Maheshwari was part of the team which implemented the first Mobile Payment solution for Telefonica, Spain and Mobile POS solution at Reliance Infocomm. Maheshwari is playing a key leadership role at Mango. In a very short span of time, Mango Technologies is working with the top notch companies of the world and has been noticed by prominent organizations at a very early stage e.g., MINT-Wall Street Journal mentioned about Mango in "Top Ten Start -Up Companies of 2008". NASSCOM has Awarded Mango the Innovation Award in Market Facing Innovations and GSMA has chosen Mangoamong the Top Innovator nominees.

SUNIL MAHESHWARI talks about the new features and applications expected in next-generation cell phones and mobile devices, open and proprietary OS dynamics, the Application and UI framework in an interview with PALLAB DUTTA…

Will most cell phones and mobile devices in the near to medium term future take on some of the features of the iconic Apple iPhone? Can you give a futuristic viewpoint/outlook on the evolution of the next generation mobile devices and smartphones?

Sunil Maheshwari: The cell phones and mobile devices market is very fragmented and diverse. User requirement is also very different based on factors such as geography, economic conditions, etc. The iPhone will further push expectations from the smartphone devices and convergence between the cell phone and the Internet will happen faster than we expect. Further, the entry of Google Android in the smart phone OS market with open source solutions will make things very interesting for everyone. Emerging markets like India will still go for a low- cost device model for the near future. According to various industry research reports, more than 70% market in India is for low cost devices. Now it's up to the device vendors/manufacturers and software providers for these devices to make these devices really very competitive in the market.

In terms of sleekness, sophistication and user-friendliness, what other features are expected to become more prevalent? Can you extrapolate more about the ever-improving user interfaces of cell phones, touch screens and overall browsing capabilities? What about the expected evolution (and ultimately utility on prevalent small screens of mobile phones) of High Definition (HD) on the mobile phone to facilitate better video playback and capture?

Sunil Maheshwari: User experience is the key in any small screen personal device and the user experience dynamic is a combination of user interface and overall service delivery mechanism on these devices. E.g. Apple iPod is more successful in US and other markets than in India and one of the key reasons is that we don't have iTunes setup which can deliver music on your iPod. Usability would be a key driving factor behind any successful application in the mobile world. We have a very small screen on majority of these devices and how you represent the information and how fast we can deliver the information on consumers' cell phones' screens will drive more number of consumers to the application. In my opinion, mobile banking, micro payment, localised information, location based information and entertainment services would get us the next killer application. On the other hand, video playback and capture will have a very niche device and user segment.

The mobile handset industry will always be a very fragmented industry and there is some movement to take it towards the PC kind of environment

Could you delve a bit into the evolution and potential of mobile Linux and the shift of mobile phone handsets to open-source Operating Systems (OS)? Do you foresee a paradigm shift, if not an outright revolution, in the use of open source software on cell phones and communication/embedded devices and thereby doing away with software complexity? What does it portend for the future of proprietary Operating Systems on existing smartphones?

Sunil Maheshwari: Symbian OS, Palm OS, embedded Linux, Windows Mobile all come under the smartphone OS category. They are all operating systems designed and engineered to fit in extremely small capacity devices and use as little battery power as possible. A smart phone consists of several basic components:

• Hardware platform
• Operating system
• Communications stacks
• Application and user interface framework
• Applications, telephony and non telephony, etc..

So in my opinion, OS is not that important in the phone world as the Application & User Interface (UI) framework and the kind of applications that run over them. It is also true that basic services are provided by the OS but the best utilisation of these services is done by the applications running over them. So we should think more in terms of the kind of applications running over them. You may also have Symbian Series 60 framework running over Linux.

Trolltech (based on Linux) has been around since many years and they couldn't take up a big chunk of the handset market. It's very early to predict about Android; there is enthusiasm in the developer community but we have to really see OEMs adopting this new framework and how is the performance data on various hardware platforms with it. Symbian, Linux, Windows Mobile etc. all offer almost the same OS features. They provide basic OS kernel, application management, power management etc. The Application & UI framework is in fact more responsible for managing power since it is the component which knows when the phone is in use or not.

But the operating system provides the means for the application framework to turn off or limit power to components of the phone when they're not in use. I feel that the mobile device industry will never see Microsoft Windows kind of dominance which we have seen in the PC world.

With more and more industry consortia, alliances and "working groups" looking to leverage the potential, development and ultimate commercialisation of Mobile OS or "retrofitting" open-source software onto mobile handsets, what trends do you foresee in terms of R&D, technology, adoption etc.?

Sunil Maheshwari:Some more consolidation will happen in the industry like the recent acquisition of Trolltech by Nokia and TTPCOM by Motorola.

What are the key benefits of Linux technology apart from its inherent openness capabilities? And how will it shape the mobile OS landscape and open up possibilities for partners, handset makers and more importantly developers in terms of a more standardized platform?

Sunil Maheshwari: Linux is a free and familiar development environment to the developer community. Distribution philosophy could be radically different but the core programming methods will be similar enough so much so that some porting will be possible or at least developers won't completely need to learn the new set of API's or programming languages as they are now with Symbian. Many big OEMs are planning to make many smartphone models based on Linux like Motorola and even Nokia is looking at it as well.

What are the different types of applications that developers, software houses and other third parties can be expected to develop to "retrofit" onto Linux-based handsets? Will all applications be portable and configurable for the current browser capabilities and user- navigability?

Sunil Maheshwari: You would need telephony related applications on your phone and convergence of cellular and broadband wireless will allow users to use different networks for different applications on the same handset. In terms of type of applications, you will not see a big difference and whatever would work on Linux handset would also work on Symbian or Windows Mobile phones including location-aware applications, navigation, banking, micro browser, multimedia etc.

Could you share your viewpoints on the possibly industry impacting Google Android mobile platform project and the way it will cause players to shift between various mobile OS alliances? What does the Open Handset Alliance engendered by Google and encompassing the support of industry leading manufacturers, chip designers and operators mean for existing platforms represented by Windows Mobile, mobile Linux and Symbian/Series 60?

Sunil Maheshwari: As I mentioned earlier, that the OS itself is not the only important component in the handset, more important components are above your OS. It's very early to predict about Android; there is enthusiasm in the developer community but we have to really see OEMs adopting this new framework and how is the performance data on various hardware platforms with it. Linux, Windows Mobile and Symbianall comes in the high-end smart phone category and it's too early to talk about Linux or Android displacing everyone else. Nokia is also strongly behind Symbian and it is already running in tens of millions of smartphones.

In my opinion, any one of them needs to crack the real customer need, ease of development of new features by the developer community, and usability. The end consumer doesn't bother about the underneath technology platform nor do they understand the difference between different ones. Underneath technology is mostly for the technologists to debate upon.

How will industry leaders like Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Samsung, Alcatel, Panasonic, and NEC address different segments while "loading" Operating Systems on handsets -whether they are business customers or retail customers?

Sunil Maheshwari:This market will always have two different technologies for two different segments i.e., lowend (mostly closed system) and high - end segment (more open systems). In the low-end phone segment, you have a very small real- time OS kernel and then everything else is done by the Application and UI framework. In smartphones or business user category, you will always see adoption of Symbian, Windows Mobile or Linuxbased phones.

Will high-end or high-level platforms (and typically expensive) Symbian, RIM and Windows Mobile or even Garnet have to re-tool themselves in the face of greater consolidation of the mobile Linux handset market?

Sunil Maheshwari:No, in my opinion, and it's too early to say anything. Linux is around since many years and we haven't seen big adoption or change in the industry because of Linux.

Do you foresee a "free-for-all" scenario in courting the best developers to develop applications much in the manner of applications and services developed by Web giants and independent developers on more standardized PC terminals?

Sunil Maheshwari: The mobile handset industry will always be a very fragmented industry and there is some movement to take it towards the PC kind of environment but we'll have to see how far we can go on palm- size communication and smartphone.