Some people dream of success… while others wake up and work hard at it. ~Author Unknown

To succeed isn’t ever easy. Success on the world wide web isn’t easy too. Yet some webpreneurs seem to think success should start the moment they have pronounced the word. Success on the world wide web demands commitment and strong web business fundamentals, without which success can never really be anything more than a distant dream. So what makes a web business fundamentally strong Read more

“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.” —Warren Buffett

Somehow there seem to be many followers of Buffett on the internet who believe that maintaining their digital history or archiving it isn’t important. Buffett maybe a billionaire but billionaires can be wrong, just as Buffett, a self admitted technophobe, has been wrong many a time especially on his technology predictions.

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Every byte, every conversation, every emotion, every photo you clicked, every line you typed, every word you said. Imagine if all that could be archived. Well that’s what the likes of Tim Berner Lee, the inventor of www, and other intellectuals discussed at the 13th annual World Wide Web conference held at New York Sheraton last week. Imagine what it would mean when we can recall nearly every waking moment. Read more

A Platform of Opportunities

Last week in my column “The Mobile Entertainment Story” I had mentioned about significant business opportunities for content providers in this booming telecom market and about India being earmarked by telecom majors as a significant hub for development. This week more on the opportunities available to content providers.

The Changing Market

The Indian wireless market is booming. The biggest companies are in it now. The penetration of mobile phones is dripping down to the grass roots level. In this dynamically changing market consumers are increasingly expecting more from their devices. That’s creating a demand for new services, applications, and better voice and data capabilities to better suit consumer needs in a converged wireless-Internet world.

An Environment for Development

There are several applications development environments namely Symbian, J2ME (JAVA), Python Flash Lite, Net Compact, BREW, Qtopia to name a few. Of these JAVA is a preferred for an all-around solution with low entry barriers and BREW rules the CDMA market.

A Tale of Two Platforms

From the commercial point of view the development of mobile applications is primarily based on two platforms, Java or Brew. Java, a product of Sun Microsystems has been fairly ubiquitous in cell phones. On the other hand BREW, Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless, is a creation of Qualcomm, and of late has been gaining ground with developers.

The Java versus Brew Debate

If numbers mean winners then Java has a clear lead over Brew. According to a report by Research and Markets Current and expected future carrier and OEM support will insure that Java sustains its leadership position. U.S. sales of devices that support BREW will grow from 23 million in 2004 to 38 million in 2009 whereas annual sales of Java-capable handsets will grow from 39 million to 63 million in the same period.

While BREW is mostly in the U.S. and Japan. Even in the U.S., the market share for J2ME phones is bigger.

The Brew Advantage for India

Overall J2ME (JAVA) is a superb platform with a huge cost saving with almost no entry and testing costs but numbers and openness don’t always mean commercial viability. That’s where the BREW advantage comes in. The ideal situation for an application developer is to recover his costs and get a decent return on his investment. The BREW Ecosystem does exactly that.

The BREW Ecosystem consists of Marketone, UIone and Deliveryone. From an entrepreneurial point of view the BREW Ecosystem ensures the commercial viability of an enterprise by getting a return on investment on the development costs.

Worth mentioning is Marketone, a platform between the service provider and content developer. Marketone is a hosted, open, and scalable content service that gives operators and other wireless service providers as well as media, entertainment, and game companies fast access to a broad mobile content marketplace together with a best-of-breed hosted content delivery framework. It’s a quick-to-market, turnkey solution for operators desiring a robust solution with the cost efficiencies of a managed service.

Other noteworthy factors in support of BREW are

• The biggest telecom service provider Reliance is CDMA based, which means an opportunity for BREW application developers.

• Qualcomm, promoter of CDMA networks, have highlighted India as a future hub for mobile development on its BREW platform last year. Using the BREW ecosystem this means a content development company here in India has potential buyers across the globe.

Call it a boom or a reverse shift, India today is the 2nd largest investor in London.

Maybe in the next few years people in Tokyo would be downloading and playing mobile games developed in Haldwani.

Puneet Mehrotra is a columnist for HindustanTimes. Email him on puneet@cyberzest.com

Application and media service infrastructure equipment are crucial for the growth of new multimedia service technologies, such as Internet Protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) and fixed mobile convergence, as well as for meeting the basic requirements for low-cost telephone services that use the IP technology.< !-more-->

Frost & Sullivan finds that the World Media and Application Server Markets earned revenues of $246.3 million in 2005 and estimates this to reach $1.76 billion in 2012.

"The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) market is being driven by the need for lower-cost services as well as convergence with other technologies such as multimedia and wireless," notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Shirley Hunt. "Service providers in such markets seek novel ideas and revenue opportunities before upgrading their application server infrastructure."

Usually, VoIP service vendors would like to pursue this upgrade process at a reasonable pace, ensuring minimum disruption to their current services while simultaneously maintaining their market share. However, the massive base of legacy equipment in carrier networks, coupled with a lack of knowledge pertaining to IP technology, is a concern for vendors of application and media server infrastructure equipment.

Further, corporations have expensive legacy private branch exchange (PBX) systems that do not support VoIP, and it is difficult to convince them to replace such systems with equipment supporting IP communications. This is slowing the penetration of VoIP equipment into existing carrier networks, which in turn is obstructing the growth of the application and media server infrastructure equipment.

"Carriers and service providers must upgrade the voice network in stages, which would minimize disruptions for customers," explains Hunt. "Before upgrading, companies must pursue security and interoperability testing to ensure a smooth transition to new technologies."

Overall, media and application server vendors must focus on extensive interoperability testing and offer support for legacy systems. These platforms should support both current and next generation applications and services, which will increase the sales of VoIP carrier infrastructure equipment.

Application and media service infrastructure equipment are crucial for the growth of new multimedia service technologies, such as Internet Protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) and fixed mobile convergence, as well as for meeting the basic requirements for low-cost telephone services that use the IP technology.

Frost & Sullivan finds that the World Media and Application Server Markets earned revenues of $246.3 million in 2005 and estimates this to reach $1.76 billion in 2012.

"The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) market is being driven by the need for lower-cost services as well as convergence with other technologies such as multimedia and wireless," notes Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Shirley Hunt. "Service providers in such markets seek novel ideas and revenue opportunities before upgrading their application server infrastructure."

Usually, VoIP service vendors would like to pursue this upgrade process at a reasonable pace, ensuring minimum disruption to their current services while simultaneously maintaining their market share. However, the massive base of legacy equipment in carrier networks, coupled with a lack of knowledge pertaining to IP technology, is a concern for vendors of application and media server infrastructure equipment.

Further, corporations have expensive legacy private branch exchange (PBX) systems that do not support VoIP, and it is difficult to convince them to replace such systems with equipment supporting IP communications. This is slowing the penetration of VoIP equipment into existing carrier networks, which in turn is obstructing the growth of the application and media server infrastructure equipment.

"Carriers and service providers must upgrade the voice network in stages, which would minimize disruptions for customers," explains Hunt. "Before upgrading, companies must pursue security and interoperability testing to ensure a smooth transition to new technologies."

Overall, media and application server vendors must focus on extensive interoperability testing and offer support for legacy systems. These platforms should support both current and next generation applications and services, which will increase the sales of VoIP carrier infrastructure equipment.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ~George Bernard Shaw

In this age and time much has changed in the modes of communication. More information then ever before in the history of mankind is now available at the click of a button. Communication in this age and time acquires an altogether new definition.

The Reality of New Media

3,85,00,000 is the size of online audience in India. In other words it translates into 5.2 times the readership of the leading English daily. Or 2.8 times the combined readership of leading 3 newspapers in India. Or 3 times the combined readership of India’s leading 5 English magazines.

Consider the case of a leading institute based in New Delhi suing two bloggers for over Rs.250 crores. The bloggers getting together and doing a full investigation on the antecedents of its founder. More accusations and retaliations followed. The case seems to be on a ceasefire right now. But consider the power of the new media, a small blog and so much reaction. That’s the power of blogs, finally at a keyboard near you. Read more

Believe it or not corporate communication has moved into a much evolved slot in this age and time. To blog or not to blog isn't a question any longer. The question is how to use the corporate blog to effectively deliver the message.

According to CNN.com as the size, scope and influence of weblogs continue to proliferate, business managers are faced with an increasingly important question: how to make your voice heard above the crowd? According to a research project conducted by Pew, there will be 34 million weblogs — or blogs, as they known for short — by the end of 2005. These blogs range from the completely ignorable to the regularly consumed and widely trusted. Read more

The security industry in Asia Pacific is fast evolving. Information security threats and attacks are becoming exponentially sophisticated, communicable and threatening. This is further compounded by the expansion and increasing complexity of current day networks and applications, resulting in the ever growing number of potential vulnerabilities. Read more

–Nearly three-quarters of traders in India (74%) expect the Sensex to rise further –A staggering 36.5% believe the Sensex will be over 15,000 by 31 December –Fewer than 1 in 5 traders believe the Sensex will fall below 11,500 Read more