Nexus One

Finally, Google pops out its very own nexus one with Android 2.1. Well the name Nexus in itself should send warning signals to you as Nexus, locked version is supposedly coming up with a price tag of $180. (A T-mobile 2 year contract). You'll understand why they call it Nexus when you'd read the terms of contract on PC World.
A non-nexus unlocked version will sell for a premium of $350 over the subsidized version. I expected more from Google. he iPhone funda of lock-unlock and premiums does not go well. Its a wait and watch right now. Google is set to have a media briefing on 5th Jan. The early buzz can be simply rumors also. When it comes to Google, you might end up being a part of 1st April Doodle(Only January this time).

3 idiots and some misconceptions

The professor's [Boman Irani] pen (which he had to hand over to the brightest student), was built by fischer space pen company specially for use in zero gravity. The common misconception associated with it is that NASA spent millions of dollars on making it and smarter Russians (atleast thats how I heard it) instead went ahead and used a pencil in space (I was a victim of the same misconception). I decided to check prof's argument on Wikipedia and here is what it says,

There exists a common urban legend claiming that the Americans spent millions of dollars developing the Space Pen, and the Russians used a pencil. In fact, NASA programs have used pencils (for example a 1965 order of mechanical pencils) but because of the danger that a broken-off pencil tip poses in zero gravity and the flammable nature of the wood present in pencils a better solution was needed. [Read more about Space Pen here]

Assuming Wiki to be accurate, the Prof was correct at the end of the movie.

Some advice to the story writers : Please remove lame jokes and questions like, "Why does the nose come in between when two people kiss". I heard that in Soldier (Remember long haired Bobby and Dimpled Zinta) last time and I'm quite sure that too wasn't original. These jokes only make you laugh at the lack of creativity of story/dialogue writers.(whoever is responsible for that, please do some introspection, audience analysis). Make a movie to remember, and not to sell only. 
As a story I'd say the twist was good. It was not a replica of the book, but the movie had too much, yes too much, melodrama and it looked quite unrealistic. I felt Aamir's acting was also not his best. This movie delivers a message but wasn't as captivating as Ghajini.
Music is good. All Izz Well can become the next anthem. Zoobi doobi is a nice song. Its been playing on in my head since the time I've watched the movie and from my little out of sync murmurs of the song, its spread over to my friends. Quite Contagious I tell you. I've liked Kareena Kapoor after a long time.
And as far as the book is concerned, it atleast sounded real.In the end, wot say about Bollywood. Chetan, You rock!

Is orkut losing the battle ?

The statistics for the number of unique visitors on orkut.com, myspace and facebook are alarming for orkut. It is more so since a lost visitor is almost impossible to come back in case of social networks.Once you build your network of friends on one social network, you wouldn't want to change it. Changing it means starting all over again.

And all this after orkut opened its platform for applications and came up with a new and improved version. Something needs to be done by Orkut developers and soon.

Creating web in Hindi

Now Google is partnering with livehinsdustan to create web content in Hindi. Livehindustan.com is an HT Media venture that brings hindi news to web.
Read more here.
The market for hindi news readers on web is not very huge but still it has a lot of potential. I see it as a good inititative to spread Hindi as well as cater to the needs of Hindi news readers. Support of Google will also do a lot good for the cause.

His eyes red, to-do list long...

They only think of work. They have work, they do it and they ultimately do it well. Wow! what a fantastic story. They do things right, but do they do the right things ???

I was having a chat with my friend outside the library taking a nap, a rather longish nap when from a dimly lit door came a guy with a face devoid of smile and focussed only on one thing. What to do next ?
And guess what does he ask ? What work are you doing now and what is left ?
Our answer - Boss, not thinking about work, just enjoying a chilled winter night outside library and discussing about a new business plan.
I feel, to think beyond you need to think first. And you think first when you actually find time to think and speculate rather than work because somebody told you to do so.
His eyes were red and from our conversation, we figured that he had a long to-do list and bla bla...
He was late for his dinner and probably would have gone to work after that.

Living life like a clock - Quite inhuman. You eliminate all the fun out of life, the contingencies, uncertainties and ways of dealing with them. I had a presentation on change management today and the one lesson I learned was that dealing and helping change happen is not easy. Change and  flexibility are necessary to be with or ahead of times. Asking why am I doing this to how will I do this is more important. Too much deliberation is also suicidal, and has tendency to trap you in moh-maya trap, but neverthless to a certain (large) extent, it is important.
Without offences to the red eyed machine, I'd still say that innovators think beyond. Although my judgment of the red-eyed machine in saying he does not think beyond could be wrong, I feel most of them don't. (Those who do, Kudos to them). Having an answer to Why the eyes are red and a long to-do list is the key determinant between selecting the right work or doing the work correctly. Better choose the former first and then do the chosen work.

Product lifecycle

Bajaj's announcement to stop the production of scooters by the end of this fiscal clearly indicates that the era of scooters has ended. The product category of scooters has reached the decline stage or infact is on the extreme end of decline. While the Bajaj scooter has a long chequered history, it is important to see the transition in culling a product contributing little to revenues. Infact this situation came first in front of Bajaj in the early 90s when Hero Honda had gained significant motorcycle market share. Hero Honda is no:1 in India in the product still in the growth phase. Coming to online social networking, email... this segment has reached the mature phase.

Nokia's ovi service is offering nothing new. Just a package of online services bundled together offering nothing new. It also cannot replicate Apple.I expected a lot more from Nokia considering their development standards to be top class. They entered a segment in the mature phase, offered nothing new, ran a bunch of onlines ads on websites like orkut and the results are here to see. Offering a website supplementing Nokia users (which already exists) would have done the job. Why divert from the core competency ? You end up making a product, which is no match for the biggies existsing and essential create a burden for the organization by making a non-revenue generating (profit eating) unit.

Ovi's public release was august 2008. Their early buzz catapulted by the Nokia brand got a lot of users. But its been a decline since then. The trends since Jan 2009 clearly tell the sorry state of Ovi. There is need to redesign the service offerings by Ovi. In terms of value offerings, Nokia's Ovi is just a me-too kind of service.

The product-lifecycle is an essential step and hence needs to be incorporated in the Idea screening stage in any product development. This will atleast relieve the company of the costs associated with pursuing a bad idea.
Product lifecycle image source[ :http://www.trumpuniversity.com/business-briefings/lib/resources/images/graphs/product_life_cycle.gif]
OVI logo source:Wikipedia

Justice Finally

It's a happy day for me since the murderers of Manjunath finally got their sentence. The surprising thing is that despite India's one of the best management institute taking up the cause, it took time with all the evidences in place. Anyways better late than never. What has to be seen is that there should be a mechanism by the law protectors to help those cases where backing is not possible.
Below is a copy of the email from MST.

Greetings from The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust!

The Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court today announced the judgment on Manjunath’s case. The important details of the judgment are as follows:

1. Upholding the judgment of lower (Sessions) court, the High Court has found all 6 main accused in the case to be guilty of the crime and have awarded them life imprisonment.
2. 2 convicts have been acquitted on the grounds of “benefit-of-doubt”.
3. Death sentence of main accused in the case - Pawan Kumar (alias Monu Mittal) - has been converted to life imprisonment as the judges maintained that death sentence is given only in “rarest-of-rare circumstances”.

The Trust believes that the message is clear, and justice has been delivered. The fact that two courts have concurred on the judgment is a very positive sign. This will help, when and if the accused appeal again in the Supreme Court. Trust lawyer, Shri I. B. Singh, will go through the judgment and future course of action will be decided only after discussion with Manjunath’s parents and the Trust. We have no intention to appeal against the death sentence, as vengeance was never the motive.

Easy Tiger!

Right in the hole! Hey Tiger, you put it in a lot them.
Tiger’s hormonal powers took over his mind. The tiger syndrome is what I call the side effect of success. When you have big money, lots of good wine all you need is “Women” and not a “Woman”. If gods can fall for pretty angels and forget wife, children… our tiger is a mortal. Nopes! I’m not supporting what tiger did, but let’s look at it in a different way. The bottom line of Tiger’s secret cave of women is that he was not loyal. Now when you are known for your loyalty to game, self, and people look upon you as a role model you get all the money by selling your identity to brands (Advertising). If Tiger’s ads are not being aired, it’s because his identity lost the attribute of loyalty. Sometimes some controversy is good. It might not do wonders for Tiger, but would do a lot good to the business of gossip magazines.Someones loss is somebody's gain.
His mastery of the game is there, but the aura of Tiger Woods would no longer remain. His name would go down in history not as a great man, but just a great golfer. Tiger did not, but future and current super athletes need to learn a lesson from our very own little master – Sachin.
Getting to business, paying athletes hefty sums to endorse products is not actually risky. If an athlete gets caught for the wrong reasons, you can dump him/her and still be in the news for being good. For sportspersons, they need to take every step with care.
This had to come out. It wouldn't have stayed on the couch for eternity. But for Tiger, not all is lost. Great men bounce back.

Innovation

And now TATA group comes up with a Rs 1000 water purifier. The journey from Rs. 1L (TATA Nano) to Rs. 1K (Swach) hasn't been a journey of low cost, but a journey of innovation. When we talk in a group, our voice is heard if we talk something new aka innovate. Take for instance the case of Amitabh Bachhan; he has to be innovative not because he is in a creative field, but because being ahead requires you to innovate. Amitabh's core competency was that of an angry young man. He has moved on and that is the reason he is still surving and going strong. As time passes by competition increases in each segment or competency and hence to stay ahead, there is a strong need to innovate.
The greater effort we use in innovating, the faster we grow and get the beginners advantage. Had Sachin Tendulkar not reinvented himself according to the changing needs of one day cricket, I doubt he would have survived for too long. M S Dhoni too has also innovated his batting to suit his captaincy and role in the team. Once  a maverick batsman, Dhoni has set a good example of the balance between hard hitting and playing cautiously. His string of initial failures also shows that innovation takes time and hence requires patience and will power. All successful organizations have climbed the steep slope of innovation, be it Nokia, Google, Apple, Tata...But to stay on a glider of growth in a competitive market, it is very important to constantly strive to innovate yourself.
Also try reading: Incubating innovation in India (By Kiran Karnik)

Marketing and 26/11 - The Moral ground

After one year of the Mumbai 26/11 attacks there is some introspection needed in our outlook. Exploiting the hysteria or rather "Grabbing the opportunity" to earn more money might make good business sense but does it make good moral sense ? Infact this issue was troubling me for quite a while. I was part of a team for "Warketing"; a marketing competition by a reputed Indian B-School. A hypothetical war like scenario was created where we had to increase market share for our product by using the war time hysteria created in people. For Warketing, we chose a cola drink as our product and our marketing strategy was to sell "Hope" and "Inspiration to unite people" during crisis. In return more sales, greater market share. The concept seemed good to me while I was designing the marketing strategy for the cola drink. At that point of time it did once come to my mind the moral responsibility associated in exploiting wartime hysteria, but I went ahead with the plan. I thought, more sales meant more production, which meant more jobs and tax. This thought made me go ahead with the strategy. The case of Mumbai Terror attacks is quite similar. Here the hope is a better police force, which reflects in the IDEA campaign.

In the 26/11 case, lets say a business uses the opportunity to tap into a consumer base. And let me tell you, the percentage gained from it wouldn't be very high. In such a situation people might perceive you as being insensitive to a national tragedy or might think of you as being sensitive and coming out openly about it through ads. Blatant advertising is although a strict no no! But I feel using your business to help people look forward or think positively that in a way benefits both is not opportunistic. After all marketing is about adding value,but yes, for a price! I do agree that this approach somehow lies in the grey zone. It is not absolutely the right path.Ultimately it is how you see and perceive things. Whether the perceived intention is exploiting the emotions or sign of solidarity is upto the discretion of the consumer.
I'd say, what has gone is gone and cannot come back. Lets move forward and remember the souls who lost their lives. Lets do our job and do whatever we can to prevent or reduce the impact of such a scenario if god forbid it ever happens again anywhere. As far as the moral ground is concerned I don't see any discomfort [Read Visible discomfort of milking 26/11] behind an advertisement on a news channel covering post 26/11 scenario. Yes, I do have objections in the content of the news itself. If we are genuinely looking into the incident the ads actually don't matter. Let them do whatever they want to, let me do my bit.

My condolences to those who lost their loved ones during this tragic incident.