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Qualcomm: How 7 MIT Graduate Came Together to Create a Company With 23.55 billion USD Revenue

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A simple idea can set a revolution in an era. The mid 1980s witnessed the planting such a seed of an idea which would eventually take over the technological world. Seven brilliant and visionary minds set up to meet and discuss about setting up Quality Communications. The seven minds Irwin Jacobs, Andrew Viterbi, Harvey White, Adelia Coffman, Andrew Cohen, Klein Gilhousen and Franklin Antonio invented wireless communication system now used in almost every electronic device.

The story began in 1985 when these MIT graduates gathered at Irwin Jacobs’ house to discuss the idea of developing a wireless and quality communication system. The company successfully signed its first contract to work on the unique digital wireless technology – CDMA. The technology is used by the US military to have secure communications. The company, in 1988, launched products like OmniTRACS satellite locating and messaging service which tracks the vehicles along their route.

The initial days of developing CDMA were challenging for the founders. With only six months on working on the technology they had to demonstrate their product before potential investors. Irwin Jacobs, however, confidently walked on the stage and demonstrated the product which would set history in the wireless industry. The first CDMA technology was then known as IS-95. Since then, Qualcomm has successfully established CDMA2000, WCDMA and LTE technologies which are widely used in mobile phones.

Qualcomm, in 1999, took a big step and sold their base station to Ericson which was then followed by selling phone manufacturing to Kyocera. The decision came with a mutual consent to completely focus on developing and selling ASICs which implemented the others. This helped the company to become the largest semiconductor company in the world. A common person can find their chipsets even in their home in devices like TV and smartphone.

The Big Leap
No other company has acquired as many companies as Qualcomm has from 1997 to 2014. Qualcomm has acquired nearly fifty technological companies that are directly or indirectly related to their sole products. In 2012, the company invented yet another path-breaking chips called Snapdragon chips. This chips are mostly used in smartphones by giants like Xiaomi and Samsung. Apple uses modems developed by Qualcomm and not the Snapdragon chips.

Game of Strategies
The founders have played a strategic game by developing something which every device must have and the companies developing those devices have to license it before using. For example, the 3G and 4G interface standards are the product of Qualcomm’s CDMA. The company aims to develop CDMA at much more advanced level. The upcoming upgrades would add to the efficiency of the already available chipsets by multiple times.

Qualcomm today has estimated revenue of 23.55 billion USD. Qualcomm’s contribution to the world of wireless technology is beyond appreciation. We might just think for a moment what if there was no wireless technology? There would be no WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. The world would be a messy place with all those wires around. Qualcomm lives on the motto ‘Enabling the wireless industry’ and it has stood to its slogan since its inception and will continue to do so in future too.

Doug McMillon: CEO of Walmart

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Success is the result of abundant knowledge. Human mind is capable of absorbing as much as knowledge we feed to it. A person working in a particular field acquires deeper and deeper knowledge of that field. But the essential part is to extend that horizon ‘wide’ along with the ‘deep dive’. Walmart made a smart move to handover the CEO position to a person whose mind is equipped with the knowledge from basic to the advance level. Doug McMillon – a true learner who has successfully extended his knowledge horizons in every possible direction.

Doug, 51, became the fifth CEO of the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, in 2014. Unlike some other big shot CEOs his story begins right from the bottom. Doug joined the company in his summer vacations way back when he was just a teenager. His summer internship may not have given him glamorous paychecks but was the beginning towards his 2014 journey. As a summer student he was handed over the work of unloading the trucks at one of the Walmart distribution centers.

Born on 17th October, 1966, Doug was raised with his parents in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The McMillon family moved to Bentonville, Arkansas when Doug was just 16. In 1984, he took the summer job at Walmart as they were now residing in the retailer giant’s hometown. McMillon holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas and he went further to get a masters in MBA from University of Tulsa.

During his MBA degree, McMillon joined Walmart in 1990 as a buyer trainee in the athletic department of the Walmart store in Tulsa. After successfully completing his MBA in 1991 he decided to move back to the Walmart’s, and his own, hometown, Bentonville where he joined the buyer trainee program. McMillon took numerous job roles including buyer and merchandiser, working for the deals in the food, clothing, and crafts departments, etc. This marked the beginning of a consistent raise in McMillon’s career.

From a general merchandise manager of Walmart’s wholesale store, Sam’s Club, to reaching at the company’s highest position i.e. CEO in 2006 proves McMillon’s worth and efforts. Under his leadership the Sam’s Club focused mainly on the small-business owners and boosted its growth with respect to the strong contenders like Costco. In the year 2009, McMillon took over Mike Duke to lead Walmart’s international division. His efforts again worked like a magic on the company and shot the profits to a whopping 29% with the introduction of ‘everyday low price’ mantra into the international market.

McMillon’s consistent success rate pushed Walmart to replace the CEO of the company. After all they still wanted to be in the business and compete with rapidly growing e-retailers like Amazon. Then came the big decision to move McMillon to the board of directors of Walmart. And, on February 1, 2014 Doug McMillon was promoted to the CEO of Walmart once again replacing Mike Duke.

McMillon, during his role as a CEO till now, has focused on his company employees like no one has ever done before. He has constantly raised the wages of his employees from the moment he took over the CEO seat. He believes in the statement, ‘happier workers and better customer service’. The increased competition with e-retailers like Amazon, McMillon’s long-term goal is to increase investments in e-commerce business and create a ‘seamless shopping experience’. The biggest challenge Doug McMillon is facing is the expansion of Walmart into Asia’s two major countries, India and China.

One thing to learn and to believe in this man’s vision is that he has managed to rise up from the dock and sit on the high-profile chair just in the span of three decades. His abilities, courage to take risks and strategic business methods has and, in future, definitely lead the company to the positions it has never seen before.

How Two School Kids Are Successfully Running a $1.5 Million Mobile App Company from India

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Imagine a 12 and a 14 year old brother-pair standing before the crowd, numbering approximately 5,500 – talking about business. Sounds a bit fictional, doesn’t it? Well, it’s a true story of two youngsters from India. The age when majority of kids are busy playing video games, or preparing school projects, these youngsters from Chennai are achieving what thousands of start-ups are still dreaming of. They started their own app development unit back in 2011 and have reached milestones during the span of six years.

The founders of GoDimensions, an app development unit, Shravan Kumaran, now 16, is the President and his younger brother Sanjay Kumaran, now 15, is the CEO of the company. The app development idea sprouted out of their passion in coding and an encouraging attitude of their father, Kumaran Surendran who is the director of Symantec, an American security software company. The Kumaran brothers launched their first app Catch Me Cop after developing a whopping 150 test apps. Their dedication is definitely praise worthy.

Catch Me Cop grabbed attention of multiple internet giants including cnet.com and the result was their app displayed on world’s leading tech company Apple’s App Store, a grand success for the young entrepreneurs. Catch Me Cop is a mobile game in which a convict escapes the prison and runs through various difficult terrains like a desert, maze, forest, etc. and the citizens are in search of this convict. The game became a sensation among the young as well as the adults who enjoyed catching the convict.

GoDimensions has launched 7 applications available for iOS and 3 for Android platform. The company has recently launched an app for the Windows phone platform. Shravan, currently a class 12th student and Sanjay, studying in class 10 in HUS, Chennai work from their bedroom occupied with Apple Macs, Galaxy Notes and every high-end digital platform.

The long list of apps developed under GoDimensions hood include Alphabet Board – with a 5 star rating on app store, Prayer Planet – an app for praying to the God, ETC, CarRacingHD, Emergencybooth, E15, ColourPallete, and goDonate – a platform to share excess food, clothes, etc. to the needy. These apps, in total, have already crossed the 70,000+ download mark in over 60 countries with an average rating of 4.5 stars.

The brothers’ interest is not limited to coding and app development. Sanjay, the youngest of two, loves to play football and is the goalkeeper for his school’s football team whereas Shravan loves to play cricket and keyboard. Their mother and former journalist, Jyothi Lakshmi, recalls that she got suggestions that her children would be more productive from home rather than in school. But they both aim to complete their formal education and grow the company parallelly.

The young brother-duo were spotted during a TEDx talk and at a SAP event in Bangalore where they talked about sketching a business plan. Sanjay Kumaran quotes, “I believe that great UI is key for a great Business.” The company’s recent turnover entered the Crore club and their increasing user base will see a massive growth in income too.

Growth of e-Learning Industry & Why Moodle is still the best LMS?

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E-learning is an electronic learning which involves delivering either part or a complete course using a computer in schools, universities  or delivering important technical and business training in companies. Earlier, e-learning growth was hindered by the thought that it would essentially inhibit the human element that some learners need, however with time there has been a variety of technological developments leading to many people embracing the use of smartphones, tablets and computers in classrooms and offices. The growth of interactive designs have made e-learning engaging and a good medium for course delivery. Moreover, most learning and business organizations have enhanced their e-learning through the partnership with course or training providers together with building their own technical team to ensure a smooth learning experience for their learners.

E-learning is widely used in many companies for employees’ effective and efficient training. Over the years, the use of e-learning in companies has increasingly grown. Companies have practically discovered that every money spent on online employee training increases the employee productivity and efficiency. In last decade E-learning has seen tremendous growth worldwide. According to a new survey, by 2020 the global market of corporate e-learning will be worth more than 31 billion US dollars. Recently, many traditional schools around the world have adopted eLearning.

The growth of e-learning has been effectively necessitated by its benefits to both the individual users and the organizations- Cost effectiveness,  24/7 learning that can be done anywhere without necessarily attending specific classrooms, tracking of course progress for learners and its discreet nature which allows each individual learner to learn at their own preferred pace.

The Moodle LMS and reasons why it is still relevant
Moodle Learning Managemnet System(LMS) can be defined as not only the world’s most popular but also the  most used LMS which was developed back in 2002 by Martin Dougiamas. The reason for its global popularity is the user-friendly nature of its e-learning platform. Moodle LMS is open source & free to download with full liberty to customize and develop further. Since its inception, Moodle LMS has strongly remained the educator’s relevant platform for providing online learning in more personal environment that easily boosts interaction and collaboration-

  • Moodle is free open source technology that enables its users to personally choose their own perfect LMS schedule so as to achieve their organizational goals
  • Its certification and gamification features and tools help many organizations to meet the increasingly common requirement of offering the course certification
  • The ability to centralize multiple course providers and systems, has always been the reason why Moodle has been persistently relevant and the best option to many organizations
  • Support for SCORM and third party plugins makes it obvious choice for educators and admins

Moodle features, customization and development options.
With the aim of organizations to working in specific and efficient ways, Moodle LMS has various customization and configuration features to cater to organizational needs and demands. It offers lot of freedom in custom development and design customization. As a Moodle admin you can build an amazing learning environment by adding a variety of your personal favorite plugins which can be either individually developed or from the community. You can also opt for Moodle development services offered by different Moodle experts.

Today’s Moodle is none less than any paid or custom LMSs being offered by different EdTech firms. Moodle have features that efficiently and effectively serve both the students and the administration. The open source learning management system offers excellent web support tools to ensure effective collaborative learning. Moodle has the ability to integrate with a good number of enterprise system to facilitate continuous integration flows.

 

MobiKwik to take on Paytm with new funding round

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Paytm, India’s leading wallet and payments company now backed by high-profile investors like Alibaba and Softbank, has always been on the top when it comes to digital payment market in India. Call it the first mover’s advantage at work. On top of that, last year’s demonetization came like a sweet spring for the whole online transaction business in India. Paytm was the biggest gainer of demonetization among all wallet businesses in India. But, there is another wallet and payments solution that is growing quickly, MobiKwik.

MobiKwik- the brand which focuses entirely on mobile payments and stands second to Paytm in India- is pretty confident that the company can convert their unidirectional approach towards online payments into an advantage when competition is focusing more towards diversifying into other fields like e-commerce and banking.

Recently, in a talk with TechCrunch, Co-founder Upasana Taku confirmed that they are currently in a negotiation for an investment of $100 million-$150 million which is going to come at a valuation of $1 billion. Taku declined, when asked about the major names her company is going to receive funds from, but made it clear that there is only one major strategic investor involved along with some financial institutions. Expect the round to be closed in next couple of months, putting the company into much valued tech unicorns club.

Well, that’s a lot of money to put into a strategy and we hope MobiKwik has a polished one as they are going against Paytm; top of the league. As of now, plan is to invest around $45 million on expanding the brand’s presence and offices to new users and merchants.

Paytm is pushing its business into e-commerce, influenced by Alibaba’s presence. That’s not it, they are stepping into digital banking as well and if the sources are correct, there is yet another project which is going to launch soon and drives heavily from Chinese market.

“It is reneging on payments while it is pushing bank and e-commerce services. Something’s got to give, it is not possible to do justice on 10 different verticals.” She told to Techcrunch. She also quoted Ola money’s example to justify her statement. “I don’t see Ola Money accepted in many places”

Upasana Taku  also opened up about the company’s future goal of providing financial services like insurance, loans, and investing alongside partners, all via co-branded wallet app. Today digital payment accounts for just 15 percent of the total amount of $1.5 trillion in India and she believes that number can increase up to even 70 percent in next few years.

VR Studio Owlchemy’s Acquisition By Google

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Virtrual Reality is the next big thing which is going to change (to some extent, it already has) the way we consume media; especially videos and games. Nearly 7 years ago, the grand success of Avatar did ‘the thing’ for 3D technology after which every big movie releases in 3D. Fast forward to 2017, we have Virtual Reality taking the same road and it’s becoming popular with every passing day. Talking about development in this field, every major technology firm is involved; Microsoft, Google, Facebook- you name it!

Coming to Google, the company has already contributed a lot towards VR tech with their Daydream headset, which claims to give the best virtual reality experience at present. Google is not stopping there and aims to provide best VR content as well. They made it clear with the recent acquisition of Owlchemy Labs, the developer behind a number of acclaimed PC and console VR games like Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality.

In a blog sharing his enthusiasm, Owlchemy co-founder Alex Schwartz said “We are continuing to do all of this with even more support and focus on building awesome stuff. It’s incredibly exciting that Google and Owlchemy are so well aligned on our goals and vision for the future of VR.”

Established in 2010, Owlchemy Labs specializes in creating interactive VR games and simulators using hand gestures as controls, eliminating the need of remote whatsoever. Probably, that’s what Google is interested in given the Daydream Project uses a remote as well. Daydream is an amazing device to experience quality VR, there is no doubt in that. But, using a remote is not very intuitive when it comes to complete immersive experience. And that’s where Owlchemy comes into play.

Relja Markovic, Engineering director VR and AR, Google said “Together, we’ll be working to create engaging, immersive games and developing new interaction models across many different platforms to continue bringing the best VR experiences to life.”

In the official press release, there is barely any info regarding future plans with Owlchemy, but the speculations are they will be working together on Daydream VR Project. There’s a I/O developer conference next week and we hope Google is going to reveal, if not all, some important details. Till then, we can assume VR has a bright future in Google’s hand.