Mukesh Ambani, India’s Steve Jobs?

Reliance Industries under Mukesh Ambani redefined the Indian telecom market with their affordable CDMA-based mobile call rates, what followed was Mukesh Ambani having to relinquish rights to his telecom venture to younger brother Anil Ambani as part of a peace treaty between the two.

The battle between the brothers was fought in the media with each camp making statements. Much like Hindi cinema, their mother stepped in and arranged truce. Reliance Communications (formerly Reliance Infocom) was Mukesh Ambani’s brainchild and he had to give it up. Soon after, Mukesh Ambani invested in Infotel Broadband ensuring that he planned to stay in the telecommunications arena.

A while back there was news that Reliance was testing their 4G network and a new wireless broadband benchmark in the market is expected.According to reports, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Infotel is planning to release an affordable tablet PC. The tablet is rumored to be priced at Rs. 8,000 INR (~$177) and will run on Android.

One of the most important features of the tablet PC is the user interface and it will be interesting to see what the engineers at Reliance come up with. Reliance’s approach is reduce the price to as low as possible and sell to as many as possible. The upside is very much like the mobile phone market explosion is the remote areas of India, 4G and possibly tablet PCs will reach a wider audience.

Be born to a businessman, drop out of college to work, a big family feud after a tragedy, give up your (successful) brainchild, restart it in a new form and all set to define mobile computing in India, I’d say we have a visionary in the consumer technology space with as a good a story to tell as Steve Jobs.

PS: My analogy depends on whether the rumoured tablet is real or not, so I guess we’ll have to wait and watch.

Hotmail users complain of deleted emails: Live@edu unaffected

Some Hotmail users are complaining on Microsoft feedback forums that some of their content is missing or has been deleted. Over 470 people have complained on Windows Live forums, saying that the majority of their email has been moved into their deleted folders, according to AP.

Microsoft has acknowledged that a problem exists, though no timeline has been given on how long it will take for the solution to be rolled out. It does not appear that many of the 360 million global users are affected.

Microsoft spokeswoman, Catherine Brooker said “At this point it appears to be a limited issue, and Microsoft is working with individual users who are impacted. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers”, but declined to comment on what has caused the problem.

While Live@edu’s Outlook Live, an email service provided by Microsoft forstudents at school, college and universities are hosted in the same datacenters, it appears that data loss is limited only to Hotmail at this time.

Apple's brand values borrowed in Kia Soul 'hamstar' commercial

Everyone must love the return of the human-sized hip-hop hamsters in the 2010 Kia Soul “this or that” commercial, running during this holiday season. Whatever the spot does for Kia sales, it sports a sequence that borrows a bit of Apple’s “this,” and puts the competition into the “that” category.

The spot in the award-winning campaign from the David & Goliath agency is based on the Black Sheep’s 1991 track “The Choice is Yours.” Kia’s hamster rappers divide the world into “this” and “that,” with the latter being cheap and bad. You can have a Kia Soul or a car made from a cardboard box.

“You can get with this, or you can get with that,” the spot repeats over and over. It’s a lot of fun.

In one sequence, the hamsters are riding in the Soul and watching the Black Sheep video on an iPhone. The audio tells us that we can “get with this,” which I understood as meaning the Apple mobile device. The next shot, the “that,” is a hamster driving a clothes dryer.

Who knew that the iPhone’s capacitive touchscreen works for hamsters?

Here’s the thing: the shot with the iPhone or iPod working in the Kia isn’t so much about the automobile. More to the point, the shot is not about how it’s easier to use an iOS device in a Kia than in the competition.

Instead, it’s all about the “this” user value. Apple has plenty of “this.”

Customers want excellent, high-quality products that just work, are reliable, and are hip. That describes the Apple brand. But customers are less sure about Kia’s Soul, so the spot borrows a bit of the Apple “this” values with a placement of the iPhone.

Of course, all the other smartphones on the market are automatically “that.”

Microsoft delivers test build of server app-virtualization technology

Microsoft quietly delivered a promised Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of its server application virtualization technology just before Christmas.

Company officials said at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in October 2010 to expect CTP 1 of server app-virtualiztion before the end of 2010. The final version of the technology is still on track for delivery in the second half of 2011, execs said on December 22.

At the PDC, Microsoft published a lengthy laundry list of new cloud technologies the company was planning to roll out in test and final form in the coming year-plus. I believe the server app-virtualiztion component was the last of the expected deliverables to make it out before the year-end deadline.

In June 2010, Microsoft execs said to expect Server application virtualiztion to be delivered via System Center Virtual Machine Manager v.Next, due in the second half of 2011. (That product is expected to debut as SCVMM 2012 when it ships.)

Server application virtualization (Server App-V), as explained in a December 22 TechNet blog post, builds on the client App-V technology that Microsoft currently offers as part of its Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP). It will allow users to separate application configuration and state from the underlying operating system. As the post noted:

“This separation and packaging enables existing Windows applications, not specifically designed for Windows Azure, to be deployed on a Windows Azure worker role. We can do this in a way where the application state is maintained across reboots or movement of the worker role.”

Server App-V converts traditional Windows Server 2008 apps into “state separated ‘XCopyable’ images without requiring code changes to the applications themselves,” the Softies explained.

Server App-V is meant to be a complementary technology to theWindows Azure VM Role technology, a test version of which Microsoft delivered in November. The two technologies are aimed at allowing customers to host more of their legacy applications in the cloud.

Images: See YouTube's new 'experimental homepage'

YouTube is trialling out a new layout, including front door, which aims to make the entire experience better, quicker and easier to find the videos you want to watch. For some users like myself, this is the first opportunity to see it, while some have had access for the past fortnight.

• Combined list: Merges your subscriptions, friend activity, and recommendations into one easier-to-scan list
• Don’t miss a video: If a channel uploads four videos in a day, you’ll see all four - instead of just the latest video
• Delete anything: Hover over any video you don’t want to watch and click ‘x’
• Or just grey it out: Videos you’ve already watched will be greyed out - so even without deleting, you’ll know where you left off

• Help me re-find stuff I just watched: Your homepage will include your recent likes and favorites so you can easily get back to them
• Easy inbox: Links to your inbox (personal messages & comments) are front and center
• Load much more: Watch older videos - all without leaving the homepage