Is Bing the sound of Search? (Part II)

The Differentiators

Even though Bing is differentiated than Google in some ways, by Ballmer's own confession, Bing is no Google killer and Microsoft isn't positioning it that way.

The differentiators by Bing offers several new features intended to help people perform faster, better searches with less poking around on Web pages they find through the search engine.

These include:

A set of navigation and search tools called an Explore Pane which includes a feature called Web Groups. These organize search results in the pane and in the results.

Related Searches and Quick Tabs features that provide a sort of table of contents for search results.

Best Match highlights the engine's top pick and Deep Links shows off more of the resources on a Web site in the results.

Quick Preview offers a preview of search results during a mouseover so people can decide if they want to leave the search page and click on a link.

On the surface, Bing has a distinct gloss. The home page features a rotation of stunning photography, for instance, which can be clicked on to produce related image search results. But the most significant changes are under the covers. “We have taken the algorithmic programming up an order of magnitude,” says Microsoft senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi. Each search result page is customized according to what type of search you do (health, travel, shopping, news, sports). The algorithms determine not only the order of results on the page, but the layout of the page itself, concluding what sections appear. These sections can include anything from guided refinements and a list of related searches in the left-hand pane to images, videos, and local results.

"I’ve been playing around with a preview version of Bing for about a week. It is designed to be “more of a decision engine,” says Mehdi. Bing helps people make decisions through guided search and a focus on task completion. In a time when a new Website is created every 4.5 seconds, information overload is becoming a real problem. ” People are getting hundreds of thousands of links but not getting what they want,” says Mehdi. Bing tries to alleviate problem by offering up different experiences depending on the search. It also acts more like a destination site for certain searches. Travel and product searches bring in comparison pricing, reviews, images, and more. Hulu videos can be played within the video search results. Bing pulls in data from other Web services when it can so that you often don’t have to leave to get the information you want.

Refer for all blow by blow details: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/28/bing-microsoft-prepares-for-war-with-a-revamped-search-engine-screenshots/

Bing features a full-screen picture on its home page that will be updated daily - rather like Google's regular logo changes.

Bing also lists related search terms on the left, not at the bottom of the page like Google does.

Once results have been displayed, a column on the left hand side suggests further related searches.

Bing also keeps a record of recent searches even if the user isn't signed in to a Windows Live account, and allows people to e-mail links from that search history or post them on Facebook.

For some types of queries, Microsoft is positioning Bing as a destination rather than a quick gateway to other sites.

Shopping with Bing, for example, is a bit like shopping on Amazon, with ways to narrow results by price, brand and the availability of free shipping, without leaving the search page.

Head to head comparison of results: http://searchengineland.com/microsofts-bing-vs-google-head-to-head-search-results-20006

Worldwide Mobile and Smart Phone Sales: Q1,2009 Industry update

Source: Gartner
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.Worldwide mobile phone sales totalled 269.1 million units in the first quarter of 2009, a 8.6 per cent decrease from the first quarter of 2008.
2.Smartphone sales surpassed 36.4 million units, a 12.7 per cent increase from the same period last year
3.Overall sales in the first quarter of 2009 registered the biggest quarter-on-quarter contraction since 2001.
4.Since 2001, this was also the first time the market contracted year over year during the first quarter, a period traditionally helped by strong seasonality in the Asia/Pacific market. The channel intensified its efforts in the first quarter of 2009 to reduce the levels of stock it holds. Stock reduction is intended to minimize capital investment in response to low consumer confidence.
5.Sales into the channel were just short of 244 million units in the first quarter of 2009, while sales to users were just over 269 million units — a difference of 25 million units, compared with 17 million units in the fourth quarter of 2008, the biggest difference ever recorded
6.Channel inventory reductions will continue into the second quarter of 2009, albeit with lower volumes
7.Smartphone sales represented 13.5 per cent of all mobile device sales in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 11 per cent in the first quarter of 2008.
8.With inventory-reduction efforts expected to continue in the second quarter of 2009, although to a lesser extent than what we have seen so far, and better-than-expected figures for the first quarter of 2009, overall sales to users for 2009 will remain considerably higher than the sell-in that many vendors are expecting
9.Device vendors will focus increasingly on smartphones, improved user interfaces and services to differentiate themselves and fuel consumer demand.

Is Bing the sound of search? (Part I)

Microsoft's search solution has meandered a long course with no definitive direction. From MSN search to Live Search, Microsoft's efforts have preliminarily been non starters of sorts. With Bing a.k.a Kumo (in its developmental days), Microsoft is trying its best to arrive at its best Search Solution till date. Launched formally on June 3rd, 2009, Bing is Microsoft's latest attempt to step into the search domain where they have been minnows for a while now. Google rules the search kingdom with a 64.2% market share followed by Yahoo at 20.4% and Microsoft owns a miniscule 8.2% market share. Google's search dominance translates in $4.7 billion revenue where as Microsoft's attempts have seen it incurring losses in the online ad business. To mount a credible challenge to Google, Microsoft tried taking over Yahoo last year. But after Yahoo rebuffed its $47.5 billion offer, Microsoft turned its attention to improving its own Live Search.

Bing helps people make decisions through guided search and a focus on task completion. In a time when a new Website is created every 4.5 seconds, information overload is becoming a real problem. People are getting hundreds of thousands of links but not getting what they want. Bing tries to alleviate problem by offering up different experiences depending on the search. It also acts more like a destination site for certain searches. Bing pulls in data from other Web services when it can so that you often don’t have to leave to get the information you want.


Bing's search result page is customized according to what type of search you do (health, travel, shopping, news, sports). The algorithms determine not only the order of results on the page, but the layout of the page itself, concluding what sections appear. Microsoft is positioning it to be “more of a decision engine”.

WiMAX: Why will it stick?

Doomsayers and analysts have in the recent past rubished future prospects of WiMAX in the face of a greater acceptance (by major operator/Telecom consortiums) of its competition standard LTE. Nokia has gone to the level of stating that it was withdrawing its investments in WiMAX since it believed that WiMAX was the analogical equivalent of Betamax in the war of standards. Read the reference story and an earlier post on this subject.

A recent market survey by Maravedis, "WiMAX and Broadband Wireless Access Equipment Market Analysis, Trends and Forecasts, 2009-2014," has come up with a few interesting and noteworthy points on the viability of WiMAX as a technology standard.

1. Inspite of a tough year 2008, and a growing buzz about the 3GPP backed LTE being the telecom standard, the WiMAX ecosystem experienced a healthy growth in 2008 and mobile WiMAX has made significant inroads (although short of targets)

2. Over 1.2 million WiMAX complaint CPEs and embedded chipsets supporting mobility were shipped in 2008. MIMO mobile WiMAX devices being a new entrant into the market the previous year, new deployments in various regions worldwide created a substantial market for MIMO mobile WiMAX terminals and infrastructure equipment. Expansion of existing WiMAX networks and conversion of some existing networks from fixed to mobile WiMAX has also contributed to these numbers.

3. Contrary to belief, WiMAX equipment demand didnot taper and operators continued rolling out infrastructure, sourcing terminals and adding new users using 802.16d - 2004 technology. CPE shipments reached 880000 in 2008.

4. US $145 was the ASP of a mobile WiMAX device during 2008 and by the year end USB dongles were selling at prices between $60-70 for high volumes.

5. Mobile WiMAX devices shipped in 2008 were mainly indoor units.

6. 40% of mobile WiMAX devices had embedded VoIP capabilities and about 7% had other advanced functunalities such as WiFi. USB dongles accounted for 34% of total shipments and were operating almonst all in the 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz spectrums.

7. Korean vendors (Muyngmin, Modacom, Samsung) accounted for 36% of all mobile WiMAX terminal shipments. Taiwanese vendors (Zyxel, Asus, Gemtek, AWB) accounted for 25% of terminals shipped.

8. WiMAX market infrastructure: Alcatel-Lucent, Samsung, Alvarion and Motorola were the key suppliers of WiMAX equipments and 151,000 sectors were shipped at an ASP of $11,500 generating $1bn in revenues.

9. In the Chipsets makers, the market was dominated by Beceem, GCT and Sequans. Intel and Runcom had a stake in the Wave 1 devices capable of MIMO operations and with very limited support of mobility. Samsung's own chipset solution gained 7% of the market share.

10. In light of recent technical and commercial wins by LTE, WiMAX is not certainly an all conquering solution, but Maravedis predicts that there will be an accumulated 75 million WiMAX subscribers by the end of 2014. Service revenues generated by BWA will reach US$15 billion in 2014 and WiMAX equipment market will reach an annual US$4 Billion in 2014, from over US $2 billion at the end of 2008.

What the report seems to be poiting at it that, though LTE has the backing and auspices of a majority, it is unlikely that LTE would deploy sooner than 2012. That gives WiMAX a 3 years headstart and it could greatly benefit WiMAX since, Proprietary and fixed WiMAX equipment markets will continue to grow organically to meet the needs of WISPs and vertical segments. These 3 years and the market traction would become a strong foothold for WiMAX in the face of competition from LTE as the 4G Tech Standard. WiMAX may not be the winner ultimately, but given its earlier time to market, it will not be the looser as well. The eco-system will thus have both tech standards and rightly so, because there are nuances in WiMAX that LTE cant better and vice versa. In effect, there are parallel markets that could thrive under both these technologies. After all, one technology standard may not be the healthiest thing in the market.

So much so for the analysts, doom-sayers and nay-speakers for WiMAX.

http://eetimes.eu/wireless/217702210;jsessionid=45LJQIUTXXLIYQSNDLPCKH0CJUNN2JVN

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.