apple turns 30

apple computers recently turned 30 . It is amazing that they are still carrying the innovation tempo. No wonder it has been voted the coolest brand around along with google.

check out this news link for all the more detailed coverage on apple's
success story. http://news.com.com/2009-1041-6053869.html

with microsoft potponing the release of vista which boasts of features already incorporated in mac os apple finally has won the battle.

a flat world

While Columbus sailed the ocean blue in hopes of finding a new route to India, he discovered America and proved that the world was round. When Thomas Friedman flew to Bangalore, India he encountered Infosys’ global conferencing center – ground zero of the Indian outsourcing industry and it led him on a road to realizing that the world was flat.
While outsourcing is one dimension of a flatter world, according to Nilekani, the CEO of Infosys Technology Limited, over the last few years there has been a massive investment in broadband cables, computers have gotten cheaper and new technology has developed so since 2000 “a platform has been created where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere.”
So there are a growing amount of jobs are being outsourced to India and China. For example, there are currently 245,000 Indians working in call centers in Bangalore, answering phones calls from all around the world or dialing out to solicit people for credit cards or collect overdue bills. They are practicing English in a variety of accents, from the Queens English to Midwest American. The types of jobs being shipped overseas vary from accountant work to looking at CAT scans, to working for Reuters News service, because the labor is much cheaper.
Even Tokyo is outsourcing jobs to Dalian, China the silicon valley of China, about an hours flight northeast of Beijing. The Mayor of Dalian told Friedman over a traditional ten course Chinese dinner “We have twenty-two universities and colleges with over two hundred thousand students in Dalian” where more than half of those students graduate with engineering or science degrees, learning Japanese and English.
Mayor Xai says, “The rule of the market economy is that if somewhere has the richest human resources and the cheapest labor, of course the enterprise and the business will naturally go there. Chinese people first were the employees and working for the big foreign manufactures, and after several years, after we have learned all the processes and steps, we can start our own firms. Software will go down the same road… First we will have our young people employed by the foreigners, and then we will start our own companies.”
Not only is outsourcing for lower costs happening, but there is also “homesourcing”, where new companies like JetBlue are employing at home moms and grandmothers to make reservations for flights.
Friedman describes the flattening of the world in this way:
GLOBALIZATION 1.0From the time Columbus said 1492 to 1800 was Globalization 1.0 where the world went from large to medium sized. Globalization 1.0 was about countries and muscle. Whichever country had the horsepower, wind power and later steam power they moved ahead economically.
GLOBALIZATION 2.0The second great era was Globalization 2.0 between 1800 and 2000 where the world moved from medium sized to small. The key agents of change during this time were the multi-national corporations. It was during this era we saw the birth and development of a global economy.
GLOBALIZATION 3.0What Friedman will argue in this book is that we are now in the Globalization 3.0 era where the dynamic force is not countries or multi-nationals, but the newfound power for individuals to collaborate and compete globally.
According to Friedman, the world is not only flattening in the sense of empowering individuals, but more and more the individuals will be people from the East instead of America and Europe. The changes that are happening in our world are seismic and taking place at rapid speed, which is why one of the best ways to describe it is that our round world has become flat – we live in a different world.

india rising

"The Risings of India: What does it means to Americans"On news chennel ABC NEWS there was a exclusive programme, "INDIA RISING".One of the invitees was the bestseller writer of "World is Flat" and what he says about india: Take Champagne bottle, shake the bottle of Champagne for an hour, and open the cork, where will it go, Indian economy is soaring like that"check out it in video streaming at.http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1674437India in the voice of USA

Interesting stuff especially liked the comments on "Reverence for Knowledge / Sarasvati" and also CK Prahlad's metaphoric comment on a shabby hut from outside but having Pentium inside .....

With the population of people under 35yrs 2 1/2 times that of US population India surely is to emerge as a global leader and that to when it is still young . Newsweek also India Rising & Shining did a series of articles on the emergence of India as a economic power. They talked about India's strengths & weaknesses, Indians in India & around the world, Outsourcing and much more. Interesting and Enlightening

laziness and progress

I read this somewhere and loved it. People keep on critisizing laziness without realizing its not necissity but laziness which is the mother of all invention. Read on you will love it.

Laziness is the impulse to avoid work and this admirable attribute drives all progress in civilization. However, instead of being celebrated as it should be, laziness is reviled. Tragically, throughout one’s schooling and continuing through one’s professional career, a person who happens to be blessed with the glorious God-given asset of laziness is brow-beaten and insulted by parents, teachers, and employers to forsake it.

Teachers et al fail to appreciate that laziness is responsible for most of humanity’s advances. Let’s face it: the guy who invented the sail was fed up with rowing. The first soul to hop on the back of a horse was too lazy to walk any more. Every major progressive step in society was driven by someone trying to get out of doing any work. Each knew, deep down, that there is always an easier, faster, cheaper, safer, better way of accomplishing a task and that hard work is completely and utterly unnecessary, besides being a monumental waste of life.

So instead of culturing a population of creative, inventive, artistic, peaceful souls who are blissfully basking in their laziness, guiltlessly avoiding all work, and reaping enormous financial, emotional, spiritual, and healthful fruits as a result, our collective mindset has produced a society of superficial, stress-out, unfulfilled hard workers, who achieve little more than a pittance in their lifetimes and then die young.

You do not achieve breathtatking results by working long and hard. The true secret of success lies in leveraging/multiplying power and effectiveness. When that happens, it takes less effort to accomplish more.

Here’s the good news. There are easy ways to multiply the power of all your resources – your energy, your time, your skills, your brain power, your passion, your money, etc. You just need to know where and how to look for them. And, of course, you need to take the time to look.

Unfortunately people have bought into the concept of hard work so completely, they are blinded by it and they have sold their souls for skimpy paychecks instead of looking for better, easier, lazier ways that are many times more lucrative. It’s sad because it is so preventable.

Hard work is a superficial approach. And superficial approaches are always weak and ineffectual.

Hard work is just not necessary. There is ALWAYS an easier, more effective way of accomplishing the same thing. If you are working hard, it means you aren’t using your intelligence or creativity to find the “lever” that takes the work out of a task. Those who are motivated by laziness take the time to find that lever and therefore avoid the short-term and long-term misery of hard work. As a bonus, as if avoiding work was not reward enough, they also get rich.

my first post

I've never really watched Indian Idol until yesterday. Well I did watch the first one until Rahul Vaidya was voted out and besides the part 2 had always been in news for promoting poor singers . So yeterday was my first shot at indian idol 2 and what a show it was . When Amey Date was voted out emotions ran high . In a rather bizzare turn of events the audiences and the judges (Anu, Sonu , Farah - why do they call them judges when they have no voice shouldnt they be called audiences too!) refused to accept the decision. This has not been the first time when a deserving singer was ousted but this round was different as for the first time judges stood up for talent. In a country like India where the voting is based not only on how well a contestant performs but also on where he comes from the fate of contestants should not depend only on public voting but also on judges scores. Judges should be more than mere spectators.The Indian Idol 2 has surely been disappointing first it was their *amazing* concept of separate voting for guys n girls . Then obviously the sub standard singing compared to its rival saregamapa and now one of the best contestant being voted out.