Archive for February, 2012
Types of Daily Deal Group Buying Sites Offer + How they Make Money ?
Increasingly startup Investors are seeing the fad in Daily Deals / Group Buying / Group Deals [GD] Web Businesses. They generate revenue by selling Daily Deals for a variety of goods and services directly to consumers who access its Website. They send email a list of discounted offers for goods and services that are targeted by location and personal preferences. Consumers access deals directly through Websites and Mobile applications.
What are the Key Products and Services ?
Featured Daily Deals – A featured deal is distributed every day by email on behalf of local merchants to subscribers using the company’s proprietary technology to target consumers based on location and preference. In addition to local merchants, they may offer featured daily deals from 40 national merchants as well.
Nearby Deals – We’d characterize such “nearby” deals as the ones identified by GD Site that are close to a particular consumer’s preferences and/or location. We believe Groupon could evolve this product to make Daily Deals more Read the rest of this entry »
Reliance Communications – Revenues from Data Set to Double in 2-3 Years
Reliance Communications – India’s leading integrated Telecom Services Company with GSM and CDMA Licenses along with international Gigabit Circuits is all set to cash in on the Wireless Broadband / Data boom. The company which swiftly moved into Wireless Broadband Services on the CDMA-EVDO Platform 3 years ago with Reliance NetConnect Broadband+ is already generating 20% of its Revenues from Data Services.
Reliance Communications last year rolled out 3G Services and has presence in 300 Towns across India. More on Reliance 3G Operating Metrics Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft to Bundle Office with Windows on ARM – Compete Apple
Microsoft has finally embraced the growing popularity of ARM breaking out of the Wintel Lobby. Microsoft has announced Windows 8 Support for ARM across the board – Handheld, Mobile / Laptop / PC etc. WOA devices are still in development Labs but roll-out is certain within the next 3 to 6 months.
However, the bigger news is that Office 15′s Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will be included (nice way of saying bundled) with Windows Over Arm. This is surprising, given that Microsoft is only recently out of the constraints of the antitrust settlement and now it is bundling some of Office with Windows 8. Wow, this is very bold. We would not expect this on the Intel platform because this would be a big antitrust issue, but on ARM where Apple dominates the market, this may be Microsoft’s argument for doing a bundle. Whether this is leveraging a monopoly in one market to dominate an adjacent market is a legal question that we expect Apple and the increasingly Evil Company Google to raise.
Apple bundles calendar, contacts, photos, reminders, notes, maps, Read the rest of this entry »
Will Reliance Communications Migrate from EVDO to FDD LTE for Wireless Internet ?
For operators like Reliance Communications that have CDMA spectrum, the advent of 4G will not pose a serious threat as the natural path for technological development is from CDMA to EVDO and subsequently to FDD LTE. [Read the difference between TD LTE Broadband Vs FDD LTE Broadband]
While TD LTE is currently the technology deployed in China, in rest of the world, the movement to FDD LTE would be more rapid. For operators like RCOM with existing infrastructure, the cost of deployment of LTE will be significantly lower than any new entrant planning to launch LTE services. One constraint, however, is the availability of bandwidth; existing BWA players have spectrum of 20 MHz and will be better placed to Read the rest of this entry »
2G Spectrum Scam – What is the Roadmap After Landmark Supreme Court Judgement ?
The Honorable Supreme Court of India has passed ruling to cancel 122 licenses for 11 telcos (licenses issued from 2008 onwards). Operators are allowed to operate for 4 months with the existing licenses. Overall, this is slightly positive for the industry as canceled licenses contribute minuscule revenue but it would result in lesser number of operators in the industry and start the consolidation process.
So what is the Roadmap Ahead for Indian Telecom Sector now ?
TRAI to start working on formulating auction rules and exit policy. The 4 month time line is aggressive for the auction rules to be formulated / approved by DoT and to be auctioned. In the mean time we see the risk that some of the subs on networks of the affected operators may churn using the Mobile Number Portability, given no visibility on whether the operator will continue to operate after the auction.
We expect the cancelled licenses will be offered in an auction and the reserve price for this Read the rest of this entry »
