history! Third-quarter sales rose to $8.34 billion, up from $7.46 billion a year ago, due in part to strong sales of the iPhone. Net income rose to $1.23 billion, up from $1.07 billion. Apple’s growth of 4% with IDC forecasting negative 3 percent and Gartner forecasting a negative 5 percent, puts them 7-9 points ahead of the market.

Response to the new iPhone 3GS has been tremendous with over 1 million sold by the third day after its June 19th launch. Apple goes on record saying that they are currently unable to make enough iPhone 3GSs to meet demand and are working to address that.

Apple registered outstanding sales of 2.6 million Macs setting a new June quarter record and nearly meeting the all time quarterly record.

Apple sold 10.2 million iPods which was down from 11 million in the year ago quarter. There were two key reasons for this decline: First, we reduced channel inventory by over 400,000. Second, sales declined by 4% year-over-year.

The iTunes store delivered another great quarter fueled by strong sales of music, video and apps.

Apple retail stores hosted 38.6 million visitors during the quarter compared to 31.7 million visitors in the year-ago quarter –an increase of 22%.

Apple’s app store has more than 65,000 apps, compared with 1,000 to 2,000 at the Nokia store. Apple thus has a substantial lead on apps.

There were a few significant announcements during the earnings call, which warrant attention.

The first point
The iPod growth story now appears to be tapping off. Shipments of iPods fell 7% from the first quarter to second. And iPod ASPs also declined, despite the growth of the more expensive iPod Touch.

Revenues from selling Mac computers actually fell 8% last quarter compared to a year ago. The company sold 4% more Macs than it did in the same period last year, at a lower price point.
Macs and iPods are slowing down and may be entering the declining plateau stage of their life cycles! Apple would have seen this coming, and the $99 iPhone would be cannibalizing the iPods, by design.

Secondly, if you read between the lines of Timothy Cook’s message, it appears that Apple has a trick up its sleeve. Quoting Apple COO, Timothy Cook

“I think some of the netbooks that are being delivered, or many of them, are very slow. They have software technology that is old. They don’t have a robust computing experience. They lack horse power. They have small displays and cramped key boards.”

Is this what Apple is going to spring upon Netbook manufacturers?

The invective makes you think that while Apple rails against the existing Netbook makers, may be, it has a net-book product that it plans to launch soon! Is this the Apple heralding its iTablet.

A study in contrast: Apple and Nokia

2009-07-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

The numbers do justice to the sentiment towards both these companies at this time. Apple is clearly shinning bright and is the toast of the bourses.

Ref: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124821056118269783.html; http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/07/21results.html; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124820913514969595.html; http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10002677/can-anyone-out-app-apple/

Even the staunchest critic would not count out Nokia but it surely seems that Nokia has lost its way in the Smartphone race and needs to retrospect its strategies and approach to user experience. N 97, which was being touted as the most advanced multimedia computer has failed to impress and unless, one is die hard Symbian S60 fan, there is very little reason one would opt for the N 97. With no other significant touch screens from Nokia at the moment, there is nothing that customers and investors are looking forward to from Nokia.

http://gizmodo.com/5308440/nokia-n97-review-nokia-is-doomed

The rumour mills are running abuzz with the theory that Nokia would do well to acquire Palm because palm offers Nokia all that it really needs desperately at this point of time. http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2007/03/nokia_possibly_interested_in_palm.html

Even LG, which doesnot feature as a serious contender in the smartphone business seems to be getting its acts right in that market. http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/22/lg-nokia-sony-markets-equity-technology.html?partner=msn

Nokia seems to be walking the path of Motorola 3 years back. http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/17/nokia-apple-iphone-markets-equity-mobile.html?feed=rss_technology

It’s been a heck of a ride for Apple investors. The stock, which has nearly doubled so far this year and over the past five years the stock has gained an average of 56% a year, an extraordinary achievement. It cannot keep its supply commitments for iPhone. It has already sold 7 times the number of iPhones this year as it did last year. In a extremely competitive smartphone market, Apple is using all its legs to score above the competition: Its Device, the software/UI/Browser and the Applications! Interesting to see how Apple would get the most of this now…

Profiling the slide at Nokia (Part II)

2009-07-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

Nokia’s Age of Denial

While touch-screens had always been around, it was the iPhone in June, 2007 that had caught everyone’s imagination with its form, function, features and applications. Till then, Nokia’s N and E Series devices were the ultimate in technology. In Q2,2007, Nokia launched the iconic N 95, a do-it-all smart-phone that captured the imagination of the world. Nokia missed the trend, as it was basking in the glory of N 95! Nokia regarded the Haptile feed as a fad which would mellow down. That was not to be and Nokia realized it the harder way.

August 2008: Nokia launched an offensive against the iPhone 3G by announcing the successor to N 95, the N 96! By then, Nokia had taken note of iPhone’s initial success in US. However iPhone without operator subsidies outside the American shores was a doubtful starter (as proven in the case of India, where the iPhone could not live up to its hype because the carriers (Airtel and Vodafone) did not subsidize it). Positioning the N 96, which was only a few additions to N-95 against iPhone 3G was only a subterfuge. Nokia was trying to play the game on its own terms where as iPhone appeal to the consumers was becoming painfully evident.

July 2009: This was the first time that Nokia played Apple on a level game. The N 97 which was Nokia’s haptile flagship device fared badly against the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3GS. Nokia’s smartphone portfolio was getting depleted and except the E 71 and its other versions, there was a serious lack of a smartphone from the Nokia stable! The fight between N 97 and iPhone was already dubbed as the fight between device and software. Apple with its sexy and neat looks, brilliant browser and UI and Apps store turned the game on the N97. Even Palm Pre with its WebOS was cooler than the N97!

What lies ahead

Nokia will now have to re-think its smartphone strategy in order to stay in the game.
Product design: Most of the Nokia phones look and feel like some other Nokia phone. E71 was a success, they augmented it to E 63, E 72.

A new OS that would make UI and browsing experience pleasurable. There is a space to learn from Apple, Android and even the Palm!

Need to look at open sourcing solutions. While they had the first Apps market (Forum Nokia), they lost the plot mid way and allowed Apple to get away with the Apps Market. Failure to differentiate on Apps and Services was a big mistake on hindsight.

Need to be more collaborative rather than closed in its approach. Nokia’s stiff approach to working with the other partners in the eco-system has cost then dear in the Developed markets.
Mobile Internet may well be the next in devices. Enabling a superior browsing experience is key to greater user acceptability. That is again something that Apple and Palm have perfected.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10545980/1/tech-rumor-of-the-day-nokia- needs-palm.html

Profiling the slide at Nokia (Part I)

2009-07-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Nokia’s slide in the smartphone segment has been well documented and the latest results from Nokia do not inspire confidence about a quick revival. Nokia’s slide draws a sharp contrast from Apple and its Apps store. Here’s profiling Nokia’s smartphone story.

Nokia’s Decline
Nokia announced a 66 percent yearly drop in Q2 profit while lowering its 2009 market share target for its cellphones. Originally, Nokia had expected market share to rise in 2009, presumably based on a successful launch of the N97 flagship device. However, outside of a core group of S60 diehards, the N97 has been universally panned in both reviews and user forums alike. And with nothing but rumors of an Atom-based Nokia Netbook on the immediate horizon.

Overall YOY sales for Nokia have fallen by 25% to 9.9 billion Euros in Q2. This is 7% higher than Q1, 2009.YOY Nokia shipped 103.2 million devices during Q2, 15% less than an year earlier, but 11% more than Q1,2009. The average selling price was also down from 74 Euros Q2 last year to 62 Euros currently. In Q1 2009, Nokia had recorded less than 100 million shipments for the first time in 2 years. Q2 2009 was slightly better in terms of volumes but the ASPs are southward bound still.

Inspite of aggressive job cuts and other measures such as moving out of non core activities, Nokia is now cutting down its profitability and market share outlook. It is now predicting its mobile phone operating profit margin will match the first half at 11.3% (less than the analysts prediction of 17.4%) and its market share will stay the same as last year (compared to original forecasts of a rise).The stock took a 15% plunge after the results were announced last week.

Analysis
The significant volumes from the lower end have helped maintain the market shares although it is pulling the ASPs down. However it is the smart-phone market where Nokia is taking a big hit in terms of both volumes and numbers. Thus, Nokia is finding harder to stay profitable because of increasing competition in the high end phone segment from the likes of Apple’s iPhone, Palm Pre, Toshiba’s TG01 against Nokia’s N 97 and 5800, which are key support to its margins. Nokia is suffering from low operating margins because it does not have really competitive products at the high end of the portfolio.

Analysts are dubbing this period as Nokia’s Motorola Moment. http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/17/nokia-apple-iphone-markets-equity-mobile.html?feed=rss_technology.

Once a giant of the handset industry, Motorola got stuck with its Razr handset model longer than it should have done, failing to catch on to other innovations that were taking place in handset making, before losing market share in China to Nokia and in the US to Apple.
Nokia seems to now be falling in the same trap. It was late to realizing the popularity of clam shell phones, late to touch screen and now late to the application store as pioneered by Apple’s iPhone, as well as high quality web browsing. The fact that remains is that Nokia has not been innovating and has only been a fast follower.

Services Company
2 years back, when Nokia had suggested a move into services based businesses, the Wall street had welcomed the efforts by a stock price spike. That was the right thing to do. However, Nokia has taken long to do what it set out to do. And its efforts have been largely diffused. Instead of getting one thing right, Nokia tried many and more different things. It launched into Nokia Music Service and Comes with Music, N-Gage Gaming and Ovi Services, Ovi Share (networking platform) and the latest being Symbian horizon (an apps store). Was Nokia doing too many things at the same time? With Nokia’s kind of ability, it could probably carry the gambit as well. The problem perhaps was Nokia trying a plethora of business models, without really doing anything really meaningful. It was a follower and not the original in most of these services. In effect, it was trying to compete, by its sheer size and presence, and not basis its technology leadership.

In many cases, the platforms existed at Nokia, long before competition had stepped in. N-Series phones were regarded as the ultimate edge in technology for a long time. Yet Nokia never regarded applications and software as a differentiating element unless Apple came along with the Apps Store. It was Apple who pioneered the iTunes and Nokia has been playing catch up with its Music store and Comes with Music.

The problem is complicated with Symbain OS. While Symbian is the most robust mobile OS and leads the smart-phone OS market share at 40%, Nokia probably needs to look at a second option to compete with the likes of Web OS (Palm), Android and Apple OS.

Apps Store: 1.5 billion downloads later, the Apple juggernaut continues

2009-07-23T11:15:00.001-07:00

Beating the likes of Google, Nokia, RIM and Verizon, Apple has already taken the honours in the Apps store roll outs. It has also sold 1.5 million mobile applications for its iPhone and is counting more. While consumers find easy to buy apps by using the familiar iTunes interface; for apps publishers, the Apps stores provide the most efficient way to sell as operation and distribution costs are nil and the developer can afford to focus his resources in promoting his product on the Apps store.
The SDK 3 platform from Apple is also gaining more acceptance by more developers over other platforms for developing apps. To put it concisely, the competitors are unable to create a world that revolves around their products, a trick that Apple has mastered well.
The only other vendor that understands branding at that level is Nokia but then it is caught up in its own Smartphone problems and the Ovi Store has not had a great start. The other company RIM, continues to focus on the physical device at the expense of apps driven excitement.

Towards energy saving searches: Yahoo!

2009-07-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Google and Yahoo! are the two most prolific search machines in the world. Whenever someone looks up at something online, each click of the mouse makes the backend data centre slightly busier. These data centres index and reference the internet and are the engines of internet. However, every activity at the data centre also emits greenhouse gases.

Both Google and Yahoo! are actively trying to reduce their carbon footprints. Google has Blackle, the all black energy saving user page. By reducing the use of colour (white) into Black, the energy consumption is eased off! In fact, Blackle has a meter that shows the energy saved by using the Blackle.

Yahoo! on the other hand, had rendered itself carbon neutral in 2007 by buying offsets against its footprint. Now Yahoo! is working towards zeroing out carbon offsets. The goal is to reduce 40% in carbon intensity in data centres in 2014.More and more widespread use of the internet will increase the CO2 output. As of today, Yahoo! services 500 million users worldwide. The energy consumption from data centres only in US was 60 billion Kilowatt hour and is expected to become 100 billion Kilowatt hour in the next 5 years. Thus emission from this electronic form is a real problem and reduction a real time issue.

Yahoo is using innovations like cloud computing and virtualization to eliminate the extra and unrequired usage. Thus it is a system that is efficient, more reliable and reduces wastage in the systems.

The other small and efficient way to get cut energy usage is to use the ambient temperature of surroundings and use colder places to increase on the free cooling and reduce the electricity consumption on cooling. All things together: Smarter computers using less electricity smart buildings and smart grid, smart location and Cloud computing and virtualization can help make a difference in reducing carbon emissions.

Indian Telecom Story (Part XIII):Telco's signal delay in MNP

2009-07-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

The implementation of mobile number portability (MNP) is slated to be delayed further, with the telecom service providers informing the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) that the phased roll out is not possible.
Further, pan-India readiness is required for the proper implementation of call routing, according to the service providers who had met DoT officials recently. The operators also mentioned that due to delay in completion of various activities, it would be difficult to meet the timelines for MNP implementation. The DoT had earlier set a September-end deadline for the first phase rollout of MNP in the country.
The service providers are seeking an extension of the date and as delays would be considered as violation of DoT’s direction. This means that MNP would be delayed by another couple of months, sources close to the development said.
Earlier in March, DoT had selected two US companies — Syniverse and Telcordia — as technology providers for MNP in the country. Telcordia will implement the technology in south and east, while east and west would be taken care of Syniverse.
India with over 400 million mobile connections, and an addition of around 10 million per month, is second largest telecom market in the world.
For earlier updates on Indian Telecom refer http://ronnie05.wordpress.com/tag/indian-telecom/

Microsoft brings gesture control to Windows and XBox

2009-07-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has been working on gesture recognition as extension on Microsoft gaming console Xbox. The integration of gesture recognition in its gaming console has been named Project Natal. Depth-sensing cameras such as the one Microsoft is adding to the Xbox allow people to control their PCs, game devices, and televisions. Now Microsoft wants to bring Project Natal and its technology to Windows.

Depth camera would connect up to Windows PCs for interacting in terms of meetings, and collaboration, and communication. This was first conceptualized and developed by Microsoft research and is now being commercialized by both the Xbox and Windows units. The Xbox guys and the Windows guys have now latched onto the idea and Microsoft expects the office applications (coupled with Depth sensing camera) can be quite exciting.
In an interview to CNet, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, “Using your body to control devices makes a lot of sense. I think the value is as great for if you’re in the home, as you want to manage your movies, music, home system type stuff, it’s very cool there. And I think there’s incredible value as we use that in the office connected to a Windows PC. So Microsoft research and the product groups have a lot going on there, because you can use the cost reduction that will take place over the years to say, why that shouldn’t be in most office environments.”
Gates actually dropped the first hint of Natal during his joint appearance with Steve Jobs at the D: All Things Digital conference in 2007
“Imagine a game machine where you’re just going to pick up the bat and swing it, or the tennis racket and swing it,” Gates said.
Moderators Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher mocked Gates, saying such a technology already exists and it’s called the Wii. But Gates disagreed. “No, that’s not it. You can’t pick up your tennis racket.”
He later added, “You can’t sit there with your friends and do those natural things,” he said. “That’s a 3D positional device. This is video recognition. This is a camera seeing what’s going on.”
However, there are doubts about Microsoft’s ability to execute such futuristic moves. It was about 10 years earlier that Microsoft had promised voice controlled computers. 10 years and few many generations of processors later, Microsoft has been no-where close to pioneer voice recognition as an input to computing devices. (It would have put some distance between itself and competitors if it would have executed this strategy). Instead all it has done is to release “delta development” versions, which has left it vulnerable to more innovative competitors.
Ref: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10286309-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

1.5 Billion downloads later, the Apple juggernaut continues

2009-07-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

The SDK 3 platform from Apple is also gaining more acceptance by more developers over other platforms for developing apps. To put it concisely, the competitors are unable to create a world that revolves around their products, a trick that Apple has mastered well.

The only other vendor that understands branding at that level is Nokia but then it is caught up in its own Smartphone problems and the Ovi Store has not had a great start. The other company RIM, continues to focus on the physical device at the expense of apps driven excitement.

Facebook: 250 million users and counting, $6.5 billion in valuation

2009-07-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

Digital Sky Technology’s recent purchase of Facebook Common stock has yet again provided a valuation to Facebook. DST’s purchase at $14.77 a share, values Facebook at $6.5 Billion currently. This valuation emphasizes and underscores the status of Facebook as the fastest-growing Internet social networking site’s and its high rank among technology and media industry heavyweights.
While the latest valuation is below the $10 billion valuation set by Digital Sky’s May investment in Facebook, which was for preferred shares, it is significant because, investors have been valuing the social network’s common stock at less than $5 billion in secondary markets in recent weeks. In the weeks prior to Monday’s pricing, investors in secondary markets had been valuing Facebook common stock between $10 and $10.50 a share, or up to $4.7 billion.
The deal suggests that Facebook has a higher market value than many established media and tech companies which generate significantly more revenue than Facebook, including CBS Corp and Salesforce.com.
CBS, which had $13.95 billion in revenue last year, has a market capitalization of $4.06 billion and Salesforce.com had a $4.72 billion market cap at Monday’s market close.
Facebook is expected to breach $500 million in sales this year, and expects revenue to grow 70 percent this year. At $6.5 billion, DST is valuing Facebook common shares at 13 times expected 2009 revenue well above the 2.2x multiple that is common for online advertising-based businesses and even the nearly 6x multiple of Google Inc, the No.1 Internet search engine in the U.S.
Analysts say that Facebook’s lofty multiple was not completely out of line given the strong growth in sales and users that Facebook is generating amid a tough business environment. Essentially, people’s expectations that this could be the next Google.
Facebook recently surpassed 250 million active users on its social network, up from 100 million users less than a year earlier, and vaulting it ahead of rival social network MySpace which is owned by News Corp. In 2007, Microsoft Corp invested $240 million in Facebook preferred shares, snagging a 1.6 percent stake, though that deal also included other elements such as an advertising partnership. That deal had valued Facebook at $15 billion.

Indian Telecom Story (Part XII): Projection of Indian Telecom growth

2009-07-20T03:59:00.001-07:00

India could have 500 million internet users, 100 million broadband connections and 100 million connected devices by 2012, provided infrastructural bottlenecks are removed and 3G and Wi Max networks are rolled out early according to Indian industry body representing the IT hardware MAIT.
MAIT has set for itself an ambitious target–Goal 511– for achieving 500 million internet user, 100 million broadband connection and 100 million connected devices by 2012.This calls for strengthening of the national IT infrastructure along with the physical infrastructure on a priority basis
At present, there are 60 million internet users, three million broadband subscribers and about 1-2 million connected devices in the country.
The numbers indicate a 9X increase in internet connections, 33% increase in broadband access and 50% increase in internet connection devices (including smartphones and other connectivity based devices).This would also require early roll-out of 3G and Wi-Max networks.
The Indian political scene and economic deficits would impact the spread and reach of internet across the country

Microsoft takes on Google as office moves to web

2009-07-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp will release three versions of its dominant Office software that users can access over the Web, catching up with products that rival Google Inc launched three years ago. The news helped send shares in the world’s largest software maker up up 2.7 percent by midday, more than double the gain in the Nasdaq Composite Index.
It is the latest salvo in an intensifying war between Microsoft and Google.
Google announced plans last week to challenge Windows with a free operating system. Microsoft introduced a new search engine, Bing, last month.
Microsoft is finally making the conversion through the Web-based world. First, we saw that through Bing. Now we are seeing that through Office.Microsoft will offer for free to consumers Web-based versions of its Office suite of programs, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software and a note-taking program.
Microsoft will also host one Internet business version of Office at its own data centers, charging companies a yet-to- be-announced fee. Companies with premium service contracts will have the choice of running a second Web-based version from their own data centers at no extra cost.
The company hopes to make money by using the free software to lead users to its ad-supported websites, including Bing. Analysts have said that Bing’s early signs of success suggest Microsoft may be rounding the corner in efforts to turn around its money-losing Internet division.
Still, a free version of Office could hurt sales of Microsoft’s top-selling and most profitable unit. One of Office’s most popular titles is a home version that sells for $150. It includes the four programs that Microsoft will give away.
“Microsoft is in a tough spot. Their competition isn’t just undercutting them. They are giving away the competitive product,” said Sheri McLeish, an analyst with Forrester Research.The Office division rang up operating profit of $9.3 billion on sales of $14.3 billion in the first three quarters of the software maker’s current fiscal year.
McLeish expects Microsoft to overtake Google in the market as the hundreds of millions of people who use Office flock to try out the Internet version.Microsoft will release the web offerings when it starts selling Office 2010, it next major release of the product, sometime in the first half of next year. Its current version came out in January 2007.
The software maker unveiled an early release on Monday at a conference for business partners in New Orleans. It will be distributed to tens of thousands of testers.Company spokeswoman Janice Kapner said the free Web version will provide “a very rich experience” and probably have more functionality than Google.
Office 2010 is among a wave of upgrades to Microsoft programs planned over the next year. A new version of its ubiquitous Windows operating system is coming out in October and a new version of its widely used email server is also in the works.
Microsoft shares rose 2.7 percent to $23, while the Nasdaq was up 1.2 percent at 1777.50

Measuring Success: Microsoft Bing

2009-07-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Bing has been on air for some time now. It has created some flutter and some clutter as well. This post examines how successful has Bing been in its long term approach in its quest to break from third place behind Google and Yahoo!

June is the first full month the Bing “decision engine” has been live. Microsoft positioned the Bing as Decision engines meaning that its search results would allow depth of knowledge and information rather than width.Microsoft said Bing is aimed at online shoppers and will initially focus on helping people make buying decisions, plan trips, research health matters, or find local businesses.

Microsoft is reportedly spending 80 to 100 million dollars marketing Bing but has not publicly disclosed its promotional budget.

Achievement till date: The number of people that used Bing in June for online searches was eight percent higher than the number that used its predecessor, MSN Live, in the same month last year, according to Microsoft. Google’s share of the US online search market was approximately 74 percent.Yahoo! remains the second most popular search engine with about 16 percent of the US market, and Bing is third with 6.5 percent, according to Compete. Figures released in recent weeks by industry analytics firms reveal mixed data, leaving it unclear whether Bing is doing much to close the gaps with Yahoo! and Internet search king Google. Other Internet-tracking firms report different figures, with the ranking remaining constant but conflicts emerging as to whether Bing is gaining, holding, or losing ground.

It’s really too early to tell how Bing is doing; the numbers are really mixed. Microsoft does deserve to pat itself on its back a bit. Bing seems to have had some lift but it is not an extraordinary amount. An increase in visitors is not surprising given the marketing they are doing.

Analysts believe Bing is more likely to lure users away from Yahoo! than Google, which is woven into people’s lives so thoroughly that the company’s name is used as a verb to express the act of searching the Internet.

The next big goal for Bing is not to beat Google, but to beat Yahoo! If they can’t get to number two, then getting past there is much harder.

RIM's attempt at Social Networking: Will it taste success

2009-07-15T00:45:00.001-07:00

RIM’s attempt at Social Networking is profiled here. However, there are natural and relevant doubts on the efficacy of the idea RIM through the social Media..

Research in Motion is about to launch a new social network for its BlackBerry App World store. The new site is called MyBlackBerry and it will allow device owners to create a social profile where they can share opinions and recommendations for their favorite applications and accessories, the story said. Users will also be able to share tips and tricks for using their devices.
The new site will look more like a user group bulletin board than a true social networking site. The site will be personalized so that people can connect with others using the same device they have. For example, someone with a BlackBerry Storm will be able to chat or share information with others using the Storm.

The new social network site comes as RIM struggles to gain attention for its App World store. Unlike the iPhone App Store, which has more than 50,000 applications and has had millions of downloads, the BlackBerry App World store, which launched in March, only has about 2,000 applications.

The success of social networking through Blackberry handsets doesnot sound to be a winning proposition in face of giants such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace with dedicated widsets sitting on other smartphones. The website may at best become a Blackberry users P2P platform. That may not however satisfy the need of Blackberry to keep itself relevant in the age of social networking.

Microsoft: Music for free/Download to own service

2009-07-15T00:34:00.000-07:00

Starting end of July, Microsoft will offer users the chance to stream music for free and also download to own. Music is an important area for Microsoft and they are looking at launching a music streaming service imminently (also from a view to bolster the appeal of Microsoft Zune). This music streaming service is similar in principle to Spotify.

Users can stream music for free in exchange for listening to around a minute of advertising every half hour but for £9.99 a month, the ads will be turned off. It is thought Microsoft’s offering will be ad-supported too as well as having a paid-for premium service.
Microsoft is looking at how other similar businesses have structured their business models and trying to figure out what will work best for both consumer and Microsoft. The service would be operated and owned by Microsoft, while being promoted through MSN and other parts of the Microsoft network.
The service could be tied in with Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console, though the details of how a partnership would work have not been drawn yet. The addition of a Microsoft-owned music streaming service would tie in with an increasingly consumer focussed strategy from company to make its Xbox 360 console the main “entertainment hub” in the family home. Users are already able to download movies through their console and play games against one another online.
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, Microsoft can bring “scale and a quality of product” to the music streaming scene. The knowledge of the music industry the company had gleaned via Zune and also the player’s technology, had all been incorporated into the service’s development process. Microsoft recently announced it would launch a high definition version of its music player: Zune , but it will only be available in the United States. Microsoft is in talks to identify download partner for its music streaming service.

How the cloud will transform mobile apps and why Big Apple may not be too happy about the developments?

2009-07-14T02:52:00.000-07:00

The Apple Apps store was the start of something big. While Apple has already registered 1 billion downloads, Palm notched up an impressive million in the first few weeks of launch. Google, RIM, Nokia are following suit. All this is happening in midst of reports that contrary to earlier beliefs, the Apps store is not really creating the kind of stickiness which the Internet marketers were counting upon.
Today the Apps store may not be generating a lot of cash/revenue. Infact, Apps Stores are thriving more on classic freetardonomics and base commoditization than ever. However, it is a space being infiltrated by handset-makers, software companies, and operations/ business support systems vendors, thousands of new and experienced developers, third parties and even carriers. It also is a space that will be and already is being transformed by the cloud, according to ABI Research.
In a report released this week, ABI said that new software running in the cloud will drastically change the way mobile apps are developed, acquired and used, breaking the market free from the constraints of limited computing power. According to the report, this new paradigm could deliver revenues of nearly $20 billion annually by the end of 2014.Web development can enable apps to run on servers instead of locally, so handset requirements for processing power and memory can be greatly reduced and developers will only need to create one version of their app. Certain apps and services, including Google Apps and Amazon.com, already use the cloud, but for the most part, while the industry is trending toward this, these are still the early days.
Many and most of these players, force developers to choose between picking their favorite OS or creating multiple versions of their app. Companies such as Qualcomm have launched open platforms for apps distribution to address this issue, but it still doesn’t solve the problem of taxing processing power and memory constraints. Though there are issues such as access, security, data back up, the main problem with a continuous connection with the cloud is that clouds based apps stop when the connection is lost. New programming languages such as HTML 5 can overcome this through data caching. So while cloud computing becomes more common, apps will become much more sophisticated. Business users will benefit from collaboration and data sharing apps; while personal users will gain from remote access apps, allowing them to monitor home security systems, PCs or DVRs, and from social networking mashups that let them share photos and video or incorporate their phone address books and calendars.
Interestingly, while Apple pioneered the Apps Store trend, it is also most likely to resist the cloud based model and be reluctant to move into a more democratic apps development market. It would be counterproductive for Apple to let the base for all the Apps driven advantage (iPod/iPhone based) to get diluted and hence, would not like to give up the control that Cloud Computing may ask to forsake on their Apps stores/developers. For the rest of the market, however especially wireless operators, for which the cloud can up transport revenues cloud computing should, and likely will, be embraced.

Office in the web: Here comes Microsoft Gazelle

2009-07-14T02:48:00.000-07:00

Google’s announcement on the Chrome OS is significant and yet very timely is very curious. “Curious” because on Monday, the 13th July 2009, Microsoft is set to unveil its plans to counter the attack Google previously had launched on it with Google Docs at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans.
Microsoft Office is “going” to the cloud. The new version of Office, syncs with the cloud, and has the ability to use the cloud without any software.
Earlier, Microsoft was rumored to have a top secret project which was code-named “Gazelle.” Microsoft would run the “new project” in browsers beyond just IE.
So yes, it looks like the Office Web that was first talked about at PDC last year.
And it’s possible that Microsoft could unveil that this new web-based Office will reside on the great domain, Office.com. That site is clearly going through a transition to new ownership right now, and that would make a lot of sense.
Office is obviously the 900-pound gorilla that Google is attempting to slay with Google Docs, but a 900-pound gorilla with a matching web offering will be a lot tougher. And that’s likely why Google wanted to get its own uppercut in first this week. And it’s a strong one. But now Microsoft is going to have to come up with some answers to how it can counter Chrome OS, rather than focus on talking about the new Office.

OS Wars (Part IV): Sibling rivalry between Ubuntu and Chrome

2009-07-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

The launch of the Google Chrome OS is seen primarily as a threat to Microsoft’s legacy. However, Chrome may also splinter the Linux juggernaut just when things were gung-ho with Ubuntu.

If there is one problem that the Linux and open-source community has suffered repeatedly over the past two decades, it’s been fragmentation. There are several different platforms: Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, FreeBSD etc and the list is always growing longer. Based on their regions and sources, users, communities and companies have switched among different Linux distributions several times over the past decade, as one or the other gained prominence.

After Red Hat, Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, Slackware and Debian, from the Linux stable; the bright light forming at the end of that confused and heterogeneous tunnel was Mark Shuttleworth’s Ubuntu. Out of the ferocious Linux distribution wars, Ubuntu has emerged with the seeming strength to take on the rest–at least when it comes to the Linux desktop platform. The growing dominance of Ubuntu (at least on the desktop, the server room seems to have been won by Red Hat) has delivered the Linux community a serious advantage in its ongoing war against the incumbent Windows and Apple platforms because of its ability to give software developers a single platform to concentrate on and polish to a degree not seen previously.

In this context, Google’s decision to create its own Linux distribution and splinter the Linux community decisively once again can only be seen as foolhardy and self-obsessive. Instead of treading its own path, Google should have sought to leverage the stellar work already carried out by Shuttleworth and his band of merry coders and tied its horse to the Ubuntu cart. If Google truly wanted to design a new “windowing system on top of a Linux kernel,” there should be nothing to stop the search giant from collaborating openly with the best in the business. Google’s plans to “completely redesign” the underlying security architecture of Linux could be seen as counterproductive to the purpose of Linux.

While Google has made moves in the direction of open source with its pledge to open-source Chrome OS, the same way it did with several previous projects: the Chrome browser itself and its Android mobile OS, doubts still remain about those projects also. For example, where do they fit in between true open-source projects, maintained and supported by the community, and to what extent are they extensions of Google’s online advertising empire?

Android is a great mobile operating system, second only to Apple’s iPhone platform. But Google still controls most aspects of Android’s development. Also, anyone using Android would have no doubt that the operating system ties in very nicely with Google’s cloud offerings (for example, Gmail). But things are a lot trickier if you prefer Windows Live or other rival systems. Chrome too, is a great browser that I use for much of my daily needs. But it’s mainly still in Google’s hands, and so those of us who prefer true competition to exist in the browser world take great comfort from the fact that Mozilla Firefox is completely independent and not pushing anyone’s agenda.

Who are you going to trust and believe in? The non-commercial Ubuntu Foundation (and wider project), which has developed an open-source operating system second to none and virtually ended the Linux distribution wars? Or Google, which also makes free products (well, mostly) and packages advertising in (sometimes)? Google makes great products. But it’s currently trying to tread a nice middle ground between completely embracing the open-source community and keeping control over software it has developed. That’s an impossible path to walk and one that leaves it open to being criticized for the same sort of arrogance that operating system vendors have been accused of for decades.

Reference: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10281966-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

OS Wars (Part II): Measuring the Microsoft Response

2009-07-10T00:26:00.000-07:00

Microsoft challenged Google’s raison d’etre Search engine, with its own “decision engine”, the game was “on”. Bing has done well compared to the earlier attempts of Microsoft on the search platform. Bing has caught Google’s attention and made some significant strides into the “Search” territory.
Then came the cracker from Google: The Chrome OS! When Microsoft struck Google deep inside (at its Search platform), Google retaliated at Microsoft’s core: The OS! Vintage warfare here!
However, an alternate thought to this subject is that the threat to Microsoft’s OS core was always there! It was only time before someone (and Google) decided to pick upon its open source and cloud computing basics to hit back at the “legacy systems” and proprietary Microsoft model. In short, Google is aiming to render desktop software irrelevant. To thwart them, Microsoft needs Windows to do things that a browser can’t–or do the same things significantly better.
Interestingly, if Microsoft wants some tips on how to do this, they might want to look toward Apple.
1.Essentially, this has been Apple’s challenge all along–Make the Mac experience enough better than a generic PC that it is worth the added cost. The Mac’s resurgence came when it had a strong OS–Mac OS X–combined with iLife applications that really nailed the experience for the tasks that people wanted to do on their computer at the time. Superior User Experience (in doing the same set of things) is an area is one where Windows has been languishing in recent years.
2.Although most people wouldn’t want to give up their favorite desktop applications (Windows or Mac), the Web has been gaining ground. Even areas that were once squarely in the desktop’s domain–such as photo editing, productivity software and personal finance are making their way onto the Web. What Windows really needs is a new generation of killer apps.
3.Microsoft also has to do something that Apple doesn’t–aim for the masses. Part of Apple’s success story has been about choosing its battles and accepting that it can’t win everywhere. The Windows model depends on ubiquity, so it needs answers with nearly universal appeal.
4.One area where Microsoft has been investing is around the area of doing the same things better. It’s focus on touch screens in Windows 7 is an example of this. Although multitouch is likely to remain niche in the short term, it shows the power that a desktop interface can have.
5.Microsoft also needs to minimize the downsides associated with Windows. On that score, Microsoft has made significant strides with Windows 7. The operating system boots quicker and behaves better than its predecessor.
6. On the Office side, Microsoft needs to create software that is enough better than Google that company’s want to pay for it. Next week, Microsoft is expected to talk more about Office 2010, the next version of Office, which is due out next year.
Microsoft is taking a two-pronged approach.
First, it is taking on Google Apps head-on with lightweight browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that can run on Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer. It will offer them to consumers via its Windows Live service–a service that today is free–and businesses will also be able to give the browser-based apps to their workers.
Second, Microsoft is also doing more on the desktop, adding in the kinds of features it hopes will make the Office suite worth paying for.
The path for Microsoft is clear. The big question, though, is whether Google will be able to be “good enough”
Microsoft has some time, but not a ton. Google’s operating system won’t even arrive on PCs until the second half of next year. Plus, for now, Windows has the advantage of legacy application support–i.e. businesses and consumers want to run their existing programs. But to stay in front for years to come, it will have to do better than that. It needs to figure out–and quick–what the next set of tasks users want to do with their computer and how to make them demonstrably better on a PC.
The company also has another/third option as well. It can work on Windows’ successor. It could be that it needs a lightweight browser-based OS of its own.
Indeed, the thinking beyond its Gazelle research project is that the browser needs to be more like an operating system. In that case, the browser doesn’t actually take on the operating system’s complete role, but rather relies on Windows. However, r has other operating system work under way as well, including its top-secret Midori project.
Microsoft may take all three approaches, but hold off on the third one unless and until it needs to. That’s pretty much what Microsoft has done with Office vis-a-vis Google Apps. It was only after large business customers started threatening to go to Google Apps that Microsoft conceded that it needed to offer full-on browser apps.
Ref: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10282037-56.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

OS Wars (Part I): Google Chrome - The next gen OS (in the cloud)

2009-07-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

Google Chrome OS is a computer operating system, based around the Google Chrome browser, which is aimed at speeding up process across more powerful computers. Google has stated that the software will be fast and lightweight with minimal bells and whistles “to stay out of your way”, much like its search engine and browser. It is being designed to help users get onto the web within a few seconds of logging on.

Google is trying to alleviate some of the frustration inherent in Windows-based computers, such as slow loading times, computer viruses and complicated hardware installation. It hopes to achieve this by making the first operating system for the cloud generation – meaning the majority of the system’s work will be going through the web rather than on the computer.

Google has predicted people will be able to buy the first Google Chrome OS powered netbooks by the second half of 2010. However, because the system will be open sourced, like Chrome the browser, Google will be making the code available to developers later this year. A Google spokesperson said: “We have a lot of work to do, and we’re definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision.”

As the system will be based on Linux and it’s open-source, it is largely expected Google Chrome OS will be free. Google will monetise the service as it gains share with corporate partnerships but to consumers, it should be totally free of charge. Google is in talks with all netbook manufacturers and therefore it is likely that most models, such as Samsung and Sony, will offer the software immediately post launch.

There are two major advantages vis a vis Microsoft’s Windows:

i) As the system is web-based it will offer users total integration with the internet and as more and more applications become web-based, the computer experience would be increasingly seamless.

ii) It is widely expected to be a free service, whereas Microsoft charges different amounts for its various versions of Windows.

Ref:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/google/5778031/Google-Chrome-OS-a-five-step-guide-to-the-new-operating-system.html

iPhone 3GS:Blockbuster yet again

2009-07-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

From the first assessment, Apple’s iPhone is a runaway hit worldwide. earlier today based on a new set of numbers from Japan.

An analyst report from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s, includes the incredible fact that 38 percent of 3GS customers were upgrading from the original iPhone, validating the idea that the only way for a customer to upgrade from an iPhone is to buy another iPhone.

The report of iPhone 3G S sales is based in part on observations of Apple and AT&T stores in New York and Minneapolis, estimates of the rates of sales, the hours of operation and the number of units supplied to each store, as well as surveys of 283 attendees.

A few pointers to the success of iPhone 3GS are as follows:
1.Roughly one million iPhones sold worldwide in three days, despite activation problems;
2.400,000 sold in the United States, 250,000 in the United Kingdom, an average of 18,000 in 19 other countries;
3.380,000 sold in the first two days (compared with 270,000 in a day and a half last year);
Sales were actually slowed by the approximately 15 minutes it took to activate each phone (sales at Apple stores last year took about 1 minute each);
4.Two-thirds of customers purchased the 16 GB iPhone (compared with last year, when 91 percent bought the top-of-the-line 8 GB model);
5.39% of customers were PC users (versus 25 percent last year);
6.38% of customers in the United States were new to AT&T, as opposed to 52% last year.

Why is Apple dominating the market like this? Quoting Giff Gfroerer, president of text message vendor i2SMS:
“what the iPhone did was give the normobs [normal mobile users] of the world a simple phone that they could understand. The [Nokia] N97 might have the best technology, but you need a Ph.D. to operate it. The iPhone gives the end user what they need in a very simple format and is not concerned with functionality the normob does not need.”

A simple axiom that Apple seems to be following is to give people what they want and they might buy it. In droves. Pretty simple concept. Hard to execute. (If the Nokia and Apple examples are considered)

What is hugely encouraging for Apple is that a survey of 2300 retail stores reveals that Apple has cleaned up in the smartphone market in Japan. This is the first time, when the iPhone craze has crossed the Pacific from the US shores. http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/43098/145/

While there are some doubts on iPhone’s capability to sustain the Japanese response to the iPhone 3GS (owing to the fickle nature of the industry and the faashion conciousness of Japan), There is no doubt that iPhone could prove popular (if not the best seller) in the internet savvy Japan. They may have to tweek it a bit here and there, but the makings of succesful product are there. http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10002498/iphone-godzilla-swallows-japanese-cell-phone-market/

Already iPhone has beaten Nokia in the leadership of mobile ads. http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10002452/iphone-overtaking-nokia-worldwide/

Apple: iTablets and Camera iPods

2009-07-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

Apple's quest for relentless innovation keeps the technology geeks wondering and guessing on its next product line additions.

In what may be seen as Apple's first venture into the world of netbooks, Apple seems to be readying up a Qtr 04, 2009 10'' screen iTablet using Infineon Chips and ARM technology.The Hon Hai Precision Industry is rumored to be producing the netbook for Apple.

Mac's iTablet Concept

In another report/rumour the next generation of iPods are rumored to be getting cameras. Rumors from around the web are citing independent verification that the iPod will receive a camera which only makes sense as an evolutionary step.The iPod Touch seems like the most likely candidate to receive the camera as it is currently the top of the line iPod for Apple. Even more so is that the software to take pictures, record video, and edit the film is already written as the software for the iPhone. Apple has placed an order for a massive number of camera modules of the type that they include in the iPhone. These are inexpensive cameras, in the $10 range likely to be used for the iPods.

Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/07/06/ipods-to-get-cameras-in-september, http://idannyb.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/analyst-report-10-screen-itablet-in-4th-qtr-2009/

M-Commerce & E-Commerce: Trends and Developments

2009-07-05T11:11:00.003-07:00

Trends and developments taking place in the worldwide m-commerce and c-commerce sectors (www.researchandmarkets.com)
- By 2012 it is expected that more than 1 trillion will be spent online by B2C consumers. B2B spending will exceed this considerably.
- E-payment solutions are an important part of e-commerce transactions; however security issues continue to tarnish the industry.
- Asia Pacific leads the world in terms of using mobile phones for m-payments, accounting for around 85% of customers worldwide.
- BuddeComm estimates revenue from mobile content and services (excluding SMS), accounts for around 7-10% of total mobile revenues worldwide. SMS remains popular and accounts for a further 10% of total mobile data revenues..
- Online advertising growth is set to continue for the next few years, but will slow slightly in the wake of the US financial crisis. It is expected that online advertising will eventually account for around 20% of all advertising spend in some markets.
- Search services are central to almost everything that users do online, and this places leading search companies such as Google and Yahoo at an advantage. In the emerging Chinese market, Baidu and Alibaba also have a good foothold.
- Google is still the most popular website property worldwide; however individual countries and regions show unique differences with many local sites remaining popular. Other web properties proving popular across multiple markets include Yahoo, Microsoft and Wikipedia sites, Apple Inc, eBay and Amazon.

Mobile Banking: Gaining 5X traction

2009-07-05T04:03:00.000-07:00

Despite the general downturn in the banking industry, new research from TowerGroup finds that 2009 will be a pivotal year for mobile banking as it turns from a niche channel to a mainstream channel for consumer banking. TowerGroup estimates that mobile banking usage will grow from 10 million active users in 2009 to over 53 million active users in 2013, representing a compound annual growth rate of 51.8%.

As economic concerns prompt consumers to manage their finances more closely, their desire for real-time access to- and control of- their aggregated financial information is increasing the urgency for banks to create a mobile banking channel. More broadly, the proliferation of mobile devices and smart phones symbolizes a pervasive, networked consumer market, revolutionizing many aspects of the consumer lifestyle, including finance. To this end, TowerGroup believes that mobility will be a major disruptive force in the financial services industry.

Financial services executives understand that mobile banking is a bridge to much more feature-rich, value-added mobile payments solutions. The ubiquity of mobile devices, coupled with customers' craving for information on the go, is creating the perfect opportunity for banks to extend the reach of their banking services using the most personal possession for consumers - the mobile phone. At a time when every customer counts, mobile banking is an avenue for banks to reach new audiences and grow their business.

Most mobile banking strategies today are a result of banks' efforts to extend financial services to their existing Internet banking customer base as a next step in the evolution of the self-service business model. As time progresses, mobile banking will flourish and services will continue to evolve, moving beyond basic banking functionality like balance inquiries, location finders and intrabank fund transfers to more sophisticated applications that leverage the rich functionality of mobile devices.

Vendors will continue the battle for market dominance, and the leaders will be those that embrace partnerships, platform integration and a holistic view of mobile financial services. To take advantage of the full potential of the mobile channel, TowerGroup recommends that banks begin now to incorporate mobile banking as a delivery channel with consideration for the following best practices:

1.Leverage other delivery channels to create synergies with the self-service model and utilize the full spectrum of device capabilities.

2.Develop smart integration models that give banks new segmentation and personalization capabilities for true one-to-one customer outreach based on customers' relationship desires.

3.Think outside the bank's customer base to capture new customers such as current unbanked customers with no bank accounts, ethnic markets and new generational users, such as the Generation Y segment, which desires self-service, innovation and paperless electronic transactions with no need for human interaction.

4.Create tight relationships between mobile banking and ATM vendors to build stronger ties with customers that currently do not have a relationship with a bank.

Ref: http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-26-2009/0005032129&EDATE

Juniper forecasts significant increase in open source smartphones by 2014

2009-07-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

The number of Smartphones shipped with open source operating systems (OS) will increase from 106 million this year to 223 million by 2014 according to a new report from telecom consultants Juniper Research.

The Open Source OS research found that operating systems and the applications are playing an increasingly important role in the differentiation of new smartphones and a key factor in the choice of which handset to choose from by users.

AppStore and Open-Source The last three years has seen a revolution in the OS market with market leader Symbian moving to open source and Apple leading the way in the distribution of Applications through their innovative, but now widely copied, AppStore approach. The move to open-source OS has also encouraged developers to design new and attractive applications and with over 60% of the OS market is now based on open-source, and a sizeable pool of software design talent out there, there is a massive opportunity for innovation.

However, the real key is not whether the OS is open-source but whether it's easy for a developer to design an application and make money from that effort. The combined changes of Apple's open route to the market and LiMo, OHA and Symbian's open-source OS approach have generated a tidal wave-like effect which even the economic downturn has been unable to reverse.

There is a clear warning for device manufacturers - the choice of OS is now critical and market share will, to a large extent, follow application development. The unexpected side effect however will be a shift in the balance of power towards application developers and end users - they will begin to play the tune!

Indian Telecom Story (Part XI): Return to Grey?

2009-07-03T01:50:00.000-07:00

Maharashtra state government has upped the Value Added Tax on mobile phones from 4% to 12.5%. This translates to an increase in tax revenues for the government from Rs.12 crore per month to Rs.36 per month. Notably, the Indian Cellular Association (ICA) is displeased and so are the mobile vendors.

This move would open up the grey markets while hitting business and employment in the organized sector. It is noteworthy that the boom in the organized device sector was a result of a reduction of high tax regime in 2002. This move is also being cited as a classic case of not understanding that this is a global market and it takes less than a dollar to transport mobiles across continents. This is a very short sighted move, which would be self defeating in the long run and will reverse the growth in the industry. Since, the organized telecom as an industry has been a cash cow for the government, hurting the revenues and businesses of the organized players would hurt the long term socio economic development of the state as well.

Such counter-productive policy making will negatively impact private enterprise and open markets’ and the very essence of economic growth in the long term in favour of short term subsidy for electoral and populist measures. Our state and our cities are ranked low by international businesses in terms of ease of doing business. Our growth planners, still need to learn from the Chinese model of state sponsored private industry.

Mobile Ads: Apple betters Nokia

2009-07-02T03:56:00.000-07:00

Nokia has lost its overall market share leadership in the worldwide smartphone segment to Apple, based on browser calls for mobile ads. The mobile ad share is important because apps drive customer loyalty more than hardware features.

Gartner had noted in its most recent report on the smartphone market that “services and applications are now instrumental to smartphones’ success.” That report, reflecting first quarter 2009 figures, had Nokia still firmly in the lead. But according to numbers from mobile ad service vendor AdMob, Apple smartphones received 49 percent of ad traffic in May, compared with 32 percent for Nokia. Apple offers many more apps, and thus it’s more geared to consumers than Nokia.

Apple's frictionless system and huge customer base, feeds a virtuous cycle of more apps for the App Store leading to more customers for Apple’s iPhone. Apple had the advantage of the years of experience with iTunes and their iPods PLUS their own acceptable billing solution and that has served them well. Industry sources are of the opinion that other stores simply aren’t matching the ARPUs [average revenue per user] of the Apple App store

Global top 10 mobile operators

2009-07-02T02:44:00.000-07:00

The following list comprises the top 10 largest mobile operators in the world, according to Wireless Intelligence. The list ranks the world's carriers by total number of connections and number of markets.

Internet Marketing: The challenge in penetrating Asian and African markets.

2009-06-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

A recent release of Internetworldstats.com detailing the world internet usage and population statistics (Q1, 2009) points to a compelling opportunity for internet marketers and portal designers in Asia and Africa. With a weight-age of 70% of total population of the world and a lower-than-mean penetration, the internet revolution is waiting to happen here in the next decade. The good thing about Africa and Asia is that barring a few countries, most of these states are supportive of efforts to increase the telecom and internet infrastructure. However, the internet conquest here will have a completely different set of rules compared to North America, Western Europe and Australia. While the big and long term opportunities lie in Asia and Africa, one must not be unmindful of Latin America/Caribbean and the Mid East (or even Eastern Europe), which are the medium term opportunity spots. While N America, W Europe and Australia are the first wave internet states, L America, Mid East and Eastern Europe will be second wave internet states and Asia/ Africa will be the third wave internet states.

The rules of the internet conquest will have to change and will require some fundamental re-thinking of re-packaging the delivery. Here are a few pointers towards the new rules of the game:

1.English got Internet, where it is today, but going forward, English may be limiting. It is not hard to associate a higher penetration of internet with the English world (North America, Western Europe and Australia).
This thus places emphasis on language of internet delivery: Mandarin, Hindi, Malaya, Tamil, Urdu, Swahili and more. English literacy will not drive economic and human development in these states. The mode of deliverance will be the local language.

2.The spread of internet in N. America, W.Europe and Australia has largely been acknowledged to proliferation of personal computing devices
Penetration in the second and third wave states, will depend on Telecom penetration and hence the mobile phone/handheld devices will become the harbingers of the internet revolution. By handhelds, I do not mean the fancy up-market smart-phones but basic $40/60 phones.

3.Existing subscription or ad based models may not be useful for these emerging markets. Revenue, Profitability and Sustainability models find the internet business space to be extremely slippery even in English speaking regions where culture, usages and habits are somewhat contiguous.
For the second and third wave states, customization to language, habits, cultures, money usage, and payment mechanisms will pose a significant challenge to marketers.

4.The first wave states browse the internet on computers, laptops, net-books, tablets and smart-phones. There is a high per capita consumption of content, ads, minutes of usage, search for information etc. High Def Content including text, audio, video form a part of the delivery mechanism.
Device limitations will influence content delivery. Content focus has to be sharp and light. One will have to judiciously use the knowledge of the local markets, mix them up smartly with business objectives and keep the content sharp and focused. Content delivery will also be a critical variable. Keeping in mind the infrastructural shortcomings, content delivered may only be uni-dimensional in nature (only voice or only text).

5.The business transactions in the first wave states are credit/debit card based and have a narrow bandwidth of services. Booking airline tickets, buying books, music and flowers, accessing paid information or content is only a privilege of the top 5-7% in the second and third wave states.
The challenge is to cater to the basic needs of the population better. The delivery medium here has to be much broader and involve more public utilities, health services, department of posts, Agriculture and Labour ministries or groups, banking groups etc. This involves a re-defining of the eco-system of delivery.

6.The problem of platforms, browsers and OSs is a vexing one even in the age of computing devices. The adaptabilities and compatibilities will be another challenge when the medium of delivery shifts to a basic phone.
Thus the delivery medium needs to be platform agnostic and will sit on a server preceding the mobile phone in the value delivery chain. For eg. a server that processes a consumer request, links up to the relevant website/portal, accesses information, downloads it on itself and then plays it back to the user after customizing the content. (Eg. The server receives a weather update, visits the local meteorological department portal, downloads data, coverts it into local language text/voice and plays it back to the user.)

7.The purchase mechanism and purchase price is primarily on credit card/internet banking basis. This is a high security risk situation but the most prevalent one because of the purchase habits of the consumer in the first wave countries.
The Second and third wave user is a very cautious spender and frugal as well. He does not own credit cards and the payment mechanism will have to involve the Telecom Operator. Such tie-ups would be critical in bringing internet enabled access to the user. There is a space for MVNEs and MVNAs playing a meaningful role here connecting the Solution provider, Telecom operator, Finance provider, Systems provider etc.

Internet Marketers are yet to meet the real challenge of deep penetration in the Asian and African markets, and the pointers given above would be critical for building sustainable depth.

Demystifying Twitter (Part II):Usage Charecterestics

2009-06-30T02:24:00.000-07:00

Contd from earlier post http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/06/demystifying-twitter-one-way-one-to.html

Activity levels of Twitter Users

Data collected from Twitter Grader (4.5 million users) has some interesting inferences that need to be taken note of:

1. 79.79% users failed to provide a homepage URL

2.75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile

3.68.68% have not specified a location

4.55.50% of suers donot follow anyone

5.54.88% have never tweeted

6.52.71% have no followers

9.06% of all Twitter users are inactive (less than 10 followers, 10 friends,10 updates). Of the ones, who are thus classified to be active, and have a bio, loaction, hompage URL:

1. Average user tweets .97 times a day

2. An average user has tweeted 119.34 times in total

3. The average user has a following to follower raio of .7738

In terms of content of tweets:

1.1.44% of all tweets are retweets

2.37.95% of all tweets contain an @ symbol (mentions)

3.33.44% of all tweets start with an @ symbol (replies)

Most users stretch the 140 character limit to the max in an attempt to get as much content as possible into every update.The distribution of postings over days and times of day shows us that business hours during the business week in the US are the most popular.

The maximum concentration of Twitter use is in US, followed by Canada and UK. Australia is the next in the list.

Demystifying Twitter (Part I): One way, One to Many Publishing Service

2009-06-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

Twitter has attracted tremendous attention from the media and celebrities, but there is much uncertainty about Twitter's purpose. Is Twitter a communications service for friends and groups, a means of expressing yourself freely, or simply a marketing tool?

Here's sampling two independent studies on the Twittersphere (The Twitter eco-system):

1. A study on the user demographics and usage phenomenon by Harvard Business Publishing (Sampling about 3 lakh Twitter users)
2. Another study by Hubspot on activity levels of Twitter Users. (Sampling about 4.5 million users)

User Demographics and usage styles
Compared against other online social networks; 80% Twitter users have atleast 1 follower/following. This is in contrast to the online social portals, which register 60 - 65% single friend status. The other marked departure from social networking standards is the following/follower pattern. Most of the online social networks activity is focusssed around women, where as in Twitter, the activity is centred on men.

It might point to the fact that content produced by Men on twitter is perceived to be more compelling than a typical social network and content produced by women is less compelling (because of lack of photo sharing, detailed biographies etc)

The Twitter usage pattern is also very different from a typical on line social network and a Twitter user contributes very rarely --> The median lifetime tweets per user is one which translates to over half the twitter users retweeting less than once every 74 days.
At the same time there is a small contingent of users who are very active. Specifically, the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. On a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production. To put Twitter in perspective, consider an unlikely analogue - Wikipedia. There, the top 15% of the most prolific editors account for 90% of Wikipedia's edits ii. In other words, the pattern of contributions on Twitter is more concentrated among the few top users than is the case on Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia is clearly not a communications tool. This implies that Twitter's resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.

Contd...

Microsoft Morro on the Horizon

2009-06-29T03:14:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp in a quest to provide complete security to its OS users would soon be launching its own antivirus app Code named-‘Morro’ at the end of 2009.
This news assumes significance as this antivirus would be completely free and would provide higher level of security due to close knit approach with Windows OS.Microsoft may be able to provide a great solution due to control over anonymous usage statistics of millions of PC’s.
This has sound alarms for commercial Anti-virus companies like Symantec, Kaspersky and McAfee, earning majority of their revenues by protecting Windows PCs all these years. These companies also have significant presence in enterprise security market and attract huge revenues from it.
Today many users are forced to buy paid anti-virus to fight higher level of threats unleashed by malicious programmes and viruses. The availability of anti-virus app by Microsoft itself would avoid the security dilemma faced by OS users and may also increase its legal OS sales in emerging markets.
Microsoft through this initiative is trying to ramp up confidence amongst its customers, at the same time opening up a new revenue stream in future. The move may be late timed but indeed serve great purpose for users craving about better anti-virus integration in windows OS.

Indian Telecom Story (Part X): Gartner's predictions about the Indian Telecom Industry

2009-06-29T02:28:00.000-07:00

Gartner has made public, its future growth prediction for the Indian Telecoms market. Here's presenting a few highlights of the same:

1.The Telecom sector revenues would touch $30 billion by 2013 registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.5 percent between 2009-2013. In other words the Indian Telecom industry with its low double digit growth numbers is now maturing as any other industry would.

2.The Telecom subscriber base is also expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.5 percent and would cross 770 million by 2013. This is somewhat in disagreement with DoT's figures of 900 million by 2013/ and 1.1 billion by 2015. http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/05/dot-in-first-ever-forecast-of-mobile.html

3.Mobile market penetration is projected to increase to 63.5 percent in 2013 from 38.7 percent in 2009. The main resons for this would be increased focus on the rural market, entry of consumer durable and electronic companies into the mobile handset segment, and cheaper handsets.

4.The churn rate - the rate at which a subscriber switches their operator - would cross 59 percent in 2013 from 53 percent currently. The churn rate is also not expected to shoot to a high level despite introduction of Number portability.

5.The number of people with prepaid connections,accounting for 93 percent of the subscriber base in 2008, will continue to swell to exceed 96 percent by 2013, surpassing 740 million. The postpaid to prepaid ratio will not see major up move as it is forecasted to exceed 29 million by 2013 just a small CAGR growth of 2.5 percent from 23 million in 2008.This could be a big dampener as it reflect the inability of Telco’s to garner post-paid users.

6.The revenues from data services will significantly contribute to mobile services in India, with a CAGR of 16.8% from 2009 to 2013. Growth will be triggered by increased adoption of value-added services, which are relevant to both rural and urban markets.The introduction of 3G in future could well land a helping hand in increasing Telecom sector’s revenues.

Quick Bite: Steve Johnson on Twitter (Covered by Time)

2009-06-26T00:38:00.001-07:00

Twitter’s key elements — the follower structure, link-sharing, real-time searching — are here to stay. And every major channel of information will be “Twitterfied” in one way or another in the coming years.

Steven Berlin Johnson’s Time cover story: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html

Intel and Nokia join hands for Linux based Netbooks

2009-06-24T04:00:00.001-07:00

Nokia, Intel explore the Open source route for developing the netbook. While this is a step in future for the likes of Nokia and Intel and an extension of their platforms from a new device perspective; it is also significant in terms of development of a third camp apart from Apple and Microsoft. It also holds a lot of promise in terms of benefits from open source. Reproducing the first reactions: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49302736,00.htm

Intel and Nokia have announced a long-term relationship that will see the development of Intel-powered, Linux-based handheld mobile-computing devices.

The partnership between the chipmaker and handset manufacturer was announced on Tuesday, 23rd June 2009. Under the deal, the companies will collaborate on several open-source mobile Linux software projects, and Intel will license HSPA/3G modem intellectual property from Nokia.

"This Intel and Nokia collaboration unites and focuses many of the brightest computing and communications minds in the world, and will ultimately deliver open and standards-based technologies, which history shows drive rapid innovation, adoption and consumer choice," Anand Chandrasekher, the general manager of Intel's Ultra Mobility Group, said in a statement.

The partners will cooperate on developing common technologies for Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo, which are both Linux-based operating systems. Moblin is currently under development for use in netbooks, mobile internet devices (MIDs) and other devices, and Maemo is the operating system that Nokia has used for its N800-series MIDs.

In September, Nokia said the next version of Maemo will incorporate 3G technology for the first time. Until now, devices such as the N810 have relied on Wi-Fi for their data connectivity.

"Enabling common technologies across the Moblin and Maemo software environments will help foster the development of compatible applications for these devices — building on the huge number of off-the-shelf PC compatible applications," the companies said in their statement. "The open-source projects will be governed using the best practices of the open-source development model."

The companies also said they will use open-source technologies from Mozilla, oFono, ConnMan, X.Org, BlueZ, D-Bus, Tracker, GStreamer and PulseAudio.

Nokia's handsets are all based on ARM-based chip architecture, which has become a key rival to Intel's x86-based architecture. ARM has dominated the mobile phone market, and the x86 is the basis of most desktop computing, but both are now targeting the netbook market.

In a conference call on Tuesday, Chandrasekher said Intel's deal with Nokia aims to "work this [x86-based] family of architecture into future mobile devices", but he declined to specify what kinds of devices were being planned, or when they might appear.

Kai Öistämö, Nokia's device chief, also said in the call that ARM-based architecture "continues to be an important part of Nokia's future".

Telecoms analyst Dean Bubley, of Disruptive Analysis, said on Tuesday that the deal suggests Nokia is not confident that its Symbian mobile phone platform — currently in the process of being open-sourced — will "scale to non-phone devices".

"There is clearly a concerted effort by lots of people, whether it's in the Android or non-Android Linux community, to have a go at Microsoft and Apple's incumbency in notebooks," Bubley said. "The first round of Linux-powered netbooks did not get acceptance in the mass market — average punters preferred XP because they knew how to use it. There is a vision that a Linux-based platform can change that, but I'm really not sure."

Intel is a prime backer of WiMax, a long-range wireless technology that is a rival to 3G. Bubley hypothesised that, in those markets where WiMax becomes popular, many users will still need 3G as a back-up, due to patchy WiMax coverage and the need to roam into non-WiMax-covered areas.

"Intel could want to create dual-standard products that use both WiMax and 3G," Bubley suggested.

http://www.cnn.com/mobile/218101057;jsessionid=KTNYFU0QUAWKKQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN?cid=ChannelWebBreakingNews
http://www.telecoms.com/12299/intel-teams-up-with-nokia-to-build-mobile-platform
http://technology.iafrica.com/news/technology/1758481.htm

Crystal Gazing: Mobile Technologies that will impact 2009 - 10

2009-06-23T00:30:00.001-07:00

Mobile technologies/trends to watch in 2009 and 2010
1. Bluetooth 3.0 —will likely include features such as ultra-low-power mode that will enable new devices, such as peripherals and sensors, and new applications, such as health monitoring. Bluetooth 3.0 is intended to support "classic" Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and ultrawideband (UWB). It's possible that more bearers will be supported in the future. Wi-Fi will allow high-end phones to rapidly transfer large volumes of data.
2. Mobile User Interfaces (UIs) — UIs have a major effect on device usability and supportability. They will also be an area of intense competition in 2009 and 2010, with manufacturers using UIs to differentiate their handsets and platforms. Companies should expect consumer interfaces to drive new expectations of application behavior and performance. Better interfaces will make the mobile Web more accessible on small devices, and will be a better channel to customers and employees.
3. Location Sensing — Location awareness makes mobile applications more powerful and useful and will be a key component of contextual applications. Location sensing will also enhance systems, such as mobile presence and mobile social networking. The growing maturity of on-campus location sensing using Wi-Fi opens up a range of new applications exploiting the location of equipment or people.
4. 802.11n — 802.11n boosts Wi-Fi data rates to between 100 Mbps and 300 Mbps, and the multiple-input, multiple-output technology used by 802.11n offers the potential for better coverage in some situations. 802.11n is likely to be a long-lived standard that will define Wi-Fi performance for several years. High-speed Wi-Fi is desirable to stream media around the home and office. From an organizational perspective, 802.11n is disruptive; it's complex to configure, and is a "rip and replace" technology that requires new access points, new client wireless interfaces, new backbone networks and a new power over Ethernet standard. However, 802.11n is the first Wi-Fi technology to offer performance on a par with the 100 Mbps Ethernet commonly used for wired connections to office PCs. It is, therefore, an enabler for the all-wireless office, and will be considered for replacing older 802.11a/b/g systems in 2009 and 2010.
5. Display Technologies — Displays constrain many characteristics of both mobile devices and applications. During 2009 and 2010, several new display technologies will impact the marketplace, including active pixel displays, passive displays and pico projectors. Pico projectors enable new mobile use cases. Battery life improvements are welcome for any user. Good off-axis viewing enables images and information to be shared more easily. Passive displays in devices, such as e-book readers, offer new ways to distribute and consume documents. Display technology will also become an important differentiator and a user selection criterion.
6. Mobile Web and Widgets — The mobile Web is emerging as a low-cost way to deliver simple mobile applications to a range of devices. It has some limitations that will not be addressed by 2010 (for example, there will be no universal standards for browser access to handset services, such as the camera or GPS). However, the mobile Web offers a compelling total cost of ownership (TCO) advantage over thick-client applications. Widgets (small mobile Web applets) are supported by many mobile browsers, and provide a way to stream simple feeds to handsets and small screens. Mobile Web applications will be a part of most B2C mobile strategies. Thin-client applications are also emerging as a practical solution to on-campus enterprise applications using Wi-Fi or cellular connections.
7. Cellular Broadband — Wireless broadband exploded in 2008, driven by the availability of technologies such as high-speed downlink packet access and high-speed uplink packet access, combined with attractive pricing from cellular operators. The performance of high-speed packet access (HSPA) provides a megabit or two of bandwidth in uplink and downlink directions, and often more. In many regions, HSPA provides adequate connectivity to replace Wi-Fi "hot spots," and the availability of mature chipsets enables organizations to purchase laptops with built-in cellular modules that provide superior performance to add-on cards or dongles.
8. Near Field Communication (NFC) —NFC is emerging as a leading standard for applications such as mobile payment, with successful trials conducted in several countries. It also has wider applications, such as "touch to exchange information" (for example, to transfer an image from a handset to a digital photo frame, or for a handset to pick up a virtual discount voucher.NFC is likely to become important sooner in emerging markets, with some deployments starting by 2010.

World Internet Usage and Population Statistics

2009-06-21T22:45:00.001-07:00

www.internetworldstats.com

The great Indian 3G auction

2009-06-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

Government of India has settled for a reserve price of Rs.4040 crore for the long-overdue auction of third-generation (3G) spectrum. The minimum bid amount for pan-India spectrum is double of that recommended by the telecom department and aligns with the finance ministry's proposal, as the government tries to maximise the revenue it can earn from the auction. It has been decided that up to seven operators (with one slot being reserved for state-owned telcos BSNL & MTNL) will be allowed to offer 3G services across the country. The department of telecom (DoT) wanted a total of five operators. Executives with major telecom operators said the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) - the industry body representing companies that provide mobile services based on the GSM standard - would protest against the decision on the reserve price. Telcos are readying to lobby hard with the government to reduce the base price to at least Rs 3,540 crore per player, as most of them had factored this number in their calculations as both DoT and the finance ministry were close to reaching an agreement on this price. The government would get Rs 24,240 crore from auctioning 3G spectrum to six licencees. While the money would help the government lower the fiscal deficit, he added that the base price of Rs 4,040 crore would be on the higher side.

Is the Government killing the proverbial golden goose out here just to shore in money to lower fiscal deficits (Increased by the magnamity of populist policies)?

Telcos may restrict their 3G offerings to metros and category A circles which has a faster time to break even on investments
It will increase the entry barrier for operators
It will also increase the service costs for customers
It could restrict bidding to the six big Indian telecom operators
It will be quite difficult for new operators to participate in the auction, as they would need to invest an additional $1 billion for the 3G licences, over and above the investments they are making in rolling out their new 2G networks
The higher base price could lead to a scenario similar to Europe where telcos could not recover the costs they paid for 3G spectrum.
The higher the base price, the higher the tariffs, as telcos will have to make a business case of it

The government gains on two fronts: Increasing the Base reserve price by 500 crores per player (Rs.4040 crores against Rs.3540 crores) and increasing the number of operators from five to seven.

In a related development, GSM operators said the government must resolve all issues with allotting 2G spectrum before deciding on the 3G auction.The telecom ministry has decided that it will take a call on all issues related to second-generation spectrum - the airwaves on which all mobile services are offered at present, including the methodology for future allocations, the pricing for this scarce resource and the usage charges for utilising these airwaves only after the upcoming auction of 3G spectrum. Any ambiguity on issues related to 2G, especially in the current business and economic environment, could seriously dampen investor interest and adversely affect revenues that would be raised by the government through the auction process

Smartphones to replace Desktop Phones (North America) by 2011

2009-06-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

Enterprises in North America will be supporting more mobile phones than desktop phones by 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner analysts said that although most users will still also have a desktop phone, mobile phones will become more prevalent and replace desktop voice hardware to become the primary device.

“The adoption and standardization of corporate liable mobile phones in the enterprise has been driven by the use of smartphones, wireless e-mail and the integration of these phones into IP telephony systems, while improved in-building coverage and lower mobile service costs have also played a part.,” said Phil Redman, research vice president at Gartner.

Mr. Redman said that as spending on mobile communications services grows, and soon overtakes that of wired voice services, enterprises will need to plan how they manage usage, support and costs. Although mobile hardware costs are generally less than desktops, mobile services can still cost five times more than an enterprise-wired call and this could represent a huge shift in budget for enterprise communications services.

A Movement called Twitter

2009-06-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

For an internet portal just two years in existence, the amount of news that Twitter has been making is like nothing ever before in the history of communications. Sample this:

The micro-blogging site has featured in Time some days back
Oprah Winfrey is the latest celebrity tweeting on the already huge celebrity list of Twitter
Iranians turned to the service to protest the results of their presidential election and get the news out …
… if that wasn’t enough, the importance of the San Francisco-based startup was underlined by the US State Department, which asked Twitter to postpone a planned maintenance shutdown on Monday because of the situation in Iran.
Reacting to the Iran situation, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said, “It’s humbling to think that our two-year old company could be playing such a globally meaningful role that state officials find their way toward highlighting our significance.”
Access to the popular social networking service was blocked across mainland China on Tuesday afternoon, two days before the 20th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown following calls for a re-evaluation of the protest movement that have been published on the Internet, and may have prompted the black-out
Twitter has been adding millions of users a month for the past several months and its website received 32.1 million unique visitors in April, according to comScore.
#cnnfail hashtag on Twitter, came out as a result of Twitter users venting out their frustration on CNN for not giving enough coverage to the Iran incident. CNN had to issue an official response to the allegations.

The actual number of users of the micro-blogging service is hard to figure since Twitter can be accessed using personal computers, mobile telephones and dozens of custom-built applications such as the popular Tweetdeck.
The Twitter co-founders have reportedly passed up offers running into the hundreds of millions of dollars for the service and have so far only unveiled vague plans to turn it into a money-making venture.
Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist whose firm Union Square Ventures is an investor in Twitter, made it clear at the Twitter conference in New York on Tuesday that he believes Twitter has a bright— and profitable — future.“Links are the currency of the Internet,” Wilson, who sits on Twitter’s board of directors, told the 140 Characters Conference.
“If you look at the power of Google, and why Google is currently the king of the Internet, it’s that Google drives more traffic to more places on the Internet than anybody else,” he said.
“Social media, particularly systems like Twitter and Facebook that are good at driving traffic out into the Internet the same way that Google does are very important and powerful economic forces,” Wilson said.“It’s a natural thing for services like Twitter and Facebook to eventually figure out how to inject some sort of a paid model into their systems.“It’s the obvious thing to do and if they don’t do it some one will figure out how to do it as a third-party application, and people are already doing it as third-party applications,” he said.
John Borthwick, whose company Betaworks is among the hundreds that have developed tools for Twitter, said it is this “incredibly vibrant ecosystem of applications” surrounding Twitter that is one of its strengths.
Jeff Pulver, organizer of the 140 Characters Conference, said it is too early to tell exactly where Twitter is going, but “I think what we’re experiencing is something that’s much bigger than all of us understand.We’re living in a time where access to information is available to anyone and everyone,” said Pulver, a web entrepreneur. “The advent of Twitter has democratized access to information to everyone.
“When more and more people have real-time information we’re going to see transformations happen that no one expected,” he said. “Businesses will fail, others will flourish and there will be billions of dollars of opportunity created.”

The impact that this 2 year old micro blogging site seems to have in real time world is scary and there is little wonder that Google wants to either buy out or partner Twitter. Twitter’s ascent would not leave Google very comfortable. Would it?

Reference: http://www.livemint.com/2009/06/17131454/From-Time-to-Oprah-to-Iran-Tw.html?h=B
http://www.livemint.com/2009/06/03121331/China-blocks-Twitter-ahead-of.html?d=2
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/5351937/Google-chief-hints-at-partnership-with-Twitter.html
http://www.watblog.com/2009/06/18/the-iran-controversy-and-the-importance-of-social-media-communications/

Will N 97 do it for Nokia? (gain Tech leadership)

2009-06-19T02:02:00.001-07:00

The 3rd week of June 2009 is momentous in terms of the ground breaking new launches that we would have redefining the smartphone space. Palm is alll set for a return with its highly touted Pre challenging the iPhone. There are guesses and second guesses on whether Pre would be the iPhone killer. iPhone gets the 3.0 makeover which essentially puts it in par on many other departments as far as smartphone capability is concerned. However, iPhone will all be about the Apps that they can bring to the table. Nokia N 97 on the other hand is Nokia's flagship salvo to claim its own technology leadership space in the smartphone category. In as much as it will be against the iPhone, the battle between N 97 and iPhone will be one between Device and Markets. This article com compares the N 97 against the formidable iPhone on various departments.

N 97 versus iPhone
The fight between web-based and mobile-based players has officially started this week. On Monday, Apple announced its latest phone, the iPhone 3G S, which will go on sale next week. And on Saturday, Palm started selling the much-hyped Pre.
This comparison seems like one of hardware vs. applications. If this is a smartphone device market, the iPhone is four year late. If this is an app awareness market, Nokia is one year late. Analysts world over are watching these launches as a toss up between Device driven smartphone market or Apps driven smartphone market.
The Nokia N97 seems to have better hardware, where the iPhone 3G S and its App Store are second to none. The latest iPhone marketing campaign was smart enough to pinpoint the main competitive advantage into their next wave of customers: "there is an app for that."
The average iPhone user seems to behave either as a teen or a teen at heart, and loves having fun with useless and exciting apps thrown away as rapidly as they are downloaded, like a Facebook app. More than 1 billion downloads later, less that 5 percent of those who downloaded an iPhone application are actively using it after 21 days and only 10% of apps retain the audience attention, according to a PinchMedia survey. Nokia's target market demographics may be different, more for professionals and professional use.
The other differentiator for Apple is the "user experience": Understanding it, being in control of it and finding joy in handling it. Something that Apple does perfectly, and Nokia's Symbian-Interface does not do as well. Apple's forte is their vast experience with user industry-leading GUIs.
Neither T-Mobile and AT&T, the two US operators that could have subsidized the Nokia N97, has picked it up (yet?). As a consequence, at more than $600 Amazon price, the N97 is unlikely to be a threat to the latest iPhone in the US
Each of these devices can be bought for far less than the Nokia N97. The 16GB iPhone 3G S will sell for $199. And the 32GB model, which has the same amount of built-in memory as the N97, will cost $299 when the phones go on sale next week. Apple has also cut the price of its 8GB iPhone 3G, introduced last year, to only $99. The Pre, which also has a slide-out QWERTY keypad and a touch screen like the N97, is $199 with a $100 mail-in rebate.But there is a catch; these low-priced smartphones come with strings. Consumers must sign a two-year contract to get the discounted prices. And in the case of the iPhone and the Palm these phones are exclusive to one carrier. Subscribers are also charged an early cancellation fee if they terminate their contract before it ends.Even with early termination fees, the iPhone and Pre are still less expensive than the N97. For example, a new AT&T subscriber buying the 32GB iPhone 3G S will pay $300 for the device. If this subscriber cancels his service before the two-year contract ends, he will pay at most $175. Adding the early termination fee to the cost of the phone, the iPhone subscriber will still only pay $475 for the device. This is about $225 less than what he'd pay for the Nokia N97.
Just look at Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1, which went on sale last year in the U.S. with a price tag of $800. The phone has largely been a flop in the U.S.
Nokia must realize that it can't really compete in the U.S. smartphone market without a carrier subsidy. And it's difficult to understand why the company would not be able to strike deals with U.S. carriers. After all, it is the largest cell phone maker in the world.Perhaps Nokia doesn't think the U.S. market is worth the trouble. Even though the U.S. offers the biggest growth opportunity in smartphones, which also happens to be fastest growing segment of the mobile market, analysts say that Nokia could still maintain a market share position in the 30 percent to 40 percent range by selling devices throughout the world. But the U.S. market represents an untapped opportunity that could prove very lucrative for Nokia. And the longer it takes Nokia to bring an affordable hit phone to the U.S., the harder it will be for the company to get its fair share of the pie.

When will Twitter start generating money through the advertising medium?

2009-06-18T04:16:00.001-07:00

Twitter is the million dollar baby and the trillion dollar question is “When will Twitter start generating money through the advertising medium?” . Towards this, I reproduce Biz Stone’s (Founder, Twitter) version of commercial usage, revenue generation, and advertising which he had posted on his blog.

Source: Does Twitter Hate Advertising? (Blogger): May 20, 2009

When we speak publicly about how Twitter might become a profitable business, we talk about the idea of commercial usage and then explain that we're still exploring what that means—that's true. We also say traditional web banner advertising isn't interesting to us which is also true. However, to say we are philosophically opposed to any and all advertising is incorrect.For a long time, we've said that we think there are interesting opportunities related to commercial usage. Businesses and individuals are getting value out of Twitter and we may be able to enhance that. We've just begun exploring in this area—early ideas include account authentication, management tools, and discovery mechanisms. We'll keep you posted.The idea of taking money to run traditional banner ads on Twitter.com has always been low on our list of interesting ways to generate revenue. However, facilitating connections between businesses and individuals in meaningful and relevant ways is compelling. We're going to leave the door open for exploration in this area.Do we hate advertising? Of course not. It's a huge industry filled with creativity and inspiration. There's also room for new innovation in advertising, marketing, and public relations and Twitter is already part of that. In fact, next month I'll be attending and speaking at the 56th annual international advertising festival, Cannes Lions 2009. I'll let you know how it goes.

Essentially, Biz Stone speaks about expanding the value in Twitter (related to commercial usage). Twitter is largely exploring the value that it can create and add to individuals and businesses as a meaningful, relevant and compelling way to make monies. Traditional banner ads are dismissed as a low priority activity which is low in the list of “ways to generate revenue”.

Blackberry: Ruling the US smartphone market

2009-06-17T05:28:00.001-07:00

On RIM and Blackberry steady rise in Smartphones in US and world markets. The reasons for its performance are its competitive pricing, availability across carriers, business expertise (security, service and reliability for enterprise users), aggressive pricing and portfolio. This article also reviews the weaknesses in the RIM portfolio where it would need to work hard and work quick so not to loose edge to the sharp competition.
Resource:CNNMoney.com
Apple's iPhone 3GS and Palm's Pre has captured a lot of hype but don't count out Research in Motion's BlackBerry just yet, say experts.
While the iPhone enjoyed an initial pop in market share after the second generation version was released last July, that share has been nearly cut in half.
In the first quarter of this year, BlackBerrys had a 55.3% share, compared to 19.5% for iPhones, according to IDC data. Compare that with the third quarter of 2008, when BlackBerry devices controlled 40.4% of the U.S. smartphone market, compared with 30.1% for Apple.
Solid footing. Much of RIM's anticipated success lies in its ability to grow market share even as competitors launch new flashy devices.
Analysts expect that market share to grow into next year, despite the mostly negative reviews for its first touchscreen device, the Storm, and new launches from Apple and Palm.
A recent Yankee Group survey showed 41% of Americans plan on buying a smartphone for their next phone purchase, and 50% of those people plan on buying a BlackBerry. Only 25% said they would buy an iPhone.

Experts cite competitive pricing, business expertise and new consumer products as reasons for RIM's sustained growth.
Pricing. RIM may not offer the interactive operating system experience that the iPhone, Pre or Google's G1 phone offer, but RIM offers BlackBerrys that beat them in end user cost.
That's because every major U.S. wireless carrier offers at least one BlackBerry device, unlike competitors, which have exclusive contracts with AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. With the carriers fighting for customers, many offer discounted rates, including Verizon's aggressive "buy one get one free" promotion for its BlackBerry line.
Analysts say wireless providers can afford to offer competitive pricing because BlackBerrys cost less for them to operate than iPhones and Pres.
"RIM's design is much more bandwidth-efficient than its competitors, so carriers make the most money off the BlackBerry platform," said Nick Agostino, RIM analyst with Research Capital Corp. "Once two carriers in the same market offer BlackBerrys, they start to compete against one another and RIM is the beneficiary."
The campaign appears to be working. Exclusive iPhone carrier AT&T has as many BlackBerry users as iPhone users, according to Andy Castonguay, director of mobile device research at Yankee Group.
"The total value of a device goes far beyond the physical phone itself," said Castonguay. "Service, reliability and functionality all play a part in the total valuation, and BlackBerry continues to distinguish itself in those terms."
Enterprise. Most experts agree that RIM has solidified its standing at the business smartphone of choice, due to its focus on security and ease of configuration.
"RIM has been very aggressive in its enterprise server upgrades, making its software even more appealing to businesses," said Castonguay. "RIM has made a name for itself in security, service and reliability, which are fundamental necessities for companies."
Still, some think that RIM shouldn't get too comfortable as the enterprise leader.
"RIM is facing bigger challenges now from a competitive standpoint than they've ever had before," said Ken Dulaney, analyst at tech consultancy firm Gartner. "The user interface doesn't match up to its competitors, and many of our clients are breaking with their previous policies just to use the iPhone. IT departments are beginning to support anything with basic security features."
Furthermore, the company still has some ground to make up in worldwide smartphone sales. It controls just 20% of the global market, compared to 41.2% for Nokia.
The company is trying to broaden its appeal to global businesses, including world travelers with its new BlackBerry Tour, which can easily access foreign voice and data networks while abroad.
What's in store. BlackBerry has increased its consumer base in the past three quarters, according to IDC, but some analysts think RIM needs to establish itself as more a consumer device.
The launch of the BlackBerry app store has helped draw consumers, experts say, and though it lags behind the iTunes app store, it has grown to become the No. 2 app store. The Pearl and Curve have also sold well, and the Storm held its own after heavy subsidies from Verizon.
But most analysts agree that RIM will need to launch a competitor that looks and functions more like the Pre to continue to drive consumer demand. Both Verizon and RIM have hinted at a release of a touch screen device with a keyboard in the third quarter of 2009.
"The Pre and iPhone pushed the envelope in what the operating system needs to be in terms of flexibility and ease of use," said Castonguay. "BlackBerry will have to adapt its operating system to become much more consumer-friendly."

Who needs (or wants) another search engine?

2009-06-17T02:41:00.001-07:00

VERSUS

Microsoft’s quest for search excellence now has a name: Bing and, whether Ballmer and Co like it or not there are parallels drawn between Google and Bing. Ballmer has made an attempt to consciously avoid pitting Bing directly against the god of search, however, on a competitive aspect, the comparisons are inevitable and unavoidable. Two smart things, that Microsoft (MS) has done with Bing is:
Position itself as a decision engine (rather than a search engine) à Meaning it provides results rather than search query results.
Unlike MSN and Live Search, MS has committed $100 million to marketing the product.

But introducing Bing didn't answer the most relevant question: Who needs (or wants) another search engine?
The only real answer for that question would be to provide a search engine that would actually be worthy of using instead of Google -- one that would be so compelling that we'd want to change our habits to use it.
Bing isn't that search engine. It's just another nice Web site. If it wasn't Microsoft that was launching it, one would probably never even hear of it. Not because it doesn't have good ideas. It's just not earth shattering -- and that's what it would take for most people to break their Google habits. Although Microsoft is positioning Bing as a decision engine, it actually plays like a bunch of individual applications, each with interfaces that are together and sometimes look and feel similar. Moreover, a lot of these features are reminiscent of other websites/platforms.
When you scroll over a result on Bing, it displays a shape to its right. Hover your cursor over that shape to see a preview of what's on the page behind the link. It's a lot like the images that ask.com and those look-ahead browsers that predated Internet Explorer and Firefox. The maps section has all the same capabilities as Google maps or Mapquest but feels faster and displays the info in a slightly different way. Breaking down the results according to category, is much like Vivismo's Clusty search engine. But it doesn't do as good a job of categorizing as Clusty. A lot of other browsing /navigation capabilities at Bing are very inspired from other websites (example: Kayak.com for travel links etc).
Thus with no definitive features or interface that define it to be radically different from the existing stuff available on the net, MS is merely putting together few different things together on the same website. With the fierce pace at which Google is innovating presently, MS needs to relook the paradigm. Presently MS is re-packaging stuff. But to out do Google, one would need to out innovate them. Looks like MS is not doing much of that.

Indian Telecom Story (Part IX): 400 not out

2009-06-15T18:10:00.001-07:00

In the newest release of subscriber figures by TRAI, 11.90 Million users were added in April 2009 as against 15.64 million in March 2009.The number of mobile subscribers in India crossed the 400 million mark in April, putting the country on track to reach its goal of 500 million customers by next year. The rise took India’s total wireless subscriber base to 403.66 million, TRAI said. The slowdown in subscriber growth came after cellular operators withdrew special deals on offer during the final months of the fiscal year to March when the firms sought to boost revenues to help their annual accounts.
But India remains the world’s fastest-growing mobile market and analysts say the government’s target of 500 million mobile phone users could be reached ahead of schedule.The total telecom subscriber base made up of wireless and landline customers stood at 441.47 million at the end of April compared with 429.72 million in March, TRAI added.Total penetration stands at close to 38 telephones for every 100 people, TRAI said.

3G Deployments
India has said it will stage its much delayed auction of third-generation (3G) wireless spectrum by year end.Third-generation wireless service allows voice, data and video to be sent at high speeds to mobile devices and is viewed as the next major booster driving growth in India’s telecoms market.The Congress-led government had forecast the auction could raise Rs400 billion rupees ($8.5 billion).
But since its re-election last month, it has backed off that forecast, saying the global financial crisis could reduce the windfall.India’s newly reappointed telecoms minister A. Raja has also said he will seek to push cheap local mobile call rates even lower to spur cellular growth.
Local mobile calls now cost as little as one cent a minute while long-distance rates vary from two cents to four cents a minute.Raja says he wants to cut the local rate to less than half a cent a minute

Worldwide Mobile and Smart Phone Sales: Q1, 2009 Company and OS updates

2009-06-15T01:24:00.001-07:00

Source: Gartner

Continued from earlier Post:http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/06/worldwide-mobile-and-smart-phone-sales.html

Reference/ 2008 Market share archives:
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/mobile-operating-systems-by-market.html
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/smartphone-market-share-update.html
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-nokia-blinked-in-america-classic.html
http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/03/smartphone-market-share-update.html

1.Nokia continued to lead the mobile phone market, but its share dropped to 36.2 per cent from 39.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2008
2.Samsung retained second place and improved its market share as its sales totalled 51.4 million units.
3.After dropping to the fifth position in the fourth quarter of 2008, Motorola overtook Sony Ericsson to regain fourth place.

4.Positive performance by Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple showed that services and applications are now instrumental to smartphones’ success.
5.Much of the smartphone growth during the first quarter of 2009 was driven by touchscreen products, both in mid-tier and high-end devices.
6.“’Touch for the sake of touch’ was enough of a driver in the midtier space, but tighter integration with applications and services around music, mobile e-mail, and Internet browsing made the difference at the high end of the market.”
7.Symbian accounted for 49.3 per cent of worldwide smartphone operating systems (OS) market share in the first quarter of 2009, down from 56.9 per cent share in the first quarter of 2008.
RIM’s smartphone OS market share reached 19.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, up from 13.3 per cent share in the first quarter of last year.
8.The iPhone OS accounted for 10.8 per cent of the market, up from 5.3 per cent market share in the first quarter of 2008.
9.Nokia’s worldwide sales reached 97.4 million units in the first quarter of 2009, due to reductions in inventory in markets such as Asia/Pacific and Latin America. This was the first time Nokia’s sales dipped below 100 million units since the first quarter of 2007. The real impact of the current market recession was on the average selling price (ASP), which saw an 18 per cent drop year over year. Nokia managed to grow its sales in the smart-phone segment by introducing the Nokia 5800 into more regions.
10.Samsung had a very successful first quarter of 2009. With sales of 51.4 million units, Samsung's market share grew 4.7 percentage points to 19.1 per cent. It returned to double-digit profitability due to a good product mix. Sales of its Omnia, Tocco and Pixon handsets continued to benefit from strong consumer interest in touchscreen devices. The arrival of the Tocco Ultra Edition late in the first quarter of 2009, and the announcement of its first Android-based product, the i7500, will help Samsung in a highly competitive second half of 2009.
11.LG sold 26.5 million units in the first quarter of 2009, growing its market share by 1.9 percentage points year over year. The company benefited from a very strong portfolio of touchscreen, messaging and imaging devices. The new LG Arena device showcases a new user interface that demonstrates a positive focus on improving usability. However, LG’s biggest challenge is to become competitive in the smartphone segment as services and applications become more important to customers.
12.Motorola continued to experience significant difficulties even in its home market, but it had a solid quarter with prepaid operators Boost Mobile and Tracfone. It expects worldwide sales of iDEN handsets to be up 50 per cent in 2009 compared with 2008. These factors will help sustain Motorola until it revamps its portfolio in the fourth quarter of 2009. Motorola has committed to Android not only to revamp its position in the second half of 2009, but also to produce long-term performance improvements. How Motorola will be able to differentiate its offering when so many players in the mobile device market will be delivering Android-based products at the same time will be critical for Motorola.
13.Sony Ericsson lost market share compared both with the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2008, with sales of 14.5 million units. While the recession contributed to this decline, a weak product portfolio was also a factor. The product features that helped Sony Ericsson become one of the world's top vendors — imaging and music — are now too common to serve as a differentiator. Sony Ericsson is late to catch on to the popularity of touchscreen devices and has a limited smartphone portfolio. While its focus on services through Play Now Arena is important, Sony Ericsson needs to ensure its devices include the most desirable applications and features for consumers

IE-free Windows coming to Europe: Microsoft bows to pressure

2009-06-14T02:03:00.001-07:00

Reproduced from http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39441298,00.htm
Countering pressure from European regulators, Microsoft plans to ship the newest version of its Windows operating system in Europe without its Internet Explorer web browser.
The abrupt reversal comes shortly before the European Commission is due to rule on antitrust charges brought against Microsoft in January, claiming that the world's largest software company abuses its dominant position by bundling its Internet Explorer browser, shielding it from head-to-head competition with rival products.
Until now, Microsoft has claimed that the browser was an integral part of the operating system and should not be pulled out, but it now plans to do that for a European version of Windows 7, due to be rolled out later this year.
Microsoft deputy general counsel, Dave Heiner, said in a blog post on the company's website on Thursday: "Given the pending legal proceeding, we've decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users."
European regulators, which had suggested Microsoft offer a choice of browsers on its operating system to open up choice for consumers, gave a frosty response.
The European Commission said in a statement reacting to Microsoft's move: "Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a web browser at all.
"Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less."
The Commission is still weighing whether Microsoft's bundling of the browser has been abusive, and what sanctions to bring as a result. It is still possible that the Commission will force Microsoft to include other browsers with its operating system, a move the company has been determined to avoid.
Microsoft's move could yet be a boon for competing browser makers such as Google, the Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software, whose complaints spurred the European Commission case against Microsoft.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is used for about 60 per cent of global internet traffic, Mozilla's Firefox has about 30 per cent, and Opera is at four per cent, just ahead of Google and Apple's Safari, according to web analytics firm StatCounter.

Is Bing the sound of search? (Part IV)

2009-06-13T05:07:00.001-07:00

Do we need another search Engine?

I have to wonder whether users are really crying out for a new search engine.

The only real answer for that question would be to provide a search engine that would actually be worthy of using instead of Google -- one that would be so compelling that we'd want to change our habits to use it.Bing isn't that search engine. It's just another nice Web site. If it wasn't Microsoft that was launching it, you'd probably never even hear of it. Not because it doesn't have good ideas. It's just not earth shattering -- and that's what it would take for most people to break their Google habits.Although Microsoft is positioning Bing as a decision engine, it actually plays like a bunch of individual applications, each with interfaces that are together and sometimes look and feel similar.

Will $ 80 Million buy Microsoft Traction?
Microsoft will spend $80 million to get us to try its new search engine, to be called "Bing." Could that possibly work? (Well, at least it's not caught in the confusing branding world of "Windows Live" . . .)
Consider.
We all used to use Yahoo or AltaVista until we switched to Google. We stayed with Google because it was better.
Now Google is more than just habit. Google has our IDs, customizes our searches, searches our desktops and our email and delivers neatly integrated Maps, reviews, and video searches. It works. There is every reason to stay and no reason to leave.
But $80 million buys enough impressions to get people to try something new.
For this to make the slightest dent, here's what has to happen.
First, the search has to be better.
Second, the search has to be qualitatively different. Not just better search, but "holy cow this is different." Like it was when you first tried an iPhone, or first saw TiVo. This could be a better way to organize different media. It could mean connecting with social applications. It could mean searches that get better at understanding meaning so we all don't have to think in Boolean logic. Frankly, if I can imagine it, it's not different enough. So it has to blow all of us away.
Third, it has to integrate with everything else, better than Google does.
And finally, it has to work equally well on all browsers, all devices, and all PCs, even Apples and Linux machines.
Thus from what it looks like, Bing will bring in some new features to the game and the search ineterface but even with its $80-100 million moneys on advertising, it will be far before it does something radically different to outmode Google totally. That too at a period of time, when Google itself is innovating so furiously all over. Unless Bing has more to it than we have seen till now, it is destined to the same fate as .NET, Zune and Vista.....

Is Bing the sound of Search? (Part III)

2009-06-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

Taking on Google

Talking to the Journal, Mr Ballmer conceded that the new name and new look would not be enough to immediately tip the scales: "To make our 8% grow significantly we don't have to capture the imagination of everybody, but we have to capture the imagination of some. We have to grow our brand equity." It will take years to chase down Google, Mr Ballmer told the paper.

Steve Ballmer also acknowledges: “There is no way to change the whole game in one step.” But search “deserves a good feature war.” And Bing will be rolling out new features as it goes forward. But is it enough to get people to switch? Bing is certainly not a game-changer, but it does cut out a lot of the back and forth that happens with so many searches today. If Bing can help people find what they are looking for faster, it will put pressure on Google to keep advancing the ball as well.

Microsoft's research suggests that up to 60 per cent of queries are not answered by current search engines, and that 50 per cent of all searches are in fact repeats of previous questions. Bing aims to be better at working out what users are really looking for. A search for the website Facebook, for example, would display just one result linking to the site itself, but give users the option of displaying further results about the site.

After a botched up attempt to acquire Yahoo, Bing, it appears to be taking no chances. Ad Age reported the company plans to spend as much as $100 million advertising the search engine.

Mike Nichols, a general manager in the Microsoft search group, said the company isn't banking on beating Google but does want to transform its also-ran search image.'We want to capture a unique position in consumers' minds. They need to know why is it that they should use this product.As opposed to saying, we're a new search engine, we do everything a little bit better than the other guys.'

Matt Rosoff, an analyst for the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, said he thinks Microsoft's search results are usually on a par with Google's and combined with the extensive ad campaign, Microsoft has a chance to increase its share.

In the final part of this post, we would analyze on the Search Market and Google Dominance and whether or not will Bing be able to buy in some Traction.