Smartphone Ecosystem (Part 6): Cheaper Smartphones

By guest author Nalini Kumar Muppala There has been a lot of talk about cheaper smartphones coming our way. A slew of recent product announcements and promises from chip vendors seem to support this claim. It must be noted that the price in question is the real price of the device, not a carrier-subsidized (and

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Deal Radar 2010: CampusBookRentals.com, Utah

CampusBookRentals.com (CBR), which describes itself as being like Netflix for textbooks, rents textbooks to college students for prices that can be more than 50% off the purchase price. The company is an early entrant in the burgeoning market of textbook rental, where students pay to keep books for a certain period of time. 

College Bootstrapping Buddies: Grasshopper Cofounders Siamak Taghaddos And David Hauser (Part 6)

SM: Intuit does well because accountants and bookkeepers all know and use its product. They are all trained on QuickBooks, and they are not entrepreneurs. Even Microsoft could not penetrate that relationship. ST: It all depends on the services they’re going to provide to entrepreneurs. Intuit has done a great job and has been very

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Vision India 2020 Book Review: Subrata Mitra

Subrata Mitra, a partner with Accel Partners, has written a notable review: “Vision India 2020 is a great read for anyone who believes in the India story, how the country is touted to emerge as a global economic force in the coming decades, and how younger generations can think very differently about their lives and

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Deal Radar 2010: Zong

Zong is a mobile payment service used by online gaming and social networking sites. It leverages direct connections with mobile network operators around the world to provide consumers, merchants, and publishers with a a secure payment solution. It claims that its payment experience converts shoppers into buyers at rates up to ten times greater than

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Smartphone Ecosystem (Part 5): Devices, Part 3

By guest author Nalini Kumar Muppala As seen in the table below, each major component is dominated by a different set of companies. There is no dearth of competition, and we can thus be assured of continued innovation.

College Bootstrapping Buddies: Grasshopper Cofounders Siamak Taghaddos And David Hauser (Part 5)

SM: How are you structuring your products as you spin them out of Grasshopper Labs? ST: We want brands that are self-sustaining. We are structured like Coca-Cola is. They are the manufacturing company and the flagship product. However, they also have other brands. Our virtual PBX is our flagship product, but we have other brands

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Catching Up On Readings: Research Internships Available

I am accepting applications for research internships in various areas; details are here. You can read all of this week’s posts by clicking on the full article.