After raising a mind boggling $46 million in a new round of financing,  KNO,  ( the company and tablet share the same name) founded by Osman Rashid and Babur Habib is now on its way to (hopefully) winning the 2011 Crunchies awards for best new device.  That is, ofcourse, if you vote before the 19th of Jan! You can cast your vote now here and look at the other contestants for the same prize.

ITT and Jehan have previously also profiled Osman Rashid. His previous venture, Chegg.com literally created the online textbook rental market, and raised $219 million (yes thats million!) USD.

So, will the KNO replace those pesky little netbooks and age old laptops I see all my friends carry to school? Hopefully. To learn more about the KNO , here is a great CNET video.

So i’ve not been posting alot nowadays (thanks to another project thats taking up most of my remaining time , more on that soon) but this one’s worth a mention.

From blog pics

The one thing most techies i’ve come across want to do is trade stocks. or do finance, or do both. For some reason it has an allure, maybe because your friend works in a bank and makes 3 times what you do, not sure, but nevertheless when you’re stuck coding all day and Apple’s stock (AAPL) moves up another 300 points you tend to ask yourself why you are doing what you are. So if you really want to know learn finance, not just read news about stocks, risk management (yes, that hot topic!) and a dearth of other interesting gambits, checking out Learning Corporate finance is a good start. This is by no means for the timid, this is a course you pick up if you really want to get on the horse…Technorati thinks well enough of the blog to have moved it into the top 100 finance list and given a 440 authority rating in just under a year of it being around (to compare, techcrunch has 907 after 6 years).

Jawwad does have a entertaining introduction that helps understand the motivation behind the site…

The trend to implement custom in house solutions seems to be on the downward trend, and these systems are being replaced instead of further upgraded it seems. This is also a natural evolution of the market, where banks want to remain banks and leave the technology to the tech vendors, a good thing for sure. Soneri might still focusing on its own solution, and some Islamic banks have been focused on developing their own solutions but to be fair, Islamic Banking is a niche with very different requirements from a conventional bank. The next step for these banks would be to also start buying local, strong solutions for specific verticals such as treasury and trading instead of trying to build these complex systems in house…

You can click here for a bigger version.

Jehans done a great post on valley entrepreneur, Osman Rashid and his recent ventures, to read, click below:

http://jehanara.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/osman-rashid-named-2009-ey-entrepeneur-of-the-year-2/

Everyone has been talking and raving/criticizing/talking about Worldcall’s new EVDO wireless broadband service. Techlahore recently talked about the rival PTCL service that just launched in competition. We had been using the service in my old company for the last 3 months and after using it regularly, I think its time to share the experience of using this product nearly daily in a full review.

First of all, any good wireless broadband service is a Godsend for techies, consultants, generally people on the road. If you travel intercity, then even more so. Worldcall EVDO is very usable though it has some ticks that could make it better. In light of loadshedding and power issues I think a laptop with this dongle attached makes you invulnerable to KESC. That in itself, is something to pay for. Should you pay for this each month instead of your electric bill?  Read on more for the full review.

The technology

EVDO technology more or less competes with WiMAX, though WiMAX is newer and more powerful. Worldcall is backing EVDO (CDMA essentially , the same thing used by Sprint in the US) while both Wateen and Mobilink infinity have opted to use WiMAX for their networks, so they at the moment do have a technological edge. But lo and behold, technology not being everything, despite a very corny marketing campaign, Worldcall still seems to gaining on the sales of its EVDO Devices.

Setup

Simple and fast. Since its USB it self installs and starts to work. Your firewall might complain a bit if you have any one and running.

Speed

We got the RS 1,200 a month, 256kbps speed option. We got the speed promised consistently as long as we were in the Karachi metropolitan area and along shahraefaisal and clifton. I think as you get signal issues the speed will drop and become inconsistent fairly quickly. However, this is alot better than the “old” worldcall, seems like the Omantel buyout and management change might be helping. I can’t say much about the other higher speeds since I have not tested them. No upload or download cap, but in this day and age if any ISP even try impose a limit on broadband, dump them and move to another one.

Check out our speed test below:

Apps: Mail works well, we tested Yahoo mail and POP through outlook which worked well. At 256Kbps driving in Karachi, youtube just doesnt work well. But your basic browser apps, ie webmail, calendar and IMs like MSN, etc are good. Don’t expect this to be your connection for downloading tons of files from servers. It also disconnects every few minutes unless you’re actively using it, so really its just your “away from my real connection” connection….

Price : 3000 for the device, and 1200 and up for the service. Yes, home DSL is cheaper and faster, I agree but you do pay dearly for the mobility and to bypass KESC and PTCL all at once!

And Yes, GRPS is half the price, at about rs 500 for unlimited, but all you can do on that is access your webmail on an static html interface, like the basic html Gmail interface. And you still have to pay the same price for the pcmcia card, and it wont work in one of those new little netbooks, whereas this usb option will.

Rivals : Mobilink (Wimax?), PTCL.

Here also is a decent overview of PTCL’s competitor to Worldcall’s EVDO.

Interested ? Here is the link to their website : http://www.worldcall.net.pk/wirelessbroadband.html

I was pleasantly suprised that Dawn recently did an investigative article on the UAV Industry in Pakistan and followed it up with a media gallery as well. ITT did a post on this last November. It is great to see several other media sources realizing this new technology niche and recognizing the small but fast growing industry.  To date, several sources , including Wired Magazine and P.W. Singer on his TED talk have mentioned and written about the growing UAV industry in Karachi and Islamabad. This industry currently serves military and civilian customers in Pakistan, US and others. For reference, here is more on robotic drones/unmanned flying vehicles for a quick ramp up. So I ask the politicians again, why are they going to other countries and asking to buy expensive systems while entreprenuers are working on these technology products in our own backyard?

As general software development/outsourcing becomes more of a commodity, moving up the value chain in such niche areas and domain expertise in specific verticals is the only way to go.

Links here:

Dawn’s Article:

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/drones-made-in-pakistan

Dawn’s Media Gallery:

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/media-gallery/flying-high-in-korangi-sal?pageDesign=new_mg_wht_detail12-1

ITT’s Post:

http://www.ittazee.com/2008/11/28/pakistans-homegrown-advanced-uav-fleet/

There are a few startups I have seen that have killer business models, and you tend to think “why did i not think of that?!”. Varsity Heroes is one of those. The execution is also very well done, especially the awesome graphics, and the comic based approach to explaining the game, similar to Google Chrome’s. Hassan Baig and co have done a great job so far. If this is not VC-funded, it should be!

There are already over 400 players registered on the game. Currently, the LUMS campus map is online and others are coming on shortly I hear. The Gameplay looks like civilization to a good extent. The idea is also to play it a few minutes a day while you wait for your opponent to make his move, making it very playable like scrabulous, which became popular because players loved the ability to make a move and come back after a few hours to make the next one, hence fitting it nicely into your daily schedule. A quick gameplay video below:

To learn more or to try out the game, go here : http://varheroes.com/enlist/

The MIT GSW is a non-profit, student run, volunteer organization that believes in creating a global support network for entrepreneurship.  The goal of this network is to share best practices of entrepreneurship between different regions of the world, which in turn creates stronger more sustainable environments throughout the globe.

MIT Global Startup Workshop selected Kualitatem Pvt. Ltd as a case study in their Student Success Story panel, a part of their 12th global event being held in Cape Town from 25th – 27th March 2009. As one of only 3 cases to be selected, Kualitatem was also presented in the opening panel of the conference. Selection for this panel was based upon the work done as a founder of the company whose successful foundations were derived from the days as a student. Jamil Goheer, CEO Kualitatem was also invited as a speaker for the conference. 

Kudos to the team at Kualitatem for the achievement, their business plan is solid and the small QA startup seems to be going from strength to strength.

Here is a link to all the shows so far…

http://webstudio.ciopakistan.com/tag/jehan-ara/

That theme song is also stuck in my head with a stickman doing a funky dance to it!