‘Tis verily the season of mobile banking predictions. Shortly after the Boston Consulting Group surprised even the optimists with a $350 billion possible market-size for mobile transactions in India in four years, Gartner has come out with a forecast warning of lower than expected growth in developing markets. At present, the Indian mobile transaction (also […]
Idea has won an interim stay on the Rs 250 crore fine imposed by the Department of Telecom for allegedly violating the terms of its mobile operator license. “The interim order has been granted on Idea’s plea against DoT’s demand notice issued to Idea in June ’11,” Idea said in a statement. The issue of […]
The last month has seen mobile-phones breach two important power barriers — the 1 GHz speed threshold and the move beyond one core. LG Optimus 2X was the first phone to breach the latter, while Samsung Galaxy S2 and HTC Sensation crossed both the GHz barrier as well as the single core barrier. While all […]
Online gaming revenues will overtake the revenues from selling gaming hardware in four years, according ot the latest forecast from Gartner. The IT market research firm released its latest assessment cum forecast for the gaming industry, showing a 10% increase in its revenue this year over 2010. Total revenues for 2011 will be $74.4 billion, […]
Bharti Airtel, India’s biggest telecom company, has again reorganized its business structure as the company grapples with reducing profit margins in an increasingly commoditized communications market. Atul Bindal, President of Mobile Business, has been moved out and from the preliminary signs, it looks like the CEO Sanjay Kapoor’s hands have been strengthened. Bharti has moved […]
Idea Cellular, the mobile service provider from the Aditya Birla group, has overtaken the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) to emerge as the fourth largest mobile operator in the country. Idea, which started its life as Tata Cellular and later transformed itself to the Batata (Birla-Tata-AT&T) alliance, has been one of the fastest growing […]
The Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd, popularly known as the Times of India group, has decided to tweak its strategy for the online market (Internet). The group, which has always been pushing its ‘indiatimes.com’ brand, has now decided to co-opt other dotcoms in a partnership that it hopes will benefit both parties equally. Realizing that […]
The Corporate Affairs ministry, headed by Murli Deora has tried to play down the ‘clean chit’ that it allegedly gave to the Essar group and Loop Telecom on violating cross-ownership rules in Telecom. The controversy arose after the Supreme Court directed the CBI not to be influenced by the Ministry’s certifications or deviate from the […]
Nuance, arguably the World’s top speech-to-text and artificial intelligence company, has lent its technology to MapmyIndia’s in-vehicle navigation devices. Unlike traditional navigation devices, which make it difficult to understand the name of the street or area due to the in-built “American accent,” Nuance will develop a technology that will give MapmyIndia devices an “Indian accent.” […]
After consolidating its position in the very top-end of the power-computing market, IBM has now moved to bring the power of mainframes to the mid-range. It announced the launch of a new “affordable” mainframe targeted at both the mid-end and the emerging markets, called the z114 system. In its announcement of mini mainframes for the […]
Google has launched its “bus finder” service (Google Transit) in seven cities in India — Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Users have to simply enter the name of the building or street that they want to reach on their Google Maps application on the mobile phone to get detailed instructions on how […]
Sistema Shyam TeleServices, owner of the MTS brand and one of the most innovative operators in India, has announced that it will convert its CDMA network along all of India’s major roads to high-speed (EVDO) technology. As a first step, it has converted the 265 km Delhi-Jaipur highway stretch to high-speed CDMA and even launched […]
Greenpeace, the World’s most vocal environmental activist group has upped the ante against private mobile operators in its fight to get them to “switch off diesel” and move to renewable energy for towers. The activist group has launched a nation-wide sticker campaign against operators under which it will distribute stickers to mock their refusal to […]
The whole world may be going ga ga over mobile payments, but a survey by consulting firm KPMG may be enough to dampen the enthusiasm a bit. According to the international KPMG Mobile Payments Outlook survey of 1,000 executives in related fields around the World, most expect mobile payments to take four years to go […]
The whole world may be going ga ga over mobile payments, but a survey by consulting firm KPMG may be enough to dampen the enthusiasm a bit. According to the international KPMG Mobile Payments Outlook survey of 1,000 executives in related fields around the World, most expect mobile payments to take four years to go […]
Nokia has finally released the X7 smart phone — its latest device aimed at the large-screen multimedia market — in India, pricing it at just under Rs 23,000. The device, however, is likely to get substantially cheaper in the coming weeks and months as its specifications are not up to those of other phones in […]
Owners of high-end Nokia phones (N8, E7, C7 and C6-01) can upgrade their existing operating system to the next version of Symbian — the Anna — free of charge by the end of August, Nokia India said today. The Anna is likely to be the last big upgrade to the venerable Symbian operating system before […]
It’s something we always knew, but just in case you wanted confirmation — mobile browser firm Opera has just delivered it — Facebook is the new Orkut for Indians. Orkut, which unexpectedly became a hit in India (and Brazil) has found its going tough of late, particularly as users are spending more and more time […]
Microsoft Windows lost a big chunk of the global browsing market, according to the first report from Google on web trends. The survey, based on data from “hundreds of thousands” of websites that use Google’s free Analytics (web tracking) service, shows Windows dropping by a whopping 5.1 percentage points in its share of browsing computers. […]
In a huge relief to ordinary mobile customers suffering from unwanted “value added services,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has made a written request from the consumer mandatory for the starting of value added services. Value added services (VAS) are those which are in addition to the normal SMS and voice calling facility. […]
