The Next PC Revolution Will Be Televised

It uses less power than a night-light and plugs into a TV. Best of all, as the first $100 computer, it's affordable enough to propel the rest of the world into the digital age.

By Om Malik, July 20, 2005 About two miles inland from Chennai's long white-sand beaches -- part of a stretch of Indian coastline hammered by last year's tsunami -- the downtown sidewalks buzz with life during the morning rush. Vendors flog coconut water and newspapers while rope-thin men in ankle-length lungis jostle for space with office workers in polo shirts and slacks. Three floors up in one of the city's numerous office towers, past a row of cubicles and half a dozen programmers, 38-year-old Rajesh Jain points to a table that holds, he'll tell you repeatedly, personal computing's next big thin

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OMmalik : VSNL, a new voice giant awakens.

Growing up in India, I would often hear about VSNL, the god forsaken government owned phone company that made it almost impossible to call overseas, thanks to their over-the-top charges for long distance calls. It seemed they wanted to penalize people for making long distance calls. But that was almost a whole lifetime ago. Now VSNL is no longer a government owned company. Instead it is the center piece of Indian conglomerate, Tata’s telecom play. For less than half-a-billion dollars they have put together a global network that is third biggest voice carrier - right behind AT&T and MCI. (Telegeography puts the combined company at #5, so I need to clarify this point!)

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Google's Magic Bus

A few lucky people actually look forward to the daily commute. Just ask one of about 300 Google employees who regularly go to and from the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., on the company's free Wi-Fi-equipped shuttles.
NO ROAMING PENALTIES Google (GOOG) project manager Cari Spivack conceived of the Bay Area-wide busing program. "People have moved up to San Francisco because they know they can take the shuttle to work," she says.
TIME SAVER The biodiesel-fueled shuttle and its carpool-lane privileges can cut a 90-minute commute in half.
STAY CONNECTED Web access comes via a high-speed cellular data network and an 802.11g wireless router. "Riders tell me they're experiencing a boost in productivity," Spivack says. And, presumably, a lot less road rage.

Here

What I wish I knew when I was 20

Here

The Truth About IIPM's Tall Claims

IIPM - One of the Top 10 B-Schools in India”
“Ranked #4 in Industry Interface (Ahead of 3 IIMs)”
“Ranked #7 in International Linkages (Ahead of 2 IIMs)”
“Ranked #8 in Extra-curricular activities (Ahead of 6 IIMs)”
- as advertised by IIPM in Times of India, dt May 16, 2005

This “data” is from the Outlook-C fore rankings 2003. IIPM Delhi was ranked 17th in the overall list of the Top 50 B-schools. No other branch of IIPM made it to this list. But that’s not the only thing surprising about it.

A brief visit to the webpage of the list on www.indiabschools.com (a website run by C fore, the research agency which put together the list for Outlook) will give you this information - “IIPM has been removed from ranking as we received serious complaints about the veracity of information given by them.”

So how can IIPM continue using these rankings, AFTER they’ve been removed from them? We asked Premchand Palety, CEO, C Fore and this is what he said, “Most of their (IIPM’s) advertisements are false and overstate facts. The action has to be taken by some regulatory body related to false advertisements.”

HERE
http://www.jammag.com/careers/articles/mbacorner/iipm/index.htm

PHP Usage growth

Globalization led to outsourcing: PM

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said outsourcing was a logical outcome of the process of globalization and urged US companies to work together with India to ensure that this process moved forward.

“I sincerely believe that outsourcing is a logical outcome of the process of globalization. And that we have to work together to ensure that this process moves forward and not backwards,” Singh said at a press conference in the US.

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Fueling Asia's Future: India, China race to create ties with oil-rich nations

"The likely emergence of China and India as new major global players ... will transform the geopolitical landscape," said the report titled Mapping the Global Future. "In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the 'American Century,' the early 21st century may be seen as the time when some in the developing world, led by India and China, come into their own."

The report also said that energy demand through 2020, especially by India and China, "will have substantial impacts on geopolitical relations."

Bush also feted Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House in clear recognition of that country's growing significance.

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Lunar Surfing !!

Amazing,

http://moon.google.com/

Press F5 to increase size.

Together at last

America adds substance to its professions of friendship for India

America’s professions of friendship have of late started to ring rather hollow. It has remained committed to its strong alliance with India’s nuclear-powered neighbour and rival, Pakistan. It has refused to endorse India’s chief foreign-policy goal, a permanent seat on an expanded United Nations Security Council. It opposes India’s cherished project to pipe gas from Iran across Pakistan. And it has withheld co-operation in military and nuclear technology because India tested nuclear weapons in 1998 and has never signed up to the international non-proliferation regime.

Of these four areas of contention, Mr Singh’s visit marked a breakthrough only on the last. But this one matters so much that it has transformed the relationship. America has agreed to help India acquire “the same benefits and advantages” as other states with nuclear weapons. India is to be granted “full civil nuclear energy co-operation”—such as fuel supplies and the transfer of technology.

This is hugely important for India. One of the biggest constraints on the continuing success of its fast-growing economy is an electricity shortage. Nuclear energy, which at present accounts for only about 3% of total generation, is, in many eyes, an attractive alternative to coal and expensive imported oil and gas.

World Growth : 2005

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Korea : The Road to $20,000 GDP/capita [IT 839 Strategy]

The 839 Implementation Plan
		8 Services - WiBro Service - DMB Service - Home Network Service - Telematics Service - RFID based Service - W-CDMA Service - Terrestrial Digital TV - Internet Telephony (VoIP)
		3 Infrastructures - Broadband Convergence Network (BcN) - Ubiquitous Sensor Network (USN) - Next-Generation Internet Protocol (IPv6)
		9 New Growth Engines - Next-Generation Mobile Communications - Digital TV - Home Network - IT SoC - Next-Generation PC - Embedded SW - Digital Contents - Telematics - Intelligent Service Robot

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Microsoft Plans JV with Tata

Microsoft sets up outsourcing venture with Tata Consultancy Services and Chinese government.July 1, 2005
Microsoft and Indian outsourcing company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced Friday that they have been selected by the Chinese government to partner in a new joint venture aimed at outsourcing IT functions and software development.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer signed a letter of intent in Beijing, along with Chinese officials, Tata executives, and executives from Chinese firms also partnering in the venture. The JV will be located in Beijing’s Zhongguancun Software Park and is expected to begin operating in early 2006.

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Investors Rate India vs. China

Survey of multinational companies predicts more India investments likely, but companies prefer China for foreign direct investment.July 18, 2005

Almost 70 percent of the multinational companies (MNCs) participating in the first CII-A. T. Kearney MNC Survey 2005 said there is a high likelihood they would make additional medium and long-term investments in India.

The investment outlook in the medium term does not appear to be dictated by the current investment performance in India. Most companies indicated a medium to high likelihood of investment, regardless of performance.

In any case, three out of four MNCs state their performance in India has met or exceeded internal targets and expectations. Tailoring products and prices to suit Indian tastes, appointing local leadership, and indigenization are key factors for success in India, in their experience.

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Survey of multinational companies predicts more India investments likely, but companies prefer China for foreign direct investment.July 18, 2005

Almost 70 percent of the multinational companies (MNCs) participating in the first CII-A. T. Kearney MNC Survey 2005 said there is a high likelihood they would make additional medium and long-term investments in India.

The investment outlook in the medium term does not appear to be dictated by the current investment performance in India. Most companies indicated a medium to high likelihood of investment, regardless of performance.

In any case, three out of four MNCs state their performance in India has met or exceeded internal targets and expectations. Tailoring products and prices to suit Indian tastes, appointing local leadership, and indigenization are key factors for success in India, in their experience.

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Global Skill Report - 2005

Country wise, and state wise report from BrainBench

http://www.brainbench.com/globalskills2005/Brainbench_GlobalSkillsReport2005.pdf

Contribution by Minister Chin Dae-je

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As widely known, India is a country possessing the world¡¯s top professional manpower in the software sector. For instance, India ranked 3rd in the world in the possession of IT professional engineers. About 2,000 educational institutions in India also produce 100,000 experts every year. Moreover, the country uses English as its official language. Owing to these merits, India has become the main country for the outsourcing of IT-related global enterprises with their headquarters based in the United States and Europe.

Now, India¡¯s dilemma is how to boost its value added software industry. In keeping with the advent of the ubiquitous era, major software enterprises in India are interested in the trend of pursuing close links between hardware technology and software technology. On the other hand, Korea is in shortage of software-related professional manpower to back up its IT manufacturing industry. The shortage of manpower in the nation¡¯s software development sector numbered about 18,000 in 2003. In case of the embedded software and its close relations with the IT839 strategy, insufficient manpower numbered some 14,000. Accordingly, the Korea-India cooperation is regarded as a meeting of the former, armed with the world¡¯s top-level IT manufacturing basis, and the latter, called the software power. The two countries agreed to cooperate in eight projects. India and Korea have agreed to cooperate in eight projects. Under the pact, Korean companies are able to use India¡¯s superior software technology and manpower easily and foster excellent SW manpower through education at top-class IT educational institutions in India. Korea possesses the world¡¯s top-level super-speed infrastructure, experience in building e-government and many advantages in hardware sectors, including mobile communication and IT manufacturing. With this experience, Korea has decided to cooperate with India in the construction of e-government and super-speed communication networks, as well as the mobile communication service sector. The Korea-India cooperation is expected to maximize synergy effects by developing the two countries¡¯ pros and cons into a mutually beneficial relationship

56.2% of software developers use open source components

Evans Data has found a rising trend toward including open source modules in software development world. While 38.1% said they used OSS modules in their applications in Spring of 2001, in the most recent survey, 56.2% said they had.

"The Myth of Open-Source"

JBoss founder Marc Fleury explains how his hot startup makes profits from its free application-server software

Q: Why is it a myth that a startup will get developers to hone the product for free?
A: Think for a second, who works for free? I think it gets perpetrated because it's such a nice myth -- you would get love and peace, the old hippie dream you know? And it's mostly true, but across all of software, not just open-source, you have a pyramid of productivity. It's an art still -- a black art of creating great software.

At top of the pyramid, you have these top 2% of developers that are 10 times -- in some cases 100 times -- more productive than the rest. It's true in proprietary developments like Microsoft and true of open-source too. The value is the QA [quality-assurance testing to make sure the software works and finding and fixing bugs]. They cover more ground than we could ever test.

Putting aside the QA, there are 20 people who write the kernel, and guess what? These guys are all professionals. If you get free, you want a lot of it. If you give free, you're going to give until you're tired of giving, and that's exactly what happens in the open-source community.

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Home Is Where The Work Is ...

Home Is Where The Work Is
Software writers with solid skills are finding plenty of jobs stateside

Remember two years ago when the sky was falling for software programmers? Not only had the tech downturn thinned their ranks, but Indian upstarts were putting tens of thousands of low-salary coders to work on projects that once would have been done by Americans. Forrester Research Inc. (FORR ) predicted more than 3 million U.S. service jobs -- including programming -- would move offshore by 2015. It seemed like the "giant sucking sound" Ross Perot predicted in 1993 was coming to pass for software writers.

Not so fast. The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics contain a pleasant surprise: The ranks of "computer and mathematical occupations," which include many programmers, actually rose in the second quarter by a robust 7.5%, to 3.2 million, compared with the previous year. While software companies themselves boosted jobs by a modest 3.3%, employment at establishments providing custom programming services increased by 5.6%. By contrast, tech manufacturing jobs were up just a tad and telecoms are still cutting staff.

Why the shift? A couple of reasons. High-end programmers' skills are in demand as corporations and tech companies adopt a slew of new technologies from wireless computing to Web services -- pieces of software that fit together like Lego blocks. That makes it easier to add new features and to integrate one program with another. A second factor: While Indian service firms and their Western rivals are hiring lots of programmers overseas, they're also recruiting people with design skills and business knowledge close to their clients in the U.S. and Europe. "You always need programmers on site or nearby," says analyst Gregory Smith of Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER ).

The hot strategy for tech services companies these days is delivering services from around the world. This goes for giants like Accenture and IBM (IBM ) as well as the Indian upstarts. They staff software projects with a combination of U.S.-based programmers who make design decisions along with others in Asia, Eastern Europe, or even the U.S. who can produce high-quality programming at a low price. India's Tata Consultancy Services, for instance, has 10 software centers in the U.S., plus eight others outside India.

Software likely won't be a jobs growth engine in the future. Still, so long as U.S. companies continue to innovate and schools produce grads with top-flight skills, many American programmers will find jobs at home.

India haunted by corruption, money: President

''This nation is haunted by corruption, of power and money. Now, the time has come when only the youth can change the system,'' the President said, and dictated a oath to the students that they would strive to create a corruption-free India.

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Versata transferring lab from Bangalore, India, to Halifax

Brett Adam, Versatas' chief technology officer, said Thursday it is increasingly difficult to retain staff in Bangalore - the nucleus of India's thriving high-tech outsourcing industry. "We're an innovation company, we need sustaining relationships with our technologists," Adam said at a news conference announcing the move.

He said it was challenging to keep Indian workers on staff for more than nine months due to the number of rich job opportunities available to them.

Adam said the "post-bubble" environment of the technology sector in the United States, Australia and Canada is more stable than in some other countries.

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Disruptions : Opportunity India

Rajesh Jain Writes,

The three key building blocks for my thinking about the future are broadband, mobility and emerging markets. Broadband will enable on-demand, net-native services. Mobility will empower users with computers in their pockets. Much of this future will begin and spread faster in emerging markets because they have very little legacy.

We have one of the world’s largest populations. We now have in The Times of India the world’s largest selling English-language broadsheet newspaper. And amongst all the enterprise that Indians have been known for, it will be good to also build one of the world’s largest corporations in the next decade. Ambitious, yes. Earlier, it would have taken decades to build the next-generation conglomerates. But now, disruptions provide an opportunity to compress time. Google has become the largest media company (by market capitalisation) in about 6 years. We in India should set ourselves the goal of doing so in even less. Let us embrace Aggregate and Brainstorm Coming Disruptions, leveraging Entrepreneurship to Focus on building the next Googles. Hear me, India?

'China, India are growth elephants'

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Bill Gates said: 'So are you in the US or in Bangalore?' Almost every floor had piles of Indians."

The Rising: India’s tenth largest economy, and growing

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It’s official: India has arrived on the global scene. We now live in the world’s 10th largest economy in terms of absolute gross domestic product (GDP) size. According to the latest World Bank report, India jumped two places to number 10 in ‘04 (from number 12 in ‘03) in GDP terms. India notched up a GDP of $692bn, is growing at over 6% annually and can be expected to move further up the rankings.

India comes in just three notches below China and could rise further if the economy continues its 6%-plus growth every year. Economies in the developed world, such as the Euro zone and Japan, have recorded growth rates of less than 2%. GDP is the sum of value added by all resident producers.

India has also been growing fast on account of high consumption demand, which is a very important component in measuring the size and growth of an economy. Over the last six years, India has seen massive increases in job opportunities, which have resulted in greater amounts of disposable income in the economy.

Top outsourcing destinations: India, Philippines, Central America

Weissman Center for International Banking at Baruch College and The Paaras Group surveyed the outsourcing field among the North American and European companies in regards to their outsourcing destinations. Since many companies have multiple outsourcing locations, the results do not add up to 100%.

Where American and European companies outsource
Country IT ContactCentre BPO
India 91% 80% 90%
Philippines 17% 20%
Central/
South America 13% 40% 10%
China 9% 10%
Singapore 9%
Ireland 5% 5% 25%
Spain 4% 20%
Malaysia 4% 20% 10%
Eastern Europe 4%
Australia 4% 20%

Source: Weissman Center for International Banking at
Baruch College and The Paaras Group

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VCs hanker for hunk of China, India

Many venture capital firms in the U.S. expect to expand their investments in China and India over the next five years, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The United States will remain the country that captures the most domestic venture capital dollars in the next five years, according to the survey by Deloitte & Touche and the National Venture Capital Association. However, China and India are high areas of interest. Venture capitalists view those regions as ripe for investment, given the high level of IT knowledge there.



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Number of software developers in China and India to grow at 25.6% and 24.5% a yea

According to IDC, China and India will experience the highest growth in professional software developers between 2003 and 2008 with compound annual growth rates (CAGR) of 25.6% and 24.5% respectively. The Asia/Pacific region will surpass North America in the overall number of professional developers beginning in 2006 while the Middle East and Africa will experience the highest regional growth with an 18.3% CAGR between 2003 and 2008. North America continues to lead all other regions of the world in the highest penetration of professional developers by a wide margin. IDC forecasts that the total number of professional developers worldwide will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.8% between 2003 and 2008, reaching 14.9 million in 2008. This forecast is based on worldwide population statistics, changes in literacy, and growth in IT spending.

Does location Matter...Bangalore or US?

Rafe writes.

One of the big selling points of Internet telephone services, such as Vonage, is that customers can pick any area code they want. Running a small financial consulting company out of Montana and want it to look a bit more cosmopolitan? Get a tony 617 (Boston) area code. (Unfortunately, Vonage seems to be fresh out of the primo Manhattan 212 area code--but, then, even some people who live there can't get those anymore.)

Or say you're running a small tech business in Bangalore but want customers to think you're operating out of Silicon Valley. You can get a nice 408 area code to go with your hip Web address. Take your VoIP (Voice over IP) router to your office in India, and not only will you save a fortune in overseas calls, your customers won't ever know you're 8,800 miles away.

Bill Gates: In 2014, magic software, free hardware

through Tech-Update

SAN DIEGO--During an interview at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2004, Bill Gates was asked to give his vision of computing in the year 2014. He cited the "magic of software" and the continuation of Moore's Law as the key components that would bring about new technology advances in the coming decade.

Within 10 years, said Gates, hardware could be considered as almost free, with powerful server and desktop systems, high bandwidth networks and wireless technology bringing anytime, anywhere connections.

also,

"If I had been born in India, maybe the one location would be in India or maybe it would be in China," Gates said. "It could be done there. Now, you wouldn't be closest to the world's biggest, most demanding market, but you could overcome that. You'd have to have a liaison group in to see those customers a lot. It turns out we are in the world's biggest, most demanding market, and I think that's some help to us. But the key point is, are you going to fragment it across a lot of different locations? Some companies in the technology industry do things across multiple locations, and we seen the inner lab fights and the lack of common architecture between labs. We have one common architecture, everybody working towards one way of doing modeling, one set of Web services protocols. That uniformity allows us to make the advances as fast as we can."

On the other hand, Microsoft maintains research and development facilities in the United Kingdom, China, India and other countries.

What's wrong with offshoring R&D to US?

David Watkins writes here
IBM's announcement to grow the high-level technology skills of its U.S. employees, versus further advancing the workforce housed in distant countries, was a valiant step for the economy, but it was also a very strategic step for the company itself. Yet, it seems to me that IBM appears to be in a small minority. Most surveys and reports indicate that the majority of software companies, both large and small, are planning to send some amount of R&D offshore, if they are not doing so already.

Back to the big picture, offshoring R&D has a direct impact on both local and national economies by taking jobs away from a plethora of native IT talent. Additional harm to the broad U.S. workforce also impacts businesses, and therefore the number of companies that have the money to purchase enterprise software. I encourage any vendor hoping to stay the course to scrutinize the "why2offshore" hype, as it brings both industry and macroeconomic ramifications that we may live to regret. Let's hope that reports of a decline in R&D emphasis aren't true, and that we aren't shipping out the future of U.S. technology strength.

China inches up on India for outsourcing

John Cestar thought he had found a big opportunity four years ago, when he opened a business in China and hired local programmers to write software for Western companies
But the initial response was less than enthusiastic, said the Harvard Business School graduate whose company, Freeborders, is in China's southern city of Shenzhen. Western companies seeking to outsource work were focused on India at that time, he said.

"The rest of the world was very skeptical," Cestar said. "India was very successful, and people were satisfied that India was perfect, and there was no need to go anywhere else."
But as the number of U.S. companies with operations in India increased, so did India's wages, personnel turnover and delivery problems, prompting clients to seek alternatives.
China, the Philippines, Russia, Poland, and Israel now are seen as growing alternatives for outsourcing.

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28% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck

ACNielsen says 28% of Americans have no spare cash and are living paycheck to paycheck.


While more Americans appear to be investing than last fall, the U.S. still ranks near the bottom of all countries surveyed in terms of setting money aside for the future. When totaling the percentage of respondents who said they use spare cash for savings, stock or mutual funds, and/or a retirement fund, the U.S. ranked 33rd out of the 38 countries surveyed.

If you are living paycheck to paycheck, and unable to set money aside, financial planners suggest that you take certain steps:
1. Track your spending on a weekly basis. Try to account for every dollar spent, whether it's going towards paying big bills or buying a $4 latte in the morning.
Create a budget. Figure the amount you spend on various bills and necessities, and put the rest in savings.
2. Pay your bills on time. Set a date every month when you take care of all of your bills in full. Don't pay your bills with credit cards, which just build new debt, on which you may have to pay high interest.
3. Stick to a meal plan. Wasting money by excessively eating out can drain your financial resources. Homemade meals cost much less, so try to shoot for only one meal out per paycheck.
Hold a sale. Everyone has excess possessions he or she doesn't really need, so consider having a garage sale or putting unwanted items up for online auction.

WLAN market to reach $5 bln by 2006

The wireless LAN market is expanding year after year along with the rapid spread of broadband infrastructure, Research and Market says. Recent advances in technology have made commercial deployments of wireless networks possible, opening up a potentially huge business opportunity. The WLAN market is set to grow at an annual rate of 30% per year to nearly $5 bln by 2006. WLAN equipment sales have jumped 60% from this time last year to the present. WLANs for the home and small offices are projected to grow 103% and WLAN sales to the enterprise will grow at 32%.

redherring: Indian Startup Funding Falls

Venture capitalists invested 44 percent less cash in companies founded by Indian entrepreneurs in the U.S. during the second quarter.

Meanwhile, investment in startups in India by U.S. VCs rose to $395 million in the quarter, from $300 million in the year-ago period, according to a separate report from TSJ Media (see VC Investment in India Rises).