Comment Tweet Share Share Digg

Blackberry Goes Sour

The week started off with some negative news for BlackBerry maker, Research In Motion (RIM) as the UAE and Saudi both proclaimed a ban on BlackBerry mobile phones citing security concerns. It didn’t end there as Indian security agencies, long concerned with the same issue, stepped up the heat on RIM BlackBerry’s popular push email and instant messaging service for its users in India.

RIM’s stand is not entirely clear as there are unconfirmed reports floating about suggesting the Canadian phone maker will succumb to the Indian Government’s pressure to avoid facing a ban similar to the ones being faced by BlackBerry in the Middle East. On the other hand, RIM has vehemently denied it is able to give governments a “back door” into customer data streams, but if it were to find a way, it would be a big compromise to the privacy concerns of over a million Indian customers.

RIM has officially denied reports which suggest the company has given access to the Indian government. “We won’t compromise on the security architecture of our corporate e-mails,” said RIM’s India spokesman, Satchit Gayakwad. “We respect the requirements of regulatory bodies in terms of security, but we also look at the customer’s need for privacy.”

RIM says it has made it clear to union government that it does not have technology to set up a monitoring mechanism, but the Indian government is purportedly still lobbying for RIM to set up servers in the country to allow seamless, mobile access to time-sensitive information through email, phone, text messages and the Internet.

Ericsson Adamant

In a similar crisis within Indian telecom, Swedish telecom vendor, Ericsson has also been adamant in refusing to share source code with the Indian government. Ericsson reasoned that any proprietary information is a valuable asset to the company which cannot be compromised at any cost. The Indian government had earlier issued guidelines and amendments to telecom vendors demanding sharing of their source codes.

GetJar Bolsters BOLT with 70K free apps

App Store service provider GetJar and software firm Bitstream, the owner of mobile browser BOLT, have teamed up to jointly offer BOLT users access to GetJar’s vast application library of over 70,000 free mobile applications.

The partnership with GetJar is likely to give BOLT wider exposure and access to open applications covering multiple platforms and devices like Java ME, BlackBerry OS, and Symbian.

Bitstream expects millions of users to switch over to BOLT, allowing them to download thousands of free applications. Currently in India, most smartphone users use Opera mini, with BOLT having yet to attract much popularity.

Virgin offers music virginity to Indian youth

Virgin Mobile in India has come up with a value added service (VAS) offering called ‘Music Unlimited’ which will allow users to download 150,000 songs for free. The songs will be mostly in various Indian languages. The free music content is expected to grab a good share of the CDMA market, especially in terms of attracting the Indian youth.

Airtel – The lone Indian player contribute to submarine cable system

In a lonely representation from Indian telecom, Bharti Airtel, along with15 other global telcos announced the launch of a $263 million, 10,000 km submarine cable system dubbed EASSy which will connect East Africa with the rest of the world. Among the other big global names in the cable’s construction are British Telecom, Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, MTN International Group and Telkom South Africa.

The system has a capacity of 1.4 tera bites per second. Airtel spokesperson said the system is expected to create a robust undersea cable infrastructure for its largest customer-base.

Major Indian video game makers eye mobile games

Major video game developers in India such as UTV Indiagames, Hungama, Ibibo, JumpGames and Nazara are now eyeing 3G, citing it to be the potentially biggest factor in popularizing mobile gaming in India.

Without divulging too much information about upcoming games themselves, most Indian game makers say they are well into the development phase of next generation mobile games, many based on massive multiplayer models.

Multi-player gaming has gained popularity in social media but has yet to hit the mobile gaming segment. But with India’s 3G launch just around the corner, Indian developers are betting big.

The mobile gaming market in India has been projected to grow more than 200 million by 2013.