bill gates

Everybody was discussing soccer games and it was surprising for me to find out that ppl were not discussing about the sultan of software industry stepping down ! I was wondering what the hell is wrong with CMU MISM students ? Aren't they supposed to be technology ppl ? CNN
Gates gifted a 20 million $ centre to CMU after all !

Critics have been harsh on him throughout his industry leadership(aka domination) reign. Competitors made weird comments to gain psychological domination and playing politics with vast majority of fools believing in them.

He is the guy who said: We can't rest for a second.

Awesome !
True capitalist...knows the reality - if you don't improve the products - somebody else will.
Once he grasped that... he utilized it to his utmost advantage !

Gates and Buffet have been leaders in their own arenas and have known what they are doing. Time and time again they have proven their mettle. What makes ppl more jealous of Gates than Buffet is the fact that he achieved it too soon in his life vis-a-vis Buffet who achieved it at a later stage in life. Gates generation could not believe that some nerd can be so successful.

Triumph of the nerds is a nice movie to watch out the history of Silicon Valley (from early days of Microsoft to 1996 when a new version of Windows was launched).

To an extent what the Indian services companies are achieving are something similar to what Microsoft did...come out with an array of services (MS did products) and sell them to ppl to make their lives easier. Infosys has been documented to be one of those companies which are like Walmart - a disruptive innovator by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen ! Its framework for distributed project management, the ability to deploy multi-location, multi-time-zone teams to execute projects efficiently and at low cost.

Well, there are harsh critics for Infosys too. But then there are afficianodos of Infy ...ppl like ME ! Simply marvelous operations - noone could believe it would've happened. With a vision NRN had appealed for more IT grads and with limited success he could get more schools to have IT as a major !

Says Murthy, Infy's chief Mentor: We have to transform our people so that from reactive problem solvers, they become proactive problem definers. We want our people to go to a CEO and say: I have looked at your organisation. Things seem to be all right today, but you will run into this problem two years from now. Infosys can provide you a solution today."

Moving up the ladder has not only improved Infy's margins but it has also helped the company integrate more with its customers needs.

It's exactly the right strategy for Infosys to follow. It does have to move up the ladder, says Christensen.

For Infosys to become a global giant it will need to overcome at least three hurdles posed by its innovation strategy: Sustenance from sustaining innovations, limited to the low-end, and the trap of too little, too late.

Letsee what Gates has to say about Infy !

I would say - yes, Microsoft got fat and lazy - they adopted the easier path of using monopoly !
But after a while in business, Gates realised that prollie that was the way to go. Gates' exit leaves a lot of questions - was it an exit at the top (since he has a vision of MS going downhill) ? or was it for those true philanthropic needs !

I hope he cuts out all the inefficiencies in the non-profit space and gets an industry domination there too.

I hate to see ppl despising innovators or ppl despising individuals/organizations who want to cut down inefficiencies in the system and in the journey make money.

For them, money was never the goal - as Paul Fajerski (entrepreneurism prof) said - they were always in it for
- they wanted to see if they can do it
- they wanted that when they speak, others listen !

On this note, I shall get back to my assignments and projects.
I hate to see you go Bill - but may be that's what is right - for you - for everybody and noone would have a better vision of that than anyone else :)