How does it work?

This deal gives us an entry into the rapidly growing mobile application market. These are key area of interest for mobile operators and handset manufacturers. The investment will give One97 priority reseller rights for WaveSecure in multiple geographies including India.  WaveSecure as a popular Smartphone service, is also an excellent entry strategy for One97’s portfolio of products for developed markets like Europe and North America.  The strategic investment will enhance One97’s capability in the design, development and go-to-market in the mobile applications space.

One97 and Telecom World

One97 Communications has previously invested in mobile advertising start up Oorja Mobile Services Pvt Ltd as well as incubated PayTM and oc2ps, a mobile commerce initiative and social networking platform respectively. One97 works with telecom operators offering Value Added Services – music download, application discovery, self-care, customer communication, content provisioning, subscriptions alerts and ring back tones. These services are available across all Indian telecom operators and are used by over 300 million telecom consumers. One97 was named the Emerging Company of the year by Voice and Data and was rated a Top 10 Fastest Growing Indian company in Deloitte Fast 500. The company’s has sustained growth at 428 percent CAGR.

WaveSecure

WaveSecure offers users complete protection for their mobile device, data and privacy. It enables users to remotely lock, track and locate lost phones, get a copy of their data securely backed up, and remotely wipe data off the phone to protect privacy. WaveSecure is a popular service that has been adopted by users in more than 130 countries, and has received numerous recognitions, most notably being a Top 3 winner at Google’s recent Android Developer Challenge.

WaveSecure is the world’s leading mobile device and data security product that protects users in more than 130 countries. WaveSecure has been recognized as a Top 10 Wireless Innovation by Frost & Sullivan, an overall winner at Mobile Monday Peer Awards, and a Top 3 Winner at Google’s Android Developer Challenge. WaveSecure has been featured on numerous popular media including TechCrunch, CNet, LifeHacker, CNBC, and was recently named “2009’s Most Awesome Android Apps” by CIO and “App of the week” by New York Times. WaveSecure is available on all Smartphone platforms including Symbian S60, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and Android.

tenCube

Headquartered in Singapore, tenCube is a pioneer in Smartphone security technology since 2005. Originally designed for military and police use, tenCube launched WaveSecure for consumers in 2007 and has received numerous recognition, including being selected as a Red Herring Asia 100 company. tenCube’s current investors include NUS Enterprise and the Singapore Government’s SEEDS investment fund. tenCube’s customers includes Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Telenor and SingTel.

Voila ! You have solution at hand. WaveSecure.

I absolutely love the possibility of controlling your device remotely. Lock it, Track it, Wipe it and yes get backup/restore done so easily. Check the video in Darius of TenCube’s voice.

This app is available to download from Ovi / Andriod / WinMo app stores. Here are few interesting links and videos of wavesecure. Tencube had won Google’s Global Android Developer Challenge .

Singtel created this video to explain their users about it.

And finally dont miss NY Times review of WaveSecure as App of week.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and managing director of One97 Communications, can be called an early starter. A child prodigy, he passed class XII at the age of 14 and started his first business venture while doing his third year at engineering college. His company, Xs! Corporations, was later sold to Lotus Interworks in 1999. After working for Lotus for a year, he founded One97, which provides a platform for delivering mobile value-added services, in December 2000.

From starting with astrology forecasts over the phone in 2001 to becoming one of the largest mobile value added services players today, his company has come a long way. “I think we were lucky to enter this space early, which gave us a lot of opportunities to learn,” said Sharma. It was also tough to convince operators to put up One97’s platform.

Read the full interview here.

I still remember the first day I joined. It was quite an experience to see the mix/dynamics of teams sitting together. Shortage of space never really came in the way of getting things done for One97. Sometimes I miss that small team, which was more or less like a family . A family that kept growing and so quickly! Soon we were spread across 3 floors: Devika Tower, 1st Floor to 2nd Floor to 10th Floor and then we moved only the Engineering team to another building. And as suddenly as this movement, we moved to Noida in one building, four Floors indeed.

We recently saw our annual day celebrations party 2009. I still remember our Annual Party Dec 2006. Smita, Puneet, Anupam and I had gone location-hunting only to be told that everything was filled. We had then finalized on this small banquet hall above Turquoise Cottage…Days of the Raj. The party was totally enjoyed by everybody. Since the then first grand party to welcome the year 2007, there has been no looking back, year after year, more people, more hard work, more challenges, more achievements, and not to be forgotten, more fun all the way! One97 is a young company of young generation. We believe in working hard and partying hard.

Here are some of the captured moments for you to revive your memory:

2006-2007 – http://picasaweb.google.com/hrone97/OldMemoriesOne97
2008 -  http://picasaweb.google.com/vijayshekhar/TheOne97GoaTrip
http://picasaweb.google.com/ksheer13/TheOne97Gig08
http://picasaweb.google.com/ksheer13/TheOne97Gig08
2009 – http://picasaweb.google.com/vaibhav.nagpal43/IndependenceDay
http://picasaweb.google.com/nikhilvatsa/AnnualNewYearCelebrationOne97

Here is what Rahul from One97 has to say about the topic

The best thing about mobile internet is its availability and ease of use. Carry the world with you sort of approach.

I know of folks who are constant surfers – it means they log on their phones even before they brush their teeth and the last thing they do before hitting the sack is check their online accounts, twitter, facebook, mail and blogs.

Mobile internet is their lifeline and they refuse to go on holidays where there is no mobile bandwidth 

At the same time I have friends who refuse to buy high end phones, lest they get addicted to mobile surfing.

So which one are you?

We have a very happy start of a new year in India’s telecom market, consumer has more choices and these choices will grow even more as year progresses. Value Added Services or as I like to call our business Telecom Applications and Services business is reaching center stage and hopefully will empower consumer even more.

A wise consumer, who has started to get more out of phone than a call is now wanting more bang for buck + many more services. Cloud (network) side hosted services are favorite for our market. Simply because they are easy to distribute/discover and available to everyone. They can be updated easily and there is QoS control of service provider.

Market is ripe for sizeable telecom applications / services business, here are my  5 items that should be growth drivers for next 12 months.

1. Matured Consumers: Consumers are now expecting more from their phone. It is very obvious from kind of handset features today we see them buying. The more they wish, better are the opportunities for us to make and sell services to them. Also majority of our target consumers are on network for more than 6 months – a typical time after which they start exploring additional features.
2. Lower cost of high feature device: Consumers lapped up choice of features v/s brand name and cost. Today’s large numbers of phones are like multimedia computers and these devices have more funky features than the smart phone generation is thinking! This inturn generates curiosity to do more and explore from connected devices.
3. Network’s Interest: Telecom networks had to deploy towers, acquire their customers, fast !. They have achieved most of it. This brings them to the ‘next fight’, revenues and revenue market share. The same is even more important once the price war has challenged their basic voice calling revenue. VAS applications can bring back significant % of that revenue to kitty. To top it up , you have consumer using some more services from service provider thus enhancing their role from just being a connectivity provider to service provider.
   The time is for winning together and opportunity is to serve consumer’s connected needs together.
4. Pricing: VAS traditionally has been priced at much higher premium compared to average calling or SMS charges. VAS prices have also adjusted according to the trend. There are segmented offerings with various easy entry price points. Lot more innovation in pricing is pending. (tip: did we do a session based pricing yet?)
5. Application Innovation: Though last in my list but probably most important factor. Now all of us know that VAS offerings are headed to become a everyday thing and not just about an impulse buy. I hope we will consumer will no more see it as Value Added and instead look at it as a service, part of every day life. It could start from your favorite music destination and lead towards paying bills, getting employment, connecting with friends and so on.
   Whole ecosystem is geared and understanding the potential of delivering these everyday-things. This is going to be interesting.
   This is also the point where many will separate themselves from others. The market will open for niche needs served at least cost.

I could go on and say machine 2 machine communication, better bandwith throughput are still pending for this large market.

Remember what we do here, is watched by world to learn from. This is one industry where  we are leading the way and showing what can you offer your telecom subscriber beyond a voice / data pipe. It is about making maximum of billion connected people, right here in India.

Some global inputs for your to chew that I stumbled upon.