|
| Ideas, Opinions, Trends, Markets, Thoughts, Technologies, Outsourcing, India & The Flat World |
ContactSubscribeSearchArchives
Resources
Labels
|
Sunday, February 29, 2004Jobs Abroad, Benefits at Home Via BusinessweekOutsourcing's advantages are getting lost in a heated debate. While a dynamic economy inflicts pain, the upside is worth itIf the U.S. had insisted on making all its own cars, watches, TVs, radios, or shoes, resources wouldn't have been available to channel into creating the jobs of the last 50 years in telecommunications, software, and biotech. People wouldn't have been available to work in those industries, and the American standard of living would be dramatically lower.| Behind the Rise of Google Lies the Rise in Internet Credibility Via NYTimesGoogle has changed the way we shop, travel and get basic information about our economic and cultural climates. Perhaps the most fundamental difference since those early days is an enormous change in the usefulness and credibility of what one can find on the Internet. Sometimes the best metaphor for the Internet seems to be the population of earth itself, in which every human is a Web page related by kinship and conversation to all the other Web pages on earth. Sometimes the metaphor is a globe papered over with hyperlinked Web pages from which, more and more, tiny beacons arise, beaming updates to our computers like the old RKO tower. Whatever the metaphor, the only certainty is that we're going to need help finding anything for a long time yet to come.| C.K.Prahalad's latest book on Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid Via RajeshKnowlegde at wharton profiles the lastest CKP bookA central point in The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid is that the effort to help the poorest people can be successful across different countries and different industries ranging from health care and finance to fast-moving consumer goods and energy. The exceptions, Prahalad notes, are countries that are essentially lawless, like Somalia and the Congo, and industries that are among the most basic, particularly some of the purely extractive industries that employ many people but have little incentive or ability to empower them. Otherwise, Prahalad says, his approach “can work 90% of the time.” CKP cites the following:Hindustan Lever Ltd., one of Unilever’s largest subsidiaries, has been among the most effective consumer brand companies in reaching the poorest of the poor in India and other developing countries. It is India ’s largest exporter of branded consumer products and Forbes Global has named it the “best consumer households company worldwide.” The company’s experience marketing two of the most basic consumer staples – salt and soap – illustrates some of the innovative approaches necessary to sell successfully to the bottom of the pyramid. |World moodchart Via LockergnomePlug into the world moodchart and see how the rest of world feels |Saturday, February 28, 2004Enthusiasts call Web feed next big thing2004 will be the year the technology goes mainstream. |The World's Richest People - Via ForbesThe 2004 list of billionaires is out The no. of billionaires have gone upto 587 from 476 last year - analysts are expecting that the growth in the list next year is tied to Russia's growing oil industry and Bush's tax cuts on dividends. In the top slot? Bill Gates. Ranking No. 1 for 10 years running, Gates is now worth $46.6 billion. In relatively close second is Warren Buffet, who's pushing $43 billion. This year, wealth wizard J.K. Rowling, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and 63 other new faces join the ranks of the wealthiest people on the globe.| Why Bill Gates is smiling today via News.comCnet perspective about the antitrust view on oracle's acquisition proposal |How to turn US tech economy in a week by CringleyUnlocking VC money is the key Lucidly written article - interesting due to its style but very significant theme. |Some lessons from Lagaan Via BusinessworldPlay cricket and compete in today’s world with the grit of the Aussies. It would get us used to winning more often A colleague of mine had almost identical inference about this film almost one year back. I confess that I have not seen this film. |Friday, February 27, 2004Measuring Oracle - Chat with Mathew SymondsChat with Matthew Symonds, author of the recently released book "SOFTWAR: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle," In researching his book, Symonds had access to Ellison, offering readers an up-close view of the decisions and personality of one of tech's brashest figures. The Oracle chief provided his own commentary of Symonds's book in published footnotes, offering readers a glimpse of Ellison's thoughts and strategy.| Asia sets the bar for services Via IHTWhile Europe is just getting a taste of 3G, South Korea and Japan are ready to go headlong into third-generation mobile telephony. Unbelievable but true.. |Life After GE? And How - Businessweek interviews Jack WelchLife After GE? And How An amazing man speaks about his post GE life. |How Hewlett-Packard Wants to Reinvent Corporate Computing Via FortuneThe director of HP Labs says the focus is now on helping businesses act quickly and providing flexibility"The key element is the ability to control both the business processes and the IT applications." |Wikipedia publishes 500,000 articles in 50 languagesOpen content encyclopedia grows fasterMore than 300,000 new articles were created in the last 12 months alone, making Wikipedia the world's largest and fastest-growing open content encyclopedia. Every day, another two thousand articles are added to this collaborative endeavour. All articles on Wikipedia can be edited and improved by anyone at any time. |Software goes ondemand -ML research Via SenthilML research on ondemand computing The report says:"We think of a pure On Demand delivery model as a deployment where there is a single instance of the software being delivered to multiple customers in a shared tenancy approach". This means there is minimal customization for the end user and enhancements and feature upgrades are disseminated almost daily to the customer base. We believe the system integration and customization work is reduced significantly. This has significant benefits in terms of achieving rapid time to deployment, hidden labor and training costs, and costly upgrades and bug fixes. While this model may not permeate every category of software it will likely hit areas that are more commodity-like in nature where the benefits of customization are not as obvious.| Thursday, February 26, 2004The High Cost of Not Marrying via BusinessweekInteresting!! |Is the Tata group commitment-shy?Good-to-global Series Samsung model seems to be a model worth emulating for becoming a global force. |Supply & Demand: Software PricingNew models for software pricing |That Was Then, This is NowVery Interesting |"How Would You Redo the Google Interface?" Via wiredFour designer's share their ideas for UI design for Google |Gates predicts death of the password Via NewsBill Gates predicted the demise of the traditional password because it cannot "meet the challenge" of keeping critical information secure. Microsoft also demonstrated "tamper resistant" biometric ID-card software, developed by its own research arm, that can be used by both small and large companies to create ID cards using a digital camera, an inkjet printer and a business-card scanner. To create an ID card, the software requires a photograph and some basic information about a person, such as name and date of birth. This information is processed by the software to create a digital signature in the form of a bar code, which is also printed onto the ID card. If any of the information on the ID card is altered, it will not correlate to the signature and the card is rejected, according to Microsoft.| Wednesday, February 25, 2004The Complete Guide to Googlemania!! via wiredIt's Goooooooooogle... A complete view about Google. |US online sales hit $50bn in 2003 Via BBCSignificant growth in online spend Interesting numbers to watch - online shopping grew by 26.3% from the year before. E-commerce occupied 1.6% of total retail spending| IBM asserts businesses set to spend via NewsIBM survey confirms that CEO priorities have shifted from cutting costs to generating more revenue. Watch on.. |Tom Peters on outsourcing"Off-shoring" Manifesto/Rant: Sixteen Hard Truths Tom peters makes powerful points while supporting offshoring - He is taking a near and far view in supporting offshoring. |Tuesday, February 24, 2004Broadband: What's The Holdup for the US via BweekU.S. broadband transmission speeds are still way too slow to offer most of the kinds of cutting-edge digital delivery over the Internet U.S. cable and telecommunications companies are working to close the transmission speed gap with other countries ( the difference is between 10- to 40 times more speed) ,but it will probably take years to catch up and cost billions of dollars |The new jobs migration Via economistThe actual and prospective migration of service-sector jobs is small, and likely to remain so, compared with the background level of job creation and destruction in an economy with as much vitality as America's The movement of jobs to the developing countries does not alter the overall level of employment in the advanced economies; however, the pattern of employment, to be sure, does change.The image conjured up by the self-interested purveyors of alarm, of a hollowed-out America with relentlessly rising unemployment,is not just false but absurd. |The Truth About Software Startups via Rajesh(www.emergic.org)It’s not the size of the budget but how it is used that determines success or failure of the enterprise. The authors closely examined the common characteristics of the 61 “successful” and 39 “unsuccessful” companies that met their criteria and interviewed industry executives as well as academics to provide a real-world context for their findings. A key finding is that sales-force productivity is an excellent predictor of long-term success. “Sales-force productivity is the critical differentiator,” says Crisan. “In successful firms, sales forces are 80% to 120% more productive than in unsuccessful ones.”Moreover, the authors found that, on average, total sales and marketing expense had no relationship to long-term company success. Successful companies spent about the same on sales and marketing as companies that failed. In fact, operational research conducted with Jim Maikranz, former senior vice president of sales at SAP AG, and Michael Krupka and Jeffrey Schwartz, both managing directors at Bain, has led the authors to conclude that sales success is not about how much a company spends. “It’s about developing a finely honed, repeatable sales message that will resonate with customers,” Crisan points out. “Only after this has been achieved can a software firm effectively grow both its sales and its sales organization.” | Monday, February 23, 2004Outsourcing Isn't "a Zero-Sum Game" Via BusinessweekMarc Andreessen says it's "the story of history" and that new jobs will arise in the U.S. as new industries are bornAndreessen, an unrepentant believer in entrepreneurial capitalism, thinks new jobs and new industries will emerge in the U.S. that will more than fill the current jobs gap. Andereessen adds, The stronger our business gets via outsourcing, the faster we will be able to invest in it and grow it, and the more people we'll be able to hire in the U.S., as well as overseas. It's just a question or whether we offshore and thereby grow to, say, 500 jobs in the U.S. and 100 overseas in five years, or whether we don't offshore and probably end up with fewer jobs in the U.S. and none offshore.| Sunday, February 22, 2004Richard Nolan on managing ITspending Via eWeekIT is the next disaster waiting to happen? With approximately 55% of average capital spending getting into IT, Nolan advocates that companies need to have an IT oversight committee which should ideally focus on managing IT and information assets, strategy, service levels, legal issues and avoiding nasty surprises. |Behind the Asian outsourcing phenomenon Via News.comA Mckinsey quarterly report on outsourcing is full of supportive arguments for outsourcing -based on among other things considerations of cost, faster turnaround, better quality, good analytical capability to validate design for production, high quality management bandwidth etc ..Indeed, Salomon Smith Barney estimates that because the top five computer original-design manufacturers have full responsibility for sourcing and supply chain management, their inventory turns are 35 percent faster than those of the top five electronics-manufacturing service vendors. In industries such as computers, where prices fall rapidly and the frequent introduction of new products increases the risk of obsolescence, tight inventory management can be especially valuable. The same compelling economics and capability-building opportunities are beginning to drive similar movements in other manufacturing businesses, including apparel, automotive products, cellular handsets, consumer electronics and medical equipment. Trend to note - Dell, Gateway and Hewlett-Packard are using offshoring to challenge consumer electronics stalwarts such as Philips, Samsung and Sony.| Saturday, February 21, 2004Market Disruption in Action Via VinodVinod's interesting observation |The great hollowing-out myth on outsourcing by EconomistAn extremely well analyzed perspective An extremely well analysed article - the article points out amongst other things three major issues - A. Perceived job loss in US is only cyclical and not structural. B. The jobs lost as a percentage is well below the accepted norm of 5% unemployment C. The potentail number of jobs is projected to be 3mn jobs - this is well below the job churn rate. Overall the process allocates resources—money and people—to where they can be most productive, helped by competition, including from outsourcing. |The Offshore Proposition by Eric LundquisteWeek editor relates wipro ceo's thinking on costs and relates them to offshoring Looks like a publicity article to me. |Will the US lose the edge on Software Via Businessweek and YahooIt's clear that in a networked world, U.S. leadership in innovation will find itself under siege |Once again, the East is rising Via Japan TimesThe views of a former UK cabinet minister on increasing trade imbalance between the east and the west A very balanced view of a westerner on the rise of Asia |Software design simplified like powerpoint designVia Techdirt |James Burke interview via ＧartnerThis veteran speaks! |Outsourcing to grow, but deals to shrink via news.comSmaller vendors,will have new opportunities to compete in specialized niches. The article also says Outsourcing requires an ongoing relationship that has to be managed proactively and measured to achieve what is expected.Outsourcing is hard work, and it takes a lot of preparation. |Thursday, February 19, 2004Another perspective on outsourcingVia washington post A new tax on outsourcing proposed. |Yahoo and google search technologyvia news.com Yahoo dumps Google search technologyI think that yahoo was too late in bringing this change, must have done this atleast 12months back -could have arrested google's growth to a great extent and the proposed ipo could have become even more difficult for google. | Wednesday, February 18, 2004Keeping an eye on GoogleSome criticism about Google |Ram Charan's 10 Tools of Profitable Revenue Growth via BusinessweekRam Charan, the noted author provides a bullet point approach to acheive profitable revenue growth in his new book "Profitable growth is everyone's business" The book emphasises that to build a young outfit or put an older one's expansion on a solid footing, aim for small but consistent gains. Revenue growth and productivity improvement are not conflicting goals.| Google Achieves Search Milestone With Immediate Access To More Than 6 Billion ItemsGoogle's collection of 6 billion items comprises 4.28 billion web pages, 880 million images, 845 million Usenet messages, and a growing collection of book-related information pages. Google seems to have increased the websearch population by more than 100% in less than two years! |Tuesday, February 17, 2004Grid Computing's Promises And PerilsGrid computing when it matures may become as ubiquitious as the internet claims this article would grid computing make mainframe and supercomputers museum objects - unlikely is the conclusion. |IBM officials jailed for briberyFormer IBM officials sentenced to jail for bribery The court ruling is likely to affect IBM's operations here as Seoul's anti-trust watchdogs have warned of banning the firm from bidding for future government contracts according to regulations. IBM has dismissed the sentenced officials from service before. |Ram charan profiled Via FastcompanyMan of Mystery Man with an exceptional energy |The FAST50 2004 list Via FastcompanyThey are the doers and the dreamers, the truth tellers and the trendsetters This is an interesting list as FC calls these as ordinary people doing extraordinary things all selected by people. Follow along with the winners for a inspirational chronicle of creativity, struggle, and triumph. |A quick view of SOX compliance in AmericaVia eWEEK according to several large companies embroiled in the process, compliance isn't turning out to be quick or cheap By implementing SOX, business feels lot of the upside will be long-term, not an immediate payback. The long-term effect should be that we produce higher-quality business processes throughout the organization with higher-level awareness and controls. Businesshouses do not seem to be complaining for being forced to compy with this regulation.| We are morons: a quick look at the Win2k sourceVia Kuroshin An expert's view about the quality of the code used by Microsoft in the windows platform, part of these got leaked recently The article also has good things to say about the quality of code besides assuring Microsoft not to worry so much about the leak. |CIO -CFO thawed relationships via NewsA corporate cold war between chief information officers and chief financial officers is raging inside many organizations. Very timely article, when selectively the business spending sentiment is increasing. |Monday, February 16, 2004Pessimists Make More Money, Optimists Still Optimistic On Outlook Via UKTelegraphIt turns out that pessimists tend to make more money gambling or investing in the stock market (is there a difference?). It's just that the pessimists tend to limit their losses, while the optimists believe that they're about to turn things around | |
