Vodafone Launches Kirusa’s Voice SMS; Some Thoughts On Voice SMS

Vodafone has announced the launch of its Voice SMS service in 16 circles with Kirusa. What’s interesting from a marketing point of view, is that Airtel has been promoting its Voice SMS service, powered by Bubble Motion for a few weeks now, and Vodafone will be able to take advantage of that buzz now. What we’re not sure of, is whether Vodafone is deploying the Voice SMS service in one shot, or like Airtel, has been deploying the service circle by circle. Airtel first began deploying Bubble Talk in 2006, in Goa and Maharashtra.

Both companies have priced the service at Rs. 0.75 per minute, and it is available to both Prepaid and Postpaid subscribers. Details of how Vodafones service works:

– Does not require any special handsets, or handset settings
– Vodafone subscribers have to dial* and the mobile number of the person for sending the message.
– If the recipient is a Vodafone subscriber, he will receive a text SMS notification and can dial *0* to hear the Voice SMS.
– Old Voice SMS can be retrieved by dialing *1*.
– Users can replying, forwarding, saving or deleting the Voice SMS messages.
– Subscribers not on the Vodafone network will get a text SMS notification with an embedded DirectListen number

An issue for Airtel: Twice in the last 30 minutes, I’ve been unable to send a voice SMS since “All lines are currently busy”. Looks like they don’t have enough capacity for the service.

Some thoughts on Voice SMS (more…)

IMI Mobile Acquires Music Distributor DX3 For Entering The European Market

Is the content aggregation and distribution the most vulnerable space in the Digital Content Business?

Hyderabad based Mobile VAS co IMI Mobile has bought London based digital music distibutor dx3, reports ContentSutra. Dx3 provides legal digital downloads, and in 2004-05, added a mobile content delivery component as well. The company will serve as a gateway to the European market. DX3 will be renamed IMI. A couple of months ago VR Vishwanath, Chairman and CEO of IMI Mobile had told MediaNama that the deal size is around $10 million, but we wonder if it’s been revised downwards given recent trends. Neither the report nor the press release mention the size of the deal or the percentage acquired, some reports suggest it’s a 100% acquisition. We’ll confirm and update.  

Content or Marketing?

Well, both. dx3 has a content marketing platform, which can be used to deliver promotional premium content that is free to users. IMI Mobile appears to be more keen on dx3 for marketing services.  According to Vishwanath, this gives them the opportunity for media campaigns on both Internet and Mobile, given dx3 strength in the web domain. Frankly, apart from the clients and distribution network that dx3 will bring to the table, we’re not sure of what else there is to this deal. 

DX3 distributes music for clients like EMI, MTV, Universal, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, and has tie-ups with Virgin Mobile, Smash Hits, Sony Ericsson, among others. 

This appears to be a backwards integration for IMI Mobile - which is more of a platform service provider. As DX3 CEO Anu Shah put it - “It’s very difficult for pure digital music providers to make money in the space“. Aggregators and distributors get squeezed from both sides - by operators and music labels, and this is essentially a means of combining revenue share which was earlier divided between content aggregator and platform service provider.

This appears to be an acquisition that is similar to Motorola’s acquisition of Soundbuzz, though Soundbuzz had branded services as well, not just a white labeled solution. In the past year, we’ve seen other significant moves in this space - when Nokia entered the content services space with Ovi, and OnMobile inked content deals in South India.

So…Is the content aggregation and distribution the most vulnerable space in the Digital Content Business?

At IAMAI DE08: Should Content Be Made Separately For The Mobile?

Should content be made separately for the mobile, and separately for the television? A hint of a disagreement between Manoj Dawane, CEO of Mauj, and Viren Popli, SVP & Head of Mobile Entertainment for STAR. Popli said that no one today is producing content for Internet or mobile - they’re producing content for the cinema screen and the Interent is just getting leftovers. “We do the numbers, in terms of downloads, but how much money do we make? We don’t want to make content specific for this space, because we won’t make the money back.” Dawane, however, was of the opinion that content is not made for a medium, but for human beings. People who make content for celluloid may be experts in their medium, but they don’t produce content for the medium.

My take is that content consumption patterns of different media are different - you may sit and read an article in a newspaper, but you more likely to skim it on the Internet. You may choose to watch a clip on the mobile, while you may be patient enough to view a 30 minute show on TV. The attention spans vary according to the medium, and while compelling content on one medium can be compelling on any - the form, the camera angles and approach to the content needs to vary. For the Internet and Mobile space, you may prefer to cut to the chase - to follow the Inverted Pyramid approach, unlike more traditional forms of media.

More comments from the Mobile Entertainment panel at the IAMAI Digital Entertainment Conference, including comments on 3G:
(more…)

BSNL Eyes Overseas Acquisitions; Why Not MTNL First?

Public Sector telecom operator BSNL is eying overseas acqusitions in Africa and the Middle East reports PTI. BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal told reporters that the company is open to acqusitions, and we’re wondering why a meger hasn’t yet taken place between BSNL and MTNL.

It’s a strange situation with the public sector telecom operators - BSNL operates throughout the country, except in the high tele-density cities of Delhi and Mumbai, which is where MTNL operates. Neither is going to encroach on the others area of operation. Perhaps a part of the problem is the valuation - MTNL is listed on the Indian bourses while BSNL is not - and another is employee issues - MTNL employees may not be open to a takeover. Nevertheless, there has been talk of a BSNL-MTNL merger for many years now.

BSNL has also been eying an IPO - a move which was opposed by the employee unions - but the government may have also deferred the listing due to the turmoil in the global markets. BSNL was eying a $10 Billion IPO, the largest ever in India. Goyal has said that the BSNL board has approved the divestment of 10% stake, and it is now the governments decision. But don’t hold your breath - my guess is that the IPO won’t take place till the next elections are out of the way.

Related:

– Pre-IPO, BSNL Gets Spectrum, Waivers; To Manufacture Handsets, Modems; Unions Stalling IPO
– BSNL Gets Go-Ahead For $10 Bn IPO; $100 Bn Valuation?

Satyam Buys Motorola’s Malaysian Software Development Center

Well, Motorola’s been in a lot of trouble, and were earlier reported to be in talks with Videocon for selling their handsets business. It appears that the company has sold its sofware development center in Cyberjaya to Satyam. The Kuala Lumpur based center has 128 employees, and will strengthen Satyam’s capabilities to cater to Network Equipment Providers and telecom operators, according to Nishith Mathur, head of Satyam’s Technology Infrastructure business unit.

The center was part of Motorola’s $2.4 billion Home and Networks Mobility business, which produces digital entertainment devices for HD/DVR and IPTV. This sale is a part of a restructuring at Motorola, wherein the business is also being split into broadband home solutions, broadband access solutions and cellular networks.

The deal should be completed by December 31st, after which, Motorola will contract Satyam for development services for its network management software. The US based handset manufacturer had reported a 15 percent decline in sales for Q3, and net loss of $397 million (pdf).

Bharti Telesoft To Provide VAS Services To MTN

More of an infrastructure deal, this: Bharti Telesoft (BTSL) has tied up, interestingly, with a company that its sister concern was wooing: CIOL reports that BTSL will provide deploy SMSC, MMSC and WAP Gateway for all 21 of MTNs companies. MTN is among the largest mobile operators, and it appears that Indian companies are looking more and more towards Africa - OnMobile Global is using language development capabilities from Telisma to help it get entry into various markets - and claims to have already got a significant win in Africa; Telisma has developed language capabilities for 4 languages.

South Africa based MTN, which was in talks for mergers/acquisition with both Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel in India, had over 74.1 million subscribers as of June 30, 2008. On its part, BTSL has had operations in Africa since 2002: do read about the context of their African foray here.

Listed in South Africa, the MTN Group is a multinational telecommunications group, reaching more than 500 million people and with more than 74.1 million subscribers as of June 30, 2008 across its operations.

Rediff.com To Invest In Mobile Apps Co Eterno Infotech

Update: An official press release from Rediff confirms that the company has taken a minority stake in Eterno Infotech.

Original story (Nov 7th): Perhaps inadvertently, but responding to our question in Rediff.com’s investment plans in the coming months, given that they’re sitting on $49 million cash, Rediff.com CEO Ajit Balakrishnan inadvertently let out that they’re in talks with Bangalore based Eterno Infotech for an investment. Eterno makes mobile applications, and has powered MobileRediff, a mobile application that the company announced a few days ago. Balakrishnan said that mobile companies of interest to them, and “Eterno is building applications for media companies that provide news services on the mobile.”

Eterno’s founders, Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni are both ex-Nokia employees, and Kulkarni was previously the head of the software development team at Nokia’s Bangalore development center. The two had previously founded co-founded Curis Networks in 1999, which was acquired by Amber Networks, which in turn was acquired by Nokia in 2001.

Among Eterno’s products are local language tools for the mobile: a mobile transliteration application called IndiSMS, which is akin to Quillpad, an online transliteration tool in which Rediff has also invested; IndiServer is an Indic language bulk SMS server.

Other products include IndiMMS, an MMS application, and a “Music Companion” which allows users to browse music on the mobile, and download music, ringtones and MP3 songs. This also fits in with Rediff’s mobile ringtone search service. Their customers includes mobile operators like Airtel, Idea and Hutch, as well Nokia, Handango and CNET

Rediff.com has also invested in a Twitter like service with a mobile component, called Vakow, apart from Quillpad, mentioned earlier.