*Fresh News from Nokia World ‘07, Amsterdam*. Nokia and Avvenu today announced that they have signed an agreement under which Nokia will acquire Avvenu www.avvenu.com. Avvenu provides Internet services that allow anyone to use their mobile devices to securely access, use and share personal computer files, even if their host computer is turned off. By acquiring Avvenu, Nokia plans to further enhance its portfolio of solutions for mobile operators, as well as deliver a secure file access and share service direct to mobile workers. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and has not yet been completed.

Nokia believes that anytime access to PC content is a missing ingredient to mobile productivity. Smartphone adoption is growing faster than previously estimated and surveys confirm that many people are using mobile devices to view, process, and edit content. Easy access to existing pc content will fuel mobile computing convenience and productivity.

Founded in 2004, Avvenu is a privately-owned start up headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Avvenu will be integrated into Nokia’s new Services & Software unit as a part of the company re-organization that will take effect on January 1, 2008.

At the biggest event that Nokia has ever conducted, the Nokia World 2007 at Amsterdam, an important announcement was made that would be music to many music lover’s ears.

At the event the company announced ‘Nokia Comes With Music’, a revolutionary program that enables people to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to music.  By unlimited, they actually meant millions of tracks from a range of great artists – past, present and future.

I was looking for the ’asterix mark’ or a catch there somewhere but I was reassured that it is indeed an ‘all you can eat’, ‘free as in free beer’ kind of unlimited access to music.

What can be better than this? Well, once the year is complete, customers can keep all their music without having to worry about it disappearing when their subscription is over. Yup, all for keeps without any guilty pangs because it is perfectly legal.

Once of the press folks, during the Q&A, asked rightly what the business model is.  And the answer was that, it is only free for the first year and there will be a subscription cost thereafter. I don’t yet know what the cost would be but will find out.  

At the massive RAI convention center in chilly Amsterdam, Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Multimedia, Nokia, told the packed audience that,  “Even if you listened to music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would still only scratch the surface of the music that we’re making available. Comes with Music fulfils our dream to give consumers all the music they want, wherever they want it, while rewarding the artists who create it.”

This is great news for Indian entrepreneurship. Having exclusive events that showcases startup companies is a sure sigh that the entrepreneurial spirit is truly well and alive.

Down south, there are two events that’s helping make a difference: Proto.in, a Chennai based initiative and HeadStart.in, a Bangalore based initiative. First, a little bit about each of these events.

Proto.in is from the house of The Knowledge Foundation, the non-profit body behind unconferences like BlogCamp, WikiCamp, PodWorks and SearchCamp. Proto.in is held twice a year in January and July. Year 2007 has seen two fairly successful editions with over 40 companies showcasing their products.

HeadStart.in is an initative by a passionate folks behind the popular BarCamps in Bangalore. They come under the newly formed entity called ‘KickStart’ , a non-profit initiative to promote entrepreneurship. Here’s a better description from the website, “Driven by the popularity and success of Barcamps and Mobile Mondays in Bangalore where some of the founding members of KickStart have been involved with, KickStart has been set up to assist entrepreneurs and encourage entrepreneurship in corporates and universities.”.

Both these events are wonderful initiatives but the only major glitch is that they are happening exactly on the same dates. The 3rd weekend of January 2008 sees both the events happening on January 18, 19 & 20. Proto.in has its 3rd edition and HeadStart sees its maiden event then.

Both events has lots to gain by collaborating rather than competiting heads on. Proto.in has passionate members in Chennai while HeadStart.in has a good team in Bangalore. While its important for both events to have its own identity, the objectives are pretty much the same: Encourage Entrepreneurship and Showcase the best startups. By joining hands, both the events will take on a much bigger scale and thus greater credibility.

Either which ways, its a boost for entrepreneurship in India. Kudos to the teams.

Disclosure: I’m one of the organizers of Proto.in and a vocal supporter of BarCampBangalore.

Talk of biting the hand that fed you. Sabeer Bhatia, founder of Hotmail, who eventually sold it to Microsoft for $400 Million, is staring straight at the behemoth’s eyes.

Sabeer’s startup InstaColl has developed a suite of online office productivity tools with an aim to take a bite of the extremely lucrative market segment. How lucrative? How does $20 Billion sound to you?

Sridhar Vembu, the founder of Zoho, has already planted his flag at this space and his company is supposed to be doing fairly well. He couldn’t help take a swipe at this new competitor. He’s quick to point out the 1% lie that entrepreneurs always make!

Live Documents aims to offer functionality equivalent to Microsoft’s commonly used Word, Excel and PowerPoint software. It is available as an optional desktop client application and is free for individual customers, similar to a offering from Google Inc.—Google Documents.

The Live Documents desktop client also ensures offline access to documents. The cost of the application for business users such as companies is $5 per month per user, Bhatia told Mint in a telephonic interview.

The Mumbai-based eClerx Services Ltd plans to be India’s first knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) company to raise $25M (approxRs 100 crore) from the capital market early next year.The company, which has a number of Fortune-500 entities in its clientele, has already filed its draft red-herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Mr Anjan Malik, Director, told Business Line here.

The funds raised from the IPO would be used for setting up additional facilities, infrastructure investments and for future acquisitions. Burwood Ventures holds 21 per cent stake in this company.

Founded in the year 2000, the company recorded a turnover of Rs 86 crore in 2006-07 and is expected to cross Rs 100 crore in the current fiscal.

The high-end eClerx has three major development centres in Mumbai and employs 1,000 people. Its fourth centre is being set up at Pune and additional centres are being planned for Chennai and Delhi.

Global IT giant Google will be investing up to Rs 22.5 crore in Ventureast TeNet Fund-II, a seed-stage fund that will invest in technology companies trying to establish their foothold, says Business Standard.

The fund is promoted by Tenet Group of Chennai IIT and Hyderabad-based Ventureast Fund Advisors.

Google has invested $3.75M (Rs 15 crore) in this fund so far and is expected to put in the remaining amount by March 2008, when the fund is scheduled to close,  Sarath Naru, Ventureast s managing general partner, said.

Google’s investment in the fund will be 30 per cent and the remaining will be held by other investors, including SIDBI and Technology Development Board. Ventureast TeNet

Fund has a total size of $18.75 million.

Seed-stage funds, as the name suggests, invest in early-stage companies, plying in technology-based sectors such as IT, renewable energy and bio-technology.

Google made its debut as an investor in venture capital funds in January this year, when it invested nearly $3.75 million in a domestic seed investment firm  Seedfund , which has a total size of per cent13 million.

This was followed by an undisclosed investment in the Bangalore-based early stage venture fund Erasmic Venture Fund, which has a size of around $10 million.

VentureEast TeNet II fund is focused on technologies and solutions to the SME sector and in bridging the digital divide in the Indian system, Naru said.

Google has also recently joined the Indian Angel Network, an organisation that supports enterpreneurship in the country.

Mumbai, traditionally the commercial and film capital of India, is fast catching up on the tech scnene. Quick on the heels of BarCampMumbai is a straight 24 hour Day & Night coding marathon that takes place at Indian Institute of Technology, easily one of the best engineering institutes in India.

CodeCampMumbai caters to the community of CodeCampers, bound by the “culture” of Hackathons and is based upon “open participative and collaborative” nature of BarCamps. The event seems to be an immediate inspiration from the Yahoo! Hackday that took place in Bangalore a few weeks ago.

At CodeCampMumbai, coders team with other like minded folks and collaborate on a project. The idea is to come out with something substantial within the 24 hour time frame.

The Wiki already has interesting project ideas like Androik SDK App, Making a digital newspaper based on RSS feeds and a Google map API that shows interesting events in Mumabi.

Yesterday saw the launch of a 2500 seater office at Chennai, a city in the South of India. This is the first international global development center for PayPal outside the US and the second for eBay. The new center is located at Futura IT Park at Sholinganallur on the IT corridor of the city.

This office has a lot to do with PayPal’s recent announcement of direct withdrawal of funds to Indian banks.  There’s also news that PayPal will soon support domestic services for the Indian market which can be great news for small businesses.

In the last 6 months, the company has been quite aggressive on hiring. They have hired around 1000 employs and well on their way to fill up their capacity of 2500. The company is mainly focused on product development & management, financial and risk analysis says Hindu BL.
The opening of the new office will also be a big boost for the eBay business. Deepavali (or Diwali) is a huge festival in India, the equivalent of Christmas in terms of shopping being done, and eBay expects to attract close to 30,00,000 consumers online.  Quite a bullish estimate, if you ask me.

NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) India’s apex body for IT industry, has released the results of survey identifying the top IT & BPO companies to work for.

This is a first such survey by NASSCOM, and also the first of its kind across any industry by far, for the emerging companies segment specifically. The survey was conducted in partnership with Grow Talent, a strategic HR consultancy firm.

Top 15 companies

Corbus (India) Private Limited
RMSI Private Limited
Hytech Professionals India Pvt Ltd
Nagarro Software Pvt. Ltd.
VCustomer Services India Pvt Ltd
e4e India Pvt Ltd
Synygy India Pvt Ltd
Ajuba Solutions (India) Pvt. Ltd.
Mindlogicx Infotech Limited
Nucleus Software Exports Ltd.
Infogain India (P) Ltd
ValueLabs (India)
Barry-Wehmiller International Resources Pvt Ltd
GlobalLogic India Pvt Ltd
AgreeYa Solutions (India) Pvt Ltd

The objective of this survey was to identify the best small and medium sized IT-BPO companies to work for, within the Rs.250 crore and below annual turnover category, through a set of parameters that are particularly relevant to them, therefore recognizing the fact that the dynamic of this segment is quite different from the large companies.

International Institute of Gaming and Animation was recently launched in Mumbai to cater to the growing demand for quality animation and gaming programmers. While there are number of institutes that teaches animation, I do not known an institute that teaches game development.

The company’s websites states “International Institute of Gaming and Animation (iiga) is formed with the view point of getting the best heads of the gaming and animation industry together and provide training and cultivate new students who have the capability to take the industry to a new level.”

The real reason ofcouse could be different.   This is an initiative by Spiel Studios, a mobile development company. Starting the institute is a smart move by Spiel. Getting good trained manpower can not only be difficult but expensive. The institute would feed in the manpower needed for their game development company. What’s more, the students actually pay money to get trained and this can save them the money spent on training.

The institute has ties with Sun Java, Symbian signed, Qualcomm and Forum Nokia for technical and training assistance. Being a game development company, the students will have the advantage of hands on practical knowledge of development, debugging and deployment on latest mobile phones.