P-A-L-M to the boonies?

Wall Street Journal reports that the two Palms are showing signs of wanting to getting back together. “PalmOne Inc. said it is acquiring full rights to the “Palm” brand name and will change its name to Palm Inc. later this year. Milpitas, Calif.-based PalmOne also said Tuesday that it has renewed its license of the

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Boonies may be the next big opportunity

SME. SME. SME. Those Farms and Fisheries in India are mostly SMEs. How big are these segments? Large enough to tip the market share war in Wireless OS that today is dominated by the Symbian OS, with its largescale support from Nokia, in favor of some lesser players like Microsoft and PalmSource? Could these grassroots applications for the bottom of the pyramid become killer apps in the quest for seducing the next billion computer / telecom users?

Low-cost PCs

EE Times reports on the low-cost PC market in India: “Aiming at India residents with no PC experience, Novatium is developing the Nova NetPC, a thin client expected to cost just $100. The PC is now in beta-stage development and will reportedly be maintenance-free and appliance-like. Novatium’ three founders include Analog Devices’ chairman Ray Stata,

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Coke, Pepsi & the Indian Heartland

December 2004. We were traveling in India. As we waited for our train at a small railway station in Bolpur, a small town near Calcutta, we watched a boy of 10 or 12 arrange his merchandise in preparation for boarding the train to Calcutta. He stacked up hundreds of packets of chips, cookies, and snacks

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Looking to create a signature as a fashion designer?

I used to work with a small New York Designer called Lafayette 148 in the 1999-2000 timeframe. It was (and still is) a beautiful designer that wanted to use the highest quality fabrics but make the clothes available at relatively lower prices. [In the fashion business, the terminology would be Designer merchandise at Bridge prices.]

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Sick of Campbell soups?

India is a paradise for delicious candies and other edibles: sweets, snacks, pickles … Trader Joe’s has made Mochi ice-creams now a household name in North America. The women in the villages almost always cook, and many of them could put the fanciest chefs in top restaurants worldwide to test. In Bengali cuisine, one of

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How big is the global candle business?

But is it only the distribution channels for CPG categories that offer opportunities for such micro-entrepreneurship? I don’t think so. Most lifestyle retailers today sell candles. And one of their major business challenges is gross margin. If Federated focuses on putting in a supply chain that taps into the 4 Billion potential suppliers, and offers

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Tupperware Party around the Village Pond

Avon and Mary Kay developed the model of home-based product representatives for their cosmetics. Then there were the Tupperware parties. The village women are also target markets for detergents, hair oil, and myriad of other products that MNCs want to sell. At the time of the 2001 census, there were 638,000 villages in India, and

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