NAFIS, Shabbir Husain

Source startupdunia.com:

An insightful article by “Businessworld” on the scene of online advsertising market in India. Informative and interesting.

The original Google thesis. Interesting read.

A great post yet once again from Paul Graham. He has listed few of the common reasons why people are reluctant in starting a startup of their own. He also classifies the reasons as valid concerns or bogus. And it serves as a checklist to exmaine one’s feelings.

The reasons are:

1. Too young.
2. Too inexperienced.
3. Not determined enough.
4. Not smart enough.
5. Know nothing about business.
6. No cofounder.
7. No idea.
8. No room for more startups.
9. Family to support.
10. Independently wealthy.
11. Not ready for commitment.
12. Need for structure.
13. Fear of uncertainty.
14. Don’t realize what you’re avoiding.
15. Parents want you to be a doctor.
16. A job is the default.

I initially thought I would extract the most important points and list them down here itself, but then having read the post multiple times already, I would say every line is important. And if I attempted to just highlight the key points and arguments that would some how not convey the entire picture and meaning correctly. Which is absolutely critical.

However the very essence of the post is to start a startup early, rather than looking for a regular job for the sake of experience. A regular job tends to take you away from the goal of starting your own startup rather than assisting or speeding the very process. As a regular job would transform one into a tame animal and what a startup would be able to teach, a regular corporate job will not be able to in the same amount of time.

In a nustshell. The Sooner the better!

Source Wired.com:

The top 10 being:

1. Google
2. Apple
3. Genentech
4. Samsung
5. News Corp
6. Nintendo
7. Salesforce.com
8. Cisco
9. General Electric
10. Nvidia

Visit the article for the complete list. Raja of outsourcing – Infosys is ranked 14th.

SDA India Magazine and sda-india.com present the first of its kind conference on Java, Eclipse, Enterprise Architectures, SOA, Web Services, Software Testing, and Project Management, to the Indian Enterprise IT community of CIOs, CTOs, Management, System Analysts, Development Managers, IT Managers, Project Managers, Project Leaders, Software Architects, Software Developers, Software Testers, Database Administrators, and Web Developers. Whether you are a decision maker evaluating the use of these technologies, an IT business looking for partners and networking opportunities, or a working professional looking to stay on the cutting-edge of technology, this is one conference you don’t want to miss.

The core of the program is aimed at dissemination of information on all Java technologies, Eclipse and related technologies, Enterprise Architectures, and SOA, which are necessary ingredients for a successful business. Besides this, JAX also focuses on aspects pertaining to project management and software testing, which are key to the functioning of distributed enterprises

Date and Venue: 28th to 31st May 2007, J N Tata Auditorium, IISc, Bangalore, India

More details here.

An interesting post on the affect the global recession could have on the Web 2.0 firms.

Guy Kawasaki has compiled a list of mistakes which one should avoid in their websites. These mistakes impact the website stickiness and adoption. Very common issues which I am sure each one of us might have experienced.

Now one will be able to share with friends, their favourite list of online videos by adding the URLs of the same to their orkut profile. “Add to my favorites” allows you to add your friend’s favourite list to your own list.

Source here:

One of Australia’s biggest banks, the Commonwealth Bank, has used the latest version of Apple’s music player—the slimline Nano—to compare global currencies and purchasing power in 26 countries.

Along the lines of the Big Mac index launched 20 years ago by The Economist magazine, the survey prices the 2GB Nano in U.S. dollars and found Brazilians pay the most for an iPod, shelling out $327.71, well above second-placed India at $222.27.

Canada was the cheapest place to buy a Nano at $144.20, while Australia ranked 19th at $172.36, cheaper than Germany ($192.46), France ($205.80), South Korea ($176.17) and China where the machine is manufactured. The U.S. was fourth cheapest at $149.

Prices of iPod globally (sorted in descending order of price):

1. Brazil $327.71
2. India $222.27
3. Sweden $213.03
4. Denmark $208.25
5. Belgium $205.81
6. France $205.80
7. Finland $205.80
8. Ireland $205.79
9. UK $195.04
10. Austria $192.86
11. Netherlands $192.86
12. Spain $192.86
13. Italy $192.86
14. Germany $192.46
15. China $179.84
16. South Korea $176.17
17. Switzerland $175.59
18. New Zealand $172.53
19. Australia $172.36
20. Taiwan $164.88
21. Singapore $161.25
22. Mexico $154.46
23. U.S. $149.00
24. Japan $147.63
25. Hong Kong $147.35
26. Canada $144.20

Why is China ranked 15th? If iPods are made out China, shouldn’t they be priced lowest in China. If this is an Apple pricing policy, then I reckon it would really pay off being an iPod dealer or retailer in China. Don’t you think so! One would assume that things in Hong Kong will be very reasonably priced due to its proximity with China, but that is not true either for quite a few items. In fact same is the case in Japan for global electronic models. To many it is a shock to find out electronics (other than Cameras I believe) is expensive in Japan.

I believe digital cameras too are comparatively more expensive in India. Nice to know Hong Kong is the second best place to buy an iPod from . So plan your trip accordingly guys, visit Hong Kong (unless Canada is closer ) and take a trip to the Peak.

Wonder what the price of an iPod would be in places like the Gulf. Dubai and Kuwait have always been famous for reasonably priced electronics, in fact many more things in that matter.

Great website – http://web.archive.org/collections/web.html
 

Type in any domain names and see what it looked like years ago. This is how Google looked.

The speed with which IT systems can evolve and adapt, with the ever changing requirements (both from business and IT) and scenarios is increasingly becoming a key competitive differentiator for small to big firms alike. The “Time-To-Market’ factor is critical in building and sustaining a competitive edge over your rivals and in winning the faith and good will of your customers. Building configurable systems help address this issue.

Qualities of a good configuration system:

• Configure as much as possible:
  Making the system configurable saves a lot of developer and testing effort. A code change could introduce a bug, but the chances of the same are much less if the change is a configuration change. It should have the ability to configure the high level details and also give the flexibility of overriding the high level configuration at the lower levels or minute level of the application or infrastructure. 

• Scalable:
  The configuration system should be highly scalable. The stand alone application configuration systems should eventually evolve and grow into becoming a full fledge enterprise level configuration system or platform. This can help deploy and configure systems at an enterprise level in the least possible time and effort.

• Standard:
  The conventions used should be standardized for the ease of understanding and communication.

• Centralized v/s Distributed:
  Parameters which are very application specific and ones which do not depend on other application or services should be (localized) within applications. However, parameters which are shared across various systems should be maintained at a central location. A single change in the central location will configure all dependent systems at the same time. Do not localize shared parameters; it is most likely to become a bottle neck if a change is needed in them.

• Should take effect at run time:
  This is more to do with the application capabilities than the configuration system. On a change in any one of the configurable variables, the application should be able to pick that change without having to stop and re-start the process. This will ensure that the change can be deployed at run time without service interruptions.

• Local File v/s Database v/s Hybrid:
  A right choice has to be made in terms of where to source the configurations from. Should the variables be stored / read from a database or a configuration file? Points one needs to consider are: configuration of the application remotely, startup time of the application, database availability, and time required to make the changes.

• Secure:
  Sensitive information like database passwords etcetera must be stored in a secured fashion. One that is not accessible and readable by all.

• Easy to understand:
  It should be easy to understand and learn for people to work on it.

In a nutshell: One may not have a full fledge application or enterprise level configuration system in place from day one. But aiming for one and building the same will definitely have long term benefits. In a distributed systems environment as more and more applications communicate with one another, more shared services are used the need for integrating these seamlessly is critical. And from a stand along application perspective too a good configurable app is the way to go.

A very good presentation on the E-bay IT architecture. Enterprises are often confronted with these challenges as the business requirments continue to get complex and as the volume or business that the IT systems need to support grows significantly.

Looking at the strategies adapted by tech companies in China seems like tying up with a local partner is the ONLY way to go.

Firms seek to enter the Chinese market to gain a share of the internet/online services and local software business, attracted by the vast population of the tech savvy people and the high IT demand in the local market. Initially the firms, like done by them in other non-US markets (which seems logical anyways), enter the China market all by their own, trying to establish a presence and gain dominance by rolling out their services for the local consumers. However seems like the China market though lucrative is not all that easy to setup a shop and run all by your own.  It has become increasingly evident that the firms struggle to topple the local rivals and are forced to abandon their strategy of doing it all alone and end up tying up with a local partner. 

As I am currently in HKSAR, I am invariably interested in IT developments and trends of this region.

Source China Web 2.0 review has details from the Baidu’s second report:

According to the report, as of November 3rd, 2006:

1. There are 19.87 million Chinese bloggers worldwide.
2. 52.3 million Chinese blogs.
3. Every blogger has 2.6 blogs.
4. Number of bloggers increased by 24%.
5. The number of blogs increased by 41%.
6. Almost half of bloggers (48.5%) update their blogs in day time or working hour (from 10 am to 6 pm).
7. Currently there are 1460 blogging service providers in China.
8. It (number of blogging service providers) is an increase of 55% year over year.
9. The top 10 service providers are:
   • QQ-zone,
   • Sina Blog,
   • MSN Live Spaces,
   • Sohu Blogs,
   • Baidu Space,
   • Netease Blog,
   • 51.com,
   • Bokee,
   • Blogbus and
   • Hexun Blog.

Additionally, to get a flavour of the global trends, as per Technorati, the number of global blogs are doubling every 7 months.