Fiat is trying hard for a brand overhaul- so they launch the Fiat 500. It was a classic during its heydey.. now its a small car which can seat two people and your kids toys.  The engine isnt all that great either and it costs more than a Honda Civic! I don’t think people would pay so much extra for the added feature of having a thermometer inside. Even if someone had so much cash to splurge on this car, the only statement he can hope to make by driving it is- Hey, I’m dumb!. Something seems really really wrong with the guy who makes decisions in that company- it is like trying to sell Italian Pizzas from 6 to 6:30 in the morning at Madurai.

Force motors launches superb products- their marketing team works overtime to kill it. Force was the company that used to bring out Tempo Trax- now renamed Force motors. Right from being the pioneer in introducing the LCV segment in India to having the first overhead camshaft engine in the segment, they were the ones to beat. But hardly anyone knows about such a company. They make arguably the best 4×4 available in India- the Gurkha. When it comes to sheer offroading capability it will beat the Pajeros, X5s and the Landcruisers hands down… But all people have heard about is the neighbourhood Gurkha and his whistle!

Wonder why such failures never come up as case studies in B-schools!

The scale of things that Reliance forays into is astounding. While everyone was busy enjoying the show before the start of IPL and eagerly awaiting the toss, did someone notice that the only name advertised on the stage was ‘Reliance’? And considering the sort of mega hit that IPL has become, the amount of money Reliance would have spent for that would be… to put it very lightly… mind boggling.

Keep in mind that they declared a year on year increase of 63% in net profit over the previous year on March, 2008. That is great growth for any company, but for a company the size of RIL, it definitely is worth more than a case study in B-schools!

Tags: reliance, IPL, advertising, cricket

Even in the scenario of some fact written in the paper being right, it means that has happened the previous day and come in print the next day. Whoever had to make money has made money. The one who bases his daily trade on the news article is not going to make his money.

Ajay Shah has written about the unholy nexus between companies and print media on his blog.
Exchanging some stock for positive media exposure? We dont expect such behaviour from the fourth estate. But yeah, its there.

Your chances of making money in the markets are highest if you know how the system works to such an extent that you can trust your gut instincts.

Remember: You never buy a stock, it always gets sold to you.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Media, Stock Markets, Private treaties

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Productivity

I did not think of this till my antenna got stolen. I wrote to customer care for a quote for the antenna. Their ‘authorised’ service center charges me 30% more than the quote given by the customer care department and multiple emails for clarification go unanswered. Sorry to say this, but worldspace customer care sucks. big time.

The entire place is divided into sectors and sectos are laid out like neatly arranged pieces of a puzzle. All roads intesect at right angles and all buildings look the same. You are not allowed to exercise your creativity on the outside of your building. Net result- your house in Chandigarh looks like a smaller version of the Taj hotel there. Great!

When I’m in Bangalore, I pride myself in knowing the small roads on which I can avoid traffic, in knowing where I can get the best kebabs in Delhi, the best biriyani in Hyderabad, knowing where to get great fish in Goa or a peaceful scenic place in kerala. Call it chauvinism, but half of the pleasure of going to these places is the untold knowledge that others would have to take some trouble finding their way here. The feeling of exclusivity. The quiet feeling of being contended with oneself. These cities have evolved, with streets and junctions named after people, events and villages. And that is where you feel you are part of the culture of that place in knowing all of it.

But never did I get that feeling in Chandigarh. Is it the lack of this common bonding feature in evolution that causes the hot headedness of people there?

The only way to keep up the margins is to move up the value chain and provide comprehensive business transformation solutions. TCS has adopted a new billing model where they charge the customer a portion of the profit made due to implementing their solution. Companies like Accenture, IBM etc are trying to move down the value chain and add software and integrate IT into their consulting or hardware businesses. The Indian companies are trying to move up the value chain to increase margins. Only a few companies will be preferred outsourcers after a few years. As we move up the value chain, the IT professionals also will need to hone their skills. The era when someone used to do a proxy telephonic interview with the client and send the associate on site is almost setting in the horizon. The Indian service providers will seek to outsource their work to other lower cost countries like China, Egypt, Vietnam, Hungary , Thailand etc. The last employees standing would be ones who are gurus in technology as well as in understanding the business problem.

The new IT roadmap roadmap draft for Kerala has been released. Is this the road down to neverland for IT in Kerala?

Lets take a few of the salient points in the declaration

1) IT sector not to be exempted from strikes- IT sectors are cash rich and have higher margins compared to other industries. This declaration enables the trade union leaders to hold investors to ransom, demand higher money from them and grow mob violence with more funds.  Which start up would want to start in Kerala knowing that as it grows more, the more the trade union leaders are going to demand from them?  Then why this point int he declaration? Because that enables party cadres to make money and work harder for the party. What is the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid? -the huge vote bank.

2) Free software to be pushed- Sounds good. Looks to be in line with the leftist thinking of bridging the gap between the information rich and the poor. But, what if free software is made compulsory for companies working in IT parks? Now, thats bad. Its good to spread IT at the grassroots ( not that we dont have an abundance of friendly pirates who will give whichever program you ask for). Its good to spread awareness about FOSS and Linux, and have more people working on such systems. An unbelievably large number of people equate the image of a computer to Microsoft Windows. Even people who service computers see Microsoft was a gold standard for approving any software. (One of them even asked me whether the Mac OS X was Microsoft certified.. ha ha ).

It is not as if no one makes money in open source software. People do it not just for feeling part of the movement. They do it to increase their employability, and showcase their skills to the developer community. Someone has to profit someway for  a sustainable business model. IBM declared it was investing $ 1 billion in Java technologies. Why? Coz there would be more people to work on IBMs WebSphere Application server that is made on Java. It is an irony that the same people who swore against big corporates like IBM suddenly find themselves working for the same company. It is like giving free razors so that people will buy your razor blades. Companies should be free to use whichever software they want, be it free or paid. So nothing in particular is achieved by making it compulsory to use free software. Except may be fool a few more people and sway votes. Aha!

But there is one thing I love this government for, esp the chief minister VS Achuthanandan. For kicking the Microsoft arse by making it compulsory to use free software for educational purposes in schools in Kerala.

Click Start–>Run–>type “gpedit.msc” without the inverted commas, of course.

This opens the group policy editor. Then go to:

Local Computer Policy–>Computer Configuration–>Administrative Templates–>Network–>QOS Packet Scheduler–>

Limit Reservable Bandwidth

Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the ‘Explain’ tab :

“By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this

setting to override the default.”

So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO.

This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.

I dint find this out myself, found it while trawling the net for something else. I also forgot the URL where I found it. Sorry. Congrats to the man who did find out! I have a feeling he might be a disgruntled Microsoft employee;)

This worked for me.

Let me know how it works for you!

Is there any sensible person around who would go and buy a Microsoft Zune now? The launch of the iPhone has more or less killed the Zune, which anyway was not very successful anyway. On top of that, the elegant looks of the iPhone constitute the epitaph on the Zune grave.

The king of software still sits in Redmond. Starting with axing the Internet Explorer using the Safari browser, apple is moving to greater heights in the software world. I love it when the guys in Cupertino do their ‘insanely great’ things. Great work Steve!

Here is a very good logical article on why the iPhone may or may not succeed.