Pakistan to host regional IT and Telecom show in November

Lahore's hotels, including the Pearl Continental shown here, will welcome visitors to the IT and Telecom show in November

I just got back from GITEX Dubai a few days ago and still have to share my views on that show with you. I saw plenty of interesting stuff, so I do intend to do a couple of posts on that topic…

But, to tide us over in the meanwhile, here’s some good news about Lahore hosting a regional IT and Telecom show. The event will be held on the 17th and 18th of November and features executive presentations by local and international executives.

Here’s more from TradingMarkets.com:

USB Gladiators: PTCL EVO and Wordcall EV-DO go to war

Khooni Muqabla

A few months ago I wrote a review about PTCL’s then brand-spanking-new EV-DO service. And if memory serves, I was pretty high on it. Since then, I’ve been travelling internationally much of the time and haven’t had an opportunity to use it much or to followup on the numerous comments and alternate perspectives that were presented in  the original review’s discussion section. A lot of folks felt that it wasn’t working as well and many opined that Wordcall might be the better option.

So with the spirit of sacrifice firmly entrenched in my heart, I ventured out to perform yet another noble public service that TechLahore has become world renowned for… I purchased a Worldcall EV-DO USB device. Now I could put the two competing dongles in a glass jar, seal said jar with an impregnable carboard-and-rubberband lid and watch as both dongles played out their enmity by beating each other black and blue. Hehehe. Which dongle would survive?

I was incredibly disappointed when – even after my best efforts and much verbal prodding – both dongles just lay lifeless in the glass jar. A kid whose candy had been snatched from him, was I. The smile that anticipation of impending violence had put on my face was wiped clean in moments. It was quite clear. These damn dongles had no fight in them at all… pathetic little sissy boys. Thus, I was forced to take alternate measures.

Ufone launches UConnect… possibly the most innovative mobile application developed in Pakistan

Ufone's UConnect service sets a new standard for innovation in Pakistan's mobile application market

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the newly launched Ufone UConnect service, so I figured I’d share my perspective too. First off, the service is AWESOME. Truly. The breadth of capabilities that it brings to an inexpensive mobile phone is incredibly impressive to say the least. The problem with sophisticated applications like this, though, is that you don’t know where to start describing them since they do so much! So, here’s a short synopsis:

1) UConnect transforms any inexpensive phone into a BlackBerry-like device. Yeah. Really. Since UConnect supports direct integration with all popular email services (Gmail, Yahoo, Exchange Server, POP3 etc.) you can add up to FIVE email accounts and then… voila! Any emails you receive show up on your phone as SMS messages. You can read the entire contents of the email and then respond to the sender of the email simply by replying to the SMS. That’s super neat!

This is why I loathe Apple (most of the time anyway)

You can have all those features and more for $99 up front and a 2 year AT&T contract (~$1,500 over 2 years). And oh by the way, you also have to spend your life in servitude of the Grand Masters of the Temple in Cupertino.

I absolutely hate people trying to get into my business and attempting to limit my freedom. That applies to politics, business and equally, to technology. One of the main reasons I’ve never been an Apple fan – and never will be – is the fact that they engender a culture of suffocating control over consumers. You can either have it 100% their way, or stuff it. The third option, of course, is to buy a PC. Most people tend to go with that last one.

Apple has written another golden page in its history of limiting consumer choice by rejecting Google’s Voice Apps for the iPhone. Whether they perceive this to be a challenge to voice cellular telephony and hence an impediment to their grand plans to fleece people via AT&T, or whether they have some other dark reason for their miserable controlling behaviour, I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t like it one darn bit. Foo to you, Appstore!

PKNIC .PK root server (and office) finally moves to Lahore

This is a 20 year old picture of Ashar Nisar. About the only one on the Internet you can actually find. Talk about being reclusive...

PKNIC controls domain registrations for all .pk domains. You would expect it to be owned by the Government, or at least by a Pakistani company based in Pakistan. Not so. It’s actually managed and owned by a US-based company run by Ashar Nisar, a Pakistani- American. Up until very recently, there were no .PK root servers inside Pakistan, much to the angst of the PTA, local ISPs and the Ministries of S&T, and IT. The potential problems that could result from this dependence on a non-local root server were not just limited to the inconvenience and slow registration, which anyone who has registered a .pk domain can attest to. More seriously, in the event of an authority or ISP outside Pakistan deciding that they wanted to cause mayhem, all .pk sites could potentially cease to resolve bringing .pk hosts – and a big part of the internet in Pakistan - to a grinding halt.

DAWN now reports that the Government, working through the PTA, has somehow managed to convince the reclusive owner of PKNIC to open an office in Lahore and deploy a mirrored root server (m-2.pknic.net.pk) in what once used to be his hometown. DAWN’s source confirms:

The amazing awesomeness of PTCL’s EV-DO wireless broadband

PTCL's EV-DO service is sweeeet!

The communication infrastructure in Pakistan, both wired and wireless, is quite incredible. There’s one pet pieve I’d had for a while though, and that’s the lack of inexpensive, true mobile broadband in Lahore. WiMAX is available, but I haven’t come across a USB dongle from Wateen so far. Their rates are also a bit on the higher side, with download caps and other nonsense. WiTribe and Mobilink are offering their services in Karachi only at this time. I’ve tried Telenor’s Edge USB dongle and PTCL’s WLL USB mobile. The former is too slow for full-fledged web surfing, video watching etc. and the latter – though a bit faster – is too clumsy. You end up having to plug-in a mobile WLL handset, a candybar phone, into your USB port. The thing hangs out and hampers mobility. I just don’t like it. And it delivers only about 20Kbps. Just not worth it.

Oracle gaining market share in Pakistan with International Industries and Wi-tribe wins

Oracle's booth at GITEX

It’s not just SAP that’s rockin’ the house as far as the local market goes. Oracle is making waves too. Two significant deals were closed by Oracle recently, Wi-tribe, the third largest WiMAX service provider in Pakistan, and International Industries, a conglomerate. Previously, Oracle’s Peoplesoft solution has been adopted by several educational institutions in the country, including Dow University in Karachi. It’s pretty obvious that local ERP installs are an increasingly booming business in Pakistan.

Here are details on the Wi-tribe deal:

TechLahore’s Predictions for 2009

The Centaurus in Islamabad... work continues, but completion won't happen in 2009

Last year, I listed out a set of predictions and just recently I evaluated how they turned out. But on to more important business: what’s 2009 going to be like for Pakistan, for the IT industry and for the world at large? There are lots of very important trends unfolding before our eyes and they can cause some pretty dramatic changes to the status-quo. You may have read recently about the Russian Prof. Panarin’s prediction concerning the dissolution of the United States, or various other hypotheses about the economic disasters that are lying in wait for us as we enter 2009… and if you haven’t, I would encourage you to take a look. I won’t say whether I agree or disasgree, but will tell you that 2009 is a phenomenally imporant year for the whole world, and it is never a bad thing to understand the forces behind the change.

And that’s not a bad topic to start with, why is 2009 more important than most other years? Here’s (partially) why:

1) The US is in dire straits, economically and politically. It faces a resurgent Russia, a Rising China and it remains tied up in multiple, expensive conflicts. People in the US realize the shaky ground their country stands on today and want to change things for the better. They wanted ‘change’ bad enough to vote an inexperienced Senator in to the White House, because they associated him with the ability to affect the greatest change. If Obama fails, the World and the US, will both pay a heavy price. Whether or not he is on the path to success will be determined in 2009.

Evaluating TechLahore’s predictions for 2008

Exactly a year ago, I published a list of economic, IT and political predictions for 2008. I guess I didn’t do very badly, but where I was wrong, it was due to my optimism. But then, 2008 has been a pretty tough year for almost the entire world. Plenty of surprising, unsettling things happened and I, for one, am happy its over!

Here’s the scorecard for last year’s predictions:

Nokia GPS maps show Kashmir in Pakistan; violent Indian mobs burn down Nokia outlets

If you ever thought that a little GPS map embedded deep inside a tiny application in a relatively inexpensive piece of consumer technology was, in the grand scheme of things, unimportant and harmless, well, think again. Recent happenings in India will expose your naivete!

Apparently, Nokia cell phones contain GPS maps of Kashmir, which (correctly, from where I stand) show the territory to be part of Pakistan. I can understand how this might chagrin some across our eastern borders, but the magnitude of the reaction has certainly appalled me… The way it all went down was that some right-wing hindu extemists discovered this ‘feature’ in Nokia’s phones and rather than take the conventional route of sending an email to Nokia’s customer service, they took to the streets torching Nokia’s outlets and unleashing a general campaign of vandalism and destruction.