Microsoft Corporation India announced on Thursday the availability of Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010 and Project 2010 for business consumers in India and across the world.
The software major also announced that Office Mobile 2010 will soon be available on Windows 6.5 phones and a broad range of Nokia smartphones, starting with Nokia’s enterprise device segment, the E series.
Microsoft and Nokia had announced their alliance in August 2009 and since then the two companies have been collaborating on the design and development of new solutions.
The two companies recently announced the first result of this collaboration in the form of a unified communications application for mobiles, the Microsoft Communicator Mobile for Nokia devices, which allows users to see when and on what networking program their colleagues are available, and makes it easy for users to send and receive instant messages.
Microsoft Communicator Mobile is currently available for Nokia E 52 and E 72. However, D Shivakumar, managing director and vice president, Nokia India, informed Telecom Yatra at the sidelines of a press conference that the application would soon be available for other Nokia devices as well.
Microsoft launches Office 2010 on Nokia smartphones
Aircel, Balaji Telefilms launch interactive audio serials
Aircel, along with production house Balaji Telefilms, has launched an interactive detective series called Kriminal Kaun.
The subscription based service allows Aircel users to listen to suspense stories in Hindi or Tamil and then guess who the criminal is. A fresh series is updated every week and each series has four episodes which are updated daily.
Puneet Kinra, group chief executive officer, Balaji Telefilms, told Telecom Yatra, “As this is a crime thriller it has universal appeal but is specially targeted for the adult male population. We are in talks with certain other cellular operators (for more interactive audio series), and will come out with a declaration as soon we seal the next deal with any one of them. For this particular audio series, we have an exclusive deal with Aircel.”
The series is available exclusively to all Aircel users at a charge of 10 paise per minute and Rs 30 for every month of subscription.
MTS completes roll out in South India
MTS, the CDMA mobile services brand of Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), announced the launch of its services in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh is the 12th telecom circle where MTS services will be available. With the launch of its services in the Andhra Pradesh circle, MTS has now covered all the four South Indian states.
The services have been launched at a promotional tariff of half a paisa per second while calls within the MTS network in Andhra Pradesh will be charged at one paisa for every four seconds.
Suresh S Kumar, chief operating officer of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, said in a statement, “With our presence in 557 towns in the state, we hope to reach subscribers through our branded stores and mass retail outlets with an aggressive strategy for tapping the mass market, as well as corporate customers.”
SSTL is a joint venture of Sistema of Russia and the Shyam Group of India, and is licensed to provide mobile telephony services in all the 22 circles across the country. It has over four million subscribers in 12 circles where it currently operates.
Smartphone market grew 56.7 per cent over last year: IDC
As per research firm IDC, the worldwide converged devices (smartphone) market grew twice as much as the overall mobile phone market grew in the first quarter this year.
A total of over 54 million units were shipped by vendors in the first quarter of this year. This number is up by 56.7 per cent from the same quarter a year ago. In contrast, the overall mobile phone market grew 21.7 per cent while smartphones accounted for 18.8 per cent of all mobile phones shipped in the first quarter this year, up slightly from 14.4 per cent in first quarter of 2009.
Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst, IDC, mobile devices technology and trends team, said in a company statement, “Consumers will gravitate to smartphones not just because the devices themselves look cool and slick, but because the overall experience aligns with their individual tastes and demands. Already, we’ve seen what Palm’s web OS (operating system) and Google’s Android can do. This year, we expect updates for BlackBerry, Symbian, and Windows Mobile to spark greater smartphone demand with their offerings.”
The handset giant Nokia maintained its position as the leading smartphone vendor worldwide during this quarter. It is followed by Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry devices, at the number two position. The third spot is occupied by Apple, while HTC and Motorola took the fourth and fifth place, respectively.
RCom launches new plan with free calls within the network
Reliance Communications has announced two new tariff packs under its Simply Reliance plans. The Simply Unlimited CDMA plan will allow unlimited STD and local calls to RCom’s prepaid CDMA customers. The two denominations that the calling packs have been launched in are Rs 299 and Rs 599.
The Rs 299 pack offers unlimited free calls to any local RCom phone. Under this pack, all national long distance calls within the RCom network and national long distance calls to other networks will be charged at 50 paise per minute. On the other hand, the Rs 599 pack offers unlimited free local and national calls to any RCom phone in India (Reliance GSM, CDMA or fixed line)..
However, when calling on other networks, a subscriber will be able to make calls of only 30 minutes per day (900 minutes per month). Beyond this, the caller will be charged 50 paise per minute.
Mahesh Prasad, president, marketing, wireless business, Reliance Communications, said, “Most of the current market offerings make certain distinctions in terms of usage on local versus long distance; on net versus off net calling; or daytime versus night time. Through our Simply Unlimited CDMA offer, we plan to further simplify this confusion by doing away with the tariff metering practices of the Indian telecom industry since the introduction of first mobile service in India.”
Tata Docomo completes services roll out in Haryana
Tata Docomo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices (TTSL), has launched operations in Fatehabad and Hissar, completing the roll out of its services in the Haryana circle.
The operator has announced a pay per use model in the two districts and according to a company statement, its services will now be available across 400 towns and 2,100 villages in Haryana; along 1,800 km of the state’s highways; along 400 km of rail routes; at airports and at places of tourist interest.
Rajeev Narayan, vice president, corporate affairs, TTSL, said in the official statement, “In a market that is cluttered with many operators and throws up confusing options, we offer simplicity with our game changing pay for exactly what you use proposition with per-second pricing model for everything, be it voice calls, VAS services or IVR (interactive voice response) interactions. We will also unveil a portfolio of value added services that will reinvent mobile telephony in India with products and services like diet-sms, free voicemail, timed SMS service, free missed call alerts, call-me tunes, etc.”
Tata Docomo launched its services in June 2009, and is now available in 17 circles of the country. The company has earmarked an investment of over Rs 9,000 crore for its pan-India GSM network roll out.
Tata Docomo was formed in November 2008 from an alliance between the Tata Group and Japanese telecom major NTT Docomo. TTSL has received a licence to operate GSM services in 19 telecom circles and has been allotted spectrum in 18 of these circles.
Vodafone launches handset at Rs 799; to launch another one soon
Vodafone has announced a new handset, VF 150, available for just Rs 799. At this price, VF 150 is probably the most low cost GSM handset available in the country, as of now. The device will enable customers to use voice and text based services and will be available across the country in the next few days. The phone comes with a 1 inch black and white display which supports a Resolution of 96 x 64 pixels and runs on a Taiwan-based chip designer MediaTek’s Neptune platform.
A Vodafone spokesperson told Telecom Yatra that the next low cost handset, VF 250, is in the pipeline and that it will be launched soon. This device is to come with a colour screen and will be priced at less than Rs 1,000.
Vodafone mentioned in a press statement that the company aims to increase mobile technology accessibility among the large and isolated rural population.
Vodafone has been able to significantly reduce manufacturing costs by focusing on a custom-built feature set and packaging design. VF 150 comes with a one year handset replacement warranty. The price of Rs 799 includes 4 per cent VAT (this price could vary in a few states owing to different tax structures).
The two handsets were first showcased at the Mobile World Congress held at Barcelona, Spain in Februray. Vodafone had then shared plans of launching the handsets first in India and then in six African markets.
Microsoft launches messaging app for Nokia devices
Software major Microsoft and handset giant Nokia have announced the availability of Microsoft Communicator Mobile for Nokia devices. This is a new, unified communications mobile application that allows users to see when and how colleagues are available and send them instant messages. The application is the first product of the alliance that the two companies announced in August 2009. Since then, the two companies have been collaborating on the design and development of new solutions, as well as embarking on joint marketing efforts around others they already share.
Communicator Mobile will enable users to see their colleagues’ availability and communicate with them instantly using instant messaging, email, text messages or phone calls. The names and status of colleagues are embedded directly into the device’s contacts application, enabling people to update their own profile, initiate and join instant Messaging sessions, and begin calls directly from the contact list.
Ukko Lappalainen, vice president, Nokia, said in a press statement, “This application really provides a much more efficient way to work with others as you can see if someone is busy, or available, and the best way to start a conversation with them. It also meets all of the requirements for enterprise: cost effective to implement, secure, familiar and reliable.”
This application will initially be available on Nokia E72 and Nokia E52, and can be downloaded from Nokia Ovi Store. The companies plan to deliver Communicator Mobile pre-installed on select Nokia smartphones in the future and also to support other devices, including the recently launched Nokia E5.
Airtel launches My Tunes for Delhi subscribers
Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of its new value added service by the name of My Tunes. The service is like a reverse ring tone facility and allows Airtel subscribers in Delhi to listen to songs of their choice while waiting for people to take their call.
Subscribers get to choose from over half a million tracks in more than 23 categories including bollywood, devotional and English rock. The My Tunes service is available at a subscription fee of Rs 15 per week or at 30 paise per minute of use. Subscribers can create a playlist with any number of tracks.
Shashi Arora, chief executive officer, Delhi and NCR, mobile services, Bharti Airtel, said in the company statement, “Starting with the launch of Hello Tunes in 2004, Airtel has LED the music on mobile revolution in India. With the My Tunes service, today we are putting the power and freedom of choice in the hands of the customer – the power to choose the content he wishes to consume along with the freedom to enjoy an unlimited music experience on mobile.”
A similar service was recently launched by Idea Cellular and was called PreTones. Tata Docomo too launched such a service by the name of My Song. Both services allow subscribers to listen to content of their choice every time they make a voice call. While the content portfolio that Idea offers includes live cricket, jokes, breaking news, astrology forecasts, movie reviews and bollywood gossip, Tata Docomo offers songs from genres which include bollywood hits, regional, international, classical and funny tunes.
Motorola, HTC lead Android traffic on AdMob network
Motorola and HTC were the top Android device companies, contributing 44 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively, to Android web traffic in the AdMob network in March. Motorola was the leading Android manufacturer with 44 per cent share of traffic in the same month due to the popularity of its Droid and CLIQ models. HTC contributed 43 per cent of traffic, followed by Samsung at nine per cent. These findings are based on the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report for March. Android is the mobile operating system owned by Google.
AdMob is a USA-based mobile advertising platform that serves ads for more than 18,000 mobile websites and iPhone, Android, webOS, and Flash Lite applications. Each month, the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report aggregates usage data to provide insights into trends in the mobile ecosystem. The AdMob mobile usage share is calculated by the percentage of requests that are received by the AdMob network from a particular handset type.
The report shows that the diversity of devices in the Android ecosystem is increasing, driven by the launch of new devices from different manufacturers with various form factors, capabilities and operating system versions over the past seven months.
The report adds that Motorola Droid was the leading Android handset in March, generating 32 per cent of Android traffic, while the Google Nexus One drove only two per cent of Android traffic. It also said that 11 devices contributed 96 per cent of Android traffic in the AdMob network, up from two devices (HTC Dream and HTC Magic) in September last year. The three primary versions of the Android operating system drove maximum traffic in March 2010, with Android 1.5, Android 2.0/2.1 and Android 1.6, contributing 38 per cent, 35 per cent and 26 per cent of traffic respectively.
AdMob also highlights the fact that at least 54 per cent of Android traffic came from devices with a QWERTY keyboard.