AV Revolution 2007;Motvik Mobile Startup
I was travelling when the Audio Video Revolution 2007 was held in Bangalore. However, I found these interesting reviews on Kicker Car Audio and JBLs blockbuster package which inclueds a Harmon Kardon AVR.
I am sure many of us have thought of using our cell phone camera as a webcam. A Bangalore based Mobile startup company, Motvik, has a working prototype of the idea – WWIGO (Vigo). Kamla has recorded a demo video of the same. You can also volunteer to be an Alpha Tester for Motvik.
Airtel, ICICI and American Express fined for tele-marketing
India’s largest Cellco, Airtel and largest private bank, ICICI along with American Express have been severely fined for unsolicited tele-marketing. A complainant, who neither had any banking nor any business relationship with ICICI / American Express dragged them to the consumer court and made Airtel a respondant in the case as she suspected Airtel had shared consumer info with the two Banks.
TRAI which invites consultation paper after paper has no final word on the much awaited Do Not Disturb registry.
Tags: TeleMarketing , ICICI, AMEX, Do Not Disturb Registry India
Weekend Updates
The week is incomplete without Nokia hitting the headlines. Nokia India will ship its 20 Millionth handset manufactured at Nokia Telecom Park in Chennai. Finally the Indian Internet companies are counting cash. Web-18, subsidiary of Television Eighteen India Ltd recorded a solid Q2. Lakme fashion week is now available for live Webcast and also on Mobile. Motorola and WestSide are back with their MotoStar and MotoDiva talent hunt contest at college level. Idea Cellular Limited has slashed STD rates on its Mobiles to just 99 paisa for bed time talk and also introduced its cell phone service in Uttar Pradesh (East).
Have a good one.
Euroset plans to retail mobiles in India
With 120 Million Mobile phone subscribers and still counting, Russian Mobile Retailer, EuroSet has big plans for India. Euroset wants to setup around 5,500 retail stores with PAN-India presence. Euroset is in talks with Delhi Real Estate land lords, Ansal group. Afterall, only the BRIC nations understand how to run an effective telecom business in BRIC nations 
The retail mobile market in India is worth $16 Billion. Other Mobile Retailers include Mobile NXT, Mobile Magic. Converge M and M Bazaar by Pantaloon Retail India Limited are yet to start their concept stores.
Tags:Mobile India , Mobile Retail , Euroset
On Technology Strategy and Management – Michael Cusumano
I normally don’t write about outsourcing or management. Being Diwali weekend, and for some reason didn’t enjoy the fireworks, I decided to peruse through my ACM journal archive and hence this posting. [Unrelated to Broadband or Telecom]
In October-2006 Issue of Communications of the ACM[Oct issue not yet available online], I read an article, “Technology Strategy and Management“ by Prof. Michael A Cusumano. I agree with Prof. Cusumano’s findings on most issues except the following two.
True, India has nearly an unlimited supply of people and graduates thousands of engineers each year. But, India does not have an unlimited supply of experienced people in software engineering and project management and everyone’s wages are rising.
Sir, I am positive that the demand and supply can easily converge when you are in lookout for “experienced” folks. The rise in wages will adjust over the next couple of quarters and was mainly because of unexpected surge in outsourcing and the deadline pressures have made IT companies lure and pouch employees at higher wages. In the very same issue of the magazine, you should read the News Track column and the Outsourcing Twist article, which says, Infosys has 58,000 employees and plans to hire another 25,000 this year. Most of the hiring is at entry level because these engineers have the capability to undergo rigrous Training and they come upto the speed in no time. To remind you, these engineers work at 1/8th the pay of their Western counterparts without the need of hefty insurance benefits. Now try to model this with large number of talented engineers at the bottom of the pyramid being mentored by third or fourth of equally bright engineers and managers and move up the hierarchy. The Special Economy Zone Act is a blessing in disguise for the IT companies who will continue to enjoy tax concessions for next 5-10 years.
On Strategic Differentiation – Infosys has invested 120 Million dollars in a Training Campus at Mysore which can train 4,500 engineers and managers at any given time with worldclass infrastructure. All IT majors have invested and will continue to invest aggressively in Multi Million Dollar Training infrastructure.
In the third problem, Prof. Cusumano talks about other emerging countries for the outsourcing pie,
Not many IT services firms have the scale of the Indian firms, which can handle projects of just about any size. But these non-Indian firms will grow, and offshore competition from other low-wage high-skill areas of the world will continue to intensify.
Sir, I was of your opinion as well and had placed my bet on few midcap/smallcap IT companies. But I was wrong. I remain invested in 8-10 top IT companies in India since 1999-2000. After my graduate studies and work in the US between 2001 and early 2006, I returned home and found Infosys and Wipro were the top gainers in my folio while Satyam, HCL-Tech and others lagged behind. I had an opportunity to discuss this with one of the top fund managers in the country and his opinion was Infosys and Wipro reached Billion Dollar sales mark and that helped them bag larger and mega outsourcing orders while Satyam and others lagged behind. So it is impossible for a startup based on outsourcing model to bag large IT orders with few exceptions where the outsourcing company itself opts for equity participation. (For example, Citigroup in Polaris, Progen, i-flex. British Telecom in Mahindra BT/Tech Mahindra etc.) Also to test the fund managers opinion, I bought more HCL-Technologies as it will decisively cross Billion Dollar sales this fiscal and so far the company results have been encouraging and the stock may get re-rated.
I am no management graduate but stock market is the barometer for every company’s performance and philosophy. Just track it
New identity – goBroadband
Convergence.In has a new identity, goBroadband. Though “Convergence” is the right word to describe this blog, its however a bit of overused word and 25% of them spelt it wrongly. I was inclined to change the punch line or tag line to “disruptive thinking” but decided to continue with ”linking diversity“ which represents Indianism. I have no idea when I will be able to migrate this content to goBroadband.In domain. If you are a blog migration expert or have some thoughts, drop me a line – cp AT gobroadband Dot In. Thanks.
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