MWC Day 1: Sony’s waterproof tablet and ZTE’s phablet

If Day Zero of the Mobile World Congress belonged to Mozilla and the Firefox OS, the first day of official events belonged to Nokia. The Finnish company introduced two feature phones, the Nokia 105 and Nokia 301, and extended its Lumia range with the Nokia Lumia 520 & 720. You can read all about that here.

Not to be left out of the spotlight, other companies like Sony, LG, ASUS and ZTE also used the global stage that Barcelona offers to unveil their latest devices.

Sony announces waterproof tablet

Sony took of the covers of its new 10.1-inch Android tablet. At just 6.9 millimeters it is called the  Xperia Tablet Z as the thinnest tablet of its size in the world. Sony claims the Xperia Tablet Z is waterproof and can be immersed in up to 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes.

The Xperia Tablet Z is powered by a Qualcomm 1.5 gigahertz asynchronous quad-core processor, and comes with an 8 megapixel camera, surround-sound speakers, a built-in universal remote to control other devices and weighs of just 495 grams. The Xperia Tablet Z will come with 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB of on board storage.

Asus blurs the lines further

Taiwanese tech giant, ASUS, kept up with its strategy of launching new products,which blur the line between phones and tablets. At Barcelona, they announced the Padfone Infinity, which is a premium Android phone and tablet-dock and the Fonepad which is a 7-inch mobile phone.

The Padfone Infinity, like the original Padfone, comprises a mobile phone which slots into the back of a tablet-style docking station, allowing users to access the same files and apps on a larger screen. The Infinity which will retail £799 has a a metallic design and high-resolution screen in both configurations. The phone unit comes with a 5-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixels display, a quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, LTE data and a 13 megapixel camera. The docking station has a 10.1-inch, 1920 x 1200 pixels screen and its own battery

The FonePad has a 7-inch display, which packs in 1,280×800 pixels. It does not have a rear camera, but has a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera. It is powered by Intel’s Atom Z2420 processors, clocked at 1.2GHz and backed up by 1GB of RAM. As for storage, you get 16GB of space, but can be extended to 32 GB by slotting in a microSD card.

LG takes the wrap off 6 devices

LG Optimus Pro

LG unveiled a range of devices across the pricing spectrum. At the top end was the 5.5-inch “phablet,” the Optimus G Pro, with the F7 and F5 aiming to offer LTE functionality to those on a mid-range budget, and the L Series bringing up the rear.

The LG Optimus G Pro is a 5.5-inch device that runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean and includes 2GB of RAM with up to 32GB of expandable memory via a microSD card. Its is powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core processor from Qualcomm and has a removable 3,140mAh battery. The 13-megapixel camera back camera is capable of recording 1080p full HD video. On the front is a 2.1-megapixel camera. It also includes NFC and wireless charging capabilities.

The F7 and the F5 are new mid-range LTE phones from LG. The higher-end F7 rocks a 4.7-inch IPS display while the F5 has a smaller 4.3-inch display. The F7 runs on a mid-level 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, whereas the F5 runs on the 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon equivalent. Both phones run on Android 4.1.1, have 8GB of onboard storage, expandable by 32GB with a microSD card. The F7 features an 8-megapixel rear camera, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. It also packs 2GB of RAM and a 2,540mAh battery. The F5 has a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera. Alongside the slower processor, it also comes with 1GB of RAM.

At the lower end, LG announced the Optimus L7 II, L5 II, and L3 II.

ZTE announces the Grand Memo tablet

ZTE unveiled the 5.7-inch display Grand Memo phablet. The device comes with a 5.7-inch display with a 720 x 1280 pixel resolution and is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm processor, 2GB RAM, 4G LTE connectivity and 16GB of onboard storage into 8.5mm body. It runs on Android Jelly Bean and uses a custom ZTE UI called Mifavour. It also includes Dolby Digital audio for a better music or video experience. It features a 13-megapixel camera on the rear capable of 1080P HD video capture and a 1-megapixel camera on the front.

Related posts:

1. Tablet To Watch Out For: Huawei’s 7 inch Mediapad Tablet [Runs on Android 3.2]
2. Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc Available in India for Rs. 28,999
3. Karbonn launches two smartphones A21 and A9+ under its Duple Series

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Appconomy Makes Custom Apps for Merchants on China’s Taobao

China’s seminal e-commerce site Taobao, which enables anyone to become an amateur shopkeeper, has over a million merchants on its platform. This is where the Sino-US startup Appconomy sees a niche to help these sellers create a native mobile app of their Taobao store (pictured).

A custom app made for a Taobao merchant.

Appconomy’s Mike Golden tells us this service is called Zhangyingbao and it’s now launching officially after being in testing since November. In that time it has amassed 2,000 Taobao vendors as users, who now have their own custom store apps made using the Appconomy service. It’s not just the apps they get, as Zhangyingbao also incorporates a chat function for store owners to talk online with their customers. Mike adds: “You can communicate with app users via pushed in-app notifications and in-app email.”

Taobao, and its parent compamy Alibaba, already have a chat platform for its platform merchants, but Zhangyingbao can streamline the process for e-shoppers who opt to use the custom store apps. Payments can even be made while mobile, using Alibaba’s Alipay.

Appconomy’s CEO and president, Brian Magierski, says that the startup’s cloud commerce services are an answer to the problem of how amateur shopkeepers and small businesses can form lasting relationships with a customer. Brian explains:

The Zhangyingbao service, through the merchant-specific mobile apps it generates, offers a robust solution to the problem, providing merchants a unique, convenient option that saves on advertising costs, enhances their shop’s popularity, and builds strong relations with their shoppers via in-app notifications and other communications.

We’re told that the custom app service doesn’t yet cover the B2C version of Taobao, which is called Tmall – that’s where larger retailers and even global brands go to create virtual shopfronts. Mike chips in to say, “Expanding to Tmall is an option for the future, but merchant needs and customers are different – we would be solving a different set of problems.”

Appconomy has one other e-commerce oriented product, which we looked at recently. Aimed at both consumers and offline retailers, it’s a mobile wallet service called JinJin. For the startup, whose personnel is split between Shanghai and Texas, JinJin and Zhangyingbao are “part of the common cloud commerce platform roadmap.” Indeed, some of the custom app Taobao merchants will get cross-promotion in the Jinjin app so that a business boost might result from that cross-fertilization.

The Taobao and Tmall sites amassed $159 billion in sales in the first eleven months of 2012.

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Asia, Give Up On The Dream Of Being Silicon Valley

(Image: theredphoenix.wordpress.com)

One of my favorite jokes about Silicon Valley goes like this:

A million guys walk into a Silicon Valley bar. None of them buy anything. The bar is declared a rousing success.

It underlines an unbounded enthusiasm that you wouldn’t find elsewhere. And yet, this hasn’t stopped cities like Beijing, Bangalore, Singapore, Shenzhen, Daejoen, and even Ho Chi Minh city, being touted as the next Silicon Valley. People think, if you’ve got a bunch of tech companies all in one place, we can call it a Silicon Valley. But the fact is, people don’t tell these kinds of jokes in Asian cities. Embracing devil-may-care failure and rampant cowboy venture capitalism is just not in Asia’s DNA.

Yes, companies and communities throughout Asia need to embrace the principles that lead to success in Silicon Valley, like the lean startup method or the practices of venture capitalism, but an Asian Silicon Valley will never come. And it doesn’t have to.

Forget Silicon Valley, this is the Silicon Continent

Yes, it makes sense that Asian cities are often touted as the next Silicon Valley. With India saving the world from the Y2K bug, Japan’s electronic mavericks, and China’s trillion dollar e-commerce industry, who can argue with that evaluation? I mean, 50 percent of Silicon Valley tech jobs are filled by Asian Americans. But this eagerness to dub Asia the next Silicon Valley belies a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Valley is and what it takes to make one.

Something Ventured, a movie about the early transition from Fairchild Semiconductor to the full-fledged Silicon Valley, outlines perfectly the arduous and multi-faceted journey that small area in Northern California had to take to become the Hollywood of technology. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it. The moral of the story is clear – it’s not easy to make a Silicon Valley happen. It requires decades of government research funding, ballsy venture capitalists, intelligent educational institutions, a healthy network of relationships and, of course, brilliant individuals that were fostered by that environment.

Another film just came out on PBS’s American Experience titled: “Silicon Valley”

I think the dialogue needs to shift away from dubbing a new Silicon Valley and into something else entirely. Take a quick look at a list of places on Wikipedia with the word ‘silicon’ in them and you’ll see right away how unoriginal Asia is. It’s all “Silicon Valley of -” China or India or Indonesia. Can’t we get more creative? How about Silicon Kingdom for China? Or Silicon City-State for Singapore? Why would Ho Chi Minh city want to be the Silicon Valley when it could be the Silicon Delta? Obviously, Samsung’s gotta push the Silicon Peninsula. And I’m shocked nobody’s grabbed Silicon Island yet. (Taiwan, are you listening?) Or better yet, why use the word Silicon at all?

But this isn’t about branding, it’s about identity and self-perception. As long as Asian entrepreneurs aspire to be the next Silicon Valley, they will never carve out their own niche in an increasingly diverse technical world. Don’t take whipped cream and put it on noodles.

That’s right, whipped cream = Silicon Valley; and noodles = Asia.

The existential journey of Asian entrepreneurs

I think Start-Up Nation, a book about Israel’s rise to high-tech relevance, has the best lesson for what to do next. As Gary Shainberg says in the book, Israel faced some extraordinary circumstances: “Nowhere else in the world where people work in a center of technology innovation do they also have to do national service.” This is powerful. Israel, with its long list of world-renowned startups, has embraced what makes it unique and has infused into how it innovates.

This is exactly what innovators and entrepreneurs in Asia need to do. The cities of Silicon Valley don’t need to create the next Facebook or Google. They need to solve problems native to Asia. I think that’s what a few companies are doing, and I want to see more of it. Otherwise, we’re just going to see the same old cut-and-paste enterprises.

Asia’s got its own peculiarities that you won’t see anywhere else. Its leverage. A humongous, young and hungry population that’s increasingly tech savvy, widespread diversity that forces relevant startups to compete internationally, and the potential to innovate. And I think these characteristics need to be embraced more and sought out. It’s like the saying goes, the problem is the solution.

So stop saying that your city is the next Silicon Valley, and fill in the blanks in your societies lives.

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[Breaking] Amobee doubles down on Asia, expects 300% growth in the region in 2013

Mobile advertising company Amobee has announced an exclusive partnership with four leading mobile operators in the Asia Pacific, and forecasts a 300% growth in business in the region.

With the partnership, Amobee’s publisher-side mobile advertising platform, PULSE for Publishers, is now fully operational in the region and gives these large operators the ability to lead the mobile advertising ecosystem in Asia with data-rich, privacy-compliant inventory, which is the holy grail of mobile advertising.

With Amobee’s mobile advertising technology, the partner carriers – Globe (Philippines), Optus (Australia), SingTel (Singapore) and Telkomsel (Indonesia) – can now provide global brands with the relevant mobile advertising inventory to reach the fast-growing Asian market. The Amobee PULSE for Publishers platform gives each of these operators the ability to enhance mobile inventory with targetable user data, therefore enabling brands to achieve better results by reaching the right consumers, at the right time, in the right place, with the right offer.

Read also: Amobee launches Amobee PULSE Create

Allen Lew, CEO of Group Digital L!fe at SingTel, said, “Consumers are increasingly choosing mobile devices for the consumption of content and to conduct research for their purchases. Many of them are also warming up to targeted ads, which reflect their interests, connections or locations. This makes the mobile space increasingly relevant for brands and advertisers.”

He added, “By working with Amobee, the SingTel Group is extracting value from our unique assets — the scale of our regional customer base and our deep customer insights — to offer mobile advertisers the most mileage out of their spend. With the rich data we have, they can benefit from a more targeted and segmented customer reach. At the same time, our customers will benefit from personalised, highly relevant and non-intrusive mobile ads which are delivered in a legally compliant manner.”

“The Philippines is one of the fastest growing, mobile-centric markets in the world, where nearly every Filipino owns a mobile device rather than a computer. Therefore, it has become crucial that advertisers and brands stay on top of consumers’ minds with relevant mobile ads,” said Ernest Cu, CEO of Globe. “Our partnership with Amobee will be essential in providing the most intuitive mobile offering to brands looking to leverage our unparalleled reach in this market.”

Read also: CEO of Amobee says retargeting is the No.1 offence in online advertising

Amobee held a media briefing, where CEO Trevor Healy shared the company’s updates and insights so far. According to Trevor, Amobee is moving its global headquarters to Singapore, and the company forecasts a 300% growth in its business in Asia this year. In fact, Amobee predicts that 40% of its profits will be from Asia by the end of 2013, which contributes to Amobee’s global business doubling during the year.

“Amobee is excited to partner with Globe, Optus, SingTel and Telkomsel to make Asia the global leader in mobile advertising,” Trevor added. “More importantly, we are using operators’ big data to fuel better targeting.” He added that the company is also working with additional SingTel subsidiaries, particularly Maxis in Malaysia and AIS in Thailand, and that Amobee is exploring partnerships with telcos from Japan.

The partnership with the four big telecommunications providers in the region gives Amobee the ability to better target these telcos’ customer base, thereby enhancing its position in the market as regards big data and advertising. As a benefit to consumers, mobile users are now likely to receive targeted ads they are interested in, based on their mobile activity, rather than generic ads that might be considered spammy or irrelevant.

With big data, carriers and Amobee will be able to categorize their customer base into segments that allow for better targeting. More focused targeting means Amobee can approach advertisers with better recommendations and pitch to them based on this data, which may include preferences on where users shop, what kinds of cuisine they like, and places they frequently visit.

But going beyond mobile, Trevor shared that the company is diversifying, as its core business is under pressure due to the evolving nature of mobile technologies. Amobee is now exploring alternative advertising media, such as email-based ads, display ads, tablet-based marketing and the like. While no formal announcement has been made, we can expect Amobee to disclose more details on these efforts soon.

With contributions from Joash Wee and J. Angelo Racoma

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Amobee seals mobile ads partnership with SingTel, Globe, Telkomsel, and Optus

Amobee, a mobile advertising company acquired by SingTel for USD 321M, has announced today an exclusive partnership with four mobile operators: Philippines’ Globe, Australia’s Optus, Indonesia’s Telkomsel, and SingTel from Singapore.

The partnership will involve Amobee integrating its publisher-side mobile advertising platform, PULSE for Publishers, with mobile inventory belonging to the four telcos.Their mobile inventory will be enhanced with targetable user data, allowing brands to reach consumers they want with relevant, geo-targeted content.

“Consumers are increasingly choosing mobile devices for the consumption of content and to conduct research for their purchases. Many of them are also warming up to targeted ads which reflect their interests, connections or locations. This makes the mobile space increasingly relevant for brands and advertisers,” said Allen Lew, CEO of Group Digital Life, SingTel.

The Singapore-based telco, which is faced declining quarter-on-quarter profits, has significant minority stakes in Globe and Telkomsel.

It also fully owns Optus, whose efforts to get new customers has been underwhelming of late — it attracted only 53,000 new signups in the last 6 months, less than a tenth of Australia’s number one telco.

The post Amobee seals mobile ads partnership with SingTel, Globe, Telkomsel, and Optus appeared first on SGE.

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India tops traffic on Quora. Displaces US.

QnA service Quora has gained immense popularity among Indians and we earlier reported that Indians were driving 25% of traffic to the site. But things have changed now and if you go by Alexa*, Indians are actually driving 30% traffic and has displaced US from the number 1 slot.

Quora : India Traffic

So why are Indians so damn active on Quora?

Of all the other reasons we shared earlier (read : Why are Indians so active on Quora?), one of the major reason is Quora’s popularity among 2 rising segment : Entrepreneurs and College students (read: GMAT aspirants). And ofourse, the gyaan gurus who are willing to share all their childhood stories to jungle treks to anonymous tip-offs [hint: (ego) boost is the secret of my energy!].

For Entrepreneurs, Quora serves as a LinkedIn++, i.e. an amazing way to learn from Silicon valley entrepreneurs and find right industry connects, which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.

Quora’s biggest strength lies in the fact that it has managed to go beyond the startup space and has people answering questions related to different walks of life – Mahabharata to India-Pakistan currency, which have always been a topic of wider interest.

And of course, integration with Twitter and Facebook has obviously added to the overall discovery, as Indians are quite a heavy users of these social networks.

*Ofcourse, Alexa is gamed and you can’t trust it – but given the lack of a better (global) benchmarking alternative, Alexa definitely does a good job of understanding relative ranking.

What’s your take on popularity of Quora among Indians? Is that a reflection of the amount of ‘free time’ we have at hand?

Report: All about India Online Opportunity :  What world’s 3rd largest Internet population is like

Recommended Read : Sad but true, Indian brands do not want to be called Indian.

Related posts:

1. Why are Indians so active on Quora?
2. Twitter’s ‘Terrific’ Traffic Growth in India – Follows Hockey Stick Curve
3. Social Networking in India – Milestone @2009 [Traffic Numbers]

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Line App to Hit Nokia Asha Phones in March, Keen to Chat Up Emerging Markets

Japan-made messaging app Line is keen to chat up users in emerging markets by launching a version of its app for the budget Nokia Asha phones next month. NHN Japan says today that it’s “exciting news for all you Nokia fans” and highlights that this move is aimed at recruiting new Line users in Southeast Asia especially, such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Cambodia.

The announcement from the Line team today, as noticed by TheNextWeb, reassures Nokia Asha users that four types of sticker sets will come free with the app, and the Asha version will also include one-to-one voice chats. Line is already available on (the old) BlackBerry OS, giving it access to nations like Indonesia and helping the messaging app to fight against the iconic BBM service.

Line has over 100 million users so far, and is up against rivals old and new, from Whatsapp to WeChat. Indeed, both those have been available on Nokia’s Symbian platform for some time, so Line is playing catch-up.

Nearly 59 percent of Line’s users are overseas, and it has already been doing well in markets like Thailand and Taiwan (over 10 million in each) thanks to the iPhone and Android apps.

The Line app for Asha phones seems to have come about due to a specific deal with Nokia, though it’s not clear what are the terms of the agreement. A few months ago, Nokia revealed that Indonesia is its second-largest market in Asia.

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The Lean And Kaizen Movement In Vietnam

If you don’t know lean and agile, you probably don’t work in a hip tech company. They’re two of the biggest trends in software development today and some consider them to be essential to entrepreneurship success. But I want to know: why are they so important?

I sat down with Christoph Kruppa to find out more about what lean and agile really means, and the small lean and agile community growing in Ho Chi Minh city. Especially, because they’ve got a big Lean Mindset and Kaizen Camp event next week.

For those not in the know, Lean is a management style that emphasizes efficiency and reduced resources. Agile is the set of practices of Lean in software development. And Kaizen is the philosophy in Japan that was the progenitor of lean.

Lately, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, which is considered to be the manifesto the lean startup movement, has been translated into Vietnamese. Most Vietnamese entrepreneurs have read his book or want to.

Basically, lean and agile are about putting products into the hands of customers as soon as possible so that the product and development team can iterate and improve on it as fast as possible.

What is the state of Lean and Agile in Vietnam?

With roughly 200 scrum masters (a key position in software teams that pushes forward the process of agile) across Vietnam, over 700 members in our community and a handful of large and small companies using lean management and agile development like VNG, Gloops, Gameloft, Playsoft, and East Agile. I’d say it’s been growing a lot in the two years since we started. New companies are embracing it as important to increasing their productivity and cutting costs.

Chris and his colleagues Alex Rosales and Tri Nhan Vu have organized 22 Agile Monthly events (numbering 30 to 80 people) since 2012 and bigger events like Agile Forum (with over 150 people) in Ho Chi Minh city where they invited foreign speakers to come coach and hold workshops for the community on best practices.

The Ho Chi Minh city team also syncs with an organizing team in Hanoi to bring in speakers and events.

Next week, Mary and Tom Poppendieck, who pioneered lean software development, and Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry, who are pioneers of Kanban, a system to manage production, are coming to Ho Chi Minh city to run the Lean Mindset Workshop and Kaizen Camp Gathering. This will be a big opportunity for folks in software, healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries that want to update their management practices.

To get an idea of what the course will be like, check out the Lean Startup course at South by Southwest on Udemy, which features excellent talks from Eric Ries and Mary Poppendieck, and excellent startups like Etsy and Airbnb.

Full Disclosure: I’ve taken the Udemy course, and it rocks. I’m convinced Lean and Agile are the basics for doing excellent entrepreneurship and is a significant movement that will send out ripples across the world in helping teams build products that fit relevant markets and improve very fast.

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The Lean And Kaizen Movement In Vietnam

If you don’t know lean and agile, you probably don’t work in a hip tech company. They’re two of the biggest trends in software development today and some consider them to be essential to entrepreneurship success. But I want to know: why are they so important?

I sat down with Christoph Kruppa to find out more about what lean and agile really means, and the small lean and agile community growing in Ho Chi Minh city. Especially, because they’ve got a big Lean Mindset and Kaizen Camp event next week.

For those not in the know, Lean is a management style that emphasizes efficiency and reduced resources. Agile is the set of practices of Lean in software development. And Kaizen is the philosophy in Japan that was the progenitor of lean.

Lately, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, which is considered to be the manifesto the lean startup movement, has been translated into Vietnamese. Most Vietnamese entrepreneurs have read his book or want to.

Basically, lean and agile are about putting products into the hands of customers as soon as possible so that the product and development team can iterate and improve on it as fast as possible.

What is the state of Lean and Agile in Vietnam?

With roughly 200 scrum masters (a key position in software teams that pushes forward the process of agile) across Vietnam, over 700 members in our community and a handful of large and small companies using lean management and agile development like VNG, Gloops, Gameloft, Playsoft, and East Agile. I’d say it’s been growing a lot in the two years since we started. New companies are embracing it as important to increasing their productivity and cutting costs.

Chris and his colleagues Alex Rosales and Tri Nhan Vu have organized 22 Agile Monthly events (numbering 30 to 80 people) since 2012 and bigger events like Agile Forum (with over 150 people) in Ho Chi Minh city where they invited foreign speakers to come coach and hold workshops for the community on best practices.

The Ho Chi Minh city team also syncs with an organizing team in Hanoi to bring in speakers and events.

Next week, Mary and Tom Poppendieck, who pioneered lean software development, and Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry, who are pioneers of Kanban, a system to manage production, are coming to Ho Chi Minh city to run the Lean Mindset Workshop and Kaizen Camp Gathering. This will be a big opportunity for folks in software, healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries that want to update their management practices.

To get an idea of what the course will be like, check out the Lean Startup course at South by Southwest on Udemy, which features excellent talks from Eric Ries and Mary Poppendieck, and excellent startups like Etsy and Airbnb.

Full Disclosure: I’ve taken the Udemy course, and it rocks. I’m convinced Lean and Agile are the basics for doing excellent entrepreneurship and is a significant movement that will send out ripples across the world in helping teams build products that fit relevant markets and improve very fast.

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