Saturday, August 13, 2011

Dear Racist!

Dear racist,
Your car is Japanese. Your beer is German. Your wine is Spanish. Your democracy is Greek. Your coffee is Colombian. Your tea is Chinese. Your watch is Swiss. Your fashion is French. Your shirt is Indian. Your shoes are Thai. Your radio is Korean. Your vodka is Russian. And then you complain that your neighbour is an immigrant?

Sincerely,

lets just all live and let live

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Real Risk Manager

You can easily identify a real risk manager. She is cheerful and usually advises more risk. She looks for the danger in every success, and makes sure to mine the silver lining of every failure. She thinks people who predict are her enemies, they’re the ones who say, ‘Build the wall on the north side of town, that’s where we expect the attack.’ She says instead, ‘I don’t care what you expect, if you leave any gap in the walls, that’s where they’ll come. Risk management is about preparing for anything that might happen, not guessing what will happen.’ And she has no interest in preventing failure, which can only be done by eliminating risk. She is happiest when people fail fast, and when the organization is robust enough to survive many failures. These are the conditions that encourage the creativity and innovation required for evolutionary success, not just surviving each day.

Risk versus Portfolio Management by Aaron Brown

Monday, June 13, 2011

iMessage! Is it beginning of end of Mobile Phone networks?

iMessage = Text message service using world wide web instead of mobile phone network

Why do we need a separate voice network (whether landline or mobile phone network)?

What if we have a mobile phone device with 3G connectivity that has a voice/video communication application such as skype/windows live etc. and that’s it!

The way three mobile in UK has allowed unlimited skype-to-skype calls over mobile phone, if all other mobile phone operators also allow unlimited skype-to-skype calls and your land line phones/IP phones at office or at home also have a skype application, there will no more be need for a separate voice network.

The only exception may be if you are calling to a country where 3G is still not available to masses. In such a scenario translation from data to voice network would be required which is similar to making phone calls using skype credits.

Challenges:

1. 3G Bandwidth availability: However going forward, with 4G network availability this problem will solve on its own.

2. Opposition from BT/Vodafone/O2/Orange etc that have huge stakes in conventional technologies. They want it or not but day by day more and more people are bound to move towards IP networks for voice communications. On one side telecom companies may lose but they have a bigger opportunity on 3G/4G side. Moreover, it’s a bigger opportunity for Voice over IP product companies. Governments may lose money on licensing fees of 2G spectrum but at the same time will get money for 3G/4G spectrum.

3. What if I want to carry two or more mobile numbers, one for work another for home? No need to have two sim cards anymore. Have one mobile phone hardware that runs one app from vodafone another from orange and may be third from AT&T

Benefits:

1. As a customer no need to carry two or more mobile phones everywhere. Low cost voice calls.

2. No more confusing price plans, permutation combinations of minutes, texts and internet download limit. Only one product (in most of the cases) which is 3G/4G download limit in GBs.

3. For telecom manufactures a new opportunity. Instead of building multiple networks, have one unified network.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Quote of the day: 16 May 2011


Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. - Gertrude Stein

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Differences that count: Android vs IOS

 

Android:

  • Android available over multiple hardware platforms from multiple vendors: Benefit to customer – More options to chose from (price, screen size, weight etc)
  • Android doesn't expect you to provide Credit card number to download free content
  • Android supports direct download from internet whereas IOS restricts downloads only from Apple Store. Benefit to Customer: Why should you always buy music/Video/Books etc from Apple, there are other vendors in market who provide same stuff at cheaper rate
  • Android less dependent on a desktop software such as iTunes for updates (whether software or music/video/books): Benefit to customer – Tablet or phone is not an extension of Laptop which need to be connected over wire every now and then. Android devices are More MOBILE than IOS devices
  • Android supports Flash contents
  • GPS client in Android supports StreetView

IOS:

  • Huge Fan Following. Trust for excellent quality products. Steve Jobs factor
  • Market leaders and early entry in the product space
  • Ability to create niche market. Apple working hard to improve customer experience by encouraging new user interface for magazines, news papers, educational material (iTunesU), TV programs, ebooks. Benefit to customers: User friendly, interactive content, probably cheaper and global library of content
  • Apple can pitch-in commercial application of Tablets and Phones in Business environment (Universities, Bank Branches, Hospitals etc) more efficiently in comparison to multiple small players. Benefit to customers: Better and less bulky gadgets at work place

Monday, April 25, 2011

Quote of the day


What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes! - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Podcasts: The new media form with commercial prospects


With the increasing popularity of podcasts, advertisers are considering these as viable avenues to promote their products and brand. The prime benefit is better impact on audience as Ads are reaching to a target class and it leverages on audiences’ loyalty and trust to the podcast.

Following are some of the most downloaded podcasts in my list. Two of these have already started generating tangible revenues. Others such as Financial Times and The Economists podcasts may not be directly generating revenue (directly) however these are for sure helping to attract new customers and retaining the existing ones in case they want to take a short credit crunch break Winking smile 

Information Technology (IT)

  • Security Now (with Steve Gibson) – Weekly (Getting plenty of sponsership, from companies including Ford, Audible, Winamp, Cachefly etc.)

Language

  • Business English Pod – Weekly (Promotes paid content through the podcast)
  • 6 Minutes English (BBC world service) – Weekly

News (General):

  • Newspod (BBC world service) – Daily (weekdays)

Finance:

  • Wake up to Money! (BBC Radio 5) – Daily (weekdays)
  • Banking Weekly (Financial Times)
  • The Economist

Quote of the day:
You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do. - Olin Miller

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Rise of iTunes, Fall of HMV

It’s sad that HMV is financially struggling to survive. However, its difficult to digest why any music store require so many high street showrooms.

  • its not clothing business where people need to come and try
  • its not furniture business where real look and feel maters and online catalogues don't give you comfort
  • its not technology or automobile business where you need to showcase latest gadgets and models

In case of Music people don’t need an in-store trial or demo. They already know what they are buying, through TV or FM.

Instead of wasting money on high street stores what HMV should be doing is

  • invest on innovation for anti-piracy technologies (don’t place reliance on ISPs for anti-piracy, they will never risk their unlimited download revenues for your benefit) 
  • Make Content cheaper (Netflix, Lovefilm, Moser Baer, rajshri.com are great examples)
  • THINK ONLINE!
  • Very few people want MUSIC, same old way (in CD format), for them join with coffee shops, libraries, Airports, Art galleries, Museums and have CD stores in their premise and share the cost.

Anyways in UK, Council Libraries are struggling after austerity cuts. This is a great opportunity to join them and run CD store/Waterstone from the same premise, share the cost and give heavy discounts on HMV products. A win-win for both. 

Sunday, April 10, 2011

The NEXT iDesign for PCs and Laptops

Think of a laptop (or PC) similar to Nintendo DS design. On top you have a normal LED monitor (or may be 3D monitor) and at bottom instead of having a keyboard you have a touchscreen that can be used as a mouse pad, keyboard, handwriting recognition notebook, piano keyboard for apps similar to GarageBand and whatever else you can think of.

Benefits:

  • You are not restricted to just a noisy and heavy keyboard. change it as per your application. for example a hand written to-do list or letter to someone you love Winking smile, piano, drawing board, fingerprint reader for your next palmistry application, a document scanner and what not
  • Already there are desktops with touch screen monitors, however personally i prefer less touching on monitor (so that i don't need to sit close to monitor and affect my eyesight). My preference is more touching, and multi touching on keyboard and mouse pad.
  • So far we have seen just the beginning of touch applications. Touch apps have a long way to go from here and am sure touch keypads will increase the momentum

 

What’s  NEXT+1?

     Just a PC monitor with kinnect sort of  sensor. Sensor projects the hologram image of keypad on your desk. A projection on lap would be uneven and may be no laptop version for this design or a laptop that can be used only on even surfaces such as desk Smile

I recall i have seen images of projected keyboards somewhere on Google, hence for sure someone out there is working on this concept. My best wishes and hope to see these new designs soon in the market….before ipads takeover half the PC market share!    

Windows Live Writer

Great news for bloggers that Microsoft has now embedded blogging client into their new Windows Live Essential suite…..I hope it will be less pain than the web based blogging clients that blogspot and wordpress have and it will motivate people who left blogging and moved to tweeting to return.

Happy Blogging!