The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
After hastily withdrawing their new messaging app amid glaring security flaws, an Indian billionaire and his penurious yoga guru partner are about to have another go at it.
Acharya Balkrishna, who collaborated with celebrity yogi Baba Ramdev to build an Indian consumer goods empire, plans a formal release of the Kimbho messenger app within weeks as he tries to create a challenger to Facebook Inc’s dominant WhatsApp. But first he has to fix it. “We pledge not to launch the app until a team of expert hackers and security specialists plug all the security and privacy loopholes,†Balkrishna said.
The hurried withdrawal of the app, whose name translates as “what’s up†in Sanskrit, a day after its release in May was a rare setback for Balkrishna and Ramdev. The pair built Patanjali Ayurved into a business with $1.6 billion of annual revenue by selling soap, skin cream and instant noodles that embrace the swadeshi, or home-grown, all-natural-and-wholesome creed.
Ramdev rose to fame in India from appearances on TV, where he demonstrated the cobra, the downward dog and hundreds of other yoga poses.
WhatsApp already dominates India, amassing more than 230 million users and pushing into electronic
payments, a rapidly expanding sector in the world’s fastest-growing major economy. “We respect WhatsApp,†Balkrishna, a user of WhatsApp, said by phone from his base in the ancient city of Haridwar in the foothills of the Himalayas.
“But when we have 1.3 billion people, many of them talented software developers, why can’t we build our own messenger with superior features, one that people can trust and which keeps user’s data within India?â€
While the initial release proved popular in terms of downloads, the company’s first foray into technology was quickly criticised online by experts as a “joke†and “security disaster.†It was swiftly pulled from stores to be re-tooled.
Kimbho adds to an ever expanding array of products from Patanjali, including its own branded SIM cards in partnership with a local carrier.