Thought Garage

Its time to say Good Bye to the free INTERNET we know, where your packet is never discriminated based on what it contains, where it is coming from and where it is going. Senate Commerce Committee, rejected the compromise language on Net Neutrality by splitting11-11, which would  mean a defeat for Net Neutrality. The Senate Commerce Committee, splitting 11 to 11 and therefore rejecting compromise language , set the stage for a carrier-controlled Internet. If the bill passes the Senate and is signed by the President, you can kiss the Net you know "goodbye." Farewell, open networks and open standards. Soon every packet will be subject to inspection and surcharges based on what it carries and who sent it or where it is going. [ZDNet: Saying "goodbye" to the Net   ] So very soon carriers will be empowered to inspect the packet and charge a premium not only based on the content, but possibly where it is coming from and where it is going. or a Tiered internet based p...

Another cool feature from snapfish. Now you can turn your photos to US Postal stamps. Turn your photos into real U.S. Postage ...

C.K. Prahalad, Professor from Ross School of Business, Univ. of Michigan reiterates that Software is chaging and can change a lot more sectors for India, if the vibrant energy is properly tapped . In his keynote speach at Software2006 , Prahalad explains how the High Technology echo system like Software can combine with other sectors like Automobiles, Pharma to create a whole new platform of advantage for India to grow. Key excerpts from his key note address: One key excerpt from his presentation is how Indian IT industry transformed over the last decade to differentiate with Innovation rather than pure cost advantage. Cost ( 1980 - 1990) Cost + Quality (1990 - 1995) Cost + Quality + Technology (1995 -2000) Cost + Quality + Technology + Innovation ( > 2000) The world is recognising India as its key INNOVATION center with a wealth of skilled and knowledge professionals rather than just a low cost IT product...

The Telephia Mobile Game Report for Q1 2006 has some startling figures about mobile gaming.  As per  news report at Yahoo , which  is a  Press Release by Telephia , Women dominate the mobile gaming arena accounting for 65% of the revenues while Tetris and Tetris Deluxe combined accounts for around 8.8% of the revenues. Read the press release here . Tags: mobile , mobilegame , tetris , women , telephia , inspions , news

India's Bharti Airtel figures at number 10 in the Business Week's world top Infotech/Telecom comapanies list, ahead of international power houses Motorola (11th), Google (13th), Microsoft (37th) and Hewlett-Packard (44th). Excerpts from the News URL Bharti Airtel, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Satyam, and Wipro figure in the annual BusinessWeek list of top 100 infotech/telecom companies. India ties Hong Kong in fourth spot with five companies in the top 100, after the US with 45, Taiwan (13), and Japan (9). As against this, there’s no company from mainland China. Bharti Airtel is the only Indian company in the top 10, ahead of international biggies such as Motorola (11th), Google (13th), Microsoft (37th) and Hewlett-Packard (44th). The factors that BusinessWeek focused on to rate the companies included return on equity, revenue growth, shareholder return, and total revenues. The Top Ten America Movil (Mexico) ...

"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants" - Sir Issac Newton We learn lots of things from our own mistakes. But a few of us also learn from others' mistakes. Some times, we can succeed just by following in the footsteps of successful and ambitious entrepreneurs. So, then a much better path to succeed is studying about successful people and their ventures. On this note,  I found a few blogs this morning that I would like to share. Talking about failures at Feld Thoughts , urging Entrepreneurs to share their failures. So keep watching this blog for more posts on this subjects and its readers' responses.. "While it’s often difficult to talk about failure, there are a lot of lessons that can be learned from it.  The cliche “I learn more from my failures than my successes” applies directly to entrepreneurship and creating companies.  It can be difficult to be self-reflective, but I’ve personally found it very cathartic to st...

Videos from Software 2006: Unifying the Ecosystem held on 4th and 5th of April 2006 at Santa Clara Convention Center Santa Clara, CA. Most of the speakers from big enterprises or from top 10 consulting firms. Different voice, slightly from the big vendors, compared to what I hear from the new age web2.0 entrepreneurs. But great insights for Software startups, as these are the guys who were in the business for more than a decade building and selling software. Keynotes Business Process Co-Innovation : Shai Agassi The Dilemma of Innovation : Mark Bregman Software Strategies in a Flat world : Dave DeWalt Keynote Address Thomas Kurian The 'Inter' Personal Enterprise : Ray Lane, General Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Emerging High Technology Ecosystems : CK Prah...

Here is a loooong list of Web 2.0 companies . Who says every product will and must try to solve a unique problem in the market?  Most of these are plain vanilla duplicates of others or something popular. But some of them are wonderful like Thumbstack which allows to create and share presentations right from your browser. Web 2.0 Companies at http://baris.typepad.com/venture_capitalist/ Here is a list I recently got of all the web 2.0 companies out there.  Multiply the total by 10 to consider all the ones not included in the list.  Who says there is no hype?  There are some Web 2.0 Venture Funds in there at the end :-) Tags: web2.0 , ajax , startup , inspions

Sony follows the online video buzz, offering its online Video service " MusicBox ". Offers original video streams of artists by its own companies and affiliates like Shakira, Beyonce, Alicia Keys and likes. Pretty soon, the service allows you to embed those original video streams on your webpages. At this point, you can watch the videos and can send an email with the link to the video to share with your friends. Sony Music Box Video Tags: Sony , video , musicbox , streaming , inspions

When your spouse decides to go on shopping, I bet you don't have a choice but accompany. At times, it is so much fun shopping and rolling around the malls. I enjoy shopping but I hate to go to the same stereotype mall every weekend. And some times, particularly if you are not interested, it can be so painful you swear to god that you will never go shopping. But you never know how that 'never ever' can turn out to be. In my case, it is quite often the next weekend. There is some thing new around the corner or some discount sale at a mall.  Unlike some of my friends, I don't have a choice  of not going. Ruled out. So here I am, trying to equip myself with some things I can do when shopping turns painful and boring. I love reading books. So I pickup the Mall directory and find a bookshop and in a flash I will be sitting in aisles reading like a kid. I tried skimming through magazines  even in Walmarts these days. If I get hold of an interesting book or a magazine, I...

Immigration Reform bill will most unlikely becomes a law, if at all, this year. Not a welcome news. House Stalls Immigration Reform; Compromise Bill Not Likely Before November Elections 06.21.2006 2:12 PM EDT Surprise move brings debate to U.S. voters, derails Bush plan. ".. On Tuesday, Republicans announced a proposal to take the issue directly to voters by hosting a series of hearings across the U.S. this summer, a ploy that will likely delay any action on immigration reform until after the upcoming mid-term elections in November, and perhaps until next year. Last December, the House passed an immigration reform bill that was more law-and-order focused than the competing Senate one, which was passed in May — including the aforementioned felony provision and a call for hundreds more miles of border fencing than the Senate plan (see "Senate Passes Sweeping Immigration-Reform Package" ). The details of the July/August immigration road show are still being worke...

As promised in my previous post How to start a Business in India , I would like to share the links to websites and resources that would not only help to understand the attractive Indian Business Environment, opportunities and resources but also would help you start a business in India. This list is no way exhaustive and definitve, but would definitely serve as a starting point in making a decision. Professional help is always makes sense in making the final decision and proceedings. I will be updating this list as and when I find a link or a resource that adds values, so keep watching this posting.  Know about India : Know India at National Portal of India : "The ancient land of India portrays a landscape of vibrant cultural heritage and spiritual mysticism. This particular section invites you to lose yourself in a journey through the fascinating lanes of the country, which reflect its numerous national traits, such as art, national identity elements, cultural extravaganza, ...

Some interesting numbers from Jim Courtney's notes at Skype Journa l : eBay, PayPal, Skype by the Numbers Important (relevant to me) excerpts: Calls made on Skype in Q1 of 2006 account for around 7% (6.9 Billion minutes) of all long distance call minutes world wide. eBay accounts for 14% of all e-commerce on the net with a gross merchandise value of $44 Billion in the last year. eBay passed 200 million mark in its registered members Skype supports around 6.5 Million concurrent users. PayPal services 105 million accounts in 50 countries; PayPal provides the payment mechanism for 67% of eBay transactions. (PayPal has more accounts that Amex and Discover combined.) Number of Developers: eBay - 30,000 whose work contributes to 25% of all eBay transactions PayPal - 2,500 supporting 350,000 web integrators Skype - 3,500 delivering 350 applications and over 400 hardware devices Tags: eBay , Paypal , skype , inspio...

As a followup on my previous post " Passionate vs Professional Programmer ", here is an Excerpt from How To Be CREATIVE by Hugh MacLeod ( http://www.gapingvoid.com) that put the discussion in context. I totally agree that Merit can be bought but not passion. The only people who can change the world are people who want to. And not everybody does. Human beings have this thing I call the “Pissed Off Gene.” Itʼs that bit of our psyche that makes us utterly dissatisfied with our lot, no matter how kindly fortune smiles upon us. Itʼs there for a reason. Back in our early caveman days being pissed off made us more likely to get off our butt, get out of the cave and into the tundra hunting woolly mammoth, so weʼd have something to eat for supper. Itʼs a survival mechanism. Damn useful then, damn useful Itʼs this same Pissed Off Gene that makes us want to create anything in the first place—drawings, violin sonatas, meat packing companies, websites. This sam...

I have been in the software development for almost 7 years now. It has been a wonderful journey throughout in various roles, titles, responsibilities, applications, frameworks, domains, operating systems and hanging around different types of people. So far, I had the opportunity to hangaround and work with people from US, China, Japan, Ireland, Brazil, Russia, France, Thailand, Vietnam and ofcourse from India. Some of these people across the world have one thing in common; their passion for software development. That is taken for granted irrespective of thier domain, platform or programming language(:-)) they like. I also had the company of a lot more people who just consider their job nothing but just as a means to lead a better life. They are also experts in their own fields, but they don't like a lot what they are doing. If there is another profession that has better prospects, they will definitely choose to move on unlike a few of them who love so much about software developmen...

Nokia has announced that it will shift its global telecom network management services hub from its home-base in Finland, to India . http://www.bloglines.com/blog/SanjayGarg?id=3791 Speaking at the occasion, Rajeev Suri, senior vice president, Nokia Asia Pacific (Networks), said that the managed services will be led globally out of India from July this year, and that Ashish Chowdhary, presently Head of Networks in India, will escalate to Global Head of Managed Services from India by the end of 2006. Suri said a central role was envisaged for India, wherein the country will not only function as a large target market but also as a hub for delivery and direction. It is Nokia's Managed Services Division that runs telecom networks of service providers as part of the outsourcing agreement, and the current Vice President of Managed Services, Henrik Sund, is reportedly quitting the company. Suri added that Nokia's first Global Network Solutions Centre situated in Chennai had...

The upcoming edition (June 26th 2006) of Time magazine focusses on "India Inc" with interesting and revealing stories on ambitious and enterprising India.    India Inc. - Why the world's biggest democracy is the next great economic super power - and what it means for America http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601060626,00.html Tags: Time , India , Inspions , economic , democracy

I have been searching for a while for resources and trying to contact consultants to help starting a business in India. At first I found only few links which talk about this topic and explain various options available and what needs to get started. And these links only talk in very brief and summarized format just to give an overall idea but not give enough information to decide any thing for example the form of organization. And there are one or two links that gives a hint about the steps involved in starting a business. Having little knowledge and details, I was desperate to find a consultant who can handle this for me. I did not succeed even in that almost for 3 weeks now. But I am very happy and thrilled today for I found some links and websites which not only have thorough information about many aspects of starting a business in India, but also there are portals which allows an entrepreneur to take care of most of the steps in starting a business online. That is true, most of the...

Answer to that question is, I don't think so. There is so much technical complexity involved, that except few geeks  who work right on computer networks, not many people can detect if their Internet traffic is ever discriminated.  That is one of the reasons, I guess,  why we need Net Neutrality as a law, so that the Telcos will never try to discriminate your traffic, though you are not quite aware of. There is a post at Save The Internet , that alleges Cox Communications of blocking Craigslist for almost three months. The security company Authentium, who handles security for Cox Communications reportedly explained with technical details why users can not reach Craigslist website. It looks like there is problem with the computers that hosts the craigslist website. Here is the reply from rnapier, strongly suggesting that the behaviour is normal and as per the specification. . rnapier Says: June 17th, 2006 at 4:15 pm Has anyone here actually read the response from Authentium? Far ...

Nokia and Siemens to Merge Telecommunications Arms Further fueling the consolidation in the telecommunications equipment and technology market, two giants in the business are merging their respective telecom gear businesses — Nokia and Siemens will merge into a single company, according to the Wall Street Journal . In a deal valued at €25 billion ($31.5 billion), Finnish Nokia and German Siemens will combine their telecommunications businesses in a new company to be headquartered in Finland and run by Nokia’s executive Simon Beresford-Wylie.

There are so many features that we might not have used in Microsoft word that are so useful and handy. For example you can dictate your blog posts using the dictation feature in Microsoft word. This blog posting has been dictated using Microsoft word dictation feature, completely. I added only commas and divided into paragraph.  It’s sometimes difficult to get everything correct first time, thanks to my Indian accent but it’s not a big deal. I guess it takes time to train it. Moreover, once we have the basic text ready, it is easy to edit the text, than typing all text ourselves. I can’t believe it’s a lot of fun to play with it. It did not understand blog, I had to train it first. If you never tried the dictation feature, try it out. It took almost 6 minutes to dictate this post. You might enjoy it.  Not just that,  you can also relieve your fingers. Go to tools menu and click on speech. The speech toolbar will appear on the right hand top corner. Click on Dictation to star...

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced ( Announcement Video ) on Friday that he will be working part time at Microsoft and full time at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by July 2008. However Bill Gates insisted that "he is not leaving Microsoft" and will continue to serve as Chairman even after July, 2008.      ( Photos from Flickr ) It has been a phenonenal and legendary journey for Microsoft and Bill Gates. If it is not for Bill Gates and his Microsoft,  not many of us wouldn't have seen PC by this time. Despite the evolution of technology and greate entrepreneurs and competitors, still more than 90% of the desktops are powered by Microsoft Windows Operating system, a greatest of all feats, in a sense a miracle that only Microsoft could achieve in this cut throat competition era. The Microsoft and the world of technology and business will miss a great and unparalleled visionary, but for a much greater and noble reason. With full time contributions from Bill Gate...

 Interesting facts about various communication tools that we use every day at GigaOM: http://gigaom.com/2006/06/12/fun-facts-about-email/

For those of you who could not attend to the TiECON East being held in Boston today and tomorrow (16th and 17th June, 2006), you may be missing the live action. But not  spirit of TieCON, its key messages and all the information. Podcasts of sessions from TieCON East will be made available through Podtech. Here is the link to TiECON East Podcasts . Three podcasts are already available from TiECON East. TiE Global Chairman Apurv Bagri Opens TiECON East 2006 TiECON East: Emerging Trends in Due Diligence and Investment Research TiECON East 2006: Harvard’s Stevenson Delivers Keynote on Predictive Intelligence Here is the link to TieCON East Web Page . Podcasts from TieCON 2006 Santa Clara are also available at podtech. Tags: TieCONEast , TiECON , India , Indus , Enterpreneur , startup

Many analysts are already started predicting that this is another Tech bubble, not just because many opportunities are too good to be true, but also because of the vast inflow of venture capital funds. But Bud Colligan and Mike Boich, venture capitalists say in this podcast (" Bud Colligan and Mike Boich - New Venture Opportunities ") that "it is a solid market. If you know how to decode it, an entrepreneur can capitalize on a growing demand for web based services and products. Ideas which looked unrealistic 5 years back are looking great today." Few reasons why it is the best time to start a business, particularly a web based business: Internet has reached a considerable critical mass of  users for any web based business to take on. With the advent of broadband connections, users can download bandwidth intensive data and applications like video. Too many people are using internet and the number is growing crazy. This will introduce unexpected security...

Rajat's DreamOn blog : Post here . 27 graduates out of the 35-student electrical engineering batch at IIT Mumbai have opted for jobs with start-ups rather than top-tier companies. That's a welcome sign. I am very happy with this news item, for all good reasons: They realized that they can not unearth their true potential by working within the cubes of bigger hulks, but in a free minded startups. If they had any thing better than other graduates in India, let them show the world what they got.  In the past, if IITians are any good, so far they only got a better job. Nothing more to celebrate. Now if these new generation IITians are any good, we will see some great new cool products on the horizon. Little test to the hype of inflated merit of the IITians. They did not follow the blind alley of fetching a job at a multinational and showing their mettle that they are different and they want to be distinct. If you count the number of startups and successful venture...

Over the last 4 months, I have visited many selected blogs ( I didn't keep a count, but based on my notes,  around 150) particularly looking for information and discussion at length on various topics about Startups. I have been looking more precisely for software or technology startups. Not many are there dedicated to Software Startups, but very much wandering about all kinds of businesses; someone said it best "wandering generality than a meaningful specific". I found a few startling things to my surprise. Most of the blogs almost always are following a pattern, in little realistic words, they are called stereotypes. Here are the top observations: (Note: Read they/them as Blogs or blog owners.) Most of them never have or had any kind of startup experience. Some of them are though, self employed or independent consultants; other than that they never started or operated any kind of business that is bigger than a 1 man operation. Most of them link their posts to ea...

A very thought provoking post with questions that offers a fresh perspective about the product a startup is offering, posted in a ingenious conversation format. http://www.onstartups.com :  Why your software is not selling? Possible Reasons Why Your Software Isn’t Selling   Lack of visibility:  Nobody knows who you are. Lack of leads:   Not enough people you can convert to customers. Value Unclear:  Prospects can’t figure out what it is you actually do for them. Value Clear, But Not Compelling:   Prospects know what you do, but couldn’t care less. Trials Too Difficult:  You’ve made it too hard for prospects to try your product – and few will buy without trying. Competing On Price:  Startups need to differentiate, but on something other than price.  You’re trying to compete on price. No Credibility:  Prospects have no reason to believ...

As reported at ZDNet news ,  the Senate Commerce Committee released a revised version of the Telecommunications bill that includes no Net Neutrality Regulations. There may be a revision to include Net Neutrality later in the week. As it stands today, FCC will be authorized, ONLY to monitor and report incidents that are considered as violations of Net Neutrality principles. The committee might put the final version of the bill on 20th of June. So, probably we won't hear much about it until later of the week, where a revision that include Net Neutrality is available, if any. Mean time, Washington Post in its editorial revealed itself to the public that its Broadband network means a lot more than the principles behind the whole Net Neutrality battle. Read its twisted arguments revealed at ' Post Editors Get Slippery on the Facts '. How come they missed the whole point? The advocates of neutrality suggest, absurdly, that a non-neutral Internet would resemble cable TV: a mediu...

News link : Motorola has announced plans for an Indian manufacturing facility with an initial investment of US$30 million. This will be scaled up to a total of US$100 million in phases. The company will establish a manufacturing plant in the 300 acre Sriperumbadur Hi-tech Special Economic Zone (SEZ) being developed jointly by Motorola and Government of Tamilnadu at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. Tags: india , motorola , chennai , inspions

Links : Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism By Jaron Lanier at Edge.org The hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it? The problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous. Very thoug...

Here is a graphic lists out Green cards issued between 2003 and 2005. Mexico leads the table followed by India and China in that order. The report has lots of interesting statistics that might interest you. I understand each country has some kind of quota allocated for Green cards. If these statistics speak for any thing, then India got around 7.5% allocations in the quota. In 2005, a total of 1,122,373 persons became LPRs of  the United States (see Table 1). The majority (66 percent) lived in the United States when they became LPRs. Nearly three-fifths (58 percent) were granted permanent residence based on a family relationship with a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident of the United States. The leading countries of birth of LPRs were Mexico (14 percent), India (8 percent), and China (6 percent). Reference : Annual Flow Report April 2006 Tags: Greencard , immigration , india , mexico

Wow, thats a great news. Greencard cap (Employment based) will be tripled for next 10 years once the Immigration Reforms Bill becomes law.   "S. 2611 would essentially triple the current green card  cap (“immigrant visa cap”) for employment-based green cards (to 450,000 annually for 10 years) and double the number of family-based green cards (to 480,000 annually). " http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/L37Immigration051506LB.pdf That would reduce the waiting time for the current applicants and new alike. Time to get it started if you are planning for. Have a look at the current processing times for Greencards, you would have an idea of what is current waiting time. It sucks. If you file on EB2, it takes about 3 years, and on EB1 it takes around 5 years. Employment-   Based Other Countries CHINA-mainland born INDIA MEXICO PHILIPPINES 1st  C ...

MIT Video Lecture : The World Turned Upside Down: The Impact of the Return of India and China to their Historical Global Weight ABOUT THE LECTURE: The world isn’t so much flat as gravely tilting, “and may be on the way to some kind of self-destruction,” believes Clyde Prestowitz, Jr . We’re due for a major rebalancing of global economic might, which the U.S. may well experience as catastrophic change. There are historic cycles, he tells us. As recently as 1850, China was the world’s largest economy, but by 1950, the U.S. and Europe had come to dominate the scene. Once again “the hinge of history is taking a big turn.” China and India are fast overtaking Western nations in economic growth, driven by the digital revolution: “Half the world has come onto the capitalist road …at the moment when the road becomes a freeway,” says Prestowitz. The implications are staggering. While millions may rise from poverty, the possibility that these new economies develop along th...

Happy with the last nights rejection of Net Neutrality in the House of Representatives , Telecom companies will soon be giving a generous gift to its consumers, called 'Bit caps'. They have promised themselves to give this gift to their consumers now or little later but definitely. This time, they mean it. People, that rejected the Net Neutrality, do you know what is in the making and what can be expected from these greedy Telcos? Here you go.One tiny step. Bit caps. If you have a internet connection from one of these greate Telecom companies, they setup a bit cap, a limit on the amount of data you can download or upload. That is not bad at all. But here is the problem. If you download video from the Telecom company, then that data will not count to the cap. You can download almost unlimited video from your company. But if you download a video from Google or youtube for example, then that video would count to the cap. Once you reach the cap you must pay for each bit you downloa...