IT industry needs more innovation

Products are just one dimension of innovation. While successful product companies are very profitable, many product companies don't make money. While there is a lot of innovation happening in the Indian IT industry, there is much scope for improvement, feels Mr Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Professor of Corporate Strategy and Policy, Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore. In this interaction, he discusses the need for innovating beyond processes and the importance of greater collaboration between industry and academia. Edited excerpts:

What kind of innovation should the Indian IT industry be doing?

The focus of innovation in the IT industry has so far been on business models such as the global delivery model and processes (quality control, project management, recruitment and training). There is a need to widen the scope of innovation.

Could you give us some examples?

I am impressed by some of the work multinational companies have been doing at their development centres in India. For instance, Intuit has a platform called Fasal that uses sophisticated matching algorithms to link farmers with agents and buyers so that they get better price realisation. The communication happens through SMS. Already, more than 6 lakh farmers are a part of the Fasal network. India has some of the largest mobile companies in the world in terms of number of subscribers and IBM Research has been working with India's leading mobile service companies to develop dynamic methods of call data record analysis that will help enhance the efficiency of data centres.

Should the IT industry do product innovation?

Products are just one dimension of innovation. While successful product companies are very profitable, many product companies don't make money. Yes, it would be good to have some more product companies from India, but we needn't be obsessed with product innovation.

How do we strengthen partnerships between the IT industry and academia?

Currently, most relationships revolve around recruitment and placement. We need to have more knowledge-driven partnerships. This will happen when academia embraces a stronger research agenda and when industry seeks to put more innovation into their business. Organisational innovations like the IIT Madras Research Park offer new platforms for industry and academia to work together.

New, faster Apple iPad expected next week

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is hosting a media event next Wednesday, where it is expected to unveil a faster, better-equipped version of its popular iPad tablet to thwart increasing competition from deep-pocketed rivals such as Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O). The invitation-only event will be held at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) on March 7 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where the company also introduced the last two generations of iPads. Apple, which sent the invitation to reporters by email on Tuesday, did not divulge details of the event beyond saying: "We have something you really have to see. And touch." The invitation featured a partial picture of the touchscreen of a device resembling an iPad. Apple launches are some of the hottest events on the tech calendar, scrutinized by fans, investors, the media and industry insiders alike. The iPad has dominated the nascent tablet computer market, but Amazon's Kindle Fire, which sells at half the cost, has chipped away at the lower end of the market.

The third iteration of a device that has helped put pressure on demand for traditional laptops and computers is expected to boast a faster, quad-core processor and a higher-definition screen. Some analysts and industry experts expect 4G wireless capability, ensuring that the iPad remains current as cutting-edge broadband technology from Verizon Wireless and other carriers gains momentum. Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L). "The picture is zoomed in on an icon and I don't see any pixels in that icon," Avi Greengart, analyst at Current Analysis, said, underscoring how industry experts pick apart even Apple's communiques for hints of what to expect. "You don't need exceptional foresight to guess that Apple is likely looking at a higher resolution display."

TAKING ON PCS

The company's market value has climbed steadily in past weeks, buoyed by anticipation over its latest gadget as well as by hopes that Apple will finally accede to shareholders' demands it return some of its $98 billion war chest of cash and securities. On Tuesday, Apple shares closed at a record high of $535.41 in heavy trading on the Nasdaq, up 1.8 percent on the day. Apple iPad tablet sales doubled in the December quarter to 15.43 million units. The company has sold about 55 million iPads since it introduced the device in 2010. It may be looking to "make further inroads into the general computing market" with the newest iPad, Greengart said. Chief Executive Tim Cook has often said that he expects tablets to outsell personal computers eventually. Cook, who took the company's helm after visionary Steve Jobs died in October, will likely lead the event, with ample help from marketing chief Phil Schiller and other executives. With the iPad 2 starting at $499, investors will also be watching to see if Apple plans to discount it, creeping farther down the price chain and closer to the Fire, to broaden the iPad's appeal.

Indians Outrun U.S. Smart Phone Users in Mobile Internet Browsing

Indians have overtaken their U.S. counterparts in using mobile phone internet. The smart phone is still finding ways for deeper penetration in Indian markets and be accessible to the mobile savvy, but whoever possess it are already using the mobile internet profusely says a recent mobile survey conducted by IPSOS and Google. 94 percent of Indians smart phone users have used their device to access internet according to the statistics provided in pluggd.in. The comparative survey conducted to determine how mobile internet savvy the users are revealed some of the below figures. 56 percent of Smart Phone users in India access the internet multiple times a day as compared to 53 percent of U.S. users who use it. 19 percent of Indian users use it 2 or 3 times in a day when compared to 20 percent of U.S users. When it comes to accessing emails and social networking sites on their smart phones Indians core higher. The survey says compared to 54 per cent in the US, 76 percent of smartphone users in India access social networking sites on their devices.
Lalitesh Katragadda, Country Head, India Product, Google India has stated to Business Line that “The survey reiterates our belief in ‘mobile first'. Culturally, even beyond the well-educated, mainstream Indians are technology curious and device savvy. We believe that the Internet-like telephony did, is making the leap from wired Internet to mobile, and hundreds of millions of Indians will go online on their mobile devices,” said. “At Google, we are building a powerful, simple, personable mobile ecosystem that helps every user be connected as they want and when they want to,” he has added. The significant increase in the smartphone by the age group of 18 to 29 is the highest in the country. While only 17 percent are in the 30 to 49 age group, surprisingly 36 per cent of all smartphone owners in India are in the age group of 18 to 29.

Linux For Mobile - Firefox browser--announced this week the new Open Web Devices

The mobile world has been good to Linux, whose Android derivative has enjoyed a success that few could have predicted just a few short years ago. And indeed, until very recently, Android was Linux's main contender in the mobile world. Yes, there have been others coming and going -- LiMo, Maemo, Moblin, and MeeGo, for example -- but none of them have even approached Android in terms of traction. That's why this year's Mobile World Congress has been so striking. Announcements coming out of the show have made it perfectly clear that mobile Linux's days of being more or less completely dominated by Android are coming to an end. Android is still going strong, of course -- maybe even stronger than ever. But we seem to be entering a new era in which Linux is everywhere in the mobile world, including numerous non-Android alternatives. Here are three key examples.

1. Boot to Gecko

Perhaps most notably, Mozilla--maker of the popular Firefox browser--announced this week the new Open Web Devices platform for smartphones based on its B2G (Boot to Gecko) project. With Boot to Gecko, Mozilla aims to build a complete, standalone operating system for the open Web, and it has put Linux at the heart of that. While B2G uses some of the same low-level building blocks that Android does -- including the Linux kernel -- it is not based on Android, and deliberately so. With support from Telefónica, Adobe, Deutsche Telekom, and Qualcomm, the Open Web Devices effort promises to bring a new kind of Linux to the mobile world.

2. Tizen

Also coming out of Mobile World Congress 2012 have been not just one but two advances for the competing Tizen platform. Tizen, you may recall, is the Intel-backed open source project launched by the Linux Foundation in September. Since then we've seen a preview of Tizen's source code, and we've seen some considerable interest from Samsung; this week, up-and-coming device maker Huawei has jumped on board, and a beta release of the Tizen platform source code and SDK have made their debut. The beta release features an updated UI framework and Web APIs for easier development of rich Web applications, the Tizen Association says, while the SDK features support for Windows as well as Ubuntu Linux. Huawei, meanwhile, says it plans to create and commercialize Tizen handsets for a range of markets. What that will ultimately mean, of course, is mobile Linux in yet another form.

3. Ubuntu for Android

Speaking of Ubuntu Linux, let's not forget its debut running alongside Android on upcoming smartphones. Offering a full desktop experience when the mobile device is docked, Ubuntu for Android will come preloaded along with Google's platform on participating smartphones. That's nothing short of a double dose of Linux on a single device.

Then, of course, there's also Linux-based webOS, which appears to be marching along nicely, with a brand-new browser being added earlier this month. I haven't heard any webOS news coming out of Mobile World Congress -- it won't be fully open sourced until September, after all -- but it's another one that's definitely worth watching. Either way, I think it's really interesting to see how Linux is spreading throughout the mobile world. Apple's iOS currently accounts for 54 percent of the mobile/tablet operating system market, according to Net Applications' January data, while Android claims 18 percent. I can't wait to see how things look in another year or two.

'India has world's youngest internet population'

India has the world's youngest internet population with 75 per cent of all users under the age of 35 years, said research firm comScore Friday. The findings were announced by comScore's co-founder and executive chairman Gian M. Fulgoni at the second edition of digital marketing event 'ad:tech' being organised here. In comparison to India, the world's average of under 35-year users stood at 52 per cent and 55 per cent in Asia Pacific region. "Further, a third of India's total online population is between 15 to 24 years," said Fulgoni. Indian users spent a total of 34.47 billion minutes online last year, which translated to over half a billion hours, he added. Segment-wise usage has also revealed that 95 per cent of the total online users use social networking sites compared to 82 per cent of the world's online users leveraging social networks. Among other facts that Fulgoni gave out was that of four minutes spent on social network, three are on Facebook. "LinkedIn reaches one in eight online users, whereas one in 12 online users are on Twitter in India," Fulgoni said. "In contrast, use of email and instant messaging is on a decline, especially in the younger age groups. Email usage declined by 22 per cent in the 15-24 age segment, and by eight per cent among 25-34 age segment," he said.