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MSN Mobile India Shifts Into High Gear Part-1

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:47:14 +0000

Why have we not heard of MSN Mobile India? MSN mobile has been doing business in India for over four years now. I turned to MSN Mobile’s Senthil Sundaram to find out more about MSN Mobile in India. Senthil is the business head of MSN Mobile India. One of the reasons why we have not heard much about Mobile in India is because they were primarily working with the telco carriers.

Tags: MSN Mobile India, Senthil Sundaram

MSN Mobile India’s Direct To Consumer Strategy Part-2

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:47:08 +0000

In Part-2 of our conversation Senthil Sundaram, business head of MSN Mobile India explains how they plan to do reach out to their mobile customers. They plan to roll out their direct to consumer initiative and make MSN’s mobile portal to the users in a big way. At the same time they are also working with handset manufactures’ like Nokia.

Tags: MSN Mobile India, Senthil Sundaram

What Is Human Computer Interaction? Part-1

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:44:26 +0000

What is human computer interaction? Prof John Canny of UC Berkeley explains that human computer interaction is making computers (technology) available to people. Macintosh is an early example of this. According to John Steve Jobs of Apple was a key entrepreneur and agent in making this happen, but lot of the early ideas came from Xerox Parc and their Star project (Yogen Dalal of Mayfield Fund was a key member of the Star team).

Tags: Human Computer Interaction, John Canny, Macintosh, Steve Jobs, Yogen Dalal

Human Computer Interaction In Emerging Economies Part-2

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 20:41:35 +0000

How is human computer interaction different in emerging economies like India? Prof John Canny of UC Berkeley discusses some of the projects that he had his colleagues are working in India using mobile phone for real time video and location based services (LBS). John talks at length about LBS and the how maps are one of the hardest things for people to understand in emerging economies like India. How then do you address this issue of map reading? What do you do when you can’t use the western style of presentation?

Tags: emerging economies, India, John Canny, location based services

Prof Tapan Parikh: Innovator and Social Entrepreneur

Kamla Bhatt — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 08:01:37 +0000

Prof. Tapan Parikh is a teacher, an innovator and a social entrepreneur, who currently teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. He was recently named as the Humanitarian of the Year by MIT’s Tech Review. While at graduate school in Seattle, Tapan took some time off and travelled to India, where he worked with various NGOs and ended up co-founding EkGaon Technologies.

Tapan’s focus is to create simple, innovative solutions that can be used in countries like India, Mexico and others. He created a simple, effective solution called CAM by harnessing the power of the ubiquitous camera phone. CAM allows users to scan and store information through a voice prompt and has proved to be effective solution for small organizations in India and other countries.

Tune in to find out what this reluctant entrepreneur has to say about the use of technology in emerging countries like India. Tapan is a big believer in the cell phone and how it can empower people in these countries.

Tags: CAM, EkGaon Technologies, Humanitarian of the Year, Mobile Phones, Tapan Parikh

MSN India’s Krishna Prasad Part-2

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:49:46 +0000

We continue our conversation with Krishna Prasad (KP), Executive Producer, MSN India about their content strategy, future plans and what kinds of content drives traffic to their site. MSN India is working on introducing new rich media content for their audience like video on demand. Expect to see more video related content, especially Bollywood-related content on MSN India’s website says KP. The other significant change is the new URL for MSN India is MSNIndia.com.

Tune in to find out what KP has to say about MSN India, their audience and the different kinds of content that they MSN India plans to roll out for their audience.
In case you missed out Part-1 of our conversation with KP, here is the link.

Tags: Bollywood, krishna prasad, MSN, msn india

Vishal Maheshwari of Yahoo! India Mobile

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:46:17 +0000

Meet Vishal Maheshwari, head of Yahoo! India mobile, who provides strategic direction to his company’s mobile business in India. India has one of the fastest mobile subscribers in the world. Every month millions of new mobile subscribers are added by various Indian telcos. In this interview Vishal talks about the difference between Yahoo’s web search and its mobile OneSearch, its new partnership with three Indian telco operators and mobile media monetization.

This interview was recorded at the GSM Asian Mobile Congress in Macau in November 2007.

Tags: gsm, macau, vishal maheshwari, yahoo, onesearch, india, mobile

MSN India’s Krishna Prasad Part-1

Kamla Bhatt — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:36:28 +0000

MSN India is getting ready to unveil its video feature for its audience next week. I caught with Krishna Prasad, aka KP, executive producer at MSN India’s office in Bangalore to find out more about MSN India’s business and content strategy for India and its global Indian audience? Recently MSN Indian tied up with WorldSpace in India to offer audio content to audience located outside of India.

What kind of content draws the maximum traffic for MSN? Bollywood and cricket says KP and that answer should come as no surprise considering how popular cricket and Bollywood are in India.

In Part-1 of the interview KP talks about MSN’s new look and features, WorldSpace, Bollywood, and videos.

Tune back in Part-2 of the interview where KP talks at length about local content for MSN India.

Tags: Bollywood, cricket, krishna prasad, msn india, worldspace

Gaming Company Kreeda’s Quentin Staes-Polet Part-2

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 01:39:22 +0000

Kreeda, a gaming startup located in Mumbai, the epicenter of India’s nascent gaming industry. Earlier this year Kreeda received an undisclosed amount of money from IDG Ventures India and Bodhi Softbank Holdings.

In Part-2 of the conversation we talk to Quentin about doing business in India vs. doing business in China. Quentin has spent the last 15 years working and doing business in Asia. Before turning entrepreneur Quentin was part of IBM, where he headed their digital strategy for Asia.

Tags: Kreeda, India, IDG, Softbank, IBM

Gaming Company Kreeda’s Quentin Staes-Polet Part-1

Kamla Bhatt — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 22:46:39 +0000

Gaming is fast gaining track in India and Mumbai is the epicenter for the industry. I finally caught up with Quentin Staes-Polet, CEO of Kreeda in Bangalore to find out about Kreeda, doing business in India and the challenges of doing business in India. Kreeda bills itself as India’s first dedicated Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) Operator In Part-1 of the interview we find out how Quentin, who is originally from Belgium ended up starting a startup in India. What advice does he have for entrepreneurs who want to do business in India? Quentin says there is lots of money available in India and the investors are very savvy. While finding money is money the key is to find good money points out Quentin.

Earlier this year Kreeda received an undisclosed amount of money from IDG Ventures India and Bodhi Softbank Holdings. I asked Quentin the reasons on why they opted not to disclose the amount of money they received.

Tags: bollywood dance mela, gaming in india, kreeda, mumbai, quentin staes-polet

Ojas Rege, VP of Yahoo! Global Mobile Products Part-2

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:36:59 +0000

“We want to be on a billion phones,” says Ojas Rege, VP of Yahoo’s global mobile products. So, imagine the challenge that Ojas and his team have in order to achieve that goal. You need to have an entrpreneurial bent of mind to do make the internet fit your phone points out Ojas.

In Part-2 of our conversation we talk to Ojas about the everyday challenges and what a typical day is like for him. We also talk about India since Ojas is of Indian origin, who grew up in Canada. According to Ojas “India is a hot-bed of mobile innovation,” and it is no wonder that India is such a big piece of Yahoo’s mobile strategy in Asia.

Ojas Rege, VP of Yahoo! Global Mobile Products Part-1

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:20:23 +0000

How does Yahoo! access the power of the Internet on the mobile phone? They way a user uses Yahoo! on their desktop is vastly different from the way they use it on their mobile phones. Delivering a seamless, oneclick experience on the mobile phone is a key component of what Ojas Rege does at Yahoo!

Yahoo! mobile has two core goals: discovering information and communication with other people. For instance, there is Yahoo’s OneSearch for discovering information in your mobile. As VP of Yahoo’s global mobile products Ojas and his team work on delivering an indispensable experience for the mobile community around the world. This is not an easy task when you factor in the bewildering mix of phones, the cultural differences and other factors that influence the way way people use their mobile phones.

Tune back in for Part-2 of our conversation with Ojas.

Tags: Yahoo, Ojas Rege, OneSearch

Microsoft’s Ken Pawlak on HSPA or Mobile Broadband PCs Part-2

Kamla Bhatt — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:03:50 +0000

Where is the market for the yet to be released HSPA or mobile broadband PCs that GSM and Microsoft are promoting. In Part-2 of our conversation Ken Pawlak of the Unlimited Potential Group of Microsoft talks about where those markets. Unsurprisingly the Asia Pacific region and specifically India provide a huge potential market for mobile broadband PCs. Do you need 3G networks to connect to your mobile broadband laptop? Tune in to find out what Ken has to say.

Tags: HSPA, GSM, Microsoft, India, 3G

Microsoft’s Ken Pawlak on Mobile Broadband Laptops

Kamla Bhatt — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:00:35 +0000

How do you make the GSM network relevant to millions of PC users around the world? Simple. Plug in a mobile broadband or High Speed Internet Access (HSPA) chip into the laptop and you are good to surf the internet. What is the target market for these mobile broadband PCs? They are millions of people in the middle and the base of the economic pyramid around the world. Then there is also the fact that over 80-85 percent of mobile phones around the world use GSM standard.

I caught up with Ken Pawlak, Director, Mobile Operator PCs, Unlimited Potential Group of Microsoft at the GSMA Asia Mobile Congress in Macau. In Part-1 of the interview Ken talks about mobile broadband PCs and laptops and shares the market research findings for these PCs. Don’t go out looking for these PCs or laptops since they will be out sometime early next year.

Tags: GSM, HSPA, Unlimited Potential Group, Microsoft

David Ko: Yahoo’s Mobile Strategy In Asia

Kamla Bhatt — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 07:06:30 +0000

Asia has the largest and fastest growing mobile users in the world. Yahoo! mobile has a pretty significant presence in Asia. David Ko, Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo! Connected Life Asia talks about Yahoo’s strategy and plans in the Asian market. David is responsible for the deployment of Yahoo’s mobile products and strategy in various Asian countries.

Earlier this week at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau Yahoo! made two major announcements. The first relates to the expansion of its relationship with telecom operators out of which three are from India: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Aircel and BPL Mobile and the rest are from Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Yahoo OneSearch is a search offering specifically tailored for mobile phones and was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this year.

The second announcement was the availability of Yahoo! Go in Chinese in Taiwan.

This interview was recorded at the GSMA Mobile Congress in Macau on November 14, 2007.

Tags: David Ko, GSMA, Macau, Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Aircel, BPL Mobile, Yahoo, OneSearch, mobile phones, CES, Yahoo! Go in Chinese

Cisco’s John Chambers in India

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:36:07 +0000

Cisco, the networking giant is bullish about doing business in India and that was the central message delivered by John T. Chambers, Chairman and CEO of Cisco in India. So far Cisco has invested $1.1 billion in India.

Tags: Cisco, John T. Chambers

Shantanu Narayen, President and COO of Adobe Part-2

Kamla Bhatt — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 03:36:33 +0000

In Part-2 of the interview with Shantanu Narayen, President and COO of Adobe describes his company’s India strategy. What about mobile strategy in India? Tune in to find out.

Adobe established its India office in Noida about 10 years ago.

Tags: Shantanu Narayen, Adobe, India, Noida

Shantanu Narayen, President and COO of Adobe

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:38:40 +0000

Helping people engage with ideas and information is how Shantanu Narayen, President and COO of Adobe describes what his company does best. Adobe recently completed 25 years and is expected to about $3 billion in revenue this year.

I caught up with Shantanu, who was on a whistle-stop tour of Bangalore, to find out about Adobe’s Rich Internet Application (RIA) initiative and how it is working wiht the open source community. Shantanu also talks about innovation, and how Adobe nurtures innovation through its Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) program.

Prior to Adobe Shantu co-founded Pictra, a digital photo-sharing startup in the late 1990s. Before that he worked with Apple and Silicon Graphics.

Tune back in for Part-2 where Shantanu talks about Adobe’s mobile strategy and about Adobe India.

Tags: Shantanu Narayen, Adobe, Bangalore, RIA, Entrepreneur, EIR, Pictra, Apple, Silicon Graphics

Steve Sanghi of Microchip, Part 2

Kamla Bhatt — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:31:50 +0000

Steve Sanghi, CEO of Microchip Technology, talks about how the company went from a small, struggling outfit to a successful one. What made Steve believe in Microchip Technology? How did he do it?

He also talks about the connection between the U.S. housing market and Microchip Technology. And then there is his favorite toy: Segway, which is powered by Microchip’s microcontrollers.

Tune in to find out how Steve brought in fresh thinking and perspective to Microchip after spending more than 10 years at Intel.

Tags: Steve Sanghi, Microchip Technology

Microchip Technology’s Steve Sanghi, Part 1

Kamla Bhatt — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:10:04 +0000

Arizona-based Microchip Technology is an important player in the microcontroller and analog semiconductor space. The company registered $1.039 billion in net sales for fiscal year 2007.

Yesterday, I spoke with Steve Sanghi, the CEO and the chairman of the board of directors of Microchip Technologies, in Bangalore, to find out about the company’s India plans.

Microchip Technologies started its India operations more than 10 years ago by opening a small sales office, and slowly expanded its presence. It now has about 500 customers. A few years ago, it opened a design center in Bangalore that works on IC design, mask layout and applications developments among other things. Bangalore is the hub for embedded development work in India. The company recently set up a call center and technical helpdesk for its domestic and international clients. Microchip has offices in Pune and New Delhi.

Steve was born and brought up in India and migrated to the U.S. when he was 20 years old.

Tags: microcontroller, analog semiconductor, Steve Sanghi

World Space’s Velu Shankar

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:11:08 +0000

Velu Shankar is head of content strategy at the India office of WorldSpace Satellite Radio, the 24-radio station. I recently caught up with Velu at his downtown Bangalore office to find out on how WorldSpace started its India operations, and the potential and future growth of radio in India. WorldSpace offers about 40 radio channels in India and they include traditional Indian music channels in Hindustani and Carnatic music; new and old Hindi Film music and various regional language channels.

A few weeks ago WorldSpace and MSN India a deal that makes five stations from WorldSpace available to its online listeners for a monthly payment of $9.99. Through their online strategy with MSN, Velu wants to tap into the vast global Indian population that lives outside of India.

The Indian radio space is still heavily regulated, and it is only recently that private stations have got permission to operate in various parts of the country. Velu thinks that radio has a great future in India, and he should know. He has over 12 years of experience in the TV and radio space and was part of the core team that founded Channel [V], and he was also part of the team that established the first Indian private radio station.

Tune in to find out what Velu has to say about radio in India, AR Rahman and Lead Belly.

Tags: Velu Shankar, content strategy, WorldSpace Satellite Radio

David Filo and Christian Heilman of Hackday India in Bangalore

Kamla Bhatt — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 22:36:11 +0000

This past weekend, Bangalore was the place to be if you were a hacker. More than 100 hackers from different parts of India participated in Yahoo’s open hackday session, held at the Taj Hotel in Bangalore. The 24-hour marathon session started late Friday evening (October 5th) and ended late Saturday evening (Oct 6, 2007) by which time the hackers seemed relieved that the deadline was over.

Each of the participating teams (31 in all) were given 90 seconds to demo their hack before a panel of seven judges. The judges included David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo!; Brad Horowitz, VP, Yahoo!, Christian Heilmann of Yahoo!, Ashish Gupta, managing partner of Helion Venture Partners, and others.

There were about 10 winners that won prizes under different categories.

Right after the winners were announced I caught up with David Filo and Christian Heilmann to find out what they thought of hackday India, which is the first hackday in Asia and the third in the world. The previous two hackdays were held in Santa Clara and London.

Tune in to find out what David and Christian had to say about hackday India and the creativity of Indian hackers.

Tags: David Filo, Brad Horowitz, Christian Heilmann, Ashish Gupta

Yahoo’s Joe Arnold on Open Hack Day in Bangalore

Kamla Bhatt — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 21:18:42 +0000

Right now, a bunch of hackers are huddled over their laptops in a downtown hotel in Bangalore. This 24-hour Open Hack Day marathon session is organized by Yahoo India R&D. Similar Open Hack Days were organized in Sunnyvale, Calif. and London. Bangalore is the third city. I caught up with Joe Arnold, director at Yahoo R&D, to find out more about the Open Hack Day in Bangalore.

Tags: hackers, Bangalore, Open Hack Day, Sunnyvale, Joe Arnold

CEO of Sybrant on Servicing Product Innovation

Kiruba Shankar — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:17:22 +0000

Sybrant is an unique company that helps startup companies develop product. It’s what its CEO, V.Thiagarajan, describes best as, “Come in with an idea, Walk out with a product.”

The company has been conceived and established to take up the challenging environments of “Product Development” with a focused approach that will leverage an entrepreneur’s idea into a product right from the stage of conceptualization to design, development, testing and packaging.

This Chennai-based company currently employs around 80 people with a good strength from prestigious engineering institutes like Indian Insititute of Technology, Madras.

Tags: Sybrant, V.Thiagarajan

CyberMedia’s Pradeep Gupta

Kamla Bhatt — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:04:24 +0000

CyberMedia is South Asia’s largest specialty media company that was founded in 1982, when IT and tech industry was still in its infancy in India. Earlier this year I caught up CyberMedia’s chairperson Pradeep Gupta at the Pan-IIT Global Conference in Santa Clara, Calif. CyberMedia’s mix of publications includes Dataquest, Voice & Data, PC Quest, BioSpectrum among others. The company also operates the popular CyberMedia Dice job board. Pradeep is an angel investor, and is also actively involved with his alma mater: IIT, Delhi. He also sits on the board of Kaleidoscope Entertainment, a movie production house that produced films like Bandit Queen and Mangal Pandey. Pradeep has an undergraduate degree in engineering from IIT, Delhi and an MBA from IIM, Calcutta.

Tags: CyberMedia, Pradeep Gupta, Dataquest