Indians are 10th most intense internet searchers in Asia Pacific

An Indian netizen is hitting the search button on an average 51 times during a month, but this puts them only at the last position among the top 10 countries of Asia-Pacific in terms of intensity of online search.

According to the latest ranking of top internet search figures for Asia-Pacific released by internet traffic tracking firm comScore, Koreans have topped in terms of online search intensity with an average of 102.8 searches per searcher during the month of July.

“Searchers in Korea exhibited the heaviest search intensity with an average of 102.8 searches per searcher during the month, followed by Australia (102 searches per searcher) and Japan (100.8 searches per searcher),” comScore said.

India has ranked after Korea, Australia, Japan, Singapore (91.2), New Zealand (87.2), Hong Kong (81), China (76.6), Taiwan (74.8) and Malaysia (64.2) on search intensity ranking.

India’s score of 51 searches per searcher is even lower than the overall average of 80.7 for the Asia-Pacific region.

However, the figures might increase after taking into account traffic from the public computers. The comScore data has been compiled by taking into account all unique internet users aged 15 and above from their home and work computers and it excludes searches from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

However, India fares much better in terms of the number of people searching something on internet as well as in terms of the number of such searches.

Source: livemint.com

US meltdown may affect 3G bid

The meltdown of Wall Streets blue-blooded banks and the growing fear that the contagion will spread to some European banks could directly impact India's upcoming 3G spectrum auctions by keeping away global bidders.

The absence of global players is expected to seriously restrict the value of the bids placed for 3G spectrum, which jeopardises the government's Rs 40,000 crore revenue target from this spectrum sale.

Typically, it is large global banks like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch that are intimately involved in supporting the financial bids of both existing operators and new entrants.

They also have a strategic role in the M&As that follow such bids. With the weakening of the financial sector and a general nervousness around money supply, it is highly likely that even if global telcos do participate, the bidding will be far more conservative than it would have been under normal circumstances.

"The financial meltdown is at its peak. India's 3G auctions could not have come at a worse time. The weakness in financial markets is bound to impact bidders confidence," a leading global banker told TOI.

Apart from the fundamental weakness in financial markets, these international banks have very close relationships with global telecom service providers where long term debt, bridge loans and IPO's are concerned. With the collapse of these banks, many global telcos have started tightening their belt and frozen future investments, M&A's and even hiring.

"The entire sentiment is negative. Don't expect global telecom service providers to swim against the tide and put out massive bids in a market like India which is already littered with regulatory uncertainties," says a global telecom operator whose company has been in the Indian market for investments for nearly two years.

The weakness of foreign banks and global financial sector is also expected to move the Indian banking sector to a more conservative approach for funding debt which will be critical to the post-bidding rollout scenario.

"Overall, the sentiment of telecom investments during and post the 3G bidding will be intimately linked to the scale of the unfolding financial crisis," says a telecom analyst.

Telecom minister, A Raja's 3G guidelines, announced on August 1, 2008 proved to be a dampener for global telcos who said they would not participate on account of discriminatory financial entry barriers among other issues.

This forced the DoT to revise the spectrum guidelines for both 3G and Broadband Wireless Access spectrum. Companies are currently studying the full impact of such revisions. It seems that the crisis faced by the global banking sector is definitely an unwelcome move that will adversely impact India's exchequer revenues.

Source: Indiatimes Infotech

Google Strikes Again !

-contributed by Ankit

Google is best known for two reasons. Firstly because they have an uncanny ability to come up with totally new and innovative products such as Google Earth which none of its competitors would have even contemplated about.
Secondly because they are motivated enough to come up with much more efficient replacements of existing successful products and solutions of their competitors. Before the Google Search Engine became the world's most popularly used search engine, MSN and Yahoo were the leading players. Due to much improved search algorithms and faster search results, Google left them way behind. Google captures more than 65% of the search engine market whereas Yahoo has a market share of 20% and Microsoft has a meagre 7%.

Chrome, the latest offering from the R&D labs of Google is a web browser giving direct competition to Microsoft's Internet Explorer and the very successful Mozilla Firefox. Currently Internet Explorer is used by 70 % of the Internet users and Mozilla has a market share of 20%. Mozilla has been growing at a steady rate in last few years, mainly at the cost of Microsoft IE. The major reason for the huge market share of Microsoft Internet Explorer is the fact that it comes bundled with the Microsoft Windows. Google clearly saw an opportunity here as there would be millions of people who would easily change over to another browser, provided it is easily available. Google on the day of launch of Chrome, displayed the download link on the main page of Google search, giving it a huge publicity infront of millions of Google users.

Using Chrome is a refreshing experience purely because of a new look and feel which it provides. Performance wise too, it is doing pretty well. It works much faster than the IE and Firefox and takes lesser memory compared to them. Chrome seems to work fine with over 25 tabs open too. The homepage with thumbnail images of frequently visited sites makes your work faster and the history search is as efficient and comprehensive as the Google search itself.
Its not possible that there will only be the positive side of the Chrome. There have been a few of instances in last 2-3 days when I had to "kill" a webpage because it wasn't responding, but the good thing is that, a crash in one tab does not crash the whole browser.

Google Chrome will definitely eat up a huge chunk of Microsoft IE users in near future. With Google going aggressive with Android, the mobile phone OS, the launch of Google OS for computers seems to be pretty close. And that definitely would be some competition for Microsoft!!

Slowdown hits cellphone market

Research firm Gartner said it cut its forecast for cellphone market growth in 2008 to 10-11 percent as a global economic slowdown started to crimp demand in the second quarter. 

At end-May Gartner forecasted that 10-15 percent more phones would be sold this year. "In the last month however, the economic environment started to negatively impact emerging markets as well as mature," Carolina Milanesi, head of mobile device research at Gartner, said on Monday. 

Shares in Nokia and Ericsson lost most of their earlier gains on the news and were 0.4 percent and 0.6 percent higher respectively by 0910 GMT. "Signals for a weaker-than-expected second quarter have arrived from Sony Ericsson as well as some component manufacturers," Milanesi said. 

The world's fifth largest phone maker, Sony Ericsson warned on June 27 it would make no profit in the April-June quarter due to weaker demand for its more expensive phones, and said the market was challenging. "Despite expecting a stronger second half, we feel that the weakness of the first half has pulled the overall year growth down to 10-11 percent," she said. 

Earlier on Monday Salcomp, the world's top maker of cellphone chargers, warned its 2008 operating profit would fall from last year's level, citing expectations of weaker volumes during the second half of the year. Shares in Salcomp were 13.9 percent down at 2.84 euros.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

Nokia all the way!

-Contributed by Ankit

With 3G Iphone hogging all the limelight in recent past, one big news which many might have neglected was the acquisition of Symbian by Nokia. Nokia will now create a foundation which will give away Symbian's softwares for free.

Nokia by taking this step has made it clear that they are not going to get bogged down by any American companies( read Apple, Google and Microsoft). Until now Symbian was owned by a consortium comprised of Nokia and other handset companies. Symbian is the most widely used mobile phone platform with 56% of marketshare.

But in recent past, companies like Apple and Google have threatened to eat into Symbian's market share. But with Symbian giving away the softwares free of cost, the tables have seemed to turn in Nokia's favour. With the ever growing market for VAS, Nokia is looking to develop all the applications through in-house development.But one challenge that Nokia faces is, that, they need to provide many more handsets which can deliver these next generation services. Symbian is mostly used in Nokia's high end phones such as the N series and they must look to start using Symbian in less expensive and mass market products.

Nokia has stiff competition from Google who is backing a web friendly software platform called Android and other groups who are promoting Linux for mobile phones. Apple's success story is known to all and they claim to have sold 1 million 3G Iphones within 3 days of its release.To counter competition from such major software giants, Nokia has shrewdly made the Symbian software open and free. This would mean that More people will use the software and also improve it.Besides this, the economics of this deal also makes sense as Nokia has been paying $250 million to Symbian yearly. So, its definitely better to pay $410 million to buy the company once and for all.Their are some concerns though such as the involvement of Motorola with Symbian aswell as Android and LiMO. It is highly unlikely that there will be a monopoly of any one operating system as in the case of PCs where Microsoft is a clear leader. In the case of mobiles, only that operating system which keeps on developing continuously will prevail.

Reference: Businessweek Magazine

One Laptop Per Child

Your independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of One Laptop Per Child's "$100 laptop" computer, the OLPC Children's Machine XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte.

Retail Sales of CDMA-connected XO Laptops in India!

Tucked away in Deepshikha Monga's short article, "OLPC looks to World Bank for India funding" is a XO laptop bombshell:

Later this year, the XO laptops are expected to hit the retail stores. Sources say Reliance Communications, which partnered OLPC Foundation to conduct an XO pilot project inMaharashtra last year, is looking at retailing these laptops bundled with its CDMA modems. Might this be the reason for Nicholas Negroponte's visit to India in August for OLPC India Day? Regardless, it would be a shocking yet welcomed shift in strategy for One Laptop Per Child.

Instead of relying on the slow, arduous, and mostly unsuccessful governmental sales process, India's Reliance Communications has the right idea: Sell XO laptops directly to parents and the public.

Just look at last year's G1G1 success - OLPC "sold" 165,000 XO laptops in less than 6 weeks by skipping school systems and selling directly to eager American and Canadian buyers. Imagine the demand for an XO that has mesh networkingand CDMA connectivity! I know I'd be first in line for a truly mobile XO.

But before we get geek lust going, I have to echo Marc Valentin's questions:

Which part of it is true ?
- XO laptops will be really available in retail stores in India?
- It will be bundled with a Reliance CDMA modem?

If this is true, which operating system will be used? Linux or XP? Or maybe dual boot?

Let's be honest though, I'll be wondering these questions as I book a flight to Mumbai for a bit of line squatting.

Source: olpcnews

SMALL WONDER - 3G mobiles were first launched in Japan

Technology Enables Transfer of Data up to 35 times faster than regular Modem

What are 3G phones?
Third generation mobile technology or 3G technology is just one more stage in the transformation of the mobile phone from a simple communication device to a multi-function device. It was launched for the first time in Japan in 2001.
This technology which uses higher bandwidth will enable users to send and receive data at speeds from 114 to 2000 kbps (or 2 Megabits per second) depending on whether the user is stationary or in motion which is way over (6 to 35 times more) the speed offered by any regular landline modem.
Hence a 3G system can be used as a modem for laptops to get access to the internet and it can take on the role of WAN (Wide Area Network) or LAN (Local Area Network). The goals of this new protocol are hi gh quality multi-media and advanced global roaming (in-house, cellular, satellite).

How different were the earlier generation phones?
The first generation phones introduced in the 1980s used analog radio technology. Japan launched the first commercial mobile phone system in 1979. By the early 1990s, the second generation or 2G phones had completely replaced the first generation. The main difference was that 2G phones were digital, which meant that the voice itself during a call is encoded to digital signals whereas in 1G it is only modulated to higher frequency, typically 150MHz and up. The other major advancement was that 2G phones allowed text messaging (SMS). 2G networks were built mainly for voice data and slow transmission.

But with rising user expectations the networks soon moved on to the 2.5G phones with General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) that enables mobile phones to access certain websites.However, GPRS can only go up to 144 bits per second compared to 3G’s 2 Megabits per second speed. Coloured screens with camera-featured mobile phones, gaming and MP3 music were also introduced at the 2.5G stage.

What are the new services that 3G promises?
Two main services are M commerce (Mobile Commerce) and global positioning. A 3G user can access, organise and carry out financial transactions, trade stocks, manage payments etc. Global positioning enables the user to know their current location, get information about traffic conditions and get directions to reach a certain place. Live streaming of radio and television to 3G handsets is seen as the future with some companies recently announcing these services.

What is the scenario for 3G in India?
In India, the government is yet to come out with its 3G policy, including spectrum usage and spectrum pricing. Though Indian operators are yet to start 3G services, they seem ready to launch as soon as the government prepares its policy. In fact, a number of handset vendors have already introduced 3G-ready phones in the country.

How popular are 3G phones?
3G networks worldwide had 295 million subscribers by the end of 2007, which is about 9% of the worldwide subscriber base. The 3G telecom services generated over $120 billion dollars in revenues during 2007.
In many markets, the majority of new phones activated were 3G phones. Second generation phones have been almost completely phased out in Japan and South Korea. Many mobile phone users are switching to 3G phones saying it is no more just a phone or an advanced communication system but like a mobile personal computer.

What is the next anticipated development of mobile phones?
Work has already started on the next generation 4G phones, which it is claimed will be 50 times faster than 3G phones and this enhanced capacity is expected to enable three dimensional renderings and other virtual experiences on the mobile phone.
This phone, which is expected to be out by 2010, is expected to be able to receive data at 100 Mb per second on the move and up to 1 GB per second while static. An entire DVD could be downloaded within a minute! The technology being worked on is supposed to increase download speeds by using multiple radio frequencies to the send the same data stream.

Source: Times of India - July 14th 2008 

Mobile banking

Individuals today have an array of options to transact with their banks. Physical branch, ATM and the Internet are some of the common routes used. Now, mobile banking will make its presence felt across the country.

On the Move Banking
The Reserve Bank of India has issued guidelines for mobile banking and banks that meet the guidelines will be able to offer this facility for its customers. This is a leap forward because most people own a mobile phone in India, and can attend to their bankrelated activity even on the move.

Convenient Option
The customer, after keying in the necessary password, can transact with his bank. In addition to being convenient, the service saves a lot of time and effort spent on going to the bank or having to have Internet access.

Flip Side
At the same time the customer also has to understand the risks that come along with mobile banking. This will require due diligence and care on their part and hence they must understand the process and its operation clearly.

Source: The Hindustan Times

HP's Personal Touch

The all-in-one TouchSmart computer lets your fingers pick up where the mouse leaves off

A couple of decades ago, all the big personal computer makers except Apple (AAPL) ceded the development of software to Microsoft (MSFT). The inevitable result was that PCs became commodities, running identical programs on nearly identical hardware. Manufacturers are now fighting this trend, none more so than Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Its ad slogan asserts that "the computer is personal again." The TouchSmart IQ506 shows HP means business.

The TouchSmart is an all-in-one computer like Apple's iMac, with a 22-inch touch-sensitive display. I was not terribly impressed by the first TouchSmart when it came out early last year. But the new model is better looking, about $500 cheaper at $1,299, and perhaps most important, has considerably better touch software.

Actually, there are two sets of programs available: the standard Windows environment and HP's touch-control applications. To get to the latter, you tap a "TouchSmart" icon on your desktop, which calls up two rows of "tiles." The large ones in the top row are for touch-controlled applications HP thinks you will use frequently, including media players, a picture manager, a novel family bulletin board, and a calendar. The lower row is mostly standard Windows applications, but you can edit the list to add or remove programs or move them between rows by dragging them.

A common mistake in the design of touch interfaces is to treat the human finger as though it were some sort of mouse. HP's TouchSmart programs are different. They dispense with cursors and scroll bars —when you can put your finger directly on the screen you don't need a cursor to tell you where you are pointing. To move an object, you touch it with a finger and drag it to its new location. Sliding your finger up and down or sideways smoothly scrolls the display, while a quick flick of the finger results in a fast scroll. Alas, the resemblance to Apple's iPhone stops short of the ability to resize images by pinching or stretching them.

As long as you're using HP's TouchSmart applications, this computer delivers on its promises. The music player displays your albums either in a rectangular grid or a circular arrangement, and you browse through them by swiping a finger across the screen. Tapping an album cover shows its contents, and you create play lists by dragging and dropping tracks. But there's no integrated music store, and if you switch to Apple's iTunes, you lose the special touchscreen features.

The photo application automatically gathers all the pictures on your hard drive. (Oddly, that included the album cover art from my music collection.) The program includes some very basic editing tools and, of course, the opportunity to upload pictures to HP's Snapfish print service.

HP assumes the TouchSmart will be a shared family computer. So it provides a handy "notes" application based on a Post-it Notes metaphor. You can share typed, handwritten, or even voice notes, which you create simply by speaking within range of the TouchSmart's microphone.

Once you leave the special TouchSmart programs, you are back in the world of ordinary applications for the Windows desktop, where touch becomes just a mouse substitute. The effect is vaguely disconcerting, though HP does include a touch-enhanced version of Internet Explorer with extra-large scroll bars and buttons. It also provides a wireless mouse and keyboard for when you're working in Windows mode.

The user interface based on mice, windows, and icons has been with us for a quarter century, and while it has served us well, technologies such as touch are creating new possibilities. There is only so much that computer manufacturers dependent on Windows can do, but it's good to see a company such as HP getting back into the game and trying out innovations where Microsoft fails to tread.

Source: Businessweek

Linux going mainstream

-contributed by Ankit

Linux for many years has been trying to eat into the market share of Microsoft windows, the undisputed number one PC operating system. But still, it captures only 1% market share. There are many reasons why, still more than 90% people prefer windows over linux. The most important being the learnability of the linux. The initial versions of Linux were not the typical GUIs and it involved a lot of textual input as in the case of DOS. Now most of the Linux based OS have windows type GUIs and are easy to use. But, still Linux is considered to be difficult to use and even more diffcult to manage, which definitely is not true. But the tag of the "unfriendly" OS has somehow stuck.

I personally am a huge fan of Linux and have used a number of Linux operating systems ranging from Fedora to Ubuntu.Initially it was difficult to find softwares for the linux platform, but in last couple of years, most softwares are available for linux. Linux is supposed to be open source and free to use, and this definitely is its biggest selling point. But still, it never has been able to give serious challenge to Microsoft Windows because of easy availability of Windows' pirated version. Most computer vendors load the pirated version of the windows before selling a system which infact came with pre loaded Linux. But still Linux has a large number of followers and definitely "open source" is the order of the day.

Linux OS in mobiles will surely be a much bigger success story because of a lot of reasons. It will bring down the cost of the mobile phones hugely. Secondly, being an open source platform, developers around the world will be encouraged to add more and more user friendly features and services. These services will also help the Mobile phone operators in increasing the ARPU. In case of mobile phones, unlike the PCs, it is difficult to change the original OS, so there wont be any cases where users change their OS from a preloaded linux to some other platform.

In mobile phone industry, there is no clear leader in the Operating Systems. A lot of R&D is going into developing Linux as the standard platform for all mobile phones. Organisations such as LiMo are making huge efforts to come up with an answer to Nokia's move of making Symbian an open software. And with Google also going aggressive on launching Android, it seems like an open war for control of the Mobile OS market, which for long has been ruled by Symbian.

3G in India...

-Contributed by Ankit

After a long wait, the government finally announced the guidelines for the 3G spectrums. As expected, government owned MTNL and BSNL were granted licenses, giving them a head start of several months over their competitors. Government also had a surprise announcement for CDMA operators, who would also be granted 3G licenses along with their GSM counterparts.

The actual roll out of 3G services is still a good six months away as winning a license is just the first step. The next step involves the infrastructure planning and implementation. BSNL, who has already tied up with vendors such as Ericsson, Alcatel Lucent and Huawei is ready to roll out the 3G services within the next six months whereas MTNL will be able to provide the 3G service in New Delhi in next three to four months.

After the government announcement, there was an air of disappointment amongst the Mobile Operators due to the exorbitant pricing. The reserve price for auction of the spectrum in cities like Mumbai and Delhi and Category A telecom circles is Rs 160 crore (Rs 1600 million); in cities like Chennai and Kolkata and Category B circles Rs 80 crore (Rs 800 million); and in all other cities Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million).Mobile operators who were looking upto 3G services to increase their dipping ARPU will be disappointed because, higher bids would only result in lower margins. But then, pricing has always been an issue with 3G services in other countries as well. In Europe, spectrum auctions ran into billions of euros!!

Whatever, the price one would have to pay, 3G has definitely got everyone excited. The launch of the 3G iPhone also comes at a perfect time, when India is finally getting ready for its tryst with 3G. Its just the matter of time, before the nation gets hooked on to streaming videos and 384 kbps downloads speeds, that too, on the move!

Mobile growth hits new peak; 9.22 m wireless users in July

Mobile subscriber base in the country is growing at such a fast pace that operators are breaking the record for net additions almost every second month.

In July, mobile operators, both GSM (global system for mobile communications) and CDMA (code division multiple access) together, added 9.22 million subscribers, which is the highest ever additions in a single month till now. The previous best was 8.94 million in June.

Airtel tops

Bharti Airtel with 2.69 million new subscribers was the biggest gainer during the month. Vodafone Essar added 1.7 million new subscribers while Reliance Communication got 1.5 million new CDMA subscribers. Both Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices added just over a million wireless users in July.

GSM operators own 218.9 million subscribers while CDMA players have nearly 77 million users. Reliance Communications with 45 million subscribers leads the CDMA operator’s pack.

More operators

India along with China is now among the top two countries that add maximum number of wireless subscribers every month. The growth in the wireless segment is expected to cross the 10 million per month mark as new operators start rolling out their services. Videocon, Unitech, Reliance and Tata Telservices have announced plans to launch GSM mobile services by the end of the year.

This should assist the Government in achieving its target of 500 million subscribers by 2010.

In the wire line segment, the subscriber base has decreased further to 38.76 million as against 38.92 million subscribers in June as subscribers prefer to take a mobile connection. State owned telecom company BSNL, which owns most of the fixed line subscribers had announced a slew of initiatives including lower STD tariffs in a bid to arrest the slide in fixed line telephone subscriber base.

No fixed line revival seen

However, there are no signs of a revival though industry experts reckon that introduction of services like broadband and IPTV could improve the business case for fixed line telephony. With this the total number of telephones in the country reached 334.84 million of which wireless subscribers base stood at 296.08 million. Overall tele-density is now 29.08 per cent.

According to the numbers released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Monday, the broadband subscriber base has reached 4.57 million with 19 lakh new subscribers in July. Broadband user base has almost doubled from 2.47 million in July 2007. Broadband usage is expected to get a major boost over the next year as operators start rolling out 3G and WiMax services. Introduction of Internet telephony is also expected to give a fillip to broadband growth in the country.

Source: Business Line
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/08/26/stories/2008082652330100.htm