Google, Facebook Early Leaders in Mobile Development and Monetization
Today the whole World is Buzz with the news that Facebook is going to attack Google on its Core Search Platform using Facebook’s Social Graph backed by Microsoft’s Bing Search Technology, a killer combination in our view. Firstly, Facebook Like Button is a clear Winner compared to Google+ and is helping the former get more perspective of the user. Secondly, Google doesn’t have access to Billions of Bytes of User Generated Data on the facebook platform which is also context sensitive. If Facebook and Bing Research’s team can crack a way to transform these inputs into serving results, Google will be at the receiving end.
However, as far as Mobile is concerned, Google and Facebook are the clear winners. The mobile ad market is creating new challenges, it is notable that Google and Facebook are among the companies that have developed early and (relatively) effective mobile ad unit buys. Advertisers were also positive on Facebook’s progress in mobile as its mobile Sponsored Story ad units are directly transferable and scalable from desktop to mobile and the advertising is not showing any signs of interrupting the user experience or engagement. This is encouraging as mobile remains one of the reasons we are positive on Facebook for 2013, as the company’s progress attracting mobile advertising dollars and gives a picture Read the rest of this entry »
e-Commerce Poised for Big Growth – The Challenges & Have Valuations Peaked ?
Most e-commerce companies in India are currently focused on driving up valuations by increasing market share at the cost of profitability. Can the Indian e-commerce bubble burst? It can be looked at two ways where one argument says – The bubble has already burst at the valuations level. In 2012, the total e-commerce revenue in India is at about $1.6 bn. In India, online retailing accounts for only 0.3 percent of all retail volume, compared with 5 percent in the US and 1.8 percent in China. The online retailing in India is set to explode. The market will expand at a CAGR of 25 percent over the next five years to reach $8.8 bn by 2016. While the other section of players argued – Currently, the number of e-commerce companies in India with a substantial turnover is only a handful. In Indian e-commerce, we don’t see the bubble really. The bubble of late 1990s was due to the business model of the anticipation of a transaction” or “eye-balls,” but it doesn’t apply to the current scenario where the customers are increasingly transacting on the net. Indian e-commerce is showing lot of promise.
The Flourishing Product & Services in Indian e-commerce In most economies. e-commerce growth has typically been led first by content (i.e.. books and movies), consumer electronics (i.e., laptops and accessories) and services (i.e., travel, job site). As consumers get comfortable with transacting online, growth in other categories such as food, clothing, cosmetics and other general merchandise categories follows. This model of growth has played out in the US and is now unfolding in China.
In the Indian Context, the story is a bit different – E-commerce can be Read the rest of this entry »
SAP core Business Suite Ported to HANA – In memory Database
Google could become a Search Giant not just because of the PageRank Algorithm but due to innovations at Software Defined Networking, In memory Data Serving, Data Mining and Retrieval from the Largest Unstructured Database known to anyone of us. Borrowing from the ideas of Google Scientists, Engineers at SAP Developed HANA – In Memory Database as everybody in the world of business was now getting used to Google Instant. SAP is building out the IT infrastructure to support a new generation of applications that have an orientation more toward the customer and customer interaction versus the traditional, backoffice- oriented ERP systems.
So Can you Elaborate a Little More on HANA InMemory Database system
SAP is working closely with IBM, HP and Intel, etc to deliver supercomputer-like performance for real-time processing, both on premise and as a platform for the cloud. SAP demonstrated HANA on a 100TB system, consisting of a cluster of IBM X5 servers, 4,000 x86 cores, capable of running 8 of SAP’s largest ERP customers or 10 of its largest data warehouses. In collaboration with Intel, SAP intends to leverage HANA on a 1-petabyte in-memory cloud platform. SAP expects to have 40-50 applications for HANA by the end of 2013, with 8 real-time applications announced at today’s conference
How is SAP Attacking Oracle ?
Oracle vertically integrates into the hardware layer, delivering its own database and hardware platforms. SAP is now encroaching on Oracle’s traditional database domain, although SAP’s architecture is not primarily directed at Oracle’s traditional Read the rest of this entry »
Can the Microsoft Windows Phone 8 impact Indian SmartPhone Mobile Market ?
The overall Mobile smartphone handset market seems to be fairly distributed in terms of market shares with Android sweeping the non-Apple market, can the advent of Windows Phone 8 could impact market shares and is something worth watching out for in 2013. One of the reasons Windows Phone 8 is getting, and will continue to get, a lot of attention from operators as they want an alternative to the Apple and Android space where they can get a better revenue stream (or the share thereof) from their customers. Microsoft without an element of doubt is providing a lot of marketing support, which also helps. In addition, potential for Windows Phone 8, alongside Xbox platform, to deliver the full triple/quadruple play services is an added attraction for the operators.
Given Android’s out-sized market share 72%, success of Windows Phone 8 is likely to impact this segment more than it would impact the Apple iOS eco-system, though at the high-end, attractive new phones could impact Apple somewhat too. Within Android, Read the rest of this entry »
NVIDIA – Tegra 4, Cloud Gaming, Portable Game Console, LTE Modem CES 2013
Silicon valley Innovator Nvidia announced the next-gen mobile SoC, Tegra 4, World’s Fastest Mobile SmartPhone Processor. Built on 28nm process, Tegra 4 features quad ARM15 CPU cores with a similar 4+1 architecture as in Tegra 3. It packs 72 GPU cores and has 5-6 times more graphics processing than Tegra 3. Power consumption of Tegra 4 is 45% better than Tegra 3 for most use cases. Based on benchmark from Nvidia, Tegra 4 runs faster than today’s fastest apps processors from Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments.
Nvidia is taking Gaming to the cloud. Nvidia’s GRID cloud gaming architecture allows users to play graphics intensive 3D games without the need of local GPUs. The company demoed a rack of 20 GRID servers that contains a total of 240 GPUs, with graphics performance similar to 700 Microsoft Xbox. GRID is currently in trial phase, targeting MSOs around the world.
Nvidia’s Project Shield leverages the compute power of Tegra 4, the Android-based Shield acts as both a controller and a portable game console. While success of gaming Read the rest of this entry »
How to Build Your Own Tablet ? Key Components’ Suppliers Data as Per Units Shipped in 2012
Tablets have increasingly gained acceptance over NetBooks and Laptops in the Last 12 Months and new consumers especially in China and India are not even having a second thought about Laptops and are directly logging on to Tablets. In the context of this development, we undertook a field research on who are the major component suppliers for building your own Tablet Brand and disrupt the market like Micromax did with Mobile Phone Handsets in India.
In this Article we’ll dissect and open the Tablet and see what the Major Components are and who are the Top 5 Suppliers for that component along with cost in US Dollar
Display Costs around $50. Samsung, LG Display, Chimei, Sharp and AUO are the Major Suppliers
NAND FlashCosts $32 for 32GB. Samsung, Toshiba, Hynix, Sandisk and Micron
Battery Cost upto $25. Simplo, Dynapack and Samsung
Applications ProcessorCosts around $18 per unit. Apple, Samsung, NVIDIA, Texas Instrument (TI) and Qualcomm have the major pie of the market
Baseband and TranceiversCosts around $18. Qualcomm has the bulk of market at 70% followed by Intel at 15% and others.
DRAMCosts $14. Samsung, Hynix, Elpida and Micron Read the rest of this entry »
Why Reliance Infotel Must Takeover a GSM Operator and then Launch 4G LTE ?
Building a leading brand in the Indian Telecommunications Market with a very nascent Data Only Business may prove to be an Herculean Task for Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Infotel. The potentially limited scale for data services despite heavy investments would dent the RoI profile of the venture. We already know that returns on 3G investments are already subdued and will take 3-4 more years despite ~20% CAGR in non-voice revenues.
Clearly, Reliance Infotel would aspire to launch a full bouquet of wireless services (data+ voice+ video) and address the needs of consumers as well as small/ medium enterprises. Reliance’s entry into 2G/3G based voice services cannot be ruled out as the prevalent regulations and the ecosystem do not support voice over LTE networks (VoIP) on a large scale.
What are the Potential Options for Reliance Infotel to offer a complete bouquet of Voice and Data Services ?
- Offer voice over LTE (VoIP),
- Bid for 2G spectrum (1800MHz/900MHz) and set-up Greenfield operations, and
- Acquire an existing 2G/3G operator.
Current regulations do not permit Read the rest of this entry »
From Samsung Android to Samsung Tizen Mobiles – DoCoMo, Vodafone, Sprint back Tizen Mobile OS
Samsung Electronics Co which is churning Billions of Dollars in QoQ Profit from the Android Mobile OS is sensing increasing threat from Google owned Motorola and hence to mitigate the risk has thrown its weight behind Tizen Mobile OS [Derived from the Linux Kernel] consortium and is expected to launch the first Samsung Tizen Mobile in 2013.
NTT DoCoMo, the biggest wireless carrier in Japan, has extended its support to Tizen along with the already expected support from Vodafone in the UK and France Telecom. Tizen is already part of the Sprint roadmap. Sprint was the first US telecom player to join the Tizen Association back in 2012. Since the Mobile World Congress in 2012. This puts Tizen in the spotlight for the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Tizen and The Roadmap for Connected Devices
Tizen is positioned as another open-source software platform looking to become Read the rest of this entry »
