Bits Byting By

Availability of iPad2 in India is not a big issue

2011-05-01T14:08:00.000+05:30

This is a follow up on the retail check I did yesterday, 30-Apr-11. Based on my discussions with the mutliple salesperson across the Apple iStores, the next stock of iPad2 is expected to be reaching the stores by by Fri or Sat. however those who are keen to buy the iPad2, options are available.

Based on my conversations with multiple salespersons across various Apple stores (iStores)

Apple stores sold out on Friday (29-April)
Salespersons at the iStores are aware that iPad's are still available in mutli-brand retail stores. While they wont say anything openly they will provide hints as to where one could find an iPad2
The Apple stores are expecting to receive the next stock on Fri or Sat of this week.
The Apple stores are sort of pre-booking iPad2, one could give them your phone nuber and they will give you a call as soon as stock is received.
The much talked about iPad Smart Cover has not yet been received by any of the iStores

One salesperson in an Apple Store tole me that, 28 iPad2 were received on 29-April and they got sold out in a few hours. While they sold out in a few hours, he confirmed there were surely no queues outside the store.

A lukewarm response to iPad2 in India

2011-04-30T15:27:00.001+05:30

In stark response to the first iPad launch in India the launch of the iPad2 has been a success by local standards, but a very poor response when compared to the response the iPad is used to other global markets. Compared to the reception the iPad1 got in India, iPad2 has got a very good response, but on an absolute level the response can at best be described at lukewarm. This how I felt after the retail check on the iPad2.

Compared to countries like USA, Japan, China etc there were absolutely no queues in front of stores selling the iPad. There was no mad rush at all. I had planned to do a retail check on how the iPad2 is faring. Based on my various discussions with the salespeople in stores I came across the following

The iPad2 was launched on 29-Apr-11 and stores have got a quota of 20, 40 or 120 iPad2
The 16 GB WiFi + 3G is appearing to be the most popular choice among customers
The next popular choice is the 16 GB WiFi
Contrary to the claims by Apple(India) on Facebook, iPad2 is not yet sold out. I am not sure why media reports on stock outs have to be published and try to create a buzz when there is not.
I visited a Ezone store in Bangalore on 30-Apr-11 at around 1:00 pm. As per multiple salesperson out there 14 iPad2 were sold on 29-Apr-11. Currently they still have stocks available. As per the assessment of the salesperson they believe that stock should last till at least Sunday evening if not Monday
There are two demo pieces available in stores. One is a white iPad2 and the other is a black iPad2
What was very interesting that in one of the shops I spent an hour playing with one of the demo pieces and inquiring about the product. While the staff was somewhat knowledgeable but very courteous, I noticed the second demo piece was lying and no other customer came for at least an hour either to look at the iPad2. This struck me as the real response and interest in the iPad2.
What was another very strange thing happening at the multi-brand stores, that iPad1 instead of the iPad2 was being pushed. In of the stores one salesperson was agressivley pushing the iPad1 (16 GB WiFI + 3G for 23,000 open to hard bargaining). The salesperson pushing the iPad1 was saying that there was no point in buying the iPad2 as there is no significant difference between the two products. The iPad2 salesperson was on the other pushing the iPad2 saying that they have few pieces left and that one needs to make a quick choice or the products will go.

On the balance

Response to the iPad2 is better than the iPad1. However, the response is poor compared to global standard.
The news around stock outs is a partial truth. Stock is still available. Seems that Apple(India) and its PR mechanism supported by the traditional media is spreading half truths to make us believe that iPad2 has been super successful in India.
The interest or the awareness about the iPad2 in the store is nearly non-existent. No crowds around the demo units are seen. There is hardly any POS material supporting the iPad2
iPad1 is being pushed ( available at deep discounts subject to hard bargaining) against the iPad2 in an attempt to clear old stocks. Those on a budget could consider this option

While this is not a product review, I felt that the iPad2 is a good toy to have (if you can afford it) though the Indian market is not fully mature to adopt it. Maybe iPad3 would do even better in India as compared to the iPad2

Retail check to see how Apple iPad2 will fare in India

2011-04-28T01:29:00.001+05:30

The biggest gripe that customers had against Apple in India was that it was selling an old product i.e. the iPad at a premium and hence was not doing well. Now that Apple has launched a new product i.e. the iPad2 at a premium price, it would be interesting to see how it fares in India. The launch on 29-Apr-11 will surely create a buzz in the Indian consumer electronics market.

I look forward to doing a retail check this weekend to check out the reception that the iPad2 gets in India. I would be talking to salespersons and fellow browsers at the stores selling the iPad2

The initial response that I have received over multiple phone calls in the retail channel is that a lot of buzz is expected, but still no one is confident about the sales. Lets see how it goes.

Cooking at Apple: Global Marcom VP Allison Johnson Leaving

2011-04-01T01:48:00.000+05:30

Steve Job's direct reports seem to be sorely feeling the impact of his medical leave of absence. The departure of Bertrand Serlet, Senior VP of Mac® Software Engineering, followed by the news around the departure of Allison Johnson, Global Marcom VP appears to be an impact of his absence which could give this message to the direct reports of Steve.

Self-align to the emerging power centers or exit Apple

Imagine calls to Steve being responded with an air of inevitability of the change. What if the inevitability met with a strong resistance, which could not be sustained. Any failed resistance leaves only a single option for the resistors. It could seems that two of Steve's direct reports have taken the way out.

If this is what it is, isn't it interesting.

The Story: Bertrand Serlet leaves Apple

2011-03-31T02:16:00.000+05:30

The official story on Bertrand Serlet leaving Apple talks about Serlet's desire to focus less on products and more on science.

However, it would be interesting to visualize a scene where Serlet calls up Steve Job, while Job's is away on medical leave of absence. Imagine Serlet informing Job's that he intends to focus less on products and more on science. Job's is shocked, and feels angry at Serlet. Job's doesn't show it and reacts calmly in an even voice. He offers Serlet a raise, a generous triple percent point increase with the added sweetener of stock options. This is the best Job's can do. Job's knows what cooking inside Serlet. He made the offer, but he know that Serlet would not stay. This cold and short call would make make it final. The issue had been finally laid to rest.

Amazing! won't it be, if it turned out to be true.

iPad Launch in India: High on novelty factor, Low on sales

2011-01-30T23:56:00.000+05:30

After recently reporting on the traction the Samsung Galaxy Tab has got in India, I was looking forward to the channel check on the reception that the Apple iPad has got in India. I visited multiple stores in Bangalore over this weekend (29/30-Jan) to get a sense of the interest that the iPad has generated in Bangalore. I visited the Apple iStores along with the multi-brand electronic retail chains carrying not only the iPad but also the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Dell Streak. Even though iPad was launched on 28-Jan-11 (just a few days back at the time of the reporting) in India the findings were interesting.

Some observations from the checks at the Apple iStore were:

The Apple iStores at any given time had about 5 people waiting to try out the iPad. However, these observations have been made over the weekend and may indicate an higher level of interest.
While talking to the salesperson at the Apple store it was clear that most of the customers trying out the iPad were at best the curious onlookers trying out the much hyped iPad with their own fingers.
The salespeople had hardly seen a serious customer interested in buying the iPad.
I happened to strike a conversation with many customers trying out the iPad. The response I got from all of them them was that they had come to see the iPad and not buy it.
I also happened to talk to a very few potential buyers of the iPad. They had come to see the product and try it out. If they liked what they say the would ask someone to get it for them from the US.
The serious potential buyers thought that only a crazy person would buy the iPad in India. They felt with the iPad2 coming in a few months only the stupid and ill-informed would buy the iPad in India. Even if one wanted to buy the current iPad, it would be better to get it from the US as it would turn out to be significantly cheaper.

On the whole the visits from the Apple iStores indicated that the future for the iPad does not look very bright in India. While none of the salespersons mentioned sales explicitly, it was clear that the sales figures for the iPad over the weekend at the Apple stores were close to zero.

Moving on to my observations on the store checks at the multi-brand electronic retail chains

Things looked up for the iPad at the multi-brand stores. The salespeople at various stores were consistently recommending the iPad over the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Something seems to be working in favor of Apple while Samsung needs to worry about this. None of the salespeople bothered to mention the Dell Streak.
The most commonly recommend configuration at the multi-brand electronic retail chains was the 32 GB WiFi + 3G
The reasons provided by the salesperson in recommending the iPad over the Galaxy Tab were the looks; screen size and the display quality, while agreeing to the fact that one could get the 3G feature at much lower cost with the Samsung Galaxy Tab.
The consumer response at the multi-brand retail chains was no different from the response one got from the customers at the Apple iStores.

In terms of sales at the multi-brand electronic retail chains the message from the salespersons was that its to early to talk about sales. As per them the iPad has just come out, the consumers need to first check out the product and then only we can talk about some sales. My assessment of the situation is that sales are close to zero.

Though these are early days for the iPad, one doest foresee great volumes for the iPad specifically and tablets in general in India unless

India is not seen as dumping ground for legacy products (Apple) with India launches aligned with the global launch
Pricing needs to be worked out. Seems no one is thinking about price points. Even those who are ready to buy at the available price points, could so easily get the latest product from the US at cost cheaper than India.

Samsung Galaxy Tab not doing well in India

2011-01-02T19:24:00.000+05:30

While Samsung in India would like to claim that the Galaxy Tab is making inroads in India, channel checks on the Samsung Galaxy Tab indicate to the contrary.

Findings from 12 visits to stores of multiple retail chains in Bangalore, conducted over this weekend revealed that

Not all stores chains like Chroma, Ezone etc are carrying the Samsung Galaxy Tab
Most of the stores who claimed to be carrying the Samsung Galaxy Tab did not carry stock. They had one demo unit.
The salespersons interviewed indicate that while a lot of customers are ocming to have a look, the sales are low to negligible.
The biggest issue seen is the pricing at Rs 36,999 which seems to be a rip-off and is the main reason for the low pick up. The low pick up is leading to a tepid response from the retailers.
The retail staff in stores have not been trained on the product. They are not sure what it does.
The key takeaway is that the Samsung Galaxy Tab is expensive and is not selling in India

While Samsung has been running a TV campaign and has billboards of the Samsung Galaxy Tab being sold along with the 3G connection from Aircel, the sales have not yet picked up.

Carol Bartz @ TechCrunch Disrupt: MG Siegler's decription is stupid

2010-05-26T01:21:00.002+05:30

sMG Siegler's description of Carol Bartz's chat with Michael Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt is stupid to say the least.

Carol Bartz To Michael Arrington: “F*ck Off!”

Seems that either Seigler did not listen to the chat or did not comprehend it (other than the expletive). This is not just an issue with Siegler but others who are more interested in the F word from Carol. Wished that they reported something more substantial.

Even for some one who is not very fond of Carol, the chat had many more interesting headlines than the F word. As for Carol she just seems to be playing to the galleries and the likes of Mr Seigler.

My key takeaways from the chat

The pruning of the portfolio is near complete.
While Yahoo! techies are working on cool stuff .... financial health is important in the interim.
Collaborate rather than build to improve the offering.
Carol Bartz has given herself more time to come up with the cool stuff. ( Reference to Steve Job taking 7 years to deliver on the success of the iPod is an indicator). Whether she will be late by then is for all of us to see

IBM: The view from the trenches

2010-05-26T01:00:00.000+05:30

Have heard a lot of variations of IBM, but the view from the trenches suffering from the bureaucracy is Idiots Become Managers

Bada could help Samsung gain 5% of market share by 2010-11

2009-12-08T01:39:00.000+05:30

Samsung’s newly introduced software platform the OS, Bada, which is expected to be unveiled on 8-Dec in London is expected to be used in most of its low end feature phone. It is expected that close to 50% of these feature phones will be running Bada within 12-18 months.

The Bada does not seem capable to take on the Smartphones running likes of the iPhone and the Droid. However, the Bada appears very capable to develop apps and deliver Smartphone like features for the mid to low end feature phone user. The traditional feature phone producers like Nokia, Sony Ericsson and LG would feel the direct impact of the Bada.

The strategy of delivering Smartphone like capabilities via touch screen is yielding results as seen from the success of the Star and the Corby in 2009. These initial successes will be leveraged via the Bada to deliver a smartphone like apps ecosystem in 2010. With 100 million touchscreen phones by Samsung forecasted in 2010, the developer community should definitely look forward to the large potential market available.

Feature phones have been the core of Samsung’s business which has been seriously threatened by the uptick in adoption of smartphones. The Bada strategy if executed properly could easily create a moat of applications developers which will help it differentiate its offering to the low-mid end feature phone buyer in both the developed and developing markets who either cannot afford a smartphone.

Based on a model of the 2010 handset market we are conservatively estimating that Samsung can easily gain up to a 5% market share within the next 12-18 months. Sony Ericcson will face the biggest impact of the Bada followed on by LG and Nokia.

Motorola: 1.8 million Droids and 2.25 million Android in Q4-09

2009-12-04T22:47:00.000+05:30

While the Droid is not yet the iPhone killer many had hoped for, its success has been far greater than what Motorola would have hoped. There are quite clear indications that the Droid will exceed the earlier conservative forecast of one million phones by 80%.

The Droid closed the week of 27-Nov-09, after 4 weeks of sales with retail sales of 700-800K (~750K) of which the first week contributed close to 250K of sales. This would indicate that it clocked retail sales of close to 500K in the last 3 weeks of Nov-09. This would translate into a weekly sales rate of around 167K. While we believe that the momentum continue we are taking a conservative run rate of 110K for the next 5 weeks from the week ending 27-Nov till the end of the year.

This would translate to a total of 750+550K = 1.3 million Droid’s sold to the retail. We would estimate another 500K inventory in the channel lead to a sell in of 1.8 million of Droids of which 1.3 million would be sell thru.

This would be really satisfying compared to the forecasts before the launch (Macquarie Research) which indicated a sell in of 800-900K and a sell thru of 1.2 million.

We conservatively estimate that Milestone the multi-touch European cousin of the Droid will contribute 250K. The Milestone is currently available in Germany and France and is available for pre-booking in the UK

The other Android phone namely the CLIQ/DEXT has not done well. The jury is out, whether it was not as well promoted as the Droid or it just did not do well. One can expect a volume of around 200K which is quite a steep reduction of ~300K+.

Motorola would sure end the year on a high with volume of 2.25 million Android phones up from the earlier forecast of 1.3 million.

Competition in the Cloud: Oracle working on a cloud platform

2009-12-04T01:04:00.000+05:30

Since Sep-2008 Oracle has had a partnership Amazon where customers can license Oracle's Database, Fusion Middleware and the Enterprise Manager on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). While this is the first partnership, more can be expected in the future.

Rackspace and Oracle are also collaborating on the first Java-based public cloud based on Oracle's WebLogic Suite and Cloud Sites. The new beta platform is expected to be available for a private pilot in the coming months.

Richard Sarwal, SVP Product Development for Oracle Enterprise Manager has clearly indicated that they would be announcing partnerships with new service providers.

Yes, we are working with several other cloud service provider partners right now, and will outline these in future announcements.

What is not clear is whether Oracle would continue working down the partner route or develop its own cloud platform.

There may be some signs of Oracle building its own cloud which has lead to this speculation. This speculation has been reported by William Blair and Company in a report on salesforce.com covering the recently concluded DreamForce. As per the report an ecosystem partner of salesforce.com who works on both the Force.com and Azure platform, has claimed knowledge of the fact that Oracle is working on a cloud platform.

We will keep track of how this speculation takes shape.

New Bing Maps a good start but a long distance away from Google Maps

2009-12-03T03:14:00.000+05:30

While the new Bing Maps has gone live it still lags Google Maps and needs to do a lot before it catches up with the Google Maps.

Bing has the Streetside to compete with Google’s Streetview. Street View has launched images in 28 countries of which the US has more than 80% coverage while Spain has close to 80% coverage. While Google is working on increasing its depth using Street View Trike (deploying tricycles outfitted with its 360-degree Street View cameras) , which is gathering images to map areas not accessible by Street View cars, Streetside still needs to works towards increasing its coverage in the US let alone the rest of the world.
While Streetside has been launched it’s still not competitive to Google Maps.

Google Transit provides point-to-point directions using public transportation in more than 440 cities across the world. In collaboration with public transport agencies in these cities, Google has added municipal transit systems into Google Maps. Bing still needs to come up with something similar.

Google Navigation on the recently launched Android 2.0 smartphone (Motorola Droid) provides turn-by-turn driving directions along with many features like voice search, real time traffic data etc. While Microsoft has had a Windows Mobile for many years now, it’s only now that they have woken up to come up with a Bing for Windows Mobile application. Yet Microsoft just does not have enough users as of now to be able provide any useful realtime data.

To quickly catch up Bing can use the crowd sourcing approach as Google Map Maker where uncovered regions are updated by users. The Map Maker by Google is working in 170+ countries.

Bing Maps in an effort to cover up for its inherent weaknesses is that its building a more open platform than Google, in which third-party developers can create their own apps to the map platform.

While the Bing Maps may keep Google on their toes, but it will be some distance away when it can really compete with Google.

BlackBerry : Consumers and not the Enterprise will support it in its battle against the iPhone

2009-12-02T19:09:00.002+05:30

It has been subtle but a significant change none the less that BlackBerry in India has been airing ads on the radio targeting college students, telling them how it could help them take on the questions from their teachers, while sharing pictures of their pets and staying connected via Facebook and chat. The same theme is also driven in the point of sale (POS) material promoting the BlackBerry brand in general and the Curve 8520 in specific.

One is not really sure if its BlackBerry or some other phone when one sees the POS material talking about Facebook, messaging and music and we used to think that the BlackBerry was all about enterprise email. Its clear that RIM is working hard to shed its enterprise only image and latch on to consumers. Without consumers, holding on in the face of the attack from the iPhone would be impossible.

Another change in the retailing of the BlackBerry, the salesperson would generally never suggest a BlackBerry to a female customer. However one did notice that female customers were being recommended the Curve 8520 as an option to consider. This is a very clear change in the demographics being targeted.

While not noticed by many, consumers had take over the enterprise segment during the 4Q-FY09 of RIM. As of Aug-09, it has been estimated by MKM Partners, that 57% of the subscriber base were using the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), while the enterprise segment using the BlackBerry Enterprise Service comprised the remaining 43%. This change in the subscriber profile is driven by the fact that less than 20% of net additions during the last few quarters have been BES users.

Traditionally RIM has been week if not non-consequential in market outside the US. The strategy of going after the consumer in markets outside the US with a low priced offering which is not locked to an operator and distributed via multi-brand outlets appears to be showing some initial results.

The iPhone which has been been at best a limited success if not a failure in Japan, China and India with very inital success in korea would do well to keep an eye on this new approach of RIM.

SAP's Plan: Overtake salesforce.com by 2012

2009-12-02T01:00:00.002+05:30

As per the analyst report published by Santander, the key takeaways from an SAP roadshow in Iberia was that Cloud computing was the "next big thing" for SAP. Finally we have someone other than salesforce.com in the legacy enterprise apps space who is a convert to cloud computing. SAP, better late than never.

Key takeaways reported from the roadshow include:-

SAP considers ‘cloud computing’ as a very important change in the software business.
Business ByDesign will be its main bet in 2010 and would be widely available in 2H10
SAP expects it could add US$1bn in revenues, more than 10,000 customers per year
Though SAP’s main bet in 2010, it is not likely to contribute significant revenues until 2011.

After a wide release in 2H10, SAP believes that with 10,000 customers it would add US$ 1 billion in 2011 and with a 10% growth in 2012 take on salesforce.com who with 67,000+ customers has a revenue of close to $1.3 billion. SAP attempting a billion with only 10,000 customers would be interesting to see.

salesforce.com who has observed that SAP is missing from the market in the last few quarters, would be looking forward to the challenge but then 2011 is still some time and way and a lot can change.

SAP's strategy seems to be unfolding with news coming out that its readying a rival to the Google Wave. While the hype is pointing towards some kind of competition to the Google Wave, its hard to believe it. The cometition is not the Google Wave. Is it Salesforce Chatter?

New Google Search: Looks Good

2009-11-28T02:48:00.003+05:30

We tried out the new Google search and our first reaction is that we like it.

We have tried out some random searches and compared it with Google in its current form. We are not sure if the quality of the search results have changed, but the structuring of the search results improves the search experience.

Waiting for the new search to go live and take on Bing.

Thank you Gizomodo for sharing the hack.

91% of users just dont get the Google Wave

2009-11-27T23:37:00.003+05:30

Following a recent post about older men using Google wave we went about trying to know a bit more about the kind of people who use the Google Wave. So an email was sent out to 317 Google Wave users asking them a simple question. You have been using the Google wave for at least a few days, do you get it?

The respondents were asked to respond to a single question

You have been using the Google wave for at least a few days. Do you really get it?

Respond with a number between 1 to 5, where 5 means I get it completely and 1 means, I just don't get it.

There were 113 responses from the 317 respondents cam back with a reply. Most of the uses of Google Wave just dont get it. The distribution of responses is shown below.

Is the Google Wave going the Twitter wave. It seems that the Google Wave is facing an on boarding challenge similar to the one faced by Twitter

Microsoft CEO to leave at end of year, says NYTimes

2009-11-26T13:06:00.003+05:30

It was really interesting to see the NY Times breaking the news that the Microsoft CEO was planning to leave at the end of the year

(You can double click to see the enlarged image, if its not clear)

But the excitement was really short lived when we dug into the link to realize it was a typo by the NY Times. They were talking about the CFO and not the CEO

It could have been the breaking news of the year .... but it was not true

Linkedin + Blogs or Facebook + Blogs: The next thing in Blogs

2009-11-25T14:55:00.004+05:30

As Twitter grew approximately 10x from 5+ million in 2008 end to a current number of 50+ million users, it seemed that all interest had turned towards microblogging, while the bloggers did not seem interesting enough.

Blogs are pieces of one's online social identity that are disconneted from social networks. While one can definitely show one's Tweet on a Blog. Alternatively they can tweet when a new blog is published. Yet, the blog stands out slightly disconneted from the social networks.
The next round of innovation in blogs will be a tighter integration between say a Facebook wall or a Linkedin profile with ones blog. This integration would definitely be better than the existing RSS feeds, the basic URL or the limited APIs which are available.

It would be nice to have a well rounded online social identity where peices of information from ones social networks and posts on the blog integrate better and complement each other.

This should be the next milestone for the blogging providers to achieve as they get comfortable with the idea of thrving in an envioronment where micro-blogging creates a larger buzz.

PowerPoint Twitter tool: SAP has been busy with Enterprise 2.0

2009-11-25T02:01:00.001+05:30

It’s funny to hear that SAP launched a free PowerPoint Twitter tool. Is it a reflection what best they could do in the area of social collaboration? While we know that SAP and Microsoft have aligned, the PowerPoint Twitter tool would have looked better coming from Microsoft.

Conversations with industry contacts continue to suggest that Web 2.0 and social collaboration tools are a game changer, yet the large enterprise vendors like Oracle and SAP are slow. The slowness is not on account of their size, but their arrogance. Larry Ellison’s ridicule of the cloud is well known and this attitude percolates down many layers below in the organization

Salesforce.com claims that SAP is nowhere to be seen as a viable competition. Seems SAP has been busy building the PowerPoint Twitter tool. One the other hand, Salesforce.com is busy launching the Salesforce Chatter, while ex-Facebook employees are solving issues are around enterprise productivity via the newly funded Asana.

Chrome OS: Multimedia entertainment disappoints

2009-11-24T00:06:00.002+05:30

This is in continuation of my earlier post exploring the Chrome OS. While my earlier post focused on just using the browser., this post focuses on the multimedia experience the Chrome OS could provide us.

What struck me first that the Chrome OS in its current form has not been designed for the non-US user. Hula and Pandora are unavailable to users outside the US. One could have hoped the Google veep in-charge of product management (non-US ethnicity) would realized this simple thing.

Lala is available but then it would interest a very limited non-US audience.

The only multimedia entertainment option available to the non-US users is youtube. But after watching a video on youtube one no longer cares about the multimedia entertainment options. Despite the 2MBPS broadband internet one is reminded of the dialup connections we used not so long ago (5 years ago is not so long ago), that how bad the OS is on the virtual box.

While this is not a beta, guess Google could have been more creative with the entertainments options on offer.

Before I forget, what happens to the few GB's of music on our hard disk.

So long, till the next round of exploration.

Trouble for iPhones in India, Vodafone stopped selling iPhones in India

2009-11-23T00:52:00.002+05:30

Visited an iStore and found from the store employees that Vodafone has no longer been selling the iPhone in India for the last 6 months. Sounds strange but then that's what they say. Is this an indication of how bad it is for the iPhone in India?

Some other interesting insights from the visit

Bharti Airtel is the only operator sells the iPhone in India
Only 8 GB phones are now sold
16 GB phones sold in India are jail broken phone being passed of as authentic stuff. Find this very strange, but then thats what was told.
iStore employee were actively encouraging potential customers to jail break the iPhone to use the phone with other operators. (They were clear that while they would give all the information they would not do it)
iStore had zero stock and they suggested that it would be better if we went directly to the Airtel store
One really interesting observation, the portrait to landscape view works only for the SMS, browser and a few other apps. It does not work for most of the apps. We had missed out on this one earlier.
iStores corporate relationship with Airtel helps them get unlimited data usage at Rs 99 per month.
The only form of subsidy provided to iPhone users by Airtel is 500MB of monthly data usage for the first one year

First blog published using Chrome OS: An Aw Snap Experience

2009-11-22T23:35:00.009+05:30

It was an exciting feeling as we logged into the Chrome OS

The first experience with the Chrome OS was not too great thanks to the numerous Aw Snap. This in contrast to the raving reviews we have read about the Chrome OS

While we would like to believe that this is the first blog published using the Chrome OS, we would not be surprised if some one else has already done so.

While we are still trying it out, we must confess it reminds us of the mainframes that we have worked on. Type an alphabet wait for the alphabet to appear and then type one.

As a compromise the blog was written in Google docs in an Windows XP environment and saved. At the time of publishing Google docs were accessed via the Chrome OS and the text pasted.

You can blame this on our computer which runs the Windows XP( We never wanted to spend money on the Vista and are not sure if Windows 7 does something which the trusted XP cant), but we never came close to the less than 7 seconds to boot kind of experience claimed by Google.

Shudder to think when the world is using the Chrome OS and the internet bandwidth is not too great.

We maintain that while the Chrome OS is interesting, it is limited in its current form and needs some real before it can meet the computing needs of a user accustomed to Windows XP (not the Vista) and Mac experience.

Thanks to Techcrunch for sharing with us the steps to install the Chrome OS. Thanks to GDGT for providing us with a working version of the Chrome OS.

Update: Chrome OS: Multimedia entertainment disappoints

Chrome OS is different, yet a market share of even 10% by 2013 is a challenge

2009-11-21T02:32:00.001+05:30

Its Google, so its no surprise that the buzz created by the Chrome OS is amazing. However this is a lot of noise while the underlying message is weak at best.

The Chrome OS works on a paradigm similar to the thin clients of the mainframe era. The difference is the cloud instead of the mainframe.

It will work great for a certain segment of users the way the Mac has worked for a certain segment of users of computing. Being Google the Chrome OS will also generate the fanatical following that Apple has.

After all is said and done about the Chrome OS, the final fact remains that without the internet the net book is as good as a paper weight.The idea may be ahead of its time. Globally we are still far away from ubiquitous broadband internet. Ubiquitous internet would decide the adoption of the Chrome OS.

While some Google fanatics would buy a Chrome OS net book on the personal computer, the big losers would be Linux and it ilk on the the desktop.

Microsoft should be wary but not unduly worried till 2013. One never knows what the internet delivery infrastructure would be by 2013

While SAP needs a Microsoft, talks of acquisition in premature

2009-11-20T22:00:00.001+05:30

While a lot of the analysts were busy following Google's Chrome OS, the Microsoft and SAP arrangement to take on Oracle hardly created a buzz.

Oracle has been hurting SAP’s in the enterprise application software space while Microsoft’s database is fighting for market share. By collaborating they intend to turn on the pressure on Oracle in both the businesses.

While Microsoft's strategy is similar in the collaborative approach followed in the Yahoo deal, SAP could do with any help it can get as it bleeds in its fight against Oracle.

One needs to see if the collaboration go take some other shape following some M&A activity

iPhone in India: Pay in advance, wait for a day or two before you get it

2009-11-20T19:50:00.002+05:30

Apple's, iPhone is not selling well in India. It currently sells via Airtel and Vodafone. It appears that the operators are not interested in selling the iPhone and are pushing through other channels.

One can buy an iPhone from a few other mobile phone retailers, though iPhone in India sells only via Airtel and Vodafone. The way it works is, you place an order with the mobile phone retailer, pay the full amount in advance and wait for a day or two to receive the handset.

One can only speculate that their may be an arrangement between the retailers and the operators. The retailers keep a dummy model as a display, the procure the handset from the operator when you pay them in advance and then you receive it in a day or two.

Not sure as to how it works, but then then got to know about the advance payment and delivery at a later date on inquiring about a discreet dummy iPhone display at a mobile phone retailer in India.

Twitter said Hello, Bharti Airtel: Indian tweeters still to pick up the phone

2009-11-20T01:24:00.001+05:30

Twitter said Hello, Bharti Airtel and the 110 million subscribers of Airtel in India could tweet via sending an SMS.

With even some of the 110 million subscribers tweeting, the Twitter traffic via could add up but then dipstick discussions with some indicate that the impact of the tie up with Twitter has been minimal at best for Airtel.

A buzz was created and the brand awareness of Twitter in India went up a many notches. Airtel had something nice to talk about albeit something small. Airtel! Poor guys they are going through a rough patch, the deal with MTN falling through and then getting battered by the 1 paisa per second tariffs.

While these are initial days and thing will keep picking up as we go along but then it is not expected to be something huge.

1 paisa = 0.01 INR = $0.0002 ( $ = 46 INR) ==> Tariff of $0.01 per second

SAP Business By Design(BBD), a flawed design till the time success is seen

2009-11-19T23:06:00.001+05:30

In 2003, SAP launched Business By Design (BBD), to offer a SaaS to SMB.

BBD is a part of the SAP SaaS portfolio and offers BI, CRM, SCM along with carbon management from the recent Clear Standards acquisition. BBD has been in the market since 2007 and has 80 customers compared to the 6700+ customers of Salesforce.com.

Inpsite of the new version of BBD, its failure is not only getting noticed but also highlighted. Marc Benioff in the Q3-09 Salesforce.com commented on SAP’s long absence

while license deals report a long list of wins against SAP, once again as I mentioned in last quarter’s script I don’t know whether it is through their own operational performance or their position to not participate in the Salesforce automation or customer service markets, they remain largely invisible on our market space.

IE9 cannot help, Firefox will overtake Internet Explorer in 2010

2009-11-19T21:57:00.003+05:30

Q3-2009 saw a growth in PC shipments, as against the forecast of negative growth. Microsoft would be really happy to see the pent up replacement demand playing out. Windows 7 is believed to one of the drivers of the replacement demand which is expected to play out in 2010.

While Microsoft and the Windows 7 team would be happy with this development, the IE team would be seriously worried. IE The replacement demand i.e. enterprise demand would mean IE7 gets phased out.The IE share of late 50s is under serious threat.

Based on a US dip stick we estimate that close to 80% of the PC's to be replaced are still operating on IE6 and IE7. Based on the same dip stick we estimate that close to 55% of the replacement PC's would shift to a browser other than the IE. This 45% drop in share in the replacement PC's would translate into around 10-12% drop while another drop of 5-7% would be contributed by the ongoing momentum of Firefox, Chrome et al

The announcement by Microsoft that it started work on IE9 a few weeks does not seem to be very encouraging. IE9 at best claims to narrow the gap between IE8 and the modern browsers.

Firefox is believed to have overtaken IE in some European countries, this trend will play out in the rest of the globe.

Salesforce Chatter at fifty bucks is steep

2009-11-19T01:44:00.002+05:30

Gartner has predicted that Enterprise 2.0 / social collaboration & computing in the enterprise as one of the top 10 strategic technologies for 2010.The launch of Chatter by Salesforce.com at the Dreamforce 09 is instance of the Gartner prediction unfolding.

However, if one really looks at the demo video, the Chatter is not something which would really excite us.It just brings in Facebook and Twitter type content and applications as profile feeds and applications in an enterprise cloud environment. The Chatter is a disappointment in the context of Marc Benioff's remarks during the Q3-10 call.

I am willing to kind of put my reputation on the line here on this call to say that by the end of the keynote tomorrow if these customers aren’t shooting out of their seats then something is really wrong over the past year creating this product.

The concept of Chatter is not a game changer as Marc suggests, it just enhances Salesforce's competitive position against other suppliers of social / collaborative apps in the enterprise.

Chatter Edition for $50 per user per month and will include Salesforce Chatter, Salesforce Content and Force.com and looks fairly steep in the current environment. $600 per user for primarily Facebook and Twitter; good luck to Chatter users.

John Biggs broke the Google Phone story on TechCrunch(14/11/9), not Michael Arrington

2009-11-18T21:24:00.002+05:30

John Biggs not Michael Arrington broke the new about the Google Phone on 14-Nov on TechCrunch. I am not sure why Michael is taking the credit 3 days later. Doesn’t Michael talk to John ? Michael was blatant about it while John was subtle and did not take any names.

As per John Biggs on 14-Nov in TechCrunch

In fact, according to a source close to the handset business, Google’s Android team directly assisted Motorola and Verizon in building the Droid’s software from the ground up and is currently assisting another, unknown, handset maker in Korea to create a finely-tuned hardware and software combination.

This is subtle but quite apparent to the keen eye.

John Biggs also did a better job at explaining the weakened position of HTC in the Google Phone ecosystem.

These two bits of information – that Google assists certain companies in making specialized hardware and software and that Google is now helping another manufacturer to the detriment of others – sounds like sour grapes.

While it is clear that some manufacturers like HTC are keeping a stiff upper lip and running their special special UIs over 1.5, reviewers consistently ding manufacturers for running 1.5 while the Droid is given a pass.

IBM changes it view on cloud computing: Is Rackspace an acquisition target?

2009-11-17T22:17:00.004+05:30

IBM had no plans to provide storage or providing cloud computing services as they were perceived to be low margin. However, this view is believed to have changed and IBM now believes that providing basic infrastructure as a service could be lucrative.

The ambivalent opinion towards cloud computing has led to a situation where IBM is perceived by analysts to be lagged behind in cloud services, but still has the opportunity to take advantage of the cloud computing.

On the other hand Racksapce, which competes with Amazon.com, Joyent and GoGrid in the cloud market, has been faring well against rivals, and has increased it competitiveness in 2009 and is gaining share. Rackspace has been able to close the gap with Amazon.com which used to be far ahead.

Rackspace is second to Amazon.com in the Infrastructure-as-a-service market. It has about 130K applications supported on its Platform as-a-service offering. It has about 1.2M enterprise users for its hosted e-mail service, which puts it ahead of Google.

Additionally Rackspace is well entrenched in the SMB market and is growing fast in the enterprise market.

IBM could definitely leverage Racksapce's strength to shed the laggard tag in the storage and cloud computing services market.

Carrying out such a transaction could be relatively simpler as Rackspace is a closely held company with more than half of the share be held by company insiders. While Sequoia Capital has distributed its 10% stake in Rackspace, venture capitals also control a reasonable stake in the company

Apple needs to get its iPhone act together in India & China by H1-2010

2009-11-17T17:25:00.001+05:30

While most of the press has devoted its attention on the 30K phones sold in China, one must not forget that it has sold not more than 55k phones in India in the last 12 months.

China and India are important as they are among the only large handset markets which are growing. Globlally handset markets are declining though the smartphone category of the overall market is growing.

It is expected that Apple would have finalized a partnership with Verizon by 2010. It is entry in most large markets would be complete by 2010. Most of the other markets where the iPhone has a 4-6% market share would move up to a 10% market share with the addition of second operator. All these actions would play out in 2010 and early 2011 and provide it with its expected growth.

However the issue is, what next? Where will the next driver for grwith be?

This is when China and India will really start to matter.

Inspite of great enthusiasm for the iPhone ( 2 million + phones in the grey market) the low volumes for the iPhone in China and India have been blamed on the price by many analysts. However, the real issue is the distribution of iPhones by Apple and a disregard of the power of the operator in the two markets.

While an AT&T would bend backwards and go out of its way to please Apple and subsidize its handset, Bharti Airtel or Vodafone in India could care less. They are in the business of selling mobile phone connections and not handsets and will definitely not subsidize the iPhone.

Additionally the iStores and the operator stores don't have the reach to distribute the iPhone in such a large market.

RIM in India learnt these lessons in 2009 and started selling unlocked phones via its distributor, Redington.

Apple has less than 12 months to sort these issues, Andriod is already there and Windows Mobile 7 is coming by end of 2007. Both of them would be driven aggressively by HTC who is much stronger in Asia compared to Apple. Dell would also make the Chinese market competitive. Lastly who can ignore Nokia in China and India.

Is ReadWriteWeb going towards paid content

2009-11-16T22:40:00.003+05:30

GigaOM started the trend of tech blogs offering paid content with its GigaOM Pro.

I am an avid reader of ReadWriteWeb and was fine with filling out a visitor profile survey offered to me today. The question regarding the likeliness of paying for online news in the next 30 days caught my attention

If ReadWriteWeb really wants to follow the path taken to note, it is interesting to note that it does not consider GigaOM to be a competing blog, worth mentioning.

Globally, Governments will be largest cloud computing end user segment

2009-11-16T20:45:00.001+05:30

Salesforce is the largest pure-play cloud computing provider. It believes that Japan is the biggest opportunity outside of the US. Its key reference customers not just in Japan but globally are governmental agencies. METI Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and Japan Post are aomng the larger customers of Salesforce.com

Google's win at the LA City council, New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, city of Canton, Georgia, the school district in Palm Beach County, Florida , the city of Orlando indicate that the local governmental organization in the face of budget cuts would be quite open to cloud services.

The adoption by governmental organizations would allay concerns around security and drive adoption by the enterprise.

While Governments will be lead adopters, they will be overtaken by private enterprise once cloud computing becomes mainstream.

Mini 3 could give Dell a 1% share in smartphones by 2010

2009-11-15T21:28:00.002+05:30

While Dell's Android based, Mini 3 has been criticized on the grounds that it cannot stand out in a crowded market and is an also-ran product.

The innovation by Ron Garriques and Dell does not lie in the phone. The innovation is in the strategy.

The strategy leverages the relation with a large operator to enter Chinese the market rather than following the traditional route of a US focused launch. Dell would be the first smart phone manufacturer to acknowledge the influence China would exert on the global smart phone market by 2015.

The global smart phone market for 2010 is expected to be around 235 million of which China is expected to contribute 30 million.

We estimate that the distribution reach offered by China Mobile, would give it a 5.5% market of the Chinese, translating into 0.7% share in the global market. America Movil's, Claro could add another 0.05% in Brazil.

The remaining 0.25% market share could be achieved by by leveraging the agreements Dell has with lots of other operators like Vodafone in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

The 1% share could be achieved by mid of 2010.

While the US or global launch has not been accounted for, success in China could build momentum and drive Dell to to a market share of close to 3% making it the 5th largest smart phone manufacturer.

This is the first time that an entry into the global smart phone market has been attempted outside the traditional US and European markets. It would be interesting to see as to how the strategy unfolds

Cloud computing is here: MS Office 2007 sells for $10, yet small business are moving to Google docs

2009-11-14T19:12:00.002+05:30

MS Office sells for $20, if not for $15 (depending on your negotiatiing skills), if not for free (if have to buy hardware from the seller and have been a regular customer). I know people int the US other parts of the western world may be feeling cheated, but that's the way in India. I am sure China would not be very different.

These are not some survey findings but I had a casual conversation with 47 small business owners. Small business for the purpose of this post is defined as business owning 5 computers or less.

The results of my conversations were, 6 out of the 47 had transitioned from pirated MS Office to Google docs in the last 3 months.

Its interesting that a free Google docs with limited features and functionality and an environment of limited and costly bandwidth sees a pull from small businesses.

I wonder what would be the scenario when Google docs are enterprise ready by next year as as promised by Dave Girouard.

The cloud is here, and Microsoft needs to be ready for some dark days ahead.

Apple will overtake Nokia's smartphone market share by 2011; RIM needs to be wary of HTC

2009-11-13T16:02:00.002+05:30

While Apple has already overtaken Nokia in operating profits, the next milestone we need to look at is when Apple will overtake Nokia in terms of smartphone market share.

As per Gartner, in Q3-09, Nokia had a market share of 39.3% while Apple had a market share of 17.1%

By the end of 2010 or 2011 Nokia’s market share would fall to below 30%. Half of the fall of close to 10% in market share would be taken by Apple. Most of the remaining 5% would be taken away mostly by Google’s Android based phones and partly by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 phones due for a launch in Q4-2010

For Apple to overtake Nokia it would need to add close to 13% market share. The gains would be driven by Apple taking 5% share away from Nokia, another 4% share would be added by new operators and markets. Another 4% will be achieved by lowering of price points and increased adoption of the iPhone in the next 15-18 months

While RIM with a market share of 20.8% in Q3-09 maintains that it would be able to handle the challenge from the iPhone, the reality is otherwise. It seems highly like that RIM will hang on and maintain its current market share, while Apple should be able to overtake it just by sheer momentum.

HTC with a market share of 6.5% is the real threat to RIM. Very soon HTC will be breathing down the neck of RIM. HTC is riding on two boats, Android and windows Mobile. The initial success of Android coupled with the launch of Windows Mobile 7 in Q4-2010 would take its market share closer to 10%, if not higher. Additionally HTC would feel more at home in the Asian emerging markets as compared to RIM

Microsoft Project to lose Oracle as its customer

2009-11-13T01:50:00.001+05:30

While it has be more than a year that Oracle acquired Primavera, but till date Oracle staff continue to use Microsoft Project for internal project management.

Facing cost pressures, there are indications that this may change from 2010 and Oracle staff will transition to Primavera for their internal project management needs and thus save Oracle some millions in the license fee they pay to Microsoft

It took a long time coming but the change is expected to come in effect from 2010

Salesforce at the cross road: Acquire or get Acquired

2009-11-12T22:47:00.000+05:30

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce presenting at Oracle Open World was in some sense an indication of the change that we will see in the Enterprise Application space. Salesforce had to actually asked if Marc Benioff could present at the Oracle Open World, but then nearly half Salesforce’s API are for SAP and Oracle

The environment which appears quite favorable to the cloud computing services on offer will drive the slow and steady decline will of Oracle & SAP. Oracle with close around $100 million on-demand CRM business can no longer ignore the billion dollar Salesforce in the on demand segment and SAAS.

Oracle and SAP will find it hard to compete with Salesforce on speed and cost. Developing on Salesforce is at least four times as productive and faster than traditional development environments.

Oracle with is Fusion release will go all the way to muscles out Salesforce. For Salesforce to sustain it must gain scale. One of the ways to acheiving scale would be to either acquire or get acquired.

IBM could surely be interested in Salesforce, given Larry Ellison's call that its IBM and not SAP that the want to go after.

Alternatively Salesforce could stay independent and muscle up with bolt on acquisitions.

The probabilities for Salesforce to get acquired would increase once it moves into the 2-4 billion range. Till that time Salesforce can survive independently.

Google Wireless Service in India

2009-11-12T19:43:00.002+05:30

Eric Schmidts recent comment that five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content is an indication of the center of gravity of the internet moving away from the western world to emerging countries.

While Google grapples with Baidu in China, its foray in India is interesting

According to industry rumours, the US firm has had several rounds of talks with the state-owned telecom operator of Delhi and Mumbai --- Mahanagar Telecom Nigam (MTNL) on the possible launch of a Google branded Wimax wireless internet service.

Android has an easy ride for the next 12 months

2009-11-11T19:44:00.002+05:30

Motorola, Verizon and Google must surely be celebration the initial success of the Andriod platform based Droid.

However, while celebrating their respective successes they must not forget that it cant get easier than this. It seems all are desperate to hang on to anyone who even makes a feeble attempt to take on the iPhone. Remember the initial euphoria surrounding the Palm Pre, which sounded quite similar to one currently surrounding the Droid. Though the euphoria sounds a bit more credible as it backed by the muscle of Google.

All smart phone manufacturers are operating in a space which is either dominated by the iPhone or filled with passive participants, a bleeding competitor or a niche player

Passive Participants:-

Too passive to be called competitors
Nokia the global market leader can at best be decribed as a passive participant in the smartphone segment.
Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG are associated more with feature phones than with smartphones.

Bleeding Competitor:-

Palm has been bleeding since the past many quarters. Its ability to compete in the long run is questionable
Motorola too would have been a question mark had it not been for the Droid.

Niche Player

RIM with its Blackberry is solid in its own niche but not strong enough to take on the iPhone

The industry structure has left an open space for someone viable to come and take on the cult of Apple. Andriod appears to be the only viable alternative at this point in time and has the might of Google backing.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7 could have presented an another viable alternate to the iPhone but then the Windows Mobile 7 launch slated for Q3-10, not accounting for any delays gives an easy ride to Android for the next 12 months.

Will Win Mo regain ground lost to the Android in the next 12 months remains to be seen

Twitter needs local Operators in emerging countries

2009-11-11T01:08:00.005+05:30

Its been some time, but in our post dated 20-Jun-09 we had clearly said

"Partner – partner with handset manufacturers and operators."

We have seen this partnership happen first in India and then followed by Indonesia.

India and Indonesia are markets where low end mobile handset penetration is higher than internet penetrations. Twitter to enter these markets needs to create a non-internet driven channel which will help users connect to Twitter with their low priced non-GPRS enabled handsets. SMS's are an appropriate channel but then they require partnerships with the local operators.

Twitter has entered a partnership with Bharti Airtel and AXIS in India and Indonesia respectively. Interesting to note that while Airtel is the largest operator in India, AXIS is among the smallest yet fastest growing operators in Indonesia.

This shows that operators both large and small are interested in Twitter. We foresee lot many tie ups between Twitter and operators. We are even betting that they may be countries in the ASEAN region.

Google Wave is for Older Men

2009-11-10T23:28:00.000+05:30

Google Wave has been touted as “What Might Email Look Like If It Were Invented Today”

However, initial evidence shows that it is far from being accepted by the mainstream even though it was invented today.

The initial demographics as measured by Quantcast show that the Google Wave is currently used by Older Men

The initial assessment on the demographics need to keep in mind that adoption of the Google Wave is controlled via invites.

Misson Accomplished: Carol Bartz's future at Yahoo

2009-07-29T21:33:00.004+05:30

Carol's key deliverable included consummating a search deal with Microsoft.

While working to getting the deal done, she has worked towards getting Yahoo to be more efficient as an operational unit.

Her performance on her key deliverable at best can be called average if not distinctly below average. There was no boatload of money.

It would be interesting to get to know her agenda for the rest of her contracted tenure which ends on 31-Dec-2012. While she has publicly maintained that she would continue with Yahoo at least till her tenure ends.

Given that she came to Yahoo, because it "frankly could use a little management" and that a person like Carol Bartz need not wait till 31-Dec-2012 to give Yahoo a little management, it would be interesting to observe the next steps. Am not sure if Yahoo desires more of her at best average management of Yahoo search.

The next steps will not take long.....

Have money will acquire

2009-07-28T22:35:00.001+05:30

In the current environment cash is dear and companies are cheap. Companies with serious cash sitting on their balance sheets are going to extract their pound of flesh.

All companies like IBM, Oracle, SAP etc with significant cash on their balance have made a few acquisitions. Microsoft is working on a deal with Yahoo.

We can expect an acquisition by Dell and Google before the end of this year or early next year

Update: Apple flexing its muscle

2009-07-28T12:40:00.003+05:30

Update: Apple Is Growing Rotten To The Core: Official Google Voice App Blocked From App Store
Microsoft Changes 'Laptop Hunters' Ad After Apple Complains
Chinese engineer kills self over lost '4G' iPhone
Why Is Google Latitude A Web App And Not A Native App? Because Apple Said So.
Apple has 91% of market for $1,000+ PCs, says NPD

The power of Twitter

2009-07-27T22:08:00.004+05:30

Twitter is banned/ controlled/ restricted by

Iran
China
White House (USA)

Irrespective of the nature of governments, all need to figure out ways to handle the tweets from Twitter.

Microsoft Yahoo deal

2009-07-27T10:58:00.003+05:30

The deal is expected this week! It appears that the poor quarterly earning pushed both sides to get it done.

At the time of the launch of Bing, Steve Ballmer had indicated that he was willing to invest 5-10% of Microsoft's operating income on search within the next five years.

The 5-10% of operating income translating into $5.5 -$11 billion would give us the size of the transaction deal. Additionally the investment to be made over a five year period would corroborate the indications that Yahoo may not get a huge upfront payment and it would be a revenue sharing deal.

As for the transaction value, Microsoft would not only consider the revenue impact to Yahoo, it would also consider the savings to operational costs for Yahoo.

Carol Bartz on the other hand would be looking for boat loads of cash.

Trying out the new Yahoo homepage

2009-07-26T21:45:00.003+05:30

I know it’s a bit late, but then I tried out the new Yahoo homepage this weekend
To say the least I was really surprised because I had read, Carol Bartz referring to a wow experience. I had also read Yahoo Finally Rolls Out New Homepage to the Masses–and, Drum Roll, It’s Good

I was left wondering how anyone could use descriptions like wow, its good. I am not sure if they had the time to even go through the homepage.

Some of the things which I noticed or I should say things I could not help noticing.

The homepage looks new. That’s the best I can describe it as
Once you try to sign in. It takes you to a page which looks as if it was designed decades ago.
In My Favorites - I configured Gmail and clicked on the preview, it gave a message to the effect that it could not connect to Gmail
When I tried for the second time, I could seem emails on the preview pane and when I clicked on it, it took me to a page which said something of the effect of link not found.
I didn’t give up, I hit the back button and I tried once more, it took me to the home page of Google.
Another back button and tired once more. I go to the login page of Gmail. I was left wondering. I should have been taken to the inbox of Gmail as I had already provided my login details

Whatever! I gave it up.

If I had heard more realistic views on the new homepage, I would not have tried the new page.

I hope Yahoo! does better for itself by not coming out with half-baked products.

Apple flexing its muscle

2009-07-25T12:21:00.002+05:30

While the Apple cult has been built on a legacy of successful products like Mac, iPod et al, however it is the success of it iPhone which has given it a muscle which it never had. These headlines surely makes on feel that Apple is now really flexing its newly acquired muscles

Microsoft Changes 'Laptop Hunters' Ad After Apple Complains
Chinese engineer kills self over lost '4G' iPhone
Why Is Google Latitude A Web App And Not A Native App? Because Apple Said So.
Apple has 91% of market for $1,000+ PCs, says NPD

The Yahoo Board Meeting

2009-07-24T10:56:00.000+05:30

I was expecting an announcement around the earnings of Microsoft and Yahoo. While there was no announcement, there was news that a Yahoo board meeting to consider the deal would take place.

The timing of the board meeting is significant, hours after the Microsoft earnings call. Seems that the bad numbers pushed both back to the negotiating table.

Even though some members of the Yahoo board are not in favor of the deal, the deal for all practical purposes is a done deal unless something really blows up at the last steps.

While we have Carl Icahn pushing Carol for a deal, this time around both the boards will be a bit more pragmatic when it comes to valuations.

While the deal is being discussed it would be interesting to see if Microsoft and Yahoo face in regulatory hurdles on the way.

Microsoft & Yahoo Deal: For the Yahoo search trenches

2009-07-23T23:16:00.003+05:30

For the Yahoo search trenches

It’s confusing & distracting
Its seems as if a PAUSE button has been hit in Yahoo search
The rank and file losing patience
Lets get on with it once for all

GTunes

2009-07-22T22:39:00.002+05:30

We are now hearing a bout GDrive....

Apps a typical computing user

Operating system - Chrome OS
File storage - GDrive (speculation)
Docs - Google Docs
Browsing - Chrome
Email & IM - Gmail, Gtalk and now the Wave
Photos - Flickr
Socials - Blogging - Blogger
Google Apps
Music - ???? - Waiting for Google to unveil the GTunes

I wonder when we hear of a GTunes from Google?

Microsoft & Yahoo earnings (cont'd)

2009-07-22T21:43:00.005+05:30

I was expecting something on the deal during Yahoo's earning call. While Carol avoided any direct mention but then she wanted to give kudos to Microsoft for Bing. Well it couldn’t have been more direct.

Now coming to Microsoft's earning call, Microsoft's result will decide what they say about Yahoo. Results from Microsoft meet or beat expectation, little or no comment on Yahoo. Results disappoint, be ready to hear something positive about Yahoo and most analysts believe Microsoft may disappoint.

Ballmer saying something nice about the Yahoo home page would be a nice way to acknowledge Carol's complements on Bing

Microsoft & Yahoo earnings

2009-07-21T22:40:00.003+05:30

While not a lot is expected on the earnings front.

We will hear something on the deal between the two.....

Microsoft's code to Linux

2009-07-20T23:52:00.004+05:30

Microsoft's submission of source code to the Linux kernel is part of a growing realization of that it can not longer dominate on either the server or the desktop.

Credit for this success does not prove anything about the strength of Linux. It just shows the strength of trends which are drivings developments around the cloud and virtualization.

While Microsoft may not be able to dominate, it sure is trying to make the best of the trends of virtualization and the cloud and use this source code as differentiators in its competition against WMware.

Twitter, forget Facebook, unlimited opportunities in Africa, India and other markets

2009-07-20T00:13:00.002+05:30

Twitter is very worried about Facebook as among other things it can make SMS status updates more available. Reading about SMS updates made me wonder about the differences in the mobile web experience across geographies.

While users in the USA and Europe get the mobile web experience via high end phones which run apps with various features and functionality it is not so in Africa, India and other developing economies of the world. Africa and India which are typically low end handsets markets where SMS’s are used to create the mobile web experience.

While the worries of Twitter about Facebook may or may not come true in the US, it needs to look outside the US for opportunities to ensure that it stays relevant and its not copied and then beaten by companies like Facebook which have a bigger muscle.

However for Twitter to leverage this opportunity before an African Twitter comes up it needs to do the following

Organizational ramp up – a company with 70 odd can forget about Africa and India
Product design – support for languages, English and related scripts would not work in India
Partner – partner with handset manufacturers and operators.

Google already has announced plans for Africa.

Google the silver lining in the clouds surrounding Yahoo!

2009-07-18T19:04:00.002+05:30

In the recent months it had become quite clear that a deal with Microsoft was very important for the long term sustainability for Yahoo! However Microsoft with its bravado around Bing positioned itself to be cool towards the deal.

It seems that the attack from Google on Microsoft is having its desired effect. It appears that Ballmer is ducking for cover and rushing to the negotiation table with Yahoo!.

In my post on 11-June i had predicted that the Yahoo, Microsoft deal would be done in 2009, it appears that the pressure from Google could make Microsoft do the deal a bit sooner.

Priorities for Yahoo

2009-07-04T00:38:00.003+05:30

Its about execution and not vision
Integrate different parts of things folks do online
Mobile web is important, period.
Mobile web - Hi end phones - Killer apps which provide features and functionality
Mobile phone - Low end phones - Integrate sms+mobile experience to provide an online experience on the PC
While we wait to see what happens with Microsoft, Search to help navigate better in Yahoo
Front page is huge

Competition to Twitter

2009-07-03T23:59:00.002+05:30

Success leads to competition. Twitter is successful. OK if not successful it is buzzing. No one can deny that.

Then why is there no clear competitor to Twitter. Facebook changes privacy control, still its not a Twitter.

I am surprised, its uncommon to see success without any real competition ....

Binging the Tweets, a pleasant surprise

2009-07-02T22:22:00.002+05:30

While I admittedly have not been a great fan of Bing, I do concede that including Tweets in search results can be a potential game changer. It could spell a greater challenge to the concept of searching information via a huge cache of indexed pages

While Google could easily pull a switch and include real time content in it search results, but then this is the first time when Google will be seen catching up on innovation.

Historically Microsoft's definition of innovation has been copying competitors and coming out with something better. I guess this time Google may have to follow Microsoft model of innovation

Android vs Windows

2009-06-27T22:06:00.004+05:30

I had discussed battle front of Android vs Windows in the fight between Microsoft and Google on 25-Jun.

I was surprised to hear about the move by Nokia to offer an Android netbook in 2010 on 26-Jun. While I had imagined the Android vs windows battle to be long drawn and fought sometime in this future, this announcement confirms the accpetance of Android as a platform by various netbook vendors.

I now believe that this battle does not lie ahead in the long term future, the danger for Windows from Adroid is clear and present.

Oracle moving to the cloud?

2009-06-27T21:47:00.005+05:30

I had alluded in my post on 18-Jun about a reorg at Oracle the apps. This has been confirmed by Rueters on 24-Jun.

I had infact sent a mail on 18-Jun to Oracle's Investor Relation seeking confirmation on Ed Abbos employment status at Oracle. There was no response from Oracle. I am still waiting for a response from Oracle.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff in an interaction (watch the video) with Om Malik of Gigaom (on 25-Jun) casually alluded to the fact that Ed Abbo was fired after their earnings call on account of declining apps license revenue (this is Marc's view)

Does the exit of Ed means that there is a change in strategy in apps at Oracle. Does this exit means a move to the cloud for Oracle apps, given that Larry has recently shown greater regard to the cloud

Google's assault on Microsoft

2009-06-25T13:12:00.001+05:30

While Bing and its impact on Google is a hotly discussed debated topic, it seems that Google’s attack on the business model of Microsoft is not getting adequate attention.

Operating Systems - Windows Vs Android
While Android is already available on cell phones, it is going to launch on netbook by the end of this year. While Android is to be seen in ARM netbooks, there is a possibility that Android would be launched in Atom netbooks.

MS Office vs Google Apps
As per a recently published report, Google is set to make a big push for Apps in 2010 and Google appears to be ready to make a much bigger push into third-party distribution and it getting traction with its Apps product line.

Outlook Apps Sync
Apps Sync by Google makes Exchange vulnerable.

It would be interesting to see how Microsoft reacts to these attacks of Google.

Microsoft Yahoo deal - The numbers behind it

2009-06-22T22:31:00.001+05:30

"Our shareholders, I told them we were willing to spend 5 to 10 percent of operating income for up to five years in this business, and we feel like we can get an economic return," Ballmer told a business luncheon in Chicago, without elaborating on the timeframe.

What does Ballmer mean by search business? Is search business Bing or does it include the deal with Yahoo.

Ballmer is talking numbers!

Dell's acquisition plans

2009-06-22T22:09:00.004+05:30

Preference for Dell's M&A plans would would be storage, software and services (decreasing order of preference).

NetApp has been touted by some as a perfect candidate for Dell.

While many analysts believe that Dell would prefer an acquisition of a storage company, a storage acquisition may impact Dell's arrangements with EMC. EMC accounts for a significant portion of Dells network storage dollars.

In software and services, Dell could attack niches in the enterprise server and storage space.

The suspects by areas include:-

Services
CSC, CapGemini, Sapient, Perot, Syntel, Atos

Storage
Netapp, Teradata

Hardware
Acer, Palm

Software
CA, TIBCO, Salesforce.com, BMC, Citrix

Reorg:- Oracle Apps

2009-06-18T13:21:00.003+05:30

Less than 2 years after John Wookey's departure, there seems to be news of reorg at Oracle Apps Development.

Is this a change in strategy, impact of the environment or an unknown reason like John Wookey's departure

Reasons why the Yahoo and Microsoft search deal could happen in 2009

2009-06-11T17:57:00.001+05:30

Yahoo's value as company is far less if the agreement on search did not happen.
Yahoo is growing slower that overall growth.
Yahoo is US centric, success in growth geographies is limited.
Talent drain
Carol Bartz would need to show some results for a years worth of work

Given all the talk around boat load of dollars, its just a matter of time when there is an agreement on price and the deal is consummated

Enterprise beware:- Google Apps and Outlook can now sync

2009-06-10T18:01:00.001+05:30

While the target of the plug between Google Apps and Outlook is clearly Microsoft, collateral damage to enterprises may be inevitable.

Lets not discuss the Microsoft, Google rivalry. It has been discussed by many.

Its the risk which organizations face with respect to the data. Its not that data is terribly secure in organizations with mobile devices, just that now it may become even more insecure.

Will Google see a back lash from the large enterprise user.

Private Beta Su.pr

2009-06-10T15:45:00.003+05:30

Private Beta (250 Invites) - Nice touch to hype up a URL shortening service by creating an illusion of scarcity.

I used the private beta to take a look inside.

On the surface it looks just like another URL shortening service. While its track back feature does get one excited, but then is it any better than bit.ly or cl.igs

StumbleUpon users may have a different view, but then I am not a StumbleUpon user.

Update: Trying out Opera 10

2009-06-09T18:54:00.001+05:30

I really liked Opera Turbo, it really works on different internet speeds.

On the flip side Opera 10 is in beta, but still its very unstable. It crashes, its unstable.

Google has redefined the meaning of beta.

Hadoop Summit 2009: Missing Microsoft.

2009-06-09T17:02:00.002+05:30

Its Hadoop Summit 2009

Microsoft is working on its proprietary grid computing platform, Dryad. Still Microsoft attended the Hadoop Summit 2009.

Cut to Hadooop Summit 2009. In 2008, Microsoft purchased Powerset which creates its search index via Hadoop. Yet Microsoft has given Hadoop Summit 2009 a miss.

I wonder why????

Random Rumors around SAP

2009-06-08T19:21:00.002+05:30

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft dismissed talk of Microsoft acquiring SAP as random rumors. Talk of IBM acquiring SAP has been discussed so may time.

SAP founders who still hold around 28% stake in the company may not want to sell off to either an IBM or a Microsoft, but their options are limited. There are certain issues which SAP has been unable to address

Geographical Gaps: While SAP has been a global leader in terms of market share, it is essentially a European company. More than half of its revenues are contributed by Europe and around 18% by Germany. It is relatively weaker against Oracle in the US. APAC’s which will be a growth driver has a limited contribution

Gaps in solution offerings: SAP’s infrastructure providers like Microsoft & Oracle are competing against it in the application space.

In SAP, did a turnaround from its organic growth strategy to an acquisitions strategy when it announced its plan to acquire Business Objects on October 7, 2007. While the turnaround has happened in it’s acquisition strategy, it’s still not as aggressive as Oracle’s and gaps in solution offerings still remain. The gaps have in fact widened

SAP’s weakness in the US would be hard to change given Oracle’s strength in the US.

So who will acquire SAP may be a random rumor, its independence in the long term does not appear to be a rumor.

Reality Check for Carol Bartz: boatloads of dollar may not be coming your way sometime soon

2009-06-06T11:48:00.006+05:30

Carol Bartz would have ideally liked some more time on her hand to dress Yahoo up and put parts of it for a sale. If the dressing down of the Yahoo team dresses Yahoo into something really nice, she may then be able to get the boatload of dollars she desires from search.

While its becoming clearer that Bing though not a Google killer at this time point may be a reality check for Carol for the search business. Bing may force her on the negotiation table with some lower expectations.

What about advertising and content.

Does Yahoo have what it takes to compete with Google on advertising. Am not sure who would be interested in taking on Google via advertising.

Content could get someone in media really interested, but then AOL & Time Warner was not a great story to go by.

Carol needs to deliver something quick or reset expectations

Bing taking share from Google

2009-06-05T17:40:00.005+05:30

In my 6/2/2009 post, I had a view that Bing would take share from Google and not from Yahoo.

This view seems to be getting confirmed from the data published by StatCounter.

However once the dust around the launch hype settles down, it may emerge that the change in market share was temporary and and not sustainable. After the initial period of experimentation, one really needs to see how sticky the experience with Bing would be.

The marketing for Bing does not seem to be working

2009-06-05T14:41:00.003+05:30

Microsoft is believed to be spending $80 million to $100 million on ads to help market Bing as a as serious alternative to Google.

The marketing campaings of Bing on hulu.com, NCB, MTV Networks etal does not seem to be yielding results as the interest for Bing appears to be the highest in the APAC region, followed by the EU. There appears to be hardly any interest for the Bing in the Americas.

The global web search volume for Bing in the last 7 day shows the the regional interest for Bing is highest in India. The other 9 regions among the top 10 regions are (in decreasing order of interest

Australia
China
Germany
Singapore
Belgium
Hong Kong
Argentina
France
Switzerland

Where is the US in this list???

Steve Ballmer said that he “gulped” when he approved the marketing budget for Bing. I guess he will gulp some more seeing US missing from the list.

eXpresso a collaborative excel application without Firefox support

2009-06-04T22:28:00.003+05:30

I read about eXpresso's upgraded collaborative excel application and went on to check it out.

But then I could not check it out as eXpresso currently requires Internet Explorer 6.0 or later

It does not support Firefox. I just gave eXpresso a miss.

I wonder, for someone who is competing against MS Office cannot work without IE.

Is IBM vs Google a new battle to be fought via Cloudera and System S?

2009-06-04T12:18:00.003+05:30

In the context of the Smart Grid push made by IBM, System S will be an important tool in the overall scheme of things.
Cloudera’s (Hadoop) entry in to the Smart Grid via the Tennessee Valley Authority may lead into a collision with the Big Blue

When this collision takes place, does the startup have the muscle to take on IBM? Will it seek support from its big brother Google?
Cloudera has the blessings of Eric Schmidt, but will Eric fight a battle on behalf of Cloudera against IBM?

Trying out Opera 10

2009-06-03T20:16:00.002+05:30

Downloaded the Opera 10. It may be in test but it appears to be fast. I took less than a minute to download, a minute to install and it was running.
It appears to be faster than IE, Firefox and Chrome. Would love to see some results from a speed test.
Initial impressions

I liked the speed.
I liked the interface
Opera Turbo appeared to work
Am I switching from Firefox to Opera.... lets see ... maybe not ... maybe yes

BTW this post is via the Opera 10

Could Oracle be interested in Hara?

2009-06-03T17:22:00.001+05:30

Hara circulated a press release unveiling an Environmental and Energy Management Solution for the Post-Carbon Economy. What caught my attention about Hara was its management team which carried with itself significant experience of working with SAP and Oracle in the past

Given that in May-09, SAP was buying Clear Standards, which sells software to manage carbon emissions, energy consumption, and water use.

Oracle's play in this space includes a product, Business Activity Monitoring that manages the carbon footprint along the entire supply chain of an organization. While IBM has GreenCert, software for emissions monitoring and certification, it has also partnered with Oracle on carbon data management.

Going by Oracle's past in acquisitions, would be interested in Hara given the moves by SAP and the backgrounds of the management team of Hara. Other start-ups Planet Metrics and Carbonetworks could also be of interest to Oracle.

Not only Oracle but other enterprise vendors would be tracking the carbon management start-ups.

Redliner and the enterprise user

2009-06-03T10:48:00.000+05:30

Finally I got around to checking out Redliner.

Redliner accelerates document collaboration and approval for:small law firms and solo practitioners;SMBs;PR professionals;newspaper, magazine and book editors; freelance writers

I am wondering if the target audience as defined by Redliner really needs such a collaborative tool and does Redliner satisfy that need

Some of my observations on the currently available technical preview with a limited preview set

The interface is not very elegant and intuitive
It supports text only docs. It did not see any support for charts, tables, exhibits, images. Am wondering how technical editor would use this without support of such features.
Organizations would see a lot of collaboration taking place when making a presentation. It would be nice to support for ppts.
How can one not talk about spreadsheets. One needs to collaborate on each cell. Wich there was a good collaboration tool.

Conceptually, Redliner is a fine start .... but then it needs to take it to the next level when it really is a productivity tool and then differentiate itself from many similar products.

Bing driven by China & India not share taken by Yahoo

2009-06-02T23:56:00.000+05:30

Google insights has interesting data on the geographic origin of web search volume for Bing

The prevailing wisdom was that Bing would take share away from Yahoo. However region interest for Bing is the highest in China followed by India, the US, UK, France, Canada, Spain, Germany and South Africa in a decreasing order of interest.

The market share for search in China is dominated by Baidu. Google is a distant second and Yahoo a distant third.

Google is leader in search in India.

So should Bing worry Google more than Yahoo

Google's G2 freebiee for developer community

2009-06-02T16:57:00.000+05:30

I wish I could lay my hands on G2 distributed by Google at the Google I/O conference.

But then Google really needs to thank its developer community, with just one handset model out in the market (G2 expected)

The number of Android apps for just one handset speak for themselves

Android Apps available on Android Market = 168

Pricing	Category	# of Apps
Paid	All	33
Free	Communication	10
Free	Entertainment	7
Free	Finance	8
Free	Lifestyle	11
Free	Multimedia	5
Free	News & Weather	8
Free	Productivity	8
Free	Reference	9
Free	Shopping	7
Free	Social	8
Free	Tools	6
Free	Travel	10
Free	Games - Arcade & Action	12
Free	Games - Brain & Puzzle	10
Free	Games - Card & Casino	10
Free	Games - Casual	6
		168

Android apps available on Handango = 242

Category	# of Apps
Business & professional	12
Education & Reference	46
Entertainment	134
Personal Productivity	30
Software Tools	12
Travel	8
	242

Given the nature of apps available in the market for the Android platform it is quite apparent that the developer community is not taking the platform in the direction of a platform of apps for the enterprise.

WatchDox - Its an interesting tool

2009-06-02T14:56:00.000+05:30

WatchDox is a tool I tested today

It is an interesting tool to manage usage and distribution of digital documents. Its a appears to be a tool meant for the enterprise user to ensure confidentiality of documents.

A caveat, it is currently in beta and lets hope we see continuous improvements.

Some of my initial observations on the tool were

It took me 3 mins to upload an excel file for testing ... I thought it was bit slow .... for large enterprise documents it would be even slower
I guess it might be a bit faster with an outlook plugin.... what about support for Lotus Notes via a plugin and other platforms.
Am not sure if WatchDox has tested this tool with different formats. My excel file lost all formatting in the viewer.
It would be interesting to know if ppt's can also be viewed well in this viewer.

It would be interesting to know the pricing models for this service.

Word Verification - Can anyone read this

2009-06-02T14:40:00.000+05:30

I can't read this text shown for word verification.Am not sure if any other human eye can do this.
Its time google did some better end user testing