New Blog URL - TechBiz Research

Hi All,

At last, I took a serious decision to promote my blog and my knowledge of technology and business behind it.

There was lot of confusion and thought which went in this process. At last, I considered the seriousness to promote my knowledge for technology and using it, I will try to create some research papers and articles which will be useful to the users to gain insight about the new trends and innovation.

Hopefully my articles will keep you updated with telecom trends, mobility solutions and technological advancements.

Share Knowledge, You will gain much more....

TechBiz Research

Hardik Upadhyay

3G Spectrum Auction in India - Current Status

India is supposed to be the booming telecom market all over the world.

Facts about telecom industry in India:

• India has around 490 million mobile subscribers by the end of November 2009.
• India has mobile penetration of around 40%
• Rural penetration is around 32%
• 12 mobile service providers are existing and around 4 more in line to launch their service.
• Competitive pricing strategy is compelling TSP to generate more innovative ways to create revenue
• ARPU for the companies is reducing drastically.

All these figures are just a glimpse. But the main fun will be when one of the most awaited technology will be launched in India.

3G (Third Generation of Mobile Communication)

When the world was welcoming 3G, India was struggling to implement fully functional 2.5G in India.

Now it has been a situation that the American and European market is almost saturated for 3G implementation but still, India is trying hard to launch its 3G service.

Government Stance:

Government decided to do auction of 3G much before but the process is "still" under review.

Facts:

• Initially Govt decided to auction 3G spectrum on May 2009.
• Later it got postponed to Sep 2009. Many of the service providers gathered money and were geared up for the auction.
• But government later changed its decision and decided to do the bidding program on 7th Dec 2009. And as expected, government changed its mood and postponed to Jan 14, 2010.
• Now the current news is that the auction is still delayed to mid of Feb or Mar 2010.

So what this is all about?

Government is giving reason that defense is not releasing spectrum on time. Also they are saying that now there will be only 3 private players who will get 3G after auction. This will heavily impact the business strategy of the companies who are betting big time on 3G.

People have kept lot of hopes on the competitive pricing of 3G too. Now if the government delays the auction, it will generate a vicious chain of events which will create lot of problem for many players.

Group getting affected by delay in 3G auction:

· Telecom Service Providers who have invested a lot on 3G infrastructure.

· Equipment Vendors like Alcatel Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks and Juniper networks.

· Indian Telecom Department who are waiting for proper revenue from 3G auction.

But all this will take place only when Government takes proper steps to auction 3G.

Hopefully the auction will be ending by March end and the companies will be launching services by the end of October 2010.

Keep reading my blog for latest news of 3G telecom auction in Indian market.

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Hardik

SquareUP -- Days of PayPal Numbered?

It was a great news today when I opened my google reader. I found that the co-founder of Twitter has started a new company known as "Square UP"

Square UP:

This is a startup which is dealing with a mobile payment system. You can connect a payment device through your iPhone Audio jack and can swipe any credit card.

This will fetch all the details of the payee and the payee can pay the amount he wish to pay to he person.

You can see more details about this in the website.

Why this will become a SUCCESS?

This product is going to become a successful model due to the following reasons.

• Tie Up with Mastercard, Visa and other banks.
• Easy to use
• Faster transaction with instant alerts
• Very compact feature

Other Interesting Information

There are few interesting facts about this too like

• The project is funded by Khosla Ventures - Vinod Khosla headed company who was founder of SUN microsystems.
• Khosla ventures has funded around $10 million which is not a small amount for a startup.
• It is headed by Co-Founder of twitter.
• The overall funding for this project is around $15 Million.
  

Now the industry is expecting a very positive results out of this.

This company will pose a direct threat to PayPal which has dominated the payment market from a long time.

The only way to see the outcome is just wait and see the movement of the startup.

I will keep you posted regarding this.


To get more information you can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/hardikupadhyay

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Hardik Upadhyay

Chrom'OS'omes - Total Insight

There is a lot of buzz now a days especially last week when Google launched its so much awaited operating system "Google Chrome OS".

I read a lot of stuff about it and found out lot of information. I will not share the features of OS but I will tell you the real expert reviews and my analysis based on it.

First of all I would like to ask you one question.

Are you ready for Cloud Computing?

This is a very simple question to a segment of people who are technology freak and knows much about in and out of techno scenario. They will answer that they will see to it. But if you ask the general public which consists of lot of group of people who use computer for fun will readily agree to it. Some people who quantify the data as privacy thing will surely disagree to the whole concept of google OS.

How I will justify success?

If you ask me to justify success of the OS I will give you the simple example of Gen Y segment market.

Take this group and if we focus on their internet habits, we will find out following things.

• People want a cheap computer for their "Internet Usage".
• They want a super fast computer system. (Chrome OS get booted up in 7 Seconds).
• They want to share docs online, listen music online, watch movies online, play games online.
• Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are their integral parts and their daily routine.
• They want to call friends with the help of Cheap VoIP calling like Skype and Google Voice.

So if you consider just 5 points which I mentioned and then compare the features of Google Chrome OS why would I not go for a cheap rugged and user friendly Google Chrome OS rather than bulky and sluggish Windows or Mac.

Google - Focusing in the Future:

If you see the future we can find out following things:

• Super Fast Internet - Around 10 Mbps around the world.
  
• With the advent of 3G and 4G in mobile, the speed of mobile broadband is also likely to increase.
• Location should not be a constraint
• Data availability - Anytime - Anywhere.

All this things boil down to only one thing. It is targeting the segment of market which is totally fresh and untapped.

For more updates keep reading my blog.

Nokia Sues Apple - Planned Move???

Hi,

Yesterday - Oct 22 2009, Nokia came into limelight by sueing Apple for patent infringement for almost 10 technologies which Nokia claims to have invested 40 million Euro and have taken 20 years to develop it.

Weak Quarter Results Behind this??? Cream Pie for Apple by posting Profit-->
Nokia had a bad weekend by posting a weak results. This was a shock for the Wall Street Analyst and even to the Nokia company. This problem created lot of steer around the way, nokia worked. Nokia has posted a loss which they claim to have come due to weak sales of smartphone and less consumer demand. They had project the profit by wrong calculation.

At the same time, apple posted a strong profit due to increase in sales of iPhone and Mac. Also the iPod Touch had shown increased sales. Now all this created stir around the Nokia. They wanted to get something out of their bitter competitor in smartphone market segment.

Why Nokia waited so long??

Apple launched iPhone in 2007. Nokia knew every move of apple. They were in close watch of Apple's market movement. So one of the most important question which can come to anybody's mind is that "Why Nokia has waited so long for this lawsuit?"

The simple answer to this question is that nokia had two things in mind.

• First was that they were not sure about the apple iPhone's success. Nokia has faced lot of threats from many companies in the past. They thought that the product will not click in the smartphone market.
• Second thought which come to my mind is that they were waiting for the strong proof and solid ground work to file against Apple.

This may be a small issue now but I am sure that Nokia has done enough ground work before filing against giant company like Apple. They know all the pro and cons of this whole fiasco.

Who will be winner??

As far as the history says, Apple knows the technology and has enough substance to prove their INNOVATIVE technology but at the same time, we cant even ignore the Black horse NOKIA which is trying harder to make their presence felt in this market.

Lets see what will be there in the future for this two giant companies.

For more information, you can mail me or follow me on twitter.

Hardik

Back - After a LONG vacation!!

Hi Friends,

I went on a long vacation. Rather I should say that I went in an artificial hibernation. But all this things are the matter of the past. Now I am back and rejuvenated. I will be updating my blog regularly.

I have lot of updates to share with you. Lot of things happened. Lot of you might have read about that in one or the other tech news but I will give insight on few of the news which caught my attention.

Also there will be change in the way I am updating my blog. I will be focussed on few of the topics and will give you insight from my side.

If you want any things to be improved on my blog, you are free to tell me or mail me or comment on the blog. Your suggestions will be surely given a valid thought process.

Keep updated in the tech world. Will give you new updates in the coming days...

Keep Reading...

Hardik

Wikipedia - Then And Now!!

Social Media Business Model Change:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, got its three millionth article in English tonight. The family of sites as a whole has more than 13 million articles in more than 260 languages, not counting discussion pages and other errata. Wikipedia's millionth article was about a train station and the two millionth was on a Spanish TV show. This one is a biography of a Norwegian actress and director named Beate Eriksen. True to form you can also find bios of Eriksen in about half-a-dozen other languages, and the article is changing rapidly due to all the attention. Sponsor

Figuring it Out:

The pace at which edits to the site roll by is pretty blinding, so the exact article was determined via a bot written by a Wikipedia editor.

The announcement comes just before the annual Wikimania conference, which is an international gathering of contributors to all the Wikimedia Foundation projects. Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository that's a sister project to Wikipedia, is also expected to have its 5 millionth image or video uploaded before the end of the month. Another recent development is the beta release of a new skin for Wikipedia, one which is the first complete usability overhaul for the site in years. For a taste of Wikipedia's future look, either log in on the site or check out our screenshot below of the 3 millionth article.

Is Deletion on the Docket?

The biography may be the first legitimate article to be called the 3 millionth, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way. The article in question has no special status, and could be deleted like any other if it doesn't comply with the site's standards for inclusion. If it is deleted, then it looks like an article entitled Portuguese Fireplace would default to the 3 millionth article. The one page created just after Eriksen's biography wouldn't really count, since it's simply a redirect to one of the site's many disambiguation pages.

Get it Straight: Wikipedia isn't Dying
In the past month there's been a media narrative floating about that Wikipedia is in decline. Nearly all of the articles have referenced research by scientists at PARC's (as in Xerox Parc) Augmented Social Cognition group.

The studies by PARC are some of the best scientific analysis of Wikipedia's community ever done, but it's led to some rather sensationalist conclusions by media outlets. PARC's models for Wikipedia's growth and community are ones shared by some within Wikipedia's community, but neither contingent is openly saying that the site is on its last legs. As this milestone demonstrates, a changing community doesn't spell imminent doom for Wikipedia.

Change in Business Model:

Wikipedia came up with the concept of color coding. It will be concept where the user edit article will be given color based on their expertise on the subject and the valid content in the article.


Wikipedia tightens editing rules and hence restricting user to edit all the articles especially the one which is related to the living people.

But still,

People are paying big time and are using wiki as their prime source of information.

Confusing Facts – But made me think for a while. –Article by expert.

I was saying all this in support of the Wikipedia survival but still, I came up at one article which has a set of solid reasons that why Wikipedia will fail in the near future if they don’t change their strategy from the core.

My Personal Views:

Wikipedia should leave its own business model and should try to figure out some other ways to survive in this competitive market.

May be its time to embrace the age old internet site revenue source – ADVERTISEMENT!!!

Copyright © Hardik Upadhyay

You can follow me on TWITTER

JSK

Cyberattack - Learn From Mistakes!!

Cyberattacks – Not a new word in the recent time I guess. At least not to the people who are constantly living life online.

This word has created an impact on our life and has changed the way the concept of computing works.

History:

I remember very properly in the past, before around 12 years, virus was the new name in the internet industry. It was getting its form and developing very fast. There were few simple viruses which just created bad sectors in our floppy drives or overflow the ram buffer making the system to restart after some point of time.

Today:

Now the scenario has changed. We are in the next generation in which there are very beautifully designed cyber attacks and people are spending their day and night designing best in market bots and Trojans.

The virus definition has changed to such an extent that there are incident of hacking the whole network and creating cyber army. Wow. This is what no one would have thought in the past. They created something; someone else uses their brain to make something best out of it.

Today, I would like to focus on one of the recent incident of deadly cybercrime –> Attack on twitter and facebook.

News behind attack:

Facebook and twitter got attacked and hacked.

Denial of service attack!!!

Now what is the impact and what is this DOS all about?
Who did this, why and what was the result of this whole fiasco.
I will give you some insight about this issue.

6th Aug 2009, Lot of people woke up in the morning and as usual, instead of reading newspaper or seeing news, they started with twitter. But to their surprise, the page was not getting loaded. Now the problem was they were not able to get ”REAL TIME INFORMATION” as the only source was not responding.
Later after few hours, they came to know that Twitter was attacked. By thousand of requests which made the whole server to crash.

Why?

According to comScore, Twitter had 20.1 million unique visitors in the United States in June, some 34 times the 593,000 a year earlier. This compares with Facebook's 77 million this June, more than double the 37.4 million in the prior year.


Target?

Twitter crashed because of a denial-of-service attack, in which hackers command scores of computers toward a single site at the same time to prevent legitimate traffic from getting through. The attack was targeted at a blogger who goes by "Cyxymu" — Cyrillic spelling of Sukhumi, a city in the breakaway territory of Abkhazia in Georgia — on several Web sites, including Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal.

But they could have just as well targeted Twitter itself. That's because the effects were the same whether the excess traffic went to the "twitter.com" home page or to the page for Cyxymu at "twitter.com/cyxymu." Same with Facebook and LiveJournal.

Results:

The outage that knocked Twitter offline for hours was traced to an attack on a lone blogger in the former Soviet republic of Georgia — but the collateral damage that left millions around the world tweetless showed just how much havoc an isolated cyberdispute can cause.

"It told us how quickly many people really took Twitter into their hearts," Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, said Friday.
Tens of millions of people have come to rely on social media to express their innermost thoughts and to keep up with world news and celebrity gossip.

Twitter "is one of those little amusements that infiltrated the mass behavior in some significant ways, so that when it went away, a lot of people really noticed it and missed it."
The attacks Thursday also slowed down Facebook and caused problems for the online diary site LiveJournal. But Twitter, the 140-character-or-less messaging site used by celebrities, businesses and even Iranian protesters, suffered a total outage that lasted several hours.
Those attacks continued Friday from thousands of computers pummeling its servers, said Kazuhiro Gomi, chief technology officer for NTT America Enterprise Hosting Services, which hosts Twitter's service.


Reviews:

"A denial of service attack like this one is a very blunt instrument," said Ray Dickenson, chief technology officer at Authentium, a computer security firm. It's as if a viewer who didn't like one show on a television channel decided to "knock out the whole station."
Or like fishing with dynamite: You'll catch something, but the blast will kill dolphins, sharks and other organisms, too.

Just who was behind these attacks is not yet clear, but the dispute was probably related to the ongoing political conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Gomi said the attacking computers were located around the world and the source of the attacks was not known.

The attacks seemed to come in two waves. The first was a spam campaign consisting of e-mails with links back to posts by Cyxymu. This drove some traffic to the blogger's postings on various social-networking sites, possibly to disparage him as the source of the spam.
The second and more destructive phase consisted of the denial-of-service attack, which attacked the sites' servers by sending it lots of junk requests — presumably to prevent people from reading his viewpoints.

It would have been much harder for the perpetrators of the attacks to isolate Cyxymu's accounts on each social-networking site and shut it down. To do that, they would have needed to access his password by guessing it or somehow luring him into giving it out.
The blunt approach was easier — and more damaging.
On Friday, the surge of traffic to Twitter was about as it was Thursday — as much as 20 percent above normal traffic levels. But Gomi said NTT was better able to filter out the fake traffic, which is why Twitter stayed online.

Security Analyst said Twitter was more vulnerable than Facebook and other sites because the company's servers are hosted by a single service provider, something larger Web sites tend to avoid as they grow.

Although having several providers is no guarantee of avoiding harm, Dickenson said doing so at least gives the sites more tools and space to work with once they occur.
Craig Labovitz, chief scientist for Arbor Networks, a Chelmsford, Mass.-based network security firm, said Twitter's smaller size also made it more vulnerable. "Twitter is just apples and oranges compared to Facebook," he said. "Facebook is massive, and they presumably have massive infrastructure backing it." After the attacks on Twitter started, NTT turned on a technology that protects against denial of service attacks. The problem is it slows down access to the site.
"It's still under attack," he said. "If we turned that stuff off, the Twitter site could go down immediately, to be quite honest."

The Twitter outage was widely blogged, reported and — once the site was back — tweeted about, but was it really that bad? Or a mere hiccup of the information age?

For people like Lev Ekster, who uses Twitter to keep in touch with customers of his mobile cupcake truck in New York, the outage proved no more than an inconvenience. His event planner, who normally arranges cupcake orders for birthdays and bar mitzvahs, fielded phone calls all day from customers wanting to know the truck's location for the day.
"A temporary outage is not the end of the world," Ekster said. "But if this kept happening, people like me who rely on twitter will be in serious problem.”

The cyberattacks against Georgia a year ago were conducted in close connection with Russian criminal gangs, and the attackers likely were tipped off about Russia's intent to invade the country, according to a new technical analysis, much of which remains secret.

Aftermath:

I guess they should understand from their past mistakes and should be well prepared against future attacks. People have the knowledge and power, use it to get yourself protected against future cyber attacks.

Copyright © Hardik Upadhyay

You can follow me on TWITTER

JSK