Why compare, ape or even try to 'kill' iPhone?

The Apple iPhone and now, the iPhone 3G, has caught everyone's imagination. You come across reports such as top alternatives to the iPhone. Or, about companies launching new mobile phones and those inadvertently getting compared to the Apple iPhone! Or even, reports of how newer mobile phones could 'kill' the iPhone!

Quite hilarious and nothing new here! It has happened quite a few times in the past!

Nothing will "kill" the Apple iPhone, and at least, not so fast! Nor is any iPhone killer anywhere close in sight!!

Public memory is indeed short!!

Quite a few years back, Apple launched the very colorful iMacs! All of a sudden, there was a slew of similar PCs with color or 'color monitor covers'. Back then, Apple had rewritten the rules of the PC industry in some manner, besides re-invigorating the Apple brand itself.

Next came the iPod, and later, colorful iPods. It led to a surge in media players, MP3/MP4 players, etc., from other several players as well. Not to speak of the iPod giving birth to a whole new range of Mac accessories! The iPod continues to be in the news, and successfully so!

A similar thing has happened this time!

With the advent of the iPhone, and now iPhone 3G, we sometimes see reports of how the iPhone could influence the memory market! Or, how the impact of Apple's iPhone 3G has been minimal on the chip market. Or, how it's just one item in a very large and complex mix of products.

Or, how the Apple Safari works so very well on the iPhone. Or, how the Accelerometer allows viewing pictures in any way you wish. Or, how you can do wireless social networking! Or, how the mobile OS battle has heated up! Or, how the App Store has so many wonderful applications for the iPhone!

Has creativity gone out of the window?

My question is: Who has stopped the others from doing things differently? No one!

Public memory is indeed short! So many were quick to run down the Apple Newton, which was clearly ahead of its time. However, it led to the advent of a host of PDAs, though many may disagree with me on this thought, and so be it.

The first mistake that people commit are either comparing their products or the phone they buy with the iPhone! Why are you even comparing?

Apple has been very creative, so why is that so difficult to accept? Try and do better than Apple, if possible.

Perhaps, it would be better to concentrate on developing newer and better phones and other devices with even better features, rather than either comparing with or aping the iPhone, or even trying to beat it or 'kill it'! Where's the need?

Remember that Nokia phone model with changeable covers in 2000? Or, the Sony Ericssion T68? Likewise, each product is unique, has its deserved place in the sun, and also has its own shelf life.

The iPhone is a wonderful benchmark, for now. Do remember that the mobile phone design bar has constantly and consistently been raised.

Am sure, it would be no different this time!

No one told you that should NOT buy any other mobile phone. Did Apple ask you to buy the iPhone? It's your choice! I don't even have one!!

Alongside, we are also seeing a whole range of mobile phones, which are said to be good alternatives to the iPhone! Maybe they are.

Till then, Apple and iPhone deserve their place in the sun, make no mistake! Isn't everyone trying to "ride" the iPhone wave anyway? That's proof of life!

India is Xilinx's most active region for design activity!

Xilinx has been a global leader in programmable logic solutions with over 51 percent market share during 2007, according to iSuppli. PLDs represent an exciting growth potential in the chip market thanks to their flexible nature and ability to change functionality even after being manufactured.

I caught up with Vincent Ratford, Senior Vice President, Solutions Development Group, Xilinx, to find out more about the company's role in India. Firstly, Xilinx clearly sees India and Asia/Pac as a high growth area for its business.

Ratford said: "India itself has a lot of design activity with many of our customers working with design services and IP companies there. For that reason, we have invested in a large engineering team (125 people and grew last year at 60 percent) working on IP, software, system applications and IC design. These teams augment global development teams around the world with some teams having product responsibility."

As a company, Xilinx tracks design activity and production, and India is its most active region for design activity. It is also investing a lot in university programs.

He added: "We have significant market share in India vs. the other FPGA vendors. We expect this to continue. We are investing heavily in our Xilinx University Program providing tool, board, training for professors and setting up FPGA, embedded and DSP curriculums. We have a strong technical team supporting customers locally either directly or alongside of our distribution partners."

So how does Xilinx view the strength of the Indian embedded design segment? Ratford referred to EETimes, which conducts a survey annually on embedded processing. The most recent data showed only about 1/3 of the embedded users using FPGAs, but over 50 percent of them were considering.

He said: "I think we have just scratched the surface on our embedded opportunity. We have over 10k licensed embedded users worldwide, with the smallest percentage in Asia/Pac, but it's growing rapidly.

"We think there is a lot of unlicensed, and therefore, untracked useage. Going forward, we will be able to track adoption more closely. We are now starting to track useage with our WebTalk tool and have found that about half of the designs using our latest 10.1 release have processors on them. Finally, when we conduct seminars and workshops worldwide, our embedded sessions are the most heavily attended."

On the role that Xilinx would be playing in India, he said: "Today, we have a strong offering in soft and hard processors for our Virtex and Spartan series FPGAs. We are investing in training and providing development kits to expand the number of embedded developers who can support our platforms.

"We have been developing embedded peripherals, device drivers and are now starting to develop embedded tools there. We expect to expand this. So it's market development, product development and enabling our ecosystem partners to build on top of our platforms. We are investing in India faster than any other region and plan to leverage our development team there."

Garuda car likely to cost Rs. 4 lakhs (US $10,000)

Last Saturday, the R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore unveiled Garuda, its super fuel efficient car! Team Leader Nishant Sarawgi, and members Kayaan, Darshan, Bharat, Jacob, Krishna, Gautham and Rakshit from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore developed a shared vision to build this super fuel efficient car! Power to the students of RVCE, Bangalore, India!

Yesterday, I again caught up with Nishant Sarawgi to learn more about the Garuda car and its commercial viability.

Potential for commercialization
According to him, the car is a R&D prototype on the whole. However, the designs and technologies that have gone into its making have the potential to create a significant impact on the automobile industry.

"The auto industry is hungry for greener technology, lesser emissions and high energy efficiencies, and therefore, several companies have expressed interest in this project. A lot of R&D has gone into it and if not now, then as the project progresses and evolves over time, the components and innovations therein will have the potential for commercialization," he said.

Sarawgi added: "As already mentioned, our car has also been built with the intention of participating in international competitions like the SAE Supermileage, USA, and Shell Eco-Marathon, UK, where the best student teams in the world compete to try and set new world records in energy efficiency/fuel economy.

"These competitions are very significant as they highlight major global issues of oil crisis and energy conservation besides creating awareness among the youth and general public to take constructive steps towards tackling such issues. Special focus is given to the use of new and innovative technologies to address these global issues."

As far as a commercial launch is concerned, the time-frame would depend on the massive amount of financial, technological, marketing and infrastructural support and the backup his team receives from the industry in due course of time.

Garuda's project cost Rs 4 lakhs
One question on everyone's mind has been, what can be the approximate price of Garuda? Sarawgi said: "It would be a little difficult to quote the exact price of 'Garuda' as it involved various other parameters apart from the components and machining that went into making the car.

"For example, logistics (both local and international), PR activities, transportation, administrative work, etc., also figured in the expenditure. The total project expenditure would be around Rs 4 lakhs (approximately, US $10,000).

From a short distance, Garuda seems to look like a prototype of an F1 model. How would the actual car look like: an SUV or a family car? While Sarawgi is thrilled that the prototype is being compared to an F1 car, he clarified that it doesn't actually look like an F1 model from any angle!

It is different in many ways: be it the shape, size, the body contours, the styling, the weight, the materials used, the system components, the driver's positioning and seating, driver's comfort, driver's visibility, driver safety measures, the overall weight-distribution, the location of the centre of gravity of the car, the car dimensions(length, width, height, etc.).

He said: "Moreover, an F1 car is all about the adrenalin and thrills of high speed, torque and power, whereas 'Garuda' is about high fuel-efficiency, energy conservation, greener technologies, and foray into the world of alternate energy resources and innovations. It has nothing to do with high speeds and power. The maximum speed of our existing car ranges from 40-60 kms per hour."

"The price tag attached with a Formula 1 car is usually in the range of Rs. 30-35 crores, whereas the price of our car would be in the range of Rs. 3.5-4 lakhs," he added.

An F1 car has four wheels. However, the car 'Garuda' has three wheels (bicycle wheels, which are extremely light-weight and offer optimal aerodynamic efficiency for high mileage).

Sarawgi said: "Also, an F1 car is made for motor racing, with very limited possibilities of actual implementation in the commercial road-driven cars, whereas 'Garuda' Supermileage prototype is built with the intention of trying to commercialize the designs and concepts of the team to find some meaningful and feasible applications in the consumer cars of tomorrow.

"We would say that the team is already thinking on the lines of trying to take the design and layout of the existing car to the next level by enhancing the overall vehicle performance and use of better components. We might have to go back to the drawing board with respect to certain systems of our car, so it is going to take some time before we finally freeze on the outer appearance (layout and design) of our future car. However, we are sure it would be nothing like a bulky and heavy SUV!"

Garuda runs on iso-octane pure petrol, kerosene
Great! What about the mileage? Does the Garuda car run on petrol or diesel, or some other fuel?

Sarawgi added: "Our car primarily runs on iso-octane pure petrol. It can also run on kerosene. It depends on the engine and other integrated systems used on the car. As of now, our car can run on both petrol as well as kerosene."

Finally, how green is the car, given that Garuda's thrust has been toward high fuel-efficiency, energy conservation, greener technologies, and foray into the world of alternate energy resources.

Nishant said: "There's a simple empirical formula to answer this question... Less fuel consumption --> lesser emissions --> lesser pollution --> minimal contribution to global warming and climate change, finally leads to a respectable green car!

"We are using petrol, no doubt, but there is minimal usage of petrol and the mileage that we get out of it saves a lot of fuel. There are concepts of hybrid, solar or electricity-propelled vehicles, but it would take a lot of time, funding and infrastructure to mass-produce such cars for the consumers, which are feasible and practical.

"We are starting off with petrol, but we can change it later on and make it run on a totally different fuel. It all depends on which technology is more relevant and feasible at that time: whether hybrid, electric, bio-diesel, methanol, solar, hydrogen fuel cells, etc.," he added.

He highlighted the fact that the prototype car is giving a very high mileage from petrol itself. Most cars of today run on petrol. Therefore, the prototype is of great interest to everyone!

"We hope that our modest attempt would inspire people of all ages and from all walks of life to take up individual or collective responsibility of conserving our energy resources and save the planet from the adverse effects of global warming and climate change," he concluded.

Best of luck, guys!

RVCE unveils Garuda super fuel-efficient car

Students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, R.V. College of Engineering, Bangalore, have developed the Garuda supermileage car, which was unveiled last Saturday at the College campus by Dilip Chhabria of DC fame, an internationally renowned authority on car designs.

Armed with the aim to represent their College and India in international events such as the SAE Supermileage and the Shell Eco-Marathons, the group of enthusiastic and like-minded students -- Team Leader Nishant Sarawgi, along with Kayaan, Darshan, Bharat, Jacob, Krishna, Gautham and Rakshit from the College's Department of Mechanical Engineering, developed a shared vision to build a super fuel-efficient car.

This dream was realized with the unveiling of the Garuda RVCE supermileage car! This car is said to give an amazing mileage of about 200 km/litre and is slated to give a mindboggling 500 km/litre in due course.

After evaluating the features of the car and understanding the specific design details from the students, Chhabria expressed his great sense of confidence and appreciation of the design and technological capability of students in achieving this fantastic mileage.

Sarawgi says: "The project not only gave us a chance to implement the concepts we learned in theory, but also helped each one of us in unleashing the inner potential to innovate and find implementable solutions to practical problems. The fusion of theory and practice has proved to be invaluable in re-inforcing knowledge, while also enabling us to think out of the box. The many innovative solutions that emerged during the whole process led us to sharpen our application skills. One very core objective, which guided the process was also to help create awareness of the burning environmental issues like global warming, oil crisis and the need for green technologies and conservation of energy."

Key features of the prototype include: HONDA GK 100 97 cc, 2 Hp air cooled engine; TAV 2 Torq_A-Verter and asymmetric CVT transmission systems; Tubular A1 6063 T6 chassis; use of glass fibre for the shell; Bontrager, 16-inch Moulton sizes recumbent wheels; Twin tie road steering system; Inteneidate freewheel design; variable jet carburetor and simple caliper cycle brakes.

The next steps, as per Bharat, a team member, is to improve the existing design and enhance the fuel efficiency to above 500 km/lit, and participate in international competitions like SAE Supermileage-USA, Shell Eco Marathon-UK, etc., next year.

Dr. S.C. Sharma, Principal, RVCE, congratulated the team for being among the first Indian teams to design and develop a super fuel-efficient vehicle. Dr. M.K. Panduranga Shetty, President of the Rashtreeya Sikshana Samithi Trust expressed his sense of pride on the achievement of the students and promised all support in such endeavours.

The team worked under the able guidance and support of Dr B. Anand, HoD, Mech. Dept. Patron, along with Dr. R.S. Kulkarni as the Faculty Advisor.

Sarawgi expressed deep gratitude to Tantra Infosolutions (Total Outsource Group), CD Adapco and Chameleon Motors, who willingly came forward to sponsor the initiative. Tantra Infosolutions provided strong engineering and financial support; CD Adapco chipped in with the critical engineering design software; and Chameleon Motors provided infrastructural support during the building of the car. Bimal Auto Agency provided logistics support and Innoversant Solutions provided strong support in project management, marketing and PR.

Indian fab policy gets 12 proposals; solar dominates

Just about 10 odd days ago, I had blogged about building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV)! I had also mentioned how solar/PV will be the next big story in India, with BIPV right up there at the very top!

Well, according to a published report on India Infoline, the Indian semiconductor and fab policy has attracted 12 major proposals, worth a whopping Rs. 93,000 crores!

A Press Information Bureau (PIB) release says that the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India, has set up a panel of technical experts to evaluate the proposals.

The promoters will come up to the Appraisal Committee for sanction of subsidy under the scheme once they have reached the threshold limit of investment, as indicated in the guidelines of the Special Incentive Package Scheme.

A majority of these proposals -- ten (10) -- are for solar/PV. One proposal is for a semiconductor wafer -- from Reliance Industries worth Rs. 18,521 crores, and another for TFT LCD flat panels -- from Videocon Industries, worth Rs. 8,000 crores.

The 10 proposals for solar/PV are from: KSK Surya (Rs. 3,211 crores), Lanco Solar (Rs. 12,938 crores), PV Technologies India (Rs. 6,000 crores), Phoenix Solar India (Rs. 1,200 crores), Reliance Industries (Rs. 11,631 crores), Signet Solar Inc. (Rs. 9,672 crores), Solar Semiconductor (Rs. 11,821 crores), TF Solar Power (Rs. 2,348 crores), Tata BP Solar India (Rs. 1,692.80 crores), and Titan Energy System (Rs. 5,880.58 crores).

Does the Indian solar/PV story now start making some sense? It is very much in line to become the next big success story for India after the Indian telecom story!

Evidently, Reliance Industries is the major player in all of this, having proposed both a semicon wafer fab as well as a solar/PV fab. Lanco Solar, Solar Semiconductor, Signet Solar, Videocon, and PV Technologies are some of the other big players proposing to enter the Indian semiconductor/fab space.

Well, this is really great news for the Indian semiconductor industry! Further, it comes close on the heels of the announcement of the 3G spectrum policy and MNP policy by the government of India.

A few weeks ago, Dr. Madhusudan V. Atre, president, Applied Materials India, had mentioned that taking the solar/PV route was perhaps, a practical route for India to enter manufacturing. How true are those words!

Late June, I too had proposed, among others points, that Karnataka (and other Indian states) look at having some solar/PV fabs.

Dr. Pradip K. Dutta, Corporate Vice President & Managing Director, Synopsys (India) Pvt Ltd had also mentioned late June that it was too early to write off the Indian fab story. We now have the answer to that question of having fabs in India!

All of this should also excite those investors looking to enter India. The huge interest and subsequent proposals for solar/PV can also lead to India having some of its own solar farms as well!

The India Semiconductor Association should be congratulated for having made this happen. It is soon going to a year since the Indian government had announced the semiconductor policy. Now, with these mega proposals in place, maybe, we will see more investors in the Indian semicon and solar/PV fab spaces.

Top 10 Indian semicon companies review
Another interesting thought! Last year, around this time, I had prepared a list of the Top 10 Indian semiconductor companies. This particular blog has been among the most accessed.

Perhaps, a review is in order! Besides, several Indian players are beginning to make a mark, like Cosmic Circuits, SemIndia, etc. The list of August 2007 mostly had Indian design services companies. This feature of Indian design services companies dominating a top 10 list will probably continue for some more time, till all of these proposals bear fruit into concrete, productive fabs.

I am sure, with those mega investments coming into the Indian semicon wafer IC fab and solar/PV fabs, most of the companies would soon figure in any top 10 list!\

Surely, 2009 should be quite exciting as all of this means a very positive future and outlook for the Indian semiconductor industry.

Indian software developers, here's your chance to win US $25,000!

This piece was information was sent to me by a friend, Ms Tahira Amjad. Thanks a lot!

Skyway Software is a US-based software development company that provides technology and processes to IT organizations to simplify their software delivery systems, often reducing application development and deployment schedules by 30 percent or more.

The company's flagship product, Skyway Builder, is an open-source, model-centric JEE application development and deployment tool for delivering RIAs (Rich Internet applications) and Web Services to the Spring Framework.

Unlike any other development tool, Skyway Builder provides comprehensive modeling capabilities at three distinct application layers -- Web/UI layer, service layer, and data layer -- and fully functional solutions may be delivered easily to a wide variety of open-source and commercial infrastructures.

In order to introduce Skyway software to developers in India -- a market Skyway Software considers 'as the leading force in software development' -- it is are sponsoring the SkywayCup, a multinational challenge for software developers to create a new, viable and working application using Skyway Software's Skyway Builder Community Edition (CE), or to create a logical and workable extension to Skyway Builder itself.

The contest will give away prize money of more than US$40,000, and full information on the contest can be found at www.skywaycup.in

It's the Skyway Cup!
Rich applications that benefit and delight end users in today's enterprises, built by developers like you, will be a critical component of the Skyway Software vision.

So that you can help us realize our vision as quickly as possible, we have created the Skyway Cup, which will provide almost $50,000 in awards -- no strings attached -- for great solutions built using Skyway Builder.

By creating the Skyway Cup, we want to showcase how members of our Skyway Community are using Skyway Builder to build Rich Internet Applications, as well as demonstrate how our members are using Skyway Builder to serve their specific needs.

India announces 3G spectrum, MNP guidelines

Finally, the wait's over! The Indian government today announced the guidelines for 3G (third-generation mobile communications) spectrum as well as mobile number portability (MNP).

First, all players -- Indian and global -- have been invited to bid for 3G spectrum, making it a truly level-playing field. The condition for a foreign player or telecom operator is that it should have some experience in running 3G telecom services.

Those interested to know more about the guidelines for auction and allottment of spectrum for 3G telecom services, can download the documents from DoT's site.

Apparently, the 3G guidelines allow 10 players in the Indian 3G space, including both Indian and foreign players.

Spectrum in the 2.1GHz band would be available for the 3G telecom services through bidding/auction. Spectrum shall be auctioned in blocks of 2x5MHz in the 2.1GHz band. As per the DoT guidelines, the number of blocks to be auctioned may vary from five to 10, subject to the availability in different telecom service areas. Should there be non-availability, the number of blocks may be less than five in a telecom service area.

The MNP allows mobile phone users/subscribers to change their operators, while retaining their mobile phone numbers.

As per the DoT guidelines, a customer can approach a 'recipient operator' to port his or her number. The 'donor operator' cannot re-use that customer's ported number till such time the ported number is in use. The donor operator can only have the ported number once it has been surrendered by the ported customer.

Well, both of these announcements are going to add to India's brilliant telecom success story.

As for the foreign players coming into the country, quite a few are already present. It would be great to see the likes of NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Telefonica, etc., enter the 3G space in India. As for 3G technology itself, TD-SCDMA, HSPA, etc., should be considered as well.

Oh yes, there's some good news for those itching to use the Apple iPhone 3G. Once, the 3G networks are in place, there's nothing that can stop this from happening.

On the MNP front, a good majority of Indian subscribers are on prepaid. So, there may be quite a few changeovers happening! It could well prove to be a nightmare for the operators, but then, that's the fun of having a level-playing field and the challenge of playing in the booming Indian telecom market.

Postscrpt: A reader, Abhshek, left a very interesting and relevant comment regarding 3G services that users could be charged heftily. I quite agree with him! The 3G operators would need to price their services right. It should be win-win for both operators and users.

To start off, service charges could possibly be on the higher side, as the 3G licenses won't come cheap, and operators would also look at the revenue angle. However, over time, service charges are quite likely to come down, if the pattern of the Indian telecom history is repeated. Many thanks for your comment, Abhishek.