MIT's famed dome... coming to a PC, laptop or tablet near you! (Image credit: Bustachange.com)

Someday, someone in an appropriately empowered government position in Pakistan needs to take a bold step forward and break through the bureaucracy and red tape government is despised for. There are so many incredibly high value, low cost initiatives to take up in areas as diverse as agriculture, education, energy and information technology that the shortage is not one of ideas, but simply that of initiative and vision.

Here at TechLahore, we’ve discussed some of these ideas before. Today, an announcement made by MIT compels us to talk of another…

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as one of the world’s foremost technology and engineering schools, needs no introduction. It is nothing less than one of America’s greatest strategic assets. MIT has produced graduates who have gone on to conduct pioneering research in defence, space technology, IT, material sciences, genetics and numerous other areas, advancing the state of the art for their country and the world at large. By some estimates, MIT graduates have contributed almost one trillion dollars worth of market capitalization to the US bourses. But as you may have heard, it’s not easy to get into MIT. Seats are limited, competition is tough and most of all, it’s expensive and remote for most of the citizens of the world. But what if the MIT experience could be bottled up and shipped across the internet to anyone who wanted to benefit from it? While it wouldn’t be exactly akin to attending classes at MIT physically – certainly the environment and some measure of interactivity would be lacking – it would, nonetheless, be a giant step forward.

MIT took this very step, in fact, some years ago, by launching their OpenCourseWare initiative. In a variety of formats, ranging from audio, slides to fully taped video lectures, a select group of courses were put online for anyone in the world to access without charge. You can learn more about OCW by visiting this MIT website. Now, MIT is taking this program to the next level. M.I.T.x as the new online learning initiative will be called, will expand the amount of content available and will also offer completion certificates to candidates who test well at the end of the self-paced “term”. This certificate will not be an MIT degree, nor will it bear the name of MIT, but will be granted by a non-profit set-up specifically for this purpose as an MIT affiliate. Nice as that might be, certificates and degrees are essentially pieces of paper. The real value is in the learning process and the acquired knowledge. Exposing oneself to a well designed, cutting edge curriculum, the added benefit of virtual presence in MIT classrooms through the magic of internet video, interaction with other learners via online discussion boards and finally, being “tested” without spending a single cent or leaving the comfort of home, is truly a revolutionary development!

Can this program be embraced by the Provincial or Federal governments in Pakistan? Can we deliver the MIT curriculum in classrooms at our institutions and use local teachers in a supportive role, making up for any loss of interactivity? Can we launch programs where, like the 100,000 free laptop distribution made by the Gov. of the Punjab, laptops and tablets can be gifted to any student that shows a completion certificate for some number of MIT engineering classes? Could we augment our virtual university curricula with this MIT content? What about providing free DVDs with all of this content to anyone in Pakistan who is interested and may not yet have the broadband connection to easily access the video component? How about selecting a few of the MIT freshmen courses and broadcasting them on TV – not only to teach, but also to spread awareness about this great resource? How about translating the videos into Urdu and even regional languages? There’s so much that can be done with this content… and with not much investment!

But with that said, even if the Government, as usual, doesn’t do anything, you and I can at least spread awareness about this great resource. To the extent we interact with learners, college students, those who are curious about science and engineering, folks that are not happy with the quality of education they might be receiving at a local institution – anyone with an interest – we can tell them about this resource. We can share MIT OCW videos with our friends on Facebook so they know this resource exists and can tell others. We can, when we have a few moments to spare, invest an hour or two to perhaps translate a video in Urdu. Anything we can do to spread news of this great resource and enhance its value will be of tremendous benefit to Pakistan.

This is a great step towards democratizing access to the world’s best education. And it’s not the only earth shattering, historically unparalleled change we’re seeing enabled through IT. It’s practically a new world out there, with more potential than has been available at any time in human history. Soon, location, geography and to a great extent – money – will no longer matter in very important ways. And with all of this magnificent change unfolding around us, it’s our job to go out and make something of these fabulous new opportunities. Let’s make it happen!

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Whacksy Taxi is fun, well designed and another entrant in a growing line of successful apps made in Pakistan

Mindstorm Studios is a Lahore based gaming studio which rose to fame a couple of years ago with their brilliant Cricketing title for the PC, called “Cricket Revolution”. Their game, which we covered here at TechLahore, was so detailed and well crafted that they scored a contract with the International Cricket Council (ICC) to develop the official World Cup 2011 title. After these wins, Mindstorm decided to diversify beyond sports oriented games and launched some casual gaming apps for the Android and iOS platforms. Their current best seller is a well designed, fun to play title called “Whacksy Taxi”. This is a Breakout style game which plays at a dizzyingly fast pace and takes the gamer through a tour of various US cities, trying to avoid congested traffic in three lanes.

Here’s a video review by the popular gaming site, AppSpy:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKmkDlnBr-c

For more information on Mindstorm and their other exciting gaming titles, visit their website here.

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Hazardous Highway for Android by Pepper.pk has clocked more than 50,000 downloads in under 30 days

After their numerous BlackBerry successes, Pepper.Pk is now in the process of scoring another hit with their Android game, “Hazardous Highway“. The app just won a “Best App Award” from the Android review site, BestAppsMarket, and installs are rocketing. Here’s the install graph from the Android marketplace, which shows adoption over the past month, since the app was released, and presents a very pretty picture:

The download graph from the Android Marketplace shows that adoption has hit the "knee of the curve"

In response to Pepper.pk’s previous mobile application successes, they got a lot of feedback and requests to start developing more aggressively for the Android platform. Hazardous Highway is one of about a half dozen applications they currently sell on the Android marketplace. In comparison to their overall portfolio of 150+ applications, this is not all that significant, but hopefully over time, they’ll build out their Android portfolio further.

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Pakistani social gaming startup, White Rabbit, is about to launch Baby World - a social, virtual world experience.

Islamabad based social media gaming company, White Rabbit, has been covered here on TechLahore numerous times. We’ve even included guest posts from their Founder and CEO, Hassan Baig. Well, we wanted to revisit our past coverage and get you the latest that’s happening at White Rabbit. Hassan gave us a great update and caught us up with a lot of the exciting developments the company has seen in recent days.

First up, White Rabbit has secured investment from US-based investors to continue the development of its vividly imagined, top-tier social games. Hassan tells us that the company is continuing to look for additional investment from folks that can provide not just dumb money, but smart connections too.

Secondly, White Rabbit is working hard on developing a social enabled virtual world called, “Baby World”. This will be their flagship product for the international market and from the sound of it, targets an interesting demographic. If it’s well executed, it could be a huge success for the company. Simultaneously, the company is also working on other products more targeted to the preferences of the South Asian market. In this, they are also looking for partnerships; primarily in the form of a joint venture where interested parties can contribute capital and bring this product to market in collaboration with White Rabbit. Hassan’s preference is to structure these deals so that the investor is compensated via a revenue sharing arrangement, rather than outright ownership in White Rabbit.

So if you’re an investor looking to wet your toes in the Pakistan IT industry and social media gaming opportunities sound compelling to you, let us know, we’d be happy to put you in touch with the White Rabbit team.

Meanwhile, we wish Hassan and his venture great success. They are slugging it out just like any honest to goodness hi-tech startup should, and we are convinced that with the IQ and determination they bring to bear, they will exceed our expectations.

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Microsoft launches a funny, aggressive campaign to attack VMware for its lack of public cloud infrastructure

Virtualization is obviously a fact of life now. It occupies a central role in future IT architectures and is a cloud building block. We’ve covered virtualization and connection brokers in the past, and have even reviewed some desktop virtualization products. There is, in fact, some interesting virtualization work happening in Pakistan also. Some of the major players that are fighting the battle for virtualization supremacy include VMware - the entrenched gorilla, Microsoft - the giant that could, Citrix - the desktop company that came late to the party and is now paying, and Oracle - which both fears virtualization and is confused about how exactly to gain a substantial foothold with its Sun assets. And of course there are other players, like IBM for example, which has a great virtualization platform for its Power7 architecture. Niche, smaller companies that are providing virtualization management tools, connection brokering technology or a variety of other related remoting protocols and monitoring applications. Nonetheless, the most entertaining contest seems to be between Microsoft and VMware on a global level, and more specifically, between Citrix and VMware on the desktop virtualization/VDI front.

Much has been done by all these companies to attack each other’s strategies, show how their platforms are superior to others and try to sideline competitive products by pointing out flaws in YouTube videos and other social media. VMware’s current CEO is an ex-Microsoftie, of course, so he has been trying to leverage the tricks he learned at Microsoft to try and maneuver as best he can. However, the Software Superpower in Redmond isn’t standing still. It recently launched what I think is a brilliant ad-campaign attacking VMware’s lack of true public cloud infrastructure, drawing a likeness to a character who is stuck in the past, but want’s to fool others into believing he’s got the stuff! The campaign is called “VM Limited” and is just absolutely hilarious. Check out the first ad and we’d love to hear your thoughts on how each of these formidable battling giants will fare in the virtualization and cloud wars!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hewedqvSWaI

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Redefining Identity: A wonderful documentary about software and technology in Lahore, Pakistan

I just received a message from the folks over at FiveRivers who have produced this wonderful documentary on innovation & entrepreneurship in Pakistan. It’s really worth watching, and I love the underlying message: the notion that we can redefine our perceived identity with our hard work and achievements. I can certainly sign up for that, and I’m sure so would you!

Here’s a bit more about the documentary:

“Redefining Identity takes a look at the amazing entrepreneurship and creativity that is being unleashed in Pakistan, where young technologists are coming together to lead a very real revolution that has powerful social, economic and technological implications. In doing so, these young Pakistanis are also transforming Pakistan’s perception in the minds of millions of people all around the world who use their products and appreciate their creativity. This 10 minute film is a rare glimpse into the reality of today’s Pakistan. Anyone with an interest in technology and startups in general, or Pakistan specifically, will find it a very worthwhile watch.”

There are quite a few subtleties to catch in this video… listen for that line about not going by obviously assumed western names when fielding support calls. Sound familiar Plenty of other one liners embedded in here that make this a fairly engrossing and exciting watch. If you want to discuss the documentary, you are welcome to do so here, and also at the “Redefining Identity” facebook page, here.

If you are a software entrepreneur or involved in the tech industry in Pakistan, this video would be a great asset to share with partners, potential customers and others who might not have a clear view about what tech companies in Pakistan are truly like, and the quantum of innovation now being unleashed in Pakistan. I really see this film as a resource that everyone involved with tech in Pakistan should use actively, and hope there will be many more similar efforts in future.

Without further ado, here is the courtesy YouTube - be SURE to watch this in full screen mode - it’s definitely worth it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhynv21jSkI

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Participants listening to a presentation at the Gaming and Animation Conference in Karachi (Photo credit: PSEB)

Pakistani game developers are increasingly in the news. It seems that over the past couple of years, an entire sub-industry has been created out of thin air. Given the political and economic context, this is nothing short of remarkable. Prior to the new all-star lineup featuring companies such as Mindstorm Studios, Pepper.pk, TinTash, Tkxel and GenITeam there were only a handful of organizations focused on game or animation development. Systems Ltd.’s subsidiary, AniVista, was one, and then of course, a few digital media companies based in Pakistan, such as Post Amazers, that had fairly visible international success. Now it appears that gaming companies are here to stay and have most certainly grown beyond the very initial infancy stages.

Luckily, the PSEB (Pakistan Software Export Board) has put some wood behind this arrow and they’ve been trying to help these companies out in numerous ways. Recently, there was a Gaming and Animation conference held at the Indus Valley School of Art in Karachi at which the Managing Director of the PSEB, Imran Zia, spoke and expressed his interest in supporting game development companies in Pakistan. Soon after, the PSEB indicated that they would extend partial financial support to 12 Pakistani companies in their participation at the premier gaming conference, GameDevelopers Conference (GDC) in San Fransisco. This year, the event will be held between Feb 28th and March 4th at the Moscone Center and if I’m not mistaken, it’ll be the first time Pakistani companies are participating en masse. The hope is that this leads to joint development opportunities, ideas that might enrich our locally produced games and business development partnerships.

This area is particularly exciting because it allows our local software outfits to grow in a fundamentally scalable way, pursuing product development rather than service provision. We’ll be keeping an eye on how the Game development sector progresses with frequent updates. In the meanwhile, you can read more about PSEB’s support to local companies for the GDC, here.

Stay tuned for more!

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Facebook chat is being hacked, your friends are being hijacked! You'd better watch out 'cause it's a deadly attack!

I was recently logged in to my Facebook account when a friend I’m connected to, but don’t often communicate with, initiated a Facebook chat with me. I was a little surprised because this was the first time the person in question was reaching out like this. Not being particularly technically savvy, I didn’t really expect them IM’ing me on FB, of all places. The message was rather vague… it started off with “Hi TL!” and so I responded with a polite, “Hey Wazzzup!!?“. Next thing I know, I’m getting winkies and smilies and in the middle of it all, she says, “Check this link out: bit.ly/somelinkfoo“. I was almost about to click it when the suspicious side of my brain took control and sent a priority interrupt down to my click-finger, causing it to halt abruptly in mid-air. Catastrophe averted.

Turns out, the link was to a site that hosts all sorts of Trojans, byzantine Javascript code and other nefarious nonsense. And my friend’s account had been hacked. Now, I don’t know this to be the case for sure, but I would guess the person doing the chatting was no person at all, and merely a script. A few hours later as I was chatting with another (legitimate, this time) friend, I got a chat popup from yet another friend with similar links. A second later, the person I was chatting to also received the same message from the same person since the hijacked account belonged to a common friend! So, the worm/script/watever-you-want-to-call-it had some brains. It was actively traversing friends lists, looking at folks that were connected, or perhaps actively chatting and sending them promotional and/or nefarious links. Hmm. So in addition to virii, trojans, bluejacking, cell phone worms, stuxnet-style worms that attack nuclear infrastructure and all other manner of evil code, we’ve also got Friendjacking going on now. Time that all such chat enabled services provide privacy and security controls so you can set preferences that determine which of your connections can initiate chat requests with you.

I made the term “Friendjacking” up, of course, but you get the point. I’m sure if it’s happening on Facebook, it can and will happen on Gmail, Gtalk, Skype and numerous other chat-enabled networks. Just makes me wonder how people have the time to waste on nonsensical – not to mention illegal – stuff like this when they could use their programming skills to build something worthwhile in stead.

I guess Jackasses will be Jackasses…

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The Karachi Stock Exchange was a star performer this year, showing near 20% gains, twice the Nasdaq and Dow!

Back in December 2009, I had come up with a list of predictions for 2010. I may have gotten a little lucky this year, because many of these predictions were spot-on to an uncanny degree. Here’s how I fared:

Political predictions

I don’t see Asif Zardari making it through 2010. I think he will be deposed as President.

Couldn’t have been more wrong on this. And for the second time in a row. El Presidente has shown himself to be a better survivor than I am a Futurist!

Though many political pundits talk about it, I don’t believe there will be mid-term elections this year. Whatever changes occur will be with individual and will not displace the entire post-2008 election scenario.

And thus it happened. No mid term elections, even though last year many pundits were proclaiming that this was a near guaranteed event.

Gen. Kiyani is scheduled to retire close to the end of the year, but I believe he will receive a rare 1 year extension of service. However it happens, I don’t believe we will see him retiring this year.

This happened too. Though the extension he received was even more generous than I had thought. Gen. sahib will be at the helm of affairs for another 3 years.

The surge in Afghanistan will not work. If not by the end of 2010 then in 2011 the US will have to sit and talk to elements of the Taliban. The commitment of these forces will prove politically costly for President Obama.

Has this not happened to the letter? Now we have news of a Taliban office opening in Turkey which Mr. Karzai has already supported and in fact requested the Turkish Government for. And Pakistan has come out in support of this initiative as well. We all know that the discussions with the Taliban have been initiated by NATO and not from a position of strength.

Security and the situation in northwest Pakistan

As I had mentioned last year, the Army certainly had an operation up their sleeve. What happened in Swat and South Waziristan was the result of meticulous planning that had occured for months prior to the execution of either campaign. I believe these campaigns will begin to bear fruit in 2010 in the form of a reduction in security incidents in Pakistan. While there will be a definite tapering off in 2010, the nihilists will continue to make their presence felt now and then. Unfortunately this is a process which will take a little bit of time to completely unfold. But 2010 will inshaAllah be more secure than 2009 and quite measurably so.

There was a 35%  reduction in the number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan in 2010, as compared to 2009. The number of people who perished in these attacks was roughly the same, but that was due mainly to the terrorists no longer having the reach they once did. The number of attacks in major cities was also markedly reduced. As I said, the process of securing Pakistan in light of what is going on in Afghanistan will take some time, but certainly, 2010 was an improvement.

The military will continue significant presence in Swat, Waziristan and will expand into other tribal agencies, expanding the writ of the government in an area that was always free of federal or provincial law enforcement since 1947. The action being conducted in these areas is certainly against the foreign nihilists who have taken refuge there and those who would seek to support them, but it also marks an expansion of writ into areas where it never existed previously (by design and by a 1947 era agreement which has clearly outlived its relevance).

The gorgeous Pakistan-China Joint Fighter (JF-17) wowed crowds at Farnborough and Zhuhai

In fact, the only agency where the Army has not entered in force is North Waziristan. And there’s a lot behind that, so I’ll avoid the urge to take that segue. The homes of Taliban terrorists have been converted to Girls’ Schools in the FATA area and the writ of the Government has been extended to areas that no central government has ever controlled in hundreds of years.

Pakistan will continue to implement its strategic weapons programs and reap the fruits of investment in tactical weapons development. In addition to the first JF-17 squadron being weaponized and fully operationalized, we will see the arrival of F-16 Block 52 (Yes, there will be no last minute ‘hitches’), additional Saab Eireye AWACS aircraft, significant progress on the FC-20 fighter program, new air-to-air weapons such as the AMRAAM, and air to ground munitions and the Sniper targeting pod. In addition, the missile program will continue at full speed and more details will emerge regarding the 7,000km range Taimur ICBM. Pakistan will, however, not make any official announcements concerning this system. The much delayed Pakistan Navy next generation submarine deal will be finalized – there is a German vs. French situation going on at the moment but this will succesfully be navigated and a firm deal will take shape in 2010.

It is absolutely irrefutable that Pakistan has made tremendous strides forward in national defence. The only item from the list above that did not materialize was the Sub deal with Germany and/or France. In stead, we know hear that the PN is evaluating Chinese submarines. There are even rumours that the Chinese – in addition to providing a diesel fleet – may also lease a nuclear submarine to Pakistan (an SSGN). Too little is known about this thus far to elucidate much further, but things are definitely in the works.

As for the Taimur ICBM, piece parts have begun to fall into place. The most recent Hatf-V tests in December were rumoured to have included a MIRV (Multiple Re-entry Vehicles) warhead, which goes hand in hand with effective ICBM technology.

In addition to the list above, the Pakistan Air force also took delivery of Iluyshin air-to-air refuellers, Chinese AWACS, in addition to the Swedish Erieye aircraft and the SD-10 Beyond Visual Range Air to Air missile made significant progress in its SD-10B incarnation. The JF-17s will be armed with SD-10As for now as the standard BVR weapon, soon to be upgraded to the B model.

The F-16 Bl 52s were delivered on time, the JF-17 squadron is impressing people within the country as well as without. They participated in a static display at one of the world’s most famous airshows at Farnborough, in the UK, and then wowed crowds at China’s largest air event in Zhuhai.

Technology Predictions

There will be a near-breakout level of success with a Pakistani based mobile software company. At least one company will claim 250K users for its mobile products by the end of 2010. It is very likely that two will.

Pepper.pk announced that they have over 1 million users using their software products, but what’s more, Pepper’s Photo Editor software for the Blackberry made it to World #1 on AppWorld. So not only was there a breakout success, Pakistanis were literally on top of the world as far as this area of technology is concerned. I’ve never been happier at being right about something! More great things will come from Pepper and many other Pakistani technology startups in 2011 inshaAllah.

Netsol will see its fortunes improve in 2010 from a share price perspective. Hovering now at around $1, they can expect to be at least 25% better off by the end of the year.

Netsol fared even better! They are ending the year almost 50% up, at 1.50. They traded as high as $2 in 2010!

2010 is going to be a really bad year for Palm in terms of adoption of the Pre. I had predicted in 2008 that the Hail Mary piece of technology demo’d at CES fail for Palm. It has almost happened, but not quite completely yet. Palm will be relegated to a fourth tier player at best and 2010 will mark a signifciant reduction in its brand equity and influence.

I covered this one earlier this year… Palm got sold to HP and for not all that much. It’s Intellectual Property portfolio (patents) was probably worth 60-70% of the price paid by HP. So the operational parts of the business and the products themselves got valued at almost nothing. The good news is that HP will continue Palm products and may even be coming out with a Tablet leveraging the WebOS platform. Let’s see how it fares. Either way, let’s be clear that the Palm logos you see now don’t represent the good old Palm we knew and loved. That Palm is gone forever.

The Apple Tablet will be released and it will be a major hit. Even though I don’t like Apple, I will buy it  It will be iPhone OS based and will not have the full functionality of a Mac. eReader apps for it will be absolutely killer and very successful.

“Apple Tablet”… what a blast from the past! We all know now that the “Tablet” I spoke of in December 2009 ended up being the massively successful iPad. Yes, I bought it, and the product didn’t just achieve success, it launched a new market for similar devices. eReader apps were in fact a killer app, with Zinio launching digital magazine subscriptions straight to the iPad, and Apple itself showcasing iBooks as a major attraction. And aren’t you impressed that I even got the OS right? The iPad is indeed iOS based and not derived from OS X.

Windows Mobile 7 will come out in 2010 but will not be ‘all that’. It will take several updates and major enhancements to improve it. It will not reverse the market share trend away from Microsoft based phones that has taken hold over the last few years. Android will be the biggest gainer on the Smartphone side and will continue to whittle away at the Windows lead. Microsoft will undergo some pain in this area in 2010.

Yes, Phone7 did launch this year and thus far has sold about 1.5 million devices. In comparison, 300,000 Android devices are being sold every day. Phone7 may still impress, but certainly it hasn’t been a 2010 winner. Android, as I had predicted, went from 5% to 25% market share within a year! It is the biggest tech success story of 2010 in many ways.

ARM based devices and cheaper laptops will start to chip away at Netbook growth. There will at most 20% growth in the Atom based Netbook segment. A market which went from 0 units in 2007 to close to 40M units in 2009.

Netbooks slowed down immensely in 2010. In 2009, about 36.3 million units shipped and according to estimates in 2010 the number will be 40 million. As I had said, growth would be under 20%, and so it was. In 2011, this growth will decline even further.

Nokia is not being succesful in its move from basic and feature phones to truly smart phones. Their UI development and OS skills are not in the top 3 at all. I think this will be Nokia’s downfall… as smartphones become less expensive in markets outside the US, fewer people will choose Nokia as it will no longer provide the best experience primarily due to software reasons. From the low end, Samsung and LG feature phones will continue to become better thus providing competition to the traditional Nokia feature phone niche. All in all, 2010 will see other mobile companies grow at the expense of Nokia.

Wouldn’t change a thing even if I wrote the above earlier this morning instead of last year. As you can see from this IDC report, Nokia indeed lost market share. Samsung launched Bada, focused on foreign markets and the lower end of the smartphone cost spectrum. LG continues to grow. And from the top end you have the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone7 appearing as significant challengers to Nokia.

I was wrong on this one last year, and this is almost too easy for 2010, but then again – you never know! The Software Park Tower in Lahore will be completed and will become fully operational in 2010. It is going to be too expensive sq ft cost wise for most companies so move-ins will be slower than expected.

The building’s done, but rates are super expensive and I think move-ins will be few and far between until something is done to incent companies to move in.

Financial and Economic Predictions

The S&P will show a better than 7% gain in 2010. The Dow and NASDAQ will also come close to 10% gains.

The Dow was under 10,500 at the end of 2009, and is just under 11,600 now. That’s a better than 10% gain, as predicted. The NASDAQ went from just around 2,300 to over 2,650 at the end of 2010, that too is better than 10%. The S&P went from about 1125 to 1260 which handily beats the conservative 7% projection I made.

The recession in the US will be over officially – it technically is already – but you’ll hear common people saying it. There will be a net reduction in the unemployment rate in 2010.

Unemployment went down a mere .2% from Jan to December 2010, as shown here. There’s still a long way to go. The recession is technically over and the markets performed well, but until unemployment is reduced significantly, common people will continue to feel the pinch. I was only half right on this one.

The KSE, having recovered more rapidly than expected in 2009, will show more modest gains of in the 10-15% neighbourhood in 2010.

Well the KSE was the star of the year, showing better than a 20% gain and hitting a multi-year high. It did twice as well as the US markets. There’s something to be said for the fortitude of the Pakistani markets!

The Pakistani Rs. will continue to trade between 82 and 86 to the USD through the year.

Well, here’s the list of daily closes and we stayed under 87, so there you have it!

In summary, of 18 predictions, I was completely wrong on one (Asif Zardari) and half wrong on the US recession (ordinary people have yet to feel the effects of the technical data). Probably my most successful year of predictions thus far! And hopefully I haven’t jinxed myself by saying that.

So, stay tuned for the 2011 predictions. Watch this space!

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The World's Top Selling BlackBerry Application is Lahore-based Pepper.pk's Photo Editor

Just a couple of days ago we shared Pepper.pk’s amazing achievement; their Photo Editor application for Blackberry devices had made it to the Top 5 best selling BlackBerry applications on RIM’s AppWorld. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I received an email from the Pepper.pk team who sounded on top of the world and could hardly contain their joy! Photo Editor is now the World’s #1 Best Selling BlackBerry Application across all categories. And it’s made in Pakistan! How sweet is that?

Pakistan’s IT industry has come a long, long way. The capabilities and skills of our companies are developing not just in the area of software engineering, but project management, product marketing and promotion. It’s no easy feat to leave HUGE names like Facebook and Monopoly, among dozens of others, behind! But what Pepper.pk’s laudable achievement proves is that not only are Pakistan based software companies ultra-competitive, they are, quite literally, second to none.

In December 2009 I had predicted that 2010 would be a breakout year for Pakistani mobile software companies. Specifically, I said that:

There will be a near-breakout level of success with a Pakistani based mobile software company. At least one company will claim 250K users for its mobile products by the end of 2010. It is very likely that two will.

Well, Pepper.pk has blown past those estimates, with well over a million users of their applications, and a Global Top #1 title for a major platform like the BlackBerry.

I wonder if someone at Adobe is listening, but they certainly need to. This young company has gone from obscurity to stardom in no time flat, and if you listen to them talk about their future plans, it doesn’t sound like they’ll be stopping to catch their breath anytime soon.

Long live innovation, and long live ambition!

The World's #1 Best Selling Top BlackBerry Application is Photo Editor from Pepper.pk!

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