News Digest – Week Ending 4-April-2010

Devices Vodafone plans to launch ‘magic boxes’ again – Was it really a success last time around? To cash in on the ‘tablet craze’ among the early adopters, a tablet specifically for students – called iProf – has been launched . Smartphones launch of the week – Garmin ASUS and HTC Smart . BTW, Motorola Milestone is coming with voice guided navigation software. The growth of local players in the handset market has been nothing short of spectacular – from 0.9% to 17.5%. Nokia seems to be having some reservations about this research though – but still, even 0.9 to 10% is great. With such growth, such ambitious plans by a player like Mi-Fone cannot be fully ignored. Applications/Services It is quite sometime since operators launched any path-breaking but simple VAS – Pretones could be the next big one. This might also become a cause of confusion between what to play – CRBT or Pretones ! MTNL has launched a ‘ Video on Demand’ service through ROK Entertainment. In applications, social networking category rules the roost – Almost every application development company develops one – this one from Antarix is found to be good. Mobile Application development companies are getting a positive look from investors too, off late. An Indian company has developed mobile transactions/payment solutions to a telco in Dominican Republic . Good to build a lot of expertise before we build large scale solutions for ourselves! There has been some movement on enabling purchase of mutual funds over SMS. SMBs in Kerala might get an ‘ SMS ID’ soon following this innovative solution – But I am really not able to visualize the usage/benefit/success of this – Are they trying to eliminate the need for ‘websites’ here? Nazara , that has been doing a good job selling content to operators, wants to directly access the consumers through a portal. If they succeed, they can save a lot of revenue share given to the operators. But that is a big IF. I was wondering last week about the ‘launch’ of Nokia’s music service in India – that it has been available for long already! Apparently, it was only a ‘ name change ’. A rose by any other name smells as good, no? ‘ Gaon ki Awaaz’ – a rural news bulletin service – you cannot get as local news as this anywhere else! Operators Etisalat has finally launched services – Cheers – yeah that is their brand name! Bharti will be using the ‘Airtel’ brand name for its African operations too – I did not even think they would try to have a new name. Their acquisition of Zain is moving fast . The fear of the Indian Government towards Chinese infra cos is turning out to be good for the European Infra cos – Ericsson has won a huge order from Airtel. Regulation There has been no disqualifications amongst the 3G/BWA auction applicants . The Government has appointed a committee to find out the best means of expanding broadband network in rural areas. Miscellaneous Some more details of the IBM-NID project for defining user interfaces for Indian market have emerged . Subscriber statistics for Feb 09 are available here . India is a huge market for Qualcomm – not just the consumer market – but also as a market to invest .

View original post here:
News Digest – Week Ending 4-April-2010

News Digest – Week Ending 4-April-2010

WEBSITES FROM BOLENAY MEDIA