News Aggregator Application Entry into India -Indian News Application Publisher shooting itself

The growth of Android and iOS mobile operating system based Smartphone coupled with high speed network attracted many players. One of them are news centric companies in order to grab more market share & reaching out to millions. It bypassed their previous limitation of global, regional or local level based on their dominance.

At the same time, the open source Android ecosystem and higher agility offering to user through mobility device forced many established player's to reduce their reliance on print segment and started adopting the mobile centric offering of news.

The dynamically Android provisioning mechanism of news feeds to user received very good reception by end user and the adoption of news applications were flooded in the market place. Many leading newspaper captured existing and new user which in-turned acted as inventory to promote third party application or generate advertisement revenue as the time spent by an active user is at higher end of the ecosystem.

The higher monetization potential in the news segment attracted many players who struggled to monetization of their application even after having 2 to 3 Mn DAU (Daily Active User) base.

In the absence of monetization & Stickiness, most of the companies reached out to blogger community to news paper application providers to get their feeds so that non performing application on the monetization part start generating revenue whereas News Applications provider thought that they will get the traffic and offered their feeds to news aggregator applications provider or third party applications provider with different content.

I want to remind News Application providers that they have spent Multibillion $ to acquire user and what was the need of that if at the end they decided to give their news feed to others. Why user will keep 10 apps of new but will prefer to have aggregator one.

In my point of view, its shooting on your feet All the best to such News Companies offering feeds to 3rd party.

Blackberry Android Compatible BBM Launch Delayed Indefinitely – Missed Opportunity

Blackberry announced few months back that flagship popular BBM (Blackberry Messenger) would be available across Android and IOS. The vision was to extend and expand BBM service huge popularity. Post two disastrous years of missed guidance and committed delivery, the news got front page of media. Many analyst predicted the move as fantastic one to keep the viability of BB10 OS and attract application developer towards closed environment mobile OS. Google Play observed many versions of BBM and forced BBRY to pull potential launch. Many device manufacturers across different geographies rushed to announce their intention to launch integrated BBM with their potential upcoming devices. The user excitement around BBM indicated one clear message that secure messaging offering may attract millions of Android and iOS mobile OS based device users. It would offer BBRY huge opportunity to offer developer single platform to connect with potential customer base of applications or content buyers. At the same time, BBM platform attached advertisement flash would also offer major brand quick visibility compared to other application. The indefinite pull out of launch may turn out to be final misstep to keep their viability. I am confident that potential buyers must have observed user positive response around BBM or was it management move to analyse hidden diamond with BBRY.

Mobile Internet Ad Revenue – Another Revenue Spinning Machine for Google and Facebook

Google successful endeavour to take on Symbian and Blackberry with its open Android Mobile OS is showing new revenue trend. Post pioneering and dominating search engine market, Google attracted many partner in its attempt to redefine mobility landscape. The open Android environment and strong developer community helped Google to tag in its other assets such as Adsense for Mobile to enable advertiser reach out to mobility user in more effective manner with higher conversion rate probability for its advertisers. According to eMarketer report, For FY12,Google captured 52.36% of total market size of $8.8. The growth probability filled market share came at 5.35%. According to report, FB is expected to quadruple its Net Mobile Internet Revenue to more than $2Bn in FY 13 and Google revenue may reach to$ 8.85 Bn. Report indicates that Google acquisition and product positioning worked whereas Microsoft failed in that segment. During early phase of Android environment launched, Analysts had their reservation around it and tireless effort of Google and its partner enabled Android ecosystem as second mechanism to Mobile Internet Ad platform. It would be interesting to observe next move by Yahoo- Microsoft combo.

Google Premium Smartphone Moto X Launch – Focusing on US Market

Google is expected to launch its first Moto series smartphone post-closing Motorola acquisition. Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside commented that Google is going to focus on premium smartphone market by offering innovative features such as sensor and contextual pattern analysis cum delivery. Google is planning to launch multiple Moto branded Smartphones in next 6 months to capture niche premium segment. The new Texas based manufacturing facilities which is going to generate more than 2000 jobs in US will be assembling Moto series of Smartphone. It would be interesting to see the cascading impact on Google Android platform major supporter Samsung who is struggling to maintain the same level of growth post slow S4 adoption momentum. Being the central magnet of Android ecosystem, any misstep by Google on pushing MotoX w.r.t other partner’s branded Smartphone may create cracks. One may expect huge advertisement push by Google anyway. Google strategy to create hugely successful OS ecosystem and at the same time using innovation to differentiate itself from others is remarkable.

Rise in Android Malicious Applications – Impact and Opportunity

According to Juniper Mobile, 92% of all malware applications are designed with Android environment and 500 plus 3d party Android Application store are used to bypass any uneven pattern by hackers. Juniper Mobile Threat Centre analysed more than 1.85 million sampled applications covering all major mobile OS during FY12 and identified 275K plus malicious Applications and 3 out of 5 such applications are originating from either China or Russia. The YoY malicious application growth is more than 155% and 92% of identified malicious application was targeted towards Android Platform. The unmatched growth attached with Android Mobile OS attracted hacker to cash in on ongoing adoption trend. There are multiple mechanism hacker can attract user to download applications and subsequently steal or redirect all activity information of user. Juniper also claimed that 77% of the designed malware turned into viral malware due to non updation of mobile OS version. The report indirect indication is clear. Many Application stores failed to implement stringent security tools, process, content contextual pattern related features to identify unavailable signature based malware. User must be getting an alert by the applications store to update device OS to mitigate any upcoming unwarranted threat. It also indicate lack of integrated mechanism to support remote user management to send across forced update to user by Apps store. All of us talk about BYOD, Remote configuration and confirmation management but in reality many service provider failed to integrate must have components of analytical and security management tools to safeguard their customers. It is not far away when Smartphone would be used by Hackers to launch DDoS attack to bring down communication medium. On the opportunity side, with the growing adoption of Tablet and Smartphone as computing device to execute professional activities, server defined mirror security platform may get quick traction.

Samsung Seamless Shift from OS dependent to OS Agnostic Smartphone Player – Differentiating Proposition

In Feb 2013, Samsung announced to move out of home grown BADA smartphone OS and collaborated with Intel to develop Linux based Tizen OS. The move was quite surprising as BADA was gaining in smartphone OS segment. Samsung redirected most of the BADA resources to support Tizen OS and demonstrated the glimpse of Tizen OS. The move clearly indicated that Samsung strategic move to focus on growth of Android OS and not to pose any threat to Android through BADA. Any tactical move to increase BADA OS penetration was accessed as shifting slight focus from Android to BADA. The moving out of home grown BADA OS also perceived positively by Android developers and showed Samsung commitment towards Android. Interestingly, Samsung also positioned its WM8.0 OS supported devices and marked its presence in the Windows Mobile OS segment. Even though, Samsung is releasing less number of WM 8.0 devices compared to Android but showed its support for another OS. Now they collaborated with Intel for Tizen and also getting support from few large device manufacturers. Tizen OS is fully compatibles with HTML 5 and also helping BADA ecosystem players to port their applications to system as per the Tizen specifications. Samsung tactical strategy is to be in the central of not all but most of the mobile operating system ecosystem to get clear picture of happening in other mobile operating system segment. By supporting mobile operating system they are also creating opportunities for their chipset and storage business segment. It enables them to identify the gap and way around of the gap to be truly innovative device manufacturer. Samsung learnt from Nokia about the impact of owning mobile operating system rather than supporting it to win over Industry support. Nokia closed ownership environment and dominance on any proposed changes in Symbian offered opportunity platter to Google to garner support from industry Mobile ecosystem players. By venturing into Android, WM8.0 and Tizen; Samsung also communicated to mobile operating system segment that they are least dependent on any of the mobile operating system and capable of shifting gears from one to another mobile operating system based on the change in consumer and prosumer usage pattern.

Google Struggling to Settle Anti-Competition Case Filed with EU Regulators

The EU Anticompetitive regulators move to quiz mobile operators and device manufacturers to validate Microsoft and Nokia claim about Google attempt to supress rival Internet search technology. Three years old complaint by Microsoft and Nokia accused Google for offering lucrative deal to Industry ecosystem players to use Android and in-turned blocked competitor mobile telephony and used it dominant position in Mobile OS to divert traffic to Google search. EU regulators released list of queries for involved parties to review the viability of complaint in order to take next step. Google already offered options of labelling search results with its own product and also enabling links to competing sites. It would be interesting to see, how investigation shapes up as it will be long term impact on mobile operating system ecosystem and Internet Industry dynamics.

Sony and LG helped Android Mobile OS to capture 92.8% market share in Spain

Spain is one of hardest hit by financial meltdown, high unemployment running in high double digits. To handle financial crisis, government launched stringent austerity program to control fiscal deficit, win over International investors for their government bonds and Potential bailout package from EU. The economic environment change impacted mobile subscriber usage pattern. On analysing Comtech data, subscriber are looking for Sub $150 - $200 range smartphone and the changed pattern helped Android mobile OS for smartphone to cross 90% market share level. The contributors of higher Android Mobile OS turned out to be Sony and LG. Sony and LG captured 19% and 17% of the total market share driven by Sony Xperia and LG Optimus series models. The biggest loser of market shares are all high end brand and the reason are well explained in the start of post. It is great to see that other smartphone makers on Android markers are tuned themselves to mark their strong presence. It’s an achievement for Android OS, Product, Platform and Application providers. The number clearly indicate that its not impossible to be 90% market share player in very competitive domain