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Dish TV, Tata Sky and now Big TV: Consumer satellite-based direct-to-home t
2008-02-18 14:53:00
Just couple of years back India did not have a single household with Satellite television connection. Consumer s had to be satisfied with arbitrarily-laid-poor-signal terrestrial cable connections to watch their favorite TV shows. Not anymore- In last 2 years itself more than 8,00,000 (Eight lakh) subscribers have opted for satellite-based direct-to-home (DTH) services. The financial muscle of the two operators - Dish TV and Tata Sky - the Zee and Tata groups, respectively, has resulted in aggressive marketing and advertising blitz - Shah Rukh Khan is Dish’s brand ambassador - tipping the scales. Now, Reliance ADAG’s Big TV all set for March-2008 launch. They have already opened it up for Reliance employees and their families. Reliance ADA Group’s Big TV is reportedly slated to commercially go on air in late March 2008, though some Reliance employees are already using the service. The channel claims to have 86 channels on air right now, with 64 expected to come on b...
More About: Home , Direct

After People?s car, India gives world ultra-cheap mobile phones !
2008-02-15 11:48:00
India showed the world that Rupee 1 lakh car is very much possible and now Indian mobile company SPICE has showcased a mobile handset, sans screen display for as less as Rupees 500. Although, the price point is not fixed the mobile phone should cost some where between $10 to $20 (Rs. 390 to Rs. 780). Last year Reliance had launched its ultra cheap classic mobile phones with a price point starting at Rs. 777
More About: Business , India , Mobile , People , World

Will Reliance Communications acquire Capgemini to become India?s largest IT
2008-02-15 09:47:00
Anil Ambani is firing all cylinders in the quest to become India 's largest group (and Richest Indian), the coveted place currently held by his elder brother Mukesh. Close to the heels of Reliance Power - a $2.8 billion mammoth IPO, Anil has already announced his intentions of going public with his entertainment division. Now another big news has started making rounds. Anil Ambani run Reliance Communications is in talks with up-for-grabs French IT consulting firm Capgemini. Times Online reports: Capgemini, the French IT services group, has held early-stage talks with Reliance Communications, of India, that could result in the first acquisition of a significant Western IT house by one of India's fast-growing competitors. Reliance Communication's interest confirms Mr Ambani?s hopes to build a significant IT business. A move on Capgemini would give it access to a client base in continental Europe and catapult it among the world's top ten IT groups by market share. ...
More About: Business , Investment , Trends

Indian office space rentals are getting expensive?really really expensive!
2008-02-14 21:54:00
The real estate prices have soared in India over last 3-4 years. In some areas like Pune and Hyderabad, they have more than tripled and it is expected to rise even further. Not only outright purchases, even the rentals are touching the skies. In a recent study done by Cushman & Wakefield - Office space across the world 2008 - India scored very highly with 3 Indian locations ranking in top ten most expensive office spaces in the world. Mumbai CBD (Nariman Point) came in at 5th, Mumbai's Worli area coming at 7th and New Delhi CBD (Connaught Place) coming at 10th.
More About: Space , Growth

What the hell is wrong with Indian Markets?
2008-02-14 09:01:00
Last 2-3 weeks have seen Indian stock markets fall more than 25% on back of negative global cues and news of US in midst of recession. I have been trying to find reasons for this fall- and I am unable to find any! One of the main reasons that everybody seems to be pointing is the US recession, but if anything this recession will only help India more than anything else. I will come to that in a bit. Consider this: Our Political system moderately stable, we have the best people in right seats - PM and FM - both being right wing and pro open trade leaders, highly evident from the policies they have announced during their tenure. Sectors like automotive, telecommunication, retail, services, real estate and aviation are growing at scorching speeds. Indian companies are consistently giving positive guidance about their growth. Not only are they growing in India, but globally by way of mergers and acquisitions. The GDP growth still remains around 8.5 to 9% - one of the highest in the w...
More About: Markets , Hell , Wrong

Indians adopting Online billing and payment in big numbers
2008-02-13 15:58:00
Online bill payment is not new to India . Infact, I remember ICICI Bank offering online bill paying facility way back in 2000-2001. However, not many used the facility back then. It is only in last 2-3 years that online payments have caught up in India, given the rapid growth (If I can call it) of Internet. Living in US for 5 years, there was hardly an instance when I actually made a payment via cheque or cash - be it utility bills, newspaper bills, insurance premiums or even a co-pay to the doctor. 99% of the payment were done online. India now seems to be rapidly catching up to this phenomenon. Not only are individuals more inclined on paying bills online, even the companies presenting the bills are pushing netizens by giving more importance to e-billing.
More About: Indians , Indian , Online , Numbers

Doing Business in India - Intellectual Property Rights - Part 4
2008-02-13 05:23:00
Here is the last (4th) part of a 4 part article written by Sumeet Kachwaha of Kachwaha & Partners giving legal perspective of things if you plan on doing business in India . This aims to be an easy to read, yet comprehensive overview of legal issues involved in doing business in India. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS Indian courts vigorously protect intellectual property rights (IPRs). Following the GATT Agreement India has made its IPR laws TRIPS compliant. In this Chapter, we deal with the three major IPR laws viz. Trademarks, Copyrights and Patents. TRADEMARKS: Registration of a trademark is not mandatory as the law also recognizes and enforces the Common Law right of passing off. However for passing off, the plaintiff has to establish its reputation in relation to the mark and the fact that the offending mark is likely to confuse the public. On the other hand once the mark is registered it automatically confers on the proprietor an exclusive right to use the same in relation...
More About: Business , Property , Rights , Intellectual

Doing Business in India - Company Incorporation - Part 3
2008-02-12 15:12:00
Here is the 3rd part of a 4 part article written by Sumeet Kachwaha of Kachwaha & Part ners giving legal perspective of things if you plan on doing business in India . This aims to be an easy to read, yet comprehensive overview of legal issues involved in doing business in India. CORPORATIONS The law of corporations in India is governed by the Companies Act, 1956. Broadly, there are two types of companies ? Public Limited Companies and Private Limited Companies. While Public Limited Companies describe themselves merely as "Limited Companies", Private Limited Companies are obliged to indicate clearly the fact that they are a Private Company by adding after their name "Pvt. Ltd."
More About: Business , Doing business

Doing Business in India - Investment & Trade - Part 2
2008-02-12 14:58:00
Here is the 2nd part of a 4 part article written by Sumeet Kachwaha of Kachwaha & Partners giving legal perspective of things if you plan on doing business in India . This aims to be an easy to read, yet comprehensive overview of legal issues involved in doing business in India. INVESTMENT AND TRADE The India story changed dramatically from 1991 when Government announced its new industrial policy, basically de-licensing industry and introducing fiscal and regulatory reforms. This vastly encouraged foreign investment. The cumulative Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from 1991 to 2007 has exceeded US$ 54,628 million (in 2006 ? 2007, alone it was US$ 15,726 million - a 184% increase from the previous year).
More About: Business , Trade , Doing business

Doing Business in India - The Legal Environment - Part 1
2008-02-12 14:08:00
Did you know that it takes 35 days to start a business in India ? and India ranks a lowly 134th in the world when it comes to ease of starting a business. And 35 days is a time in ideal circumstances. Here is the 1st part of a 4 part article written by Sumeet Kachwaha of Kachwaha & Partners giving legal perspective of things if you plan on doing business in India. This aims to be an easy to read, yet comprehensive overview of legal issues involved in doing business in India.
More About: Business , Environment , Legal , Doing business

Microsoft unveils next generation contextual advertising delivery through s
2008-02-11 15:07:00
Microsoft is leaving no stones unturned to increase its currently miniscule market share in lucrative online advertising space. It recently unveiled new contextual analysis and ad targeting solutions for online video content at the fourth annual adLabs Demo Fest at Microsoft’s headquarters. The Contextual Ads for Video offering uses speech recognition technology to translate the audio from online clips into text, which can then be matched to deliver targeted ads to the users. The algorithm used by Microsoft can differentiate between speakers (in the video) and even their conversations, parse the context of what’s being said, and use that data to deliver highly contextual ads to the users. Even though speech recognition technology has been around for years, it has never really taken off. Even the most sophisticated softwares have not been able to completely decipher the accents and tones of spoken english used throughout the world. Considering this, we will have to w...
More About: Microsoft , Advertising , Generation , Delivery

How India Earns, Spends and Saves
2008-02-07 17:55:00
India's economy is growing at fast pace, so are the earnings of Indians . A single visit to a Mall or superstore will give you a glimpse of amount of money Indians have in their pockets. But are Indian's just spending or are they saving something? I came across and interesting survey jointly conducted by Max New York Life and National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) - 'How India Earns, Spends and Saves' - that throws some light on what Indians are doing with their money. Here are some of the highlights of the survey
More About: India , Income

Want to know what others are searching on the web?
2008-02-07 09:51:00
Are you interested in knowing what others are searching on the Google? or what the current hot topic of search is? Thanks to Google trends you can now find out what your peers in India are searching on the web, that too on hourly basis. Google unveiled two new India centric services - Google trends and Google Hot Trends. What's on our collective mind as we search for information? What's interesting to people right now? Hot Trends will tell you. At a glance, you'll see the huge variety of topics capturing our attention, from current events to sports to political issues to the latest Bollywood gossip. Hot Trends aren't the search terms people look for most often; those are pretty predictable, like [weather] or [games]. Instead, the Hot Trends algorithm analyzes millions of searches to find those that show an unusual and fairly sudden increase in popularity. The outcome is the Hot Trends list. Hot Trends is updated throughout the day, so check back often.
More About: Searching

Trak.in January Round-up
2008-02-05 12:15:00
January has been a good month for trak.in blog in terms of traffic. Infact, it registered highest traffic since Trak.in started back in May 2007. I am actually surprised at the growth in traffic given that I have been posting less frequently off-late. Even though the traffic has increased, subscriber growth seems to have slowed down adding around 75 subscribers for the month of January.
More About: Round Up , January , Round

India now a global hub for Television commercial production
2008-02-04 08:12:00
I have mentioned this earlier - I love creativity of India n advertisements. They are not only fun to watch, they also create a lasting impression on viewers mind.I have seen numerous television ads in US and UK, but very few ads seem to capture viewer’s attention. Even during the game day (American Super Bowl Finals), ...
More About: Television , Commercial , Global , Production

Internet Down
2008-02-01 06:00:00
As most of you may know that since Thursday more than 60% of Internet bandwidth in India has snapped due to damage in under-sea cables. I did not have Internet for last couple of days, but today it seems to have come up, but with terrible speeds. It could take up to a week before Internet connectivity returns to normal. During this time, Trak.in may see less number of posts (depending on Internet connection).
More About: Blogging

Indian Stock Market Manipulation ? A Myth or a reality?
2008-01-30 18:21:00
The Indian stock markets crashed on Monday and Tuesday resulting in a blood bath of sorts on Dalal Street with investors losing crores of Rupees. The reasons for the crash can be attributed to global factors such as the sub-prime crisis, coupled with large offerings in the primary market and a feeling that a correction on the market was long overdue. However a less known and less spoken fact about the market is the rampant manipulation of stock prices.
More About: Reality , Stock Market , Market , Investment

Four Indians in Forbes top 10 wealthiest CEO?s list
2008-01-29 18:54:00
Indian's are making their presence felt everywhere, be it business or sports. Never before in the history have Indian's attracted so much of global attention. Just yesterday, Forbes magazine listed as many as 14 Indians in its 'Midas 100 List' of those who invested in start-up companies and then sell off their stakes with handsome gains. Today Forbes released another coveted list "World's top 10 wealthiest CEOs" - Guess what, 4 Indian's figure in it.
More About: India , Indian , Top 10 List

Indian netizens world?s third biggest online shoppers?What nonsense !
2008-01-28 18:30:00
ET headline screams "Indian netizens world's third biggest online shoppers" When I read that headline, I was quite surprised. The instant question came to my mind was, how can a country with such miniscule Internet penetration have world's third biggest online shoppers? No way ! To my surprise ET completely misdirected the readers with that headline. The reality is that out of the total Indians that have shopped online most of them have used credit cards for purpose of online transactions - 84% to be precise, which is third highest in the world percentage wise Here are some of the interesting and real findings from the Nielsen survey:
More About: Business , World , Blogging , Nonsense

Popular Marlboro Brand to be manufactured, sold in India
2008-01-28 16:23:00
Even today Marlboro packets are available with most paanwallahs in India , but most of it is imported from other countries increasing the cost due to import levies. Another problem is that there is high amount of duplication that takes place. Ask any Marlboro smoker and he will tell you that original Marlboro is available only at selected places. However, Marlboro smokers will very soon be able to enjoy their favourite brand without cost and duplication worries. US tobacco giant Philip Morris International is in talks with its Indian joint-venture partner Godfrey Philips India to manufacture and sell its Marlboro cigarette brand.
More About: Popular , Smoking , Brand , Sold

Online Photo Printing and Sharing in India: A Comparative Analysis
2008-01-25 16:26:00
Online Photo printing space is quite crowded in India with more than 8 players in fray. In US, online printing has a sizeable market that is expected to touch $1 billion by 2011 (Currently at $500 million). However, in India online photo printing market is still at a nascent stage. If Internet numbers show significant improvement, this market is also set to explode. Even though online photo printing has not caught up with the masses yet, quite a few Indian startups have already launched to get into the game early. Here are the startups offering online printing and sharing services in India.
More About: Analysis , Photo Printing , Online

More than 90% of Indian CEO?s confident about growth prospects in India
2008-01-24 13:03:00
Notwithstanding the shocking fall of India n Stock markets, top Indian CEO's are predominantly quite confident about their company's future in next 12 months. According to the CEO survey done by consulting firm PriceWaterouseCoopers, Indian CEO's are most confident about the growth prospects followed by Chinese. More than 90% of Indian and 73% of Chinese CEOs thought very positively about their growth prospects. However, their US and UK counterparts seemed to be low on confidence.
More About: Business , Indians , Growth

HungryZone.com: A foodie?s delight
2008-01-24 12:25:00
If you are foodie like me, you would love HungryZone. It is a place where foodie's can get together, write reviews and find out the best places to go out dining. HungryZone is the national version of popular Bangalore-centric HungryBangalore. They have currently launched in 9 other cities and plan to replicate the success of HungryBangalore through other Indian cities. Currently only Bangalore has wide range of features like online meal ordering, reserving tables and booking of tiffin service. All other cities are currently limited to Restaurant listing and reviews. However, I am sure all these features will be added to other cities as well.
More About: Delight

iMobizo: Mobile content distribution application from Mobio and Indiatimes
2008-01-23 19:03:00
Mobile content distribution is taking off in a big way in India , thanks to explosive growth in Indian mobile subscribers. The sheer number of Indian startups that have come up in last few months in this space is a testimony of its growth. The latest to join the bandwagon is a venture between Global software company Mobio and Indiatimes. They announced the launch of mobile value added service application -- iMobizo -- that will enable users to get information on their mobile phones.
More About: Business , Mobile , Distribution , Content

Bloodbath in Indian Stock Markets
2008-01-22 13:49:00
Monday saw biggest fall in the history of Indian stock market. The fall was so unexpected and harsh, investors just could not digest it. In Mumbai, a huge number of ambulances were pressed into service between brokers? offices and nearby hospitals to reach persons complaining of chest pain or uneasiness. Doctors in hospitals across the city were hard-pressed to examine the increasing number of patients being brought in with chest complaints and related illnesses. The ICUs of almost all city hospitals were full. ECG machines in several hospitals reported to have failed as the volatile signals were too high to measure. According to unconfirmed reports, hospitals have placed orders for large number of new equipment to meet the massive demand. Fire fighters had a tough time in various parts of the city trying to bring down people from the terraces of high-rise buildings as they threatened to jump to their death having lost all their savings to the market crash. Stock s like RNRL, I...
More About: Markets , Bloodbath , Stock markets

Brand Building is definitely an exercise
2008-01-22 12:35:00
Brand Building over the new media is just an emphasis or a new route to the traditional media which means ?Give customers what they want?. The business means the same today, as it was yesterday. However with the rising trends like Competition, Globalization and Virtualization, the options to reach consumers are broadened. The simple steps to build a brand are to fulfil the requirement of the end users, relentless attention to make such brands and the third step that follows the two which is consumers become part of the marketing and sales force (Word of Mouth). Engaging customers in a way that value deliverance is the embedded keyword behind your core strategy is a concern, however leveraging customers' value acceptance is given more priority
More About: Business , Exercise , Trends , Doing business

Yahoo?s new Ad solution targets user behaviour, hopes to increase click thr
2008-01-21 16:12:00
Now, I feel this is a serious threat to user's privacy. Even though the Yahoo ! officials have assured that they follow strict privacy policy, a normal user will be quite uncomfortable knowing that everything he/ she does is tracked and stored ! I am okay with search words stored anonymously, but here Yahoo! not only tracks activities, but stores it as a user profile. Even Google stores searches done, however, user has the facility to stop storing these results. Also, I am not sure if google keeps the track of which user has searched for what ! Even with all this, I fail to understand how Yahoo! will know what banner ads user has clicked (unless they are Yahoo's own ads ) and which microsites they have visited.
More About: India , Hopes , Traffic , Click

proto.in : A haven for Indian Entrepreneurs
2008-01-21 14:52:00
Presenting your startup to investors in under 6 minutes is harder that one would imagine. A startup about which you have so much to speak about and you get just 6 minutes to make an impression, it is a very very difficult task. The mentoring session was all about letting the startups know what to present and how to present it (in under 6 minutes). One of the main problems that we (startups) faced was while we were in the mentoring sessions, there were some great talks on technology and business tracks. Speakers like Samir Sood (M&A head, Google), Atul Chitnis (GeoDesic), Laura Perkin (NEN) and Suroji Niyogi (Appizer) gave some very informative and interesting presentations.
More About: Indian , Blogging , Entrepreneurs , Haven , Proto

hover.in shortlisted for Proto.in startup showcase
2008-01-16 12:02:00
I am excited to announce that hover.in, a startup of which I am co-founder has been shortlisted for proto.in startup showcase. It is one of the 17 companies of nearly 80 registrations received for Proto .in startup showcase. It is indeed a privilege to be part of this "elite" group.
More About: Startup , Showcase , Hove

Yen Expo - IPEF 2008: India?s first private equity fair for upcoming busine
2008-01-14 12:16:00
IPEF 2008 offers a great platform for businesses to shorten the fund-raising process by giving a chance to connect and network with over 200 investment professionals. Once you are selected (they have a selection criteria) for India Private Equity Fair 2008, they will help you prepare the business plan to meet international standards and help create an investor presentation. They will also advise on the amount of funding you should target, a valuation range to expect, and the structuring and terms of the investment. IPEF 2008 will shortlist and showcase 25 companies. A committee comprising of senior investment bankers and principals of PE funds appointed by Yen Expo will select 25 companies based on pre-defined selection criteria.
More About: Business , Investment