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Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali-developed new messaging app Kimbho, which was positioned as a desi answer to WhatsApp, created a buzz on an action-packed Thursday, only to land in a string of controversies.
Within hours of its launch on Wednesday, it faced high traffic and was taken down, after several duplicate apps cropped up.
Patanjali spokesperson SK Tijarawala said the chat app was only launched on a trial basis and will be launched officially later.“Patanjali’s Kimbho App was launched only for a day on Google Playstore on a trial basis. Within just three hours, 1.5 lakh people downloaded the app. Technical work is in progress and the app will be officially launched soon,” he tweeted on Thursday.
“Our trial version of Kimbho app is no longer available for download on any platform. We don’t take responsibility for many duplicate apps showing on anywhere. Beware,” he said in another tweet later in the day.
Launched with the tagline Ab Bharat Bolega , the app, said Patanjali, was developed under the guidance of Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna by their followers.
However, the app courted controversies soon after its launch, with some raising questions about its security features, while others questioned the chat app’s claims to swadeshi provenance.
French security researcher Elliot Alderson tweeted that Kimbho is a security disaster and it was possible to access other users’ messages.
Other twitterati and platforms like Alt News have alleged that Kimbho is not a desi app, as it is claims to be, but rather had been built over the existing app Bolo launched in 2015 by the company Appdios Inc, based in the US. On LinkedIn, Appdios Inc’s founders are listed as Aditi Kamal and Sumit Kumar.
Though the desi tag could be attractive, industry analysts feel that it is a tough task for a newcomer like Kimbho to break into the market as it means going against large and formidable international companies like WhatsApp.
According to Mahesh Uppal, Director, ComFirst, a consultancy firm, when it comes to a communication app functionality, convenience and credibility of the brand are more important than the ownership of the product.
Though the app was taken down, twitterati had a field day with ‘desi’ jokes and memes. #GooglePlayStore was trending for much of the day.
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