Wallpaper of the Day
posted by Pranav Nasa at
4:17 AM
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5 comments
Friday, October 07, 2005
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Humor Quotes
1. As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I
can't remember the other two... -- Sir Norman Wisdom
2. One of the most difficult things in the world is to convince a woman that
even a bargain costs money. -- Edgar Watson Howe
3. A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your
success! -- Doug Larson
4. A harmful truth is always better then...a useful lie! -- Eric Bolton
5. When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized
that The Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive
me. -- Erno Philips
6. I only go to work on days that don't end in a 'y'. -- Robert Paul
7. We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to
walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up. -- Phyllis Diller
8. Laughter is the closest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge
9. Start every day with a smile and get it over with. -- W.C. Fields
10. Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. -- Will Rogers
11. Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out,
you haven't wasted a whole day. -- Mickey Rooney
12. Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not
have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the
same choice we've always had: work or prison. -- Tim Allen
13. If you never want to see a man again, say, 'I love you, I want to marry
you. I want to have children...' - they leave skid marks. -- Rita Rudner
14. I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. -- Woody Allen
15. Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we
didn't. -- Erica Jong
16. Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive. -- Elbert Hubbard
17. Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use. -- Wendell Johnson
18. In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found
out. -- Joey Adams
19. I've been in love with the same woman for forty-one years. If my wife finds
out, she'll kill me. -- Henry Youngman
20. Have you noticed that all the people in favor of birth control are already
born ? -- Benny Hill
can't remember the other two... -- Sir Norman Wisdom
2. One of the most difficult things in the world is to convince a woman that
even a bargain costs money. -- Edgar Watson Howe
3. A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your
success! -- Doug Larson
4. A harmful truth is always better then...a useful lie! -- Eric Bolton
5. When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized
that The Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive
me. -- Erno Philips
6. I only go to work on days that don't end in a 'y'. -- Robert Paul
7. We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to
walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up. -- Phyllis Diller
8. Laughter is the closest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge
9. Start every day with a smile and get it over with. -- W.C. Fields
10. Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. -- Will Rogers
11. Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out,
you haven't wasted a whole day. -- Mickey Rooney
12. Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not
have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the
same choice we've always had: work or prison. -- Tim Allen
13. If you never want to see a man again, say, 'I love you, I want to marry
you. I want to have children...' - they leave skid marks. -- Rita Rudner
14. I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. -- Woody Allen
15. Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we
didn't. -- Erica Jong
16. Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive. -- Elbert Hubbard
17. Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use. -- Wendell Johnson
18. In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found
out. -- Joey Adams
19. I've been in love with the same woman for forty-one years. If my wife finds
out, she'll kill me. -- Henry Youngman
20. Have you noticed that all the people in favor of birth control are already
born ? -- Benny Hill
posted by Pranav Nasa at
3:30 AM
|
0 comments
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Views on the Indian tech industry
Something which we can relate to! Worth Reading.......
Views on the Indian tech industry:
It's a topic that has been oft debated - that India's tech industry is a lot like the Chinese manufacturing phenomenon - Low cost, reasonable quality, minimal innovation. I was an employee of a huge IT company in India and have, in the two years in their employ, developed certain opinions and concerns about the direction of India's IT revolution.
Here's how Indian IT companies operate (Infy, TCS, wipro and the second string such as mastek, satyam, patni etc). Hire engineers in bulk, never mind that they are not computer scientists or electrical engineers - if they can write a few lines of code in C/C++ and are academically decent, they're hired. After all, they don't need brilliant engineers - just people who will do as they are told and reasonably intelligent enough to get the client's work done, and bullshit their way out of it if they don't. They'll rarely make CAD software for Electrical engineering or mechanical engineering. Instead they will develop "end to end solutions" for banking, finance, inventory management, website development, etc. By develop I mean code, not design - there is a huge difference between the two, something which I will touch upon shortly. One important thing to note is that the HR in most IT companies don't give a damn about individual interests. They will put you wherever they need someone to slog for them. I've had one HR person tell me that they will put me in a project where they get maximum money, regardless if I am interested or not. And they wonder why so many people leave!!!
What is the nature of the work? At least 70% of the international projects in most Indian IT companies is maintenance - i.e someone else has already developed an application. All you need to do is add more features/change behaviour as per client's request. Then there's production support, which is worse. It is almost call-center work - ensure that the application runs normally and if it fails, get it up and running ASAP. Take calls from the client, update on the status. In a sense, like a car mechanic - I didn't get an engineering degree to be a car mechanic - I got it to design the car! Finally, if you are lucky you get development - write code. But then, writing code is easy - it is like manufacturing a car. What is not, is designing a system that works efficiently. Typically, foreign clients get the design done by the likes of Accenture, IBM, etc. The designs are then sent to desi companies, who actually do the coding at a cost much cheaper than IBM or accenture. Thus, all we do is donkey work. It is not technology - it is programming. Technology is a new idea, paradigm or design - programming is implementing that design. Thus, most of the people in IT waste their engineering degrees, doing mundane programming, until they are made project managers - after which they spend their lives approving timesheets, conducting appraisals and sucking up to the client. Wait a second - shouldn't an experienced IT professional be doing advanced stuff and leave the bullshitting to MBAs?
Why is it so hard for desi companies to do design? They've not tried hard enough (yet) to get into this space. They just don't have the competence to get the job done. Desi companies are amazing at procedure oriented projects - if there is a procedure in place telling us what to do, we can do it. They don't have the experience (and therefore the brand equity) to attract IT consulting projects. Consulting is largely a reputation driven business. In order to build such a reputation, desi companies need to hire high-flying consultants - they don't come cheap. Even after all this, there is no guarantee of results! How many software products come out of Indian cos? IFlex is the only company to have a product successful worldwide. Making products is expensive and again, there is no guarantee of success - why risk it when services give me an assured income?
Why do we need to get into high end IT - consulting and products? Simply because the algorithm of low cost, low margin services will run it's course in the future. As payscales rise in India and the rupee appreciating wrt the dollar, margins become more and more slim. In time, India may not be as competitive as say Brazil or Russia - the American cos will take their projects out there! U can see trends in the manufacturing sector - earlier Taiwan was the manufacturing base for American cos, then SouthKorea and then these days, China. Indian companies thus have 2 choices - identify and set shop in countries where the low cost, low margin algorithm can be applied or enter into high end IT, which is independent of geography. I believe the latter is the better route - it is a high margin business and reasonably high tech. What is even better, is coming up with technology - like Java, efficient databases, advanced operating systems (Like Sun, Oracle or Microsoft). That is real tech. It's not that we canÂt do it. It's just that wedon'tt want to risk it. But, nothing venture, nothing have! Desi companiesdon'tt even do proper R&D!
For too long have we been stuck in the procedure oriented IT services. It is time to invest in consulting and products, and take Indian IT to the next level, or else I fear we will remain stuck in this low end nonsense.
Finally, a true story. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) was huge in the chip manufacturing industry, making almost 60% profit. They could have got into chip design, and potentially, designed low cost chips. However, design is a risky business - what if the chip bombs? TSMC chose to stick to it's core competence - fabrication. In time, TSMC's profits have declined to 20% or so... they're still number one, butdon'tt make as much money as they used to... Are we learning yet?
Source: Indiatimes blog
Views on the Indian tech industry:
It's a topic that has been oft debated - that India's tech industry is a lot like the Chinese manufacturing phenomenon - Low cost, reasonable quality, minimal innovation. I was an employee of a huge IT company in India and have, in the two years in their employ, developed certain opinions and concerns about the direction of India's IT revolution.
Here's how Indian IT companies operate (Infy, TCS, wipro and the second string such as mastek, satyam, patni etc). Hire engineers in bulk, never mind that they are not computer scientists or electrical engineers - if they can write a few lines of code in C/C++ and are academically decent, they're hired. After all, they don't need brilliant engineers - just people who will do as they are told and reasonably intelligent enough to get the client's work done, and bullshit their way out of it if they don't. They'll rarely make CAD software for Electrical engineering or mechanical engineering. Instead they will develop "end to end solutions" for banking, finance, inventory management, website development, etc. By develop I mean code, not design - there is a huge difference between the two, something which I will touch upon shortly. One important thing to note is that the HR in most IT companies don't give a damn about individual interests. They will put you wherever they need someone to slog for them. I've had one HR person tell me that they will put me in a project where they get maximum money, regardless if I am interested or not. And they wonder why so many people leave!!!
What is the nature of the work? At least 70% of the international projects in most Indian IT companies is maintenance - i.e someone else has already developed an application. All you need to do is add more features/change behaviour as per client's request. Then there's production support, which is worse. It is almost call-center work - ensure that the application runs normally and if it fails, get it up and running ASAP. Take calls from the client, update on the status. In a sense, like a car mechanic - I didn't get an engineering degree to be a car mechanic - I got it to design the car! Finally, if you are lucky you get development - write code. But then, writing code is easy - it is like manufacturing a car. What is not, is designing a system that works efficiently. Typically, foreign clients get the design done by the likes of Accenture, IBM, etc. The designs are then sent to desi companies, who actually do the coding at a cost much cheaper than IBM or accenture. Thus, all we do is donkey work. It is not technology - it is programming. Technology is a new idea, paradigm or design - programming is implementing that design. Thus, most of the people in IT waste their engineering degrees, doing mundane programming, until they are made project managers - after which they spend their lives approving timesheets, conducting appraisals and sucking up to the client. Wait a second - shouldn't an experienced IT professional be doing advanced stuff and leave the bullshitting to MBAs?
Why is it so hard for desi companies to do design? They've not tried hard enough (yet) to get into this space. They just don't have the competence to get the job done. Desi companies are amazing at procedure oriented projects - if there is a procedure in place telling us what to do, we can do it. They don't have the experience (and therefore the brand equity) to attract IT consulting projects. Consulting is largely a reputation driven business. In order to build such a reputation, desi companies need to hire high-flying consultants - they don't come cheap. Even after all this, there is no guarantee of results! How many software products come out of Indian cos? IFlex is the only company to have a product successful worldwide. Making products is expensive and again, there is no guarantee of success - why risk it when services give me an assured income?
Why do we need to get into high end IT - consulting and products? Simply because the algorithm of low cost, low margin services will run it's course in the future. As payscales rise in India and the rupee appreciating wrt the dollar, margins become more and more slim. In time, India may not be as competitive as say Brazil or Russia - the American cos will take their projects out there! U can see trends in the manufacturing sector - earlier Taiwan was the manufacturing base for American cos, then SouthKorea and then these days, China. Indian companies thus have 2 choices - identify and set shop in countries where the low cost, low margin algorithm can be applied or enter into high end IT, which is independent of geography. I believe the latter is the better route - it is a high margin business and reasonably high tech. What is even better, is coming up with technology - like Java, efficient databases, advanced operating systems (Like Sun, Oracle or Microsoft). That is real tech. It's not that we canÂt do it. It's just that wedon'tt want to risk it. But, nothing venture, nothing have! Desi companiesdon'tt even do proper R&D!
For too long have we been stuck in the procedure oriented IT services. It is time to invest in consulting and products, and take Indian IT to the next level, or else I fear we will remain stuck in this low end nonsense.
Finally, a true story. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) was huge in the chip manufacturing industry, making almost 60% profit. They could have got into chip design, and potentially, designed low cost chips. However, design is a risky business - what if the chip bombs? TSMC chose to stick to it's core competence - fabrication. In time, TSMC's profits have declined to 20% or so... they're still number one, butdon'tt make as much money as they used to... Are we learning yet?
Source: Indiatimes blog
posted by Pranav Nasa at
3:50 AM
|
1 comments
