$200 million deal

A decade back, mobile phones played no big role in shaping up industry, business, trade and entrepreneurship. But today, with the advent of numerous smartphones, mobile phones have surpassed the mediocre reputation that they developed through the old, bulky, prepaid phone of the past.. They have started replacing computers in so many ways. Japanese Internet major Softbank Corporation has invested $200 million in Mobile Ad firm InMobi operating from Bangalore. It is considered as one of the largest deals in mobile internet space. Out of the total amount, $100 million will come in this month and the remaining $100 million will come in April 2012. This shows that Indian computer engineers can build a technology product acceptable at the global level. Japanese are usually very conservative in their investment unlike the Americans. If the Japanese are investing, it means the Indian company has real stuff and quality. IDG Ventures, a PE firm has estimated that $7.5 billion funds will flow into this sector by the year 2015. Large international deals have already started taking place in India. The British company Pearson acquired the Indian company TutorVista for Rs.577 crore. E-Commerce Company Filipkart raised $20 million from Tiger Global, a PE firm from New York. Snapdeal raised $40 million from investors. InMobi itself has raised $16 million before this deal from Kleiner Parkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo. InMobi was founded in 2007. What will the company do with this huge money of $200 million? It will use this for global acquisitions and for talent hunting. The company wants to become number one mobile internet company in the world. Good ambition and best wishes to the company. Already it has purchased the US firm Sprout.

Free stuff

Mobile roaming charges may be abolished by the government. This is good news for the frequent travellers. But it will hit the revenues of the telecom companies. Roaming charges make around 10% of the telecom company’s revenue. This loss will be offset by a rise in the mobile tariff. Number portability may be allowed anywhere in India. Currently it is restricted to within the circle in which the user resides. For the last fifteen years, phone tariffs have always fallen. But for the first time, the telecom players are going to raise their tariff in order to be competitive. For the consumers, there are several free applications that will help make free calls. Some of these free applications are Skype, Fring, Mobyler, Tango, Viber, Voxigo, Qik, TruPhone and Yahoo Messenger. For Blackberry users, one can try TringMe, which allows free calls over WiFi and 3G. You can also test Mo-Call that allows Internet telephony without internet connection. For basic phones, you can try Nimbuzz and Talkonaut. If you are using a PC, you can make a call through Webcall Direct, Evaphone, Freebuzzer and TulTalk. Usually, one minute of voice call through internet will consume around 160 kb of data. The average cost for the voice calls is set to rise from 55 paise per minute to around 80 paise per minute.

Mobile phones for brand building

Mobile phones are being used to build brands. Companies are still trying to figure out what kind of content people like to interact with the mobile phone. One proven category is social networking that has already attracted millions and millions of people. A lot of inventory is sold through media buying agencies. Most of the direct buys are by companies in the mobile content space. A cigarette company distributed a mobile phone app free of cost covering a popular badminton tournament in Indonesia. It attracted sizeable downloads and resulted in brand building for the cigarette company. Thailand government distributed a tourist app which became quite popular among the tourists and resulted in brand building.

Google will have a hardware platform

But in India, digital advertising is very small at around one per cent of total advertising. Mobile advertising is a part of this small quantity. It has great scope for development as people are buying smartphones in increasing numbers. Many applications are being developed for these mobile phones. The most popular applications are on Android platform. 70% of these applications are downloadable free of cost and the remaining applications cost a small amount. On the other hand, Apple applications from AppStore cost quite a lot. For this reason, Android phones are increasingly becoming popular, Now that Google has taken over Motorola’s mobile division, it will have a hardware platform also to run its popular Android software.

Mobile phone corrects answer papers

I am running a coaching centre that gives training to students to prepare for professional competitive examinations like IIT JEE, AIEEE, BITSAT, VIT, SRM, SAT etc. I have developed an application written in Android. The students have to send their answers to the multiple choice questions in a test through SMS along with the code number for that particular test. My mobile phone will process the answers and send back to the students through a return SMS their marks, percentage of marks secured and the correct answers in three seconds. It is unbelievable. The students get their results back within 3 seconds after they press the ‘send’ button. In fact, I have distributed mobile phones to all my students free of cost. When universities, colleges and schools are banning mobile phones inside their campuses, I have not only given mobile phones to my students free of cost, but also make them to answer the tests through these mobile phones. My correction time is minimised. What a wonderful gift it is.

Intel plans integration from mobiles to PCs

Now App developers look beyond the mobile phones. They develop apps that can be used in all platforms. For example Intel is looking at a seamless integration of information from mobiles to PCs. They are urging their 15000 developers in India to think of delivering content from 4 inch mobiles to 40 inch TVs and everything in between. These developers have already developed 1600 apps. Traditionally, IT services companies grow with manpower. But mobile app companies grow with more products. But most of the mobile app developers do not gain any financial advantage. Their hard work does not bring any monetary rewards as most of the mobile apps are free to download. This has prevented more people from entering the arena. Only those who have passion for app development by displaying their programme skills enter into the field without expecting any monetary reward.

SMS Invite helps students

I have downloaded from Android market a free app called SMS Invite. It is an application for inviting people to a party. But I am using it to inform and invite my students for the classes conducted at different timings. The message is sent to the students’ parents also to inform them about the class as some students lie to their parents that there are no classes. A student or his parents can reply Yes or No to the invitation. If they reply ‘Yes’, then the app will remind them fifteen minutes before the commencement of the class. It is a nice application and I have been using it for nearly two years.

WiFi facility will make mobile internet economical

Remote villages have not got mobile services yet. Growth in rural telecom density has not kept pace. There are more than 7500 uncovered villages in Orissa. Only half of the targeted mobile towers have been installed. Today, even fishermen are using mobile phones. This saves their lives also. Any untoward incident in the deep sea can be conveyed to their friends in the coast in no time. Now SMS can be sent and received in local languages also. Hyderabad-based mobile company IMI Mobile has made it possible. Only two per cent of Indian population are versatile in English. Other people are more comfortable in using their local languages to access and send SMS. Smartphone users spend nearly 70% of their time in internet than in voice calls. Venture capital funds are increasingly showing interest in mobile apps space. They prefer to invest their funds in a company that creates apps in multiple platforms. Browser firms and mobile handset makers are increasingly showing interest in mobile internet. Those users who spend a lot of time in mobile internet do it through WiFi rather than buying internet packages from their telecom services companies like Airtel, Aircel etc. WiFi facility can be accessed free of cost from the broadband modem, if the modem has WiFi facilities. A WiFi modem costs less than Rs.1500. One can browse internet to one’s heart’s content in the mobile phone without bothering about financial charges.

BSNL tops the honour

GSM phone service providers added only 7.6 million new customers for the month of July. This marks the lowest customer addition in the last 32 months. Even recently, around 15 million customers were added every month. Out of the total additions in July, BSNL tops the list with addition of 1.7 million customers. Bharti Airtel came second with 1.5 million customers, Vodafone with 1.4 million, Idea and Uninor with one million each. In the last two years, this was the first time that BSNL became the topper among telecom service providers, overtaking Bharti Airtel.

Demand for mobile programmers widening

Indian software engineers have made a mark worldwide with their programming skills. Now India’s next outsourcing market will be mobile applications. Growing demand and lower developer cost are fuelling the second round of technology off shoring. Indian developers have an edge in pricing. Request for programmers who write code for Apple’s iOS platform increased by 20% in the second quarter. For Android programmers, it increased by 15%. For Blackberry devices, it increased by 3%. It is interesting to note that Indian IT giants like Infosys, Wipro, TCS and other companies have not taken up mobile apps yet. It is still left to the small players. Of course Infosys, TCS and other companies were once upon a time small companies. Today’s small companies can grow big and dominate the world if they concentrate on quality and customer service.

GSM has many advantages over CDMA

Which one is better to have, a CDMA mobile or a GSM mobile? This question is troubling the minds of mobile users. There are many advantages in a GSM connection. There are wide varieties of service providers to choose from in comparison to CDMA. There are many options in terms of mobile handsets to choose from in case of GSM mobile. There are many features in GSM handsets compared to CDMA handsets (exception is iPhone4). GSM phones can operate with a SIM card from any country in the world. The only advantage for CDMA is that it offers better connectivity in thickly populated areas. This is because in any given place, the number of CDMA devices is less compared to GSM devices and hence traffic is less.

Hackers are turning more on mobiles

Hackers are turning their attention to mobile internet. As Android based smartphones are increasing in number and they have open-source software, hackers are wrecking havoc in Android phones much more than other phones. Google has removed about 100 malicious applications from its Android Market app store. Lookout has detected thousands of attempted infections each day on mobile phones running its software. Symantec also sees a jump in the number of malwares attacking mobile phones. As mobile financing is increasingly becoming popular, these hackers try to grab passwords and credit card numbers from the mobile phones. Many banks are offering mobile banking facility to their customers. Telecom and banks need to in place the necessary infrastructure and business models to be able to roll out the services effectively and profitably across the country.

Asia could lead mobile revolution

In future, HTML5 could share platform space in the mobile apps market. HTML5 is useful in the web/cloud intensive mobile application space. In the computation intensive context, other applications could be used. According to Google Chief Mr.Eric Schmidt, Asia will lead the mobile revolution. Getting train tickets on mobile phones is only the beginning of this revolution. Mobile banking could become more popular than actual banking.

Protect children from health hazards

As for the health hazards, a latest research finds no evidence to link mobile phones to growth of brain tumours. Nevertheless, young children should be discouraged from using mobile phones often. Cells of children rapidly divide and hence are more susceptible to any radiation. The brain area exposed to radiation is also large. Even though clear evidence is not forthcoming, it is always better to err on the side of caution to protect vulnerable children from radiation hazards. Expert panel has suggested stricter radiation norms for mobile phones. 3G handsets are getting cheaper now. Prices have dipped by 20% in the last one year. Falling raw material costs coupled with new and more efficient technology will produce increasing number of 3G handsets in the market and further pull down their prices.

Mobile TV in the offing

Mobile phone technology is going to solve long check-in queues, lost luggage and lack of communication in airports. Indian mobile phone producers like Micromax, Lava, Karbonn, Spice, Maxx, Olive and Zen are starting their operations in Africa. A new scramble for African riches is taking place among Indian companies. Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Congo are some of the favourite destinations of Indian mobile companies. Along with mobile phone technology, high resolution cameras are also effective in driving their sales. Mobile phone penetration can drive the GDP growth rate in India. National Stock Exchange is exploring the use of mobiles for trading. The government of India is keen to clear the decks for broadcast of TV channels on the mobile screen but still there are hurdles to be crossed. The Telecom ministry is opposing the government’s plan to use 700 MHz band.

Mobile technology helps criminal investigations

For solving criminal cases, mobile phones are quite useful. The first thing investigators do when a crime is committed is to trace out the mobile calls of the suspects. That is why location-based mobile services are being made mandatory. Handsets sales in India are likely to touch 220 million in 2011. ASSOCHAM has demanded that government websites should run in mobile phones too.

Motorola will be reshaped at the hands of Google

Double benefit for Google

Google’s taking over of Motorola’s mobile handset business has been the talking point, of late. This move will help Google to acquire many patent rights in the market. Google has been troubled by many court cases filed by its competitor Apple over patents. Google was careless about patents earlier. Now, after suffering much, it has made a master move by acquiring Motorola’s mobile handset business. This will also give Google a platform to sell its own mobiles with its own Android software. It will power Google to one of the strong players in mobile phones market in the coming years. It will also drive away its competitors like Samsung, LG, and Hutch etc to seek replacement software for Android elsewhere.

Xoom introduced

Motorola has introduced its tablet PC Xoom recently. It is available in two variants – WiFi with hotspot features at Rs.32990 and 3G at Rs.39990. It has a 10.1 inch screen and is based on Android platform. It has a 1GHz dual core Tegra 2 processor with 1 GB RAM, a 5 MP rear facing camera and a 2 MP front facing camera. Xoom is world’s first Honeycomb (Android 3.0) tablet. It has 32 GB storage capacity with a microSD slot for expansion upto 32 GB. It has Bluetooth, GPS connectivity and HDMI out. The device weighs about 730 g.

Motorola Pro

Motorola Pro is a candy bar phone operating on Android 2.2. It has a 3.1 inch touch screen display with a resolution of 320 x 480. It has a physical four row QWERTY key board below the display. It has a 1 GHz processor, 8 GB onboard storage capacity expandable via microSD card upto 32 GB. It has some special features like accelerometer, proximity sensor, 3G, WiFi with hotspot, DLNA, Bluetooth and GPS connectivity. An SMP AF camera with dual LED flash is provided at the rear that can record videos in 480p (704 x 480 pixels). It weighs 134 g. It has a 1420 mAh battery. The expected price of the instrument is around $570.

3/Droid 3

Motorola will be challenging the big guns in the industry with its Motorola Milestone 3/Droid.3. It has a 4 inch, 540 x 960 pixel multi touch display. It has a slide-out five rows QWERTY keyboard with dedicated number keys. It has a dual core processor and 16 GB internal storage facilities which is expandable via microSD card. A BMP AF camera is provided on the rear side with LED flash and is capable of recording videos 1080p with full HD resolution.

Motorola loses to Huawei in court case

Motorola will provide 400 jobs to Chicago. At a time when 14 million Americans are jobless, this tiny measure is still appreciated by the Chicago Mayor
Rahm Emanuel. Huawei Technologies of China won a Federal Court order, barring Motorola Solutions Inc from disclosing a variety of confidential Huawei information to its rival Nokia Siemens Networks. But the judge denied Huawei’s request to block the $1.2 billion sale of Motorola’s network business to Nokia Siemens. But now there are reports that Motorola has amicably settled its dispute with Huawei.

XT800

Motorola Mobility India launched recently MILESTONE XT800 Android-powered CDMA, EVDO/GSM dual stability mode/dual SIM touch screen smartphone. It allows the user to choose the network. It offers mobile internet with WiFi/WAP1. There are other facilities like SMP cameras with digital zoom, auto focus and dual LED flash. It has USB 2.0 high speed data transfer 2 with support for synchronisation with PCs. It has GPS, satellite navigation supporting Google maps and more. XT800 is the first Android dual SIM handset.

Motorola Defy

Motorola Defy, operating on Android 2.1 is a dust proof and water resistant phone with 3.7 inch WVGA touch screen. It is perfect for watching videos and browsing. It is also scratch resistant. Dual microphones are provided to filter background noise so that call volumes could be amplified. The camera is of 5 MP capacity and comes with flash, digital zoom and auto focus. It is DLNA enabled. Users can stream and share content with other compatible devices.

What next?

I have given a brief history of Motorola handsets released in the last few months. Now that Motorola has handed over its business to Google, the world is waiting for the release of the first ever mobile handset by Google. The world is eager to know the new technological features that Google will bring in for the users.

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Apart from having all the benefits mentioned above there still remains a question mark whether XenApp 6 is the most stable version that CITRIX have brought in. There still remain so many bugs and glitches in XenApp6 that sometimes the administrators have to pluck the hairs from their head off to get the resolution or a Workaround. Some of the well known issues are as follows:

•XenApp 6 only runs on Windows Server 2008 R2
•Problem with any 32-bit applications
•Schedule Reboot Problem
•Servers undergoing Blue Screen of Death
•Problems while launching applications
•Issues with the Administrative Console

1.1. XenApp 6 only runs on Windows Server 2008 R2

The new Product of Citrix XenApp 6 only runs on Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64 bit Operating System) and not on Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008. So, if a Company want to migrate their existent Citrix environment from XenApp 5 or PS 4.5 to XenApp 6, it is essential to build a whole new XenApp 6 Farm then after a full fledged testing operation migrate all the users to the new Farm. It’s not possible to go into a mixed mode operation which was possible till XenApp 5. No registry twigs or any patches will allow a mixed mode in XenApp 6.

So, before migration to XenApp 6 all the companies need to keep in mind that a new XenApp6 Farm is needed and the previous version is of no use. After Migration to the new XenApp 6 Farm and the old one could either be used for testing purposes or scraped.

1.2. Problem with any 32-bit applications

As XenApp6 only runs on Windows Server 2008 R2 which is a 64-bit OS, there may be some issues when a 32 bit application is hosted on XenApp6. The main issue that can be faced is high memory consumption by a particular session which can go up to 1.8 GB.
Other issues that can creep in are slow performance of the application, low throughput and some latency issues. Even the performance of the Servers hosting those applications can degrade to a considerable extent. The Servers can hang now and then when the load goes up.

For example, the SAP GUI 7.1 is a 32-bit application and when it is published from a XenApp6 Server all the issues mentioned above can come live. So, its recommended to install and publish only 64-bit applications like SAP GUI 7.2 as in our example.

1.3. Schedule Reboot Problem

One of the problems of XenApp6 is that when it undergoes a scheduled reboot if any active or idle session is present in the Server, the Server will not come up freshly after the reboot. It has to be manually rebooted from the VM (in case of Virtual Server) or from the iLOM (in case of Physical Server).

CITRIX have released a Hotfix XA600W2K8R2X64003 which addresses the issue. But, the best way to resolve the issue is to reboot the Servers using the OS policy with a shutdown script which will logoff all the user sessions from the Server before rebooting the Server.

1.4. Servers undergoing Blue Screen of Death

One of the Major issue with XenApp6 is that the XenApp6 Servers can face Blue Screen of Death on a Random Basis. Citrix have already identified two different reasons for which the Servers can undergo BSoD. One of them is for Picadm.sys and the other one is for IMAAdvanceSrv.exe.

Citrix have released two Hotfixes to address the BSoD Issue. XenApp Hotfix XA600W2K8R2X64018 is for Picadm.sys and XA600W2K8R2X64029 is for IMAAdvanceSrv.exe.

Unfortunately, applying the Hotfixes don’t resolve the issue completely, it just lowers down the rate of occurrence.

1.5. Problems while launching applications

There are some loopholes too in XenApp6 which makes it behave weird when it comes to launching the applications. Sometimes it shows Black Screen when a published Desktop is launched or it may pop a message box saying “Remote Computer is Currently Busy” or “A device attached to the System is not working”. Every time the only way is to logoff and relogin after a few minutes which will clear up all the Weird things.

Sometimes XenApp6 cannot clear up some zombie user sessions which prevent the User from launching the same application. The Sessions needs to be cleared before he could further launch the application successfully.

1.6. Issues with the Administrative Console

 There are some intermittent incidents which may occur while an administrator is trying to do some administrative task through the Delivery services Console. Forcefully Logging Off a session or to disconnect a session can sometimes be not possible. Moreover, the data provided in the Console about a particular session can sometimes be incomplete. Usually the application name which has been launched is not shown.

1.7. XenApp 6 doesn’t support MS Access or DB2

Till XenApp 5 the Data stores that were supported were MS SQL Server, MS SQL Server Express, Oracle, MS Access and DB2. But from XenApp6 MS Access and IBM DB2 are not supported as datastores.