Where is the plan?

BSE Sensex hits 20K. 540% increase from 2001. Good.
GDP growing 8 -9 % a year. Great.
Mukesh Ambani is almost the richest man in the World. Nice.

But where are we heading. Is there any real plan or road map or even any discussion happening on Food security, Water Security, Energy Security, Basic Infrastructure and Environment?

70% percent of population still working in agriculture related industries which doesn't even contribute 20% of the GDP and is still growing at 3-4 % a year. Next green revolution is over due.

Retail Industry is multiplying with a blink of an eye. We have a Reliance, a Tata and a Subhiksha fresh retail stores on the same street in the interior Vijayawada. What happens to those millions of small vendors.

Good that we have plenty of rains. What do we do if we have 2-3 draughts in quick succession.

Where is the infrastructure. The roads in the cities are not even good to walk, forget about driving. The sound pollution and the smog. Billions of hours wasted in the traffic and hundreds of unnecessary accidents and deaths every day.When would our freeways get safe and hit 110 km/ hr speeds. How long before the IT revolution reaches the second level cities. Where is the broadband connectivity.

When would India make significant Science and Technology breakthroughs. When would India win Olympic golds at will. When would India have its own Google, its own BMW, its own SONY, its own Nokia, its own Samsung?

Is there a plan, a vision, on where we want to be and when we want to be there, not to mention how?? When would we cross the bridge of mediocrity to the side of Excellence???

Future Tech Mantra

You are only there.. if you are Everywhere!!!

How about mobile OS for non smart phones??

Device independent mobile operating systems like Palm, WM, Symbian, Blackberry all target at mobile phones with data plans/ web access and mainly aiming at providing advanced features which most of the mobile users do not need or do not want to pay for. Of course there is an option of buying these phones unlocked and just not pay for the dataplan, but there is also this mental picture in the common masses on what a smart phone means. We now have the device makers and carriers come up with their own versions of the software that they ship with the devices. There are no open standards and this system is a closed one and doesn't allow innovation. There are some java apps out there that are supported across multiple OS,
but the utility is minimal where u need to download the apps over the air?


There can be many advantages of having these open OS platforms even in the non smartphones. There can be many applications that can be designed and built for mobile phones with PC - Mobile Eco System like iPods which doesn't need web access. 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.

This is one rung lower than what Google is suggesting for the 700MHz spectrum. And a good first step in that direction.

World Wide Widget Web

You see Google Gadgets and iGoogle, Mac OS X Dashboard and iPhone, Yahoo Widgets, Yahoo Badges and Yahoo Go, MS Vista Sidebar gadgets and Live gadgets, Opera Widgets and Facebook applications. They are not all the same, but they are everywhere. These small applications give access to your online services like Email, News, Weather, Calendar, Maps and the like and they run off the servers. The desktop versions still work even when you are offline and syncs when you are connected.
All these services point to the direction of pervasive computing, where you have access to your data everywhere. The widgets are important because eventually they work the same way on your PCs, your Mobile phones, your mp3 players, your in-car entertainment devices, your GPS devices, your televisios, your game consoles, tivos, your digital photo frames and many other platforms. Right now, you have multiple platforms, operating systems for each and every one of these segments and its a hassle because the developers cannot build their applications for every new platform that crops up now a days. The only unifying aspect as of now to some extent are the web browsers with unified standards. But the web browsers are built for PCs with a mouse and a keyboard. And we see how the developers are struggling from many years to port that to the mobile devices with small screens and still there are no where close to interoperability. they all still suck. Now add the future generations of internet connected devices like set top boxes or gps sets. The web browser doesn't make much sense.
Since most of these widgets essentially use the web technologies, I guess there soon would be a time where you can simply port widgets from one platform to another. Google already does that with its desktop and iGoogle versions. Yahoo does that with same base code for mac and win. Other companies would join and probably release simple tools to just port widgets from one platform to another and it might not be very long before that happens.
That makes it easier to adapt to the newer electronics and gadgets connected to the web and it is of course good for the tech companies as it gives them more places to reach to the customers with out having to invest a lot for development. Companies like Slide and Widgetbox have a lot to look forward to.

Lets see how long it takes for the W4 to materialize.

It's not Google, It is Adobe!

Looks like Adobe has the best chance to be a Microsoft Killer!!!

Sure Google is doing great on the web, but that was never Microsoft's money making machine. It's strength is its operating 
system, its development platform and the office suite where MS makes most of its money which it could funnel into the newer fronts. It could sustain losses for multiple years for its Xbox platform and Mobile OS and of course it would do that with 
Zune which is soon going to be a force in the MP3 player market. Google is putting its billions to take the Office suite with its web based apps. But the fact is that it is no where close to challenge MS on that front and it would be few years before it could come up with a serious challenger. Of course MS is not going to sit sucking its thumbs. Already there is a major push 
with MOSS to improve collaboration using the office tools. Also Google doesn't have much experience with Enterprise Business sales, which is on a different plane when compared to Adwords accounts it has got.

But it is different with Adobe, whose intentions are getting clearer by the day. It has already got a great foot hold in the small business with it Creative Suite and its Macromedia web tools. And it has got a dedicated army of developers who use their tools. It started with the online versions of its creative suite. Then came the killer Adobe Integrated Runtime, which I think is the future of the software with its unique ability to bring the best of the desktop and web worlds together and has very little learning curve for the scores of the web developers to adopt to. With the huge success of Mac OS X in the recent days and lack of cross platform support with .net (they are trying), there is a great potential for Adobe to become the choice for the developer community. And then it has Adobe flash which is on 98% of the browsers and is improving with every version. 
Now it is coming with the Office suite based on AIR. With its amazing presence in the small business world in both PC and Mac worlds and its connections with the web developer community, Adobe has all the armour to take on MS .net  and their office suite. 

I think Google has to stick with its ad selling business and take it to television, radio, news papers, magazines and hoardings and make the most of the 1 trillion dollars of Ad Money out there.
And leave it to Adobe to cut the life line of Microsoft.

Recall and Media

It is amazing how media feeds their interests into the general public minds like a slow poison. Subtle references and opinions are embedded all over the commentary in the news or op-eds or talk shows.
Last week I was watching a news cast in CNN about the recalls of toys in United States sold by US companies which happened to be manufactured in China. And there is a collective media effort to blame it on the Chinese. OK, agreed. Chinese plants are not sticking to the standards. But they are just factories and manufacturers. If there is a problem with the quality of the products, it is an issue between the company that sourced its manufacturing to these Chinese companies. It's the US companies which are selling those toys in USA and it is their responsibility to make sure they are checked for Quality and are adhering to the standards of the market they are selling into. Even a kid can understand that.
But if you watch day after day, show after show, they blame it on the Chinese. And even more subtle is the way the Media project China as a nation. Check this comment from Lou Dobbs.
Tonight, a massive new recall of dangerous toys imported from communist China, another recall, another example of our government's failure to protect American consumers from dangerous toys, food, and other imports from China.
He referred to China as 'Communist China'. Where does communism come into picture in this scenario. There is no nation by the name 'Communist China'. Given the fact that, here in US, the word 'communism' is more or less a swear word it shows how the media is using to slowly inject the poison into the people heads. And trying to brand China with poor quality. If there is any one to blame here, its the US government and the Company which released them into the market.

And now you have 21.7 million pounds of Beef recalled from the US company from a US source, which is much more dangerous and serious situation than having a little lead in the toys. And I am curious to know the adjectives the media use for United States. Beef recalled from 'Chauvinist US', 'Imperialist US', 'Democratic US' ... hmmm.. Don't get me wrong here...I love US and I think it is the best place to live in.. but can't turn a blind eye on such manipulations. So in the true American tradition, I don't act on it, I just Blog ;)

Vanaja, a Telugu Film

I haven't seen the film yet.. But its great to see a Telugu film to get such a raving review from my favorite movie critic and possibly one of the greatest critics for the english movies, Roger Ebert, a 4 out of 4 stars.

More so because its not a cross over film but a true stick to roots rustic and rural telugu drama with an Andhra Village as the backdrop.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070913/REVIEWS/709130308

This will probably give a big boost to the film in festival circuit and in having a limited release in America to make more than enough money to cover its costs. And this probably gives some boost to some of the movie crazy telugu engineer to venture into the movies.

Congratulations to Rajnesh Domalapalli.

Big Joke

Apple pulls out the NBC TV shows after being show the door by NBC.

Apple is the most expensive MP3 player in its class. Even after it has this amazing market share and un heard of profit margins per device that comes out of its scale. It doesn't reduce the price and it doesn't allow the 'VENDORS' to play with the prices as they want. Yes you cannot sell an iPod for less than the price specified by Apple.

But it does not agree to the owner of the content to sell their content for a price they want. That is alright, it can deny if it doesn't make business sense for Apple. But trying to blame NBC and making it look like Apple is for customer and NBC is this evil corporation because they are not dancing to its tunes is stupid.

Of course, Apple can afford to be stupid. After it has a stupid and loyal fan base who thinks Apple is always right and Steve Jobs is God to root for it and blast NBC with out even listening to what NBC has to say about this whole deal.

They might want to have the content sold through their Hulu for a cheaper price or make it available for free with the support of Ads. With the new video technology that can display un obtrusive in line ads with video based on context, it might have its own plans.

Oops, I am an Apple fan boy and I can't think.

Thats a pattern... i can recognize that.

Oh! we are so nice.. we are so great... we want to make the world a better place to live in... we are the greatest company... we love people.. we do no evil... we empower people.. hmmm...

for the 12 questions asked, this guy was able to parrot the same statement 7 times irrespective of what the question is... OK it is good that Google is participating in the auction for the 700MHz spectrum and proposed some constraints that will sure help every one in the US to make it more open.. but to act like they are doing all this for the greater good of the world and not to increase their dominance beyond the PCs. may be they want to do good to people while making money. But not even once he mentioned that they are doing this to reach more people for longer periods and make money off that. He kept repeating the same phrase and want to stress that they this because telecom companies are evil and they are the robinhoods.

"Brand Management"

http://news.com.com/Googles+battle+for+wireless+spectrum/2008-1039_3-6199374.html?tag=st.num
Sacca: "The 700MHz spectrum auction represents the last big chance that the United States has to create an opportunity for meaningful change in access to the Internet for the broadest set of people possible."
"We have fought hard on a number of fronts to make the Internet as available as possible to the largest number of people as possible."
"What is going to make the Internet most available to the broadest number of people at the lowest price possible?"
" Google is willing to do anything necessary to introduce some competition into this space and to really drive the prices of service to where they are most affordable to the broadest number of people. It is reprehensible that there are still so many people left off the Net."
"We are deeply committed to changing this industry for the benefit of end users."
"we are trying to do what we can to remove obstacles that are standing in the way of making the Internet available to the largest number of people possible."
" We are trying to look one by one at those obstacles to see where we can have an impact to make the Internet available to everyone. "

Funny he said this -
" I think we do have to question when Verizon and AT&T jump to accept any proposal. We have to look at what their ulterior motives are."

Yahoo! should think BIG

Yahoo is the largest visited site with more traffic than any other site and is consistently at the top for several years. Still in terms of revenues its lagging way behind Google. It is also lagging in innovation. Yahoo! is coming up with more and more services to keep its leadership intact, but it was not able to deliver that next 'BIG' thing. It adopted web 2.0 stuff like RSS feeds, tags etc.. faster than other portals and even Google. But it has lost on its best opportunity with Yahoo! 360, which could have been a best combination of social networking and taking advantage of the huge content that's generated by users every day on Yahoo properties. Shame, it failed on that and didn't go that full mile. Now facebook has hit with its platform strategy and made it big. Wait till it hits the wall street. It may not be as big as Google, but I think it may topple Yahoo! s position.

So, what should Yahoo! do now. Adding more yahoo properties may not help much. Yahoo should take a leaf from facebook and amazon which are providing the front end and back end of the new innovation on the web with Facebook platform and Amazon web services by building on their core strengths. So Yahoo! which is now creating or licensing and hosting most of the content with portals like Yahoo! news, Yahoo! TV, Yahoo! Sports and like. should build on its strength - Scalability in hosting content.

If you break the content to the elemental types, most of the web sites have text, images, audio, video in various page layouts. There might also be other elemts like maps, lists, comments, ratings etc.. And who is better than Yahoo! to present them to largest user base.

I think Yahoo! should open up its website for content providers. Allow the companies to create their own micro sites. Give them elemental blocks and give them the power to change the look and feel in the way they like. Provide them a hosted web content management system, where they can upload their content and present it in the way they want. Provide them what Amazon and Facebook are providing separately, give them the storage space to store their content and UI blocks to present it in the way they want. Make it really really easy to add content, just like blogger, flickr and youtube. Host it for them, provide them all the web analytics, host the ads and share the ad revenue.

Its taking Yahoo! web hosting to the next level. Make it for the content creator instead of small business. Smaller content creators like news papers, magazines, local radio, local tv channels, smaller television studios, indie film producers, professional photographers, sports teams, celebrities and what not. And you give them access to all your users and all your services where ever it makes sense. With this, they do not need to worry about all the IT infrastructure and web developers and designers and eliminatr a whole lot of overhead and spend their resources on their core competency, ie creating content.

Its a win-win.

Create A Yahoo! Web. (like world wide web)

Yahoo! digital home??

I just found this new cool product from Yahoo!

Fantasy Sports on your TV
http://digitalhome.yahoo.com/sports/

It looks like a piece of Yahoo! Go for TV, which has been sidelined for a while.
One surprising aspect is, it works with the Windows Media Center instead of being a part of its own Yahoo! Go for TV which more or less is a competitor to Windows Media Center. Is it some sort of death knell to Yahoo! Go for TV, just like the Yahoo! Go for PC is left to death?

But more than that it is the URL that invokes my curiosity. digitalhome.yahoo.com redirects to Yahoo! home page. Sounds like Yahoo! is going to come up with a whole suite of applications for TV that works through Windows Media Center which is being shipped as a part of Vista Home Premium.

But I strongly believe any digital home strategy that requires a connection to a PC is bound to fail. Be it Windows Media Center or Apple TV or Yahoo! Go for TV. If you want to hit the mass market you must go with a set top box like TiVo or XBox 360.

Yahoo! Go and Yahoo! 360 are the biggest bets that Yahoo! made and failed miserably.
Hope they turn around and come up with a cool product that works.

Do No Evil (Series)

"Viacom is a company built from lawsuits, look at their history," Schmidt said on Friday.
"Look who they hired as CEO, Philippe Dauman, who was the general counsel for Viacom for 20 years," he added.

Google takes swipe at Viacom

Now it is getting personal.
You built an empire by pirating the copyright material, i.e youtube. You are making money off the content you do not own. And when they ask that you should do something about it you didn't care. And when they file a law suit, you come around and abuse them. When you can screen sexual or racist content from appearing on youtube, why can you not screen copyrighted content? Which part of it is not Evil. May be you can get out of the court unscathed but that doesn't make what you are doing any less evil.

It just shows that they all are the same, Evil Corporates.

Wii Want Wii!!

Wii is going to release a new controller called "Wii Fit" some time next year. Wii has already been a great success in united states and outselling every other gaming console in US. Even after so many months in Market, it is still very tough to get a Wii. And analysts say that it is going to stay like that even into the holiday season and further.

I think once this new controller is out, it is going to be a mass phenomenon. I think it would overtake both the iPod revolution (100million units sold) and sony ps2 revolution (90million units sold) and the first set top box that is connected to the broadband network that is going to tke over the living room.

It already has an internet channel, and an online video service with HD output would seal it for Nintendo.

Move on MS, Move on Apple, Move on SONY.

Wii and TV, lives happily ever after.

Google Socialstream??

"Socialstream is the result of a Google-sponsored capstone project in the Master's program at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. "

This seems to be a nice platform to integrate a number of Web 2.0 UG content at one place. Lets see how this pans out.

I am still bitter about Yahoo! 360. Yahoo have more user generated content than any other website. They were at the right place in the right time to bring it all together and come up with a true social networking platform. And they gave us 360, which sucked big time. Now facebook is doing what Yahoo! could've done with 360 and they are building content from ground up. But I do not feel it is adequate enough to last till the last mile.

I'm sure this war is going to be interesting.

In UGC domain, Google has youtube and blogger for video content and text content. Yahoo has literally unlimited user generated content from music preferences, movies and local reviews, flickr for images and also a lot of professional content, that it can pull together to give us a wonderful platform. I still have hopes for Yahoo! They still are in the best position to pull it off.

Google's unwanted child!!

I keep hearing about the failure of google and yahoo in the social networking arena. That myspace and facebook has taken over. But a quick look at the alexa rankings reveal that orkut.com is 8th in the rankings. And it has been that way since last october.

But why is it considered a failure? coz it doesn't make money?
True, but youtube doesn't make money either. Why does it get all the hype and media coverage and most important, a very superior treatment from its parent, The Google. Why is the youtube evolving so rapidly with wonderful new features all the time, while the orkut is more or less the same for over an year.

Simple, orkut is popular in third world countries and would never have enough money to prompt google to increase spending on this neglected child. In US, it stands at a distant 30 in the rankings and probably skewed towards the immigrants rather than americans. So we don't care about them?

If Google has the noble intentions of making the world a better place, why not spend some research dollars on Orkut and make it more stable and add some desperately needed features to it, so that the millions of loyal Orkut user can have better experience?

Answer: Show me the money!!!!

iPhone's succeess

iPhone crossed 1 million sales in less than a week.to put that in perspective, Windows has 3.2 million licences sold in the first quarter of 2007 and that account to about 60% percent market share. So total of 5.1 million smart phones. Ammaaazzzinnnggg!!!

• the iPhone is not competing with smart phones, and I think the people who bought iPhone are not existing smart phone users.



• it is clear that people have enough money in hand, but they did not find any of these existing phones worthy of their money.

It sounds like all these million users are iPod users and are upgrading to iPhone. would these guys have bought it irrespective of the features?Did they buy it just because they want to own that coolest thing in town. Does that mean iPhone is going to cannibalize iPod market to certain extent.

It is rumoured that wide screen iPod is on its way with the touchscreen goodness with out any kind of wireless connectivity (no phone, no safari). What would happen then? is ATT going to bite the dust? Or would people be willing to pay that extra money to ATT when they can still own all the coolness with one time payment and probably less upfront.

It'll be interesting to see the statistics of the early adopters, how many of them own nanos, video ipods and existing smart phones. That'll probably tell us how many iPods vs iPhones will apple sell in the future.

But when I think about it, I think you can throw all the Market research and analysis to trash. Apple would probably defy all the conventional wisdom and sell these gadgets in millions anyways.

Apple is already came to half the market cap of MS. Its probably going to reach MS very soon. On the other side, MS's hopes to get hold of the living room is under serious threat with the failure rate of 33% and less than desired success of IPTV so far. If MS doesn't get its act right and overwhelm the TV set top box market by this holiday season, it is as good as gone. Come next holiday season, I expect to see a completely revamped Apple TV that's going to storm the living room, the fourth leg.

Can MS at least get hold of the tail, i.e Cars?? By the ways things are going, it doesn't look like it.

Business Sense

I am Borders. I want to sell each and every book for $9.99.

No matter
how new or how old the book is,
how popular or how flopped the book is,
whether it is a paperback or a hard cover,
whether it is 100 pages or 1000 pages long,
whether it is written by John Grisham or Joe Writer,

And I'll pay only $2.99 to the publisher no matter what because I have 80% market share, I can dictate the terms.

Makes great business sense, doesn't it.

Do no Evil!!!

http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-06-30-n86.html

This is exactly what I was talking about in one of my earlier posts on why trusting Google blindly is foolish.


A huge WTF


Google is not a small start up anymore with just a handful of employees with everything under control.
This time it is a small slip up and thanks to the world watching Google with all eyes is Called pretty quickly. Just don't submit to Google with blind love. Companies change, people change and policies also change.

Get over it...

I am another guy who is tired of the iPhone coverage in the media. I can't believe that some one dropping a iPhone is worth covering. Now I see all these warnings and notes to the prospective buyers on the cons of buying an iPhone. What features it doesn't have and how pricey it is and that ATT is evil.
Wait! Ten Things You Should Know Before You Buy an iPhone


Now get over it... when does price become an issue with Apple products. iPod is always pricier than each and every mp3 player in the market. What abt the features? I would say each and every mp3 player in the market does more than what an iPod does.
You can shout over the roof tops, but you cannot stop people buying iPhones. They are not buying it for the utility, they are buying it because it is iPhone. And these guys do not even care about what other phones are in the market and what those gadgets can do. They do not do research on what kind of features it has. If they need to change their ways of using a phone and settle for less functionality, they would do so. You take out the maps, safari, youtube, weather and maps, they would still buy it. They just buy it because it is iPhone. and you made the iPhone what it is.

Steve Jobs chickened out??

The reviews of the iPhone from the hand picked reporters is out a couple of days ago and the verdict is Unanimous.
Apple iPhone is a ground breaking product and is fun to use. But ATT sucks.

I can't help but wonder how similar all these reviews sounded, right from the keyboard and the testing for scratches. As if they got step by step instructions on how to test this product. In particular each of these guys said the same thing about the keyboard, that u'd get used to key less keyboard. hmmm, can't imagine if any of these reviewers would patiently test a product for 5 days to get used to in order to give a positive feedback on the keyboard. May be a call from Jobs himself helps. yes he did spoke personally to each of the reviewers. That shows the marketing genius of Steve Jobs.

But even after all these every one is disappointed with ATT service. We are told that Jobs even considered taking the MVNO route like Helio. But he seems to have chickened out.

If he wanted to give out the best ever product to the customer, he could have opted for 3G and go for an MVNO and could have controlled the entire eco system, just like he does with itunes - ipod, mac os x - ilife - .mac. As far as availability of edge in more places than the current 3G service like HSPDA/ EVDO, they are covered in the places that matter, that is most the cities across the US where the bulk of the iPod market and also the smartphone market is. And having 3G doesn't mean that the phone do not work in the non coverage area. He seems to have gone for the ATT option and EDGE for two reasons, not daring to go all alone for the afraid of losing? And for better battery life and the device size?? (Then why do you put up charts comparing the talk time and size of an EDGE phone with 3G counterparts). Also, he must be getting a lot of subsidies from ATT to control the price to $599.

I think he could have gone all alone and could have succeeded to the same extent. Who is buying iPhone for features anyways? He should probably comeup with a UMPC on the same platform with GPS and other extra features like GPS sans phone.