Rapid Graffiti

I’ve been watching a couple of sci-fi movies.   ”Back to the future” being one of them.  The other series that i’m watching is called “The Triangle” and it focuses on the famous Bermuda Triangle.  “Back to the future” series pictures adventures of a prof who builts a car that has a time machine, and along with the prof is his friend/colleague called Matty. 

“Back to the Future” somehow looks appropriate to what is happening to computing in general. 

IBM introduced the first transistorized mainframe somewhere in mid 50s.  It introduced System/360 on April 7, 1964.  That was a move away from mainframes to “family” of computers.  1950s, ’60s and even ’70s belonged to centralized computing.  You had to connect to the server in order to process data, and get things done.

Microsoft launched windows in 1980s, and the changes got noticed.  The power started getting distributed in what was claimed as the era of distributed computing.  Workstations were getting more powerful, and each pc had power enough to get its own work done, and store it for future reference, without the help of central computer.  The operating system started getting more and more powerful.  Applications were developed keeping in mind the personal computer.  Hence, things were moving away from centralized computing.

But it seems we’re taking a U-turn (Atleast some of us are…)  Thin computing seems to be the key word.  Rajesh Jain mentioned about thing computing on his blog.  Thin computing can save tons of dollars in infrastructure cost.  It can also be a boon to developing nations like India. (heard about Simputer? )  On the application side, the ASP model seems to be picking up.  Salesforece.com is a successful story.  Oracle, SAP, Ariba, and a lot of other major software companies have on-demand solutions model co-existing with license based model.  Isn’t all this,in a way, a U-turn to centralized or server based computing?

Sometimes I wonder that if someone demands royalty for the usage of the phrase “moving up the value chain”, how much dollars would she earn? Google gives me 83,900 results for the phrase, yahoo around 40,000 and live.com gives around 12,000 results. In my 18 months stay at B-school, I myself would have used this phrase a thousand times, mostly in the context of Indian IT/ITES companies.

Are IT companies [actually] moving up the value chain?

One of the ways to look at the present scenario is to analyze the area of consulting and system integration (CSI). This would primarily mean providing consulting, customization, deployment and integration of enterprise solutions.

This space differs substantially from Application Outsourcing space:

1. There is implied dependency on the product company, i.e. SAP, Oracle, etc.

2. Surviving on the basis of any one product/package is extremely tough, and hence there’s ever-building pressure on ramping up and expanding the service bouquet

As per Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for North American ERP Service Providers (basically dividing the whole world into four boxes), the leaders in this space are IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, CSC, Capgemini, etc.

Indian firms lie in the challenger segment. This means they are ramping up their ability to execute, but have limited vision about the industry.

Satyam was the first Indian company to venture in this space. It used to do lower end work for other service providers like IBM, etc. TCS, Wipro, Infosys are some of the other companies in the challenger quadrant. CTS was a very late entrant in this space, but has been growing fast.

What are the issues?

1. Clients perceive that offshore (Indian) companies lack the required functional knowledge and expertise

2. Onsite account and project management practice needs to be substantially improved

3. Offshore players should increase their bench strength; clients feel that low bench strength adds to staffing inconsistencies and delay in delivery

How are some of them improving?

1. Infosys invested a lot of resources in 2004, which helped it to expand its bouquet of services, improve on work force, and hence get better client ratings

2. TCS, Infy, HCL, etc. are leveraging their position in application services to form strong relationships with SAP, Oracle and others.

3. Indian players have realized that a lot of practices and methodologies are well defined by product companies, and hence they need to focus on innovation to get better work.

What they should be doing additionally? (pure gyaan)

1. Try to improve the consulting department. Infy is already attracting a lot of experienced players working with top consult companies so as to tap their network for penetration in bigger companies for better work.

2. Focus of innovation through better R&D spend; improve functional knowledge either through CoEs or acquisitions.

We need to understand that the gap between an established ESP (as in IBM, Accenture) and a pure-play offshoring ESP (as in Infy, TCS) is fast bridging in terms of cost, and offshore delivery model. Hence pure-play offshoring

ESPs should in turn try and bridge the gap through extended functional knowledge, wider rage of offerings in the bouquet and through developing integration competencies.

The inherent problem with established ESPs is that face a type of bureaucracy that doesn’t enable them to service small accounts in an efficient and healthy manner. These small ac counts receive very little attention from senior folks, and hence end up choosing offshore players, or smaller ESPs. Offshore players should further exploit this opportunity to bag complete contracts rather than just aim the low-end part a fortune 500 company deal.

Google acquired YouTube for USD 1.65 billion.  YouTube is a popular video sharing site where users upload video and share them with friends and groups.  

Google already has a video service of its own.  So why did Google acquire YouTube? To improve its share in the video sharing market? Well…

Alexa, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, ranked YouTube as 10th most popular site on the internet.   YouTube had 34 million unique visitors in August 2006 according to Nielsen NetRatings.  Users create and upload their videos and invite friends to watch and share contents.  Sounds familiar? It actually is.

Let’s juxtapose Social Networking and YouTube:

• Content in social networking sites is created by the user, so is the case in YouTube.
• Users invite their friends on their social network; same is the case with YouTube.
• Popular revenue model for social networking sites is advertisements, and so is the case with YouTube (That was the case with YouTube till August 2006, later on it discontinued Google’s Adsense)

So why did Google acquire YouTube? Probably to improve its market share in social networking. 

Orkut is the SN site of Google, but orkut has users largely from Brazil (around 63.28%).  In order to succeed financially, a site needs large number of users from US, because they spend more than their Brazilian counterparts, and the opportunity (called the digital media universe) to advertise online for US users is 10 times that of Brazilian users (207,995,583 as compared to 20,957,659).  YouTube has a large number of US users.  There’s a possibility that orkut and YouTube are merged to create a huge SN site. 

Confused? Basically orkut is the SN site.  YouTube does the same thing.  Users create contents, and invite other users to view and share contents.  The only difference YouTube does this through videos, but at the base there are users.  If YouTube is merged with orkut, the user base would increase manifold.  YouTube users will continue to share videos but will have additional information like the profile, their album, etc.  For orkut users, life would remain the same and they would have an option of sharing videos. 

Why not facebook?

If Google wanted to increase share in SN, it would have as well acquired facebook, the number 2 SN site.  This has to do something with the revenue model.  Google acquired YouTube primarily because of the video sharing feature.  Video sharing can be a stepping stone for video and music distribution, which can be a source of revenue.  YouTube has already cut deals with Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and CBS for revenue sharing earned by these media groups’ contents. 
After all, even myspace is going for music distribution for revenues.  Hence, by selecting YouTube, Google is addressing the issue of SN market share and revenues. 

What happens now?

YouTube continues to function independently for some time.  When the time is right, Google might merge YouTube with orkut (the way it merged writely with spreadsheets) to create a big, very big social networking site. 

Yahoo and MSN are already feeling the pressure to make a dent in the SN space.  Yahoo might acquire facebook for something like $1 billion.  It currently has its own video sharing site.  MSN has launched soapbox, its own video sharing site.  It is also working on Wallop, the social networking site, which is flash based and has an exciting interface.

It would be interesting to watch the social networking space in the near future. 

Wat say?

Here’s a mail i got from P

1. you may not be visiting ads, but find statistics and you’ll find
that more novice the user, more is the possibility of clicking so you
are actually not a correct representation of average user.

2. need to consider possibility of usage of this data in future – i
know you cant spend heavy bucks on this but somehow i always see this
as a rich information resource that will serve as a great repository
for future marketing gimmicks. I know anyone can attack me on this
point – its not logical – its going by gut feelin..

Here my reply, n more gyaan on SN…

1. I guess ur view point about novices visitng the links might be correct. 

2. Yahoo and MSN are already using this data.  When u visit their sites, i.e yahoo 360, the SN site of yahoo, and MSN space, the cookie is stored in your comp, and the data is subsequently used by these sites for obvious reasons.  google mite try the same with orkut.  i wud not be surprised to find orkut being re-directed to orkut.google.com, and hence establishing a common cookie for the visitors.  y! already does this. 

3, these sites are increasingly used by HR ppl for due diligence. 

4. wat i’m wondering is that is SN a fad, or is it gonna be an integral part of our virtual existence, just like the instant messaging systems.

5. i also see a lot of possibilites of integration.  u have just one window to open, it includes ur mail, ur SN site, ur blog, ur online applications like spreadsheets, groups, etc. etc.  this cud be one way to makin the users stick to u, and make urself indespensable…

6. myspace is selling music to make money.  y wud i buy music from myspace?

7. ad reveunes from myspace is gonna be more than 900 million dollars in the next 4-5 yrs.

Term 4 ended yesterday.  I’m done with all the submissions, papers, presentations and report.  Would be leaving for Bombay tonight, and then to Ahmedabad on 30th  September.  As I write this, the other sites open on my system include gmail and orkut.  Btw, orkut is a social networking site, a part of google.

Social networking (SN) sites are on the watch list.  News Corp. acquired Myspace, the most popular social networking site.  Facebook is another popular networking place.  Orkut is way behind.  Sometimes I wonder what would be the business model of these sites?  Are ad revenues enough to sustain?

Myspace signed a deal with google where the latter would sell myspace’s ad space.  The deal is worth around $800 mn.  But is it worth spending for ads in a social networking site?  There are millions of users spending lots of hours on myspace and orkut.  85% of college students are registered on facebook.  People visit there to socialize, and find old friends.  A typical SN site collects a lot of data about the user, and hence would know about her tastes and preference.  You can segment the users on the parameters of your choice.  You can place dynamic ads that change with the target.  You can also track user’s activities and find out more about her.  So, logic says that it is worth spending on ads on these SN sites. 

But I have my own doubts.  Why would I click on ads? I mean why?  I’ve used google search for a million times but have clicked on an ad just once.  I probably do not even look at the ad.  Why would I?  Moreover, 61.38% users on orkut fall in the age group of 18-25.  Facebook is targeted at university students, and myspace wants to position itself as a hang out place for youth.  What’s the purchasing power of these users?  My take is students and Uni students would not click on an ad or a banner unless it is free or highly innovative stuff.

So what’s the future of SN sites? Well, some old sites like friendster, etc. have started focusing on working youth with reasonable disposable income.  Some have started focusing on niche areas.  The latest is dogster which focuses on user’s pet.  Not that this would ensure their sustainability, but they’re surely trying something new.  For the regular SN sites, their fate might be same as instant messengers; only the early movers and the biggies would survive.  Yahoo, MSN, icq, are surviving, I don’t see indiatimes messenger or rediff bol anywhere. 

Watever happens, m still gonna spend my daily hour finding friends on orkut.

Testing Windows writer.

For the ignorant, windows has launched the beta version of writer.  It is an application that saves the pain of going to the website for posting new stuff.

Let’s see how the first post looks like…

I’ve been tagged by Swapnil… So it goes like….

I am thinking
what shud i write here…

I said
too boring

I want
the list is too big to fit here…

I wish
each day be totally different… filled with newer challenges and better ideas… faster pace and more excitement

I miss
high school, my college, friends, ahmedabad, my first job, pune

I hear
people talking… and some indian music

I wonder
what makes some people hardworking n others lazy…

I regret
being too studious in high school…

I am
lazy… too lazy..

I dance
like no one is watching

I sing
in shower, while surfing, when happy, when sad…

I cry
rarely

I am not
a hacker/cracker… many of my friends think i m…

I write
less, very less… laziness rules…

I confuse
complacency with satisfaction

I need
loads of inspiration, kicks on my ass… and a faster processor

I should
start using my time in a better manner

I finish
in a hurry… almost always…

My turn to tag… it has to be Rajesh and Deepa

I went to a tech company in NOIDA today.  A typical “$100 million” revenue company, with coffee table work culture and “we are the next winners” attitude.  Not at all a bad company to start your career.  If you are determined and enthusiast about the profile you get there, you can certainly make a huge difference to the company and to your own career.  The industry recognition you get would be immensely helpful for the next jump.  The confidence that oozes out of you when you have a fast track career is something most of us would personally enjoy, and that is something I’m looking for. 

There’s this perpetual argument, whether to work for a big company or a small company.  Working for a small company can mean having a significant share of responsibilities right from the beginning.  Your opinions are given serious considerations.  You mostly work in small teams, and hence have a genuine chance to highlight your work and efforts.  You know you team better.  New initiatives require less number of reviews, which means fewer delays.  You get an opportunity to interact with the senior managements a little too often.  The policies are devised to nurture the creative spirits, and hence flexibility is more.  Most important is the learning and the exposure part.  A two year break at a mid-size company would certainly give you much more exposure, and hence more learning, then a two year break at a big company. 

Some disadvantages of working for a small/medium scale company include less recognition outside your industry.  There might seem to be a perpetual resource crunch, no matter how much the topline improves.  After a certain time span, you might reach a saturation point in career with regards to the company.  You suddenly find that you are doing the same kind of job with the same kind of people.  Nothing has changed since the last review except your pay packet.  This might be suffocating.  Although you love the job, you decide to leave it because career advancement is just not visible in the near future. 

In a big company, apart from the above points, you get a chance to meet a lot of achievers (and a chance to get inspired for a few people, like me, who are always looking for inspiration).  I believe that to a certain extent, the attitude towards work is shaped by the people we are working with.  A big company does not have all achievers, but has enough number of people to get you going. 

The career in a big company remains slow track for most of us.  High fliers from big companies are very less.  Most of the movers and the shakers of the industry would attribute a reasonable part of their success to the small company they’ve worked for. 

More gyaan on this coming soon.  Let me know if you’ve got something to say.