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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Future of IT- Cloud and More

Technology is changing at a very fast pace and everybody is wondering where all of this is going to end. For the first time all the components of ecosystem are evolving at the same time and changes are disruptive. Advancement in end-user devices, virtualization technology, storage devices and telecommunication- all happening at the same time. And all of this is just making Cloud computing more feasible and viable, which may be the end game.

Ancient time, each town had its own power generation facility. If a new town was envisaged, the infrastructure included a power plant. Then they discovered that this not efficient, why not build a centralized power store which will store electricity form various power generation facility. The towns do not need to own its power plant, they just need to plug into already existing centralized power store, the Grid.
                       
Keeping ones most valuable possession with someone else takes lot of trust and this takes centuries to build. The bank that we see today has evolved over several centuries. But now the trust ecosystem is mature and system robust; making banks the preferred place to keep ones earning. The most valuable possession some place else with zero visibility on whats being done on it. Amazing !

Cloud mirrors both the Grid and Bank system. Its the IT implementation of 'Economics of Scale' concept. Its a global consolidation and centralization IT infrastructure, platform and applications bringing with it significant cost savings.

Every organization needs a messaging system. If there are 1000 organization in a  city, each will setup its own messaging infrastructure. The service needs architect, project managers, subject matter experts for implementation. The infrastructure needs skilled people to manage it round the clock. 1000 infrastructure requires 1000 messaging team to build and operate providing exactly the same service. Not efficient.
                           Cloud messaging service acts like messaging Grid and facilitates people to just plug into into the system instead of investing on infrastructure and skills. Cloud for a town will make 1000 messaging infrastructure redundant, Cloud for the world will make millions messaging infrastructure redundant. Advancement in virtualization, storage and telecommunication (bandwidth) will make this system viable. Result, a per user messaging license now costs $50/year instead of $1000/year, significant cost savings.

cont..


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

IPL 5 RCB Experience - Chinnaswamy Stadium

Poorly managed event by the IPL franchise at Chinnaswamy stadium, Bangalore.

The ordeal starts, when you reach at the stadium and try to find a parking space. Comes the shocker, you can't park it at stadium even though it has space for 500 vehicles, one is supposed to go 1 km down the road to Shivaji Bus Stand to park. Its one-way traffic to the bus stand, what that means for you, is that you've to come back all the way walking.
                               One should park the vehicle in a mall or somewhere or use public transport to visit the stadium. Personal vehicle is a big hassle if you don't have a driver.

Electronic Ticket - If you've booked online then one should go at least 2 hr prior to the match. There is only one single counter manned by one guy at Gate 7 for provisioning gate pass to electronic ticket holders. Thousands with electronic ticket and just one counter, are these people absolutely nuts. I saw a 50 m queue and I had just 15 mts left for the game to start, I had to jump the queue. Not sure when the last person may have got into the stadium, not before 2nd innings that's for sure.
                                                 Why its so hard for these people to arrange at least 10 counters, what is the constraint, why torture people ? There were foreigners in the queue as well looking totally frustrated. Thanks  KSCA.

And the ticket prices are very steep. The minimum ticket available online is for Rs 1,250 and it goes upto over  Rs 1,00,000. I saw tickets being sold at Rs 250, Rs 500, Rs 600 in Pune for a stadium which is 100 times better and the support it got for the first match was tremendous. This RCB people are really very cunning.

The gate to enter the stadium is very narrow. People pushing each other to get into those passages. The return  is even more dangerous when all spectators rush at one go and that dimly lit passage becomes bottleneck and a absolute nightmare.

After paying Rs 1,650 you get a plastic chair which is not fixed. So, far too many chairs crammed into the first few rows, with people pressing against each other while seated. Extremely uncomfortable .

Watching sports at a stadium shouldn't become such a nasty experience. Experience is not just about what happens on the ground, it includes the overall experience. Tons of money is being collected every year, and so little being done. Its one the worst stadium in the country. Dirty walls, compound and surrounding, amidst maddening traffic, narrow entry/exit gates, poor ticket distribution and shoddy management. The whole experience becomes an ordeal, which no one wants to repeat, especially with family and kids.

I wonder why these people can't even do the basics right, why even after so much revenues stadium doesn't change and why people comfort and experience is not respected ? Promoters of RCB should be ashamed of themselves.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

The New Born - Life's Biggest Change Agent

Human mind gets bored of things very quickly. When bored it loses enthusiasm, passion and interest. Life ensures that change is permanent and human minds is always engaged because of it.  Multiple seasons makes every year different and interesting. Marriage, kids and family- the changing relations and responsibilities- keeps the mind occupied and busy.

Kids have a very pleasant life in most of the cases. The child years are best, filled with innocence and happiness. The child grows up to become a youth. New found love and romance keeps one involved. Then job; initial few years are very interesting. As 20s dies away, human mind longs for somebody permanent, to call its own. Marriage brings couple of years of fun and post that mind again starts to feel restless. Kid arrives to bring with it new joy and happiness. The next few years, kids life becomes source of joy. The midlife opens new doors of opportunity in career and instills excitement. Kids grow up to become an adult and start their own journey. Journey continues with their marriage and kid. The arrival of children kid signals the beginning of the end of one's generation. One now becomes totally irrelevant and waits for life's second most important change agent- death.

Birth and Death are life's two biggest change agent. The arrival of new born signals the dawn of a new generation and end of a older generation. Its simply extraordinary to witness life in action with regular changes. The birth of a child is like arrival of a most beautiful guest. Such innocence and divine beauty; really kids are god's avatar. Small hands, beautiful smile, the laughter, the cries- everything so wonderful. Not sure who thought of this process or programmed it; greatest of all changes.

No body can escape the life's change agent. Time waits for no one. Every one has to go through this cycle. If one misses one of these change agent in one's life, mind becomes deride of all enthusiasm, excitement and happiness. It wanders aimlessly with no end in sight and gets sick. Humans cant be ever substituted by materialistic ambition or things; they have a very small shelf life in human mind. Wise people realized this centuries ago and created the concept of marriage which facilitates functioning of life's change agents.

The New Flat World

Sometimes when you look back at millennium gone by, you wonder how countries and their business functioned. Colonization, murder, slavery and war in the name of business and money. Your industry needs raw material, find a country which has in abundance, just capture the god damn country. Moreover, there was a gap in technology, knowledge and awareness, which facilitated in putting some countries to higher grounds. Millions benefited from this act of greed; living a very affluent, convenient and easy life for centuries. Thankfully, grounds are being leveled now and technology is playing a big role in it.

The dream of  'one world' was always there and people at various times in history contemplated on its viability. The definition, though, was never clear. Should the physical boundaries be gotten away with, should there be one constitution and law, so on and so forth. With serious differences in access to technology, resources and wealth, the idea never seemed probable. If 'one world' would ever come into being, a new kind of boundary should be defined and then it should be gotten away with.

Countries wealth now is judged by economic metrics which in turn is defined by the business houses there. Industries are playing big role in defining and influencing government action and policies. Businesses no longer work within the physical boundary of the country, their boundary encompasses the whole world now. They produce a product for the world collaborating with the world.

Entrepreneurs today build a global product leveraging the competency of various countries. They may use R&D of US, manufacturing of China and services of India to build a unique competitive product which can compete with the best in the world. Sony tried to do manufacturing in their own country with disasterous results. The labor costs play a big role, so while others are using a low cost destination, one can't just afford to ignore it. One cant wage a war to capture resources but one definitely can acquire it. Chinese and Indian companies are acquiring business from the west to add a competency or to meet a demand. It may have taken 100 years to build Ford but it doesn't necessarily means that every global automobile company will take a century to mature. One can get there in 20 years by acquiring design companies from Italy, factories in red and hiring best skills from around the world. Inorganic growth reduces the gestation period significantly.

Demand is the new king and its in the emerging market. Technology is facilitating the remote skill development and distributing knowledge capital. This unique demand will help in leveling the playing field and usher us into 'one world' era.