Real Time e-mail: Google does the Wave

Google went the distance yet again. This time, they mixed, blended and fused voice,email, IM, Blogs, Wikis, collaborative documents, social media sharing, social networking to create the "e-mail of the future: Wave". Essentially combining the basics of conversation type communication and collaborative communication, Google re-invented communication real time. The Wave is little like Twitter, a little more Friendfeed and a bit of Facebook, allowing the users to send direct messages to online contacts with real time replies, photos and document sharing and more --> and it is Google's answer for real time- internet communication.

A user creates a wave by typing a message or uploading photos and adding contacts to the wave as they see fit. Other contacts can be added later and the new contacts can aalso add contacts to the wave.

Presently, Google is releasing APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), so that developers can build the wave into their own sites and integrate their own services with Google. This would enable three kinds of developer projects:

1. Wave as a conversation gateway. (Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook and other Blogs better be afraid of the Wave factors). For a start, Google wave will allow users to post new items to blogs created with Blogger from within a wave, and see comments and replies within the wave.

2. The second advantage would be applications that will be created within a wave, similar to the sorts created by developers on Facebook as a platform.

3, Lastly, this could also work as an enhancement to existing workflow within an enterprise.

While Google is some way off from the release, the Wave clears one question. It certainly does speak about why was Google silent on rumours of its buying out Twitter and other such companies!

The functionalities:

• Is a service that looks like a rich piece of client software;
• Behaves like sophisticated threaded e-mail;
• Acts like IM when multiple collaborators are online at once.
• Is one of the most real-time collaborative tools I’ve ever seen.
• Has revision marking and versioning for workgroup editing.
• Has instant photo sharing.
• Allows its functionality to be embedded into blogs and social networks;
• Can serve as a container for OpenSocial applications;
• Has what Google says is a revolutionary spell checker;
• Comes in mobile flavors for Android and iPhone;
• Is an open-source project that lets developers write both Wave extensions ... and their own servers

Wave could be a competitor to Outlook and Office if Google were to roll Docs/Gmail/Cal under the Wave umbrella. It could be a strong competitor to Microsoft SharePoint. When asked about Sharepoint at the Q&A, however, the Googlers brushed it off, saying Wave has “far greater breadth,” and is superior because of its openness and federation model. (breathtaking arrogance of blowing off potential competition)

The magic words "improved workflow" (Using Google Wave) will entice companies to at least try it. There's no question that freelancers, telecommuters, and anyone who relies on remote collaboration will jump on Wave the day it's available, and stick with it if it helps save time and money.

Google at the end of the day never fails to enthrall.

Indian Telecom Story (Part VIII): A Billion Users

DoT, in a first ever forecast of mobile penetration across India for the next 6 years, has projected a billion mobile phones for the Indian markets. It is well established that India has one of the most remarkable growths in mobile phones since the sector was first opened to private investment in 1994. From two operators in 1995, the country now has 12 to 13 operators of which 6 to 7 are fully functional, offering the Indian consumer unprecedented choice and low tariffs.

India edged USA as the second largest Telecom market in Q1, 2008 and even in the recessionary times, has been building up subscriber base by 8 - 10 million phones a month. The latest DoT report shows that India will reach the half a billion landmark by 2010 and will add the next half a billion in 5 years after that. This reflects the greatest growth opportunity in the next 5 years surpassing China. 600 million subscriber adds would feature as the biggest subscriber adds for any country in the world.

While there is a buzz in the industry and the segments, with 600 million sub adds in waiting, the party is still young. The challenge however is not the subscriber growth but educating the consumer to use the medium for more than just voice and SMS related communications. The advent of 3G would probably fast track the industry on those points. This is also essential in terms of building long term profitability of the Telecom operators.

Bharti - MTN: The making of a Telco Behemoth

The Indians are going places and they are doing it fast and furious. The case in point is Bharti which has now emerged as a front-runner for equity stake in South African MTN. This would make Bharti-MTN the 4th largest Telecom Operator in the world leap frogging big names such as Verizon, AT&T and the likes. Only the Chinese Telcos would have more subscribers than Bharti MTN. One of the most important reasons for Bharti to emerge as a frontrunner for equity stake in MTN is its leadership position in the Indian Telecom market.

After almost an year, India's Bharti Airtel and South Africa's MTN Group are back to the talking table. The duo have restarted merger talks to create $20 billion telecom entity. In fact, at a time when global giants are complaining about a cash crunch and putting ambitious plans on hold, Bharti Airtel has relaunched its audacious merger bid with MTN that could create a $61-billion transnational telecom Goliath with combined revenues of $20 billion and over 200 million subscribers across Africa, Asia and Middle East.

The Bharti-MTN deal, if it goes through, will usher in the next round of the Indian telecom M&A story. At an estimated ticket size of $23 billion, this will be the biggest cross-border deal that India Inc has been involved in, and twice as much as what British telco Vodafone paid to acquire a little over half of Hutchison Telecom International’s Indian operations in early 2007.

The Proposed $23-29 bn deal would be biggest ever M&A transaction involving an Indian company, almost double the previous highest of $13bn paid by Tata Steel for Corus. It would be the third largest deal in the world in 2009 so far, after Pfizer’s $64bn buyout of Wyeth and Merck’s $46bn deal with Schering-Plough Excluding pharma, Bharti-MTN deal would be the largest in world this year so far. Bharti-MTN’s combined subscriber base of 200m would make it the world’s 4th-largest telecom entity, and largest outside China. The top 3 are China Mobile (472m), China Unicom (247m) and China Telecom (237m). If the deal goes through this time, it will make Bharti the largest telecom entity in the world (by number of subscribers) outside China. Add MTN’s 100 million subscribers to Bharti’s 100 million, and the combined figure of 200 million will see Bharti comfortably leapfrog US giants Verizon (122m) and AT&T (108m), among others.

Fund managers with exposure to Bharti feel that with the Indian telecom market showing signs of saturation, the stock-swap deal will be critical for the company’s next phase of expansion. The deal is a good opportunity for Bharti to enter into a lesser-penetrated market like Africa, especially when the company is generating free cash flows.The valuations that have been offered by Bharti may be at a premium to MTN’s share price, but its valuations are cheaper than Bharti’s.