State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

BW has an article on how “Nokia Aims to Be No. 1 on the Mobile Web”. Well, so does Apple, Google and to some extent Blackberry. Microsoft is out of the race. It will be interesting to see the numbers after one year. Let the race begin.

Nokia will sell nearly half a billion handsets this year—50 times the number of iPhones Apple hopes to sell. The Finnish company already is well entrenched in the chaotic streets of Lagos, the rice paddies along the Ganges, and in factories and schools from São Paulo to Shanghai. Its phones are ubiquitous in areas where people have never heard of Apple.

Last year, Nokia posted a prototype of Sports Tracker, a free application for runners and other athletes that uses a GPS phone to record their training. A million people downloaded the program, which quickly morphed into a way for users to create online diaries and share photos of their whereabouts. Nokia rebranded the program as viNe for athletes and others, underscoring how the mobile Web is evolving more by user creativity than corporate decree.

G1 was introduced officially in the US today and it made headlines everywhere. Some cool features are shown below. It will be available through T-Mobile next month. For $179 (and 2-year contract) it is a sweet deal. As I said before this year has been great for smart phone consumers with more choices than ever. Blackberry touch phone is next in line. A more hands-on review of G1 will come soon.

Gadget blogs and Wall Street Journal report that T-Mobile USA plans to begin selling the first smart phone powered by Google’s new mobile software late next month. This means direct competition with Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry with a device that “blends aspects of both”. Very interesting!

The phone is made by HTC, which is also launching an array of glossy windows mobile based touch phones. Pricing is a secret but rumors abound that it will be $200 with contract and $400 otherwise. Here are a few excerpts from WSJ.

While some wireless companies working with Google’s Android mobile software have hit delays, the T-Mobile phone is coming out on schedule. Backers are optimistic Android-based handsets can take sales from rivals.

The phone’s manufacturer, HTC Corp., forecasts sales that are rosier than analysts’ estimates. HTC says it expects to ship 600,000 to 700,000 units of the smart phone, dubbed the Dream, this year, a person close to the situation said Monday. The target exceeds analysts’ estimates of 300,000 to 500,000.

Anticipation around the phone — the first based on Android — has been mounting for months, and the companies face pressure to impress. The Federal Communications Commission granted authorization for the HTC Dream, which enables T-Mobile to market it, last month.

While the phone is targeted at the same sort of technology-savvy consumers who have been buying iPhones, it has a very different look and feel. It is expected to be heavier than the iPhone, according to people familiar with it, and it is likely to have a large touch screen, a swivel-out full keyboard and a BlackBerry-style trackball to help with navigation.

T-Mobile USA is introducing the high-profile device as it begins to upgrade its network nationwide to support third-generation broadband services. Google hopes that hundreds of phone models will be built around Android, giving the company another way to deliver advertisements and drive revenue.

The mobile application market got a boost from Android Market announcement today. Apple has already created a great marketplace with its iPhone App Store and Google wants to catch up. I like what I read:

Developers will be able to make their content available on an open service hosted by Google that features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube. We chose the term “market” rather than “store” because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available. Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it. We also intend to provide developers with a useful dashboard and analytics to help drive their business and ultimately improve their offerings.

I love this apple vs microsoft vs google race because it will be great for consumers and developers. Finally the phone companies get what they deserve.

If you are an android developer and want to discuss some of your app ideas, feel free to reach out to me.