If you had any doubts about RIM’s handling of the Middle East/security situation that has been ongoing the last few months, a recent interview between RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis and BBC isn’t going to do much to stem your worries. While the interview itself is much longer than the short ~ minute long clip, it does give us a good look at a legitimate, ongoing issue despite claims from Lazaridis and RIM stating otherwise.
During the clip, the BBC journalist conducting the interview, Rory Cellan-Jones, inquires about the India-BlackBerry “back door” that captivated tech geeks and technology media for many weeks. Lazaridis responds by saying “that’s not a fair question” (?) before going on a mini-rant about how awesome BlackBerry is. Regardless of where your loyalty lies, it’s clear that RIM finds the India topic (and security scares overall) as a major sore point.
Be sure to check out the video over at BBC and let us know your thoughts…
Security, censorship, and internet rights are all the rage right now aren’t they? Fresh off of the previous post on the ACTA leak and older news of Google and China, fresh information is surfacing that has Dell doing as Google — pulling out of China. With Dell’s rumored exile, that would be two major companies to stand up and speak out against China’s overly aggressive tactics when it comes to the digital world. The plan for Dell is to supposedly hop on over to India where they already have another plant.
Critics are already coming out and labeling the move as more of a pricing tactic (land, taxes, etc.) than a “don’t be evil” Google-fied move. That tactic is plausible no doubt. But threatening to pull a $25 billion dollar business out of China simply to get cheaper land rates in either country seems mighty risky don’t you think? Especially considering how publicized it is going to be.
Guess we’ll have to sit back and watch. What do you think of Dell’s new found conscious?
DailyTech
Seeing a headline mentioning anything geeky or tech based being banned often conjures up initial reactions of malice and disgust as such governments and government bodies that do such things do so for their own agenda — not the citizens’. With that in mind, hold off on any initial feelings you may have when hearing that the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs has banned prepaid cellphones in Kashmir and declared that any existing SIM cards with such plans not be renewed. Again, it’s deeper than it appears on the surface.
You may be thinking that the reason for such a band would be the government trying to muscle out competition with their own proprietary format/spec/cash cow. But that isn’t the case at all. The Ministry cites “security concerns” as the reason for the kibosh. Heck, even the vague and often misused term “security concerns” can be seen as a front for a deeper issue.
However, it is a legitimate concern as according to the Ministry, security checks and other procedures are not being properly followed leading to users getting multiple connections and carriers and cellular providers taking advantage of said customers. Plus it doesn’t help that Kashmir and Jammu lie on a heavily turbulent boundary line with Pakistan. Naturally terrorists and those that aren’t so friendly prefer prepaid, month-to-month deals as….well…they probably won’t be around to see the life of a multi-year contract. Now the reasons become more clear. Don’t they?
Just because here in America we are use to carriers and the government sticking up for big business pockets doesn’t mean every government follows suit. Any Indiana readers care to chime in on the pro’s and con’s of living with such a rule?
Cellular-News
{Image Source}
If you just so happen to live in India and were looking forward to the December 7th deadline for 3G spectrum auctions not because you cared at all about the auction but were more excited what it was going to bring, you’re going to go to bed a sad camper tonight. A Raja, India’s telecom minister has publicly announced that they will in fact miss the December deadline. If you’re looking for someone to blame, point your fingers at the DoT. They were supposed release documents pertaining to the whole 3G shebang, auction included, that detailed how everything was to go down by September 29th. As you can guess, they didn’t. Because of this late timing and move to “rush” this auction along, the military whom occupies certain airwaves to be auctioned is taking their sweet time vacating the allotted airwaves meaning you, the consumer, get screwed.
I guess if you want to salvage some good news from this you can take comfort in knowing that the delay shouldn’t last more than two months. But then again AT&T was supposed to release U.S. iPhone MMS in “late summer” and Sony was supposed to offer PSP Go users a UMD trade-in program for digital downloads. Ya, those worked out really well…
Still, we have to be optimistic.
Cellular-News > Economic Times
Image Source
