India has seen phenomenal growth in voice services in the last decade. Broadband penetration, on the other hand is still only a little over one per cent. Broadband is increasingly becoming important in today's information age. It provides communication and timely access to information, which leads to better productivity, innovation and economic growth. According to World Bank estimates, every 10per cent growth in broadband penetration of a country leads to 1.3 per cent increase in GDP for developing countries. India's wired subscriber base stands at about 15 million as of Jan 2013, despite a 12 per cent growth seen in the last 1 year. Similarly, the number of 3G subscribers constitutes only about 4 per cent of total subscribers as of today. Among the many factors that have contributed to the slow growth of broadband, last mile is one that particularly stands out. Last mile is the final link of a network that connects an end customer (mostly residential) to the telecom service provider's nearest access point. Many different access media and technologies can be used for this link. The copper wire for landlines/DSL-broadband, coaxial cable (from cable TV) and the wireless connectivity between cell towers and mobile phones are all examples of the last mile. Recently optical fibers, which were traditionally used in long distance and metro networks, have found their way into the last mile.The last mile has generally been a costly affair as it involves setting up wired media (twisted pair copper, co-axial cables or optic fibers) to subscriber's homes or the huge spectrum costs if wireless technology is used. Hence operators have always put a lot of effort into re-using the existing media while delivering new broadband services to end customers. Europe which historically had a high penetration of landlines uses DSL technology (which delivers broadband over twisted pair copper), and similarly US used it's cable-TV infrastructure to deliver 'cable broadband'. In comparison, India's voice growth happened over 2G mobile technology and it's digital TV was primarily delivered through DTH. Hence it doesn't have a last mile infrastructure it can bank upon. On the technology front, India can use either wireless (4G/LTE) or Fiber to the Home (FTTH) running on GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Networks) to address this. The government already auctioned the BWA spectrum in 2010 and the licensees are gearing up to launch LTE based broadband services on a nationwide scale. LTE is a 4th generation (4G) mobile technology that is capable of providing speeds of upto 100Mbps to an end user over the wireless infrastructure. The BWA/LTE approach can be used to cover large geographical areas relatively quickly since setting up each base station can provide coverage to a few sq kms at once . While a lot of passive infrastructure can be re-used/shared with 2G/3G infrastructure, new investments will have to be made in the 4G wireless equipment and the backhaul infrastructure. The FTTH approach on the other hand can be used to deliver high speed broadband services. Optical fibers and FTTH is capable of delivering huge bandwidth, and can cater to the projected bandwidth demand for the next couple of decades. Wireline broadband typically provides lower latencies and higher bandwidths compared to wireless and does not suffer from issues like spectrum congestion (too many subscribers sharing the same spectrum, leading to lower quality of service) or from signal coverage issues. Also, applications like Video Telephony/Skype, Video conferencing and Video on Demand require high bandwidth, and hence are best delivered over wired infrastructure. Wired infrastructure is also used to backhaul bandwidth from mobile base stations. The government can play a key role in addressing these last mile challenges to speed up the broadband availability throughout the country. On the wireless front, steps like allowing spectrum re-farming and releasing more spectrum would improve the availability and quality of broadband services for the country at affordable prices. The right of way (ROW) charges for laying optical fibers would need to be rationalised and speedy permissions and approvals for ROW will be needed from municipal bodies will help in improving this infrastructure. The recently announced NOFN (National Optic Fiber Network) project is a good example of steps being taken by the government to improve the broadband services. NOFN project envisages providing optic fiber based broadband connectivity to over 2.5 lakh gram panchayats and would require laying 2 lakh kms of additional fiber. This would enable applications like E-Learning, tele-medicine, access to timely information on things like weather, agricultural inputs and provide farmers access to more markets for selling their produce. While infrastructure is one pillar of broadband growth, other factors like availability of affordable data plans and localised content is also important for driving broadband adoption. If all of the factors align, India can not only catch up with the developed world on the broadband penetration figures but also become one of the largest broadband markets globally.Sanjay Nayak, CEO & MD of Tejas Networks
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The interesting thing about Bristlecone is that despite being part of the $15.9-billion Mahindra group for almost a decade, the company doesn't aim to expand across verticals but rather to reinforce its claim to fame for supply chain analysis and optimisation. Irfan Khan, senior vice-president and general manager, Global Field Operations of Bristlecone believes that the company's USP is their specialised focus and strategic attempt to not become a regular IT service firm. In an interview with Alokita Datta, Khan talks about the transition from traditional ERP to supply chain most companies are going through, Bristlecone's optimism about the data analytics market, why India is still not ready for the next phase of supply chain optimisation and how companies are responding to the idea of new technologies. What is Bristlecone's core competence and how have you evolved over the years?If you look at Bristlecone as a company, we are first a part of the Mahindra group, since 2004 (Bristlecone was founded in 1998). Mahindra was looking for a foothold in the US and we were looking for a foot in India, so it worked out for both of us. We were at a point of inflection where either we would combine hands with someone or buy a company. Mahindra is now running at $15.9 billion as a group and our focus has been in the area of optimising supply chains which is becoming the backbone for most businesses. That is our claim to fame.When we work with companies we look at their processes and the technology which is enabling them. We talk to the business (departments) and IT and most of the time find a disconnect. We used to find that CIOs spent a lot of money on technology that they found very fancy and suddenly business would wake up saying we don't know what to do with it. If you look at statistics, 65 per cent of ERP projects don't see the kind of RoI they want to. Fundamentally, the case used to be that companies were not worried about what the business wants but about not being able to make the key linkage between the amount of money spent and its impact on the bottom line. That has shifted and I can take pride in saying that we are one of those companies that have constituted to the shift. We don't do IT consulting and we are also just the right size - 1,200 people, globally. With the enhanced force of Mahindra's IT portfolio we can pool resources from our sister company - Tech Mahindra - and this has enabled us to pick up some very large projects. We have customers such as Apple, Brooke Bond, BlackBerry and a lot of companies who would want to work with us since we are specialists in our field. What is your modus operandi once you have acquired a client?If you look at it simply, there is a supply side and a demand side, and I am keeping technology out of it because we don't talk about modules per se. When we go to work with a customer, we insist on spending a lot of time with business people before we speak to the IT people. In today's word the head of supply chain, head of IT and the CFO play a very key role. Our objective is to really get them together to make sure they speak the same language. It is important to understand that a bad supply chain can really detract a company from profitability and we have seen that happen. A lot of companies are wedded to technology, primarily because of the past era; you choose one and you go with it and its upgrades. It is important for us to find out the mindset of the customer, therefore. We are very hardnosed about doing a blueprinting phase which is where we develop the skeleton of the project. It is to try and present customers from ending up in the 65 per cent (of companies who don't get an RoI from their supply chain) We try not to give (cost) estimation before we do a blueprint. We have imbibed our work culture from the Mahindra group and as a company; we want to grow at our own pace focusing on what we do best. Otherwise we would have delved into the IT services domain, like so many other companies. It is tempting but we have stayed specialised because it is not strategic for us.What kind of services portfolio do you offer to clients?There is a service called process cleanup/optimisation that we deliver and then there is a tool (software) which goes in , you align the process, deploy the tool and make sure the tool maps to the processes. We are not a process delivering firm but are right at the brink where the process is about to be frozen and technology cuts in. For instance there is a phone (manufacturing) company, with 50 retail locations and one that grew from 0 to $5 billion in 5 years and are still tracking things on excel sheets. That is where we step in to provide the company with the ability to predict their inventory, marketing spend distribution. Companies need us to automate their solutions and show them if things work. We deliver this solution, maintain it and keep enhancing it as the business model changes.In what ways is the supply chain model changing for most of the companies you are working with?We have realised over a period of time, thanks to our customers that they would like to see us as a supply chain shop, rather than a technology wrapped supply chain shop. Customers aren't really married to technology; there are some big players in this area: SAP, Oracle, Ariba, acquired by SAP and others. Most of them are realising now that the next big thing in the application space, after ERP is supply chain procurement. Thus, they are also working towards enhancing their portfolio from ERP to supply chain and procurement. Every company is trying to get close to customers and in that basic ERP won't do; They should be able to predict the market, the spend and procurement. ERP is being deployed everywhere now; the next phase of maturity is what we are structuring. There are some countries and regions, such as the US and Europe which are ahead in the game, India and APAC are still going through the ERP curve. They would take the next 48 to 60 months before they really start thinking of spending money on supply chain. Therefore we are more focused in America since the from a customer maturity point of view where they understand that we really know their supply chain. There is still a grey area between ERP and supply chain in India. How do you draw the distinction between the two?ERP to me is how components are linked together, but those components do not let you predict demand and supply or analyse it. You put something in a system and it comes out in a very seamless manner. How much you put in a system, how much you should buy from a vendor, how much do you stock and spend, this kind of thinking power comes comprises supply chain optimisation. This is one big trend where companies are looking for a single shop by expanding to get supply chain and procurement together. What are the other big trends in the (global) market when it comes to supply chain optimisation?The next big trend relates to cloud computing. Over the last few years there have been successful implementations on cloud which is non perpetual in the CRM (customer relationship management) and HR space. When software vendord, who build supply chain solutions, look at this trend, they want to jump in the bandwagon thinking let's build supply chain models on the cloud. The last 12- 18 months have been a struggle for the big boys because when they are doing cloud-based selling, they are losing licence revenue and maintenance revenue which is pure profit for them. But they realise that this shift is irreversible and are jumping in to move to cloud. This shift is also working out well for us because we had also made some investment 12 months back; we have a fairly large product development shop which does work on supply chain solutions for certain core vendors. Since we are not a very big firm, we can shift more easily, or rather expand our portfolio. The third thing that has worked for us is the whole spend around data. One is big data and the other is analytics. A lot of customers need information out of data which is subjective and objective. To crunch the data into meaningful information you need some high performance, in depth memory devices, in-memory devices, a very strong database, strong analytical tools and want to process the data as fast as possible which means in-memory processing is becoming more and more powerful now. Suddenly there is a new market which has memory and hardware (databases) coming together. Processing that market is a whole new market which we will tap into. And we are excited about this market around analytics. Mobility is big for us as well: making the supply chain mobile. It is a simple concept but it adds a lot of value for customers if we can extend them to mobile devices. That is another shift which is not going to reverse back. The last thing is that CIOs are thinking more like businessmen. A few years ago CIOs would go either with SAP, Oracle, but now they are spending a lot of time with business departments to really focus on what they want. We do a lot of work with Apple and we see this trend with other companies as well who are looking for technology that fits their business even if the parent or group company is going with a different technology. For instance, the CIO and VP of Supply Chain management are also taking swapping roles. Sometimes companies aren't ready to spend money on supply chain because for them it is ERP and then we have to tell them that they have to be able to see the value in optimisation, if they can't they're probably not ready for it. We have done 250 successful implementations by now, globally. We have spend nearly 1000 man years on pure IP (intellectual property) development which happens in house and are source codes which go into customer deployment. We see a lot of processes that are repeatable in certain industries and tell companies what will work accordingly. A case in point is semi conductors; we have built enough IP where now there are very few semiconductor companies who may not like to talk to us. Which are the major sectors, industries, you cater to?Our core industries include high tech and semi conductors, CPG (consumer packaged goods), equipment manufactures and automobiles. But if you look at our 250 implementations we have touched around 18 verticals, the chemical industry is another area where we have done a lot of work. Where are the major development centres for Bristlecone located, globally?Bristlecone is headquartered out of MountainView in California, we also have a headquarter in Switzerland and 4 hubs in India: Noida, Pune which is becoming a core centre now, Bangalore and Mumbai. These are basic training and deployment centres, because a lot of work happens offshore. We are also present in Singapore, but Asia to us, is very controlled right now because supply chain will take a couple of years to mature here. However, expanding to Asia is not on the roadmap today. We keep an eye on the region but our hands are too full with US and Europe at the moment.
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Of late, consumers have become more accustomed to using their mobile phones for shopping, e-banking, bill payments etc. Harinder Takhar, CEO of PayTM, a mobile payment service firm backed by One97 Communications, speaks to Businessworld Online's Tanuja Chatterjee about PayTM's latest offerings in the M-commerce sector. PayTM has been around for quite a while now. How has been the response?I would say phenomenal! In about two years of its existence, PayTM has acquired over 6 million users. The PayTM app has consistently maintained itself as the number 1 shopping app on Google Play with a 4.6 star rating. It has also maintained the number 1 spot among utilities apps in the Apple store. In fact, it is currently being featured as the Editor's choice app on Apple. Prior to this, the PayTM app has also been featured in the 'New and Noteworthy' section and the 'What's Hot' section. PayTM has grown into a preferred destination for mobile recharges, bill payments and now bus tickets too. Today we are considered the most trusted and secure app. How is PayTM different from other e-commerce payment gateways?We understand that one of the most critical factors is success rate. Our users access the payment gateway through multiple channels across mobile and web. We have also armed ourselves with multiple bank gateway tie-ups for system redundancy. We capture every error, analyze it, and are constantly improving. We have come to realise that some banks are not too optimised for mobile payments, so we help by customising interfaces for them. Supported by a keen 24x7 customer service, PayTM resolves customer queries and issues very fast. Reliability has always been a major concern for payment gateways! How do you deal with it from the customer's and client's point of view simultaneously?We give constant and consistent value to our merchants and their customers. Apart from hygiene factors such as a partnership with all major banks of India, enabling all modes of payment, such as credit card, debit card, net banking, and a PCIDSS (Payment card industry data security standard) certified secure experience; PayTM keeps innovating to make life easy for its customers. To add value, we educate our customers, help them build their tech teams, and discuss their needs, based on which we keep upgrading our solution. We also tell them how to improve conversions, how to improve their transaction funnel and how to reduce fraud and chargeback. Brief us a bit about your other latest offeringsWe launched BB 10 app recently. Then we have launched Bus Bookings on mobile for more value to customers, released Nokia Asha touch-phone native app, launched Pilot reseller programme, GPS tracking of buses, featured on iOS store. We have also launched premium coupons for recharges. Elaborate on your bus ticketing servicePayTM offers online bus booking for over 12,000 bus routes across India. The top searches on it are for Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. It has recently added real-time bus location alert service for the convenience of its customers. Having extended the booking facility over mobile phones, PayTM has fast grown into a quick and trustworthy online bus booking destination. Your future plansWe plan to have a Windows phone app soon. We are also going to add utility bill payments on mobiles, add at least 10 new billers in existing categories, offer more categories in quick succession and evolve as a marketplace offering varied services and products. Our goal is to become the most frequented destination where most people will transact for the largest number of goods.
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At the TCS’s annual general meeting on 28 June, the big light was on Cyrus Mistry, the new chairman of Tata Sons, who made his debut at this AGM. And the first without Ratan Tata. He impressed the shareholders with his speech (and smiling all along), and also managed to evade some contentious questions. A shareholder said after the meeting that Ratan Tata would have answered the some of the questions like that on TCS’s challenges after N.R. Narayana Murthy's return to Infosys. One of the shareholders remarked 'Tata is Tata', in line with Ratan Tata's famous quote after launching Nano “A promise is a promise”.TCS AGM was a confident boosting affair for Mistry. Here's why:1) The TCS numbers were one of the best in the industry. 2) Mistry has managed to build a mutually respectful rapport with the top management of the company, and 3) There is further potential for him to play a role in TCS’s challenging future, whether in cost discipline or building a diversified and relevant portfolio. Though Mistry missed the charisma of Tata, everything fell in favour of the 44-year-old at the shareholders meet held in Mumbai. Some shareholders say that it may not be the same with the AGMs of other group companies like Tata Steel and Tata Motors. Tata Steel struggles with the sinking performance of its European division and Tata Motors loses its plot in the home-land. Mistry will have to deal with the worries of the respective shareholders. “Tata knows to manage the scene. And the shareholders have faith in him,” says a shareholder. Surely, building the faith would be a bigger challenge for Mistry at the initial phase of his stint. nevin (dot) john (at) abp (dot) in
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Broadcasters, who had pushed TAM Media to change from a weekly to a monthly release of audience figures are feeling the heat and may go back to the weekly arrangement. There have been frenetic behind-the-scenes negotiations between advertisers, broadcasters and ad agencies, and while no deal has been reached yet, those in the know in the industry said that by Wednesday (17 July), the broadcasters will accept a compromise and go back to TAM’s weekly audience figures. “While advertisers can make an alternative media plan based on print and other platforms, recessionary conditions will not allow broadcasters to hold out for long,” an ad agency executive told BW on condition of anonymity. The uneasy truce between the broadcasters, advertisers and ad agencies over how TAM Media audience measurement ratings will be circulated had broken down on Friday last (12 July) with as many as 25 large advertisers pulling out advertisements from television platforms. The advertisers who have decided to pull the plug include big names such as Hindustan Unilever (HUL), P&G, Dabur, Colgate and Marico. Read Also: Broadcasters Go After TAMThe action by the advertisers follows a group of big TV networks prevailing upon the rating agency TAM Media into releasing monthly audience figures instead of the earlier weekly norm followed by TAM. The broadcasters also got TAM to agree to release absolute audience numbers instead of the earlier percentage figures. While broadcasters say that they have been forced to opt for the monthly ratings formula because TAM figures showed wild swings in the weekly format, advertisers point out that monthly ratings are meaningless as they cannot make a media plan or strategy with insufficient data. In an unusual show of aggression, advertisers have hit back by cancelling advertising. However, TV channels have continued to play out ads as these are part of earlier contracts. Advertisers in turn have thought out their action for a long-term battle and have blocked fresh Release Orders (ROs) which they hope will bring the broadcasters to heel. Among the big networks that had petitioned TAM for monthly data include Multi Screen Media (Sony), Zee Entertainment, Star India, Bag Films & Media, the Network18 Group and Times Global Broadcasting.gurbir(dot)singh(at)abp(dot)in gurbir1(at)gmail(dot)com(at)stayalive
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Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of Renault-Nissan, is a former mathematics teacher and a turn-around specialist. He is also a very practical man. He sees in India the ability to adapt with limited resources. With an eye to the future, he has made this adaptability a pivot of the Renault Nissan Alliance. He says if the fruits of the alliance work well in India, these can be used in South America, Central America, Africa and South East Asia as well. Recently Ghosn unveiled the Datsun Go — a car brand which is a Nissan subsidiary — in India and was sure there was more to come from India. Before the launch of the Datsun, he dissected India into 350 shopping and economic areas with different income levels. It was only after such an extensive study that he could promise a sub-Rs-4-lakh car, sure in his knowledge that the current investment of $2.5 billion will double within five years. In an interview with BW|Businessworld's Vishal Krishna, Ghosn discussed all this and more Excerpts from the interview:As a former mathematics teacher, how do you develop a predictive model for a country like India where economic activity is slowing down?You don't need a regression or a progression analysis. Look at the "progressive" side of India, the only 'math' that I look at is the penetration of cars in the country. It is 15 per 1,000 compared to 60 to 80 in China. Yes, we do a lot of studies in a market but India has a lot of potential for investment and increase in production.Are you investing in the country and are you ramping up production?Already as an Alliance, including for the technical centre, we have invested $2.5 billion. With the Datsun, Renault and Nissan, there will be many cars. Nissan and Datsun have announced 10 cars in three years, Renault will have some cars planned by 2015. The investment will naturally double in five years.The common module platform is becoming popular in the Alliance, will it play a major role in India?The Alliance will launch its first car in that platform by 2015 in India. It will be leveraged by all three of our brands because it will be localised. I cannot tell you which brand will bring it out first. The Renault Nissan Alliance Technical centre in Chennai is second to none in engineering across the world. The platform research that is happening here can tell you whether it will succeed in other high growth markets or not. India is going to have cars localised completely for Indians and I am telling you that if the car works in India it can work anywhere in the world. This is why the Renault Nissan Technical Centre is so important not only to India, but to the world.When do we expect electric vehicle research to come to the Indian centre?Electric vehicles in high growth emerging markets will not make sense at this point of time. Will India need an electric vehicle? Yes! When? I don't know. Therefore the technical centre will invest in research that makes sense for high growth markets.How about the problems in Europe, how do you see that market pick up?Europe has seen a significant drop in sales. A market which represented a 30 per cent market share for global sales, seven years ago, now represents less than 15 per cent market share. But Russia is growing and is a high growth market. The slowdown in Europe will continue for a few more years. Renault has to look out for global markets for this very reason. In Europe, however, they have to adapt to the slowdown and compete.What is frugal engineering to you?Frugal engineering is something that we learnt from India. Take all the partnerships that we have had here, we have learnt something from them to localise for India. Take Ashok Leyland for example, when I met them at their factory a few years ago and saw a model that was done at a cost which represented 5 per cent of the investment that we usually make for car models globally, my mind was blown away. It is here that we need to push ourselves and ask ourselves whether the Alliance can do it.What does market share mean to you?Two things can be very confusing in India. It is confusing to answer what low cost car means and it is even more difficult to tell someone the timeline to having a market share. I don't want to give specific timelines to the market share. In the long run, the Alliance needs a 15 per cent market share because we expect to sell 600,000 cars here. While everyone has an eye on market share. For me it is the long run that matters.
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India's leading apparel and textile major Raymond Ltd has re-jigged its top management to spur growth and to better its dipping profit margins. "We had a few issues in the past in our business strategies and are now in the process of fixing them", Gautam Hari Singhania, chairman and managing director told Businessworld. Sanjay Behl, former head of brand and marketing and CEO of Reliance DTH & IPTV of the Reliance ADA Group, has taken over as the CEO of textile and apparel businesses. The CEO post is newly created for Behl and he will directly report to Singhania. Aniruddha Deshmukh, president, textiles and Robert Lobo, president-group apparel business - will now report to Sanjay Behl. Both Aniruddha and Lobo are long term executives with Raymond and until recently Lobo was heading the brands ColorPlus and Raymond Premium Apparel. Raymond's branded apparel business include Park Avenue, Parx, Raymond Premium Apparel and ColorPlus. In March, the company had brought in a new chief financial officer CFO, M. Shivkumar. He was senior vice-President (finance) at Jet Airways prior to joining Raymond. Before Shivkumar, H. Sunder, whole-time director and chief financial officer, was heading both the finance and strategy portfolios. Now Sunder is fully devoted to strategy function. Raymond, which grew its business from Rs 2617 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 4143 crore in 2012-13, had a sluggish growth in its profits during the period. Net profit for 2012-13 was Rs 28.7 crore compared to Rs155.8 crore in the previous year. Its textile business had seen volume growth, but margins were flat in the last few years. Its foray into denim business through a joint venture with the Belgian company UCO failed to deliver the promises. The 88-year old company also relocated its manufacturing facilities in Thane in recent past to Jalgaon and Vapi. "The full year 2012-13 had been an year of organisational consolidation and has provided us with a platform for a strong bounce back in profitablity", Shivkumar had said in an analyst-call for Q4, 2012-13. email: pb(dot)jayakumar(at)abp(dot)inemail: pbjayan(at)gmail(dot)comtwitter: (at)pbjayakumar
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Third in the BlackBerry 10 lineage after the Z10 and the Q10, is the Q5, a full Qwerty keyboard plus touch smartphone, meant for the emerging markets of the world. On Tuesday, 16 July, launching the Q5 in India, BlackBerry India MD Sunil Lakwani said Q5 is aimed at the young super achievers, the young who want to explore. And keeping in mind the young clientele, this mobile from BB10 stable will cost Rs 24,990 with EMI options for buyers. There are no data bundle offers yet and standard ones will apply.Frankly, if I were to imagine an upgrade to the older BB7 keyboard devices such as the Curve, that would please the BlackBerry faithful, I would think this would be it. Despite two more premium phones that came before it, the Q5 has more going for it.Disclosure: I have never been a full time BlackBerry user and never craved a keyboard, having willingly moved to touch devices as soon as they made an appearance on the planet. But even I have to admit this is a wonderful set of keys. They take up about 40 per cent of the front and have obviously been crafted with loving care. The keys are small but distinct and separate, rounded in the direction your fingers are expected to move, and the right balance of press -– not too hard, not so soft as to interfere with tactile feedback. Unlike some BB7 device keyboards, the Q5’s is not curved upward but just straight and neat and easy to use, specially as the phone is so rather nice to hold in the hand. So, long-time BlackBerry users will easily love this keyboard, except that they may miss some of the keys that have now been turned into touch functions, such as for receiving a call. On the other hand there are many keyboard shortcuts, especially when using the browser, that will be welcome. I showed the Q5 to several BlackBerry users and without exception, they fawned over it, clearly impressed. All the same, they won’t and can’t entirely escape touch, which makes up more than half of this phone. More on that in a bit.The back of the phone -– and that’s surprisingly important to users perhaps because they need to touch it about as often as the front and because it’s what faces others as one uses the device – is made of a solid but elegant plastic which is smooth and soft to the touch. It’s not removable and hides the 2,100 mAh battery inside while the SIM and the microSD slots are on the left edge of the phone. The volume control, BB style, is on the right. The power on button is right on top and not a problem to get to because the device isn’t large enough to require that much travel. If you choose to, you can mostly ignore the power button and swipe up from the screen to turn the phone on.And what of the other 60 per cent on the front? Well, that’s all touch and the same BB10 as the Q10 and Z10. Just as fluid, just as quick with its swipe gestures and also sporting the BlackBerry Hub, social integration, and other BB10 features. In fact, there’s no compromise on the software front on the basis of its being the cheapest of the three so far. Physically, it isn’t even smaller than the Q10 and is, in fact, a tad taller. They Q10’s keyboard has frets and that device is a little heavier and has better hardware specs, but I found the keyboard, the all-important feature of the Q phones, actually more comfortable to use than the Q10’s. The 3.1-inch display is an IPS LCD, 720x720 pixels and not as advanced as the Q10’s but still it does have a density of ~328 ppi and is more than adequate for the phone. Together with the keyboard, it’s 4.72x2.60x0.43 inches.A few other essential specs include dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon internals. RAM is 2GB, which is a lot for a device of this size. Internal storage is 8GB expandable by 32GB -– good to store documents on. The camera is perfectly average. The 5MP primary should not be considered an asset but a make-do camera, really. The front camera is 2MP and remember that you could be using it a lot since video chat is so easy to initiate on BB10.The Q5 comes with many essential apps on board. There’s Docs to Go, all the social network apps, maps, Box for file storage, PDF reader, shortcuts to Dropbox and YouTube. In the past, BlackBerry users haven’t been as focused on apps and have used their devices as a super connected one to communicate with friends, family and colleagues. But it’s a different world today and while BlackBerry was busy creating BB10, Apples and Google’s app stores only went from strength to strength. With BlackBerry, the unfortunate chicken-and-egg situation is that developers are waiting for enough users and users are waiting apps. Well, that and a lot more. If you’re considering the Q5, know that it isn’t a great option for anyone moving from Apple or the Android ecosystems. It suits the BlackBerry faithful much more.The Q5 comes in black, a very smart white, a nice red and a pink. In India, it will be available in red, white and the black But it remains to be seen which colours are available in India.mala(at)pobox(dot)com(at)malabhargava on Twitter
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