The Virtual Transformation

Article first published as The Virtual Transformation on Technorati In August 1995, Microsoft launched Windows 95 in an attempt to capture their founder's audacious dream of having a computer running Windows on every desktop in the world. But in a world with an insatiable appetite for communication the vision statements have dramatically changed. Everyone is leaving their desktops behind and moving into the cloud and soon reaching for the stars. In an increasingly mobile world instant gratification...

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Digital embrace

Just as the world seems like this increasingly wired network of communities that constantly feels the need to stay in touch, are we in the process actually loosing touch? I don't find it unimaginable that soon mobile phones will be confined to the dusty corners of the nostalgia shops and people will never speak face to face. Everyone will only speak to their smart phones or whoever is in it. "Hey let's Hang Out at the Coffee Shop" would not mean meeting at a coffee shop but a Google plus group video conference during coffee breaks. There was...

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Operationalizing Enterprise Ecosystems

Article first published as Operationalizing Enterprise Ecosystems on Technorati (PCX5DZB6CX25).In the times of F.W. Taylor, focus of enterprise process was on repeatability and predictability and less on adaptability and agility. A hundred years later automation is pushing the monotonous functions to computer systems, using tools like self service solutions and straight through processing. As enterprises mature the role of the desk clerk who will come into work and do the same job day in and day...

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Applications2Apps and Enterprise Ecosystems

Article first published as Applications2Apps and Enterprise Ecosystems on Technorati.Twenty years ago I remember standing in long queues at 5:30AM in the morning, with an application form in hand at the railway station waiting for the mainframe to churn out ticket availability. The Indian Railways is the fourth largest in the world and transports 30 million passengers every day. The system changed the way ticketing was done from manual registers to centralized ticketing. So I could choose the train service across different lines and not be restricted...

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Keeping Tabs

I practically live in my computer, but sort of ties you down at home or you got to lug around the laptop all over town. Reading an ebook with the laptop on my chest can get pretty hot and heavy for all the wrong reasons and I almost need to redecorate my living room to hook it up with my sound system. So in 2009 I bought an HP Tablet PC in the hope that I could finally read my ebooks with a swipe, twist it around and voila, I got myself my good ol’laptop again. As I used it believe me wasn’t easy reading on travel with a backlit display and the...

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Crowd in the Cloud

In the pre-cloud era people dedicated time to maintaining well cataloged diaries to record birthdays, tasks, maintain contacts and meeting notes. Today people directly assign tasks to you, birthday reminders pop out of nowhere and contact information is automatically synced based on people’s Facebook profiles. Tiny droplets make an ocean and today we have the means to aggregate the tiny droplets, thanks to crowd sourcing tools. This has a huge impact on business as well, one example is Tech support. Tech support now is a culmination of video logs...

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Never remember never forget

Today everyone is forgetful. I don’t remember birthdays, holidays, meetings and my tasks for the day. My faithful smart phone does it for me. Three thousand years back the Vedas, a Hindu religious text, was handed down generations by word of mouth and took a lifetime to perfect. Generations were dedicated to carrying the body of work intact. Then the Chinese invented paper and everything changed. People still chanted the Vedas but there were some who dedicated their years for a different cause. This in turn spurned mass education programs and eventually...

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One for all to all for me

Pre-Cloud the world assumed people in general are the same, you had one news paper, one News channel and people ran the same trail for years. Today everything from your news to your coffee is personalized. You determine how much milk you want in your coffee and the temperature if you may. You chose your morning news from a collection of topics on YouTube channels and custom build your morning paper using your faithful e-reader. Everyone does not want to be like the other and believe they are different. This mindset change is pretty dramatic and...

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The old world and the new

One might wonder, if people had the same routine for the last 60 years, what has changed? People have been reading the news, the weather report, going to coffee shops and meetings since the last 100 years, so why are we so plugged in? Because depending on how you look at it everything has changed or nothing. My father visited the Grand Canyon and took a helicopter ride across the canyon in 15 mins, I hiked it over 2 days. My father still tells me he did what I did over 2 days in 15 mins and I still maintain he has not seen the canyon....

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Living in the cloud (Blog series)

Us humans have walked the planet earth for over 200,000 years. In this time we have seen a stone age, bronze age, the industrial revolution and now we are entering a new age which is just as pivotal, what could be called the age of the cloud. Yet when you live through each day so much seems to have changed yet nothing.I wake up in the morning brush my teeth, grab some coffee, check the weather, catch the morning news, read the paper, go for a quick run, shower and check my calendar, drive down to meet a client, check in to the nearest coffee shop...

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Indian IT services industry, the way forward

India's growth story As India continues to grow and surpass unchartered territories one tends to wonder is the trend likely to last forever? The ruling government projects that we will average a growth rate upwards of 8% for the next decade and replicate a China like growth story. One might argue that if China can, so can India, in fact economists like Sanjeev Sanyal predict that we will experience an Asian renaissance much like Europe. Undoubtedly India’s growth has been miraculous, unlike China, the growth has been despite poor policy implementation,...

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IPL auction : Country, cricket, dollars and more drama

Country, cricket or just dollars? There's still a generation that firmly believes cricket must be played for the pride of the country, not for money. In fact some of them feel IPL cricketers are overpaid and that’s hastening retirement in cricket. I suggest let us take an honest look at the numbers in comparison to other international sports. 78.5 million dollars was spent so far in the IPL auction. The numbers saw a lot of jaws drop, but IPL is still a fair distance from becoming the highest paying sporting event. Lets draw a few comparisons with...

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