Tag: trends

Netbooks at $99 from AT&T

This piece of news is exciting enough to merit a blog post.

This year, at least one wireless phone company in the United States will probably offer netbooks free with paid data plans, copying similar programs in Japan, according to industry experts.

But this revolution is not just about falling prices. Personal computers — and the companies that make their crucial components — are about to go through their biggest upheaval since the rise of the laptop. By the end of the year, consumers are likely to see laptops the size of thin paperback books that can run all day on a single charge and are equipped with touch screens or slide-out keyboards.

How long before we have the intersection of 3G and Netbooks in India? I see this as a positive trend for Web services and the Internet economy.

SysInclude == Remarkable

I’m trying to keep only the best Startups from India in focus here. In order to get listed, a product has to be Remarkable, early stage, in sync with our times, and address a significant need which many people have.

SysInclude is a social network dedicated to IT professionals in India (and elsewhere) who work with the top IT shops.

Why does the idea rock? In our turbulent and confusing times, when everyone is vying to be a Facebook, SysInclude is a refreshing idea. They are focused on identifying and solving the needs of a large (enough) niche. They have wisely selected an audience with growing requirements.

They have restricted their registration to folks with a working e-mail address from a recognized IT shop. All other registrations are blocked. Their aim is to keep their resources and targets focused on their target audience.

Monetization should not be very hard for SysInclude. IT professionals are obvious targets for advertisers who wants to reach out to a high-spend, technology-savvy class of youth making anything from Rs. 5 lakhs p.a to the insane. Advertisers and sponsors will definitely include companies that recruit for IT, Startups looking for talent and advertisers from the retail, travel, automobile and real estate sectors.

The devil is definitely in the details. The team at SysInclude is geared to execute the idea with passion and perfection. They will need to work hard and innovate features that stretch beyond the ordinary. I am yet to see how they intend to make the idea compelling enough to draw in the audience through word of mouth. One possibility is to focus on answering the many questions that IT pros have including housing, services, work conditions, local information and networking.

What can they do better? I’d suggest that they open up a little to include professionals who aspire to either work in IT and are currently placed abroad (and have been invited to join by a friend). I get a number of requests from returning Indians every year with questions about jobs and companies.

I have not been able to gain access to screenshots of features for Sukshma. You can get a peek at a few shots on WebYantra here.

Will Seven APAC get lucky with mobile e-mail?

Siddharth Mahajan, CEO of Seven thinks so.

From the article,

“We believe it’s going to be mobile e-mail’s year,” said Siddharth Mahajan, vice president and general manager of Seven Asia-Pacific. “We are putting all the right structures in place to help the market grow and hopefully we’ll see the results coming in Q3 or Q4 this year.”

…
“We see an evolution of the [mobile] e-mail market starting with enterprises,” Mahajan said. “But at the same time, we also see a growing trend where a growing number of users would like to get access to their IMAP and POP e-mail accounts from the mobile phone.”

Like previous versions, the Consumer Edition push e-mail application will allow users to send and receive e-mail on handsets from different vendors, said Mahajan. Users will also be able to read, edit, re-send e-mail attachments, and maintain always-on access to their calendar and contacts when on the move, he added.

However, Mahajan noted that while the mobile e-mail is immensely popular North America, it still ranks a distant second behind text-based short messaging (SMS) applications in Asia.

He conceded that it is probably due to the fact that “text messaging is a popular messaging application across Asia”, though he expects mobile e-mail to strike a chord with the business crowd.

“As far as business communication goes, your e-mail is important,” Mahajan explained. “You can’t close business deals using SMS. The moment you want to get into a formal type of communication, you need to use e-mail.”

The senior Seven executive was also bullish about mobile e-mail’s chances in developing countries like India and China. Citing India as an example, Mahajan noted that the number of e-mail users outnumber the number of PCs in the country, which could give operators an opportunity to showcase the virtues of mobile e-mail.

“We believe there is going to be a huge demand for mobile e-mail in this segment. India has probably an estimated 150 million email users but only 50 million computers,” observed Mahajan. “That clearly shows that a lot of the e-mail users are actually using Internet cafes or office PCs to access their email accounts.”

Mahajan said for this group of consumers without access to a PC, the ability to communicate and type e-mail messages using the mobile phone will be an “attractive factor”.

ZDNet Asia – “Seven: This will be mobile e-mails year“.

Sounds like his reasoning is way off target. So far my own bet has been not on mobile e-mail, but on mobile entertainment.

When you take a serious look at the 100 million users of the internet that Mr. Mahajan talks about, a few assumptions come to light.

The typical westernized solution that companies like Seven could offer through carriers includes a typical monthly service fee at around USD 20 per month. This includes unlimited e-mail access and the ability to add one or more POP and IMAP accounts. On the move, the consumer can get access to either a push-based e-mail solution or an on-demand e-mail solution. Personally, to me such a price wouldn’t seem very right – until and unless Seven had a creative model and a cheap solution to change that in India.

What problem can mobile e-mail solve for that user segment?According to him, they don’t own a PC, and yet they have access to their e-mail through work, and cyber-cafes. In other words, these users answer their personal e-mail when they would like to. It wouldn’t hurt if they went a few days without answering their e-mail.

E-mail happens to be a relatively formal activity when compared to SMS. However, they both thrive on the network effect. In the USA, all my friends had active e-mail lives. I knew I could count on near instant replies. In contrast, My friends here in India, who have limited access to the Internet don’t expect me to reply to e-mails in an instant. SMS on the other hand is a totally different culture. I am almost always expected to reply. Even if I could compose an e-mail to my friends while on the move, I know that they would not reply immediately. Turning behaviour around would be Seven’s (and other personal e-mail providers’) greatest challenge.

I think e-mail is a great feature to have if you have already subscribed to mobile data, I can’t be sure if many folks like me will want it turned on just for e-mail’s sake. In any case, I could still get a custom solution from my e-mail provider rather than rely on Seven.

BlackBerry Internet Service is a hit with T-Mobile

Trends are clearly indicating a device with data (connectivity) is just as precious as a device with voice for many different reasons!

T-Mobile customers in the US are trading up from ordinary phones to the BlackBerry pearl. The BlackBerry Internet Service is a primary driver of this trend. It allows users to receive their personal e-mail instantaneously on their handhelds. It is very easy to setup and works well with GMail, Yahoo! and other free e-mail providers.

How repeatable is this trend in India? Yesterday, as I walked with the crowds in Mumbai, I could not help notice the number of folks who were carrying data-enabled handsets, for example – the Nokia 6030, 6230 and so on. I promise more on that later. It looks like there is a sizeable customer segment just waiting for the right spark to flip the demand for mobile data services.

At the Dadar ST bus stand – vendors (street) were selling cheap versions of mobile FM receivers with headsets. This is an oh-so obvious prediction – Mobile Entertainment, Television, Movies will be the next big wave to carry mobile data services into India. Perhaps not e-mail.

Bollywood films are now a click-away.

Regional content to drive rural mobile market.

3G GSM Summit Held in Mumbai with a Focus on Ecosystem around Mobile Value Added Services.

BlackBerry pearl proves consumers want smartphones – Fast Company.

T-Mobile has this to report about it’s BlackBerry Pearl users:

  • Nearly 3 out of 4 T-Mobile customers who upgraded to a BlackBerry Pearl traded up from a regular phone, rather than another converged device.
  • The majority of T-Mobile customers using the BlackBerry Pearl are using it for personal e-mail rather than staying connected to corporate servers.
  • Approximately 80% of all T-Mobile Blackberry Pearl customers to date have signed up for BlackBerry Internet Service only, to take advantage of personal e-mail accounts like gmail, Yahoo! mail, etc. (rather than Blackberry Enterprise Service for corporate e-mail).
  • 96% of T-Mobile Pearl customers send personal e-mail from their device weekly.

More trends on Sukshma.

Proto.in

Update: Here is a slideshow by Amit Ranjan covering all the companies present at Proto.in.

Day 1 – 20th Jan, 2007 – This was a day when a panel discussion took place between panelists like Mahesh Murthy of SeedFund, Ravi Narayan on Mentor Partners, Sulekha.com co-founder and CEO Satya Prabhakar and Atul Chitnis.
The panel dicussed many issues concerning entrepreneurs such as the lack of good ideas, lack of talent in India as well as the difficulty in recruiting employees for startups.

…read more on WATBlog.

One blogger has deeper coverage of the event, replete with videos! Gokul Blog: Proto.in.

Who needs 3G? Lets just go Wifi!

Netgear SPH101I finally tried out a Skype-Wifi phone this weekend. The Netgear Skype Wifi phone SPH101 was on display at a local IT-exhibition here in Pune. The phone was already preconfigured to pick up on the Wifi network at the Netgear stall. I picked up the phone, signed into my skype account and made a local call. The call clarity and quality were average and I enjoyed the feel of the keys and the overall skype experience. The keys were configured similar to any other standard phone with 3 alphabets to a key. The phone retails for approximately Rs. 15,500.00 in India, not a small order by any measure.

The Wifi phone itself not really a revolutionary breakthrough. Skype has been bundled with other data-enabled phones in the past – specifically, Pocket PC and Windows mobile. Also, at that price-point, the Wifi phone does not exactly make sense as a replacement for a fixed line telephone. But what makes Skype exciting to me is the idea of a global identity. With Skype you no longer need to know my locally relevent contact number, area code and country code. I can also purchase local numbers in different countries using SkypeIn and have those identities map to my single Skype identity. The global traveler (ahem ;)) could stay connected wherever there is a civilized airport with Wifi.

As long as I am signed into Skype that is. Mobile data connectivity here in India is a story by itself. I am currently signed into GPRS with AirTel. Depending on the day, month, time, latitude, longitude, environment, and of course – depending on how the god of the air feels (Vayu), I could get average connectivity or no connectivity at all.

Could Skype on 3G change all that? Skype is still exploring VoIP on the Hutchison 3G networks in Europe starting way back in Febuary.

In an effort to scope user demand, 3 Sweden is offering a Skype bundle with a 3G flat-rate subscription and 3G data card. With a mobile flat-rate data plan from Hutchison 3, users can make unlimited Skype calls. Christian Salbaing, MD of Europe Telecommunications at Hutchison 3, downplayed concerns that Skype traffic would cannibalise voice revenues. He described it as an attractive value added service that would help tempt more customers onto its network.

The pleasures of flat-rate dialing were too tempting to resist. As I placed the SPH101 down and turned around to leave the Netgear stall – my thoughts were all about the current 3G bids taking place in India. Is there a solution on the cards?

Just then, my eyes landed on the stalls of a popular VoIP provider in India – Phonewala. Phonewala were offering Broadband+VoIP-enabled PCO’s (for those interested, PCO is short for Public Call Office). With a simple Linksys phone adapter (approximately Rs. 4200), Broadband connection (Rs. 900 p.m for 256kbps) and a handset – PCO’s could offer “dial the world at Rs. 2.99/-“. Great, the local tea-stall owner can now call his cousin in Atlanta at rock-bottom rates.

Brilliant! What if PCO’s began offering Wifi? The entire city of Pune would be connected within a few days. We could give some of the big wireless guys a run for their money. Of course, there remains the question of how would the poor PCO operator get paid? But then with our history of socialism – I am sure the city municipal can work something out 🙂 (for those not laughing yet, please don’t mind my rambling).

At the end of the day, the Indian private wireless providers just don’t want to have to do anything that might disturb their revenues. I wish they would stop haggling and seed a long-delayed wireless data revolution in India. Sure voice revenues would start to whittle down – try focusing on areas where there is real value.

Oh and just so that you should know, using Skype in India is not politically correct according to the Economic Times – “Illegal web calls by BPO face axe“.

Second Life does deserve a Second Look

My first reaction to Second Life was very typical. I thought it was yet another massively addictive virtual reality. I might have to revise that. Second Life is addictive, Google Trends shows interest in Second Life is climbing sharply. But Second Life is more than that. Corporates are beginning to take Second Life seriously and are planning applications and products to capitalize on the time folks are spending in this new virtual world.

Reuters has begun to employ a full-time reporter to report Second Life news and activities.

The Reuters Second Life News Center reports several developer and design shops are taking an active interest in working on Second Life.

IBM is aiming to use Second Life as a platform for V-Business (a fancier word for VR E-Commerce?).

Jimmy’z Blog: Making Money in Second Life.

I paid my first visit to the Second Life world today. I had heard of the Dell Island and that is where I headed first. There I could sit down and design my own Dell. According to this article on ZDNet, I could order a PC for my real life in exchange for real dollars, or design a virtual PC for use in my Second Life in exchange for Linden Dollars. Unfortunately, I could not begin my design due to network connection issues.

Now the question is – can I get a job in my Second Life before I can purchase my virtual PC :)? I would need one since the Rupee to Linden Dollar conversion seems prohibitive. What is a Linden by the way? Apparently, the currency and other things are named after Philip Linden, CEO of Linden Labs and creator of Second Life.

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Trendy India defies the rest of the world – huh!

Click on each link to pull up the Google Trends report.

  1. In India, Movies have always been more popular than TV. The trend is almost always the reverse in all the other countries where both searches are popular.
  2. Rang De Basanti was a lot more popular than Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.
  3. Blogs are more popular than newspapers with the online community in India. Only a few other countries exhibit this trend. Update: The trend report for the search term ‘blog’ versus ‘newspaper’ refutes this conclusion, look at the comments for more on using Google Trends reliably.
  4. BSNL and AirTel are the most searched of telecom providers in India. Hutch is a close third and is very popular in West Bengal, while AirTel rules the North.
  5. Searches for Naukri edge out searches for Monster by a close margin. Both trend lines reveal a lot more Indians are going online to look for jobs.
  6. Shah Rukh Khan is more searched than Aamir Khan by online users. Interestingly, more searches for Shah Rukh Khan originated from Rabat, Morocco, than Delhi, India. Amitabh Bachchan does not make much of a dent here. Update: Prateek also suggests that one take into account different ways of spelling – e.g. ‘Shah Rukh’ also becomes ‘Shahrukh’.
  7. Sachin Tendulkar beats Rahul Dravid as far as online trends go… Dhoni makes a surprise climb up the ranks.
  8. The online community can’t decide between Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. On the day of Singh’s appointment to the PM’ship of India, the trend was very different. Pervez Musharraf is eclipsed by the turbaned Indian Prime Minister.
  9. Only for a little while – Football was more popular than Cricket. You guessed it right, the timing coincided with the FIFA world cup, 2006.
  10. Searches for the keyword Matrimony outnumbered searches for Shaadi. Update: Prateek also suggests having a look at the report for ‘marriage ‘ and ‘wedding’ which are much higher than the other two terms.
  11. Mutual Funds are more popular than Shares. The search volumes are the highest in India. Update: The report on ‘stocks’ reveals one more story. In contrast to the rest of the world, the online populace from India still prefer Mutual Funds.
  12. Karan Johar will be happy to hear that he has finally overtaken Mithun as far as online searches go!
  13. IIM’s are catching up to the IIT’s in popularity.
  14. While global interest in GPRS is declining, GPRS interest in India remains just about the same for the last 3 years. Meanwhile, interest in AirTel keeps going climbing. Is India going to be over GPRS even before it can catch on?
  15. Tandoor is just as popular as Chaat or Halwa. Of course, Chaat Cafe (San Jose) has both Chaat and Tandoor, something you won’t see often in India! Update: Prateek points out that a report comparing ‘tandoori’, ‘tandoor’, ‘chaat’, ‘halwa’ would be more on target with tandoori coming out on top.
  16. Goa is much more popular than Himachal, search volumes predict a lot of tourists from the UK in Goa this year.
  17. Google searchers search for India more than its rival China. The pleasures of democracy 🙂 or is this the Baidu effect?

Inspired by: Micro Persuasion: 25 things I learned from Google Trends.

Disclaimer: Google Trends is only a tool. Any conclusions you can draw from the trend reports is at your own risk.