Tablets & Smartphones – Good, Bad & Ugly [2011 recap]

The headline once read: ‘Tablets made news and changed the game in 2011, and they are here to stay’.  With the tablet market almost doubling itself in the last year or so, I have tried to determine a few good, bad & ugly things of some of the leading players in the industry globally & as well as for Indian players who have forayed into Tablet / Smartphone space in recent times.

The Global Players

 

Samsung

The Good

• Definitely The Company of the Moment, with rise to #3 position in market within 2 years.

• Galaxy nexus being ranked #2 in best gadgets of 2011. Galaxy S II ranked as #1 in Android based smartphone market in India

The Bad

• Habit of suing Apple over some issue or the other, with the latest being over mathematical coding procedures in processors possibly hurts the image of the company.

The Ugly

• Fortunately, nothing really bad so far in this year.

Apple

The Good

• Continued dominance in tablet market with 61.5% market share, till the 3rd quarter of this year.

The Bad

• Loss of legend known by the name of Steve Jobs will surely hurt the company in some way or the other, possibly in the near future.
• Getting into a patent fight with Samsung more often than not. Fact that this time it is just before Christmas may unnecessary hurt the company’s image

The Ugly

• Fortunately, nothing really bad so far in this year.

Nokia

The Good

• Launch of mobile money payment Prepaid wallet services in India expected to make payments faster & less cumbersome as you can make them even without even having a bank account.

The Bad

• Lukewarm response to Lumia, perhaps the only hope this company on a burning platform has in the near future
• Partnership with Windows not really making a large impact.

The Ugly

• Dramatic collapse from the leadership position it once held, in a short time of 2 years
• Smartphone sales forecasted to fall further by around 30 % from a year ago
• Symbian based OS losing touch faster than expected.

RIM (Blackberry)

The Good

• Possibility of opening up its tightly secured network to rival Smartphone providers, thereby making messages sent over its network less secretive & more open for investigations, if needed

The Bad

• Delay in introducing smartphones powered by its new QNX operating system adding fuel to the fire that the future of RIM, as we know it now, is dim.

The Ugly

• One of the biggest losers in this US holiday season, with sales expected to decline by another 25% as compared to last year this time.
• Suggestions that it needs to ditch BB, the product whose introduction actually made everyone take notice of the firm, could spell more danger to its already beaten down share price

I remember the days around 4-5 years back, if someone then asked a question to audience, “How may of you have Nokia cell phones?”, atleast 70-80% of hands used to go up.

Unfortunately the flow of the river has reduced and is on the verge of drying up (Nokia is a river in Finland). Similarly, the future seems black for the company which put the world in continuous motion with enabling its users to have access to emails / chats on the move. The reason for their downfall may be because of no or slow response to changing needs &/or underestimating the pace at which some other players were growing & innovating in this space. As a result others have managed to grab a big share of the apple from them.

It’s a wait & watch game on how & whether these firms fight back their way to the top.

The Indian Players

 

Reliance

The Good

• The tablet/s they have launched have basic functionalities like multi-touch enabled screen, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi with hot spot features, GPS, dual camera, etc present.

The Bad

• Confused positioning. Instead of spending 13000 on a Reliance tab, one would rather buy a Galaxy tab from a reputed player like Samsung having a proven track record. At the same time, it is not as cheap as Akash, so people who are looking for a cheap tablet may not rank it high on their priority list.
• Doesn’t score the highest for all the functionalities mentioned

The Ugly

• Only works with Reliance network ( Remember the same was the case with reliance cell phones in early days) With number portability poised to take off in India, this limitation will surely hurt sales of Reliance tablet in the future.

Aakash (MHRD)

The Good

• Finally something constructive initiative from our Government, which is in news for bad reasons more often than not.
• Tata Nano of tablet space, just good enough to be called a tablet and available at really cheap prices

The Bad

• May not catch the eye of middle / rich class youngsters in cities where in showing off a latest version of the tablet has become a norm.
• People have transitioned from usage of desktops to laptops and now Smartphones/tablets in cities. With desktops/laptops not yet penetrating the actual needy completely, we are not quite sure how much this “jump” directly to tablet will succeed.

The Ugly

• Just launched, wait & watch for us as far as its performance, usage & perception are concerned.

The perception of tablets / smartphones from Indian players vis-à-vis those from other global biggies will play a bigger role in determining their success or failure rather than anything else. A consumer must really find value in a Reliance / HCL tablet to persuade him to choose them over an Apple/Samsung product.  They have not yet established a brand name in this segment like that of Apple, RIM or Samsung. With price still being a major differential in India, the point of focus could be on providing all features/applications of a similar capacity phone albeit at a lower price (possibly Reliance strategy currently), providing basic features at lowest price (Aakash) or maximizing the number of features at same price of that of another phone. Again, time will tell which one of these 3 strategies works the best for our Indian players.

[Note: Yes, there are many other players in Tablet / Smartphone market (in India as well as Globally), however, we have covered only the significant ones who have made some kind of inroads with consumers]

Top 10 Tech News of 2011! [Global]

We are are in the month of December – generally a time when we see lot of recaps and happenings of the year. We will be putting up series of posts on trak.in this month that will remind you of the events past by. Most of them will be India centric recaps, however, some will be global in nature.

Starting off, lets take a look at top 10 news that shook the technology industry and the world in 2011!

Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion

Microsoft ruffled quite a few feathers when it made the largest acquisition in its history. In May 2011, Microsoft purchased Skype which had more than 650 million users worldwide, for $8.5 million.

Suggested reading: What would I do if I was Microsoft CEO?

Google launches Chrome OS / Chromebooks

Google had been the be all and end all in the lives of netizens since a while before they amped up their presence by launching their very own Google Chrome OS (shipped with Chromebooks) in June 2011. One of the founders of Google said during the Chome OS launch event, that operating systems like Windows were "torturing users"

Sony PlayStation network gets hacked

The Sony PlayStation network faced an unprecedented situation in April 2011. It got hacked and Sony termed it as an "external intrusion". History repeated itself very soon. The Sony PlayStation network faced a second hacking attack and had to temporarily shut down more than 90,000 user accounts on its network.

Apple launches iPad2

Apple saw raving success with the launch of the iPad, with nearly 15 million iPads sold in 2010 alone. In March 2011, Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple launched iPad 2 which boasted a faster processor, with many other interface issues being ironed out.

Apple launches iPhone 4S

Laying rumours of an iPhone 5 to rest, Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple announced the launch of the iPhone 4S in October 2011. Although users were disappointed that not much change was visible, Tim Cook reassured Apple fans that the iPhone 4S was the "best iPhone yet". It boasted a faster processor, faster graphics and a better camera than the previous iPhone.

Microsoft offers office on cloud

Responding to a market which demanded mobility and applications on the go, Microsoft launched Office 365 which basically allowed users to access their favourite applications and tasks like using the word processor, using spreadsheets, emails and some such online.

Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs passes away

Just a few days after the launch of the iPhone 4S, Apple posted a message on its website that started with "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius…." and rightly so. Founder and ex CEO Steve Jobs passed away at the age of 56 on 5^th October 2011, losing the battle to pancreatic cancer. Jobs was the man responsible for giving mankind the revolutionary iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad.

Netflix loses more than 8,00,000 subscribers

It is one thing for an online video rental company to lose a few subscribers. But when you lose more than 8,00,000 subscribers in a span of less than 3 months, you make news. That’s exactly what happened with Netflix by the end of September 2011. A badly priced marketing strategy that raised the cost of renting DVD and streaming video services was the cause of this major setback.

BBM shuts down leaving millions BBM addicts out of touch

Only a BBM addict will know how much pain is caused when Blackberry Messenger services shut down. And that is exactly what happened in October 2011 that caused a worldwide outrage among users of Blackberry devices when BlackBerry Messenger services were down, not once but twice. Twitter and Facebook were flush with messages and updates on the lines of "….BlackBerry = waste of money!"

Android market faces the wrath of malware

The Android market suffered a setback in March 2011 when more than 50 applications were found to be malware that stole data from Android devices. Google immediately went on damage control but it was a tad too late as the reputation of the ‘free Android platform’ already took a major hit that left many users paranoid.

Yes, we do know that there were many other news as well, which were quite significant in Tech space, but this is our take. If you think, we have missed out an important one – Do let us know!

Floating colony for startup entrepreneurs [Novel Idea?]

Starting a startup is becoming easier and easier nowadays, with cloud computing eliminating the need for a physical server farm. But what hasn’t become easier, is relocating your startup to Silicon Valley if an entrepreneur from outside the US tries to do so. As usual, technology has progressed far faster than immigration legislation.

Indeed, if an Indian entrepreneur wants to move their startup to Silicon Valley in order to benefit from the abundance of capital, or perhaps to achieve a successful exit (Google has been acquiring a company about every two weeks for the past years), they will have a hard time doing so. At the moment, there is no Startup Visa.

While a bill was introduced in March 2011, the U.S. Congress hasn’t made any progress on it (and with the upcoming elections, it’s unlikely that any progress will be made). Business (B-1) or tourist (B-2) visas for Indian citizens are valid for 10 years, but they don’t allow for income to be earned. H-1B and L-1 visas require an employer. The E-2 investor visa is available only to “Treaty” countries, which include Albania and Kosovo, but not India. And the EB-5 visa requires an investment of $1,000,000.

Now let’s remember that Silicon Valley is in California, very close to its Pacific coast (about 45 minutes by car). Here’s a map. Note that on the map, in the ocean, there is a line that mirrors the coastline, and forms a partial circle around an island. That line is 12 nautical miles from shore (22 kilometers, or 30 minutes by ferry) and is the limit of the United States territorial waters. Outside this line, the U.S. has no jurisdiction.

What if a large ship were anchored in a spot beyond this line? The ship would be outside U.S. jurisdiction, where immigration laws don’t apply. At the same time, the ship would be close enough to shore that travelling to Silicon Valley would take about an hour and a half (ferry + disembarking + car travel).

An entrepreneur from India could live and work on that ship, and use their business / tourist visa to come to Silicon Valley for events or to meet investors. Partners from the mainland could come to the ship at any time as well, since they’d be U.S. residents.

The idea isn’t new – creating permanent communities on the ocean is called “seasteading”. This could well be a feasible & easier way for Indian Entrepreneurs wanting to move Silicon Valley!

What do you think? Will this idea sink or swim?

[The article is written by Vlad D, CIO of startup in Silicon Valley, Blueseed, that works on creating a seastead (or “shipstead”) especially for startup entrepreneurs. You can check out the most frequently asked questions ]

Top 5 great tools to have for a paperless office!

While many are in the rush to turn their offices from physical to virtual, there are some of us who may still be bound by an office with a real address. But in order to make the most of your office, the best way is to go paperless. Here are some tools you should use not only to digitize your documents but also make them easily searchable and available when you need them.

[This tools may be more suitable to tech oriented offices, but may be useful to others as well]

Freshbooks

As an invoicing solution, Freshbooks an extremely popular web based software used by small businesses and freelancing agencies to generate automatic invoices. All you need to do is access your billing on Freshbooks with your login and password. You can also use Freshbooks to generate reports and track your expenses and costs.

Invoices are sent securely and clients can choose to pay the bills through PayPal, Verisign and other payment gateways. Now you can forget about painful tracking your company’s work hours, bookkeeping and sending projects estimates and quotes to clients. Let Freshbooks do it for you, the paperless way.

To get Freshbooks, click here.

CardMunch

Did you ever imagine a few years back that your card holders and folders are going to go into trash? If you’re armed with this super app from LinkedIn, visiting cards for you are going to become history. CardMunch allows you to take pictures of visiting cards from your phone. It converts the information from the visiting card and feeds it into the memory of your contact list.

Once CardMunch had loaded a new contact on your phone, you can sync up with them on LinkedIn in just one touch. What’s more, you’ll also be able to see your common connections with a contact while you’re on the go. And yes, don’t forget to chuck that visiting card in the bin.

If your phone does not support Cardmunch, you can search on the web for similar software for your Phone OS – They surely are incredibly useful!

To get CardMunch, click here.

Shoeboxed

Are you sick and tired of keeping a record of all your receipts, vouchers and invoices that you have to send back to the head office for re-imbursement? Are all the small chits, casual notes and folders of vendor slips causing your office to look like a paper jungle? Then Shoeboxed is an answer to your worries.

Once scanned into the system, your receipts, business cards and miscellaneous data will get indexed into the Shoeboxed system, allowing you to generate expense reports and integrate them into your Gmail or Microsoft Office applications. Additionally, Shoeboxed is of great help when you file your tax returns online or when you want visiting cards to be directly exported to your CRM.

To get Shoeboxed, click here.

Basecamp

Are you managing a project which has over a hundred variables, mobile team members and fluctuating resources? If this is the case, how many scans and print outs are you going to manually manage? With Basecamp, you can simultaneously obtain an overview of all the projects alongside the details of one particular project. From pulling out specific emails, getting an overview of deadlines to meet, tracking specific project milestone, centralizing client discussions, working with multiple languages and much more, Basecamp will prove to be a useful tool not only to get towards a paperless office but also an uncluttered hard disk! Take a free trial before signing up for the paid version for features.

To get Basecamp, click here.

Lifelock

Here is an application that will literally help you cut down on the volume of paper in your office. If you are harrowed with unwanted catalogs, mailers, newsletters and promotional letter in your post, choose Lifelock to get rid of it all. Lifelock will ensure that you are removed from every unwanted subscription and mailing list, thus protecting you from identity theft.

In addition to credit fraud, Lifelock will help you detect when your identity is being misused by wireless services, utility companies, bank loan departments and other third parties that fall in Lifelock’s network.

To get Lifelock, click here.

Do you have any other tools that you use to make your office paperless? Share it with us!

Cyber Attacks in India [in Numbers]” plus 2 buzzing articles !

Even as Internet population in India has crossed 100 million, cyber crimes are on the rise. There are many kinds of cyber crimes – Phishing attacks, Identity Theft, Website hacking, creating Trojans / viruses (among others) all amount to cyber crimes. The reasons for cyber-crimes are vary as well. Some do it out of hate, some out of greed while some do it just for kicks! At same time some cyber attacks (if it can be called so..) are for constructive security feedback as well!

One of the main targets of attacks world over are government websites – They not only provide big coverage to attacker, but also provide with very sensitive & secretive government data. Govt. of India today published the number of cyber attacks it witnessed over last 3 years. Here are the details:

As per numbers released by National Crime Records Bureau, Cyber Crime cases registered under IT Act more than doubled, from 420 to 966 between year 2009 and 2010.

We have covered about three instances where high-profile government websites were hacked and defaced. However, the actual number of Government Websites that were hacked are quite huge.

A total number of 90, 119, 252 and 219 Government websites tracked by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) were hacked / defaced by various hacker groups in the year 2008, 2009, 2010 and Jan–Oct 2011 respectively.

Again, this is growing trend and I am surprised that authorities have not taken stern actions to curb the growth of these cyber-crimes.

How to File RTI application [where, how, who & what]

We have been wanting do this post for sometime now, simply because the more people know about RTI and actively use it, the more each one of us are doing our bit to curb corruption and wrong practices in Government Department. RTI indirectly ensures that all Government departments adhere to legal processes and systems and is documents as RTI can immediately bring everything in public domain!

In simple words, the Right to Information Act or RTI is an act that practically supports and enables citizens to claim their right to information which is guaranteed by the constitution of India.

Let’s put aside all the jargon and complicated terms to take a look at what the Right to Information Act is all about – from a common citizen’s perspective.

Right to Information Act (RTI) – What is it for?

The Right to Information Act was established to make the government accountable for its work by empowering citizens to demand information regarding its activities. This act applies to both the Central and the State Governments of India except Jammu and Kashmir, which has its own RTI Act.

What information are we talking about?

The RTI aims to allow citizens to ask for records, documents, circulars, contracts, reports, papers, emails, memos and all other information held in print or electronic form from the public authorities, i.e. all the governing bodies. There are certain sections of administrative activities that are exempt from the RTI Act, details of which can be found in Section 8 and 9 of RTI Act 2005.

The RTI Act 2005 also empowers citizens to physically inspect the records that have been duly maintained by the government and its administrative bodies.

Who can ask for information?

All citizens can ask for information whether they want to inspect the work and activities of the Government or simply exercise their right to other information and documents that were mentioned earlier. If you are a citizen who seeks information or want to inspect records of governing and administrative bodies, you are a valid applicant.

How can you ask for information?

Citizens can exercise their right to information by filing an application with a Central Public Information Officer (CPIO). All the administrative levels of the government will have a CPIO who will give the required information to people who file an application or a query under the RTI Act.

As an applicant, you should know that there is no particular format required. Your application can even be on simple plain paper. Applicants however need to ensure that their contact details including name and correspondence address appear on the application. Reasonable assistance can be expected from the CPIO if you decide to give your application in writing.

On what grounds can you seek information under the RTI act?

As a citizen, applicant under the RTI and as an information seeker, you are not required to give any reasons if you wish to seek information under the RTI Act.

Is there a fee to file and RTI application?

Yes, as per the RTI Act 2005, applicants will incur fees and costs that include, but may not be limited to the following

Fee on initial application

• Demand draft, banker’s cheque or cash with subsequent receipt of Rs. 10

Fees for information sought

• Rs. 2 per page printed, copied or created in A4 or A3 size
• Cost of the page or paper
• Rs. 50 per disc if information is given in that form
• Cost or actual price of sample or models requested under the RTI Act

Fees for inspection of records

• First hour is free after which there is a fee of Rs. 5 per hour

How long will it take?

Information sought under the RTI 2005 will be supplied within a time period of 30 days. However it has been stated in the RTI Act 2005 guide that if the information ‘concerns the life and liberty of a person’, it will be supplied in 48 hours. Here are the details of various time limits for receiving information for your RTI application.

For PIO to reply to application	30 days from date of receipt of application
For PIO to transfer to another PA under Sec 6(3)	5 days from date of receipt of application
For PIO to issue notice to 3rd Party	5 days from date of receipt of application
For 3rd Party to make a representation to PIO	10 days from receipt of notice from PIO
For PIO to reply to application if 3rdParty involved	40 days from date of receipt of application
For applicant to make First Appeal	30 days from date of receipt of PIO’s reply or from date when reply was to be received
For First Appellate Authority to pass an order	30 days from receipt of First Appeal OR Maximum 45 days, if reasons for delay are given in writing
For applicant to make Second Appeal before CIC/SIC	90 days from receipt of First Appeal orders or from the date when orders were to be received
For CIC/SIC to decide Second Appeal	No time limit specified

(table source) 

The RTI Act 2005 guide also mentions that if you as an applicant have given your application to an Assistant CPIO or the wrong public authority, 5 days will be added to the generally prescribed time frame.

What if you don’t receive the RTI information or wish to appeal?

The RTI Act 2005 has set forth guidelines and procedures for applicants who have not been given the information they seek in time or are not satisfied with the information provided to them. Here is an overview of the appeals procedure

• As an applicant, you should file an appeal with the relevant first appellate authority within 30 days of the date that was the last day of the expiry of the 30 day time period to supply information. [Please refer the timeline chart above]
• Your appeal will be reviewed and disposed within 30 days of receipt, or 45 days in ‘exceptional cases’.
• As an applicant, if your appeal is not disposed or you are still left unsatisfied, you can file a second appeal to Central Information Commission. This appeal must be done within 90 days from the date that was the last day of the 30 or 45 day time period of the first appeal.

Cumulative RTI statistics for past 3 years

Here are some numbers released by authorities that give you an idea about number of RTI applications that were filed / rejected in last 3 years. 

Aspects	2008-09	2009-10	2010-11
Opening balance of RTI requests (as on 1st April of the reporting year)	32,792	97,474	1,37,771
Number of requests received during the year	329,728	5,29,274	4,17,955
Total number of requests at the end of the reporting year	362,520	6,26,748	5,55,726
Number of Requests rejected	23,954	34,057	21,621
Requests rejected as a percentage of requests received during the year	7.26%	6.43%	5.20%
Requests rejected as percentage of total number of requests at the end of reporting year	6.60%	5.43%	3.89%
[Table source]

Hope this article helps you in getting to know everything there is for RTI – Go exercise your Right to Information now!

Update 02/12/2011: One of our readers, Mr. Anupam Saraf, pointed us to links to sample RTI forms that you can refer to create your RTI application [ Sample 1, Sample 2,Sample 3]