Full E-magazine Forbes English version (copyright)
Trang 1Price rs 100 february 22, 2013 subscriber coPy not for sale
Pg/80
www.forbesindia.com
How Smartphones are changing our work, our play and the way we are
stem cells: trials & error
Trang 2Business
Minus the paperwork.
You live on the go, travelling light.
You want things now,
not when the courier gets there.
You’re connected, 24/7, and you want your reading at your fingertips.
Trang 3I N D I A
Tablet Edition Welcome to the
In Association With
Trang 5Phone, kapda aur makaan
5
L e t t e r F r om T h e E x e c u t i ve E d it or
February 22, 2013 | Forbes india
There are some numbers it
takes the mind time to come
to terms with When this year
ends, roughly 87 million Indians will
have no access to telephones That
said, 250 million Indians will also go
to bed, undernourished, every night
These are the kinds of numbers that
bring to mind a story that dates back to
the mid-90s An uncouth, garrulous man
was spotted, talking loudly and endlessly
on his cellular phone The device was new
and those were times when it cost Rs 16 to
the minute, either to place a call or receive
one People around gazed longingly at the
object and gaped at the kind of money the
man had The gazing and gaping, though,
turned into mocking when the ringer on
his phone went off He, the story goes,
was showing off his cellular phone in
what was then a hopelessly poor country
Because there are so many people who
have spotted this man, I suspect him an
urban legend But the apocryphal story is
a telling one of the times we live in Driven
by a primal need to communicate and
explosive entrepreneurship, telephones,
or smartphones as they are now called,
are now more abundant in India than
food is It has permeated our lives in
ways we thought unthinkable five years
ago It also leaves us with no doubt that
our lives are altering dramatically To understand how, it is important, therefore,
to understand what forms these devices take and how they drive our existence
So Rohin Dharmakumar and NS Ramnath, who work out of our offices
in Bangalore and are passionate about technology, took it upon themselves to inspect devices still being prototyped, speak to people from across the world, and research and write a series of stories that will leave you astonished at the times
we live in They also invited Hampus Jakobsson and Chetan Sharma, both of whom have worked and consulted for the most innovative technology companies
in the world, to help us understand the implications Aided with lovely illustrations by the very talented Sameer Pawar, what lies on the pages that follow
is a clear vision of what to expect
May I also urge you to visit www.
forbesindia.com? A lot of energies are being invested into building a multimedia experience that will charm you with its variety and depth on themes often ignored by the mainstream Some of these are anchored by people from reputed institutions across the world; others
by our enormously talented team
As always, a note on what you think
of our efforts will be appreciated
in inDia than fooD
Trang 6
Declining car sales and downtrading
in some consumer segments could
mean that India’s consumption
boom is petering out
26 A Car, By Another name
Cross badging of vehicles hasn’t
caught on in Indian markets
Current events
18 Boeing’s Dream gone Bad
Grounding of the 787 raises
questions about the aircraft-maker’s
sourcing strategy
20 Billionaire Bistro
Settle into the Four Seasons’ Grill
Room in New York for a peek at the
power elite
22 Cameron Delivers a penultimatum
British PM’s conviction about referendum on EU exit seems more electoral than personal
30 Atoms versus Bits
Who wins the battle between physics and software, and where do you find maximum innovation?
iDeAs & opinion
28 Beyond the Banyan tree
Swami Parthasarathy’s Vedanta
is based on ancient texts and scriptures but has found its way into the minds of corporate bigwigs from across the world
NEW AGE SAGE Swami Parthasarathy teaches you how to focus on intellect
Your phone is already smart But it
is growing smarter and will soon take over your life We tell you how
32
28
Trang 7february 22, 2013 | forbes india 7
42 right on His money
How Sid Yog’s realty fund
Xander managed to tide over
the meltdown
46 A Kinder, gentler KKr
Wall Street’s most hostile
private equity giant wants to be
Main Street’s go-to investor in
its new avatar
56 the share economy
Americans are sharing much
more than their Facebook
statuses and writing a whole
new story of collaborative
consumption
63 Calling China
A group of new engineers are
gearing up to launch an open
source mobile platform to take
on Google’s Android in the East
64 once upon a soda
How consulting firm
Starlight Runner helps
CARING AND SHARING Birth of a new disruptive economy in the US MONEY MAN Xander’s Sid Yog is calling it right with his realty fund AUTO PILOT Vivek Chand Sehgal is building an empire
filmmakers and brands keep their stories straight
66 shut up, Hollywood
The stars of Smosh are hot web celebrities and are totally fine sticking to the internet
68 return of the indian
How Polaris CEO Scott Wine
is planning to rewrite an iconic motorcycle brand’s history
enterprise
52 going the Distance
Motherson Sumi’s fairytale journey from a nondescript unit to a giant auto parts maker
Trang 8104 pants perfect
High-tech office wear comes
in from the cold
ApprAisAl
97 Book: patriots and partisans
Historian Ramachandra Guha’s collection of essays cites three basic problems concerning this country of a billion
nuggets
98 techie’s style sheet
A set of uber fast wheels and a GPS-enabled watch can make your day
CHeAt sHeet
100 gifts of love
How people in love made gifting a grand business
101 tip-off & f-index
90
Trang 9Life Daily Sabbatical
“Thank You Auntie”: Indian kitchens outsource to an “auntie network”
and not to food factories
With their skills in providing processed food solutions that are hygienic, fresh and customised to suit individual customer taste, these Narmadabens can pose a formidable challenge to the factory-based ready-to-eat segment
How to kickstart innovation in your organisation
Game-changing innovation is hard It is not just the outcome of brilliant ideas, but brilliant ideas executed brilliantly
Krispy Kreme: Converting ‘Likes’
to loves
Krispy Kreme used social media to create
a buzz for its launch in Bangalore
ForBes INdIA
Now Available
on iPaddownload the Forbes India App
Vishwaroopam: The story doesn’t end here
The banning of the movie says a lot about the uneasy relationship between art and politics in Tamil Nadu Both the state’s dominant political parties grew as a result of its association with cinema
What this 75-yr-old’s story tells
us about discovery in India
It requires a different sensibility
to appreciate, and evaluate scientific research
ouR BloggeRs
THE SUPERSMART PHONE CELEBRITY 100
By Rohin Dharmakumar and NS Ramnath
By Deepak Ajwani and Charles Assisi
THe HIGH-GroWTH CoNuNdrum:
mArKeTING AT HYPersPeed
one way in which companies lose their way, ironically, is in strong sales
WHY JAPANese ComPANIes Are FALLING BeHINd THe resT oF THe WorLd
What Japanese companies can
do to be globally competitive
daily saBBatical
Podcasts
HoW To Be exTremeLY ProduCTIVe
It takes a lot more than organising your
schedule to be productive
PArAdox oF CHoosING PLATForms
developers and users of a smartphone tend to buy another phone with a similar platform, since most applications are platform-specific
HoW does PrIVATe equITY WorK
IN INdIA?
Private equity experts and investors in India describe a unique developing market where, even with bountiful capital and few opportunities for anything but minority shares, the sector is profitable
dAmodAr
mALL
Blogs on shopping habits,
consumer insight and mall culture
PrINCe mATHeWs THomAs
Believes the story lies
in detail
LuIs mIrANdA
Blogs on his experiences as
a private equity specialist
dINesH NArAYANAN
Writes on policy, politics and economy
February 22, 2013 | Forbes india 9
Trang 10Contributing Editor: Mitu Jayashankar Consulting Editor: Sumana Mukherjee Editor (Markets And Finance):
Pravin Palande
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infor-I N D infor-I A
Trang 11is indeed a brilliant piece
Great job Aakash [Chopra]!
is still not replaceable
Though, Vijay will be the top actor undoubtedly!
She [Priyanka Chopra]
is a bird She needs to fly You cannot contain
or define people like her
Super impressed with her attitude and calibre
Thumbs up to her spirit!
Mona
On the Web
She is not just a heroine we love to watch on screen She
is a leader worth emulating
She broke the gender bias
in the film industry and proved that a strong will and the courage to take risks matter Noting else!
I think he is a bit hatke
[different] director like Ram Gopal Varma and has brought about a change
in Bollywood Anurag has made movies that are meaningful and exciting
Sai Bharadwaj
On the Web
AGAINST THE TIDE
Refer to ‘Curtain Call?’
(February 8, 2013, issue)
Truer words have never been uttered This comes from one of the most talented ladies of India
Good to see Gul [Panag]
trying her hand at writing
export is to get something
in return Otherwise, you are simply giving away your assets and impoverishing yourself
Somehow, this never registers with economists who regard export as an accomplishment by itself and fail to recognise that export and import are two sides of trade Just as a sale will attract more customers but cannot be a business strategy in the long run, with a weak currency you are asking for less for your products and resorting
to semantics to make it look like an achievement, which it is not
On page 48 – An image of actor Venkatesh was wrongly
used instead of actor Nagarjuna’s
On page 51 – Vijender Singh’s photo was wrongly captioned
as Vijender Kumar The errors are regretted
February 22, 2013 | Forbes india 11
Trang 12Q: You spent 42 years in a firm Such long stints are hard to see these days.
When I joined TCS, there were just
25 consulting staff We were a tiny division of Tata Sons From there,
we have become one of the most valuable companies in the group and
in the country I started in system design and programming, moved to marketing and opened offices abroad, then set up the base in Chennai [TCS’ largest] and in the last 10 years have been in finance It doesn’t look like I have stayed in one job
Q: What are some of the key inflection points that you recall?
The start certainly was one The first computer we had was an IBM 1401
IBM stopped making that model soon after So when we decided to offer IT services on the latest technology, our clients were using it based largely on a belief, even though we did not have the latest technology
The second inflection point was the understanding of what
it takes to scale up When you are hiring 50 people you need one sort of
a system, and another sort when you are hiring thousands You can’t get there by just going to blue-chip institutions You need to have processes Remember, the customer will experience what your frontline associate feels The third inflection point
was when we became a listed company By 2003, TCS had become very big and we needed the listing
to create stakeholder interest
Q: Your peers had been listed for a while There was pressure on you
to promise and deliver growth in a certain way How did you handle that?
It is right that our peers set the bar very high We decided to be more transparent and tell investors the points on which they should judge companies We also decided there was no point in spoon-feeding them,
so we did not give any guidance
We remained in touch with them through updates: Trends, sectors that are doing well, how TCS
is positioned If you believe too much in guidance, then you end
up managing your own numbers
Q: Is the TCS founding team different from that of other IT companies because they did not have any share
in the enterprise, and yet created value as if it was their own company?
There are two reasons why this could happen One could be greed and you take tremendous risks, and maybe create value The other reason is passion For us, it was passion Most
of us wanted to become big players
in the industry We weren’t focussed
so much on the short term
last Position: Chief financial officer, TCS
Career: Managed key functions, including
marketing, operations, human resources
interests: Reading, travelling, golf
be more transparent and keep the investor community updated rather than guiding it
To read the full interview, visit forbesindia.com
Trang 13February 22, 2013 | Forbes india 13
education: IIT Kharagpur;
Masters in Mining from USSR State Commission, Moscow
Positions held: Head of Works, Bhilai Steel Plant of SAIL; director
at ArcelorMittal; CEO of Essar Steel
Q After the boom years, the global
mining and metal sectors are now
going through a doom period
What went wrong?
The worst thing to happen to the steel
and mining sector was the boom Some
of the experienced CEOs never thought
that a boom would last forever All
those companies that invested between
2006 and 2008 are the ones that are
now suffering Those who didn’t
fall for the boom are doing well
Q Like?
Japanese steel companies didn’t get into
it South Korean major Posco
didn’t They are performing better
than they did in 2007-08
Q In early January, mining major Rio Tinto
announced a record $14 billion
write-down of some of its assets How could
experienced players make such mistakes?
There are many big players who tend
to look at the mining sector from a
strategic point of view rather than the
operational Don’t look at an asset in
terms of its value, but what happens
from the operating point of view
I’m very surprised that many
companies don’t even do the basic due
diligence They have financial analysts
in their mergers and acquisitions team
That has to change If it is resources
that you are buying then you need
to have geologists in the team
Entrepreneurs should understand that it is better to spend $10 million or $11 million in accessing the mine If it is an operating mine then you have the balance sheet to look at But if it’s a greenfield [operation], then you should focus on due diligence If money has to be lost, it is better lost while checking the resource rather than after buying it, which is a disaster
Q In the steel sector, going global was the favourite approach in the last five years Was that a mistake?
Today it is showing that companies who remained local players are doing better They don’t have extreme financial conditions or huge debts
Korean and Japanese companies are still very much local, at least in the Asian region Most of the Russian steelmakers are not doing too badly either, even though Severstal is having a big problem in the US
Q Will these setbacks change the way strategies are set?
Mining companies have got used to big operations Today, for the bigger miners
in the world to get interested in an asset,
it should have at least 35 million to 40 million tonnes of reserves But there are many in the range of 5 million to 10 million tonnes This requires a different approach
It is typical: The bigger you grow, the less attention you give You tend to look at just
20 percent and the rest is left on its own
If You Are Buying
Resources You
Need Geologists
After successful stints at India’s leading steel firms,
about the mistakes large companies tend to make
Trang 14Upf r ont/Wor ld Wa t c h
57 32.6
33.7
Trang 15Is the number of gun-related deaths in a country linked to the
number of people owning firearms? It’s being debated But such
killings do seem to be linked to income disparity
Norway
11 th
31.3 2 25 Finland
Gun murders per year
in India have come down
by 2/3rds since 2004
Norway, Switzerland and Finland have high gun ownership because many people are enrolled in mandatory military service
More prosperous, egalitarian societies (Gini co-efficient < 35) have fewer gun-related deaths
Sources:
United Nations Office of Crime and Drugs Small Arms Survey
World Bank Data as of 2010.
* The Gini co-efficient measures income disparity; the lower the co-efficient, the lesser the disparity
INSIGHTS
Global gun ownership rank Guns per 100 people Average no of homicides
with firearms in a year Gini co-efficient*
february 22, 2013 | forbes india 15
Graphic by SAMEER PAWAR
Compiled by ShRAvAn BhAt
Trang 16Upf r ont/B r ie f i n g
Buy-Gone Era?
It’s becomIng harder to sell
no of units sold in dec 2011 no of units sold in dec 2012
Cars
2-Wheelers
flight tiCkets
Unsold hoUsing stoCk (sq ft)
207,316
1,137,148 206,865
1,091,982
54.14 lakh
495 million 50.2 lakh
602 million
Karl slym
“For passenger vehicles, the overall
consumer sentiment needs to become
positive We expect to see positive
changes only in the second half of
the calendar year 2013.”
dV subbarao
RBI governor
“Private consumption, the mainstay
of aggregate demand, continued
to decelerate reflecting the impact
of high inflation.”
By Samar SrivaStava
Three years of high inflation and muted salary growth have taken their toll on the Indian consumer The first visible signs of a slump have manifested themselves in slowing car sales, falling two-wheeler sales and slowing growth among consumer goods companies
Trang 17february 22, 2013 | forbes india 17
on consumer spending.”
source: sIam, dgca, cbre, rbI, cso
saugata guPta
CEO, consumer products, Marico
“urban markets have slowed down
Packaged foods and premium personal
care were the first to get hit however, we
have not seen any major downtrading.”
and stocK marKet ValuatIons may haVe PeaKed
bse banK nIFty bse realty Index bse Fmcg Index
exPectIng loW to negatIVe groWth:
cars, two-wheelers, erators, washing machines, air conditioners, tV
refrig-major caPItal goods exPectIng loW to
construction equipment, machine tools, transform- ers, textile machinery
Trang 18Upf r ont/C u r r e n t E ve n t s
Boeing’s Dream Gone Bad
Boeing invested an estimated $25 billion in developing the 787—introducing radical changes
in materials and a component-sourcing strategy that was to bring efficiencies for the maker and airlines The grounding of the aircraft raises doubts about these decisions
aircraft-By cuckoo paul
A Had it been tried before?
In 2011, the US aviation regulator, FAA (Federal Airworthiness Authority) forced
business jet maker Cessna to replace
Li-ion batteries on its new model CJ4 It was replaced by Ni-cad However, Cessna plans to qualify Li-ion batteries for use
in its new aircraft still being developed.
B So, what went wrong with the 787?
It is not the battery type, but how well it’s monitored that’s key to safe use On the 787, the battery is integrated into an electronic system designed to prevent overcharging In the All Nippon Airways fire on January 16, it is still unclear if it was the battery that failed, or the monitoring.
A It may lose its lead to Airbus:
In 2013, the plane-maker said it hopes to deliver 635 to 645 planes If the issue is not sorted quickly, some airlines could start canceling orders Boeing has orders for 800 787s, which includes 27 planes
for Air India.
B It may have to take write-offs of up
to $5 billion as well as reimburse airlines for their losses Its factories, as well as those of dozens of suppliers, were ramping
up to maximise production Boeing will have to bear these inventory costs.
B Component maker Japanese heavy
engineering companies including
Mitsubishi and Kawasaki have a huge stake—they’ve put up massive foundries to manufacture parts for the 787, like the wing and the fuselage The project is likely to add significantly to Japan’s own ambitions as a
large jet manufacturer Japanese carriers
JAL and ANA are big 787 customers
A Airbus also plans to use Li-ion
FAA orders a battery change, the grounding
of the 787 could well run into months
Certification of new batteries and the related electrical systems could take long
1 Critical Decision 1: Lithium-ion
The fact that lithium batteries can overheat and
ignite if improperly charged or discharged, is
well known Yet, the batteries are lighter, more
efficient than other options like nickel-cadmium
(Ni-cad) or lead acid They allowed the 787’s
control systems to be powered by electric motors,
compared to less efficient hydraulic systems.
3 What Are Boeing’s Losses?
Questions are now being raised about
Boeing’s decision to farm out design and
production work—about 70% of the 787’s
components are sourced from partners
Tokyo stock exchange-listed battery-maker
GS Yuasa, who supplied the Li-ion batteries,
is at the centre of the investigations.
Trang 20Upf r ont/C u r r e n t E ve n t s
SINCE 1959, the Grill Room at
the Four Seasons restaurant has
served as the place for lunch
for New York’s ruling class “It’s like
a public club,” says co-owner Julian
Niccolini Some regulars, like billionaire
Pete Peterson, have dined at the same
table for more than four decades Insider
perks include bespoke meals and
hassle-free house credit—one banker even
has the right to duck behind the bar to
mix his own cocktails Want a seat at
capitalism’s Carnegie Hall? You’ll need
to make a reservation weeks in advance,
or in a pinch just belly up to the bar
Be sure to try the iconic Bloody Mary
($15) as you watch habitués like Martha
Stewart and Stephen Schwarzman
work the room before cutting into their
Dover sole ($65) You might even spot
the commander-in-chief: With the
exception of Richard Nixon, every US
President since JF Kennedy has lunched
between the Grill’s French oak walls
Billionaire
Bistro
By STEVEN BERTONI
Settle into the Four Seasons’
Grill Room in New York for a
peek at the power elite
MORT ZUCKERMAN
CEO, Boston Properties; publisher
Trang 21february 22, 2013 | forbes india 21
MEET THE REGULARS
Diners on this typical
Thursday included a private
equity prince, a real estate
maven, a banking boss and
one Facebook billionaire
LARRY FINK
CEO, BlackRock
LEONARD LAUDER
Chairman emeritus, Estée Lauder
Trang 22Forty years after joining the
European Union [the UK
joined the trade bloc in
1973], British Prime Minister David
Cameron said on January 23 that
the British wanted a few things
changed Or they’ll leave Maybe
Most commentators chalked the
speech up to electioneering—election
cycles in the Western democracies
usually include conservative
party tirades against foreigners
who persist in their foreignness
American candidates scold the
Russians, the Germans scold the Greeks, the French scold the British, and the British scold Europe
But Cameron’s speech went beyond that ritual On the whole, the Tory leader sounded less like
a populist politician than a suffering business partner—not quite happy with business as usual but
long-not ready to liquidate either Do you think you could try to get to the office
a little earlier? Do we really need that receptionist? What’s this charge for?
“Clearly and quite passionately,
he favours UK membership,” says Richard Whitman, a professor
of politics and international relations at the University of Kent
in Canterbury and an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London foreign affairs think tank
But Cameron has to manage his party, he adds, and the members want a range of different things: Some would withdraw tomorrow and try to turn the UK into a sort
of Singapore West Others want
an EU-lite—just trade please,
Trang 23hold the regs [regulations].
Britons are not alone in their
annoyance French dairy farmers,
Spanish fishermen, and many
others don’t have much use for
Brussels either However, English
EU opponents tend to have more
venom Today, says Whitman,
“it’s impossible to be selected as
a member of Parliament for the
Conservative Party if you have
anything but Euro-sceptical views”
Cameron’s promise of a
referendum on membership in
two-and-a-half years is acting on an old
sentiment The UK has always been
a ‘reluctant European’, says Iain
Begg, a research fellow at the London
School of Economics and Political
Science “For the UK, the economic
dimension of EU membership has
nearly always been more prominent
than the political goals that were
paramount for the post-War leaders of
France and Germany, who saw peace
as the core objective,” adds Begg
Linda Colley, a professor of British history at Princeton University, thinks the attitude goes back to Britain’s unique experience in World War
II Post-Nazi continental Europe
“could feel enthusiastic about the European Union as a new start, something that was going to rescue them from deep despair and defeat and occupation”, Colley says But Britain hadn’t been invaded and, in fact, the British felt they had sort
of rescued the other countries
As a result, “They didn’t have the same feeling of commitment and gratitude toward the EU project.”
Britain’s experience since the War has also tended to enforce a greater sense of separation, in Colley’s view At the beginning of the 20th century, the British royal family was related to most of Europe’s other royal families Now, they are more
or less unique Also, Colley says, the British elite used to speak many more languages—Lord Palmerston,
a 19th century prime minister, spoke five—and that familiarity tended to bring them closer to the Continent than they have been since the war
Another legacy has endured, however, and that may be adding
to its current discomforts:
Britain’s sense of itself, which retains a whiff of the imperial
“You can hear it in the political language,” Colley says “Whether you oppose the European Union
or support it, British politicians will say that we need to be ‘at the heart of Europe, that we need to lead Europe’,” Colley says “In both cases, it’s a slightly over-inflated view still of the possibilities of what Britain can now do in the world It’s
a competent, second-ranking power and the future will only make it more difficult to remain that way It’s hard for someone to adapt to that.”
Whitman says how the Cameron proposal plays out is uncertain, because referendums are always uncertain However,
he adds, whoever is running the government in two years will find
it difficult not to honour Cameron’s pledge to hold a referendum
If the UK did decide to quit the Union, Whitman is unsure what significance that would actually have On such big issues as the single currency and the Shengen area visa agreements, Europe has already gone its own way, he notes “It’s really difficult to see areas that the
UK could opt out from that it hasn’t already opted out from,” he adds
But two—make that 27—can play
at the referendum game: Europe could decide to quit the UK before the UK decides to quit Europe “One also shouldn’t rule out the possibility that Europe might leave,” Whitman says “The European Union has been leaving the UK for quite some time.” (Bennett Voyles is a freelance writer and
journalist He lives in Paris)february 22, 2013 | forbes india 23
Britain would save £8 billion
as subsidies to EU countries UK’s
contributions to EU subsidies are
equivalent to 0.6 percent of its GDP, in
comparison its deficit is 8.3 percent of GDP.
It would save on subsidies, but face high export tariffs
British farmers
would lose £2.7
billion in EU
subsidies
EU nations live in Britain and 1.7 million Britons live in EU
If UK ‘closed its borders’, EU would probably do the same.
Dairy exports would incur
to reach the EU market, with tariffs of more than 200% on some items.
WHAT HAPPENS
IF UK EXITS EU
UK Treasury - http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
The Economist - http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21567914-how-britain-could-fall-out-european-union-and-what-it-would-mean-making-break
The Independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/what-if-britain-left-the-eu-7904469.html
The Guardian - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jan/26/europe-population-who-lives-where
4% tariff on car ment sales to the EU.
equip-No more influence
on EU policy decisions.
Sources:
Trang 24Upf r ont/T h e C on s i l ie n t I n ve s t or
The temple bells are clanging
with deafening intensity
as high priests of the
Indian equity market welcome the
next great bull market! The wise
men nod their heads sagely while
talking about new highs for the
S&P 500 and the inevitable shift
from bonds to stocks in the US
So what has led to the clamour
of the past few weeks? The US has
narrowly averted teetering on the
brink of disaster with a compromise
on the debt ceiling In Europe, too,
good news keeps gushing forth
Despite the pre-election farce in
Italy and the rumblings of discontent
in Madrid, bond yields in both
countries are close to a 52-week low
With banks across Europe starting
to repay the emergency funding
they received a year ago from the
European Central Bank, investors
need no further confirmation
that the crisis is behind them
It seems to matter little that the
UK is at a risk of a triple dip recession
and France is struggling to revive
a semblance of fiscal probity Even
the resilient German economy
may be at risk as a result of the
disastrous electoral outcome for
Angela Merkel in Lower Saxony
Fears of a hard landing in China
have receded as well, as indicated by
the economic data released in early
January Results in the US are well ahead of analyst forecasts, partly aided by excellent ‘expectations management’ by most of the index heavyweights The positive earnings surprise has been handsomely rewarded by the markets The S&P
500, a bellwether index, is set for its best start in more than 15 years
There is ample reason for cheer
Closer home, corporate results have been encouraging given the backdrop of a difficult macro-econimic
environment Barring a few pockets such as capital goods, infrastructure and engineering, margins have been exceptionally resilient thanks to stringent cost control and disciplined capital allocation For the first time since early 2011, there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel for public sector banks The problems with declining asset quality are certainly on its way to being mended, and credit growth should benefit as a result of the recent easing in interest rates and liquidity announced by the RBI
Above all, Chidambaram’s tryst with fiscal consolidation and attempts
to kick-start policy reform is the best possible harbinger of a bull run The sharp ascent of the markets post his re-appointment as finance minister suggests that investors believe the worst is over and a strong recovery
is on the cards in 2013 Even more importantly, the market seems to have shrugged off the election year blues hinting at the faith they repose
in the government’s economic steadfastness and maturity in not falling prey to populist gimmickry.The correlation between stocks and other major markets has also declined, which probably means the influence
of top-down economic risk is on the wane Driven by strong and persistent net inflows from international investors, most market mavens now believe that ‘tail risks’ are insignificant The argument is that if we survived the breakup of the Eurozone, chaos
in the Middle East, a fiscal cliff in the US and a hard landing in China, thanks to the heightened awareness
of leaders such as Mario Draghi and Barack Obama, surely the scenario
in 2013 cannot get any worse!
Consequently, there is reason for optimism and resurgent confidence among investors across global equity markets Most markets are just
a hair’s breadth away from their
2008 highs with India being no exception Should those old highs
Sanjoy Bhattacharyya is a partner at Fortuna Capital
By Sanjoy BhaTTacharyya
UK is at a risK of a triple dip recession and france
is strUggling to revive a semblance of fiscal probity
-adventures
of the Equity
Market optimist
While many global economies may have averted a default here and a decline there,
the crisis is far from over Don’t judge prematurely!
Trang 25be broken, the stage could be set
for a decisive move northward
So why worry about what can
go wrong? The speed at which the
BSE Sensex climbed from 17,500 to
20,000 was not only unusual but also
perplexing, given the complete lack
of change in fundamentals Clearly,
most investors are willing to plug
in significantly higher growth for
2013 on faith, in the absence of any
concrete evidence As the Financial
Times pointed out on January 30,
“Shares in the Sensex now trade on
16 times earnings, in line with the
historical average But there is still
little for investors to sink their teeth
into to be convinced that those shares
are cheap” The truly enlightened
would dismiss this minor blemish
by pointing out that rebased in US
dollar terms, the stock market is
20 percent below where it was in
January 2008 The belief that the
Eurozone has been saved is equally
naive Since 2008, European leaders
have hesitated till they have been
pushed to the brink by signs of an
impending market meltdown Why
will it be any different in 2013? And
just in case it’s not, there could be
a dangerously sharp correction
As James Montier [a value investor]
says, the best value investors have
scepticism as their default option
Scepticism is rare given our brains
seem wired to believe rather than
question So, the best defence is to
hunt for evidence suggesting that
the stocks we wish to own possess
a significant margin of safety to
protect us against innate optimism
A number of truly pedigreed
companies have been felled by the
slowdown in economic activity The
current valuation of such ‘fallen
angels’, both in relation to history
and in absolute terms, is the reason
to dig further Two names that come
to mind are Foseco India (Rs 474)
and Sundaram Finance (Rs 480)
The former is a market leader
in metallurgical chemicals used
by foundries and is owned by the Cookson Group in the UK It has
an exceptional track record of consistently high profitability, disciplined capital allocation and steady growth It trades at 14 times lower than its CY2012 [January to December] earnings and sports a dividend yield of just below 4 percent
At the current price, which is just 5 percent higher than a two-year low, Foseco offers a genuinely high margin
of safety to the conservative investor
For many, Sundaram Finance defines the gold standard among non-banking finance companies
Quite apart from the fact that it trades
at 12 times its current standalone earnings and 2.6 times its book [value], there is a hidden treasure trove in terms of the value of its housing finance, asset management and insurance subsidiaries All you can do is bless the slowdown in the commercial vehicle industry for this incredible opportunity
Sherlock Holmes’ insight as a master detective—“The temptation
to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession”—must surely resonate with experienced investors!
february 22, 2013 | forbes india 25
Disclosure: This column is neither an offer
to sell nor solicitation to buy any of the securities mentioned herein The author frequently invests
in the shares discussed by him
Trang 26Upf r ont/B r ie f i n g
The Duster has been a huge
success for Renault in India The
car accounts for more than 70 percent
of the company’s total sales In 2013,
though, Nissan, Renault’s alliance partner is due to launch a cross-badged version of the Duster under its own brand It is another matter
altogether that Renault-Nissan’s earlier attempt at selling cross-badged cars haven’t worked Even the mighty Volkswagen group is struggling with it
A Car, by
Is cross badging a wise move in India?
A car manufactured and sold by company X is also sold by company
Y by making cosmetic changes For instance a different logo, change
in headlights, taillights, bumpers and so on
The practice became
popular in the US when
General Motors sold
cross-badged cars
across several of its
brands like Chevrolet,
GMC, Buick, Oldsmobile
and Cadillac
RedUce coST It costs $300-500
million to develop a new car
Mak-ers with several brands (Volkswagen,
Renault-Nissan alliance) can optimise
this cost by selling the same vehicle
across its various brands
Feed vehicles in the network of a car
company which a) does not have
funds to develop a new car, or b) does
not have a strong product portfolio or
doesn’t have a particular vehicle
in a segment
The cross-badged cars sold in India look similar and have similar features
cross badging works in markets where brand loyalty is high The Indian buyer seeks value and will switch brands easily Also, both Volkswagen and Renault-Nissan are still fairly new in India
What is Cross Badging?
Why Has the Indian Market Not Responded?
Who Has Tried It?
The Rationale
“Going forward, module gies, such as VW’s MQB plat- form, will allow more sophisti- cated cross badging—vehicles will have a lot of commonality but their exterior and interior
strate-will differ much more markedly.”
-Wilfried Aulbur, managing partner, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants
“You can see a clear sign of nibalisation in the VW case
can-In the Renault-Nissan case, it would be a cause of worry if a Micra customer is stepping out
of a Nissan dealership and ing a Renault Pulse I don’t think
buy-that’s happening They are buying something else.”
-Sylvain Bilaine, managing director, SYB Consulting
“The pursuit of manufacturing and sourcing synergies have led companies to offer increasingly similar products… Ironically, destroying their ‘brand equity’, the very thing they set out to protect with pursuing a multiple brand strategy.”
-Ajay Jain, chief designer, Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation Motors
The Suzuki A-Star manufactured by Maruti Suzuki in India is sold
as the Nissan Pixo in europe
The Toyota iQ is a 3-door city car sold
by Toyota in Japan and europe The Aston Martin Cygnet is a rebadged version
of the Toyota iq
Trang 27february 22, 2013 | forbes india 27
VolkSwAGeN VeNTo & SkodA RApId
Volkswagen Vento Maruti Dzire, the benchmark in this segment Skoda Rapid
188,277 38,073 24,415
There is a clear sign of cannibalisation Vw sold 3,474 units of the Vento in october 2011 In december 2012, it sold 1,975 units—
a drop of almost 43 percent In the same period, Skoda Rapid’s sale went from 0 in october 2011 to 1,890 units in december 2012
How Is It Faring in India?
Annual sales
Annual sales
Annual sales
NISSAN MIcRA & ReNAUlT pUlSe
Nissan Micra Ford Figo, the benchmark in this segment Renault Pulse
89,795 20,406 6,217
Before the launch of the Renault pulse, the Nissan Micra was averaging sales of 1,300 units a month After the launch, both combined have not averaged more than 1,500 units a month on its own, this number looks just about okay But compare it to sales of the Ford Figo (it has more than double the sales) and it becomes clear that cross badging hasn’t really helped Micra/pulse gain market share
Nissan Sunny Maruti Dzire, the benchmark in this segment Renault Scala
188,277 33,211 3,172
In January-August 2012, Sunny has sold an average of 2,500 units a month After the launch of the Scala in August, while Sunny’s sales have suffered, the combined sales (Sunny and Scala) are still averaging around 2,400 units a month
NISSAN SUNNY & ReNAUlT ScAlA
Trang 28Indian government has accorded his Vedanta Cultural Foundation, which runs the non-profit Vedanta Academy in Malavali, Pune, the status of a Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Siro)
At six feet, the 85-year-old Swamiji, as his students call him, cuts an imposing figure He still plays cricket and follows a daily schedule
of jogging and yoga Clad in white, and sporting a thin vermillion streak across his forehead, he casually mentions that he has maintained
a 32-inch waistline for 60 years
“Vedanta teaches you to use
the intellect to hold the mind in its present job You do that by developing the intellect,” he says
While Parthasarathy’s teachings
are derived from the Upanishads,
his language belongs to boardrooms
For example, he says the formula for efficiency and productivity has three Vedantic elements—concentration, consistency and co-operation In
The Katha Upanishad, a parable
of the chariot compares the mind
to horses, the body to the chariot, and the intellect to the reins which, through reason, governs the impulsive and reactive mind Larry Moon, chairman and CEO of Sandstone Group, took to Vedanta in
2007 and has since been able to make decisions quickly and consistently
“I attribute my studies to improving the skills I need as a leader My clarity of purpose is sharper than it has ever been in my life,” he says
He continues, “I find that I stick
to my beliefs more often and have a deeper conviction about them than I ever had in the past That constancy has led me to make decisions to keep pushing the envelope, when
in the past I would have been more conservative, and stuck to what I knew would work for fear of failing.” Reza Etedali, chief executive of retail investment advisory firm Reza Investment Group, attended his first Vedanta seminar in 2009 for members
of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), an uber elite global network
of C-level executives aged 45 or below “The essence of Vedanta for business people is to throw yourself into the action and to fully play the part, but not to become so involved and attached to the outcome that your judgement gets impacted and you lose objectivity,” he says
Etedali says the practice [Vedanta]
Upf r ont/Id e a s & O p i n ion s
“Vedanta teaches you to use the intellect to hold the mind in its present job
you do that by deVeloping the intellect”
-More than 3,000 years
ago, pupils sat down with their gurus in the seclusion of Indian forests with the
intent of learning Vedanta, which
in Sanskrit means the end (anta) of
knowledge (veda) Their discussions
on the nature of the mind, the
intellect, the senses, the world, and
of cause and effect, were transmitted
through oral tradition first, and
written in a series of dialogues later;
these dialogues and ancient texts
went on to become the Upanishads,
derived from the words upa (near),
ni (down) and shad (to sit)—as
explained by Dr S Radhakrishnan
in The Principal Upanishads.
Eknath Easwaran in The
Upanishads, a translation, compared
these pupils to adventurers But
unlike mountaineers or explorers,
these seekers wanted “not so much
to know the unknown as to know the
knower” To put it simply, who is it
that wants to know? The process helps
the seeker understand the relationship
of the self with the rest of the world
and deal with it in contented ways
Like John Sutherland’s
frustration with his new motorcycle
in Robert M Pirsig’s classic
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, this relationship
is often not understood But the
philosophical narrator in the story
is so attentive to his old motorcycle
that he detects even the tiniest of
variations in it and attends to it
Forty years ago, A Parthasarathy,
a graduate from University College
in London, quit his corporate career
to study and teach Vedanta to
students at Harvard and Wharton
universities, employees at Microsoft
and Nasa, and economists and
politicians at the World Economic
Forum and the World Bank
According to him, Vedanta
is not a retirement plan but a
technique for dynamic living The
Trang 29february 22, 2013 | forbes india 29
has helped reduce his negotiation time because now he understands the other person’s point of view better “Business schools teach you the mechanics of negotiation They don’t teach you how to use your mind and your intellect to transact It’s all about case studies You don’t get
to study the person or learn about how your inside works and how you relate to the world,” he says
Now he’s more conscious of putting the other person’s interests in front early on, so that both sides have a win-win situation “The past year,
I can attribute [to Vedanta] about
$100 million worth of deals because
of this approach,” Etedali says
He’s also been able to walk away
at times after months of negotiations because he’s willing to let go of a deal
if the price is not fair, rather than spend more time negotiating Though, most often, he has found that people have come back to sign the contract Swami Parthasarathy feels that most business schools teach students
to manage budgets, people and projects, but not themselves, a skill essential to achieving better work relations, higher productivity and stress-free fulfillment of goals that are mindful of others He often cautions [people] about the mind’s natural tendency to slip into memories of the past and anxiety for the future, a habit that impacts current action negatively.Etedali (of Reza Group) cites the game of tennis as an example
“When the pressure to win a match becomes intense, you almost always lose.” He says the trick is to practise hard, and throw yourself into the game without worrying about the outcome, and Vedanta teaches you that kind of detachment That’s an important lesson for someone who routinely negotiates transactions in the $100-million range and whose clients include the likes of General Electric, Cigna, and ING Realty
Teacher of Vedanta; founder
of Vedanta Academy in Pune
intErEsts:
Cricket (has taught Vedanta
to the Indian cricket team), yoga
Trang 30“We wanted flying
cars Instead
we got 140 characters,” says Peter Thiel, the
co-founder of PayPal and an early
investor in Facebook Thiel made
billions from PayPal and Facebook, but
he says the pace of innovation in the
broader world has slowed way down
Is Thiel right? The answer depends
on whether you mean innovation
in the world of atoms (physical
things) or innovation in the world
of bits (software)
Atoms: Slowing The Boeing 747
first flew in 1969, yet it still is the main
jet carrying people across oceans
Automobiles still travel 70 mph on our
highways They use less fuel and are
safer, but the pace of improvement is
nothing like it was 100 years ago
Bits: Accelerating The cellphone
was the size of a brick 30 years ago
Six years ago it was much lighter,
though still mainly a phone Today it’s
a camera, radio, television, credit card
and disease diagnostic tool
The most fertile areas for
innova-tion become clear in this atoms versus
bits view If the atom world is slow to
change, how can bits replace atoms or
change the way we use them? News-
papers have transitioned from atoms
to bits Trickier are classrooms and
health diagnostics, but they’re
moving, too Finally, bits will never
replace such things as cars or
airplanes, but they’ll change the
way we use those things
I predict that 50 percent of colleges
will fail during the next decade The
high return on investment that a
diploma once guaranteed is no longer
Upf r ont/C o l u m n
cooked up had he turned his creative talents to education The Innovator’s Accelerator will soon change the $50 billion corporate training market
A third way bits can transform atoms is to change the way we con- sume and value atoms An example in air travel is XOJet, which has made private-jet travel cheaper
XOJet, owned by Texas Pacific Group (TPG), was able to use Group’s credit to buy scores of late-model jets
on the cheap after the financial crisis XOJet’s chief, Blair LaCorte, then imported strategies and tactics from two other businesses owned wholly or
in part by TPG: Low-cost air carrier Ryanair and resorts operator Harrah’s
“We got people to think of private jets as nice hotel rooms to rent, not resort homes to fractionally own,” LaCorte says XOJet owns 75 jets but has only three types: The Challenger
300, the Hawker 800XP and the Ci- tation X “We know how to maintain these three types,” he says That’s crucial, because XOJet gets 1,200 annual hours of use from each jet, as opposed to 600 hours for the average fractional jet and 250 hours for the average privately owned jet
XOJet’s volume means that you can rent a Challenger to go from Van Nuys, California, to Teterboro, New Jersey, for as low as $23,000 The more custom your needs, the more the price will go up But thanks to the internet and some clever analytics, XOJet is able to price each request, offer a smart deal and make money Yes, it’s still a jet, but bits have trans-formed how the jet is being used Rich Karlgaard is the publisher at Forbes
Atoms Versus Bits
Where to find innovation in the broader world
By Rich KARlgAARd
certain Employers now have other and cheaper ways to test intelligence and drive
Online education got serious in
2012 Two open-enrollment online colleges—Coursera and Udacity—
each raised more than $10 million
in venture capital Coursera plans to make money by selling certificates for around $100, verifying course completion If you can earn a certificate for completing an artificial intelligence class taught by a Stanford professor, where does that leave the math professor at the under-funded liberal arts college?
A second, less noticed kind of edu- cation revolution is aimed at replac- ing traditional corporate training
The Apollo Group, which owns the University of Phoenix, has made a big bet to create the Innovator’s Accelera- tor and has signed up noted Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen and others to teach cor- porate teams how to become more innovative I was allowed a sneak peek
at Innovator’s Accelerator; it looks like something George Lucas would have
Trang 32Supersmart
Phone
n the next 24 to 36 months, you will see
a new generation
of smartphones and a range of accessories that will change the way you work and live
Star Trek
“tricorder”-like devices that can
read a bunch of physical and
environmental data to diagnose
diseases or prevent emergencies;
wearable devices that “listen”
to us and change the way we
view the world; answers that
are presented to us even before
we ask questions; screens that
can be rolled up; information
that can be manipulated using
hand gestures… The list of
things that smartphones are
almost-ready to do is magical
Advancements in technology
underlie this magic In display,
LEDs are giving way to flexible
and energy-efficient Amoleds;
processing power is on the rise; batteries charge faster and last longer; sensors are getting more powerful and can detect
a wider range of changes
More importantly, smartphones will borrow much of their smartness from accessories—maybe a band around your wrist that tracks your activities, or a headset that measures your brainwaves
One might well say, “Ah, finally!” There has hardly been any serious disruption in the devices that we carry, since the introduction of the iPhone back in 2007 From the outside they look mostly the same, while from the inside they’re distinct only by virtue of a few megahertz of processor speed
or some fraction of an inch of screen size The way we interact with them hasn’t changed much either (Physical keyboards have only become on-screen ones.)
The following pages will give you a sense of how all that will change in the next couple of years It won’t look
the same (page 42) And inside,
it would have changed too
(page 45) Without doubt,
it will change the way you
work and live (page 46)
The flood of innovations—features and capabilities—is a bit like the flood of information that the digital age opened up for
us The benefits were immense But, it also made many of us think seriously about the age-old distinction between facts, information, knowledge and wisdom The coming era of supersmart phones will also make
us think seriously about privacy, about work-life balance and about relationships Even the smartest phones might not have answers for that We will have to look within.For now, let’s get ready to embrace the exciting time ahead
By Rohin DhaRmakumaR & nS Ramnath
The way you work, play and live is about to change
I I I I
The world of SmaRtPhoneS
Trang 33february 22, 2013 | forbes india 33
S m a r t
-p h o n e S o f
t h e f u t u r e
40 Hampus Jakobsson on how we will inter- act with the phone
42 5 radical designs
44 Chetan Sharma
on phone features
45 Components that put the ‘smart’
Trang 34How will we change the
way we interact with
smartphones? As Apple
popularised touchscreens
in 2007, the mobile world has
harmonised around a circa 4-inch
mobile phone with few buttons
Before the iPhone and the first few
years after it, designers in the industry
were discussing hidden buttons,
haptics [sense of touch], keyboards,
add-on keyboards to improve the
input functionality But nothing
really happened Instead, Apple
revolutionised the phone by focusing
on ease of use instead of features
The hope now stands at making
devices ‘intelligent’ By allowing
us to talk to them Or having them
‘understand’ us This is futile
Speech to text might work for
dictation, but still I need to get
the phone out of my pocket and
wouldn’t want it to inform me of
things when other people are near
What will happen in the coming
two years then? Will Google Glass let
us walk around with an augmented
world where you are one word from
Googling people you meet? Will we
get flexible screens that fold out
and give us full-sized keyboards or
newspaper-sized screens? I doubt
it will be mainstream I think it will
be too much information as well
as, honestly, too little interesting
information If you could get text in
front of your eyes at any time, what
would it say? It can’t be static or
things you need to interact with, with
a lot of information (like your email),
as the glasses won’t have a very rich input It needs to be information highlighting your surroundings—but what would that be that wouldn’t be spammy? Discount on stores around you or names of people floating on top of their head sounds distracting
There are ‘use cases’ [examples of how people will use them], like visual manuals for auto repair men, the route you should walk to get to the right gate, but these are still niche
I think the coming two years will be the years of accessories The innovation will happen in watches, wristbands, dongles and key rings
These will extend the physical input interface to our Tamagotchis [handheld digital pets] and life controls And phones will further spill out on existing screens—your computer, TV, and maybe in the coming future, public screens
Administration, analysis and overview
is still best done ‘lean-forward’ at your computer and enjoying movies, pictures, or music is still done
‘lean-backward’ in front of your
TV Technology changes fast, but human behaviour has a slow pace What is needed is a philosophy that helps us turn on the real world
Be more in the ‘now’ Devices should tell us if there is something important, really important, to attend to Not just a Facebook post, a tweet, a news article to read, or an email to reply Our grandparents’ generation fled the assembly line so that we now can create a digital one for ourselves
We take care of these self-created chores, hoping to be free at the end
of the day The best use I see of Google Glass is that it should remove information around me—logos, text and advertisement—so I can focus I guess that’s not in Google’s interest The question we should ask ourselves is: Free to do what?
Why aren’t you doing that now? What are you afraid to miss by not looking at your phone or, god forbid, turning it to mute? Try it for
a week and see what happens
The Quest for Freedom
The future may well be about accessories like smart watches and
key rings, UI guru Hampus Jakobsson tells Rohin Dharmakumar
and NS Ramnath
Jakobsson was a co-founder of user interface (UI) advisory firm TAT (The Astonishing Tribe), which was bought
by RIM in 2010 TAT’s work formed the basis for much of the UI for BlackBerry
10 OS upgrade Jakobsson quit RIM in December 2012 and is a co-founder of
a mobile enterprise software company.
Hampus Jakobsson user Interface Guru
The world of SmartPhoneS
Trang 36One of the most
radi-cal of all new designs,
spectacle-like wearable
computer that you control
with your eyes and voice
Android developers are getting their hands on the device in early 2013, with limited consumer availabil-ity expected in 2014
not too bad, considering that the top-end iPhone 5 costs Rs 60,000 ($1,100)
in India!
inevi-table fusion of the smartphone with the
PC By itself, it is a 4.3-inch smartphone, but with its accessories, you could do away with a PC or laptop altogether Plug the Padfone into a larger screen, or a key-board, and it seamlessly shares data, inter-net connectivity and processing power to provide you with a PC replacement
Padfone is already available
about Rs 40,000 for the phone plus Rs 15,000 for the optional screen
Re-imagining
The touchscreen slab has become the near-default design of
smartphones So have we hit an ‘innovation plateau’ in smartphone
design? If you’re the cutting-edge tech-savvy type, despair not Here are five designs you could be using within the next two years
the world of smartphones
Trang 37february 22, 2013 | forbes india 37
flexible colour screen can
be twisted and folded
Un-breakable, flexible displays
open up many possibilities,
like phones that ‘unfold’ to become tablets
demonstrated the device at the Consumer Electronics
Show (CES) on January 9
Its next flagship Galaxy vices (S4 or Note III) could sport these screens
Microsoft’s Kinect add-on for its XBox gaming device is smart enough to ‘see’ the people in a room and recognise their gestures and expressions during gameplay This technology in a smartphone brings with it possibilities of Minority Report-like gestures, physical gaming and facial recognition
PrimeSense, the makers of the sensing module that powers the Kinect, unveiled Capri, a significantly miniaturised version
of its three-dimensional sensing module that can fit into smartphones and tablets Thus, the fabled ‘Kinect Phone’ might be here sooner than we think
sCreen phone
On one of its sides, the YotaPhone has
a traditional colour touchscreen, with Google’s Android running underneath When you turn it around, you will find a black and white ‘e-ink’ display The second screen can be configured to display any number of things—a to-do list, a flight boarding pass, photos of your kid or newsfeeds—with zero use of battery
Perhaps not so radical or disruptive, but an interesting and clever innovation
Trang 38The world of SmartPhoneS
In some sense, it can be said that
innovation around smartphone
hardware today is only
incremental or have little impact
on overall user experience Take
processing power for instance The
latest generation of smartphones
comes with quad-core processors
that have more than enough power
for most applications, and yet we see
more cores being added Sure, eight
cores will be more powerful than four,
but how will you optimise that with
falling battery life? Why do you need
more and more memory when, thanks
to ubiquitous cloud computing and
storage, even your photos, music and
video can be streamed off the web?
Screens are becoming bigger and
bigger, with most current smartphones
today nearing the 5-inch screen size
And then there is the entire ‘phablet’
category with even bigger screens
It is safe to say that the
iPhone-like touchscreen form factor will still
be the default one-two years from
now, though the screen size may be
different Apple’s iOS and Google’s
Android will continue to dominate as
operating systems, while Microsoft
Windows Phone might, at best,
capture 10 percent of the market
There is also the possibility that
there might be some fracturing of
the Android ecosystem, for instance,
if Samsung were to ‘fork’ Android
But I don’t see iOS and Android losing
steam in at least the next 12 months
This is not to say innovation is
dead or slowing down in the space
But we’ll need to qualify what kind of
innovations will be called ‘successful’
Will they be those that merely come
to the market, or those that achieve
a significant market share too?
Clearly, in the next two years we’ll see a lot of new innovations:
We’ll see foldable displays that are almost unbreakable; we’ll see some form of biometric authentication
on smartphones, like the ones
in Japan have had for years
For instance, a fingerprint sensor may be embedded underneath the screen so that merely swiping across the screen can authenticate you
as well Given that smartphones today are full-blown computers carrying lots of sensitive data and handling many commerce transactions, this will be required
We may see fuel cells for batteries Some forms of fuel cells are already being tested for laptops, so it’s only
a question of time before we can miniaturise them and make them affordable for smartphones too Near-field communication (NFC) will be present in almost all smartphones
by 2015, in turn enabling all sorts
of applications in retail, healthcare and financial services to take off
We will also see more and more
Guessing the Future
Analyst Chetan Sharma talks about smartphone features that will
remain, and those that will emerge, in the next two years
Sharma is founder and president of
a US-based management consulting and strategic advisory firm that was started in 2001 He is a recognised expert on mobile communications, wireless data and pervasive computing and has authored and co-authored five books on wireless communications.
chetan Sharma, mobile analyst
Trang 39february 22, 2013 | forbes india 39
taking place behind the scenes
Sensors today can measure temperature,
location, blood pressure, ambient light,
moisture and physical activity Qualcomm
even has a $10 million X Prize to develop a
Star Trek-like ‘tricorder’ that can measure
various parameters and diagnose 15 diseases.
Inherent limits around the Li-ion batteries mean they’d need to get bigger to power the new-gen phones Here’s where Lithium hybrid batteries, fuel cells, nanotubes and bendable batteries will find an opening With these, you can expect an increase in battery life from 12-18 hours to several days.
Radical innovation, like the Lytro, will allow you to take a photo first and focus later at leisure Toshiba has already developed a smartphone version of a similar camera that could be out in 2013.
The year 2013 will see at least three leading chipmakers release 8-core processors Pro- cessing power will become a commodity and almost irrelevant You will be able to run as many apps, open as many web pages or hold multiple live video calls, without a hiccup.
There’s Samsung’s flexible OLED screens (page 42) Meanwhile, Corning has an- nounced a curved, flexible glass, Willow Glass With these, phones could ‘unwrap’
to become tablet or a newspaper.
sensors on devices that can do all
sorts of things around healthcare,
environment and security An
example of what may be possible
is Qualcomm’s $10 million X
Prize challenge for a ‘tri-corder’
device with sensors that can
take physiological readings and
diagnose diseases in real time
Together with apps, we can
envision emergency services after a
disaster like a fire or earthquake using
real-time data from these devices to
tailor their responses in real time
What about completely new form factors, like Google Glass that push the boundaries of what we know of personal computing?
I think they will remain niche
in the near term due to two issues:
First, they will operate at pretty
expensive prices to begin with, and will fall to the $200 to $300 level only in three to five years; second, and more importantly, using them will involve huge behavioural shifts because people are simply not used to wearing and talking to computers
(As told to Rohin Dharmakumar)
We'll See mOre SenSOrS On devICe S ThAT CAn dO ThInGS ArOund he AlTh - CAre , envIrOnmenT, SeCurIT y
Text by rohin Dharmakumar
Illustrations Sameer Pawar
Trang 40Your Device
at Play
During the first wave of smartphones, technology
advancement impacted our lives first, and then
our work Now, the two forces will join hands
to make the journey faster, more exciting
Here are five ways it will change your life
Text by NS RamNath
Illustrations SameeR pawaR
You will be able to control games with your
mind: Mindgames, a company from Iceland,
has games that challenge you to bend spoons
using your mind (you need an EEG device)
Then there are near-field technologies: In
2011, Google showed how two Android phones
can exchange notes by tapping (like two wine
glasses) Of course, bigger screens, better
resolution, 3D, will all impact gameplay.
Dutch company Waleli’s GSM doorbell allows
you to talk to a visitor from any location, and
even let him in Two years ago, computer
scientist Pranav Mistry showcased the app
TeleTouch that converts your smartphone into
a remote control With apps such as these, the
possibilities are endless For example, turn the
AC on as you come close to your house.
Track data about yourself easily and
automati-cally—weight, sleep time, exercise, feelings
Smartphones will seamlessly connect to other
devices Even today, wrist devices like Fitbit
Flex or Nike Fuel Band track your activities on
your smartphone Research grade EEGs such
as the ones by NeuroSky can measure your
brainwaves All these will have an impact on
the way you live What you can measure, you
can manage.
Phones can already remind you to buy provisions when you are near a shop Soon, they will let you compare prices with shops nearby The Zillow app tells you prices of houses for sale as you drive along Auto- trader’s iPhone app lets you photograph the number plate of a car you might fancy to find out more about it and see if it’s for sale.
Futurist Ray Kurzweil speaks of a time when phones will project realistic 3D holographs, giving the impression that you are talking to others face to face That might be several years away, but the increasing integration of social media with a more advanced mobile device will help us connect deeper Streaming videos will become elegant.
The world of SmaRtphoNeS