The iPhone in India:My Take on marketing!

Mobile telephony is set to reach the next stage of evolution after the two largest GSM operators, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, launched Apple Inc.'s iPhone on last friday.

Paradoxically, the iPhone may have everything, yet nothing, to do with the changes it's about to unleash.

The iPhone launch by the two service-providers came after weeks of hype and hoopla, but sadly, proved to be a damp squib. Although the smart phone's amazing new features kept the "wow factor" intact, the long-winding lines that sprang up in front of iPhone stores elsewhere in Asia ahead of the launch were conspicuous by their absence.

The reason? The iPhone pricing is so steep that several potential customers were massively disappointed, even outraged, going by local media reports. The princely sum of 31,000 rupees for the 8-gigabyte iPhone and 36,100 rupees for the 16 GB version was too high for even such a cool gizmo.

Additionally, Bharti is asking for a deposit of 5,000 rupees, while Vodafone is reportedly seeking twice as much. What's worse, India has yet to auction the frequency spectrum required by mobile operators to start offering 3G, and a formal 3G launch is estimated to take up to a year. So even the rich, cool dudes who manage to get themselves an iPhone will only be able to enjoy the low-speed applications that they had access to anyway on their phones earlier.

During the April-June quarter, Bharti earned 350 rupees a month as average revenue per user, implying that the company's average customer can continue using the old phone for 9.8 years more, if he or she decides against buying a 16 GB iPhone, at a cost of 41,100 rupees (phone cost of 36,100, plus deposit of 5,000 rupees).

Put another way, a fresh graduate recruited by one of India's leading software companies will have to pay 1.6 times his or her pretax monthly salary of 25,000 rupees to satisfy an impulse to own the iPhone.

Needless to say, Apple needs to rework its iPhone pricing in India if it hopes to attract a respectable number of customers in this poor but rapidly growing economy. Even if it doesn't, other mobile operators and other handset makers probably have much to gain from the iPhone's launch anyway.

The iPhone's biggest contribution to India will likely be the power of persuasion it brings along. For every iPhone user flaunting the smart phone's cool features, there could be at least a dozen others who may want to upgrade their own phones to handsets that offer more features, but are more modestly priced. And several others may be tempted to explore the world of value-added services, in addition to voice and text messages.

The mobile services industry in India has thrived over the past few years as call tariffs continue to fall, even after seemingly touching rock bottom. As compared to around 16 rupees a minute or more in the late 1990s, local outgoing calls now cost 0.60 rupees a minute. Local service providers are currently adding an average eight million customers each month, making India one of the fastest-growing mobile-service markets in the world.

The industry's average revenue per user, meanwhile, has been testing new lows each quarter, as providers penetrate deeper into the country, bringing on board new customers who can't, or won't, spend more than Rs. 500 a month on their phone bills. Most of those customers have so far been quite content using just voice, and perhaps, text messages.

Getting customers to use value-added services such as downloads, or for bill payments, has been a bit of a challenge for local service providers so far. But that could change now, as the iPhone helps improve awareness about the possibilities and raises the bar of expectations. And all industry players, not just Bharti and Vodafone, will gain from the iPhone, whether or not Apple does.

Three Idiots - Five Point Someone!

Wondering what would be the next flick of Aamir Khan? It’s Three Idiots. The movie has been inspired from Five Point Someone of Chetan Bhagat.

Neha will be played by Kareena Kapoor. I guess Neha’s dad Prof. Cherian, HOD of Mech Dept. will be played by Boman Irani. Hero of the book, Hari (Kumar) will be probably played by Aamir Khan, Alok (Gupta) by Sharman Joshi and Ryan (Oberoi) by R. Madhavan.

Shahrukh Khan was initially casted to play Hari and Kajol to play Neha. Later the star cast had to be changed. I am glad they did. Not that I don’t like Shahrukh but I see Aamir suiting Hari Kumar character more than Shahrukh. Yes, Kajol obviously would have been better than Kareena for Neha, the sweet girl next door character.

The movie is currently being shot and it is due for release in the early 2009. Hope it will be a smash hit.

Watch out for Ghajini release on December 26th, the day after Christmas, if you are a Aamir Khan fan, like me.

Let’s wait for this great movie to show us “What not to do at IIT”.

Microsoft Pulls on Firefox’s Tail

Microsoft fired the latest volley in the new browser wars on Wednesday, releasing the latest version of Internet Explorer to the public. Microsoft wouldn’t need an ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld if it came out with more products like this.

Earlier this summer, Mozilla, released the latest version of its Firefox Web browser. Mozilla made the launch the centerpiece of a campaign to set the world record for most software downloads in a 24 hour period, which it achieved in part because the record didn’t exist previously. Firefox now has about 19% of the browser market, according to Net Appliances Applications, up from 11% in June 2006. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still has the lion’s share of the browser market – 73% according to Net Appliances – but that’s slowly eroding.

Microsoft isn’t letting its market share disappear unchallenged, though. The company released Internet Explorer 8.0 as a so-called beta, a version that’s not quite complete but still available for anyone to download.

My Confession: I use Firefox whenever possible, mainly because it has “tabs” that allow me to open multiple Web pages in one window. IE 8 has tabs as well, plus a handful of other cool features. One I particularly like: Microsoft has added “accelerators” that facilitate common tasks like emailing a Web site, mapping an address, or looking up a word. Just highlight text on a Web page and a accelerator displays the map or definition in the same window. The bad news: The accelerators that Microsoft includes are Microsoft products – the software giant’s mapping software, email program, and encyclopedia – none of which are my preferred tools.

There’s also a nice feature that makes tabs that are related to one another the same color and a button that shows miniature versions of all open tabs on one screen. Considering the number of tabs we usually have opened at any given time, these features could be real time savers.

I am not willing to switch just yet, but I am impressed with IE 8 and will definitely keep testing it out. I also can’t help but think that one reason there’s real innovation in the new version of Explorer is that Microsoft is facing real competition. Just imagine how cool the Windows or Office would be if Microsoft had real competitors nipping at its heels!!!

Oh by the way you can download IE 8 here

Federer Making His Final Stand at the U.S. Open

I remember watching Roger Federer “battle” Pete Sampras in an exhibition match in March. It was something to see: two of the greatest tennis players of all time (and the best of the past two generations) facing off in the world’s most famous arena.

It was also a farce. Federer, killing time and cashing a check, played along gamely, losing points on purpose to keep the match close before the ultimate swatting-away of Sampras in the final set. Sampras worked hard enough, but his best years were a decade ago; at one point, Sampras swung and whiffed on an easy volley. The crowd groaned, Sampras scowled, and Federer, to his credit, resisted a giggle. The display did no favors to either’s legacy. But that wasn’t the point, at least not for Federer; it was a payday, yes, but it was also a way to turn himself from robotic tennis machine into a global superstar. The process was well in motion; he was setting up endorsement deals in Dubai, making Time’s list of the 100 most influential people, and getting photographed by Annie Leibovitz. But New York was the real prize. Making a major splash here could turn him from a notoriously bland Sampras-type into something closer to the marketing behemoth that is his friend Tiger. But you couldn’t help but wonder: For all the tangential benefits of goofing around with Anna Wintour and Pete Sampras, didn’t this guy have an actual tennis career to be working on? He was two major titles behind Sampras’s record of fourteen; this couldn’t be the right way to go about breaking that, could it?

And here we are, five months later, and it has all backfired. While Federer was playing in exhibitions, noted rival Rafael Nadal was planning his ambush, one that culminated in the epic Wimbledon final last month. Since that night at MSG, Nadal has usurped Federer in every possible fashion. He beat Federer in the French Open for the third straight year, won that Wimbledon, took over his No. 1 world ranking, and, for good measure, won a gold medal in Beijing. Meanwhile, Federer was looking more mortal than ever. Not only was Nadal beating him on a non-clay court (finally): Federer lost to James-freaking-Blake in the Olympics.

Theoretically speaking, if there were ever a time to remind the world that he’s Roger Federer, dammit, this would be it; Wimbledon has the tradition, but the U.S. Open is where stars are made. But, in the strange world of professional athletics, Federer might be too old to recover. He turned 27 last week, which seems young until you realize that Nadal, who finally vanquished his perpetual conqueror, is five years younger and clearly hungrier. And age certainly matters in tennis. Bjorn Borg won his last Grand Slam at 24 (and made an ill-advised comeback thirteen years later); John McEnroe’s came at 25. Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras are the exceptions, and they had styles more based in guile and volleys than Federer’s power; in baseball, they would say that Federer has “old player skills.” (Think Ryan Howard; when they reach a certain age, they tend to decline rapidly.) Federer has never been challenged like this in his career, and it’s an open question as to whether he has the desire, or moxie, to rebound in time.

Federer thought he would come into next week’s U.S. Open as the conquering hero, the superstar with all the glamour he supposedly lacked. That was the point of the Sampras exhibition and Anna Wintour friendship. Now? He has lost his top ranking, his theoretical “best player of all time” title, and, if you haven’t noticed, it’s not him who’s on the cover of the fashion magazines (and this one): It’s Nadal.

No Gmail in Germany!

Whether you know or not!!!

A recent movie's tagline says " When do you know it's love? ". Good question!!! Because I really wanna know when we know its love... After the other person gives the nod to our proposal?

Some of the cliches that would trace their source to mostly Bollywood would be
1) Sleepless Nights
2) Sudden attraction towards romantic movies and songs - esp DDLJ types!
3) Singing those songs or breaking out into a dance in the middle of the street
4) Day Dreaming and increased absent mindedness

These are some that I can think of right now. The rest is for you to answer. When do I know its love? When exactly???

Knol: Google Takes on Wikipedia

Some people hailed the new Google Knol as an alternative for Wikipedia, but it’s not just for Wikipedia: it’s written chaotically by random people: both people holding PhDs and people who don’t know much about the subject. Knol appears to be more like the Web itself, but completely under the control of Google.

Every big corporation wants captive customers, and Google is afraid that its customers would be able to escape. People would search less on google and instead head off to Wikipedia for information, to Web 2.0 sites when wanting to browse something interesting and to their favourite shopping portal when in need to buy something. Knol is the solution, as Google holds the content on its servers and it can monetize it with adsense.

Wikipedia, because of its wealth of information, was indeed seen as a threat for Google, but they can’t do anything to their Search engine results to penalize Wikipedia somehow, because that would result in lower quality results overall and that could affect its market place. On many topics, the only reasonable article on this is the Wikipedia’s and Google is surely wishing it would be able to monetize it.

Knol allows, due to the way the Google algorithms work, that everyone can place in front in the google results with an article, so that they’ll be able to “steal” a part of Wikipedia’s traffic and control and monetize it.

Is Windows a virus???

No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do:

1.They replicate quickly - okay, Windows does that.

2.Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so - okay, Windows does that.

3.Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk - okay, Windows does that too.

4.Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. - Sigh.. Windows does that, too.

5.Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2) and the user will buy new hardware. - Yup, Windows does that, too.

Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences: Viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.

So Windows is not a virus.

It's a bug. So avoid the bug - Switch over to LINUX

Gaming on Linux

Gaming is always described as one of Linux' achilles heels. And while its certainly true there are more good windows games than Linux games, I've been pleasantly surprised by what is available for Linux. Two of my current favorites:

Quake Wars: Enemy Territory

I was a big fan of the original Wolfenstein Enemy Territory game. I must have played it for hundreds of hours. Not only was it free, it was an absolute blast to play. Not as insanely fast paced as Quake or Unreal Tournament, set in a realistic looking and feeling WW2 environment with more or less realistic weapons and with absolutely brilliant cooperative teamplay.

W:ET now has a more than worthy successor called Quake Wars: Enemy Territory. ETQW remains true to the original in many ways. Although it has picked up some speed (or am I getting old?) and it is no longer set in a WW2 environment but rather something slightly futuristic, everything that made W:ET so great is still present. Wonderful maps and missions, gorgeous graphics, varied classes with different abilities and weapons giving a teamplay that is second to none. And it works absolutely perfect on Linux.

Here is an "instructional" video that shows off the game and might help you get started:

ETQW is no longer a free game, although there is a free demo with 1 large map (the one explained in the video above) which is already sufficient to have countless hours of fun. You can download the Linux demo here:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/etqw/

World of Padman

World of Padman was perhaps my biggest surprise so far. This is a completely free and opensource Quake 3 Arena based shooter with a very original comic style. The graphics are nothing short of stunning and the whole game is so incredibly polished in every detail, its hard to believe it is not a commercial game.

The gameplay itself is not fundamentally different from other shooters, but the atmosphere most certainly is. With its comic style and "plastic" weapons (bubble guns to name just one), its perhaps also something you'd prefer to see your children play. But make no mistake, its fun for adults too! Here is the trailer (which hardly does justice to its actual visual appeal):





Download the full game here:
http://www.worldofpadman.com/

Federer, why do all good things come to an end?

Among all tennis players that I admire, Roger Federer is the best player in the history of the game, I always thought that Pete Sampras was the best, but personally I believe that Federer has better skills, but of course Pete Sampras is a great a player and he was my favorite in the past. Other players that I cheered for where Steffi Graff, Martina Hingis, Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, Novak Djokovic and Andre Agassi. But of course on top of them is Federer.

If you watch Federer playing, you will definitely notice how smart he is, I’ve never seen someone playing like him, the way he puts the ball on the line, the incredible back-hand shot that drives the opponent outside the field, not to mention the great aces. One can tell that his skills, his mind, and his amazing attitude are the reason that he ruled tennis for more than 4 years, being number one for 4 consecutive years is something that no one could achieve more than half of it.

Out of the 4 Grand Slam tournaments, Federer failed just like Sampras to win the Roland Garros, my personal favorite championship, when he announced that he hired a coach that specializes in clay fields I though it could be a good idea but I was afraid that he loses his outstanding performance on the rest of fields, and I’m not sure if this is what happened.

Unfortunately all good thing will eventually come to an end, this year wasn’t quite the good year for the this glittering star, throughout 2008 he couldn’t win any major title, not the Australian Open, nor the Roland Garros or Wimbledon, which I took for granted.

Tennis is all about concentration, if you lost it for a microsecond you lose the ball, and I guess this is what is happening to Federer, he is not focusing on the game, and so his results were really disappointing this year, but the good part is that he still got it, he still has his magic, he still shoots great shots, but he can’t focus, and so he isn’t able to win.

Now he is losing the number one ranking, which he kept for 4 years in row, to the player that I really hate, Nadal, I don’t know why but I really hate him, he looks so mean, he plays a lot of mind games, and what is worse is that he kills the game, the more the ball remains in play the better, the best part to of a tennis match is the rally, but then Nadal wastes like 15 seconds before he serves, I don’t really care if that’s legal, but it shouldn’t be more than 4 seconds, let the game be more vibrant, faster, more continues.

At the end, Federer will remain the best, even if he lost, and I don’t think I will enjoy tennis knowing that Nadal is number one, I just can’t. And the question remains, will Federer end up like Hingis? I hope no.

Where the mind is without fear...

Where the mind is without fear
And the head is held high
Into that heaven of freedom,my father
Let my country awake ...
---Rabindranath Tagore

The Federer era - a tribute

It’s official now: Rafael Nadal will supplant Roger Federer as the #1 men’s tennis player in the world. In two week, the rankings will show Nadal in the #1 position, thanks to Federer’s recent failures to match last season’s performances. Nadal certainly deserves it - now we wait to see how long he can hold on.

Federer’s reign as #1 may be over for now, but his period of dominance will not be forgotten. First off, he spent 235 consecutive weeks at #1. Before that, the record was 160 by Jimmy Connors; Federer surpassed that by almost a year and a half. The great Pete Sampras’s longest reign was 102 weeks. Here’s something even more incredible: Nadal has been #2 for 158 weeks, almost as long as anyone other than Federer was #1!. That means that for three years Nadal has been there, but he couldn’t get past Federer. Translation: Federer was consistently better than Nadal over that time.

Next, let’s compare Federer’s period of dominance with Sampras’s most impressive span of dominance. I’ve looked at the best five year performances for them. I’m including 2003 for Federer rather than 2008, since his winning percentage was better that year. For Sampras, I’m looking at ten years before Federer: 1993-1997. I’m going to look at their performances each year, then the cumulative totals. Specific title wins will be listed for Grand Slams, Masters series events, and the Tennis Masters Cup.

2003 Federer: 78-17 record, 23 tournaments, 9 finals, 7 titles. Won Wimbledon and Masters Cup.

1993 Sampras: 85-16 record, 24 tournaments, 9 finals, 8 titles. Won Wimbledon, U.S. Open, and Miami Masters.

2004 Federer: 74-6 record, 17 tournaments, 11 finals, 11 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Masters Cup, Indian Wells Masters, Hamburg Masters, and Canada Masters.

1994 Sampras: 77-12 record, 22 tournaments, 12 finals, 10 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, Masters Cup, Indian Wells Masters, Miami Masters, and Rome Masters.

2005 Federer: 81-4 record, 15 tournaments, 12 finals, 11 titles. Won Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Indian Wells Masters, Miami Masters, Hamburg Masters, and Cincinnati Masters.

1995 Sampras: 72-16 record, 21 tournaments, 9 finals, 5 titles. Won Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Indian Wells Masters, and Paris Masters.

2006 Federer: 92-5 record, 17 tournaments, 16 finals, 12 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Masters Cup, Indian Wells Masters, Miami Masters, Canada Masters, and Madrid Masters.

1996 Sampras: 65-11 record, 19 tournaments, 9 finals, 8 titles. Won U.S. Open and Masters Cup.

2007 Federer: 68-9 record, 16 tournaments, 12 finals, 8 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open, Masters Cup, Hamburg Masters, and Cincinnati Masters.

1997 Sampras: 55-12 record, 20 tournaments, 8 finals, 8 titles. Won Australian Open, Wimbledon, Masters Cup, Cincinnati Masters, and Paris Masters.

All right, let’s tally up the totals for those five-year spans:

Sampras: 354-67 record, 106 tournaments*, 47 finals, 39 titles. Won 9 Grand Slams, 3 Masters Cups, and 8 Masters Series events. (*- I’m not entirely sure about the total tournaments played since Wikipedia doesn’t say for him. I added his titles to his losses to come up with this number, but that’s assuming he went 3-0 in round robin play at the Masters Cup. Sampras very well may have lost one match in round robin play in some years. This total, though, is no more than five off.)

Federer: 393-41 record, 88 tournaments, 60 finals, 49 titles. Won 12 Grand Slams, 4 Masters Cups, and 13 Masters Series events.

That is flat out stunning: Federer rules every category of that comparison. He won more Grand Slams, Masters Series events, Masters Cups, and overall titles than Sampras. (In case you were wondering, the five year span I selected for Sampras was his career best by far. He won 39 tournaments in that period and only 25 for the entire rest of his career.) Federer’s overall record was tremendously more dominant than Sampras’s. Consider just these two facts:

1. In his entire career, Sampras won 10 tournaments in a season only once (1994). Federer did it in three consecutive seasons (2004-2006).
2. In a full season (at least 15 tournaments played), Sampras never had fewer than 10 losses in a season. Federer accomplished that four seasons in a row (2004-2007).

Here are a few more of Federer’s amazing records:

• Grass court winning streak: 65 matches from 2003 to 2008. Second best: Bjorn Borg 41.
• Hardcourt winning streak: 56 matches from 2005 to 2006.
• Consecutive finals won: 24 from 2003 to 2005. Second best: John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg 12.
• He is the only player to win at least three times in three separate Grand Slam tournaments (3 Australian Open, 5 Wimbledon, 4 U.S. Open).
• He is the only player to win three Grand Slam tournaments in a single season three times in his career (Australian Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open in 2004, 2006, 2007).
• He has the record for consecutive Grand Slam finals reached: 10, from the 2005 Wimbledon to the 2007 U.S. Open.
• He has a current streak of 17 consecutive semifinals reached in Grand Slam tournaments. Second best: Ivan Lendl 8. (By comparison, Rafael Nadal’s best streak, albeit current, is 3.)
• Highest rankings point total ever: 8370 at the end of the 2006 season.
• From October 2003 to January 2005, Federer won a record 26 consecutive matches against top 10 opponents.

I think this final stat tells Federer’s dominance story the best. In Borg’s streak of five straight Wimbledon titles, he lost a total of 19 sets. In Sampras’s streak of four straight, he lost 14 sets. In Federer’s five-year streak, he lost only 8!

Nadal may be #1, but he has a long way to go to ever be considered along with Federer as the greatest of all time.

RAFA ROLLS INTO FIRST PLACE

Although i am still a federer fan - i guess this post on RAFA was much needed!!!!!

The tennis gods have opened their big, beautiful, tan, muscular arms and ushered our edible little tapa into the world’s number one spot, unofficially, but I’m still gonna declare August 1 a holiday. Rafa Day…Our baby ripped it like a Spanish warrior from the hands of a more than one opponent to climb over a Swiss Ego and land on both feet with class and humility, no?

Granted, Rafael Nadal’s official-official number one ranking wont be ‘acknowledged’ until he wins the tournament, Sunday, but even if he doesn’t, he has enough points in Cincinnati to overtake Roger Federer when the rankings are released on Aug. 18. “Yeah, very tough match” he panted after downing Nicolas Lapentti 7-6, 6-1 on Friday, “I was little bit tired…the weather here is very hot…important for me into semifinals, very, very happy…happy because I fight it a lot the last three years to be number one, but for sure be number one is always a goal, no?”

We have a new worlds number one, Rafael Nadal. Rafa said he would wait until “after Davis Cup for party.” However, after sitting in second place for 158 straight weeks on the ATP World rankings, I hope he’s chugging down a few glasses of wine his lady…after all, its not everyday you dethrone a man who was on a 235 week run. I will refrain from sending condolences to Roger Federer or making any kind of comments like Rafa deserves it because he trained harder, remained focused, and wasn’t busy texting his celeb-pals between sets in order to make sure they were watching him play. But I do hear Roger Federer will be carrying the Swiss flag at next Friday’s Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing-so that’s good, right? And it coincides with his 27th birthday, so I’m sure he’ll be just fine…

Congratulations Rafa for becoming the 24th player in the history of the ATP Rankings to hold the number one position and the third Spaniard to accomplish the feat, joining Carlos Moya (1999) and Juan Carlos Ferrero (2003).