Just thought that I coined two new words but they already existed. The reputation of these two words would depend upon how Google & Apple perform in the time to come.
Googlevangelism - refers to evangelism of all the Google products. Some googlevanglists fight for the reason that google products are much better than it peers. I tend to disagree on G1 - T-mobile, Google's Android based phone.
Applevangelism - refers to evagelism of all the Apple products. Apple has created a cult following its brand and its products. They are not only the best in the industry but also give you a satisfaction of owning. Although I only own I-pod, you can gues which category i belong to.
No wonder these two companies are number 1 & 2 on Innovation index across all the industries.
House has always been the most cherished assets of any individual in all the times. There are two significant type of assets that a person owns in his life. The first being theassets which makes him earn his livelihood. Historically for a farmer, it was the land and currently for a skilled professional, it is the skillset. This is the biggest investment of his life. He invests time, money and effort. Second, comes the House. The house in which he wants to spend the rest of his life peacefully with his family. He works hards, saves money and tries to get the house as soon as possible. The question is how soon is soon ????
Going back to the historical trends in US. There was a time, when automotive engineers were in great demand around 40's-60's. The average income for these engineers was much more than their peers in other industries. This resulted in letting them own the house earlier than their peers. As the industry matured, the average kept pushing higher and higher. Now its same as the average age in any other industry. The same thing happened for software professionals in early 90's but it has now gone to the same levels as the other industries. As a matter of fact, it is now lower than other industries becuase offshoring started in 90's.
If you look at the trends, you will find out that an average software professional in India can own a stable and reasonable house a the age of 30-35 in India. The average age of owning a house for a professional in this industry is much lesser than average age for other industries. What is the reason for the anomaly? Ofcourse, the anomaly comes from the $$ money that they earn at onsite in US for 3-4 years of their life. Is it going to continue??
With improving technology, there will be lesser and lesser component of onsite roles. With coutries like Brazil and Vietnam coming up as outsourcing centers, India's role in outsourcing industry will go down. The Indian software industry will become mature and growth rate would go down too. Inturn, this will result in the increase in average age to own a house among indian software engineers in India. Few years down the line, it will be no better than professional in any other industry.
Average people who own the house very early in life are the ones who made the right choice about the industry. The other average people who surpass them in making up more and better assets are the ones who invest in the long term.
The trend shows that if you get into a industry which is growing and is still in the nascent phase, the growth in the industry is phenomenal and leaves so much money with you as savings that you can afford to have bigger assets early in life. The problem is not only this advantage goes away very soon but is also followed by lull in the industry because of intense competition in the market. Therefore, Make hay while sun shines.
The other way to buck the trend is to keep investing in the other big asset you have. Your skillset. The key is the agility in terms of aquiring new skills and moving up the ladder. This is the long term investment. It might sound like loosing a golden goose at a point in time, but it is a failsafe approach. It never hurts.
Which cloud are we Talking about ? Is it Cloud Computing ?? Is it another buzzword like dotcom. Why should you and I care about computing .......
Well yes !! We are talking about the cloud computing. Follow the news on technology and you'll see all the companies joining the bandwagon. Why ??
To give it a perspective, lets start with looking at what happened in past. When electricity started becoming popular in early 20th century, every nook and corner produced its own electricity. Very soon, Industry started realising the power of economy of scale and national electricity grids came into picture. Everything converged to a single point. Now Electricity generation is like using Cloud computing today. No more silo sources.
On the contrary, Another big revolution that affected our lives to a great extent in 20th century, was transportation. Initial ships and rails were followed by cars and airplanes. Even though personal mode of transportation became more popular in US, the public transport became hit in European countries. With an analogous viewpoint, the Trains & Airplanes became the cloud of transportation whereas Cars and Motorbikes became individual computers & servers. Today, we see a wonderful hybrid model in transportation across the globe. Though, each mode of transport is always a competitor for the other mode of transport but they also are in co-opetition.
In telecommunication, mobile phones were revolutionary. Their invention was not only a competitor to the existing landlines but also a major threat for making landline phone extinct. It took long time to realise that the society needs both of them and they are complementary to each other. Internet, which has changed the official and personal communication to a great extent in past two decades, is a major threat for other communication channels. So far, it has been very friendly and always augmenting the services of the other communication channels but we never know when it turns hostile.
Similar to technologies discusses above, Cloud Computing definitely looks very promising but the concerns still loom for the effectiveness and usage of the cloud computing resources. More than cloud resources, it is bandwidth and connectivity issues which need to be addressed before getting ready for the cloud. It like building the highways and airports before getting ready to drive the cars and planes.
On one hand where Microsoft has been consistent on maintaining its supremacy over desktop platform, Google is heavily betting on web platform. Google's latest release, Chrome, the fastest and most secure web browser is the foundation stone for ensuring success on the web platform and future web services. Its open source code will not only make it better but also lead to making the most popular web browser. The increase widespread usage and popularity of web2.0 service is another good indication for the cloud computing landscape.
The cloud computing initiative which is being run by industry heavyweights like Google,Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, HP and IBM has caught some attention by big consumers like GE and P&G, the big consumer of IT. The cloud initiative will change the landscape of current IT consulting industry. It is one of the biggest threats for the companies like Accenture, CSC and EDS. Their concerns are to adapt their current business model to the new evolving model with IT resources moving on to the cloud.
Cloud will not only take away all the infrastructure redundancy but also lead to much more reliable and safer IT resources for the company. With hybrid model, cloud will take care of the peak time capabilities and also reduce the Total Cost of Ownership(TCO) of IT for the companies. The device and location independence of IT resources signifying the global nature of economy and usage will also help in resource utilization, more eco-friendly and efficient IT systems. What it won't take away or rather increase - would be the concerns of loosing control over company's sensitive data and security concerns.
So is this silver lining at the cost of Golden lock on sensitive data ???
I've been thinking about this for quite sometime ...Are customers from different cultures actually different ??? Does it matter for the companies ?? Can companies use this information to make more profit ??
If you look at buying patterns of customers in different regions and different cultures, they are very different when its actual buying of the product and not just adoring them. I've not done much research on buyers from other cultures but have been observing Indian buyers and their buying patterns in technology for quite some time.
There is very common myth that Indian buyers are choosy about the prices. In order to break the myth, Lets start with saying that - "Indian buyers are choosy about the bargains." These buyers don't go for the cheapest products but for the products with best return on investment.
Ipod, when launched in October'2001, became immediately successful in among american customers but it took two years for Ipod to prove its mettle among Indian customers. As soon as Indian customers found it to be robust, value for money and something to be relied on, they started buying it too. It was not only the shuffle Ipod which became most popular among Indians but also the higher end video Ipods too.
Have you ever thought, why it took Ipod two years to catch up whereas it took 20 years for the Mac book to catch up among Indian customers. The reason is simple, the product wasn't mature enough to attract them. Mac book sold among European and American customers even when the softwares were not available for Mac OSX. The product was evolving too rapidly to make it attractive to Indians. They adored it but didn't buy. It was when Apple announced Intel processor for mac books, the era of Mac book's perception of being a stable product started. Indians don't care for the price tag anymore. What they care for is, the quality they are getting at the same price tag.
Toyota, Honda and Nissan are the darlings of Indian Community in United States. Its very difficult to find an Indian owning an American Car (read as GM, Ford, Chrysler). This is not only the current trend but also has stayed the same for past twenty years when the gas prices were cheaper. The American cars don't attract Indians because they don't fit their criteria for a product worth buying. They want reliable, fuel efficient and long lasting automobile of high quality. An Indian would never buy GM or Jeep but would prefer buying Acura or Lexus for more money.
The biggest shopping destination of Indians in United States are the factory outlets. They prefer the best products at cheaper price to buying cheap products. . It would be rare event to see even a rich Indian buying at Nordstrom, best service and highly priced shopping store chain. They will buy the same brand at a cheaper price in Factory Outlets. This not only lets them own the best product but also pay far lesser prices.
There are numerous such instances in personal and corporate buying by Indians. The point here is that can companies take a clue from these buying patterns in judging their products. I'm sure there would a peculiar buying pattern among Chinese customers too. Companies can do the profiling of their customers. Using the profile of their current customers, they can use that information not only in making their products better but also for the efficient pricing of their products.
Today, no company should underestimate the purchasing power of upcoming Indian and Chinese middle class. They are going to be the ones, who will drive the markets in the years to come.
I would love to know more about insights about the customers from different culture. Will update you all when anything new comes to my grey cells. Till then ...keep ticking ....
Hi Guys, Here is the interesting read about the myterious man...Ram Charan... If you dont know him.....you should read this ..... If you do......you gotta read this one. ...
I'm back with all my explorations for past couple of days....... I see lot of web2.0 companies coming up. Though they are not very big, but are redefining the web media.
SNAPSHOTS http://www.snap.com/ - It gives the snapshot of the webpage connected to the hyperlink without clicking on that link. The good thing is that just by moving the mouse over the link, you can see the snapshot of the link. Its very helpful and free service to get your website or blog registered on it.
VISUALCV http://www.visualcv.com - Perfect site to make your resume. Very professional and extremely useful to make your resume look much more informative than traditional resume.
DELVER http://www.delver.com - very useful search engine for searching people on all social networks at a go.
ALLTOP http://www.alltop.com - good site for collection of best sites on a particular topic.
CRITICAT http://www.criticat.com/ - rate your workplace, your manager and anybody in the workplace.
Will keep writing as I explore something new.......
Does open source matter ?? does it matter to you and me or is it just for the geeks and evangelists....
Open source term originated from the mouth of geeks when some people like you and I started saying that the programming code should be open. Unlike other brick and mortar industries, software was unique in itself. You could sell software but the keep the source code to yourself. Whereas in other industries, the moment you sell a product you inadvertently sell the source too. Anybody can dismantle the product and know the source or technology. That's how the term, 'Open Source' came into limelight.
When Henry Ford made the car for the first time, he thought he would be the only one selling all the cars ever in future. He didn't realise that with the car, he was also selling the source code. Very soon, people learnt the technology and started making better cars and in many colors. Similarly in other industries, companies sell the source code without realising it. Another classic example is Coca-Cola. They knew right from the beginning, the composition of the soda water that they sold was crucial to their business. They never divulged the details of their secret formula to make coke. They did realise that sooner or later anybody can produce the same drink with same taste as the drink is a tangible product. They built a huge wall of being the world's most famous brand which was difficult to emulate.
When software industry evolved, people thought that they would be better off keeping the source code to themselves and sell the product. With the intangible nature of the product, it made sense too. Few years down the line, some people were quick to figure out that if they made the source code open, it not only led to the betterment of the product very quickly but also made it more robust and secure as more eyes could catch more bugs. With the statistics from Coverty, a software defect analysis company, the average defect in open source software is much lower than proprietary software. This way, open source made the difference to the software industry.
If we analyse other industries in the world, most of them have open source hidden in them in some form or the other. Either they are industries based on open source or very soon they would be. Now the question is how the companies have managed to keep it proprietary. What is good for everyone - proprietary or open source. Let analyse some of the industries.
Education is considered as the most noble business. Educationalinstitutes are coveted the most. Even though the top institutions have produced so many intellectuals over centuries, education still remains one of the most protected proprietary products. The source code is not open. MIT was the first institution to make its courseware open for all. I don't see any reason why Harvard Business School should have a closed courseware. Why can't everyone benefit from what intellectuals teach at Harvard. Why HBS has to sell its case studies when it has millions of dollars in its corpus fund. Is the premier institute afraid that they would lose the competitive advantage by opening up their system. If it is so, how is it different from Microsoft.
Encylopedia may be or may be not aka Wikipedia, is another classic example of David - open source challenging closed source - Golaith. In early 1990's, Microsoft and other companies came up with a concept of selling encyclopedia in 6 cd's of voluminous data. To many, it appeared to be the most profitable idea until it was all of sudden made look silly by Wikipedia, an open source initiative. The success of wikipedia heralded a new era of open source content. The same company has also started its sister websites named Wikibooks, Wikiversity and many more. Many professors in top universities have already started putting up their classes in the form of webcasts, podcasts, wiki and e-books. Are we turning to open source in education.
Automobile Industry, one of the most popular old economy businesses, has always kept their source code open. Not because they wanted it, but because they had the limitation that they could not keep it closed. With the recent research in the hybrid and greener vehicles, Toyota spearheaded the concept of being open source evangelist in the research for greener technology for automobiles. On the other hand, Honda is betting on closed source approach by keeping their research proprietary. Only the time will tell, which approach is more beneficial for the company and the consumers.
Media industry is not too far from being affected by open source revolution. Hollywood studios which were so adept in protecting the media rights and making billions of dollars are having tough time dealing with emerging technologies. These technologies of peer-to-peer sharing, video sharing and online streaming have made it almost impossible to protect their media copyrights. The only way to fight out this threat for them is to go open source. Take out all the copyright protection elements and make it free over the net. They will have to think of newer sources of revenues other than traditional sources of revenues. Youtube is already changing the traditional way of internet surfing. Porn media houses have been shattered with video sharing websites sprawling all over the place. It has changed the way business was done.
Retail sector is the only one that is farthest from the impact from open source. The only open source thing that touches the retail sector is ebay. It started with a great idea of providing online marketplace for the people selling and buying all over the place. It not only granted the buyers the power of buying at their quoted prices but also gave them the power to rate the sellers. It stills is far away from being open source concept.
My mind fails to see the open source future trend in retail. If anyone can see that trend, please let me know. This is the beauty of open source in blog that you can contribute to my ideas and enhance it for the next reader.
There are many more industries where open source is not very clearly visible. It, definitely, is one of the forces which is changing the economies and business.
It is changing the world, you and I see !!
I'll continue writing about open source and how does it matter .....
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