Nokia lately has been struggling to make its place in the mobile phone’s market. The world’s leading mobile phones for 14 years Nokia has sold 1 billion of handsets since 1982. The same Nokia now has to compete with the new smartphones. Nokia with all its ups and downs- sometimes being the top most mobile phone and sometimes struggling with its existence is now bought by computer corporation ‘Microsoft’.

Nokia is wrestling with the mobile companies like Apple, Samsung and Google so the US firm is giving £4.6 billion for Nokia’s cell phone production division. The Finish company cell phone like Lumia series is already installed with Windows system. The firm was exceeded by both Apple’s iPhone (Apple own system) and Samsung (Android software). By 2013’s second three months the number of Windows installed phones sold were only 7 million. If comparison is made then the number of iPhone sold was 32 million and 187 million of Android.

The unique ringtone of Nokia during its days, a piece called Gran Vals from 1902 composition became the more desirable tone. The tone also became famous as the signature tone for the 1st mobile phone generation.

Microsoft rises with its Windows OS for personal computer and is now entering to the footsteps of Apple i.e. combining software and gadgets. Microsoft has developed operating systems for smart phones and its new product Surface tablet ready to compete with iPad. The chief executive of Microsoft Steve Ballmer termed the purchase of Nokia as “signature event”. He further elaborates that is a strong move to the future. It is a win-win for them (Microsoft and their consumers).

Microsoft currently has 99,000 employees and with the purchase of Nokia the team is going to extent by 32,000 more Nokia employees.

The purchasing procedure is followed by £3.2 billion Nokia’s mobile phone manufacturing business, £1.4 billion for a 10 year licence to cover the use of Nokia’s patents with the additional option of unlimited extension.

All this means that Microsoft has now platform to deliver and bring their mobile strategy. However for business users it is a time of an opportunity with the Nokia’s smartphone offering.

There is staggering number of smartphone users in the country and this number is growing by the day. Most of the apps used in the smartphones are the ones developed by American and other western countries. Although there is no harm in using apps developed by foreign companies, one thing these companies fail to do is to come up with the apps that are targeted according to local needs of other countries. This is where a Nepali software company like AppliKali has its role to play. 

In a recent press meet function of AppliKali, a software company under Kalika Group, the company chairman Bikram Pandey, CEO Nicholas Pandey along with technical team showcased four useful apps.

It is not easy to get a taxi ride these days. Either the taxi driver does not agree to go by meter or the customers have to pay a lot more by the use of tampered meter. The app shows the distance and fare between two places, separate rates for day and night set by government along with waiting and flag down charges. It can also be used in map mode by pointing source and destination places. The app works in offline mode as well where there is no Internet connection.

NEPSE App brings real-time data from the Nepal Stock Exchange along with a very useful 'Portfolio' section to keep track on one's investments, net worth, daily gain/loss, buying/selling history, etc. Data is available for live trading, market information, stock history, floorsheet, charts etc. It delivers information of all stocks listed with Nepal Stock Exchange, currency exchange rates set by NRB and gold, silver and fuel prices. There is also a calculator feature that provides detailed information for each transaction like Broker Commission, Capital Gain Tax, SEBON Fee, Name Transfer Fee, etc


Panic SMS is an app for emergency situations where the app can be used to send GPS location with a link of map via SMS to preset numbers. It can be activated by pressing power button four times in android phones and by using App in Apple iOS phones. The person in difficulty can be easily tracked down and help can be provided in time. As this kind of other Apps are available as paid version only; after Panic SMS became available for free, it has already been downloaded by large number in America and Europe.

This official app of Kalika FM comes up with many features like live streaming of Kalika FM 95.2 and 91 MHz, program schedule, presenter profiles, songs dedication, news etc. It is the first dedicated app of Nepali FM station.