Travelling Soldier

Thinking big is the Indian way this decade, given it strong economic run . Whether the nation can succeed in high fashion as it has in

global outsourcing, manufacturing and software development will be one of the more interesting business stories to watch in the year ahead.

New York, Milan, Paris, and London — few would deny these cities are home to the most innovative fashion designers on the planet. Well, how about New Delhi and Mumbai? If the country’s ambitious fashion design community realizes its vision, the country known best for silk saris could someday be a big exporter of high-end clothing labels in the same category as Prada or Gucci.

India’s fashion jewellery is already quite famous in the western economies, but the clothing industry has yet to see the success. That’s the dream anyway — and it’s going to be a stretch. India does have a long and venerable history as a major textile producer. The image of Mahatma Gandhi and his wooden spinning wheel is known around the world. And today the production of cotton, jute, silk, wool, and other fabrics employs about 35 million Indians and represents about one-third of the country’s exports.

It’s a highly fragmented industry, but it more than holds its own against rival Chinese textile companies. Yet when it comes to finished garments, particularly high-end ones, India has a long way to go. The nation’s clothing factories do about $5 billion a year in exports but these are largely lower-end products for big Western retailers such as the Gap and Banana Republic chains. Indian designer-wear generates only $40 million or so in sales in a global market segment worth some $35 billion.

SLIDE SHOW from businessweek

Living in Exponential Times:

1 of every 8 couples married in the USA last year met online

There are 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month

There are about 540,000 words in the english language about 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time

More than 3000 books are published daily(how many trees are being cut for this ???)

It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes(1.5 x 1018) if unique new information will be generated worldwide this year and its more than in the previous 5,000 years.

Third generation fibre optics pushes 10 trillion bits persecond. 47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year

—SHIFT HAPPENS —-

Journalism Category

PUBLIC SERVICE  The Wall Street Journal
 
BREAKING NEWS REPORTING  The Staff of The Oregonian, Portland
 
INVESTIGATIVE  REPORTING  Brett Blackledge of The Birmingham (Ala.) News
 
EXPLANATORY REPORTING  Kenneth R. Weiss, Usha Lee McFarling and Rick Loomis of the Los Angeles Times
 
LOCAL REPORTING  Debbie Cenziper of The Miami Herald
 
NATIONAL REPORTING  Charlie Savage

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING  The Wall Street Journal Staff
 
FEATURE WRITING  Andrea Elliott of The New York Times
 
COMMENTARY  Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
CRITICISM  Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly
 
EDITORIAL WRITING  Arthur Browne, Beverly Weintraub and Heidi Evans of the New York Daily News
 
EDITORIAL CARTOONING  Walt Handelsman of Newsday, Long Island, NY
 
BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY  Oded Balilty of the Associated Press
 
FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY  Renee C. Byer of The Sacramento Bee

Check the complete list here

Why did it take Google to realise that its specialised product search Froogle is not well known or almost near to failure. Froogle was never a cool name and sometimes for the first time listeners might think it as something related to frog. Anyways, Google changes its Froogle to Google Products ,search for stuff to buy.

And now paypal is (re)considering its strategy after observing google’s checkout service. It teamed up with Yahoo and could both could benefit a lot from small business owners. Remember paypal is subsidiary of ebay.

Google reported revenues of $3.66 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2007, an increase of 63% compared to the first quarter of 2006 and an increase of 14% compared to the fourth quarter of 2006. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs, or TAC. In the first quarter of 2007, TAC totaled $1.13 billion, or 31% of advertising revenues

Google buys out the grand daddy of online advertising,DoubleClick- which is known for placing display advertising on multiple websites,a business that google is just getting started in. In last term of MBA,I worked on Google’s business strategy focusing on advertising business and concluded how google should make moves for it survival and dominance. Acquiring other advertising firms was one of the recommendations.

This acquisition will help Google to compete with Yahoo,AOL,Microsoft more fiercely. Microsoft was also in the race to buy DoubleClick but I think they couldnt make the best deal for DoubleClick. Google has offered $3.1 billion,a mere 2% of its 145 billion market cap,to Doubleclick. This amount is almost double to what it paid to acquire Youtube.

Google is becoming like an operating system for placing banner ads and is a major step in reaching the strategic objectives of Google i.e., transforming itself (search engine) into advertising powerhouse. Doubleclick notonly bring great advertising software but brings in relationships with Webpublishers,advertisers and ad agencies.

“This merger is really a part of a global growth strategy for Google,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in a conference call. Mr. Schmidt said that being able to kick-start Google’s display advertising business and marry it with search advertising was the most compelling reason for the purchase. Keeping Microsoft away from Doubleclick and advertising business will be worth more billions than what google is offering doubleclikc and other ad startups.

A highflying stock in the late 1990s, DoubleClick was an early pioneer in online advertising and was one of the few online ad companies to survive the burst of the dot-com bubble. In 2005, it was taken private by two private equity firms, Hellman & Friedman and JMI Equity, in a deal valued at $1.1 billion.

Since then, the company has sold two data and e-mail advertising businesses and acquired Klipmart, which specializes in online video. DoubleClick generated about $300 million in revenue and $50 million in earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes last year, mostly from providing ads on Web sites.

The 22yr old founder of facebook.com could be sitting on a potential gold mine that could be make him the next Silicon Valley’s whiz kid to strike to rich or he could become one more poster boy(like the founder of friendster) for missed opportunities if he waits too long to cash-in.Facebook Inc., is expected to generate revenue of more than $100million this year.He thinks there is more stuff in facebook that can be unlocked in future. Deep-pocketed companies are now angling for a piece of the web 2.0 action - a quest that has yielded couple of big jackpots.News corp paid about $580mn in 2005 for Myspace and Google paid about $1.5bn last year for video sharing pioneer Youtube. Facebook is still a niche site with an experience specifically targetting college students. One would be amazed to know the amount of time people who should probably be studying are spending over facebook making fun of the fact that they are spending too much time on Facebook(this is same with orkut).

Facebook Infomercial Parody

This is a skit from Penn Masala group(worlds first & premier hindi a cappella group).

Myspace vs. Facebook Blog Wars Funny Parody

Today is the last day of the break after the winter term. From tomorrow spring term would be starting off. At MBS,Winter term is considered as the most tiring and tough term for many reasons. Though we had mounting pressures from acads and internship-search,we do had parties and other events..!
Class 2008 president,muditha(see the pic in earlier post) was chosen in a democratic fashion. Even we had few mishaps in conducting elections,one of us tried to hijack the elections to prove a valid point that no election process is ideal. It was the first time MBA class has initiated election process by involving every student in the class. Last year,election of the president was more sort of voluntary process and was administration-driven process.
PMO classes,taught by Richard Phillips and Laszlo Czaban has been most interesting course.We had the opportunity to understand various management concept and organisational strategies.But the learning process was very rigourous demanding high levels of reading i.e., about 55 cases collected from various industries and markets. And in the spring term,we have an extension to this course MIBS(Managing internationally across business systems).
In the internship search process, we had our own share of crests and troughs. Past suggests that most of the studnets will get placed in the spring term. Along with these, we had team projects in every course(MIS,Ops. Mgmt,Strategy). In the strategy, apart from the text book and standard taught in every school,Gary davies taught  us about "Corporate Reputation",concept which is gaining momentum due to recent changes in industries particularly in terms of CSR,Carbon emissions etc.,

MBA Ball Party

MBA Ball 2007

Right at the end of course work and before revision week we had Latin Party,conducted by friends from southamerican friends. MBA Ball,an event which is almost a farewell event to the 2007 class and the time where Pete Naude was awarded teaching excellence award.

LATIN PARTY

Latin Party

"Again and again some people in the crowd wake up. And they demand room for bold gestures. The future speaks ruthlessly through them." - Anonymous

 

And of course there are always large masses of people and other major forces which try to bring down the morale and energy of achievers. There are many naysayers who oftern discourage bold attempts. Perseverance is the key and it is major force which helps one to be focussed on the goal. If the makers of "Seinfeld" and "Friends" had accepted the initial reviews and feedback then the entertainment industry would have missed two most entertaining sitcoms of last decade.

 

“..you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

 

Steve Jobs,CEO of Apple is one person who belongs to this league. He has delivered one of the most inspiring talks to the students in the year 2006 at stanford univ. One can easily sense blend of philosophy and humbleness in his talk. His experience and life reemphasises the fact that the best lessons a person can learn is through shocks and after hitting the rock bottom.

 

Though the talk is more than 2 years old,the essence of the message is clear and loud. Steve Jobs’ intentions are very evident in his company’s promotion campaigns and product launches(check earlier post of iPhone). He makes sure that his products defies the exisiting theories within the industry segment and always bend the rules of the market and still gets away with it.

 

"Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

 

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”

COMPLETE TALK IN VIDEO FORMAT

iPhone’s first advertisement is up and running like in movies…check out

Part 1:

Part 2:

Great minds think alike.. Colbert tells to ‘papa bear’ that he not only read the book but he is living it.

Njoy

part 1:

Part2

Colbert tries to act as a mediator in the celebrity fights of trump(s),angelina jolie vs.madonna and the unspoken Amitab and Shahrukh khan…must watch…

Sexual content-just about the funniest video i have seen last year,,couple in bed and their lawyers negotiate the terms..!!!

PS:no obscene moments

“Yes, I’d like to order 4000 lattes to go please. Sorry, wrong number thank you!”Steve Jobs,Apple.

From iPhone

Today we had the first session of Information Systems class and during the lecture we had a small discussion about Apple-Innovation-iPhone being launched today.Last month there was a speculation that Apple would not be able to launch iPhone because Comcave(canadian company) has been using the name ‘iPhone’ for the last couple of years or so… Finally the wait is over and the iPhone is out …

iPhone = Widescreen ipod with touch controls +New Mobile Phone + Internet Mobile Communicator(WiFi & Bluetooth 2.0) = $599.00 and also name change

Apple Computer Inc., No Wonder iPhone is slick,chic but a very strong response to the Microsoft’s Zune.iPhone features are far more and more better than Zune..

“I’ve had the privilege of joining the board and there’s a lot of relationships… if we merge the companies we can call it Applegoo — but I’m not a marketing guy. You can actually merge without merging. Each company should do the absolutely best thing they can do every time, and he’s shown it today.” Eric Schmidt,Google during iPhone Launch

“Thank you Steve. I’m not a board member of Apple, but I’d love to have one of these too. We’re really proud of Yahoo to be partnering with Apple. One of the things we’re going to be doing is launching some of our new services , Yahoo Go and One Search on this phone. Mail is a killer app on the phone, Yahoo is trying to redesign the web and email experience on mobile devices. The best spam protection, address books, and calendar when you’re on yahoo — It’s like BlackBerry without an Exchange Server.”Jerry Yang,Yahoo

complete coverage of iPhone launch(courtesy-engadget)

Now I cant wait to get hands on it…but…

Nardelli arrived at Home Depot after losing out in 2000 in a three-way race to succeed GE’s legendary Jack Welch. Despite that setback, Nardelli was anointed one of Corporate America’s most talented executives, and Home Depot seemed to have scored a big victory by snaring him. Almost immediately, he embarked on an aggressive plan to centralize control of the nation’s second-largest retailer after Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ). He invested more than $1billion in new technology, such as self-checkout aisles and inventory management systems that generated reams of data. He declared that he wanted to measure virtually everything that happened at the company and hold executives strictly accountable for meeting their numbers. All this was new at a relatively laid-back organization known for the independence of its store managers and the folksy, entrepreneurial style of retired co-founders Bernard Marcus and Arthur M. Blank. One of Nardelli’s favorite sayings is: "Facts are friendly." He seemed less concerned about people being friendly. Some saw this as a strength. "This guy is maniacal about goals, objectivity, accomplishments within the boundaries of the values of the company," Kenneth G. Langone, the third co-founder of Home Depot, a member of its board of directors, and a strong Nardelli ally, said in a 2004 interview.

Corporate America hasn’t seen the last of Bob Nardelli, however. According to people familiar with the situation, while store workers were celebrating, the former CEO was already fielding calls from private equity firms interested in his formidable operational talents. The bright side for Nardelli in the world of privately owned corporations, of course, is that he won’t have to deal with any annual meetings or shareholder questions.

 

Source:Business Week

Kumbh Mela

The largest human gathering ever has been photographed from space by a high resolution imaging satellite.

Over 70 million people are expected to attend a Hindu spiritual event in northern India called the Maha Kumbh Mela. The pilgrims gather at a sacred location on the Ganges River, 15 kilometres from Allahabad, for more than a month of bathing rituals. The activities are intended to wash away their sins and hasten the Hindu people’s progress toward nirvana.

The one-metre resolution image was collected by Space Imaging’s IKONOS satellite, travelling at over 6 kilometres per second, 677 kilometres above the Earth. It shows red-robed bathers at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers.

Wishing all the readers  a very happy and prosperous NEW YEAR.

Have Fun and Enjoy the life..!!!

In an attempt to justify its $2.6 billion purchase of Skype, eBay plans on charging $30 a year for Skype calls to regular landline and mobile phones.  (Calls between computers will continue to be free).  How many of Skype’s 136 million registered users will opt in for this is unclear, but even if it is just a small fraction, eBay will be making more money from Skype than it is today.

This is a deliberate shift in strategy, given that CEO Meg Whitman was predicting the era of free voice calls a year ago, when she said in a conference call:

In the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the Net will trend toward zero.

I guess she changed her mind.  Don Thorson, vice president of marketing for Skype competitor Jajah, says:

It sounds to me like a low-cost Vonage. Why would they do that?

But the bigger question is how many of Skype’s free-loading customers will be alienated by this move and try one of Skype’s many (and growing number of) competitors like Gizmo, Jajah, and Yahoo. Especially since some of the other Internet phone services are considering offering free calls to regular phones supported by advertising.  Meanwhile, Jajah is offering free phone calls to any landline in 80 countries on Christmas Day to try to get more people to try its service.  That one-day promotion is open to about 3.5 billion people.

Skype was the ultimate disruptor of the telephone industry because it introduced the concept of free calls.  But now that it wants to start charging for some of those calls, we’ll soon see if it can compete with free.

Every year this is the time when all the magazines and papers publish the most happened things of the year.Obviously there are many versions of looking into the things that have occured in the last year.BusinessWeek has Best & Worst - Products,Ideas & Leaders of 2006.It is quite an interesting article,Read on…

                        

1.Why did the chicken cross the road??

to cause gloabal pandemic…

             

 

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"The Colbert Report" changing the world ….