Microsoft wants to pay you back.... Cashback

After trying out various things to get netizens to use Microsoft's search engine, going after Yahoo for years here is one more attempt from the Big Daddy to gain market share online. Get cashback (real MONEY) from MS if you use Live Search's cashback listings to buy products online. MS will share part of the commission it earns from the vendors from products having a cashback tag in the listing.

http://search.live.com/cashback/

You keep adding up your savings and get paid a check when balance crosses $5.

It is a more graphical version of froogle which also now has a new avatar called google products

http://www.google.com/products

But google is not paying you cash back (as of now!).

There are already few online deal hunting websites which pay you cashback on various purchases if you click through their websites. You can also use Live Search to find out who pays you maximum cash back!!

I personally don't understand if MS is trying to fight it out with google or websites like Fatwallet.

- Neeraj

iPhone coming to India - Officially this time

iPhone has not been launched in India till date but there are an estimated 700K+ unlocked iPhones already with users, thanks to grey market and frequent travelers who bring in the phones from US and Europe to get these unlocked locally. For the fastest growing mobile phone market finally, Apple has announced that in few months time IPhones will be sold in India through non exclusive agreements with Bharti Airtel and Vodafone around August September 2008.

At what price point various versions are in India need to be seen as Mobile phones in India are usually not sold with annual contracts like in USA so prices will not be subsidized by service provider contracts. Otherwise over last few years Apple has done reasonably well in India with iPods, MACs common in Indian market being sold through Apple's own stores and their tie ups with retail chains plus an ever active grey market.

Current models of iPhones are already sold out globally, as Apple stopped shipping these ahead of an anticipated 3G version launch in coming weeks.

- Neeraj

Updates August 06 2008

AirTel (Bharti AirTel) has announced the date today for their Indian launch of iPhone. AirTel will start selling the 3G iPhone in the country on Aug 22 in their company outlets. No word about the pricing yet. They have also added an iPhone page on their website which has a booking link
Here is the link :
http://www.airtel.in/iphone3g/

This prebooking link is just to express your interest in iPhone with no obligation to buy and no obligation from AirTel to sell. More like a response to Vodafone India prebooking portal who started taking similar requests. Interestingly Vodafone has yet announced the date of launch.
Here is the link to Vodafone India's pre-booking for 3G iPhone.
http://vodafone.in/newusers/iphone/pages/preregister-iPhone.aspx

Other companies including Nokia, Samsung and HTC have already started launching new phones, many with bigger screens and touch features. Let us see if iPhone launch in India lives up to the hype in this price sensitive market. With no 3G network currently available, users will not be able to make use of all features of iPhone. Indian Government announced 3G policy last week including spectrum auction conditions. 3G roll out is expected to start around year end or first quarter of 2009.

- Neeraj