Social Networks on Mobile

Mark Zuckerberg, founder CEO of Facebook has gone on accord saying that 2009 will be "serious business". This was in reference to the oft asked question: How will the social networking sites monetize their traffic? ( I plan to cover that topic squarely in one of the Facebook posts). Therefore it was only time before entry into the mobile platforms were considered as the next big thing given that mobile advertisement market was worth $2.8 billion in 2008.

The latest in the context of entry to mobile ads market space is the entry of Facebook following Google and Bebo (read report here http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k9/feb/feb69.php). The entry of these heavyweights into the mobile advertisement space significantly alters the battle scene, which was so longer dominated by smaller and local companies. It makes sense for Facebook to enter the mobile adspace because surveys have proven that a significant portion of Facebook users access the website through their mobiles. This is validated by Jon S. von Tetzchner CEO, Opera Software in his web report http://www.opera.com/smw/2008/12/.

Thus Facebook is seriously considering a tie up with Nokia to include Facebook features in its devices. Nokia on the other hand is also considering options in its own mobile social networking service. Facebook's alliance with Nokia at this point oif time would include allowing users to merge their phone contacts with their Facebook friends and combining Facebook profile pictures with users’ address books and a whole host of features including photo and video upload options are also being considered. If this partnership works out, Facebook will have widgets on Nokia mobiles linking users to Facebook. This is the third mobile major after RIM and Apple, where Facebook features in Mobile aps. Facebook is also in talks with Motorola and Palm to integrate Facebook into its suit of services.

Indian Telecom Story (Part VI): What downturn? The party continues...

TRAI's report  dated 20th February 2009 has the following updates on the Indian Telecom market.

• Subscribers base crosses 400 million
  
• 15.41 million wireless subscribers added in January 2009
  
• 5.65 million subscribers in Broadband segment
  
• Teledensity reaches 34.50% mark!
  

Interestingly, 15.41 million new mobile subscribers takes the mobile connectivity number to 362.30 million. Comin on the back of a downturn and economic meltdown, the subscriber additions dont show any slow down as they beat the sub-adds in December 2008 (10.81 Million) by almost 50%. While the stock indices ove

r the world are flatering, here is one index that is still going and growing strong. Broadband penetration statistics pale in comparison as it registered an increase of .2 million over a December base of 5.45 million in January (3.6% growth).

The other significant bit in here is the launch of Reliance GSM services.  http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/02/ada-reliance-telecom-exercising-muscle.html. 

The link in here is an earlier post on how the competitive scene was heating up between Reliance and Bharti with the launch of Reliance GSM services in the country. Reliance muscled its way in January 2009 adding 4.95 million subscribers compared to Bharti Airtel's 2.73 million subscriber additions and Vodafone's 2.4 million subscriber additions. Certainly Reliance got a super start and has got it 4.95 million subscribers into its network in the first month of operation. At this rate, Reliance will beat Vodafone's no 2 market share position by March 2009. There is no surprise that Airtel feels threatened!

Already there is a renewed push to register more and more users into the Post paid services. (By Vodafone). The idea here is by reducing call, SMS, data browsing, VAS and STD charges on Post Paid, customers are lured to Post paid connections which is supposed more sticky and loyal than the Pre Paid option.

It is going to be an interesting battle for the top honours in Indian Telecom market. Watch this space.

Profiling Facebook: The Google of Social networking (Part I)

I intended a study on Facebook to be a one blog post initially. However, the literature, reserach and comments on the subject is staggering and hence i feel compelled to give more than one post. Here is the firt one on the phenomemon of social networking and profiling Facebook, the one company which has revolutionalized the power of social networking.

Facebook is accorded a status of being the second wunderkid of the web world. The first web wunderkid is Google!



Consider this:

• Barack Hussein Obama, used Facebook as a cornerstone for his path breaking presidential election last year.
  
• Dell is recruiting new hires from Facebook audience.
  
• Windows 7 "borrows" networking features from it.
  
• It is a 175 million users community..
  
• ...adding 5 million new users everyweek.
  
• If Facebook, were a country, it would be greater than the population of the whole of Brazil
  
• It edges out USs greatest sporting event Superbowl XLIII with a record 152 million eye balls
  
• One of the most addictive sites, users spend an average of 169 minutes per month (compare it with 13 minutes in Google news and 10 minutes in New York Times)
  
• The Maine democratic party uses it to organize regular meetings
  
• Ernst and Young uses this site to recruit new hires
  
• Sometime in October November 2008, Facebook edged past Myspace to become the largest networking site in US.
• In a 2006 survey conducted by student monitor, a New Jersey based company specializing in college student market, Facebook tied with Beer as the second most popular thing among undergraduates, ranked lower than iPod.

At the heart of the Facebook phenomenon is what is now being termed as Conversational marketing (Word of mouth marketing). The underlying insight is that consumers are more liley to trust a pitch from friends rather than paid commercials and other promotions from the company! Thus
Users become product promoters...

1. ..and are encouraged tp spread the word about things they buy and use --> thereby endorsing the product.
   

What Facebook has been successful in doing is blending E - Commerce with WOrd of mouth marketing for results which at this stage are more promising than anyother in the Web 2.0 space. While advertising online as we know it today may be a good profit engine for social networking companies, the FaceBook avatar of e-commerce selling is looked upon with some hope in terms of bringing results.

While a Amazon or a e-Bay uses a rating system to throw up results on relevant products basis current purchases, Face Book ratifies products by adding rating and recommendations from friends. They call this Social Graphs. Thus when a user buys something online through Facebook, Facebook will seek a permission for sharing the purchase with the user's social network, with a product endorsement by the current user. For instance is a user browses through New York Times editorial section using a Facebook application, Facebook prompts the user when he is leaving to rate his experience. Depending upon the users feedback, Facebook flashes a status update to the users social network saying "... has read the editorial in NYT and thinks it rocks! Check it out."

In terms of Online marketing, Facebook thus shifts the focus from ads to consumers to promte purchase (and earning revenues by the clicks on the ad widget) to making people endorse the products they buy and tell it to their friends (Facebook earns from the users endorsement of the company product).

To that effect this strategy has been voted to be one of the boldest moves on the internet!.

Apart from user endorsements, Facebook has three other sources of revenue:

1. Business pages: Where they host the company and its offerings for consumer/users of a particular profile. Thus it creates a platform for companies to talk to their ideal profile consumers and promote its product. A 100,000 of such hosted company profiles are found in Facebook at this point.

2. Social Ads: Ads targeted by user profile data! This source also hosts the Beacon which uses personal information of users (which they would like to share only with their network) for targeting marketing campaigns. There have been privacy concerns around the Beacon, which mined implicit data (which the consumer doesnot want to share with other outside his network). Google and others used Explicit data, which the user has voluntarily disclosed about himself to be used for marketing campaigns. Amidst outrages on privacy, Beacon was made an "opt in" service for users instead of being an "auto enrollment".

3. Insight: Facebook also has a data of usage metrics for advertisers (trends etc) and also sells data on targeting/focussing and clicks.

According to Facebook's own books of account, they value themselves at $3.7 Billion (June 23rd, 2008). However Microsoft, in 2007 bought 1.6% of Facebook stake at $240 million, thus giving Facebook a valuation of $15 Billion. It made $280 million in revenues in 2009 and is yet to break even.

Touch Phones: To be or not to be!

A mobile phone user survey by Reevoo, the online product comparison site, has "almost " damned the touch screen bally-hoo. In a survey that happened across 19000 respondents , they featured 226 handsets and the result that they have come out with defies the accepted standards, trends and beliefs in the devices market today. 5 out of the top 10 least popular phones are touch phones with big marquee names such as HTC Diamond, Samsung Armani, Blackberry Storm, Samsung Omnia being least in terms of popularity. Many of the phones have been drubbed on the basis of poor battery life, "nightmare" touch-screen interface, and virtual buttons that "aren't big enough for male fingers". A hit to Convergence as a upcoming principle, Web Browsing and E mail functionality are not that highly favoured by consumers!

On the other hand Nokia devices with its traditional 12 key pad gets a thumbs up by most users as Nokia swamps the most popular phones list! Style was the most important factor when choosing a phone (15.3 per cent), while size (14.1 per cent), a good camera (10.4 per cent) and decent music capabilities (7.7 per cent) make the 4 most important factors that influence the purchase!

The way it sees, there are a few vital take outs from here:

1. Many of the manufacturers have been inspired by the iPhone. But it is not all the hardware, for UI forms the bedrock for consumer experience which in this case has dulled out the sheen off a few marquees.

2. Users do take refuge in the tried and tested and that is why you will find all Nokias out there. They are not necessarily the best phones but the most reliable ones that consumers seem to prefer.

3. Convergence is still a mile away as people havent really gone infavour of the swanky, technology edge. So tech marketers have some work to do to make convergence mainstream!

4. Price of the handset is an important factor when people think of its utility and usefulness and value. That is probably why mid ranged handsets occur with regularity in the most popular list.

5. People also would probably like to have a reliable handset rather than a flashy one. Nothing otherwise puts in context, why Nokia scores so heavily while a few of the Big names failed so miserably.

Top 25 Social Networks: US

Compete.com put up the top honours for social networking sites in US sometime back. No one expected the result to to be anywhere different than featuring Facebook and MySpace at No.1 and No.2 ranks. Tweeter completes the top honours at No.3! A massive 1.1 Billion hits at Facebook with 68 million unique visitors does justice to the massiveness that Facebook is achieving. It has edged past myspace.com, last years no1.

The statistic doesnot just stop there, Facebook has also reported an exponential increase in sessions per monthly unique visitor!

Twitter, may be the one to watch next year, as it has galloped through to No 3 rank from a no.22 last year. The number on Twitter can be significantly higher especially because often it is browsed through third party applications where as the study is based on browser data.

Interestingly Orkut which was buzzing loud till some time back and is still the no 1 networking site in India doesnot feature in the top 20. This is probably because in terms of innovative applications, Orkut has not kept pace with the social networking scene. Do we see Google beginning to loose steam here as well?

Positioning: Still relevant in the digital age

http://www.contentsutra.com/entry/419-big-adda-to-break-even-in-3-years-says-rajesh-sawhney-president-relianc/

in 2008, ADAG backed Big Adda spend money on advertisement campaigns to get eyes balls. Not stopping at that they hosted Amitabh Bachchan's blog and ran promotions. The cost of all the spends on advertisements and promotions was about 5 crores. The other prominent spender in the social networking space in 2008 was iBiBo.com with its "Balti nahi Bolti" campaign.  The spends were budgeted at 60% on the traditional mass media and 40% on the online audiences. The results of those efforts is that while total internet audience in India surged by 22% and the Social networking numbers surged by 51%,  BigAdda lost 25% of its audience and iBibo lost 50% of its audience.

On the contrary sites like Bharat Student, Linked In, Orkut, Face Book,hi 5 and others didnot invest in any marketing activities and yet they registered significant growth beating the median (growth of the market). 

Does this lend credence to the fact that online marketing is more than eyeballs. Probably it is content related, probably more features to do more things, probably the No 1 social networking website Orkut is riding a threshold mass. Probably it is do to with being "in", as in Facebook. I have a inkling that while in 2008 Orkut rode Threshold and Facebook was "in", in 2009, Orkut will saturate, Facebook will ride the threshold and Twitter will be "in". Probably it is to do with your positioning, e.g Bharat Student or serving a speciality, LinkedIn.

In absence of a clear hook, IBibo and BigAdda spent a lot creating awareness, but were after all not able to make a clear and uncontested spot in the mind of the user (positioning themselves effectively). That could lead them to a "aslo ran" status. That could be one of the reasons of their negative inspite of the social networking scene being in 50%+ positive.

Lessons from the day

1. Dont try to be too many things to every consumer. He will seek you out if you deliver the benefits.

2. Traditional media vehicles may create awareness. But if the offering is not sticky enough, you cannot get your consumers to stay back. (I believe in.com is headed the same way)

3. Postioning is as relevant as ever.

One important thing is Monetization bit. How do you monetize the 3.3 millions users on your books.

Debating WiMAX and LTE (Part II)

Picking the winner

Experts and bloggers all over have contested and claimed on which one is better than the other LTE or WiMAX? This is perhaps precipitated by the camps which back the technologies. However, a third view on these technologies suggest that there is no winner in strict terms because these technologies are complementary in nature. Bore OFDM parent, WiMAX has a data background and LTE has a voice background. Furthermore, WiMAX will work on 5 levels of service such as emergency services, public safety, data transmission (real time and otherwise) and Voice. To that extent it appears to be more versatile than LTE which has only two levels of service (one for voice, and the other for everything else). So the usage and market positions of these two technologies will depend on customers and their usages, spectrum positions and other technology quantities. Thus the idea (as depicted bythe graphic below) is complementary technologies for divergent telecom needs. There is a possibility that a single vendor may be use both these standards to provide services to different class of consumers!

Advantage LTE: Where does LTE score above WiMAX?

LTE is the natural evolution resultant from 2G to #G and onto LTE. Thus

1. Handset manufacturers are likely to weight toward LTE handsets (as an extension of their 2G,3G,3.5G lines)

2. Using the existing UMTS network for 80% of its needs, LTE will not involve very high CAPEX involvements. Thus a better experience can be rewarded to the consumer with less investment as far as Telcos are concerned.

3. Mobile operators will roll out LTE and users can fall back on the 2G/3G networks where-ever there is a "hole" in the LTE network.

Advantage WiMAX: Where WiMAX would outscore LTE?

1. WiMAX works on a open standard which translates into a cheaper network.This reduces the cost of operations to almost half of that of LTE

2. As discussed earlier with 5 levels of service, WiMAX is a more versatile service compared to LTE.

3. Build on the IEEE 802.16 wireless broadband standard, fixed WiMAX (802.16D) will tantamount to a huge WiFi area. So this can be used in large campuses and office complexes and for within city Broadband and voice services (as long as in line of sight). Thus in terms of usage, WiMAX can be versatile in terms of group usage as well.

Weaknesses LTE and WiMAX

1. LTE will be limited to single subscriber system on a large carpet area.

2. WiMAX would work on a multi subscriber system in a small carpet area. Also, with loss in line of sight and distances between the tower and the reciver, the rates of data transfer may be erratic and inconsistent.

Final Verdict

Yet again, it will be different strokes for different folks sort of a thing out here. Taking pole positions with any one technology could prove to be counterproductive for the players in the market. While LTE will ride upon 80% GSM market share, WiMAX will be handy in Enterprise operation markets and data heavy networks. So while LTE will be at a lesser advantage in Data, WiMAX may find it difficult to cover full geographies as exhaustively as LTE!

The interesting bit is that a study into cellular subscriber patterns in 2012 still reveal that 55% of 4.8 billion cellular subscribers (by 2012) would still be using the GSM/EDGE/GPRS technologies and only a lowly handful will be into WiMAX and LTE.

Debating WiMAX and LTE (Part 1)

LTE (Long term Evolution) and Wimax (Worldwide interoperability for Microwave access) are the two competing fourth generation technology standards that will usher in next generation wireless. (Thats a long long way off for a country like India, which struggles with 3G roll outs.)

As the graphic above suggests, the debate today centres around LTE versus WiMAX. Interestingly enough both these technologies come from the same parent OFDM. To that extent they are siblings and this is about sibling rivalry (Kane and Able anyone?)

Graphic on how data speeds stack up in Technologies. This doesnot mention the super standard which would be a combination of LTE and WImax and is supposed to have 1GB/Sec speeds on data transfer.

The Camps and the Lineage

Wimax is being rolled out by Sprint Nextel - Clearwire partnership. The roll out barnd would now be Clear (It was Xohm earlier). The roll out is expected to begin in 2009. This group has the auspices of Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Comcast and we will see why they have this backing. Mobile WiMAX has been implemented by WiBro in South Korea since 2006. As a technology WiMAX has been around for sometime now and it is now that it is beginning to see serious on the ground action.

LTE is being spearheaded by carriers At&T and Sprint in US, NTT Docomo in Japan. 7 major Telecom companies have agreed to a mutual framework for licensing I P Rights relating to LTE. This includes Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson, NEC, Next Wave Wireless, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Network and Sony Ericsson. The clamor for LTE standards recieved a big boost when Nortel deserted its WiMAX position to check into the LTE camp (Nortel is a toast of recesssionary history now). Vodafone, the worlds No 1 operator also supports LTE standards, which comes as a huge fillip to the LTS camp!

Time to Market

WiMAX will see the first level of deployments and serious action in 2009 and it will have a head start over LTE, which would only come alive by 2011-12. Having a 2-3 years head start can be a boon as GSM proved against CDMA. GSM was ahead of CDMA in terms of launch and till date enjoys 80% of the world market share.

This time to market for WiMAX as a technology will be offset by the pace of LTE launch. LTE will use the existing UMTS networks for a quicker launch. Thus it makes up for the time disadvantage by the incumbent advantage in terms of roll outs.

Return of the Prodigy:Palm (featuring Pre and WebOS)

Palm pioneeered the PDA and the smartphone scene way before RIMs and Apples of the world were in the scene. However, over the years Palm lost its way and is almost out of contention. Almost! The recently announced web OS and Pre have been appreciated and its time, we shall see whether Palm has any fight left in it or not!

For a start, Palm Pre makes a point. It has the works and it works pretty smartly!. It starts with a 3.1 inch 320*480 res screen with a built in accelerometer and a QWERTY keyboard. Inside is a 8GB storage and a 3 MP camera with a LED flash. It has a neat multitouch screen and it supports WiFi.

However, it is the UI based on the new WebOS that Palm introduces with the Pre which seems to be the "meat" of things. WebOS is based on the webkit which uses the Synergy data integration combining data from outlook, Google and Facebook to provide a universal address book and calendar. It also auto updates these sites for changes made in the device address book. The new App store that Palm is making would provide other applications. From the first look Webkit outclasses competition in terms of smoothness, speed, application, switching and menu views.

Palm from the very introduction of the WebOS and the device seem to have the Apple iPhone i its sights! We will wait to see how this one shapes up when it is shipped somewhere around the first half of this year.

Go Palm!

Pay per download: Will Google milk money out of U Tube

I graduated into the internet in the year 2000! My first email account was the huge popular usa.net then. However, in mid of 2001, usa.net migrated to being a paid service under the American Express group. Almost none its consumer base migrated to the paid service. Internet has been a "liberating and democratic medium". Information and communication was available free, it was the economics of "Free". I call it Freetardonomics! A lot of the Freetardonomics was through using Google as the Gateway.

On 13th February 2009, Google decided to monetize its hugely popular You Tube. You Tube has been the problem child for Google from sometime because inspite of its huge following, it was not adding revenues and profits to its financials! The paid download is a new way for Google to add monetization options for its services and looking beyond the advertisement streams! Most of the downloads will be charged $1 and Google is trying to replicate Apples iTunes business model. (If users can pay for music, why not videos?). Not all videos will be monetized!

One can guess that Google will look to monetize content such as music videos, commercials, soaps and other entertainment content. It would also probably look at educational content to be monetized. The typical model would be a trailor of 30 seconds of the video content and then the channel asking for purchase of the content.

However, the one immediate challenge that Google faces is how would it control the hacks and the download tools available to users? How would it control mechanisms like Firefox plug ins and webs sites like YouTubeKeep.com, which allow users to rip content from YouTube at will?

Finally here: The solar powered Mobile handsets

I bought my first eco wrist watch 2 years back. It came steep and it boasted of a perpetual battery life. It never needed a charge because it would charge itself under the sun. Something like the Superman! The raucous cries for environmental friendly devices is gaining decibels every moment and i used to think to myself, as to why a Nokia or any other company would not make a solar powered phone. It would be environment friendly, and would liberate the user from having to charge it every now and then!

So then, Finally here it is. Samsung announced the Blue Earth at the MWC. Made from recycled plastic, this solar charged phone uses an inbuilt pedometer to measure the carbon footprint of the user. A full solar charge of around 10 to 14 hours will provide enough power for around four hours of talk time (this is bit low, but subsequent devices will better this statistic). The handset can still be charged normally using a conventional plug, with the solar panels used to top up the battery during use.

Blue Earth hits the stores later this year at a high end tag. LG has already announced its own energy and environment friendly solar phone and this looks like the first of a mega trend toward zero energy devices.

While Samsung has broken this new ground, it remains to be seen, which company is able to graduate all its portfolio to the solar powered phones the first. Long lasting environment benefits will accrus once this technology massifies to the the farmers and tribals of the loneliest parts of the planet!

Challenges and Opportunities: Ovi Application store

Ovi is Nokia's door (Literally in Finnish) to the high end internet and convergence enabled consumers. Over a year and a half, Nokia has been building its Ovi brand. On 16th February, 2009, Nokia announced Ovi Application store, a virtual store front where developers can develop applications and consumers can easily download them. N 97 will be the first device to sport the Ovi Aps store when it goes to sale in June 2009! The Store will be available on its S40 and S 60 platform devices. Nokia intends to pep up the offering by tracking downloads and suggesting applications to users, which may be of their interest.

A few days back, i had covered the Online application stores story in one of my posts: http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/02/online-application-stores-fad-or.html

Apple and Google are "there", Nokia, RIM, Palm will get there soon. Microsoft is also designing something on these lines.

Challenges and Opportunities

While Ovi Apps Store (OAS) has the advantage of a captive base of Nokia's consumers, which it can choose to exploit well, there are some formidable challenges that OAS faces.

The first challenge obviously is a "me too" positioning important from a perspective of "being available" to its consumers. Having the store was not really a innovation novelty as much as having a store to offer 3rd party applications. iPhone and Google have established themselves fairly well in the application space and the next three entries will be (RIM, Nokia, Pearl) will only fragment the market to feed their consumers!

The happening place in terms of application and their developments is really the North American market and Nokia doesnot have a good representation out there. This is slightly stiffling as Android and iPhone are getting ahead in the same context.

Nokia can tap into the base of developers in Europe and South East Asia. However, the market for applications and downloading is not so great in South Asia. Thus, cutting edge applications can have longer acceptance periods.

One significant advantage that Nokia brings to the table is the robustness and stability of its Symbian platform.

There is a lot of work that is happening on Android and Microsoft platforms. While Microsoft is distinctly seen as "pro enterprise", Android is seen as "pro consumer". Apple is .. "apple". Symbian has not generated as much interest in terms of work lately as a Android or a iPhone has.

Nokia already has a the largest community of developers (3.5 million). So there will not be any dearth of Ideas!

However, with low acceptance of applications in Nokia dominated markets, the same application developers may get higher returns in the Android, Microsoft or iPhone stores.

End Note

The first 6 months after launch is going to be important for Ovi. This is because, there will be a lot of applications, which will be source copied from the Apple store and Android store. The developers will expect a quick buck. Making a fast buck will depend on the ability of Ovi and the consumer acceptance of the Symbian store. That may shape the developer perception of the Ovi store!

On Google and its Android plans

Last year MWC saw Google unvieling its Android plans. It also had a few applications for mobiles, which generally where cut down version of its computer operations. Within an year, Google Android has come a long long way. Android is a platform where many smartphones are being developed today. In terms of future in smartphones, it probably has the largest number of alliances and products under development (even larger than Symbian and Microsoft). Android also boasts of a up and unning applications store, the Android market. While the number of applications on Android (800) may seem significantly smaller than iPhone(15000), the number of Carriers rooting for Android's open source technology can herald a significant upheavel in the mobile OS market shares (Dominated so far by Symbian).

According to Wireless intelligence, the number of mobiles globally is a figure close to 3 Billion where as there are only 1.5 billion Internet users (Internet World stats). The medium to internet for the next 1.5 billion users is going to be the mobile. Also mobile will exceed the desktop or Laptop as a medium to internet for the existing 1.5 billion. That is where Android is so important for Google!

Google is also working on Voice search, an extension of its search feature on voice recognition software which will take away the typing, writing, keyboard punching on mobile devices.

Microsoft failed to turn it’s dominance of PC operating systems and office software into a significant presence online, and Google took full advantage. For handset makers and mobile operators, the same forces are at work as Google takes on the 37% market share and incumbent leader Nokia on the mobile space!

Telcos delaying 4G: A case of generating returns over the 3G technology cycle

In an earlier blog , http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2008/11/what-is-biggest-challenge-telcos.html, i had mentioned that RoIs and profitability of innovation is severely challenged, when innovation out strips technology cycles i.e New technologies are introduced at a faster pace and it doesnot allow the incumbent technology to be generate viable returns before it becomes obsolete.

4G poses such a disruptive threat to 3G and 3.5G in Europe! Follow the link to read about LTE/4G versus HSPA/3G/3.5G.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/524d7ea6-fb88-11dd-bcad-000077b07658.html?goback=%2Ehom
Vodafone, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom have expressed no hurry to launch LTE in their respective countries because
1. They dont want a CAPEX splurge at a time of recession! Sound thought!
2. Avoiding a CAPEX splurge, is also going to re-assure the share holders and stake holders!
3. These players feel that there is enough head room in 3G and 3.5G for enhanced consumer services and thus there is no need to jump into 4G

It would be 2011-2012 before the implementation of 4G networks hits the ground! This thus means that these companies give themselves 2 to 3 years to generate maximum of their returns on the 3G investments!

Social context in Applications: Is Google missing in action?

Search Engines are now a way of life with Internet addicts. While there is Google and Google only, there are others like Yahoo, MSN, Cuill, Ask and many others. I am a Google fan and on one occassion had told my wife, there is Internet and there is Google!

Of late, Google seems to have fallen back in terms of Search. Not in terms of market share, not in terms of volumes, not in terms of efficacy or any optimised results! It is the social context that Google has started missing.

http://forums.techarena.in/web-news-trends/1114191.htm: This news feed was featured some time back and essentially speaks about Ziva Software's application for mobile search, Zook coming together with Nokia! This addresses a huge potential market of mobile search applications. With more and more people opting to use Internet on the go on their mobiles, a search feature is a very apt application. Loaded as a widget (the name of a icon which features the application on the menu screen), these mobile search applications can will massify "SEARCH"!

So what, i said to myself, you can also load a Google Search Icon on your mobile and use it for search. But there lies the catch. A socially optimzed search will not only "search" but also prompt solutions intutively. As an illustration, if i do a "Italian Food Joints + Connaught Place" search on Google and a Social context optimized search engine, Google will generate the list and throw it back at me in no time. The Socially optimised search will generate the list, understand relevance of Restaurants (which means i need to eat --> hence may require booking) and intutively given me an option, "Book a Table?". I can take the browser on Book a table and click on it so that i would directly talk to the Restaurant manager! Two Clicks.

On a Google, i would get the results, click on the result, figure out the telephone number, write it down ona piece of paper and then call the restaurant. Thats 3 clicks + manual work. Thats one click and a lot of hassle too many!

Kudos to Zook for having done that now! But with size and might of Google, it may turn it around any day now. Zook will have some days and time and distance to go before it thoroughly integrates all content like Google. But so long, for Social aware context applications, is the way, it is to be.

Indian Telecom Story (Part V): Collaboration as a tool to profitability

The recession has not been able to put the spanner through the growth engine of Indian telecom Subscribers. It is adding the 10 million month after month and the engine seems good to keep chugging on at a fair and brisk pace. The ARPU are south bound, which has a direct relation to profitability. However, competitors collaborating with one and the other have been able to keep the costs light. Wonderfully well, collaboration has reduced the CAPEX and OPEX of the operators giving them the healthy booster shots in their profits!

I had reported sharing of the infrastructure / towers/ sites in some of my earlier posts as well. This has the single biggest tool in terms of reduction of the Capital expenditures! It was under the government intiation that infrastructure sharing started off. The win win logic, was higher reach (which the government was persuing) and lower CAPEX which the Telcos were persuing while adding the numbers. Both these objectives were thus fulfilled by Project MOST! Operators today have set annual targets of 50 - 60% incremental sharing!

The traffic varies from being heavy in the day times to being sparse in the night times. An analysis of the traffic for geographies also enbales switching off the sites, without impacting service quality and on the other hand, making savings on the OPEX!

While project MOST is based on existing infrastructure sharing, roll out of infrastructure in weak coverage areas and sensitive areas is also happening through collaboration. So instead of 2 or 3 different towers in a newly opened geography, operators are agreeing on one site shared by the others.

Three simple steps and yet, when CAPEX accounts for 31% of your Revenue and your OPEX is $ 6 (per consumer), with ARPU of $6 per month (implying no margins), changes in these figures can significantly alter your bottomline.

Microsoft:Will it be able to contain and win the "Open Source"

The Microsoft - Open source scene is heating up fast and furious! In an earlier post i had mentioned the open source as the anto thesis of Microsoft's philosphy. http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/02/open-source-microsofts-anti-thesis.html

It looks like the Redmond giant is waking up to the reality of the open source as the next evolution in computing history and Microsoft has a strategy to hold this threat or atleast ride it. On the surface it looks like a two pronged strategy eventually leading to Microsoft evolving into an open source product itself. Voila! A change in philosophy is on the cards!

The two pronged strategy revolves around a holding action and a transformative stance! The holding action is to position Windows as something on which an open source can be run. On the otherhand, they will fight the open source to be a replacement of Windows by transforming Windows into an open source product in the next 1-2 years. Thus, on one hand, they'll be building a great place for open source to play; on the other hand, they'll continue to try and prevent it from eating into the walled kingdom they've created on the desktop.

It is not a marked departure from their earlier character of defending their products with lawsuits, patents and antitrust actions. Only this time, they would like to befriend the challenger, learn the terrain an then outrun the "open source" challenge.

This is going to be fascinating and every biuut, worth waiting and watching for!

Microsoft, Google and Ovi:The error list!

Less than 2 days back, i had blogged about the fallibilities of the super corportaions: Microsoft and Google. http://technologyandtelecom.blogspot.com/2009/02/even-invincible-and-infallible.html. Interestingly enough Nokia's foray into online services and application, Ovi has fallen into the list of goofers! This happened when a recent server crash lost all unsynched data on Ovi. This unsynched data is dated from January 23rd 2009 to Febrauary 9th, 2009. This means any data uploaded by the consumer from 23rd Janaury 2009 onwards would not have been saved.

Ovi is Nokia's foray into internet services through the Nokia devices. Apart From Nokia's Ovi, Apple's Mobileme and Microsoft's My Phone service (to debut) use the cloud to store data uploaded by the customer! While the number of affected users is limited, because of Ovi's small userbase, it is worth questioning what would happen if for some reason a Facebook would have such a failure.

The conclusion here for the user is: Dont trust the cloud for everything. It is also wise to have a back up local hard disk for your data.

Another question that pops up: should the cloud be rated for efficiency and trustworthiness of data systems, security and speed. Probably yes!

Microsoft's marriage to surface computing: Risking redundancy?

U.S. Patent No. 7,479,950 was awarded to Microsoft for a application which tracks position of gadgets and applications on the screen of a computer.

Incidentally, this patent was Microsoft's 10000th. So far, so good. However, it increasingly begins to look like Microsoft is obtaining and getting patents in a territories which will not find much takers. Surface computing. With the trend moving to the clouds, OSs diminishing, Browsers and web apps getting more potent , Microsoft is increasingly finding its users vacating their seats. Even if nothing, the browsers are migrating to "available for free" instead of a Microsoft License. The Web 2.0 with its freetardonomics principles is something that Microsoft will have to figure out!

So long for Patents!

Interestingly, earlier patents were used a legal aids with which a corporation would defend its turf. Lately however, the trend has changed and Patents are being used as bridges to collaborate with others in developmental stages of new products/technologies! Microsoft has been at this. However, the cloud and the web 2.0 seem to make the software gaint redundant faster than Microsoft would like it!

E 75: Doing the honours till N97 hits grounds!

The mercurial N series line up has not churned some great ones after the N 95. Instead it was E 71 which turnedthe heat for Nokia last summer. Then came the E 63, essentially a colour refresh for E 71. The latest in the Nokia armoury in E 75! the first of its kind, this will be a complete departure from Nokia's hardware architecture. It is an ultra-slim dual-keypad slider with a standard 0-9 pad beneath the display and a landscape QWERTY exposed by the slide. Chrome accents, sleek rounded lines, a nice wide full keyboard - it’s all good.

A 2.4 Inch, 240*320 display with a 3.2 MP Camera, HSPDA and Wi Fi is how it packs its punch. This would hold the place before the N 97 comes in this summer.

Pity, Nokia doesnot have significant representation in operators in NA.

Samsung Memoir: The camera and the mobile fuse!

Equipped with an 8-megapixel camera with a Xenon Flash, the Memoir should be a camera-phone fanboy's dream. The 8 megapixel camera, which includes a 16x (digital) zoom, will also shoot video. SGH t929 will also feature a full HTML browser, a virtual QWERTY keyboard, and a whole lot of other multimedia features. No Aps store, No Wifi and a loose interface ruin what could otherwise have been a state of the art device in here!

LG Versa: Sucessor to the LG Voyager

The LG VX9600, or the LG Versa, can be either a touch-screen phone or one with a QWERTY keyboard. Yes, apparently the touch-screen handset comes with a detachable QWERTY keyboard. There are also plans for other detachable modules, like a game controller pad, speakers, and maybe even a Wi-Fi module. In this pic is featured the versa prominently showing a soft key board.

Toshiba Timeline: iPhone in its sights?

Many believe the Toshiba TG01 will be handful for the iPhone. Making its launch in MWC, this eye catcher has a 4.1 inch, 800*480 pixel touchscreen! The quirk here is that the phone uses its accelerometers to answer -– so you shake the phone to pick up or hang up a call. It comes with the 1GHz Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset running along with Windows 6 with Flash support! Watch for this one at MWC this year!

S743: HTC's next Android Phone

The G1 was 10th in the best smart phones list for US in 2008. So then, HTC is looking to do an encore with Android + HTC S743 . Though it isnt a touch screen device, it takes design cues from the HTC diamond! It comes with a 3.2 MP camera, 2.4 inch QVGA, a second VGA for video calls, a numeric key pad and a slide out QWERTY key board!

Ultraslim smart phone at 4.6 * 1.7 * 0.6 inches and 4.9 ounces, this phone will come unbundled which makes it steeply price at $743! However it provides other consumers to buy it and use it on other networks as well!

Sony Ericsson's smart phone line up : This Spring!

Sony Ericsson launches its Cyber Shot Keitai W 816, which they are hailing as the world's first full change phone customizable both inside and out! It doesnot look great and is probably jaded in features as well! With a 5 MP camera, wireless music output, 2.8 inch wVGA LCD screen (usingthe reality Max technology used in Bravia) and 750 MB data folder, there is nothing to write home about in this one. It is being released with the Japaneese carrier KDDI!

W61S includes a Sony "Exmor" CMOS image sensor for high-resolution, low-noise photos. It also includes the "Smile Shutter Lite" and "Kaokime Lite" functions found in Sony "Cyber-shot™" digital cameras that click when the subject is smiling!!

Furthering the walkman series in mobile devices, This stunner is called Premier 3, and has the ability to rip music directly from the CD! The 3 inch 3 MP phone is wasted on its limitation of 2GB memory (50 MB internal memory)!

Nothing ground beraking in either of them!

Hitachi Wooo: The battle of LCD displays on mobile

The Gadget manufacturers dont stop. They have been constantly fusing technology forms from various devices to mobile phones! So now, Move over Samsung, as the (arguably) the best phone screens. Enter Hitachi! After producing the slimmest LCD screens at 3.5 cm, they extand that to phones with the Hitachi Wooo featured by Japaneese operator KDDI!

The Wooo features a 3.1 inch 3D WVGA OLED screen (854*480 Pixels) powered bythe same engine that powers the Hitachi Wooo TVs! It also features a 5 MegaPix CMOS Camera and 600 MB internal data folder. The Wooo is a clampshell with the ability to swivel into clampshell and portrait modes! It has music and video modes and a Navigation system thats aids in Disaster evacuation (???).

Watch this space!

Smartphone debut: Dell's MePhone

Given the recessionary times, Dell faces pressure on its mainstay computer business. However, the smart kid, Dell had already foreseeen tough times and had adequately prepared for its foray into the smart phone segment. The Round Rock, Texas based company have produced prototypes of its smartphones based on Android and Windows 6.5 platforms.

What makes this piece of news interesting is the "Zing" application which is a system for music streaming synchronization across devices. Dell will make most of its appeal based on personalization of the device (its Computer business USP). Thus the name MePhone >> a phone that is me! Dell will unviel the Mephone in the world mobile congress in some time and the sales start is September 2009.

Interesting times ahead?

Lenovo: A promising smart Phone Debut?

Lenovo and Dell are the latest kids in the smartphone block. Its getting a bit crowded out there these days! However featured in the pic is the first sneak peak of the Ophone. For its part it looks pretty much and sounds as much the obvious, iPhone. oPhone is based on China mobile's OMS (Open Mobile system), which after all is Android, and TD SCDMA which is China's 3G vehicle!

Word goes that China Mobile was initailly goingthe rounds with iPhone but the partnership broke on the issue of sharing margins!

A well placed source said, "Given these(iPhone, Android, Symbian) developments, it is becoming very clear that developing a proprietary handset operating system is essential for dominance of the mobile Internet market in China. At the moment, China Mobile is in a comparatively weak position without its own operating system. With its own operating system, China Mobile will be able to commission customized phones from handset makers and keep its hand strong in negotiations over profit sharing. There is even the possibility that China Mobile may move into manufacturing handsets itself."

So long, Welcome Lenovo to the world of smart phones

Even "invincible" and "Infallible" Microsofts and Googles are HUMAN after all

On 31st December 2008, as the clocked turned in the new year, Microsoft 30 GB Zunes all over the world started hanging and disfunctioning. A month later, Google serach reported a peculiar bug that marked every search result to be potentially harmful and capable of harming the user's machine! Users were baffled at these seizures and failure! Afterall, we are talking of the two biggest corporations in the world: The Redmond based Microsoft which introduced computing to the world and Mountain View's Google, which is synonomous to "search" on the internet.

It brought in a lot of unwanted attention to these companies! Both these bugs were attributed to a human programing error. http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/12/31/zune-bug-explained-in-detail/

Essentially, the programme code had defined a leap year to >366 days (instead of "="). So the programme code was stuck on identifying 2008 since it had 366 days. (It could identify years with 365 days and it was looking for aleap year with 367 or more days!)

So far as Google is concerned, It appears that someone added the forward slash to the list of bad URLs. The forward slash of course is part of most URLs. So the search engine dutifully blacklisted most of the Internet.

Small programming errors that cascaded into a world wide crisis. Nothing that the two big corporations could not handle...but all the same, it does prove, even "invincible" and "Infallible" Microsofts and Googles are HUMAN after all.....

Indian Telecom Story (Part IV): An year end Analysis of Revenue and Subscriber market share trends in Indian Telecom Bazaar

The top 6 operators in the Indian Telecom space are thus stacked up in terms of Revenue market shares and subscriber market shares! It is not surprising to find Airtel at the tip of the heap both in subscriber and revenues. However, It is Vodafone that is almost par with Reliance in Subscribers and trounces it in the revenue market share by a whooping mile! In fact Reliance is so low in terms of revenue shares that the no 4 (BSNL/MTNL) and no 5 (Idea) are biting at its end! Tata Teleservices comes up last in the list!

1. Airtel seems to consolidate its national footprint quite handsomely with a 14% increase in revenue shares. It has the highest ratio of revenue to subscribers! Again indicating that Airtel seems to have built some stickiness with the high ARPU consumers. One would imagine so beacuse high ARPU consumers do a lot of travelling and Airtel gives them the seamless connectivity!

2. Idea has seen a 22% increase in its revenue share, with an increase in its circles coverage from 12 in 2007 to 15 in 2008. Drop in ARPU has not been compensated as much by subscriber addition, which is why the index stands low amongst all the GSM private entities!

3. Vodafone traditionally is one of the higher ARPU players! However, its launch in C Circles seems to have taken some of the sheen away from its revenue/ subscriber index i.e most of the acquisition that has happened in thesecircles has been low ARPU consumers.

4. BSNL + MTNL have seen erosions both in revenue share as well as in ARPU! Also it has lagged the growth rate of the telecom market in 2008! No wonder then that, they are rushing into 3G to boost their ARPUs/Revenues!

5. Reliance and Idea, the CDMA operators have had a bad year! more people are choosing GSM services over CDMA. There appears to be a churn from CDMA to GSM as well. There is a erosion in higher end consumers who probably are flocking to GSM players as more and more are opening up to all circles! Indian CDMA operators have consistently seen a decline in Revenue Market share from 21.6% in Q3 FY08 to 17.9% in Q3 FY09. While GSM operators managed to gain the loss of CDMA operators and now control a whopping 82.1% of the Indian wireless space. Will the trend change with Sistema’s entry into the space ? Or something needs to be changed in the CDMA ecosystem to make it fit in the context of the second largest wireless market in the world ?

Indian Telecom Story (Part III): The entry barriers and Incumbents wrath!

Incumbents wrath: I had defined this term for players in the market who are well settled and entrenched in the market with an established network all over. These are the incumbents who grow because of an established network presence, a brand that consumers are aware of and sheer economies of scale. By leveraging these points of strenght. these players are able to fight late entrants and challengers more effectively. The analogy is to some one who is firmly based on a hill and can roll off rocks down the hill to ward the challenger who intends to take over the control of the hill!

That is certainly what is happening between the incumbents (Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Aircell) and the challengers (Datacom, Unitech, Swan Telecom, Shyam, Loop and Reliance Communications). The piece under contention is the mobile termination charge which one operator pays to the other when the customer of the further uses the roaming charges of the later. This is 30 paise a minute charge as of today. This is charged to the consumer as the cost of roaming.

With an all India footprint (or 80% coverage), the incumbents effectively donot have to pay termination charges. The full coverage ensures that calls are terminated within their network. So for instance a Airtel call from J&K will not have to pay the Airtel network at Kerala the termination charges! However, a Swann call from Delhi, will have to pay a Vodafone network in Pune, since Swan is not present in Maharashtra. It will take Swan at least an year to get into Maharashtra! The incumbents have either been pocketing the termination charges or passing them to consumers "no roaming charge" kind of schemes.

This puts the pressure on the challengers who would from day 1 not have the comfort of their network everywhere! Thus they will mandatorily have to pay the 30 paise charge! Thats a point of disadvantage!

TRAI is trying to mediate a free termination or a 10 paise termination charge! Only thatthe Lobby of incumbets is trying to put a spanner in the wheel by claiming that such a waiver will affect their rural roll outs as this would reduce revenue!

TRAI has to take a stance and i would vote it does so for the consumer's good.

Apple iPhone: Whats next?

Apple rise to glory has been fast and furious! In time, i think it would be given a "cult" brand status for its pathbreaking technologies and designs whether be the Macintosh, Apple Mac Book, iPod or iPhone! The iPhone has been around since June 2007. One year and a quarter and a refresh version later, the iPhone buzz is only become stronger, louder everywhere! It has redefined the smartphone category with its design appeal, intutive UI and backend service elements (Music and applications).

Apples performance in 2008 US Smartphone market has been explosive. It spearheaded a 68% increase in the smartphone sales by growing 101% Year on year. RIM also did amazing by outgrowing the market at 88% growth! Apple beats its iPhone shipments and sales targets both in US and all over the world! Basis the Iphone shipment numbers, Apple has also cornered a 1.16% share of the world handset sales in 2008.

However, 2009 will be different! A period of slow growth (4 to 5%: IDC forecast) because of the economic slowdown and a maturing market could make things difficult. Smartphone growth will depend upon the operato's abaility to subsidize these devices and developers continuously producing "killer" applications!

http://seekingalpha.com/article/118993-canaccord-three-new-iphones-expected-in-2009

This year I Phone is expected to come up with three new iPhones: a 32 Gig iPhone in the first half, a low cost 2.5G iPhone for the developing markets such as India and China and a smaller version iPhone Nano at $99! Also expect the China Mobile Chinese iPhone variant by first quarter 2009 and a gaming iPhone by first half 2009 (with Etisalat!)

While the plans are good and knowing Apple, it would deliver more than what it promises, i would still believe that sometime this year, Apple will need to look at the "look" of the iPhone. A similar looking phone in various avatars is not a winning proposition for long! You just need to look at Motorola and its Razr for answers! (Razr,Razr 2, Razr D&C, Razr Gold etc etc...)

Online Application stores: Fad or a Necessity?

Apple did it with a good measure and great success for their online application store, which has generated interest both in consumer and developer communities. After the Apple App Store began reporting monumental numbers, however, there was a significant shift; suddenly, those responsible with making the handsets tick wanted to be the ones vending the wares. Google launched its application store for Android in August 2008. http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/02/04/not-every-company-needs-an-app-store/

RIM BlackBerry will now be launching its application store, Blackberry Applications, in March 2009. http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/10/21/tech-rim.html

Not wishing to stay away from the party, Nokia has also announced the launch of its application store, Nokia Applications! http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/08/nokia-shaping-up-to-launch-its-very-own-app-store/

Nokia Applications is not a new thing alltogether but a "old wine new bottle" phenomenon. Nokia has owned developer communities in Nokia forums and the Zook - Nokia Search tie up is a resultant of developer - Nokia partnership! Nokia would only look to refurnish the Nokia Forum and re brand it as Nokia Apps!

Palm is also debuting its application store Apps Catalogue with Pre, its new OS! And so is Samsung with its mobile applications marketplace! http://applications.samsungmobile.com/en/gbp/index.html The developers are going to have a party! The only biggie missing from this party is Microsoft, who presently are more engaged in release of Windows 7!

With all these race to finish application stores debuting one after the other, it feels that a application store is suddenly a trend now! It is fashionable to own a application store. So it would seem. In the future, other vendors could also open up their application stores!

The rationale for these stores is to provide the consumers of their higher end services more applications to experience their products better. With Apple it seemed to create the loyalty glue in terms of the Apple's music stores! There is money to be made from the application stores business model!

However, it is important from the vendors perspective, if you are starting an application outlet, you need to be at the reins of the platform as well. Without having your own platform, your work can be copied on the same platform for other vendors. There is no differentiating factor left! Suddenly you will have many venddors peddling the same content and messing up the market place, segmenting it and creating rapid commoditization!

Thus it makes sense for vendors like Apple, Nokia, Google, Microsoft, Palm and RIM to launch their online apps stores. Samsung however would not have any huge justification on building a apps store on what is a Nokia property!

Open Source: Microsoft's anti thesis

Legend (not confirmed reports) has it Bill Gates had remarked "The internet is just a passing fad" in a Microsoft press conference in late 1995. Then there is this famous "The Internet? We are not interested in it" attributed to Bill Gates, 1993. "640K ought to be enough for anybody." - said Bill Gates in 1981. Source: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Bill_Gates
The idea here is not to belittle Gates. He is what he is and the significance of his contribution cannot be over looked (nerds, rookies and champions put together)

However, the internet has not been Microsoft forte and it has been playing catching up mostly. (The best example is the take over of MSN-Hotmail)!

Heres the latest on the OS front for microsoft. The latest to catch on is Ubuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu, a free and open source software owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. What this allows OEMs is that they can develop Desktop, Notebook and netbook systems without having to pay the Windows License fees and undercutting the windows powered systems! Simply hook up --> Get an IM client --> Use web based services and voila.. there you are! The Ubuntus and Linuxes of the world coupled with a depressed economy and dissatisfaction of Windows usage are putting Microsoft in a tight place!

The battle between the Legacy systems and the open source development is gathering some momentum and the odds look stacked against the Redmond giant

Nokia 5800: Reading Beyond the 1 million mark!

Nokia has not measured up well in Smartphone competition lately. The successes have been few and far between. The last major splash was E 71, which recieved a good response from certain parts of the market. The only other Nokia smartphone that has been on the scene is N 95 8GB. Apart from these two N 85, N 79, E 66 and N 96 have not been the major quakers of the Smartphone scene!

In line with the recession market, Nokia's results were a tad dissapointing in Q4, 2008 and apart from the market share loss, a major criticism it faced was the lack of a good smartphone portfolio. Understandably, Nokia would desire 5800 (code named Tube), its iPhone answer to do well! There has been some major marketing and PR effort behind the Tube, which was launched in late 2008! For Nokia, a lot rides on this phone before N 97, takes centrestage, in the summer of 2009.

It was in this context that i was baffled when i read new sreports of Nokia shipping out 1 million 5800 in 3 months of launch!

http://www.hardwarezone.com/news/view.php?id=12603&cid=9

http://www.mobilemonday.net/news/nokia-5800-xpressmusic-shipments-reach-1-million

http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1284621

http://www.slashphone.com/nokia-5800-xpressmusic-shipments-reach-1-million-milestone-284257

That is some feat, considering that 36.5 million Smartphones sold in Q3, 2008 (Gartner UK). A million phones is 3% Smartphone market share from one model! Nokia in Q3,2008 shipped a little over 15 million smartphones. A million 5800s is some number. If that be true, then one can expect Nokia upturning tables and smartphone market shares in Q1, 2009. It would be a tribute again to Nokia's ability to replicate a trend and making a platform out of it and selling it cheap to take it to the masses!

However, if this be a channel and customer upstocking gambit, then there are considerable risks involved. It would be walking back and undoing of Nokia's lean supply chain strategem. The channels and customers could clog up which would have a back lash specially in a downturn economy. Consider this, a quarter of the smart phone volumes come from US (9.2 million smart phones sold in US, 36.5 million smart phones world over). Nokia 5800 has no US footprint in terms of a carrier and would sell at $500 from stores! Demand world over is likely to slacken even more and there are more smart phone vendors out there trying for their piece of the cake!

So, while Nokia has shown confidence on the product by shipping a million units, there may yet be many pitfalls!It could be the make or break for the world no 1!

It took Apple 74 days to get to 1 million iPhones. If Nokia is to be believed, 5800 Tube is doing as much in almost same time. We will await the results!

Operating systems: The Big Squeeze

http://www.infoworld.com/article/09/02/09/06FE-shrinking-operating-system_3.html

Those huge operating systems are citadels of the past! Most of the major OS vendors are designing their next versions of OSs with a smaller footprint! So now, the software concept revolves around JeOS (pronounced "juice"), the Just Enough OS, even as hardware goes mobile like Celio RedFly, an 8-inch screen and keyboard device running applications off a smartphone via a USB or a Bluetooth connection. Thus, this is an era of squeeze for the massive operating systems!

The rationale behind the squeeze is simple: Why do you have to fit a Ferrari 10 cylinder 450 BHP engine when all you require is a Tata Nano in performance!

Reason 1. A smaller code base is easier to develop and manage than a larger one!

Reason 2. Computing has graduated from mainframes, desktops and lap tops to Smart phones, Notebooks and PDAs. Thus hardware resources are also limiting!

The two reasons stated above make the case for a smaller OS a difficult thing to ignore!

To quote Ephraim Schwartz, "Today, Microsoft's Windows Mobile is a separate code base from the desktop Windows, while Apple's iPhone OS is a both a subset of and extension of the Mac OS. In both cases, that adds a lot of work for their companies and for application developers. And it means that customers must support an unwieldy number of operating systems."

Reason 3. The other obvious advantage is that a smaller OS reduces the memory footprint. This reduces the number of applications opened at boot, it reduces memory space usage, reduces battery drainage and in consumer term is effective and fast!

Thus, major OS vendors are designing the next versions of their OS -- Windows 7, Linux in its many distributions, and Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard -- with a smaller footprint.

Reason 4: Mobile devices have a greater dependence on the browser! Thus the OS shrinks giving up much of its role to the browser!

Reason5: Web 2.0 is a liberating medium! There was a time when no one thought that feature rich applications would sit anywhere but the OS. (example Adobe Photoshop). However with Adobe Photoshop migrating to Photoshop.com and Photoshop Express (a web 2.0 application), do you really need to load Adobe on your system? Do you need that OS?

Interestingly, Microsoft is in denial over the seizure in dominance of the OS trend. However, the course of lfe and development, being Darwinian (evolution), companies will have to adapt or die as virtualization, cloud computing, the explosion of unique devices, and the desire for more efficient, less costly operating systems all drive the next generation of business users toward smaller, less costly, and more efficient operating environments

Online storage providers shutting down operations!

In what is seen as desperate move to trim portfolio and cut costs, AoL and now Yahoo are shutting down their online storage applications. Consider this:

Yahoo Briefcase was Yahoo's 10 year old online storage program. However, it never gained as much traction as Yahoo mail, messenger or Flickr. Within days of taking over, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has issued a March 30 Deadline to take Yahoo Briefcase out. More pay offs, Pay cuts and salary freezes are expected from Yahoo on the employee account as well.

Aol XDrive will see the "sunset" according to its EVP, Kevin Conroy. Quoting Conroy, "consumer storage products haven’t gained sufficient traction in the marketplace or the monetization levels necessary to offset the high cost of their operation..". Interestingly while Flickr is Yahoo's blue eyed baby, the same service from AOL, AOL pictures will be facing closure!

Analysts cite following reasons behind the "curtains down" on these free online storage applications:

1. The revenue from online advertising will not sustain the storage businesses on a stand alone basis. Thus these services are considered to be a drag on the P&L accounts of the company.

2. The cost of maintaining several backups of server files is the reason for these companies to reel under such severe pain.

3. Increased competition from MSN Sky drive and new age sites ziddu, megaupload, 4 shared!

4. People are accessing online storage sites through variety of softwares thus the decline in page views is further putting pressure on advertising dollars

5. Legal cost of suits because of illegal activities and misuse by members!

The implication for consumers is that next time you have to choose a storage site, please look for a reliable one else you would be shuffling around site to site as one after another storage sites shut down!