Cheap iPhone 5 for $330 to hit the market soon

Apple had taken quite a stringent stand on the quality of its products, thereby refusing to lower the price of its iPhones is now forced to bend its knees against the overwhelming demands of the populous but underdeveloped country markets. Apple is now launching a cheap iPhone 5 to satisfy the needs of such markets.

Sources inform that the new cheap iPhone 5 will not have the aluminum body which will be replaced by a plastic casing, thereby considerably reducing the manufacturing cost. The shape and making of the cheap iPhone 5 will resemble its expensive counterpart and is also expected to have a retina display and feature Apple’s new Lightning connector for charging and syncing. Macotakara, a Japanese technology website predicts that the new smartphone will be priced around $330 which would bring it in the range of younger middle class generation of China and India.

Apple has not officially launched iPhone in Pakistan up till now (which means no after sales services) whereas the sale and customer services of its iMacs and MacBook is going on under its supervision. With the new cheaper version it is expected that the company may also launch the brand in Pakistan.

Why My Next Phone will be a Windows Phone?

I’ve decided that I’ve seen enough and I am finally ready. Windows Phone camp is my next destination!

You might be thinking why am I moving to an OS with low app count, dwindling market share and which lacks basic features as compared with Android 2.3.6. Its all agreeable but the good thing for me is that I don’t care. Downloading apps is not my hobby anyway.

The single biggest reason why I am migrating is because of the boredom my current OS is giving me. Android Gingerbread is just plain boring and I’m too afraid to upgrade to Jelly Bean as I may end up with an even more laggy device.

Windows Phone is both lively and smooth. Performance in both high-end and low-end phones is smoother than any Android flagship. The top-of-the-class.

2 years back when Nokia announced its intentions to make Windows Phone devices primarily instead of the obvious competitor Android, a lot of us were looking at the Finnish company with disbelief, myself included. 2 years later, its obvious that the decision was by far the best one. Nokia can now make exclusive phones and price them accordingly at will.

This transition will not be without its drawbacks though. Windows Phone still lacks a Notification Centre (although live tiles somewhat make up for it), ununified volume controls and customizations besides the all so important apps. But at least I’ll be able to breathe without crashing my phone.

Crashing might not sound like a big deal to Gingerbread users, our phones crash a lot. Sometimes my phone restarts randomly without warning. At other occasions, it won’t install a 33MB app because of ‘low storage’, even when I’ve got 1.27GBs of internal, and 2.2GBs of external, untouched storage left. What a misery. Performance-wise, there is a wide gulf between mid-range and upper-end phones in Android. At least the much hated phone among Pakistanis, i.e. the iPhone has got way better records to boast. Every time I’ve used it, I am taken aback by how smooth it is. Windows Phone is very similar in this aspect too.

After two years of being costly and quite restricted, Microsoft’s phones have fallen in price too. Lumia 620 and HTC 8S are best performing mid-range phones available right now and the Lumia 520 will sit even one step below.

In the Windows Phone party too, my next phone will undoubtedly be a Lumia. The exclusive Nokia apps and technologies make the Lumia phones the top WP choice. There are other compelling options too but none are quite nearly as compelling (or energetic) as the Lumias.

So there you have it. Everything can be summed up in three words: Performance, Live Tiles and Difference. The deep social integration, cloud services (which are a must for me) and Office Suite are huge pluses too.

I am still among the minorities now. Its now up to Microsoft to convince the top app developers to cross borders. Until then, I don’t think most people will feel like jumping the ship.

Having owned 3 Nokia phones before (which were also the first three phones that I ever owned, like most Pakistanis), I can’t wait to go back to Nokia again.

Microsoft Releases Office 365 for Businesses

Microsoft announced worldwide availability of a major new update to its Microsoft Office 365 services for business.

Microsoft’s Office cloud service to date has new features and offerings tailored to the needs and budgets of small, medium-size and large organizations. In addition to updated Microsoft Lync Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft SharePoint Online services, business users can now get the rich Office applications they are familiar with, on up to five devices, delivered as an always up-to-date cloud service.

Office 365 features enhanced enterprise social capabilities with SharePoint and Yammer and Lync-Skype connectivity for presence, instant messaging (IM), and voice by June. The new Office 365 service is available today in 69 markets and 17 languages and will be available in an additional 20 markets and 16 languages in the second quarter of this year.

“With Office 365, everyone from large enterprises to small businesses to individual consumers can now benefit from the power of Office and the connectivity of the cloud,” said Amir Rao; Country Manager, Microsoft Pakistan. “This release unlocks new scenarios and delivers capabilities that far surpass anything available in browser-only solutions.”

Since launching in mid-2011, Office 365 is one of the fastest-growing businesses in Microsoft history. After only 18 months, one in five of Microsoft’s enterprise customers now has the paid service, up from one in seven a year ago. The number of small and midsize businesses using Office 365 has also grown by 150 percent in the past 12 months.

Zubair Abdullah, Group IT Head at Dawood Hercules Corporation Limited said; “At Dawood Hercules, we always strive to provide innovative products and exceptional customer satisfaction. We needed to improve our productivity service to support our business speed and demands as well as improve collaboration across our affiliates. We evaluated our options and found that Microsoft had the most robust, integrated suite with Office 365. It has the capabilities we need to excel in today’s business environment. Microsoft Office 365 is enabling us to make faster, unified decisions.”

The new set of Office 365 offering is designed to meet a broad variety of business requirements:

Office 365 ProPlus

Office 365 ProPlus includes the latest and most complete set of fully featured, rich Office applications — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, InfoPath and Access — delivered as a service, on up to five devices.

People can now simply sign in to Office 365 from any of their devices, and their documents and personalized settings roam with them, allowing them to quickly pick up right where they left off. IT departments also get the controls they need, including the ability to run Office 365 ProPlus side-by-side with other versions of Office and tools to streamline and manage updates for their users.

Office 365 ProPlus is available as a standalone offering for $144 per user for an annual subscription and is included with the updated premium Office 365 Enterprise offerings and the new Office 365 Midsize Business.

Office 365 Midsize Business

Office 365 Midsize Business is designed for medium-sized businesses with 10 to 250 employees. This service includes Office 365 ProPlus and provides midsize businesses with enterprise-quality communication and collaboration with Exchange Online, Lync Online and SharePoint Online — along with the simplified IT tools they need to maintain control while reducing complexity.

Active Directory integration, a Web-based administration console and business-hours phone support are also included. Pricing is $180 per user for an annual subscription, the equivalent of $15 per user, per month.

Office 365 Small Business Premium

Office 365 Small Business Premium is designed for small businesses with one to 10 employees. In addition to the complete set of rich Office applications, this service includes business-grade email, shared calendars, website tools and HD videoconferencing capability in an easy-to-manage service that does not require IT expertise. Pricing is $150 per user for an annual subscription, the equivalent of $12.50 per user, per month.

Customers can purchase Office directly from Microsoft or through an authorized retail outlet or partner. More information on Office and how to sign up for a free trial is available at http://www.office.com.

Freelancer.com is Coming to Pakistan

Freelancer.com, one of the largest freelancing / jobs marketplace in the world, is planning to start its operations in Pakistan, we have confirmed with sources.

Pakistan holds one of the largest freelancing community in the world and the trend is on the rise.

More and more individuals and professionals from Pakistan are turning towards self-employment and entrepreneurship by offering services to off-shore clients through free-lancing marketplaces.

This is evident from the fact that self-employed Pakistanis surged from 33.3% to 39.9% in last three years (2009 to 2012) – this was faster than the employee category growth, which only grew from 35.8% to 36%. The growth of self-employment was joined by the rise of Internet, which has shown double-digit growth in the past five years.

Moreover, Pakistan remains the third top country using the website, closely behind India and the United States.

Freelancer.com has said that Pakistanis working online have earned over USD 13 million through the website.

Freelancer.com is planning to have its grass-root level access to Pakistani freelancers. We are still unclear about the investment the firm will bring in to the country, however, we know that there will be dedicated staff and several physical offices of Freelancer.com in Pakistan.

Freelancer.com, with its launch in Pakistan, is likely to resolve the payment issues of Pakistani freelancers. In addition, the trend of freelancing will be propagated to get it to the next level in the country.

There’s a launch event planned in Karachi on March 5th, 2013, after which will have more details on the development.

Deadline for Deployment of Biometric Verification System Ends Today

As per directions from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and advise of Prime Minister of Pakistan, Biometric Verification System for issuance of new SIMs was to be installed before February 28th, 2013, however it appears that deadline will not be met.

Deployment of biometric verification system was meant to curb illegal and unregistered SIMs from the market.

Directive from PTA, issued on December 7th, 2012, had explicitly said:

A consultation process shall be undertaken with CMOs for deployment of equipment at all sale channels for checking/verifying the biometric (like the thumb impression of SIM purchaser) online through NADRA database by 28t, February 2012

Moreover, cellular companies were asked to eliminate all unregistered and unverified SIMs by regularizing the unverified SIMs by February 28th, 2013.

When the deadline for the deployment of system is ending today, cellular companies and PTA are still arguing over the procedures that are to be adopted for installation of biometric verification system. Cellular companies are more inclined towards the bar-code verification system while PTA is pushing for thumb-impression verification of customers at the time of issuance of new SIMs.

Since regulator is technically dysfunctional, it is less likely that such system will be deployed in near future.

Meanwhile, a source familiar with industry developments, has told ProPakistani that cellular companies are asking for more time – up to three months – for the deployment of biometric verification solution.

Mr. Rehman Malik, the lead character behind all this, is also quite – maybe because he is nearing the end of his service term. Care-taker government is said to be taking charge by mid-March and then the new government. In such situations it is unclear that what will be the fate of biometric verification system.

In the end, I would say that cellular operators are just rolling the stones without worrying about unregistered and un-verified SIMs. Same is the case with the government and regulator. This proves that no one was actually interested in curbing the issue of illegal and unregistered SIMs, instead everyone was working on his/her agenda with goals best known to them only.