TelecomTiger in an interaction with Dr. R Venkateswaran, CTO and Head of Telecom Business Unit, Persistent Systems
Q1) Globally the mobile industry has indeed moved on or is in the process of migrating to the Mobile 2.0 ecosystem. But in India, the popularity of applications designed for the mobile medium has very limited reach. Do you see the situation changing favorably for you?
Ans: Mobile 2.0 ecosystem thrives well when there is widespread coverage of high bandwidth, packet data services. Till today, in India, 3G services are provided only by the PSUs – MTNL & BSNL – that too in selected cities only. The adoption of these services in India has, therefore, been very limited.
However, with the auction of 3G and BWA Spectrum in May/June 2010, many telecom operators will start offering 3G and BWA services in the coming 6-9 months. This will open the doors for wider adoption of Mobile 2.0 ecosystem once we have a large subscriber base and hopefully, affordable tariffs for these services.
Q2) The market for App Stores is divided between the handset manufacturers and now the service providers. Whom do you intend to align with?
Ans: Persistent’s primary focus has been Mobile application development – supporting both handset manufacturers as well as service providers. Our service offerings are geared to help our customers to develop, port, test, ensure interoperability and certify applications for the AppStore. We also provide the infrastructural support to enable our customers to set up an App Store. We also have a dedicated Center of Excellence (CoE) for Apple iPhone and Android platform.
Q3) As a software firm, what is the customization which you are offering to the mobile medium as compared to conventional medium? |