- On display at Mobile World Congress: an uneasy relationship between tech and telecom: Despite the numerous networking events and business deals, there is a love-hate relationship involving some of the world’s largest mobile carriers and tech giants like Facebook and Google. Both sides rely on each other to provide customers worldwide with high-speed Internet access and online services like music streaming and social networking. Yet as smartphones increasingly become the principal means by which people manage their everyday lives, the telecom and tech giants are jockeying to position themselves as consumers’ main conduit for using the Internet on mobile devices. “Mobile has become the heart of the Internet,” This shift has led to some uneasy relationships between telecom and tech companies. For many carriers, which have invested billions of dollars in recent years to upgrade their networks, growing consumer appetite for services like streaming from Netflix has raised fears that telecom operators will be relegated merely to providing the infrastructure that powers the boom in mobile Internet. Telecom executives worry that this role will force operators to miss out on the growing revenue that flows into smartphone applications, Internet gaming and other services, which all run on top of their networks. The concerns come as many carriers’ revenues — particularly in Europe, whose economy continues to stutter — have leveled off. Some industry insiders also have expressed frustration that American tech giants like Google and Amazon, which have used complicated tax structures to reduce their global tax burdens, do not face the same levels of regulatory scrutiny as carriers. That includes the F.C.C.’s net neutrality decision last week, which will allow the agency to treat broadband Internet access as a public utility for regulatory purposes. At the same time, several tech giants have gained footholds in areas traditionally dominated by the big telecom companies. Google, for example, is introducing fiber-optic networks in several American cities, offering television and Internet services at speeds of up to one gigabit a second, 100 times as fast as the average Internet connection. The search giant is running other pilot projects in emerging markets, including Kampala, Uganda, to build Internet infrastructure not offered by local carriers. And Facebook now competes head-on with traditional telecom players after acquiring WhatsApp, the Internet messaging service, last year for $19 billion. Along with Facebook Messenger, the company’s separate messaging service, Facebook now has hundreds of millions of mobile users who have shifted from traditional text messaging — a once highly lucrative revenue source for carriers — to free Internet messaging on their mobile devices. “Operators only have themselves to blame,” said Steven Hartley, a telecom analyst at the research company Ovum in London. “They didn’t adapt to the mobile shifts in the industry. They can’t complain when others beat them to the punch.”
- IRCTC ties up with Amazon to monetize traffic by selling products online: Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a subsidiary of the government controlled Indian Railways, has now tied up with Amazon to sell products online. Last year Techcircle.in had reported that IRCTC was in talks with Amazon and Flipkart for a tie-up. In his previous conversation with Techcircle.in, a senior railway official had told that this move will leverage the site’s huge database of over 21 million registered users and convert them into potential customers for third party e-commerce players and in turn act as an additional source of revenue through a fee or other mechanism for IRCTC. IRCTC handles the catering, tourism and online ticketing operations of the Indian Railways. It is the sole seller of railway tickets even though other OTAs come across as additional sales channel for booking in association with IRCTC. Under the agreement, IRCTC will leverage the huge traffic it generates being a virtual monopoly for train e-ticketing to sell products such as consumer electronic, books, shoes, apparel etc. It has added a “shop on Amazon” tab on its homepage which redirects to a separate landing page on Amazon.in.
- Airbnb looking to raise $1B at $20B valuation: Airbnb Inc. is raising money from investors in a financing round that would value the room-sharing service at $20 billion or more, people with knowledge of the deal said. Airbnb may bring in about $1 billion in the funding, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The closely held company, backed by venture-capital firms including Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners and Founders Fund, was given a value of $10 billion last year in a round led by TPG Capital Management. Airbnb has raised more than $700 million before the latest financing. At $20 billion, San Francisco-based Airbnb would join the ranks of the most highly valued private U.S. technology companies, including Uber Technologies Inc., Space Exploration Technologies Inc., Snapchat Inc., Dropbox Inc. and Palantir Technologies Inc. It also would be worth almost seven times more than HomeAway Inc., a publicly traded vacation-rental site.
- Alibaba's direct-from-farm purchases, Baidu's smart chopsticks seek to reassure Chinese consumers amid food safety concerns: Controlling China’s sprawling food supply chain has proved a frustrating endeavor. Government regulators and state-owned agriculture companies have tried to tackle the problem in a number of ways — increasing factory inspections, conducting mass laboratory tests, enhancing enforcement procedures, even with prosecutions and executions — but food safety scandals still emerge too often. Chinese technology companies believe they can do it better. From the farm to the table, the country’s biggest players are looking to upgrade archaic systems with robust data collection, smartphone apps, online marketplaces and fancy gadgetry. The founder of the computer maker Lenovo started Joyvio, the agricultural company that tracks kiwis and other fruit from planting to delivery. The Internet giant Alibaba directly connects consumers with farmers via an online produce-delivery service. A gaming entrepreneur is running a pig farm on the side. And Baidu, the country’s leading search engine, is developing a “smart” chopstick that tests whether food is contaminated. City dwellers can buy directly from farmers through Jutudi, a pilot program created by Alibaba that has about 10,000 users. An e-commerce twist on the “buy local” movement, Jutudi lets users buy regular deliveries of vegetables and fruits from farms across China. Consumers can even pick their own plots in a sort of virtual farming, although deliveries may come from multiple places. Baidu’s smart chopsticks were supposed to be a joke for April Fools’ Day. The search engine giant published a fake advertisement for a set of chopsticks that would determine whether food had been cooked with gutter oil. The ad struck a chord, and it quickly went viral on Chinese social media sites. With such a strong response, Baidu decided to create a real product. Embedded with sensors, the chopsticks primarily test for gutter oil, but they also indicate pH levels and temperature. The product’s charger allows consumers to identify different fruits and vegetables as well as where they were grown and the calories they contain. The company is debating whether to add a feature that would indicate salinity, allowing users to determine whether mineral water is fake. Baidu is currently manufacturing a small batch of prototypes for testing. The company says it has not yet decided when to release the product or how much it will cost. Even so, it has already generated interest. Alibaba is tapping into consumers’ nostalgia for their rural roots with a heavy dose of marketing. The site features a Socialist Realist illustration of two women in a field of golden grain — harking back to the days of Mao Zedong, when farmers were lionized by propaganda. With images of shiny, red tomatoes, well-groomed pigs and other succulent fruits and vegetables, the program also promotes quality. Higher-end packages include tours of the farms.
- As Apple readies for smartwatch launch,..:For Apple, the hard part — making a smartwatch — is nearly over. Soon it will be time for the harder part: selling the long-anticipated Apple Watch to consumers who, so far, are not very excited about the idea of wearing computers on their bodies. The first batch of smartwatches from companies like Samsung Electronics, Motorola and LG did not sell well, nor were they particularly well reviewed. And wearable devices like the Google Glass eyewear that got mainstream attention — if not sales — were greeted with considerable skepticism. But Apple has been in this situation before. Most consumers didn’t care about computer tablets before Apple released the iPad, nor did they generally think about buying smartphones before the release of the iPhone. In both cases, the company overcame initial skepticism. Apple has marketed it as a device that can appeal to a range of customers like fitness buffs and luxury watch collectors. But it has limited its functions, making it more like a watch, more easily relatable than a tech doodad that happens to look like a watch, said Ben Bajarin, a consumer technology analyst for Creative Strategies. “This is a brand-new category. Most people have no frame of reference with a smartwatch,” said Mr. Bajarin. In late February, Apple sent out invitations to the media for an event to remind people about the best features of the watch and share some new details about the product, according to two people with knowledge of the event. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, is expected to be the host. Apple is expected to say more about price. The starting price for a basic Apple Watch is $350. Apple has not yet said how much people will have to pay for higher-end models, like the Apple Watch Edition, which is made of 18-karat gold, though watch enthusiasts estimate that it will cost upward of $10,000.
- ..Huawei unveils its own high-end smartwatch in an effort to beat Apple to the punch: China’s Huawei Technologies Co. unveiled its first smart watch that is aimed at the higher end of the wearables market, a week before Apple Inc. is expected to host an event to present a rival device. The 42-millimeter (1.6-inch) diameter luxury watch will be the world’s first wearable with sapphire crystal glass, Richard Yu, chief executive officer of Huawei’s consumer business group, said at an event in Barcelona Sunday, ahead of the Monday opening of the Mobile World Congress. Yu also unveiled an upgrade to Huawei’s smart band, introduced at last year’s conference. Huawei, ranked fifth in global smartphone shipments during the third quarter, is focusing on higher-end smartphones that can rival Apple’s or models by Samsung Electronics Co. All have expanded into wearables. Apple on Thursday sent out invitations to an event on March 9 in San Francisco, where it will unveil details for the release of the Apple Watch, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The connected, fitness-tracking wristwatch is the first entirely new gadget line to debut since Tim Cook took the helm at the Cupertino, California-based company. For Huawei, this year’s upgrade in accessories comes after sales of higher-end smartphones helped revenue rise about 20 percent in 2014 and operating profit improve. The maker of phone-network gear that also competes against the likes of Ericsson AB, has also been widening its product portfolio as it works toward a goal of achieving $70 billion in revenue by 2018, from $46 billion last year.
