WiMAX: Last mile internet connectivity in difficult to access places may be its USP!
The number of people grabbing their Internet access through WiMax is expected to jump to 50 million by 2014, says Juniper Research.The growth in WiMax stems from areas unreachable or unserved by broadband cable or DSL thus underlining the importance of WiMAX as a last mail broadband alternative.
WiMax is a wireless technology that delivers broadband speeds over the last mile, ideal for locations where cabling is not available or feasible. Faster than current wireless 3G technology, WiMax can also serve large metropolitan areas as it covers a wider area than conventional Wi-Fi. Referenced in the report, the most advanced WiMax standard, WiMAX 802.16e, delivers greater throughput than other WiMax standards.
While large-scale WiMax deployments have been delayed, many providers have so far been successful in countries ranging from Pakistan to the U.S. In the US,4G Clearwire wireless networks used by Sprint, Comcast, and other providers, run over WiMax.
The global deployment of WiMax will drive its growth. The larger number of WiMax subscribers will be in the Far East and China region, says the report, due to that area’s early adoption of the technology.WiMax gains in Western Europe and, to a lesser degree North America, will occur in areas underserved by DSL. Growth in Africa and the Middle East is likely to surpass that of Western Europe, says Juniper, gaining 15 percent of the overall WiMax subscriber base by 2014.
“WiMAX 16e will have opportunities not just in developing countries, but also areas of developed countries where the DSL coverage is weak or nonexistent,” said Howard Wilcox, the author of the report. “The key for the industry ecosystem now is to overcome the challenges and ensure trials evolve into commercial services quickly.”
Profiling the slide at Nokia (Part III)
Dan Carter’s blog says it all. http://www.worldofnokia.co.uk/2009/07/nokia-loosing-its-grip/
The blog illustrates how Nokia looses the big game from a consumer perspective, with the most vociferous fans now slowing conceeding to the fact that Nokia’s smartphone challenge is outplayed and outsmarted by other worthy competitors.
To quote Dan,” Through thick and thin I have been promoting Nokia, Blogging about Nokia, Talking about Nokia and Buying Nokia!. However more and more recently my eyes are being opened to the rest of the Smartphone world and it is clear to me there are other phones out there that will do the job I need them to do, and maybe in some cases better?.”
Dan adds, “The problem I seem to have is with the Symbian OS not evolving enough compared to other manufacturers. Apart from some transitions and Feature Pack updates the OS looks the same today as it did 3 years back with the N95.”
The last when Nokia was able to make waves with its smartphone was the N 95. However, there after, N 78, N 79, N 82, N 85, N 86, N 96 and now the N 97 havent really given audience the kicks they were worth! Another user Ashutosh Timary comments, “You can almost predict what nokia is going to churn out next and not only that, even without playing with the new device, you can almost feel the experience.”
HTC Hero with a new Android OS and ‘Sence’ system, is a very sexy looking OS with a great piece of hardware packaged in one phone. The Hero has a large touch screen, HSDPA, 5 Megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack and looks like a real multimedia phone.
Another prime case is that of iPhone 3GS which has been selling out all around the world despite being very over priced for the specification. The N97 beats the 3GS in pretty much every area apart from usability of the screen and the OS.
Does Nokia have any more smartphone winners in its portfolio? No probably.. All current Nokia devices seem recycled.
Nokia are starting to become boring with their same devices repackaged and using the same OS over and over again, especially when other manufacturers are doing such a good job at getting things right.
Ref: https://ronnie05.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/nokia-ii/;https://ronnie05.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/nokia-i/
Would MS Azure start a new cloud price war?
Earlier today Microsoft unveiled it’s pricing model for its forthcoming Windows Azure cloud services platform. What’s interesting about the pricing model is that they seem to be taking direct aim at Amazon Web Services.
To recap, Amazon charges 12.5 cents per hour for a basic Windows Server instance in contrast Microsoft’s stated that their price will be 12 cents.They noted that the service will remain free until November. I should also point out that it still isn’t clear if comparing Windows Azure to Amazon’s Windows EC2 is a fair comparison given the rather drastic differences in functionality.
Microsoft calls Windows Azure a “cloud services operating system” that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Platform. They’ve also said they will offer a private data center version of Azure that will be capable of being hosted within a “private cloud” context. This will be most likely as part of their upcoming virtual infrastructure platform “hyper-v” possibly as a virtual machine image. Currently to build applications and services on Windows Azure, developers can use their existing Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 expertise with the ability to easily run highly scalable ASP.NET Web applications or .NET code in the MS cloud.
Microsoft officials had previously indicated that Windows Azure pricing would be competitive, but the price differential may be more symbolic than material. At their published rates, if you ran a Window server in the cloud every hour of the day for an entire year, you’d save a mere $43.80 going with Microsoft. Indeed, if penny pinching is important, Amazon Web Services actually has a cheaper alternative, though it’s not Windows. Amazon charges 10 cents per hour for “small” virtualized Linux and Unix servers.”
The half cent price difference is quite certainly material for those running larger cloud application deployments. A few cents can quickly add up. The move indicates that Microsoft is certainly not afraid to subsidize its cloud pricing in order to take a larger piece of the cloud market and with the large cash reserves Microsoft is said to have, they can certainly afford to engage in a price war. The bigger question will be how other more closely related cloud platform providers will adjust their pricing models? Right now all signs are starting to point a cloud price war. Time will be the best judge!
iPhone users most satisfied lot? (A US study)
Though Apple continues to hype the iPhone and the multitude of applications available through its App Store, iPhone users are indeed the most satisfied smartphone users and exhibit the strongest brand loyalty, according to a recent survey compiled by analytics firm Crowd Science.
Of those surveyed, 40 percent use a smartphone and one-third of those are iPhone users. The iPhone users gave Apple’s smartphone a 73 percent overall satisfaction rating, compared with a 52 percent satisfaction rating from users who had a BlackBerry device from Research In Motion and 41 percent who were satisfied using another smartphone.
Further, iPhone users plan to stick with the device, according to the survey. Fully 82 percent of current iPhone users would buy an iPhone again, compared with 39 percent of BlackBerry users who would purchase a BlackBerry again. Additionally, the survey found that 38 percent of non-iPhone users would switch to the iPhone for their next phone purchase, compared with 14 percent of non-BlackBerry users who said they would get a BlackBerry as their next phone. One final iPhone stat: Ninety-seven percent of current iPhone users surveyed said they would recommend the device to someone else.
Of the total sample, four out of ten use some type of smartphone and one-third of these use an iPhone.
Among those possessing a smartphone, most use it for both business and personal purposes (71 percent), with only 3 percent who use it for business only.”
IPhone users exhibited higher overall satisfaction with their phone than Blackberry and other smartphone users
IPhone users exhibit a strong loyalty to the brand. An overwhelming majority of iPhone users (82 percent) would purchase an iPhone again. As for non-iPhone users, almost four-in-ten (38 percent) would switch to iPhone for their next purchase, while 14 percent of non-Blackberry users would switch to Blackberry for their next mobile phone purchase.
While there are irregularities in the data collection mechanism and iPhone users have been given more weightages (compared to Blackberry, which numerically is larger than the iPhone), the results could be looked at from a “directional” perspective.
Ref: http://www.fiercewireless.com/slideshow/numbers-iphone-brand-loyalty?img=2
Indian Telecom Story (Part XV): Net Operating margins at risk!
An extension of an earlier post, which has discussed the problem of reducing operating margins for Telecom Operators in India in the of falling ARPUs and high operating expenditures; this post profiles the predicament for Airtel. If Airtel being such an established player in the market is facing a crunch in its operating margins, the performances of other marginal players and new comers could be under serious doubt!
Airtel registered a 17% YOY revenue increase. However, its quarterly sequential revenue growth seems to be tapping out at 1.19%. Thus the revenue growth is slowing down. Net profit is up 26% but that is mainly because of lower financial costs and spends. Operating profit margins are reduced from 30% in last year to 27% this year.
The concern for Airtel is that the growth in number of subscribers is hitting a plateau. With more competitors, the subscriber figures growth may actually dip. The ARPU has decreased 20.6% YOY. With both these numbers going south, it would be difficult for Airtel to keep up its performance in the next few quarters.
Applying the same analogy to other operators and the new comers, one would expect some congruence in the statuses. The overall market situation is same in all cases and thus the performances would not be very different for other operators. It is in this context one needs to evaluate the price discounting options that the new operators are resorting to. It may be a short cut to establishing a quick base but sustainability and profitability are very big questions. Couple that with the high initial spends of getting a toe hold in the market, the break even seems to be distant. Ask Virgin Mobile for validation.
Google’s effort at offsetting Carbon
Google logo on search on the day of Solar eclipse (22nd July 2009)
Only a few days back, I had posted a blog on Yahoo’s efforts for Carbon off setting. https://ronnie05.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/9834/. Google is also following suit in terms of efforts to neutralize carbon footprint.
Ambient Cooling is one of the approaches highlighted in the article http://www.reuters.com/article/gwmTechnology/idUS338804957820090722. In its Belgium data centre, rather than using internal air-conditioning for cooling the hardware, the company is relying on the normally low atmospheric temperatures to provide all the free cooling its servers need. The climate in Belgium will support free cooling almost year-round, according to Google engineers, with temperatures rising above the acceptable range for free cooling about seven days per year on average. The average temperature in Brussels during summer reaches 66 to 71 degrees, while Google maintains its data centers at temperatures above 80 degrees. On days, when the atmospheric temperature is above the data centers temperature, Google will turn off equipment as needed in Belgium and shift computing load to other data centers.This approach is made possible by the scope of the company’s global network of data centers, which provide the ability to shift an entire data center’s workload to other facilities. As a result of its use of outside-air for cooling the data center, Google will save tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in cooling costs, while also cutting back on the greenhouse gas emissions tied to the electricity used to run the chillers.
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