Professor Sadagopan's Blog on IT and Education from an Indian Perspective

TCS headcount may touch 100,000 by Setember end

2007-07-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

With its headcount at 95,000 and expected addition of 6,000 in this quarter (July to September), TCS will create yet another record of crossing 100,000 mark.

It will be an important day and TCS is likely to be the first to cross $ 5 billion mark also by mid 2008

HCL launches PC with one terabyte capacity

2007-07-21T09:53:00.000-07:00

On July 16, 2007 HCL (India's oldest and local No 1 brand PC manufacturer) launched its PC with one terabyte storage (Hitachi Disk) at an entry level price of Rs 35,000. It is indeed interesting. Terabyte was a capacity that many organizations did not have. About 3,4 years back LIC (the largest Insurance company in India) talked of India's first terabyte data warehouse. To get such a capacity on the desktop is indeed remarkable, more so at a price of Rs 35,000! I still remember ordering "proudly" a 80MB hard disk for Rs 50,000 in 1993!

IT.in 2006

2006-11-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

The ninth edition of IT.in (originally IT.com) got over on October 31, 2006.

The Palace Grounds exhibition area had air-conditioned stalls with high quality exhibits. The Palace has an unmatched elegance

There were excellent conferences (HR, Indian Semiconductor Association and SME Forum); there was an excellent CEO Forum and a Panel moderated by none other than Mr HS Balram, Editor, Times of India.

There was WiMax at work (with a tower in place); WiFi access was provided for people to access Net.

Yet the buzz was missing! There were hardly any large-scale visitors!

It is time Government of Karnataka gets serious, find an organization that plans throughout the year and runs it professionally

Else IT.in will soon be IT.out!

Bharti joins Rs Trillion club

2006-10-29T07:58:00.000-08:00

Bharti (telecom service provider with Airtel brand) joined the elite club of companies with Rupees Trillion market capitalization. For years only the public sector ONGC had this credit. Another public sector giant NTPC (power utility) joined the club sometime back. The first private sector to join the club is Reliance which recently moved past NTPC and ONGC. IT major Infosys joined the club two months back; another IT major TCS joined the club within days of Infosys getting to that stare. This week Bharti joined this elite club.

Today we have two public sector companies and four private sector companies in this club. IT (software and telecom) accounts for 50%!

Infosys does India proud again

2006-04-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

Infosys is 25 years old. They took 23 years to cross the first Billion Dollars of annual business. Infosys is the first listed Indian company with this distinction (TCS crossed its Billion Dollars but it was NOT listed in 2003). I did write a piece in Financial Express (April 16, 2004) that Infosys created history on April 13, 2004 with their crossing $ 1 Billion. Today on April 14, 2006 they have created history again.

Interestingly, Microsoft crossed its first Billion Dollars in its 15th year (Infosys did in 23rd year). Interestingly Microsoft took another 2 years to cross $ 2 Billion; Infosys did the same! Considering that $1 = Rs 44 or so and Infosys has bulk of the employees in India, this is indeed commendable performance!

Professor Sadagopan’s Weblog › Dashboard — WordPress

2006-04-01T09:50:00.000-08:00

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Ibahealth starts Indian operations
April 1st, 2006
Ibahealth, Australia’s largest healthcare IT Company started its India operations on March 30, 2006 in Bangalore. With its recent acquisition of the innovative healthcare solution company Medicom, ibahealth starts with 150+ staff on Day 1.

I view the next wave of growth for IT services in India through “domains” – automotive, telecom, banking & financial services, tourism, hospitality, industrial automation … AND healthcare. Naturally, I am excited with ibahealth setting up shop in India.

Healthcare is one industry whose health is always “pink”; when everyone is sick, healthcare will be growing; and when everyone is fit, it just becomes fitness industry!

India is accepted in the world for its IT prowess; Indian doctors are generally well-received around the world. It is time we combine IT and healthcare to kick-start the next growth engine.

I am familiar with Medicom, thanks to their innovative solution powering such hospitals such as Satya Sai Hospital in Bangalore; in a quick look at ibahealth web-site, I found healthcare-specific workflow. I always felt workflow would fly, only if it is aligned to a specific application segment. Healthcare being an inherently people-centric service – doctors, nurses, para-medical staff, drug delivery and diagnostic experts – workflow in healthcare would be a big hit; it will help us to build a patient-centric hospital as opposed to equipment-centric hospitals we built in the yester-years.

Operating in India, ibahealth should move beyond “best practice” to “next practice” - a term coined by Professor CK Prahalad of University of Michigan – with whom IIIT-B has special association. India is one country that can bring about 10-fold cost reduction – not 10% - as experiments like Jaipur Foot and Arvind Eye-care have proved. As Devi Shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya would put it “healthcare if not affordable is not available”. We need to engage in models of dramatic cost reduction, if we are to take healthcare to ALL Indians.

Finally, as Mahatma Gandhi would often remark, providing healthcare would be satisfying – the satisfaction that we bring to a patient, often silently expressed as a thankful glance from the eye of a cured patient, not even well-articulated – is worth far more than millions of dollars!
I wish ibahealth (and “Medicom Inside”) the very best in the years to come

(Keynote Address given on March 30, 2006 at Bangalore at ibahealth India launch)

Indian IT services companies continue to shine

2005-10-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

Indian IT services companies continue to excel
October 16th, 2005
It is heartening to note that InfoSys and TCS crossed $ 1 Billion mark in their first two quarters of 2005 (April Sep as per Indian financial year).
TCS created another history by crossing the 50,000 mark
Wipro’s results would be announced soon, along with that of Satyam.
iGate, MPhasis and Mastek results are great too.

MIT Media Lab unveils the details of $ 100 Laptop; OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) will ship it in year 2007

2005-10-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

It was interesting to see Professor Nicholoas Negroponte, Director of Media Lab, MIT announcing the launch of OLPC and showing off the first designs of $ 100 PC that he talked about in World Economic Forum last year. Economist talked about this development yesterday; there is a lot of heightened expectations.

It is promising, but one has to keep one's fingers crossed about the many assumptions; they plan to sell directly millions of pieces- one million is the minimum- to Ministries of Education in China, Brazil, Thailand and Egypt; they plan to use low-cost $ 35 dual LDC display; there is no storage and there is a definitive need for connectivity and content.

Will Governments be able to buy in millions directly without a "tendering process"? Will the display stand the heat & dust as well as usage by high school kids? Will not the cost of communications and other useful content + software take away the charm of "low cost"?

With $ 20-40 mobile phones a reality today, will it not be worthwhile for the Governments to subsidize the last mile communications cost (with communications being far more useful to the child's entire family than computing that is targeted primarily for the children)? Can large-scale project take off without extensive field trials?

These are issues I am sure the learned professors at MIT must have addressed; the only doubt is whether professors at MIT can really "feel" the "reality" in third world countries.

Only time will tell if the project succeeds in the field.

Paramount Airways takes off A unique business model from an innovative thinker

2005-09-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

Last week Paramount Airways took its wings from Coimbatore.
What is striking is its focus on secondary cities, move away from low cost, and offer “business-class only” seats at affordable fares.
It is likely to be a big hit according to me.
The quality of life in many of the secondary cities like Mysore, Coimbatore, Indore, Ranchi or Pune is much better than metros; but senior executives and scions of business families cling to metros for better air connectivity. With telecom improving dramatically, education institutions moving to hinterland, and availability of good quality hospitals in secondary cities, it is only time that the growth will move to secondary cities. With people with larger disposable income moving to secondary cities, entertainment and retail will move too; that would start the real growth in non-metros in India.
Hopefully, the municipal functions will improve; so are law and order, infrastructure like power; if that indeed happens India will be a better place to live.
I am also happy that the airlines chose Embraer Aircraft from Brazil; aircraft that suit travel between “secondary cities to metros” (too short for Airbus and Boeing, too long for ATR), far more comfortable and economic. If only the Government had not stifled the public sector with their archaic processes and the never-ending CVC, CAG and Parliamentary Committees (that are used by successive governments to settle the score among them, with the public servants being used as ping pong balls), HAL & NAL would have built such aircraft in 90’s that would have added another growth engine (in addition to IT and BT) to the Indian economy in this decade. Embraer also shows that niche companies from “not so advanced” countries can compete with the gorillas (Boeing & Airbus) too!
The knowledge industry (IT, Biotech, R & D, Design and Pharma) should be the first to grow into such secondary towns.
I hope people will also remember the fact that the CEO of Paramount Thiagarajan is an innovative thinker; under his able guidance “Bank of Madura” had pioneered many innovations; way back in 1995 the bank had “outsourced” IT to HCL / HP. They were the first to introduce “any where banking”. They re-engineered the Bank premises to be customer-centric than bank employee centric. I wrote a case study on “IT in Bank of Madura” way back in 1995. Ultimately Bank of Madura merged with ICICI Bank.
I am sure the same person will introduce many more innovations in airlines too.
What this country needs is such innovations in every walk of life – Arvind in eye care, Devi Shetty in Cardiac suregery, Mashelkar in CSIR… That alone will do justice to India’s Talent

Listening to the Nob

2005-09-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

Listening to the Nobel Laureate Douglas Osheroff
September 30th, 2005
Bangaloreans are fortunate to get a chance to listen to Professor Osheroff of Stanford University (Physics Nobel Prize winner, 1996) at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan on September 27, 2005. The learned professor talked on “Nature of discovery in Physics”.
Professor Osheroff obtained his Nobel prize for deep studies on super fluidity of helium isotope helium 3 at temperatures very close to absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius). Interestingly, the Nobel-cited work was done as part of his PhD research at Cornell University (he shared the prize with his supervisor David Lee)
What was particularly interesting about the talk was the humility of the researcher, who gave credit to a whole range of people (many of them were Novel prize winners too). He talked of the influence of the legendary Physics teacher Feynman during his Caltech days (he did his Undergraduate studies at Caltech).
He talked of a strategy that lays emphasis on using the best instrument and instrumentation (not have complete blind faith in the instrument though), explore unexplored areas, look at failure as invitation for some deep insight and be sensitive to unexplained behavior and not dismissing it easily.
He also talked of the need to invest in basic research without looking for immediate economic and social benefits (that will come any way over a period of time). He illustrated his ideas with many Nobel prize winning works; he also illustrated an actual case (NMR), where even the very inventors could not predict the long-term impact of some award winning works. There was a personal touch including his family portrait and his meeting with his fiancé and the later marriage (his wife was accompanying him also). He talked of the “great days” of Bell Laboratories where he continued his research during 1972-1987.
It was interesting to note the positive influence Venki Narayanamurti (currently Dean of Science at Harvard University) and other Indian scientists had on him; Venki Narayanamurti had graduated from Cornell University; he was instrumental in Professor Osheroff’s moving into Bell Laboratories.
Professor Osheroff also answered many questions from students including the need of working for many hours productively during PhD days and course-work and its relevance to graduate studies; he mentioned candidly his unhappiness about diverting of funds away from basic research by NASA but was equally realistic to admit that he was NOT the President of the country!
He did lament the lack of emphasis on experimental work in India.
In all it was an enjoyable evening.
Embedded Systems has a great future in India
September 23rd, 2005
Embedded Systems bridges several divide’s; hardware-software divide; EE CS departmental divide; divide between fun and rigor in learning; divide between theory and practice, industry and academia and in the Indian context, even the divide between Lakshmi (the Goddess of wealth) and Saraswati (the Goddess of learning); one can do hardware and still make money (it is no longer true that only Indian software companies are successful)
With IC design capability, EDA software skills, testing, simulation, verification, and libraries taking the concept all the way to “tape out”, the design eco-system is in place; we need to get the Fab ecosystem in place; under Fab-City, initiative, SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association) in India has made a presentation to the Union Finance Minister and we expect that also to be in place over the next two years.
The demand side is in place; BEL, ECIL for Defense Electronics, BPL for Telecom, Videocon (after Thompson Picture Tubes plant acquisition, Videocon is the world’s No 3 TV tube manufacturer) for consumer electronics, VXL for thin clients (No 3 globally, as per Gartner) are examples of Indian corporations; Motorola, Philips, Siemens, GE, Nokia, Samsung, Elcoteq, Flextronics are present and increasing their stake in India; that should take care of demand; of course the global demand is there too
On the market side, with 2 million mobile consumers a month, mobile market is growing; TV, DVD, MP3, music, ring tones are growing everyday (Indians download million a day of paid ring tones @ Rs 6 (minimum)); with Narayana Hrudayalaya and others creating Healthcare Destination for the world (5,000 beds for heart surgery and shooting for 10% of global heart surgeries at Narayana Hrudayalaya alone), healthcare industry and imaging equipment is bound to grow; GE Wipro are working on a global product (Ultra sound, Laptop form factor, $ 1,000 price point device that would make ultra sound as common place as stethoscope for EVERY doctor). So there is a huge market
Academia, Industry and Government are coming together; I see a great potential for embedded systems in India; let us hope that before the next Freescale Tech Forum in 2006 there will be products whose ideas are generated by the people sitting right in this room (700+ professionals). That alone will make me happy to attend Freescale Tech Forum 2006!
(Valedictory Address at Freescale Tech Forum, Bangalore (Sep 21-22, 2005) at 530pm Leela Hotel on Sep 22, 2005)
Partner and Deliver
September 21st, 2005
If Indian rural masses are to be served there is no option but to partner – between IT companies (Intel, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, SAP, TCS, Wipro, NIIT..) and with firms across the industries (HLL, ITC, ACC, L & T, Banks, ILFS..); it is also time that we start delivering beyond “prototypes and pilots”
It is also important to understand India and Indians; the market research info we have on India is quite sketchy; for example, we do NOT know where the million PCs sold in 2Q05 have gone in India; Indians buy “best & cheap” (in that order); they are willing to pay (if the million paid (@Rs 6) downloads of ring tones per day is any indicator), but not for obsolete things (Intel 286 or MS DOS)
(Keynote address given at Intel ISV Forum, Bangalore, September 21, 2005)
Teachers’ Day
September 5th, 2005
Fifth of September is celebrated as Teachers’ Day in India. It is a tribute to one of the celebrated teachers of modern India, former President Dr S Radhakrishnan who was a rare blend of a philosopher, writer, statesman and of course a great teacher.
India has a tradition of giving a special status to teacher. The word “guru” is itself is so exalted; the place of a teacher is sometimes even ahead of God – “Guru Brahma” and “Guru Vishnu”. The teacher is only next only to mother & father (“mathru devo bhava”, “pithru devo bhava”, “acharya devo bhava”). Guru Poornima is celebrated across the country.
Even today many of the “economically poor” village school teachers are still respected; that is the bedrock of the Nation. Let us re-dedicate ourselves to preserve and nurture this tradition. After all, the seeds of Knowledge Society are thrown by the Teachers.
It is interesting to find another “teacher par excellence” as our President in Dr Kalam. Inspiration from people like him is the only ray of hope for an otherwise dark educational scene in India today.
Hurricane Caterina causes enormous loss in the United States
September 4th, 2005
In the worst natural disaster in the history of USA, there was a “wreck” created by hurricane Caterina last week; it is felt that the city of New Orleans in Louisiana State is damaged irreparably.
Yes, Science and Technology are advanced, yet before the Nature’s fury, human being is so tiny.
A rich country too has its own problems when it comes to meeting calamities of this kind. All countries rich and poor, big and small, friends or foes of USA must come together to express their solidarity at this grave moment.
USA has been helping every country in moments of crises; other countries should reciprocate the same gesture towards USA.
Loss of billions of dollars of physical infrastructure will be made up; but human suffering is irreparable; sympathy and prayer are the only things that can touch humans.
Let us join our fellow citizens (sisters and brothers of America, in the words of Swami Vivekananda) emotionally.
ABN Amro Bank signs $ 400 Million deal with Indian IT vendors InfoSys and TCS and offers additional business to InfoSys, Patni & TCS
September 3rd, 2005
One of the large outsourcing contracts was finalized on Sep 1, 2005.
ABN Amro, Netherlands-based banking major, announced its decision to outsource the entire IT Infrastructure management to IBM (estimated $ 1.8 Billion), Application Support to InfoSys and TCS ($ 260 Million to TCS and $ 140 Million to InfoSys) and retained Accenture, IBM, InfoSys, Patni & TCS for Application Development.
This is the largest-ever outsourcing contract for Indian IT vendors. It is also the largest contract for both TCS and InfoSys. In addition, it is likely to generate another $ 100 – 400 Million Application Development work to InfoSys, Patni & TCS.
It is a sign of maturity and global acceptance of Indian IT vendors’ capability to deliver. Coming at a time when GM and ING Vysya are likely to finalize outsourcing contracts around $ 2 Billion, one hopes that those deals should also have sizeable portion for Indian firms.
It is just a question of time when InfoSys, TCS and Wipro would join the league of IBM and EDS and bag billion-dollar contracts.

Vivekanand Institute Mumbai wins 2005 IEEE Student Branch Web Site Award
August 31st, 2005
Vivekand Institute in Mumbai (http://www.ieee-vesit.org/) wins the First Prize for IEEE student branch web site.
It is a proud moment for India. I am particularly happy that the less-endowed Institution like Vivekananda Institute managed to win the prize. It only shows that access to resources is not a limitation for excellence.
The site has excellent, but aesthetically done graphics, complies to W3C standards, WAP-enabled, and, has versions in multiple languages; they even help blind with a special version of the site!
It should serve as a clarion call to the established Institutions that they can not “relax”; and, a reminder to the small, upcoming and less endowed Institutions, that they too can compete and win, if they have the grit!
The award winners are as follows
First Place VESIT Bombay, IndiaSecond Place Auburn University Auburn, AlabamaThird Place University of British Columbia British Columbia, Canada
Runner Up Places
Instituto Tecnologico de Veracruz, MexicoRyerson University, CanadaMiddle East Technical University, TurkeyKatholieke University Leuven, BelgiumUniversity of Michigan-DearbornPolitehnica University of Bucharest, RomaniaUniversidad Nacional de Ingenieria Lima, PeruNew York Institute of Technology, ManhattanCalifornia Polytechnic University, San Luis ObispoUniversity of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, IllinoisUniversiti Tecknologi MalaysiaUniversity of Missouri-Kansas CityThadomal Shahani Engineering College, India

Embedded Systems has a great future in India

2005-09-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

Embedded Systems bridges several divide’s; hardware-software divide; EE CS departmental divide; divide between fun and rigor in learning; divide between theory and practice, industry and academia and in the Indian context, even the divide between Lakshmi (the Goddess of wealth) and Saraswati (the Goddess of learning); one can do hardware and still make money (it is no longer true that only Indian software companies are successful)
With IC design capability, EDA software skills, testing, simulation, verification, and libraries taking the concept all the way to “tape out”, the design eco-system is in place; we need to get the Fab ecosystem in place; under Fab-City, initiative, SIA (Semiconductor Industry Association) in India has made a presentation to the Union Finance Minister and we expect that also to be in place over the next two years.

The demand side is in place; BEL, ECIL for Defense Electronics, BPL for Telecom, Videocon (after Thompson Picture Tubes plant acquisition, Videocon is the world’s No 3 TV tube manufacturer) for consumer electronics, VXL for thin clients (No 3 globally, as per Gartner) are examples of Indian corporations; Motorola, Philips, Siemens, GE, Nokia, Samsung, Elcoteq, Flextronics are present and increasing their stake in India; that should take care of demand; of course the global demand is there too

On the market side, with 2 million mobile consumers a month, mobile market is growing; TV, DVD, MP3, music, ring tones are growing everyday (Indians download million a day of paid ring tones @ Rs 6 (minimum)); with Narayana Hrudayalaya and others creating Healthcare Destination for the world (5,000 beds for heart surgery and shooting for 10% of global heart surgeries at Narayana Hrudayalaya alone), healthcare industry and imaging equipment is bound to grow; GE Wipro are working on a global product (Ultra sound, Laptop form factor, $ 1,000 price point device that would make ultra sound as common place as stethoscope for EVERY doctor). So there is a huge market

Academia, Industry and Government are coming together; I see a great potential for embedded systems in India; let us hope that before the next Freescale Tech Forum in 2006 there will be products whose ideas are generated by the people sitting right in this room (700+ professionals). That alone will make me happy to attend Freescale Tech Forum 2006!

(Valedictory Address at Freescale Tech Forum, Bangalore (Sep 21-22, 2005) at 530pm Leela Hotel on Sep 22, 2005)

Partner and Deliver

2005-09-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

If Indian rural masses are to be served there is no option but to partner – between IT companies (Intel, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, SAP, TCS, Wipro, NIIT..) and with firms across the industries (HLL, ITC, ACC, L & T, Banks, ILFS..); it is also time that we start delivering beyond “prototypes and pilots”

It is also important to understand India and Indians; the market research info we have on India is quite sketchy; for example, we do NOT know where the million PCs sold in 2Q05 have gone in India; Indians buy “best & cheap” (in that order); they are willing to pay (if the million paid (@Rs 6) downloads of ring tones per day is any indicator), but not for obsolete things (Intel 286 or MS DOS)

(Keynote address given at Intel ISV Forum, Bangalore, September 21, 2005)

ABN Amro Bank signs $ 400 Million deal with Indian IT vendors InfoSys and TCS and offers additional business to InfoSys, Patni & TCS

2005-09-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

One of the large outsourcing contracts was finalized on Sep 1, 2005.

ABN Amro, Netherlands-based banking major, announced its decision to outsource the entire IT Infrastructure management to IBM (estimated $ 1.8 Billion), Application Support to InfoSys and TCS ($ 260 Million to TCS and $ 140 Million to InfoSys) and retained Accenture, IBM, InfoSys, Patni & TCS for Application Development.

This is the largest-ever outsourcing contract for Indian IT vendors. It is also the largest contract for both TCS and InfoSys. In addition, it is likely to generate another $ 100 – 400 Million Application Development work to InfoSys, Patni & TCS.

It is a sign of maturity and global acceptance of Indian IT vendors’ capability to deliver. Coming at a time when GM and ING Vysya are likely to finalize outsourcing contracts around $ 2 Billion, one hopes that those deals should also have sizeable portion for Indian firms.

It is just a question of time when InfoSys, TCS and Wipro would join the league of IBM and EDS and bag billion-dollar contracts.

Vivekanand Institute Mumbai wins 2005 IEEE Student Branch Web Site Award

2005-08-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

Vivekand Institute in Mumbai (http://www.ieee-vesit.org/) wins the First Prize for IEEE student branch web site.

It is a proud moment for India. I am particularly happy that the less-endowed Institution like Vivekananda Institute managed to win the prize. It only shows that access to resources is not a limitation for excellence.

The site has excellent, but aesthetically done graphics, complies to W3C standards, WAP-enabled, and, has versions in multiple languages; they even help blind with a special version of the site!

It should serve as a clarion call to the established Institutions that they can not “relax”; and, a reminder to the small, upcoming and less endowed Institutions, that they too can compete and win, if they have the grit!

The award winners are as follows

First Place VESIT Bombay, India

Second Place Auburn University Auburn, Alabama

Third Place University of British Columbia British Columbia, Canada

Runner Up Places

Instituto Tecnologico de Veracruz, MexicoRyerson University, CanadaMiddle East Technical University, TurkeyKatholieke University Leuven, BelgiumUniversity of Michigan-DearbornPolitehnica University of Bucharest, RomaniaUniversidad Nacional de Ingenieria Lima, PeruNew York Institute of Technology, ManhattanCalifornia Polytechnic University, San Luis ObispoUniversity of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, IllinoisUniversiti Tecknologi MalaysiaUniversity of Missouri-Kansas CityThadomal Shahani Engineering College, India

Delhi Bombay has 72 daily flights but just 7 daily trains!

2005-08-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

How bad policy decisions can be.

We are a nation with 200 Million poor people. The Government of the day swears by “serving the poor”. The Railway Minister is the “champion of the downtrodden”. But the hypocrisy has no better proof – while there are 72 flights a day between Delhi and Bombay there are just 7 trains a day! That such a cruel joke is perpetrated on the Nation when crude oil (India depends on import for 70+% of its consumption) is soaring at $ 68!

We have systematically killed a great organization like Indian Railways. We had the second largest Railway network that was functioning so well for decades.
By the successive populist measures (all that it means is that Railway Ministers treat Railways as their personal property, put their men everywhere and run all the trains to their constituency, use Railway money to bring out full-page advertisements with their pictures every other day) a great organization has been reduced to a system that has frequent accidents, never on time, unclean stations and corrupt “babus” all the way from the top.

If the Government really wants to serve the poor the first thing they should do is to restore Indian Railways to its glorious days. They have manufacturing capacity to add 10,000 coaches a year (Railways have no money to order); Railways are “eco friendly”; Train travel is “people friendly”. Railway Stations can become centers of commercial activity (hotels, shopping) and great resting places, that in turn can promote inland tourism; all at a fraction of the cost of air travel

Dust, Heat, Intermittent power, no phone lines – limitations of the “bottom of the pyramid” converted to opportunity by Intel

2005-08-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Intel Developer Forum at San Francisco on Aug 23, 2005, like every year had great product announcements. Intel CEO Paul Otelini talked of microprocessors designed with focus on low energy consumption - notebook computers consuming 5 watts, desktop 45 watts and servers 85 watts – soon. There was another announcement too – “community computer” a reference design of a PC that addresses the “emerging market” needs; typical in India; humidity and dust, high temperature (no cooling), intermittent and low quality power and no access to landline phones in the vicinity.

The fact that Intel focused on such a uniquely Indian problem and also nearly solved it including affordability, is satisfying indeed. More satisfying is the fact that it was done at Intel Bangalore, and Rakesh Godhwani who taught part of the course at IIIT-B this Summer was one of the Project leads!

Google Desktop has amazing performance

2005-08-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

After 48 hours of installation my Google mails were indexed; my local content got indexed too!

What amazes me is the sheer performance! Before I type “Jyot” all the mails relating to Jyotsna Bapat showed up!

Also, unlike the earlier interface in the new design things show up as you type; no need to type and “click”. Keep it up Google

The first war of “raw speed” is won (aided of course by bandwidth, high speed disks, performance, and of course, your great algorithms); but Google has to win the second war, relevance; how nice it will be, if I get the just three mails I want, the 3 web sites I need or the three great papers that are useful (and not the millions); may be Google should start discarding or put a “threshold” of “quality” before Google will touch a “source”; such a process itself can be done thru “peers” in a democratic way. Of course, Google would know it better!

Google announces Ver 2 of its desktop search tool

2005-08-24T05:40:00.000-07:00

On August 22, 2005 Google launched its beta version of Google 2, its second attempt to dominate user’s desktop (Windows only as of today; not even Apple Mac is supported, let alone Linux desktops).

It is many things rolled into one – kind of a Portal, Search tool, Scratch pad, RSS feeds..

I have 24 hours of experience with it; I just “love it”.

Unlike the previous, one it installs as sidebar; with my 17” monitor it is neat.It “aggregates” my blog sites (I had to install RSS aggregators in the earlier version).

I had forgotten a pack of 100+ photographs of my visits to several town in Tamil Nadu in December 2004 (just managed to escape Tsunami, thanks to His Grace, by minutes); I forgot about them; but the new tool shows a “slide-show” without I having to do anything! Cool

I get Weather data of West Lafayette (home to my “alma mater” Purdue University), though I would love to get Bangalore and Kanpur weather.

I do not trade in stocks; but I get the stock prices of my “favorites” (Infosys and others) effortlessly.

I get a scratch pad that is real bonus for avid browser like me.

Since I have 1 GB of e-mail the indexing is still not over!

I am sure Microsoft and Yahoo will fight it out!

Finally “Information” wars are on (not “Information Technology” wars!)

Sasken IPO over-subscribed 78 times

2005-08-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

In an interesting development Sasken that went for IPO (Initial Public Offering) was over-subscribed 78 times! Even on Day 1 it was over-subscribed 12 times. It is excellent news for “tech” companies in India.

Rajiv Modi founded Sasken took the difficult route of “tech services”, “IP” and “products” unlike the services companies in India. It had its share of “bad luck” too in the difficult days of Telecom (2001-2003). It had to abort three times its plans to go for IPO. But it always had amazing people (many star faculty members who were earlier with IIT Bombay). It is heartening that it could raise about $ 25 Million thru IPO.

It is nice to see EETimes reporting this news!

Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) become a corporate entity today

2005-08-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

The “club of brokers” that existed as a “closed” entity for 150 years, becomes a professional corporation that will embrace “open transparent” corporation BS Ltd., (might even get listed in BSE soon) from today (Aug 20, 2005) – a long way indeed.

BSE started the 30-shares based index ”Sensex” that has become a barometer of corporate confidence in India. National Stock Exchange (NSE) that came much later had embraced technology and moved to completely online trading; BSE had done the “catch up” game. In overall volume BSE still has a significant volume.

It is a natural coincidence that the transition to the new structure was formally done by none other than Narayana Murthy, Chairman, InfoSys who pioneered Corporate Governance in India and whose brain-child InfoSys got the No 1 Rank in Corporate Governance Survey conducted by Economic Times (announced just yesterday!)

NASADAQ posts Indian Indian Tri-color on August 15, 2005

2005-08-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

NASADAQ posts Indian Tri-color on August 15, 2005

It was nice to see the front part of NASDAQ stock exchange sporting a huge tri-color Indian flag and the signage “NASDAQ Celebrates Indian Independence Day” on its Market-Site - a seven-stories high high-tech cylindrical electronic display outside its Times square Building in New York City, the global financial capital - on August 15, 2005. It is a very satisfying moment for all of us – the proud Indians.

NASDAQ is the world’s largest screen-based securities market that is home to thousands of global high-tech companies that include our own Infosys, Rediff & Sify as well as the IT majors Intel, Microsoft and Oracle.

Bangalore is the 4th location for NASDAQ after UK, Japan and Brazil.

The only other time when NASDAQ had an Indian theme was when Vivek Kulkarni, IAS, the then IT Secretary of Karnataka managed to get the Karnataka picture on Market-Site in the year 2002

BSNL to add 60 million mobile subscribers in a year

2005-08-18T20:13:00.000-07:00

With lot of fanfare, the IT Minister Maran in the presence of Karnataka Chief Minister and the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister launched the scheme of 4 million lines immediately in each of the four regions (South, North, East and west) over the next quarter, and addition of 60 million new mobile connections in one year. The move was hailed not just in India but even elsewhere; Nortel, the telecom giant, that was late entrant to Indian telecom market, hailed it as the biggest order for Nortel ever; they even carry the Indian Telecom story in the front page of their web-site!

The IT Minister must be complimented for taking such a bold initiative.

The Indian consumer's who was "starved" for telephone connection for decades, is "gulping" it in the past couple of years. I waited for 3 years for a landline connection at Kanpur in mid-eighties; I waited for a year in Bangalore in mid-nineties. It is a sea-change today that we can get a phone in flat one hour that too with multiple choice of service providers, handsets and billing plans. We have come a long way indeed!

India added about 30 million phones (all types) in over 100 years (till 2002), but adding 2 million a month these days; and, the Minister talking of 60 million in a year is commendable.

But one also has to face the reality; when ALL service providers are just adding 24 million a year currently, is the goal (however laudable) of BSNL alone targeting 60 Million realistic? BSNL had serious problem of managing their SIM card supply even a year back (with just 200,00 customers). Are they ready for such a huge jump?

A serious problem for public sector is the eternal vigilance by CVC and CAG (that often find fault will "silly" procedures unmindful of the challenges); Ministers come and go but the officials are stuck with such "silly" processes. One hopes that the powers that be address this important issue; the sooner the better, not just for BSNL but for ALL public sectors. Often CAG and CVC are used by politicians and bureaucrats to settle the score and punish in the process, honest and upright officers. This must stop at least in the 21st century!