Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Revolution has Touched Everyone

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Revolution has delivered on its promise.  While our expectations on what it can do are still very high, I believe we have achieved a lot already. Communication revolution has given IT a platform to make life easier for almost every Indian who can be reached via road, rail, on foot or by the mobile network.  I share some of the use cases and associated stories with you, as in my opinion, they provide a vivid picture of how IT and Communication has changed our lives for the better.

1.       Travel and Ticketing - Most visible benefit of computerization that common man saw in late eighties was “Computerized Railway Ticket”.  With charts displayed prior to boarding the train and real time status of railway reservation, in one stroke, it took away the opportunity of rent seeking behavior. Millions of Indians, who travel daily on Railways, not only saw the benefits, but also became the champions of IT in India. That, to my mind, is the single most driver of IT adoption in India. 

2.       Travel and Ticketing - Internet ticket by Railways is also nothing short of a revolution. A local Internet Café accepts payment in cash and delivers me a ticket without the need to approach the local railway station. Savings in cost of travel to the station and back, no time taken to travel and easy access to railway information, all benefits have been delivered with the convergence of IT and communication.

3.       Real time Communication - 20 years ago, an Aunt of mine was coming to visit us. She lost her way and we learned that she had left her residence a long time ago and by all means, should have reached us by that time. Yet, there was no sign of her.  We imagined that she had probably lost her way.  We went in several directions to look for her. An hour long search and we could locate her, safe yet tired.  Just imagine the scenario today, she carries a mobile phone. We can reach her anytime and she will probably never get lost.

4.       Location Services - A similar incident like the one before. A few years ago, while traveling by train, I woke up with a start. My train was expected to reach by destination at 4am in the morning. It was already 3.40 am and I did not know how much time we had. I switched on my Blackberry and checked my location on Google Maps. We were just 2 Km away from the destination.  The train was running ahead of time. I knew we had to rush and get ready before the station arrived. Google map and easy access to mobile network on a train route helped me find the exact location and prepare me.

5.       New Customers for Small Businesses - Until a few years, for any problem with electric fittings or plumbing requirement, I will visit an Electrical or Sanitary/Hardware shop. I will wait for an electrician or the plumber and leave a message for him to visit us.  A number of follow up visits later he will arrive and do the necessary job. Today, every electrician, plumber or even a domestic maid, carries a mobile phone. They are reachable immediately and confirm their availability.  Everyone has benefited in the process. Of course, except the Electrical or Sanitary/Hardware shop owner, who has lost the cut he used to get.

6.       Mobile Payments - A construction worker was due to receive his wages from the contractor. However, he asked the contractor to keep the wages in his safe custody as he was afraid of losing the money since he had no regular place to stay and risk of thefts. A month later, when he wanted to go back to his native place, contractor made him run around for getting the accumulated wages. With no place for safe keeping, he was at the contractor’s mercy. That has suddenly changed with Money Transfer on the mobile phone. He can now transfer money back home without waiting for his next visit.

I am sure all of us have experienced something similar in our lives. ICT has touched everyone. With new innovations, our expectations are also soaring high.

·         Touch and speech are two new interaction elements which are making IT more accessible to every individual.  Touch phone is more intuitive and so, is speech. Siri is a great beginning in this direction. Speech recognition as a technology holds great promise and with a commercial value attached to quality, I am confident it will soon improve to serve the masses.

·         Another promising initiative is Aadhar. That shall help the common man in opening Bank accounts by providing an identity proof required to access services.  Will banking correspondents make up for absence of banking branches? That remains to be seen.

·         Will remote healthcare delivery graduate from being pilots/experiments and scale up to District or State level delivery models? Healthcare workers cannot replace the expertise of a doctor, yet they can at least provide timely help for the patients.

ICT is a force multiplier, yet it is not sufficient to improve the living standards of the common man.  Without roads, it is hard to make services accessible in the hinterlands. Without drinking water and access to healthcare, progress will remain limited. Physical infrastructure is a must for progress.

iPhone5 does not Wow

iPhone5 is thinner, bigger, faster and has more battery life. There are more apps, Facebook is more deeply integrated and Siri has been enhanced further.  The wave of innovation that started with new magical touch interface and apps that led to phenomenal usage on iPhone, is now abating.  Siri which promised another round of innovation with its voice interface and deep integration with existing apps on the device, has not yet made the same impact as Touch interface did. iPhone5 is almost guaranteed to be the best selling iPhone ever and most selling smartphone. The question is “is that enough”. As a customer, it does not matter - I still get the best product albiet at a high price.  As an investor, I care about long term growth and profitability, while share price moves to near term sales potential.

Apple needs to keep the innovation engine rolling, for margins to stay at current levels. The big challenge facing Apple is the open source, Android and copy cat apps on Android. To protect and preserve long term growth and margins, we may see more instances of legal suits between Apple and Android vendors. That said; it is very hard to control the onslaught of free and open source.  

·         Governments and large companies don’t prefer getting locked in to a proprietary and closed system like iOS. We saw a brief upsurge in Linux as Governments and Government owned institutions backed Linux.

·         However, unlike Linux, Android has the support of application developers and device manufacturers.  

·         Android is already dominating traffic across the emerging countries.  World is more web centric than it was a decade ago.

Can Apple innovate fast enough to maintain a strong lead over competition? iPhone5 disappoints on this metric. If Apple fails again, price competition will soon destroy Apple’s margins or worse, Apple may lose market share.

Native App vs Wrapper on HTML5 site

Games need great interactivity, rich images, speed and performance, which only a client app can provide. Flash based games over the web also work, for non serious gamers. In general, serious gaming needs app on the client device.

On the other hand, for a content site which serves content basis the search context, personalized recommendations and user profile, client app provides little advantage. News requires retrieval in real time,and freshness and relevance of content is important.  Yet a client app has several benefits, it can be customized to device specific user interface, has access to local storage or caching of content items, and can access mobile device hardware/apps for alerts and notifications, that can help in engaging with users on more regular basis.

Local storage and caching with browser based cookies may not help if the data size for caching is large or users regularly clear out browser cache for privacy and security considerations. However, if a powerful browser exists and has access to some of the unique interaction elements on the device, a browser based HTML site may match the native app in user experience.

A combination of app and HTML5 site is also possible where the app reserves the content area for server based content that is pulled in runtime and rendered using the installed browser on the device. It saves costly maintenance across platforms and yet benefits from the rights available to the client app.

What are the risks with this approach? I welcome your comments.

iPhone 3Gs Makes a Late Entry

Indian telecom service providers don't subsidise IPhone, with fickle Indian consumer merrily switching between service providers and using multiple SIMs at the same time.  Number of subscribers in Delhi now exceeds its population and Samsung is aggressively advertising its dual-SIM phone.

Last week, both Airtel and Vodafone launched iPhone 3Gs in India - months after global launch and few months ahead of new version from Apple.  That made me wonder if Apple is on the right track in its India strategy. IPhone is no where close to a cult phone in India and Samsung, LG and Nokia are pushing their touch-phones at significantly lower price points.  Apple probably needs to rethink its India strategy.  Otherwise it may be the case of too little too late.  Market skimming strategy works only if there is a large segment of early adopters.  Besides that Apple needs to add India focused free downloadable content - Ringtones, caller tunes, themes, local language songs.  How about a content partnership with IPL and bollywood?  Following Google (YouTube tie up with IPL) is not bad if its good for business. Pre-install of Google Maps, Gmail/Rediff/Hotmail/Yahoo mail will help along with support for dual-SIM and extended battery life.

Side note - For a change, Apple is advertising Macs. I saw two full page ads in national newspaper - though only in the magazine section and that too in the end. Compare this with 1 minute prime time TV ad slots used by HP when it launched "HP Vectra" in India in the late 80s.  Long way to go.  The main hindrance is of course, price, distribution and support - at Rs 56,990, Mac is almost 2.5 times more expensive than a PC.