Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Cellular Upswing: Heading for a Mobile Future



A pertinent and thought provoking article with a style that is unique to the writer Raj Machan, member Cellebrum Business Development Team.

Based on a plot that appears very much plausible, the Hollywood sci-fi movie ‘I, Robot’ is a shocking eye-opener. For a moment one is lead into exploring the possibility: Will computers actually control our lives someday?

As of now, we do not have any clear answers to this one. But what we know for sure is that technology is moving forward, and it is moving at an unprecedented pace. The speed of development is something like compressing the entire industrial revolution into a span of two decades. Take cellular telephony: Essentially a phenomenon of the 90s, the technology has proliferated at such a pace that now it is hard to imagine life without the ubiquitous ‘cell’ or ‘mobile’, two words which are now as much a part of the common lexicon as food, water, jeans, tops, or for that matter the new babe in town. The constant drop in prices of cell phones is an indicator: Your swanky handset, which you purchased for Rs 20,000 this Diwali, will be available for Rs 15,000 or less in March-April 2009, if at all. Because chances are high that your precious gizmo would have been phased out by a new crop of superior models packed with new features and applications and available for less. The Indian market is already flooded with inexpensive, feature-rich (including advanced applications such as Television on Mobile) mobile phones, made in China and available for as little as Rs 5000!

The following factors are set to further cement the pre-dominance of mobile technology:

Convergence
Wireless technology now lies at the core of convergence of technologies. Convergence denotes the use of a single gadget or application for accessing two or more technologies. For quite some time now, the IT sector has focused on convergence of multiple technologies deployed in the areas of Information, Communication, and Entertainment (ICE). Senior executives with telecom major Spice Group affirm that the wireless medium has an inherent advantage over its fixed counterpart and is clearly the future. The cell phone has transformed from a hardware intensive device to an intelligent software-driven platform – very much on the lines of your personal computer. You can take a picture (camera phones have now almost wiped off the good old film rolls from shop shelves), record a video clip, store, transfer and listen to your favorite songs (the runaway success of Apple’s iPhone is an indicator of the widespread acceptability of music phones), watch a movie, get the latest scores, stock prices, chat with friends, send messages, hold a conference call, play games, use it as a calculator or an organizer and of course make or receive a call if you still have the time. You could do all this out trekking in a remote area of Himachal Pradesh or waiting for your sweetheart on the bench by the lake.

Smartphones
Roughly the cellular equivalent of a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), the smart phone is the latest rage among the users. Figures released by Gartner pegs the worldwide market growth for PDAs and smart phones at 57 per cent in the second quarter of 2007. A typical smart phone is much advanced than a mobile phone. It can support a complete operating system such as Symbian and MS Windows and therefore can run all applications compliant with the particular OS. Much like the common PC, a smart phone provides a standardized Graphical User Interface and platform for application developers, Apart from the features available on a cell phone, a high-end, palm-sized smart phone comes loaded with a QWERTY keyboard (just like your PC), e-mail facilities, fax, word processors, and spread sheets, networking abilities, touch screen and more. A smart phone can read, print and save files in multiple formats including PDF and .doc (Word).

The proliferation of Bluetooth and IrDA makes data transfer from a smart phone easy as pie. You can use it to access the Internet, support web browsers, Intranets, and extranets via Wi-Fi.
Businesses and professionals can integrate the smart phone with their office PBX systems, thus converging the fixed line communication technologies with the wireless world. What is more, the prices of smart phones have been falling much faster than the regular cell phones (a mid-level smart phone from a top manufacturer is now available in India for Rs 18,500).

What is coming your way?
In the near future, the roll out of 3G networks, which are faster and technologically superior than the present GPRS technology, will lead to tremendous improvement in speed and quality of almost all mobile applications. We already have “TV-ready” phones. Combined with the laying out of transmission standards, the 3G technology is set to make mobile TV a practical and commercial reality. 3G networks are set to give a leg up to bandwidth heavy services like video-conferencing, movies on mobile and online gaming. Your big screen television and the music system will very much be there, but the controls are more than likely to be converged onto one gadget: the ubiquitous cell phone.
With cash-rich, innovation hungry companies like Google looking for an increasing presence in the communications arena, one can almost catch the strains of Bachmann Turner Overdrive 60s favorite: Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Winners of the Asia Mobile Awards 2008 Announced in Macau


One of the flagship products powered by Cellebrum Technologies Limited "Mobile Radio" has bagged the prestigious award at Asia Mobile Awards 2008, MACAU for the operator AIRTEL!

I wish to thank everyone for having contributed in some form or the other for making it such a BIG service. Heartiest Congratulations to TEAM Cellebrum and AIRTEL.
—SAKET

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18 November 2008, Macau
November 17th 2008, Macau: The GSMA, the global trade group for the mobile industry, tonight announced the winners of the Asia Mobile Awards 2008 in a glittering ceremony at the Mobile Asia Congress, in Macau SAR China.
It was a very special night for the South Korean mobile industry – regarded globally as a hotbed of mobile innovation - with the republic's two mobile operators KTF and SKT, manufacturer Samsung and the South Korean team of mobile games developer Gameloft, scooping a brace of coveted awards.
The awards night, hosted by actor and TV presenter Ken Chan, were announced at a gala evening at the Venetian Macao Resort Hotel in Macau, where Asia's mobile industry leaders are gathered this week for the industry's agenda-setting Mobile Asia Congress."In these economically challenging times, it can sometimes be difficult to see the positive forces but clearly technological change is a major one," said GSMA Chairman Craig Ehrlich. "Mobile communication continues to enhance the lives of people everywhere on a daily basis and make people and businesses more productive and efficient. These awards are all about recognising the leaders, pioneers and change drivers in our region that are making this happen."Additional winners included Bharti Airtel of India, Huawei of China, Nokia Singapore, Telstra Corporation of Australia and Total Access Communication of Thailand.
Judged by independent analysts, journalists and industry experts, the awards attracted entries from more than 100 companies that serve world leading Asian mobile market with a wealth of commercially available products, services, content and applications. The last year alone has seen more than 400 million new mobile connections added in the region, taking the total to more than 1.4 billion.
The winners of the Asia Mobile Awards 2008 are:
Best Mobile Game
Gameloft, Republic of Korea for ‘Asphalt4: Elite Racing HD'

Best Mobile Music, TV or Video Service
Bharti Airtel, India for ‘On-Demand Service on Airtel Live'

Best Mobile Advertising Service
Telstra Corporation, Australia for Telstra Mobile Codes

Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service
KTF, Republic of Korea for ‘Show Care'

Best Mobile Internet ServiceSKT
Republic of Korea for ‘Gifticon'

Best Mobile Money Service
Total Access Communications, Thailand for ‘ATMSIM'

Best Mobile Broadband Handset/ Device
Huawei, China for Huawei E180 HSPA Rotable USB Stick'
Samsung Electronics, Republic of Korea for ‘Samsung Innov8 (i8510)'


The 'Green Mobile Award
Nokia, Singapore for ‘Integrated Nokia Kiosk

Source:
http://gsmworld.com/newsroom/press-releases/2008/2096.htm
PS: You may have a glimpse of the TVC of the product at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epcdKy8LBdI

Friday, November 14, 2008

Cellebrum Appoints Mohit Rampal As Chief Sales Officer





Mohit will infuse new strength and direction to build and enhance sales operations division of the organisation.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008: Cellebrum, a value-added-services and solutions provider from Spice Group, has appointed Mohit Rampal as its chief sales officer (CSO). As the CSO of Cellebrum, Mohit will be responsible for sales of Cellebrum Technologies Limited.Having worked with organisations like Avaya Global Connect, SafeNet India (previously known as Rainbow Information Technologies), Rampal brings with him a experience of over 17 years in IT networking, IT security and telecommunications’ domain. Rampal has also been instrumental in creating a brand for the USB token iKey which is used for storing digital certificates.

Rampal holds a masters in Physics from Delhi University along with a masters of Science in Systems from BITS Pilani and is also a CISSP. He is an active speaker in the area of security and has contributed many articles on security and networking.

Welcome to the Cellebrum Family Mohit; wish the very best for your tenure here!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

3G rings profit bells for VAS providers

Metro Now- New Delhi

Let your mobile do all your shopping





Cybermedia Publication, 5th November 2008

Telecom operators bank on value-added services for 3G revenues

November 5th, 2008 - 12:04 pm ICT by IANS

New Delhi, With third generation (3G) mobile services set to roll out early next year in India, service providers are banking on the value-added services (VAS) segment to ring in additional revenues, with many new features like personalised radio, mobile blogging and social networking. The VAS market, currently valued at Rs.65 billion ($1.35 billion), constitutes about 9-10 percent of the total revenues for telecom operators in India with short messaging service (SMS) alone accounting for 44 percent of that share.

With 3G services to be rolled out by next year, the VAS industry is expected to increase its share manifold, with some industry estimates pegging the figure at Rs.200 billion by 2015.

“Almost 20-25 percent of market share is occupied by ring back tones (RBT), which have 40-50 million users,” Saket Agarwal, chief operating officer of Cellebrum Technologies, an industry leader in the VAS segment, told IANS.

According to him, once the 3G services are launched, social networking, blogging on mobile and advanced use of mobile radio will become more popular.
“Very few people are now using personalised radio services as they are not aware of it. With personalisation of radio, the mobile phone can become ‘poor man’s I-pod’,” Agarwal added. The 3G services will enable mobile users to access high-speed data services such as movies on demand, mobile TV, high-speed Web access, video calls, fast music and video downloads, interactive gaming and global positioning over the Internet.

Currently, VAS includes those services that add value to standard voice calls such as ringtones, caller ring back tones (CRBT), video games, imagery, jokes and information services. According to various telecom experts, mobile phones will soon double up as a smart card, replacing plastic cards.
Remittances of funds through mobile phones is also expected to fulfill the gap in rural banking infrastructure, industry officials said, adding this would be yet another growth driver for the Indian VAS industry.

However, cost of service will be the key ingredient for growth of this industry. “Affordability is going to be a factor. Over a period of time, with lots of freebies, it will certainly be there,” said Vineesh Khaturia, president of strategy and business development with Mobisoc Technology, a mobile software leader.
Though m-commerce is still at a nascent stage, telecom players are already increasing their advertising spends to promote their VAS offerings, he said.
“The challenge, however, lies with handsets enabled with 3G to be available at lower costs. Very few consumers are now equipped with 3G enabled handsets,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, managing director of One97 Communications. For the telecom operators and VAS content providers, average revenue per user (ARPU) should reach Rs.100 and the entry level handsets should be priced at Rs.9,900 for success in this arena, Sharma said. Another VAS provider Onmobile chief executive and co-founder Arvind Rao agreed with the opinion. “3G will be an acceleration of VAS. But everything will depend on how fast 3G is rolled out and the number of cheap/affordable 3G-enabled handsets available in the market.”

Saturday, November 1, 2008

IGNOU collaborates with telecom sector to bridge gaps in education outreach

October 31, 2008

New Delhi: Taking education to the marginalised and disadvantaged people of the society through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) will soon become easier with use of mobile handsets for education delivery.

The concept is novel, when the call is democratising education. Even as a number of ICTs have been pressed into services in the country for the same goal, expert educators and mobile services providers rightly think, it is always advantageous to boost the existing ICTs with an additional line of service for education delivery at the learners' best reach.

Keeping this in view, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Communications & Manufacturing Association of India (CMAI) will jointly convene a round-table conference on November 4, 2008 at the SCOPE Complex at Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Experts from industries of communications technologies, telecom equipment manufacturers, government organisations and universities will discuss in the conference about various strategies which will be timely and handy for the communities of students and learners of the country.
This conference may also create new genre of thought-process conducive to fulfill the country's ongoing 11th Five-Year Plan motto, 'Education for All', at, as
IGNOU Vice Chancellor Professor V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai explains, "easily accessible, affordable and relevant to lives modes".

The IGNOU's eGyankosh, a world-class national digital repository, won the World Summit Award (WSA), popularly known as Manthan Award 2008, for best e-content development in the e-education category. The award is given every year for excellence by the WSA's India chapter, Digital Empowerment Foundation.

The citation read: "There is hardly any example of any university in India which uses all possible media tools and applications to reach out to those who want to be educated. The IGNOU is an example which uses print, radio, TV, Web/Internet to reach out to the masses. After having deployed various TV channels, EduSat, Community Radio, IGNOU is at task through eGyankosh to utilize digital media to the best of its possibility. Through these multifarious technological interventions, the IGNOU is putting maximum efforts in extending its reach beyond the borders of the country and facilitate international students. What is laudable is the IGNOU's continuous pursuit in providing higher and quality education using digital tools and technologies and reaching out to the unreached."

The IGNOU, during last two-three years, has taken a number of epochal steps to exploit the facilities of ICTs, by bringing the Edusat to the capital in its own hub. Initiatives have been taken for use IPTV, Broadband, and exiting telecom services for delivery of education.
Yet at certain points of the country or other, the reach was often faltered due to various woes, which are but natural to a plural society working in a developing economy. The reach generated by Mobile phone is hoped to become fool-proof.

The capacity building of the learners, the disadvantaged women and marginalised population will be rather easy by help of Mobile Value-Added Services (MVAS) or M-Education. If not otherwise, the MVAS can end up in becoming the largest carrier of education from the IGNOU.
The Conference, therefore, aims to address the following:

(i) Rural connectivity for capacity building of students and learners,
(ii) Identification of other cost-effective communication technologies for education delivery best suited for
distance education.

The EduSat, dedicated to IGNOU, at present has a network of 134 Satellite Internet Terminals (SITs). These are at Rashtrapati Bhawan (02), North-East Region (21), J&K Region (04), Other States (91), State Open Universities (10), Regional Committee of NCTE (05) and Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration (01).

These apart, for Rajiv Gandhi Elementary Education Network, the EduSat services are available at Hub in Jabalpur, MP, Daily two-hour long transmission through Gyan Darshan terminals, solar-powered Receive Only Terminals (ROTs), in Sidhi (MP) about 850 ROTs, and 50 ROTs each in Chhattisgarh and UP and Bihar districts.

The EduSat has become an effective opportunity for IGNOU to cover areas Gyan Darshan channels earlier could not reach. Currently Gyan Darshan, through transmission in C band on the INSAT 3C, is also available on the DTH platform of Doordarshan DD Direct Plus.

Audio-visual aids to teachers and learners' trainers for seamless education is possible through the EduSat today, with advantage of teleconferencing, e-conferencing and telephony. Gyan Vani, which heralded the ICT movement in IGNOU, has become an important value-addition now.
The Round-Table Conference with the CMAI is another, yet bolder, step to effectively reach the target learners communities. It is also a strong step to effectively fulfill the vision of democratising quality higher education in India.

Considering the Government of India's target of 500 millions of telecom network connectivity by 2010, the Indian domestic telecom outreach has grown to be the world's second after China's. Current monthly growth is eight (8) to nine (9) millions.

The CMAI is looking forward to building up on the opportunities which this New Medium of M-Education has created by providing IGNOU content of study material.
A conglomerate of mobile phone service providers, experts, manufacturers of mobile phone handsets, the CMAI has high fidelity players in mobile telephony such as ACL Wireless, Active Media, Air2Web, AOL Mobile, Cellebrum, Cellnext, HungamaMobile, IMIMobile, Indistimes Mobile, Jataayu, Mauj, Mobile365, One97, OnMobile, Phoneytunes, Roamware.
In search of new genre of communications, these organisations have reached worldwide reputation in producing advanced telephony services, such as mobile TV and video, full-motion videos, wireless teleconferencing, multi-player online games, and
commerce through mobile elephony (M-commerce).

These players have brought into service the third generation (3G) mobile phone technology superseding the 2.5G. The 3G technology is based on standards of International Telecommunication Union family which regulates international radio and telecommunications. Naturally, with the 3G as a carrier of contents, the education delivery is expected to be holistic.
When connectivity is combined with the contents of study material, access to education can become massive. The access to course content and class-room dissemination of lessons also can be developed into providing and taking of examination papers through the mobile telephony.
This scope meets the
IGNOU concept, which Professor Pillai elaborates, as, "You study at your own pace, from home, have access to the most advanced learning infrastructure and at the end of your course, have corporates waiting with dream job offers."

Says CMAI, "A new paradigm in providing M-education and thereby covering far-flung areas in the country and assist to bridge the physical distances using wireless technology, make mobile phones a great leveller in the society."
Through handsets, several contents can be easily accessed wherever are you and whenever you want. A number of tests can be immediately identified as under: Besides reaching out to the rural marginalised people, a number of competitive tests -- namely, CAT, JEE, GATE, GMAT, SAT,
TOEFL among a slew of others -- can be taken.
Source:


Friday, October 17, 2008

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari







A fitting “self-help-book” or maybe I need to rephrase the line as: The PERFECT Fable for those who want MORE from LIFE; both personally and professionally.

Robin Sharma the acclaimed author (a former lawyer too!) of this bestseller shows us the path that helps one move towards living a SIMPLE LIFE with joy, balance, strength and a positive attitude. The book in itself does not boast of giving us something new in terms of concept/ideas/thoughts etc. (you would have heard many of the concept shared by Sharma at some time or other).

What makes this book stand out is the refreshing fable format that the author has adopted for conveying the message (though we maybe familiar with most of the anecdote) with an impact that cannot be ignored and lingers for good.

The book introduces these concepts through the life of Julian Mantle—a lawyer by profession who is facing a spiritual crisis in his life and his will/spirits are at the lowest ebb. Julian embarks on an odyssey that Changes his life (and ours too) when he discovers the ancient culture of India.

The JOURNEY teaches him lessons that are priceless, he learns to value time as the most imperative product in ones life, nurturing relationship’s and the art of living one-day-at-a-time.

The fable is narrated through eleven meticulously laid out chapters which have the quality to stand alone (as individual stories) and yet the chapters meticulously come together as a fable that would change the life of the reader.

Julian is an extremely successful and famous lawyer. He earned a salary that provided him with all the comforts and commodities that one only dreams of. He owns a grand mansion; the neighborhood is inhabited by celebrities, a summer home on a tropical island, a private jet to take him to greater heights and above all—a Shiny Red Ferrari his most prized and loved possession. One fine day when he least accepts it…he is made to come to terms with the unforeseen impact of his disturbed existence.

John a friend colleague of Julian narrates the story of his flamboyant life and his courtroom theatrics make him a regular feature of newspapers and magazines.

One day Julian collapses in the courtroom; his obsession with work has caused a heart attack. His life changes that day forever. One day he sells all that he has…even his most loved Shiny Red Ferrari. After recovery he embarks on a journey of finding himself…he tells no one of his destination and leaves without a trace.

For three years he explores the mystical India meets the sages of Sivana a small place located in the Himalayas the land of roses, placid blue water with symbolic white lotuses floating. The discovery of this place changes him forever for better health, peace of mind and soul. When he returns to his homeland he goes to meet his old friend John who is now a cynical and frustrated man. He starts telling him his experiences that John later shares with the readers.

The crux of the book is its “Seven Virtues of Enlightened Learning” that Mantle reveals one-at-a-time, these are:
1. Master your mind
2. Follow your purpose
3. Practice kaizen
4. Live with discipline
5. Respect your time
6. Selflessly serve others
7. Embrace the present


What those life changing experiences are? To give away the details would be colossal mistake because we all need to embark on our odyssey to seek a better way of life…so take out some time for you own self and read this book. What I can promise you is that it will definitely leave you enriched and wiser…

I remember this beautiful couplet by the philosopher/guide Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching that’s sums by this philosophy of the fable skillfully:
I take no action, and people’s contention dissolves by itself
I enjoy stillness, and people rectify themselves
I do not interfere, and people enrich themselves
I have no desire, and people return to simplicity

P.S. Robin's books have been published in over 50 countries and in 60 languages
For more information about the author/his books/general interests etc. visit the following link: http://www.robinsharma.com/index.htm

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Spice to increase 'Hotspot' retail stores to 700 by year-end

IN: Hindu - Chennai, India
October 16, 2008

New Delhi (PTI): Spice Televentures, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the BK Modi Group plans to increase the number of its 'HotSpot' retail outlets to 700 from the current 400 by the end of the year.

"We plan to increase the number of outlets to 700 by year-end from the present 400. After that, we expect to set up 50-100 stores each month starting next year," Spice Televentures CEO Dilip Modi told reporters here.
Hotspot is the multi-brand technology retail chain of the Spice group.

Organised retail is expected to constitute about 30 per cent of the total sales in the mobile space, he said, however, refusing to give details of the Capex earmarked for the expansion plan. "The average size of the stores will be around 350-400 sq ft," he said. The company also plans to market its content through these stores.

"With our relations with companies and through group company Cellebrum, we plan to make available content through HotSpot Retail but this will be done only early next year," Modi said. Last year the company had announced USD 100 million investments spanning over the next two years for expansion of its 'HotSpot' retail outlets.
The retail outlets offer products such as mobile handsets, accessories, airtime connections, recharge vouchers, gaming devices, direct to home television services and other such telecom related products.

Source: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200810161631.htm


Modi to lead largest onshore domestic BPO

SPICE Televentures Ltd, which is part of the $1.5 billion Spice Group, Spanco Telesystems and Solutions Limited, recently signed a memorandum of understanding to create India’s largest onshore domestic BPO. The JV will see the merger of three leading domestic BPOs in the onshore space, comprising Omnia BPO Services Ltd (a Spice Televentures subsidiary) and Bharat BPO (an existing JV of Omnia and Spanco Telesystems) and Spanco BPO Services.

The new entity will provide voice- based backoffice and contact centre services to clients including customers across diverse segments in banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), telecom, travel and eGovernance in the country.

“The joint venture reveals,” Dilip Modi, chairman, Omnia BPO Services Ltd and chairman of the new JV, ”will see an investment upwards of Rs 500 crore in growing its presence across India over the next two years.” From having 7,000 seats in 18 centres spread across 10 cities including NCR Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, it plans to take it to 15,000 seats by March 2010 with a focus on Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities going forward, says Modi.

Modi says that they will have an edge over the competition because they can provide end-to-end solution to customers.


October 16, 2008

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Connecting citizens to strategy makers to fight corruption

G2C project will offer services for Redressal of public grievances pertaining to education, checking land records online as well as publishing and monitoring tenders.

A bid to improve public services, the Madhya Pradesh government, in association with Omnia BPO Services Limited, plans to launch a government-to-citizen (G2C) project -- a helpdesk for its citizens. The project intends to strengthen governance and combat corruption.
G2C project will offer services for Redressal of public grievances pertaining to education, checking land records online as well as publishing and monitoring tenders. This portal also supports employment advertisements and provides information about various government schemes.

The whole idea of implementing the interface is to eliminate the digital divide and to seamlessly connect citizens to strategy makers. It also aims to make people aware of governmental help provided to them. Citizens just have to go to the G2C kiosks and register their complaints there. Kiosk managers help them log on to G2C website and post their complaints. Citizens have to pay a nominal fee to the kiosk manager.

The entire process is transparent. One can, at any point of time, check the status of a complaint and easily identify whether the complaint has been acted upon or not. It helps administration streamline its operations and expose bottlenecks in the internal processes. This will help put pressure on non-performing officers, whose lax response to petitions and grievances have been made obvious from the outstanding petitions that the officer has to work on. This will also help kiosk operators earn more.

The government would become more approachable to citizens who earlier had to forgo their wages to stand in a queue just to file petitions. In the past they would have had to follow up with several government offices to find out the status and outcome of their petitions.

Omnia BPO Services Limited is a part of SpiceCorp Global group of companies and is a leading On-shore BPO providing high quality Customer Life Cycle Management services. Spice Mobile, Spice Telecom, Hot Spot Retails, Spice Net and Cellebrum are other prominent members of the Group.

Omnia BPO provides both Inbound & Outbound customer support and telemarketing services to AIR INDIA on a nationwide basis. It also provides entire gamut of Call Centre services to Idea Cellular Limited, MTNL, Spice Telecom, DISH TV and Max New York Life Insurance Company and is the process of implementing an important G2C project Citizen Helpdesk for government of Madhya Pradesh.

Omnia BPO plans to be 5000 seats On-shore BPO by the end of this year, with an annual turnover of over Rs.250 crores with major focus on Travel, Telecom, e-Governance and BFSI segments. Retail segment has also been earmarked as potential area for future growth.

Having bagged the contract of Indian Railways for operating Integrated Train Enquiry Services (ITES) all across the country, a company under the name of Bharat BPO Services Limited has been promoted to implement this project. Zonal Call Centers for this project are located at the 4 metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata the four Regional Call Centers are located at Noida, Ahmedabad, Mysore and Kolkata to begin with.

This operation, not included in the statistics of OMNIA BPO, has been started with about 700 seats and 2000 persons and is poised to scale up to 2000 seats and 5500 persons in a year.

It is already handling about half a million voice transactions every day and this volume is expected to cross 2 million transactions a day by the end of year 2008. The services being provided to the Telecom segment include complete Customer Life Cycle Management, right from Welcome Calling to First Bill ( Hand Holding ) call to dealing with customer complaints, handling Complaint Escalation Process, Payment Reminder and Follow up Calls. In Telecom segment we also handle Out-Bound calls in Life Cycle Management Process including Relationship Building, Value Building, Retention and Loyalty Management calls.

In BFSI segment, the company has started with handling Out-Bound calls for client verification, collecting relevant information from already existing clients, payment reminder calls for existing clients, calls for revival of lapsed policies and has also taken up a process for Direct Marketing of policies to new clients starting from acquisition of data base to collection of payment for the policy.


Source: http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=143805

Monday, September 15, 2008

Way through the gadget maze


In: GIZMOGEEK (Business Standard)
By: Neha Bhatt/New Delhi September 14, 2008

Saket Agarwal, CEO of Cellebrum Technologies, is your I-want-the-remote-control kind of gadget junkie. And he thinks the celebrated BlackBerry is much too overrated for what it has to offer.

Name a gadget buy you regret having spent so much money on.
Years ago I had purchased a DVD player, but at that time DVDs were not easily available in the Indian market, so I was left with no option but to use CDs and VCDs instead. The picture and sound quality proved to be a really poor substitute for the real stuff. By the time DVDs did become easily accessible, the player was obsolete.

Is there a gadget you lost and still feel bad about losing?
A TV remote control that had a formidable range; it would work from any distance and direction. Five sets later, and many brands tried and rejected, I just gave up trying to find a substitute.

What gadget have you been waiting to buy?
A single device for all communication, commerce and authentication needs, with all necessary security checks and power backup, and an ability to adapt across geographies via physical media, GSM, Wi-fi or Wi-Max, seamlessly.

What gizmo distracts you from work?

The harmless-looking office desk phone.

What gizmo is highly overrated?
The BlackBerry! With all that has been spent (money, resources, knowledge, research, R&D, et cetera), the results it delivers are poor value for money. Devoid of a touch screen, it has become a burden to carry along with a phone for making calls.

Name a gizmo that you feel is far superior to its competition?
The Bose music system, coming from an Indian entrepreneur and with huge premium, it’s truly value-for-money with no comparables in the market.


Is there a gadget you still have not been able to figure out?
Sync ML of various kinds and Jungle Maze, created contrary to the promise of ease.

Name a gadget you can’t do without, apart from your cellphone?
Mother of networks: the Internet. Thus, a data access device, be it cellphone- or laptop-based, the prerequisite is that it must have Internet.

What gadget do you think should be banned?
Cellphone usage of all individuals in control of the steering of the car should be banned via jammer. Alternatively, drivers should be encouraged to use many easily available tools which are proficient yet simple to use, like gadget-holders, connecting them to car speakers, using headphones, and so on, that can decrease road accidents and deaths.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Mobile Radio Case Study by Dialogic Released Worldwide

Mobile Radio a product from Cellebrum Technologies Limited that has once again proved that we go way ahead of what is expected of us always and this gives us the winning edge!
This indeed goes to demonstrate the POWER and SUCCESS we have got through this product. Pls enjoy reading the Mobile Radio Case Study by Dialogic Released Worldwide:
Case Study
Cellebrum Deploys Highly Successful Mobile
Radio Service in India
Scalability of Dialogic® Technology Helps New Service Growth to 450 Million Transactions Per-Month

Case Summary

Challenge
With its expertise in mobile technology and the delivery of music-related Value-Added Services, Cellebrum decided to create a new service called Mobile Radio, designed to provide the personalization of an MP3 player to a mass audience via their mobile phones. From its previous experience as a provider of hosted services, Cellebrum knew that it would face some development challenges, and even more formidable tests in packaging the service at a low price point and deploying it quickly if it became popular.

Solution
Because of their proven reliability and scalability, Cellebrum decided to deploy with Dialogic® signaling and media products, which it has worked with for more than a decade. Although Cellebrum expected only 100 million transactions per month in the first year of Mobile Radio availability, it has already reached more than 450 million transactions per month, and Mobile Radio is expected to overtake CRBT in popularity in India within a year. Cellebrum has successfully met the challenge of the fast-paced deployment of Mobile Radio with its own energy and expertise and with an infrastructure based on Dialogic signaling and media products.

Challenge
Cellebrum Technologies is a dynamic company with a solid grounding in technology and broad experience in delivering Value-Added Services (VAS). Although other companies might lay claim to similar traits, Cellebrum has something special — an ability to think creatively and come up with successful, innovative solutions that have broad audience appeal. Cellebrum offers Background Music (BGM), Select Caller List, a USSD/SMSC platform, and Social Networking solutions, but also services that are distinctive. For example, Cellebrum has not only developed
a Prepaid Mobile application, but also “Pay 4 Me” — a “collect call” service for mobile phones that allows a caller to request that the other party pay for the call if the caller has no minutes left.

In a region where prepaid is popular, Pay 4 Me can be a critical service when someone needs to make an important call. One of Cellebrum’s most popular services is BGM, which provides both music and sound effects on demand — and another revenue stream for carriers and for Cellebrum, the only current provider of BGM in India. Other than the commercial appeal of having the right background music for a business meeting or a hotel or restaurant reservation service, BGM has other, very practical uses, as Saket Agarwal, the CEO of Cellebrum, explained with tongue-in-cheek. “We call this our ‘lovers and liars’ service,” he explained. “If a young man wants to call and invite someone on a date, we can play romantic music for him in the background to set the proper mood. If that same young man oversleeps the next day, he can have background music with traffic sounds when he calls his boss to explain that he will be late, even if he is still in bed.”

Cellebrum has also developed special expertise in “jukebox” applications that allow callers to easily browse clips of music in multiple languages using artificial intelligence techniques and IVR technology.
Suiting a Service to Its Audience
By combining its core knowledge of “wire-free” call technology and its successful techniques for delivering reliable music-related VAS, Cellebrum decided to create a service called Mobile Radio. “India is a country of a billion people,” Agarwal recalled as he described the thinking behind this new service, “and we know that at least 300 million of them have cell phones. At the same time, many of these people do not have the means to buy an MP3 player, yet they love music and Bollywood spectaculars.”

Agarwal and his team decided to create a service to satisfy this popular passion at an affordable price, delivering “the personal touch of an iPod but at a low price point and on a single device.”

Solution
Once it had the idea for its new service, Cellebrum expected deployment to be a significant challenge. Because of its previous work in hosting services for carriers, Cellebrum knew that a new service such as Mobile Radio would have its best chance of success if it developed and hosted the new service and depended on carriers to advertise it and recruit subscribers. Actual in-house development of the Mobile Radio service itself took only six weeks in 2007.

Deploying VAS in India is complex. Mobile phone service is delivered to 23 service areas, consisting of 19 Circle Service Areas and 4 Metro Service Areas in which 17 languages are spoken. The number of languages ruled out text prompts and menus, which was no problem for Cellebrum whose developers are well-versed in artificial intelligence and personalization techniques.

The company planned to offer a toll-free number that potential customers would call to become subscribers. Initially new subscribes would be offered a selection of the latest hit songs, and then could create their own personal selection of songs in an area called “MyZone” where they can add and delete songs at will.

Scaling Quickly with Dialogic® Products
To create this complex VAS delivery infrastructure, Cellebrum looked to open-standards-based Dialogic® products, which it has been deploying successfully for more than a decade. Because the service had a huge potential audience, Cellebrum decided to go with tried-and-true technology that it was confident could scale quickly. Cellebrum chose Dialogic® Digital Signaling Interface (DSI) Components; including Dialogic® DSI SS7G2x Signaling Servers used as Dialogic® DSI Signaling Interface Units (DSI SIUs) with a Dialogic® DSI ISUP Layer and with Dialogic® Global Call Software on the host. For media speech and voice resources, Cellebrum is using multiple Dialogic® DM/V4800BC Media Boards.

We began by putting up Dialogic hardware in each service area,” explained Agarwal. “We started with signaling interface units and CompactPCI servers with the DMV4800s, and, of course, storage solutions since we are hosting more than 100,000 fulltrack songs. We did this across all 23 service areas, and we connected to four or five different carriers. Dialogic products (for example, its signaling units) provide us with scalability, reliability, and ‘up-time’. And, more importantly, these units allow us to host multiple applications around them and connect multiple application boxes for SMSC, USSD and BGM— essentially anything we would want to do. We have a partnership we cherish with Dialogic and together we have challenges, but we are getting the support we need.”

Since reliability is important, Cellebrum is taking full advantage of Dialogic’s dual-resilience architecture, which is standard with the DSI SIU. “With all the scalability challenges that we have had in learning to handle 450 million transactions per month in such a short time, and working with, for example, 16 media boards instead of 4 or 6 so quickly, Dialogic products and our relationship with Dialogic has been more than satisfactory,” commented Agarwal. The Mobile Radio service includes selecting music, playing music, and sending songs to others, and each activity requires several transactions per request.

Results
Agarwal describes the phenomenal success of Cellebrum’s new Mobile Radio service as a “nightmare, but a wonderful one, especially because we had to provision toll-free numbers for monthly subscribers very quickly — I think such a ramp is unprecedented in the entire world. We had originally anticipated about 25% of the growth we actually experienced in the first year — about 100 million transactions per month — but instead we already have 450 million transactions per month [August 2008], with a surge in the last four months because of heavy promotion. But this is only 3% penetration of the Indian market, so we have a large potential market and a long way to grow.”

During its pilot program, Cellebrum was retailing Mobile Radio at 7 rupees per minute (approximately 42 rupees are equal to an American dollar according to current exchange rates), and only 15,000 songs. Cellebrum has now brought the cost down to 1 rupee per minute and is offering 100,000 songs. As Agarwal explains, “our first challenge after development was one of packaging that is, achieving a very low price point, along with providing a broad selection of songs, which are constantly refreshed with the latest content at a rate of 2,000 to 3,000 songs per month. Then our challenge became technical — phenomenal scaling to keep up with demand.”

An Eye to the Future
Cellebrum has begun to deploy Mobile Radio outside of India, and although part of Cellebrum’s staff is very busy with the Mobile Radio ramp, other parts of the company are continuing with ongoing research and development and exploring new technologies, including Dialogic® Host Media Processing Software. “For example, one carrier is using HMP for Mobile Radio, and we are aware of the advantages of HMP, IP, and SIP, which is why we are exploring the use of 3G phone technology, and, of course, techniques for delivering video services such as Video Mail and Video on Demand.”

Although CRBT is very popular in India, Agarwal reports that Mobile Radio is quickly overtaking it, and is expected to outpace CRBT in six months to a year. But Agarwal and Cellebrum are not satisfied with only current successes: “We are already looking forward to new technical challenges, and to creating even more successful and innovative services with Dialogic products.”

About Cellebrum Technologies Limited

Cellebrum Technologies Limited is a Spice Group company with a special focus on Telecom Solutions, Office Automation and Information Technology, and Value-Added Services. Cellebrum embraces the constant momentum of innovation in today’s world and meets it with passion and a formidable ability to effectively leverage revenue-enhancing opportunities for its customers.

Cellebrum constantly strives to find simple ways of solving complex business problems, and all its solutions are built on open industry standards and scale easily. Redundancy and portability are built into every solution.
For more information, visit
www.cellebrum.com

About Dialogic Corporation
Dialogic Corporation is a leading provider of world-class technologies based on open standards that enable innovative mobile, video, IP, and TDM solutions for Network Service Providers and Enterprise Communication Networks. Dialogic’s customers and partners rely on its leading-edge, flexible components to rapidly deploy value-added solutions around the world.
For more Information, visit www.dialogic.com

Friday, August 22, 2008

Cellebrum Hires New Chief Strategy And Technology Officer

Abhinav Mathur will manage a team of over 300 engineers and MBAs with operations that span across seven countries.

Cellebrum, the value-added-services and solutions provider from the Spice Group, has appointed Dr. Abhinav Mathur as its chief strategy and technology officer. In this role, Abhinav will manage a team of over 300 engineers and MBAs with operations that span across seven countries.
Mathur also forms part of Spice's corporate telecom team and will lead strategic investments including mergers and acquisition effort.

Prior to Cellebrum, Abhinav has led the Indian operations of Lotus Interworks. He also worked with C-DOT for more than eight years. Abhinav has a PhD from IIT Delhi and an MBA from IIM Lucknow majoring in Management of Technology and Innovation.
We WELCOME Abhinav to Cellebrum FAMILY and wish the VERY BEST for his tenure at Cellebrum Technologies Limited!

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

One Small Step Can Change Your Life

KAIZEN—a way of LIFE

We have recently introduced KAIZEN in our company; I’m also a great supporter of KAIZEN as I believe in the old adage “Change is the only constant in life”. KAIZEN is the tool that advocates change and helps all keep in step with it.

At Cellebrum Technologies Limited we constantly strive towards perfection. Special care is taken to always try to make things better in every aspect (both personal and professional) on a daily basis, as we believe that to move towards perfection one needs to continuously evolve by simple endeavours daily.

So the book review and why I chose to select this particular book should come as no surprise.

Book Review...


One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer introduces us to the practical aspects of KAIZEN principles applicable in one’s daily life. The book also shows us how to make big change by taking little steps using Kaizen approach.


Ingrained in the two thousand-year-old wisdom of Tao Te Ching "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" Kaizen is the art of making great and lasting change through small, steady increments.
The book shows how one can easily yet at the same time with an persuasive attitude can effect positive change. The book begins with outlining the much-repeated role that “FEAR” plays in all types of change and how Kaizen can outwit it.

Dr. Maurer then goes on to explain the 7 Small/Significant Steps (that can make a real difference in our life):

  1. How to Think Small Thoughts
  2. Take Small Actions
  3. Solve Small Problems
  4. Mind sculpture--visualizing virtual change so that real change comes more naturally
  5. How to perform
  6. Why small rewards motivate better than big rewards
  7. How great discoveries are made by paying attention to the little details most of us overlook

Dr. Maurer believes that the human brain enjoys questions and also problem solving so instead of "taking the leap" and "facing your fears" the book advocates asking small questions about oneself. This book is essentially about getting from ground zero to step 1, or from complete inertia—zero momentum to getting the ball rolling especially when making a change in ones life.

This is an excellent book for all who are willing to try a new approach for improving there life. An easy read for a weekend or while travelling…real life examples make this book quite practical.


Many other examples of Kaizen at work are listed in the book. But to read those you would need to make a small change in your schedule—that is to go and pick up this wonderful book and read it thoroughly and to adopt its ideas in your life.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Cellebrum CEO Proud to be BITSian Saket Agarwal shares his Passion

Prof BR Natarajan
Cellebrum is the brain-child of Agarwal, who had foreseen the need for a stand-alone unit for developing and deploying VAS services. Under his leadership, Cellebrum has turned into an industry leader in a short span of 4 years.

Saket Agarwal has been the driving force behind the present industry-leading position that Cellebrum Technologies Limited holds in the VAS arena globally. He is someone who likes to consistently evolve and create value for the company and its employees. Saket believes in details and follows processes without affecting the productivity; an impossible blend that he makes possible with élan that's unique to him. He ensures his complete involvement in all projects, giving unsullied perspective to each product design; thus helping create an environment for lateral thinking and innovation, ensuring delivery of applications/products ahead of timelines. In fact he is his own products biggest critic ensuring that he and his team is always striving to create superior and bath-breaking products.

Saket holds a coveted dual degree B.E. (Hons) Electrical Electronics Engineering and MSc (Hons) Physics from BITS Pilani which is one among the top ranking universities towering above the rest in various best college surveys in India today. Soon after taking charge as Cellebrum CEO in Mid May 2008, in an exclusive message to BITS Alumni Association (BITSAA), Saket conveyed 'Well, I do flaunt BITS Tag, for everything I do, where-ever and why not? How BITS, my Alma Mater, changed course of my career is truly embedded in my memories. I vividly remember going through the BITS journey, far more than education. It was a truly OASIS in letter & spirit. What it allowed was - I could LIVE at my own pace & terms. At BITS when one wanted to be fiercely competitive at academics, one could be driven to extremes of intellectual demands and then suddenly, if one wanted to switch to enjoying child like gay abandon in various sports - the badminton to the night cricket - one could live to the hilt. Then again learning the administration of Mess / APOGEE / OASIS or various others, keeping pace with the tough Compulsory Discipline Courses CDCs, it all added to the persona. The Saraswati Temple, the Sky Lawns & evening out at campus market Connaught with friends helped to have the calming effect. Instead of regulating attendance, BITS System gives you so much empowerment / responsibility to make your own timetable, best food across universities, students from different parts of the country, best as yet cultural festival - OASIS, no social divide, to providing phenomenal learning through Practice School PS - I & II, it was always - LIVING at your terms, without loosing one's Identity.
Thus, if I can help do anything to add anything to Brand BITS, I am always going to be Game. "This proud to be a BITSian Saket Agarwal who has integrated himself into the excellence circuit is bound to climb many more peaks in the years to come.About Birla Institute of Technology and Science: BITS Pilani which has the reputation of pioneering the online examinations for admissions through the pathbreaking BITSAT and setting a benchmark in industry university collaborations is one among the top ranking universities towering above the rest in various best college surveys in India today. BITS offers degrees in various disciplines presently at Pilani, Dubai, Goa and Hyderabad campuses apart from an array of work integrated learning programmes for HRD of a vast spectrum of Indian corporates. The alumni of the Institute are spread across the globe from Australia to America.
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