Month: January 2013

Blackberry 10 Launched – Nothing Innovative compared to iPhone / Android

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Blackberry 10 Review at the Launch EventRIM announced nothing new when launching BB10 given that most of the pending features and devices had already become public. The only disappointment was that there were no surprises up management’s sleeves. The emphasis was on the user experience rather than the device, on features that differentiate BB10 and provide a clear value proposition.

Key Blackberry 10 success factors analyzed
Hardware – The Z10 boasts a full touch screen and looks rather like most other touch screen phones. It’s not a wow phone but covers all the bases with a good sized high quality screen, reasonably thickness, and the ability to replace the battery and add more storage.

User Interface The user interface is clearly differentiated relative to iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Multi-tasking strikes us as clearly better than on any rival device. The typing experience is very

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Most Popular SmartPhones in China 2012

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A Flagship Mobile Handset of a company decides the fate of other SmartPhone Models in Emerging Markets like India and China. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S3, no doubt an expensive phone for the Indian Mass market, yet it captures the mindset of Mobile Phone Shoppers and they tend to choose a Phone model from … Read more

Mobile Internet – Emerging trend but lacks demand, holds growth of 3G

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Majority of Indian urban subscribers access Internet at their homes / offices using a wireline connection. Mobile Internet (2G/3G) is the second most preferred option, ahead of cyber cafes. 33% of the respondents use mobile phones to access the Internet when their first preference is not available. The most popular applications are the less data heavy email, web browsing and social networking.

3G uptake has been lackluster in the urban areas and has little/no subscriber awareness beyond the urban areas. Lack of opinion about quality of 3G/data services of various operators among a large fraction of urban subs also points to the current disinterest for data.

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VMWare Vision & vCloud Suite

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VMware is a high quality franchise and a leader in the important virtualization space. Last quarter’s acquisition of Nicira expands VMware’s addressable market by adding a key asset in the software-defined networking space – a complementary addition to VMware’s software defined data center offering. VMware management has shown great product vision in the vSphere server virtualization market and now is attempting to extend this to the next generation of what they refer to as the software defined data center and cloud infrastructure management products that VMware has been adding to its product portfolio.

VMware launched its vCloud suite using technology from

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Can Windows Phone & ASHA – New Touch Interface save Nokia ?

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It seems that Asha Touch’s main sales proposition is low cost of ownership. Devices are good value and consumer less data than a traditional smartphone. Yet, low-end Android phones are falling below the $100 level and can be equipped with data efficient proxy browsers (e.g. Opera) and can be set up to utilize WiFi for data heavy usage.

Asha Touch has many similarities to Symbian (Nokia’s failed smartphone platform). Both were based on relatively old Nokia software – Both were upgraded primarily

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CDMA auctions may add a new competitor

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The Cabinet will decide on the proposals to reduce the base price on the 800MHz CDMA spectrum by 30-50%. Although the auctions for CDMA did not attract any participants in November, we believe that Sistema could likely expand its footprint in the CDMA category, since it already owns 2.5MHz of spectrum. The recently concluded auction … Read more

Where are we on the Mobile Internet ?

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State of the Mobile InternetAlmost every year in various kinds of year-ahead predictions about Indian internet, you can find one about mobile internet. So why would 2013 be different?

If we look at the latest Gartner Hype Cycle, mobile internet has already climbed to the ‘Slope of Enlightenment’ and been on its way to mainstream adoption in less than two years. Three years into 3G initiation, operators, platform servicers, hardware providers and content producers have finally accumulated enough users and resources to kick start the entire value chain in 2012 as shown below

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Airtel QoS Improved Considerably

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High scores indicate better QoS, and so 5 is the best QoS and 1 is the worst. Airtel seems to have recovered some ground in the quarter ending September 2012 by plugging its loopholes in customer support quality, which was the main reason for its weaker performance in the previous two quarters. Based on TRAI’s … Read more

Mobile /IM Social Media Grows Faster in China

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Before the mobile OS and smartphones were full-fledged, applications on mobile were mostly migrations from desktop version or complementary access to existing online services. However, we believe contact-list-based multi-media instant messaging application has potential to become the killer app in the 3G mobile internet age, similar to what SMS has done in the 2G era. The apps feature intuitive UI that enable users to communicate in voice, pictures and video messages in real time with minimal data consumption. Recent exponential growth of Tencent Weixin, Xiaomi Miliao in China and KakaoTalk in Korea are triggering transformational changes in people’s daily communication.

Multi-media messaging could help people manage

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Indian Telecom M&A Policy ensures no new entrant at low costs

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Along with the one-time spectrum charges, the Cabinet also approved the M&A policy. This policy suggests that if the acquiring company holds spectrum against the entry fee paid, then the resultant entity would have to pay to the Government the difference between the auction-determined price and the entry fee paid earlier.

This key policy move eliminates

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