Wednesday, August 30, 2006

highly recommended read(or listen?)

I highly recommend reading this article to anyone interested in effective public speaking. To be a leader, talk like one focuses on 5 main points which are really good.

w.r.t. presentations, I love the way Steve Jobs and his team make it - those are awesome - simple yet effective and impactful. A lot to learn from his speeches.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Looted!

Yes, I feel swindled!

I saw the price of the Macbook and its lesser than my Thinkpad. I was forced to buy this high-end Thinkpad when other Thinkpad's were cheaper. The T60 Thinkpad from IBM.

Moreover, IBM hasn't yet recalled its batteries. Wait till there is an explosion in the battery and when somebody sues them.

More than IBM, I am upset with the Heinz school's admission staff who forced me into this. I didn't want to buy this notebook and since I was going to put in 2k anyways, I always wanted to buy a Macbook.

Now, since I have put in 2100 bucks in this, I will have to keep this piece of junk with me for 3 years....what a shame!

Friday, August 25, 2006

Thank you - visitors

My metrics for the blog show me fan-club throughout the world and I am glad to see that.
I want to thank you all for the same.

Except for Africa and Antartica, everyone other continent has a representation. Check out the picture below for a visual picture of the visitors to this blog.


Once again, thank you everyone!

P2P copyright infringers: Beware

Check out this link to see the court ruling in Amsterdam for P2p filesharing. Interesting part is the last part of the article which makes it mandatory for the copyright owner to prove beyond reasonable doubt!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Big Blue on the move...

IBMs latest acquisition of Internet Security Systems Inc. has sent some signals in the market. Here's the news.

By far...largest in this domain, this acquisition shows how deep pockets can help bring consolidation. IBM is now hoping that being big will help ISS too. What if its assets become less useful due to the acquisition and the merger with IBM? What I mean is ...what if the employees leave due to dislike to the Big Blue's culture and loss of identity?

IBM is big and fat and many times, acquisitions do not unlock the value due to cultural differences in the companies. IBM will do the same set of activities to ISS as it did to Lotus Notes. Try to integrate its products with its own product range. Was that a success.... your guess is as good as mine.

IBM also bought MRO software and Filenet in recent past. Is IBM good at acquisitions?

Let us see what IBM buys next and what will the rivals do....any guesses ?

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

The future is Apple !

Apple - not as in the dominant position ...but as a multimedia firm. They are going to be this ubiquitous player.

Jobs learnt his share of lessons after he was fired from Apple as their CEO. He bailed them out when he returned almost after 12 years.

Primary goal for ppl to switch from PC to Apple based systems will be its differentiation factors to force ppl to bear the switching costs.

Apple will try to reduce the switching costs by:

Making hardware Intel-based !
If you can't beat'em then join'em. Apple realised that very well.
Check out this presentation in World Wide Developer Conference in which Jobs and Schiller emphasize on Intel processors.

Making OS switchable !
So, while you can keep your Windows with you for the games and other applications. All you have to do is buy their OS + hardware. Apple calls this initiative as Bootcamp.

While all this is going on, Bill leaves the boat (to step back?) and gives Ray Ozzie and Steve Balmer the charge.


Apple will woo the public by:

Multimedia applications

iPod user base is huge. Adoption of iPod has given a foot in the door to Apple in the low-end market segment. Also, it has tested the waters by knowing that ppl will pay a 100-200$ extra for owning their products but not very large gaps (as was case with Macintoshes before).

Main point is that the proprietary nature of iTunes makes it easier to be manipulatable on MacOSs since they will have those type of applications.

This is one of the reasons why Microsoft decided to launch its own portable multimedia product. They will not copy the concept of iPod. However, they will provide the same set of features which Apple will try to provide.

Essentially, Jobs has seen a new market in multimedia and he is making every effort to have the knife fall in his favor this time. That will ensure that any competitor will find it heavy to go against Apple in that segment at least.

Sleek product designs
This will continue to remain their forte.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Technology is a girl's best friend.. !

Reuters Technology EOB report surprised me with this article. At first, I didn't believe what I read in the abstract of the article and discounted it as being one of the headline-gimmicks.

However, on reading the article I find out that: Diamonds are no longer a girl's best friend. Girls gone Wired survey has some good news and some bad news !

Good news since buying a 2+carat rock for your honey wouldn't be essential anymore(if she belongs to this breed of ladies).

Bad news for those who have already bought it and their darlings are now asking for the techno-stuff.

btw, 46% women doing their own computer trouble-shooting - is that true or what ? I am not trying to be condescending here - but this was not what I practically saw - at least at my previous workplace. At my current place, I am doing my Masters in a tech-field and hence, those ladies cannot be considered as a representative set (since they are techies anyways).