India added 7.3 mln wireless users in June

"Indian wireless telecom operators added a record 7.34 million subscribers in June, lifting the user base to 185.13 million, the country's telecoms regulator said on Wednesday.

Wireless phone subscribers in June were 65 percent higher than a year earlier, according to TRAI report. India is the world's fastest growing market for mobile services.
Analysts forecast the wireless user base will top 500 million in 5 years, as less than 20 percent of India's 1.1 billion population own a telephone. Including fixed-line phones, total telephone subscribers grew 47 percent from a year earlier to 225.21 million, the regulator said.

During the April-June quarter, 20.02 million wireless users signed up, but fixed-line connections witnessed a decline of 0.66 million, it said. Bharti Airtel, which had a subscriber base of 42.7 million at the end of June, is India's top mobile services firm, followed by Reliance, Hutchison Essar and state-run BSNL." Report: Reuters

Microsoft to hawk PCs to India's kids

"Microsoft plans to sell a PC for kids and launch an educational channel on its MSN portal in India as the next step in a worldwide 'Unlimited Potential' program" Reported by Austin Modine in Mountain View.

Aimed a target of Rs.40,875,000/- at school students, Microsoft's new IQ PC will be built on AMD hardware and vended by Zenith Computers. The computers will cost Rs.21,000/- ($514).

Microsoft will also open the doors on the MSN IQ Beta Education Channel. The new channel will feature tutoring, exam coaching, and other educational tools for students.

"The task that we have today is to make technology pervasive and useful in the everyday lives of more and more people," Microsoft India chairman Ravi Venkatesan said. India ranks as one of the largest emerging markets in the world, but Microsoft is eager to whip that Indian pony into a gallop. Best to get 'em while they're young.

"The currency growth of IT penetration in India might be rapid, but it is not rapid enough. Affordability is critical and goes far beyond low-cost hardware," Venkatesan said. Microsoft plans to test the waters for IQ at 10 retail outlets in Bangalore and Prun for three months beginning in July, before expanding the offer based on market response. The IQ PC comes loaded with Windows, Office, Encarta and specialized educational programs such as tutorials for competitive exams and homework helpers.

Microsoft will have to hope the software package will ease a price point that, while relatively inexpensive, is not on the low end of the PC market in India, where customers can pick one up for under $400. Microsoft India is also battling computer vendors who make a habit of installing pirated copies of Windows for no extra charge.

In July, India rejected the One Laptop Per Child project, which aims to provide kids in developing countries with a simple $100 machine. India's education ministry said that currently the country needs classrooms and teachers more than computers for children.

Microsoft's Unlimited Potential spokesperson Rachel MacGillivray said the Rs.20,000/- offering is an initial pilot, and Microsoft will work to bring the price down further as the program scales out. Microsoft's Unlimited Potential campaign aims to get PC access for 1 billion people worldwide by 2015 — which just so happens to be the same target year as the United Nations' eight.

Free Push Email Application with Five Mobile Accounts Comes to India

Hotmail®, Yahoo!®, AOL® Email and Google Mail™, plus Corporate Email pushed to Mobile Phones using a Single Application on any Data Network. From Mumbai to Bangalore and all across India, a free* version of the popular mobile email application, Consilient Pushª is now available. This marks the first time the Canadian company Consilient®, with regional offices in Singapore, has made a free version of their technology available in India. The mobile application is available at www.consilient.com.

The popular service features multi-account access, giving users a single application for accessing up to five different mail accounts on mobile phones. The Push application supports Wi-Fi access and can run on any data network, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance India Mobile, BSNL, Hutchison, IDEA and Tata Mobile.

Features of Consilient Push:

5 Email account access: personal and corporate in single application (one email account access for BlackBerry® and Windows Mobile devices only)
Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL & Gmail - Plus POP3 and IMAP4 access
Personal Themes - personalize email application with pictures and color coding
MP3 ring tones for new email notification
Easy to use Account Management Profile
Photo attaching, saving, sending, receiving, viewing
Phone "lock and wipe clean" if lost or stolen
Personal signatures
Easy to set up: download sent via SMS
Attachment support for all file types

Consilient Push delivers mobile email for Hotmail, Yahoo!, Google Mail and AOL. The application also supports any POP3 or IMAP4 account, providing a single mobile application for corporate and personal mobile email use. Users can download the application on their existing mobile phones and move between personal and corporate email accounts using color codes. The Push service also has attachment support (ZIP, MS Word, PDF & Excel) and uses 128-bit encryption.

"We are very excited to bring our mobile email application to the Indian market, one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world," said Trevor Adey, Consilient CEO. "People can now run mobile email for up to five accounts on their everyday mobile phones. This gives the Indian market a fresh, free alternative for mobile messaging," Adey added.

Consilient's underlying technology is push-based and is designed to be easy-to-use on popular mobile phones including Nokia, Samsung and Windows Mobile devices. No email or passwords are stored with Consilient - the technology acts as an instant relay pushing email out in real-time. The Push application can be quickly downloaded onto most popular mobile phones in seconds. * requires data plan or Wi-Fi access.

How to get Push:

Sign up at www.consilient.com, Receive one SMS to your mobile phone. Click on link in SMS - accept "yes" to allow application to run on network. A Premium version of Consilient Push is available for $5 USD/month. Consilient Push uses open standards (LEMONADE/P-IMAP) and is available in a scalable version for mobile operators and ISPs.

About Consilient®

Consilient is a leading developer of push email, multimedia and advertising for mobile phones. Consilient was founded in 2000 and has offices in Asia, North America and Europe. For more information, go to www.consilient.com.

press release.