Indians in the Middle east!!

Instead of worrying about the 'Indian descent' people in Malaysia, India should first look at the plight of the 'Indians' in Dubai and other parts of the middle east. Not to disrespect Indian descent Malaysians, Any one who has made a trip to Dubai, would easily realize how the Sheiks are building an Expensive Empire with the cheap labour from India.

The workers from abroad, with majority from various parts of India are kept in camps with sub human living conditions. The construction happens round the clock with two 12 Hour shifts. Hoards of the workers are unloaded sharp at 6AM and works until 6PM, to be taken back to their 'Camps' in buses. And the other set would be unloaded at 6PM Sharp. There are no labour laws, no rights. These guys are with out any family life or social life. Their passports are with hold by their contractors. They are bound by illegal contracts and can't leave at their will. No real health benefits. Tough luck if you are injured by chance. They are paid meagre amounts compared to the living standards in their host countries. By any standards, they are bonded labor or can even be called slaves.

These countries are building paradises with the blood of these workers. No voice is raised against these atrocities. USA sees these middle eastern states as allies and do not comment on these human rights violations while they happily bark about the Chinese doing business with Sudan. Indian corporates make money off the contracts. Indian government couldn't care any less.

In the end innocent Indians accept their fate and suffer for the unfair amounts they are paid.

Android, Open Handset Alliance and Google

Last week I was hoping for a mobile OS that is not targeted at smart phone market but one that could serve the consumer market and help the handset makers and carriers move away from the software business.
>>This would probably help the carriers and device makers move out of the software business and concentrate on providing hardware and services instead, which are their core business.

We got that and even more and Google had done that, it announced an open handset alliance and android platform.

The press statements are a bit vague on what it is coming up with, but based on what I have been reading an OS platform for phones (can be a smart phone or a normal consumer phone) that works on all kinds of hardware where developers can build apps that has access to local resources and the device makers and carriers can pick and chose the applications... And how it is different from WM/OS X/Symbian/ Palm/ RIM, the carriers still have the say on what they want to provide. The power is still with the carriers, but Google is making it easier for them to have good stable and capable solution and at their own terms.

If I were Jerry Yang

I'd put all new updates to the services on hold and create both open social and facebook applications for all its services, if it wants to continue to be the number one destination on the web. Social web sites with all these new functionality would probably be the place where a good chunk of web users spend their time, if they get all their tv and movie schedules, finance quotes, news and gossip in their social networking platforms like facebook, bebo, myspace... fewer people would have incentive to go yahoo services for such information. So the best idea would be to go where the users are. If web browser is going to be replaced by social network, you better be there with full force and provide the best widgets/ gadgets/ apps or whatever they are called. Of course you can still be in control of the advertising that goes with in the app. And also probably can use the expertise to server ads for other apps as well... And if the Yahoo! Mash comes up well, Yahoo would have the advantage that no other social network platform, no other app developer and even google would have as Yahoo will have the option of holding the user to its Yahoo! mash.

Yahoo, start working on your apps and let them be the best.

Beginning of the End (Part One)

I think Nov 2007 will be marked as the beginning of the end for Yahoo! There are two big developments from Google, one in the social networking and one in the mobile space. These announcements not only demonstrate the brilliance of Google, but also Yahoo!s failure. Yahoo! was first in the game with its Yahoo! 360 and Yahoo! Go more than two years ago, but their lack of vision and lack of implementation is now costing them dearly

Yahoo had its best bet before facebook to make Yahoo! 360 a truly powerful social network. It was a great idea, as a platform it was better than other social networks at that time. Its the implementation that lacked. It couldn't even put up all the Yahoo! services on 360. I was hoping they would slowly but surely get there. The unrivalled user base and the content they generate on the Yahoo! is un imitable and can not be repeated. Facebook was not an open platform then, once the Facebook platform is opened up, it was a closed chapter for Yahoo! 360.  To match the facebook, Yahoo came up with another social networking platform called Yahoo! mash, which doesn't have any significant benefit compared to facebook. Still they have not learned from its 360 failure, and the mash team apparently couldn't convince other Yahoo teams to come up with their app for Yahoo! mash. Sure, it is still in beta, but there is no place for excuses in Tech world. With Open Social from Google, hmm its all over for Yahoo! social network plans unless it goes onboard the train run by its biggest rival. Clearly Yahoo! recognizes the glorious future of Social networks which is evident from its purchases like Flickr, Del.icio.us, jumpcut, mybloglog and many others long before Google paid any real attention (Orkut was stupid), but it failed to deliver it twice.

Now they have all these disparate and wonderful services which would eventually fade away once people start having their content on all these apps that are going to be out there on the Open Social unless they become a part of it.

 

Sorry Yahoo!, you couldn't think big enough.