Nokia to Use Linux-based Operating System!

Finland-based world's largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, has plans to challenge its rival iPhone by switching over to Linux OS. It is all set to release a device with Linux operating system inside in favor of its very own Symbian OS this week.
Following criticism that it had failed to come up with a handset to match the iPhone, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, President & CEO of Nokia, said that it was aiming to be "even more competitive”. “We are competitive in the marketplace right now as we speak, and we will make efforts to be even more competitive going forward."
Nokia remains the dominant supplier of smart phones, but its market share has been shrinking, falling to 45% of world-wide unit sales in the second quarter from 47.4% last year, also recently, Nokia's average selling prices have declined faster than the industry average, making high-end phones a crucial product category for the company.
Nokia Executive Vice President of Markets, Mr. Anssi Vanjoki says the new N900 phone with Linux OS, which will go on sale in October (price ranging to about €500 (about $700) excluding discounts), wasn't conceived as a direct challenge the iPhone.
Nokia's main competition with the iPhone is smart phones that use the Symbian operating system. Nokia's move away from Symbian, to the Linux-based operating system will give the new phone a more "PC-like experience," allowing users to run dozens of application windows at the same time.
I think Nokia's move to a Linux-based OS for its smartphone line is a good one since its Symbian operating system has failed to impress new consumers. Symbian is just mediocre compared to web OS on PalmPre or Androidon HTCDream, says Mr Kallasvuo.

India To Become 'centre of gravity' Of IT/ITeS Industry

Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, has predicted that Indian IT and BPO industry is likely to generate 10 million jobs by 2010, and the country is going to be the “centre of gravity” for the IT sector.
On the ‘Business Implications of a Flattening World’ Nilekani said that Indian companies need to have a global vision to realize the potential of the country.
Nilekani also said that software development in India has become qualitatively better and customers wanted more of it. The global companies have to make a fundamental shift in their strategies by opening up more to markets in India and China.
In these two countries a huge demand for things like mobile phones has been growing and other countries have changed their operations from BPO to leverage this aspect.
With its large pool of young and dynamic population, in future India is sure to become a centre of gravity not only in the field of IT but in every field, given the nation realize their potential and capability!

‘techTribe’~ A Professional version of Orkut!

The increasing popularity of social networking have reached to the level of specialization, and now we have networking sites dedicated separately for cricket enthusiasts, Bollywood buffs, Hindi music lovers, professionals and so on…
The techTribe headed by Rohit Agarwal is one such professional version of Orkut meant for IT/BPO/KPO Professionals, enabling them to use social networking for innovation through ideas, networking and mentorship...
Launched few months back, this site is based on the premise that we can develop a network of professional buddies, colleagues etc who can be a source of help throughout our career. The site can help technology professionals establish their identity¬ based on their background, their achievements, their abilities and specially their network of friends and colleagues (The conception that ‘You are judged by the company you keep’ works here!).
Comparing it with an already available professional networking site ’LinkedIn’ we find that LinkedIn is a place to find professionals we don’t know, while techTribe is a place where we build a network and utilize that network for counseling, guidance or mentorship.
techTribe, works similar to other networking sites, but with a professional look and feel.
We can create an account and start a tribe or join one created by others. The names of these tribes are limited only by our own imagination. Eg. BlackBeltTechies, JackofallTrades, VirtualTeamforSoftwareDev. You can create a blog, add photographs, upload/write articles etc.
The revenue model will be based on corporates who are interested in sponsoring relevant parts of the sites (or maybe relevant tribes), premium membership for paid users or from unobstrusive advertising.
Given the fact that the user base is likely to have a very strong technology orientation, it is possible that many tech companies would pay to capture eyeballs on this site. techTribe is looking forward to get mass membership through corporate alliances with IT companies. They have an early success story with Zensar Technologies, which has announced a partnership to help foster innovation within its developer base.
Moreover, TechTribe isn’t just about social networking, but it moves a step further to leverage the concept of social networking to provide an innovation platform.
“We’re looking to provide India’s innovation platform. We didn’t start techTribe as a social networking venture, we started it and are running it as an innovation platform”, says the CEO Mr. Rohit Agarwal.

Microsoft Planning To Set Up R&D Operations In India.

Tech giant Microsoft is planning to expand its R&D activity across the six functional divisions in India. It is looking towards establishing a separate centre of excellence for its to-be-launched Vista operating system that would work on integration of Vista OS with other systems in a technology environment while also handling migration services.

The India’s development centre of the company at Hyderabad currently consists of around 1,200 employees, of which 500 were added last year. In keeping up with the current rate, it is expected to add 500 more by this year, while the management team has proposed to increase India head-count from 4,000 to 7,000 by the year 2009 only.

India has long enjoyed a reputation as a destination for IT and business process outsourcing. Now, the country is fast emerging as a major center for cutting-edge research and development (R&D) projects for global multinationals such as Microsoft and Motorola as well as Indian firms. More and more companies in industries ranging from IT and telecommunications through pharmaceuticals and biotech are setting up ambitious R&D projects, in part to serve the Indian market, but also with an eye to delivering new generations of products faster to the global market.

Nokia all set to make a mini notebook!

Nokia, the world’s top cell phone maker, unveiled the plan of entering into Notebook (The ‘Nokia Netbook’) manufacturing. It is a revolutionizing decision from Nokia, in a scenario where we can hear of Dell PC makers stepping into mobile manufacturing. It is not unexpected also as the iPhone developer Apple has already entered into laptop manufacturing, though we can’t compare the two as Apple has already produced its notebook while Nokia Netbook is yet to be tested.
Short specifications of Nokia Netbook are: 10- inch screen 2.75 lbs in weight Windows Operating System Wi-Fi ready (rest we can find out only when the product is available in market!).
Since cellular phones business is not doing well in the market recently, it is expected that this new product of Nokia will help the company regain its economic stability.
Looking back in past, Nokia has been telling us that there are hundreds of millions of ppl who are having their first internet experience on the phone, not on pc and their smart phones are actually multimedia computers and those computers need to fit inside our pockets. Their vision and hopes are that we will someday use our mobile phones as our main computers by just connecting keyboard and screen to it when needed!

So would they really make a notebook / netbook?
Nevertheless, Nokia Netbook is one technological development that must be looked forward to. This new development may be an indication that there is still a lot to look forward to in the future with regard to cellular phones and netbooks as well...

Blackberry ~ 'fastest-growing firm' says the business magazine Fortune..

Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the Blackberry mobile phone, ranks one in the list of ‘world's fastest-growing company’, says the business magazine Fortune.
In the magazine’s latest annual guide to the 100 fastest-growing businesses, Canada-based RIM has come at the top. The second and third place being occupied by US chipmaker Sigma Designs and Chinese internet business Sohu.com respectively.
The Firm growth is measured as a combination of profits, turnover and investment return over three years.
At the same time Apple was in 39th place, while Google came 68th on the list.
Profits at RIM have grown 84% over the past three years, while its revenues have expanded 77%, and it has seen a total return of 45%. The credit goes to the huge popularity of its Blackberry handsets.
It is the first time that companies outside of US have been not only included but ranked first among the 100 fastest-growing businesses.
Revenues at Sigma have seen a rise of 104% since 2007, thanks to increased sales of Blu-ray disc players, and a deal with computer giant Microsoft.

This year five Chinese firms made it onto the list, with Sohu.com, Online computer games website Shanda, reservation agency Ctrip.com, telecom software firm Asia Info and China Medical Technologies being some other companies from countries other than US.
Fortune reports that Chinese firms were benefiting from the country's continuing strong economic growth in the face of the global recession.

Google Lagging behind Yahoo search Engine For some features…

In spite of having made an outstanding image in the field of search engine as a repository of information, Google’s technology seems somewhat lagging behind its rival like Yahoo.
According to comscore Media Metrix reports, when it comes to serving financial news and information, Yahoo draws 17.5 times traffic of Google, and Yahoo Finance occupying the top position for consecutive 19 months.
Google Finance drew only 1.2 million unique visitors while the figure is 21.7 million for Yahoo Finance.
James Pitaro, vice President of Yahoo’s audience group, said, “In our research with users, we found that the more information that was displayed on the page, the greater the anxiety.”
Yahoo adopted “the Apple model — simplicity in design; a clean, simple look, not overburdening our users with too much information on the page.” While Google do not seems to pay attention to these details.
Yahoo Finance is organized into sections: investing; news and opinion; personal finance; customized portfolio tracking; and “Tech Ticker,”
When we click on a link to a news story accompanied by a Tech Ticker video, it starts automatically and gives a warm human presence on the page. The video player is on one side of the page and is stationary; the visitor scrolls down on the other side to read news articles. It provides a multitasking feel. Mr. Pitaro said, “We have a great relationship with the front-page team to identify topics we should cover,”
Google does not use the mostly empty home page to let visitors know that it has a finance site — some may not even know it exists. (To reach it, a user must click on the word “more” at the top of the home page.) But Google’s finance site offers something rather basic that Yahoo doesn’t: free real-time price quotations obtained directly from the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.
Compared to the total US traffic on all Google sites with the total on all of Yahoo’s, Google edged past Yahoo last year to take the overall lead. Since then, Google has stayed on top, though with only a slim advantage, according to comScore. So finance is an important category that allows Yahoo to remain neck-and-neck with Google over all.
Yahoo understands that a free finance site prospers by drawing less from the world of mathematics and more from the world of entertainment, informing just enough to satisfy users without setting off an anxiety attack.

Apple denies its role in restricting Google’s VoIP Technology…

Google Voice, a free Internet service that uses VoIP technology to link phone numbers together was relaunched as Google Voice on March 11, 2009
It provides new features, like voicemail transcriptions and SMS managing, centralized voicemail and indexable, automated voicemail transcription, accessible by PC or phone making it easier to connect with people, and to manage those connections.Google provides this application to a number of mobile platforms, including the iPhone.
Earlier this week, we learned that Apple had suddenly begun to pull third party iPhone applications for Google Voice, saying that they “duplicated” some of the iPhone’s functionality. According to reports, Apple has even blocked Google’s official Google Voice application itself from the App Store.
Apple had also rejected Google’s own official Google Voice application submitted six weeks prior, sparking a din of complaints from developers and users over the arbitrary and possibly anti-competitive restrictions being imposed by Apple.
According to a Google Spokesperson, they have doubts over their old friend AT&T and Apple over this restriction. They are doing all this to protect their sacred cash cow. But it looks like the government isn’t going to stand for that any longer.
Federal Communications Commission is looking into Apple’s the matter, and has sent letters to AT&T, Apple, and Google to find out what’s going on.
In response, AT&T Inc. told federal regulators on Friday that it played "no role" in Apple Inc.'s decision to keep Google Inc.'s Google Voice Internet phone application off the iPhone while Apple said that it hasn't rejected the software.
Instead, Apple told the FCC that it is still studying the Google Voice application, but said it has concerns about how Google's application puts the Google brand on Apple's device.
"The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone's distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality.”

Google’s rival challenging over its Book Deal…

In October 2005, Google reached the settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, allowing Google to digitize millions of books, which is expected to have huge benefits for minority populations and their access to valuable information.
The Google book settlement, scheduled to be reviewed in an Oct. 7 court hearing, would allow Google to scan and make available scores of books, including millions of out-of-print titles. The digitized books will give minorities and poor people new access to titles that were formerly only available at large university libraries.
According to the Professor Rhea Ballard-Thrower, law librarian at the Howard law school. "Books are the great equalizer." The idea that a student in Boston at a very exclusive private school can read the same books that a student somewhere in an under funded, urban public school, that they can have the same access to the same materials is actually just amazing.
The president and CEO of the Leadership Conference Wade Henderson on Civil Rights say, "This project is part of a larger effort to democratize knowledge. To me, this project is so crucial because it helps to level the playing field at the most fundamental intersection of rights, knowledge and advocacy."
While on the other side, several groups have complained that the settlement could give Google power to monetize so-called orphaned works, books still under copyright protection but for which no one claims ownership.
This settlement has attracted opposition from various corners of the book world. The Department of Justice has also opened an antitrust investigation into the implications of the agreement. Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo had all agreed to join the group called Open Book Alliance that has been critical of the settlement plans to make a case to the Justice Department that the arrangement is anticompetitive.
In response David Drummond, the company's senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer said, Google will make privacy a top priority as it develops its Book Search product. The book settlement may not be perfect, he said, but is the result of three years of negotiation and compromise.
Despite several concerns about the settlement, the book project will bring "remarkable" access to blind people, said Charles Brown, advisor to the president of the National Federation of the Blind. People with sight impairments will be able to use text-to-voice and other technology to gain access to millions of new books.

New Play Station 3 now available at $299 only!

Launched in November 2006 in different parts of the globe, PlayStation 3 is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment, and a successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series.
Its unique features being its unified online gaming service, the PlayStation Network, (which contrasts with Sony's former policy of relying on video game developers for online play), its robust multimedia capabilities, its connectivity with the PlayStation Portable, and its use of a high-definition optical disc format, Blue-ray Disc, as its primary storage medium.
Before it launch in September 2006, the 20GB PS3 price was reduced to approximately 420 US Dollars.

Now after almost three years of its release, Sales of the PlayStation 3 seems to have fallen behind its rivals owing to recession and weak game release schedules.
After months of rumors and anticipation, Sony says it's slashing the price of the currently available 80GB PlayStation 3 by $100, now the new price will be $299. It is also launching a slimmer, lighter model in early September that will also cost only $299.
Now video game enthusiasts will be able to buy the new game console — a brand new PS3 with a thinner, lighter shape and a 120-GB hard drive — for $299.
As the new model is expected to arrive by the beginning of September this year, meanwhile, its 160-gigabyte model will drop from $499 to $399. (Both the 160- and 80-gigabyte models will be discontinued once they sell out.)

Positive Feel For Tech Giants…

After some of the positive economic news during the last few weeks, it seems that the tech industry has decided to think positively about the future.
Survey of senior executives at 130 tech companies reveals that Eighty percent of tech companies believes that business conditions will be better a year from now, eight percent of these executives expected revenue to rise next year, and 72% expected increased profits. In all, 57% of the tech execs surveyed expected the economy to have recovered by next year!
Sixty six percent of the tech executives support the thinking that tech industry would recover faster than the economy as a whole, and only 17% believes that it would be later. Companies based on Silicon Valley are more united in the thought with seventy seven percent supporting the thinking that tech industry would recover faster than the economy as a whole.
The thought is supported by the fact that many tech companies make components that will need to be ordered ahead of time, if finished products are going to be available when businesses start buying tech again. And some tech companies that have traditionally sold to businesses are coming out with products targeted at consumers, which could help boost their sales.
According to Matuszak, chair of the information, communication and entertainment practice at KPMG, the tech industry recovered faster from the dot-com bust, although he it is also being said that tech caused that downturn.

‘Mmarket’~ Da One Stop For 480 Million Mobile Subscribers!

US personal computer maker Dell Inc. is entering the smart phone market for the first time through a cooperation deal with China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest mobile handset maker by subscribers.
China Mobile's online store called Mobile Market ‘Mmarket’, launched Monday, will be offering music, games, videos and other entertainment programs for download to mobile phones. It serves to link handset vendors and application developers to China Mobile's users.
The Mobile Market is specially planned to attract more users to its newly launched 3G mobile service.
Mobile Market supports 10 handset models, including devices from Nokia Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc., HTC Corp.'s Dopod and Dell brands
According to China Mobile spokeswoman Rainie Lei, Dell's new handset, known as the mini3i, will support applications from China Mobile's online store.
Suffering from stiff competition and pricing pressure, major personal-computer makers, have been turning their attention to a new market for growth. PC makers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard Co., Taiwan's Acer Inc. and Asustek Computer Inc., have launched handsets in an effort to diversify their product offerings and launch devices that fetch higher margins.

In this scenario, a site channeling 480 million subscribers into a single mobile app and content store would seem like one of the world's most lucrative properties.
There are a lot of eyes focused on China Mobile right now as it gets ready to launch its Mobile Market venture. The store's site is sort of live now, though it appears to be in a pre-release testing phase with broken links all over the place; the carrier officially says that the service will be available in September, so we'd look to that date before the full force of half a billion individuals gets unleashed on the site!!!