The Russian capital as well as Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad have every chance of becoming global capitals on par with cities such as New York, London and Tokyo, according to the latest issue of Forbes magazine.
The influential publication assessed the rapidly changing forces driving the global economy, such as the inflow of capital and labour resources, and the pace of infrastructure development, and looked into the future, ranking the Russian capital alongside Shanghai, Beijing, Sao Paolo, Dubai and the Indian cities of Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
"Fifteen years ago, Moscow was in the midst of a particularly grungy interlude, filled with stolid people waiting in lines for shoddy consumer goods. Today, its hotel accommodations - cheap if dinghy a quarter century ago - are among the world's most expensive.
Russia's huge energy industry, which dominates all of Europe, is the key factor driving the transformation," Forbes wrote.
The article, published Wednesday, notes that Moscow has had a radical makeover since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The city, where Moscow State University was the tallest building at 240 meters (787 feet), now has a host of skyscrapers including the three tallest buildings in Europe, the highest of which is still under construction.
"With a population of 10 million, Moscow is already Europe's most populous city and could get bigger yet, particularly if energy prices rise," the magazine said.
Although Forbes expects most global capitals of the future to be outside the Western Hemisphere, it includes Calgary in Canada, Perth in Western Australia and the Texan pair of Houston and Dallas in its list.
But the article does recognise that the current centers of financial and political influence - such as Tokyo, New York, London, Paris, Seoul, Singapore and Hong Kong - will not fade into the background for some time to come.
Agencies
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Mentors Murthy, Nilekani, Premji To Help IISc Students become entrepreneurs
Learning from mentors who change the way you live and think is the chance of a lifetime. Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai and Satish Dhawan did it in the past. Azim Premji, N R Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and C Ramadorai are doing it now. If you couldn’t spend time with greats of the past, how about taking lessons from legends of the present?
The IISc Alumni Association has come up with a cracker of an idea — it is setting up a ‘mentoring system’ in which great entrepreneurs (initially) will act as mentors or thinkers to students and research scholars, who wish to launch small firms or startups, or turn their research into technology and eventually take the entrepreneurial route in life.
The mentors will be from across the globe, including Bangalore, and will keep in touch with students identified and selected for mentoring.
The man behind the idea, Association president Dr K R Srinivasan, told TOI that “already a few top people” had agreed to be mentors. “They include people not associated with IISc but who can, and are, willing to make a contribution to IISc. They are people in the league of Narayana Murthy...”
Net connect
Srinivasan said a website will connect the mentor and student/ scholar in the first phase of interaction. “The website will have the mentor’s profile and expertise and the student’s request. A software will bring together the request and expertise to see if they match. If they do, then the mentor and student will get into live interaction. So interests of both have to match.”
The mentors will act as thinkers and shape the form and direction of a project that the student hopes to turn into a product or start-up company. “The mentors will take time out and be in personal touch with the student or mentee. They will make concrete suggestions, offer advice, show routes that could be taken. The system will be open to IISc and IIT students, initially. If it turns out positive and productive, it will be extended to engineering colleges too. We wish to leverage the strengths of alumni as well as non-alumni, who are genuinely interested in turning ideas into products of some sort,” Srinivasan said.
Infosys, Wipro and TCS are not just companies but stories of extraordinary entrepreneurship and creativity in an atmosphere of red tape, bureauracy, large-scale public lethargy and corruption. Some of the great space labs, like the ones at Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Mumbai and Sriharikota, were creative battles against dormant mindsets. IISc Alumni Association hopes to replicate some of these stories.
Timesofindia.com
The IISc Alumni Association has come up with a cracker of an idea — it is setting up a ‘mentoring system’ in which great entrepreneurs (initially) will act as mentors or thinkers to students and research scholars, who wish to launch small firms or startups, or turn their research into technology and eventually take the entrepreneurial route in life.
The mentors will be from across the globe, including Bangalore, and will keep in touch with students identified and selected for mentoring.
The man behind the idea, Association president Dr K R Srinivasan, told TOI that “already a few top people” had agreed to be mentors. “They include people not associated with IISc but who can, and are, willing to make a contribution to IISc. They are people in the league of Narayana Murthy...”
Net connect
Srinivasan said a website will connect the mentor and student/ scholar in the first phase of interaction. “The website will have the mentor’s profile and expertise and the student’s request. A software will bring together the request and expertise to see if they match. If they do, then the mentor and student will get into live interaction. So interests of both have to match.”
The mentors will act as thinkers and shape the form and direction of a project that the student hopes to turn into a product or start-up company. “The mentors will take time out and be in personal touch with the student or mentee. They will make concrete suggestions, offer advice, show routes that could be taken. The system will be open to IISc and IIT students, initially. If it turns out positive and productive, it will be extended to engineering colleges too. We wish to leverage the strengths of alumni as well as non-alumni, who are genuinely interested in turning ideas into products of some sort,” Srinivasan said.
Infosys, Wipro and TCS are not just companies but stories of extraordinary entrepreneurship and creativity in an atmosphere of red tape, bureauracy, large-scale public lethargy and corruption. Some of the great space labs, like the ones at Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Mumbai and Sriharikota, were creative battles against dormant mindsets. IISc Alumni Association hopes to replicate some of these stories.
Timesofindia.com
Friday, September 4, 2009
Can Yahoo take on Twitter with its new Meme?
After closing the social network platform SpotM, Yahoo has launched Meme, in English, to take on microblogging site Twitter. The company had launched this service in Spanish and Portuguese languages earlier this month.
Meme is currently in an invite-only mode, similar to few microblogging services like Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce and others. After creating the account, users get a blank blog for micro-sharing text, images, music, videos or mash up of all these things.
It also offers the facility to add new friends by searching the internet, which is quite similar to Tumblr and Twitter.
The company's previous efforts to capitalize on the social networking domain kept failing in spite of repeated attempts. The recently launched 'Know Your Mojo' also failed along with the Indian social network, SpotM, which was closed down less than a year after its launch.
Meme does not allow much in terms of customization. The users cannot customize the themes with background images and custom CSS to style the text, as this facility is available with Twitter and Tumblr. Both these services have a rich faux-cabulary, which defines how a person uses the service. Meme does not lend on a particular vocabulary. The setting panel has minimal options like Meme title, 100 character description, avatar/photo and notifications. It also shows the comments posted by the users recently.
Yahoo Meme can have a big advantage over Twitter in terms of reliability. Twitter's image has suffered for frequent service outages, with its "Fail Whale" graphic appearing whenever the site is overloaded, emerging as the company's unofficial logo.
Several technology sites like TechCrunch and paidContent are not pleased with Yahoo's move, they said, "Meme seems to lack in its features and in potential to surpass its competitors." They also pointed out that the company has a spotty record with Mash and SpotM.
Agencies
Meme is currently in an invite-only mode, similar to few microblogging services like Tumblr, Twitter, Pownce and others. After creating the account, users get a blank blog for micro-sharing text, images, music, videos or mash up of all these things.
It also offers the facility to add new friends by searching the internet, which is quite similar to Tumblr and Twitter.
The company's previous efforts to capitalize on the social networking domain kept failing in spite of repeated attempts. The recently launched 'Know Your Mojo' also failed along with the Indian social network, SpotM, which was closed down less than a year after its launch.
Meme does not allow much in terms of customization. The users cannot customize the themes with background images and custom CSS to style the text, as this facility is available with Twitter and Tumblr. Both these services have a rich faux-cabulary, which defines how a person uses the service. Meme does not lend on a particular vocabulary. The setting panel has minimal options like Meme title, 100 character description, avatar/photo and notifications. It also shows the comments posted by the users recently.
Yahoo Meme can have a big advantage over Twitter in terms of reliability. Twitter's image has suffered for frequent service outages, with its "Fail Whale" graphic appearing whenever the site is overloaded, emerging as the company's unofficial logo.
Several technology sites like TechCrunch and paidContent are not pleased with Yahoo's move, they said, "Meme seems to lack in its features and in potential to surpass its competitors." They also pointed out that the company has a spotty record with Mash and SpotM.
Agencies
Does TCS plan to hire 25,000 jobs globally?
In a move that could bring a smile to many faces, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced that it will hire 25,000 people globally in 2009, with 90 percent of them in India alone. Though the number is bigger when compared to the hiring these days, it is less than last year when TCS appointed around 35,000 people.
With this recruitment drive, TCS also plans to expand its presence into the tier-II cities in India. "We will be hiring 25,000 people this year, which means roughly 25 lakh square feet of work space required and, therefore, we need to grow outside the metros. Tier-II cities are our only focus for expansion in the country as the top rung are clogged and saturated," said Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice-President and Head of Government Industry Solutions unit at TCS.
Following this hiring spree, the total global manpower of TCS would go up to more than 1.8 lakh. This will put the IT services provider among large private Indian employers like Tata Steel, which has the total employee strength of two lakh. Going forward, the company, which has an estimated 32 percent market share, plans to cash in on the Indian government's plan to invest Rs. 40,000 crore on IT services.
Currently, 70 percent of the IT segment's revenue is from India, while the rest comes from the U.S., Latin America, Africa and South East Asian countries. However, the revenue contribution from Indian government businesses to the total company revenue of $6 billion is less than five percent, which the company intends to increase to more than 10 percent in the next three years.
Agencies
With this recruitment drive, TCS also plans to expand its presence into the tier-II cities in India. "We will be hiring 25,000 people this year, which means roughly 25 lakh square feet of work space required and, therefore, we need to grow outside the metros. Tier-II cities are our only focus for expansion in the country as the top rung are clogged and saturated," said Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice-President and Head of Government Industry Solutions unit at TCS.
Following this hiring spree, the total global manpower of TCS would go up to more than 1.8 lakh. This will put the IT services provider among large private Indian employers like Tata Steel, which has the total employee strength of two lakh. Going forward, the company, which has an estimated 32 percent market share, plans to cash in on the Indian government's plan to invest Rs. 40,000 crore on IT services.
Currently, 70 percent of the IT segment's revenue is from India, while the rest comes from the U.S., Latin America, Africa and South East Asian countries. However, the revenue contribution from Indian government businesses to the total company revenue of $6 billion is less than five percent, which the company intends to increase to more than 10 percent in the next three years.
Agencies
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Lavasa to be tranformed into e-City by Wipro
Lavasa and Wipro announced their partnership for planning, implementing and managing information and communication technology (ICT) services across Lavasa city.
Wipro will support the city in the areas of city management system & services, e-governance, ICT infrastructure and value-added services, including providing intelligent home solutions and digital lifestyle. The ICT services will include voice-video-data services to various businesses operating out of Lavasa city.
According to a company release, the strategic partnership will focus on providing integrated and effective solutions for enhancing IT operations within the hill city. It will identify governance services and operating models, and define processes for delivering good governance.
Wipro will also provide the necessary infrastructure support, including technology selection, supply, installation and management of platforms, networks, data center, etc.
The estimated revenues out of this partnership from Lavasa city's first town Dasve is about $100 million over the next 10 years.
Speaking on the occasion, Rajgopal Nogja, president, Lavasa Corporation, said, "For a completely new hill city like Lavasa, technology leadership is a key driver of city development and management. Wipro has proven expertise in innovative ICT solutions and this partnership will ensure a quantum leap in not only being technologically proactive, but also realizing our vision in becoming a completely e-governed city.
Through this partnership, Wipro will also design the detailed infrastructure for telecom services for governance, and also for the residents and visitors of Lavasa city. Wipro will provide telecom-based services that will facilitate smart homes, and buildings including integrated building management systems, physical security requirements and other on-demand services.
Agencies
Wipro will support the city in the areas of city management system & services, e-governance, ICT infrastructure and value-added services, including providing intelligent home solutions and digital lifestyle. The ICT services will include voice-video-data services to various businesses operating out of Lavasa city.
According to a company release, the strategic partnership will focus on providing integrated and effective solutions for enhancing IT operations within the hill city. It will identify governance services and operating models, and define processes for delivering good governance.
Wipro will also provide the necessary infrastructure support, including technology selection, supply, installation and management of platforms, networks, data center, etc.
The estimated revenues out of this partnership from Lavasa city's first town Dasve is about $100 million over the next 10 years.
Speaking on the occasion, Rajgopal Nogja, president, Lavasa Corporation, said, "For a completely new hill city like Lavasa, technology leadership is a key driver of city development and management. Wipro has proven expertise in innovative ICT solutions and this partnership will ensure a quantum leap in not only being technologically proactive, but also realizing our vision in becoming a completely e-governed city.
Through this partnership, Wipro will also design the detailed infrastructure for telecom services for governance, and also for the residents and visitors of Lavasa city. Wipro will provide telecom-based services that will facilitate smart homes, and buildings including integrated building management systems, physical security requirements and other on-demand services.
Agencies
Oracle, Wipro join hands to offer w-SaaS
By looking at the potential in the cloud computing segment, Wipro, an IT services company has joined hands with Oracle, a global business software firm to offer a service that software firms can use to deliver products through the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. The service called w-SaaS will enable software firms to offer their existing applications as SaaS in a multi-tenant model.
The service runs on Oracle's grid computing technologies, which includes Oracle databases, middleware and virtualization software. According to Wipro, this model is expected to result in savings of up to 50 percent of effort for SaaS enablement of existing applications, resulting in up to 10-20 percent savings in the total cost of ownership. "Our relationship with Oracle enables us to provide independent software vendor's (ISV) and joint customers, a powerful platform that allows them to improve their revenues in a cost effective manner," said Srini Pallia, Senior Vice-President and Global Head, Business Technology Services at Wipro.
This announcement from Wipro comes at a time when cloud computing is eating into the profits of several outsourcing companies by offering many similar benefits like reduced IT costs, less internal development of software and reduced management of applications and hardware. According to analyst firm Gartner, the market for worldwide software as a service (SaaS) is forecast to reach $8 billion in 2009, a 21.9 percent increase from 2008 revenue of $6.6 billion.
Wipro expects opportunities for this offering in North America, with growth potentials in the emerging markets of Latin America, Asia Pacific and Western Europe. Energy and utilities, retail, transportation, healthcare and manufacturing sectors will be focus verticals.
Agencies
The service runs on Oracle's grid computing technologies, which includes Oracle databases, middleware and virtualization software. According to Wipro, this model is expected to result in savings of up to 50 percent of effort for SaaS enablement of existing applications, resulting in up to 10-20 percent savings in the total cost of ownership. "Our relationship with Oracle enables us to provide independent software vendor's (ISV) and joint customers, a powerful platform that allows them to improve their revenues in a cost effective manner," said Srini Pallia, Senior Vice-President and Global Head, Business Technology Services at Wipro.
This announcement from Wipro comes at a time when cloud computing is eating into the profits of several outsourcing companies by offering many similar benefits like reduced IT costs, less internal development of software and reduced management of applications and hardware. According to analyst firm Gartner, the market for worldwide software as a service (SaaS) is forecast to reach $8 billion in 2009, a 21.9 percent increase from 2008 revenue of $6.6 billion.
Wipro expects opportunities for this offering in North America, with growth potentials in the emerging markets of Latin America, Asia Pacific and Western Europe. Energy and utilities, retail, transportation, healthcare and manufacturing sectors will be focus verticals.
Agencies
Did Google's Gmail really goof-up?
It's too bad the National Transportation Safety Board can't investigate Google to find out just why Gmail crashed Tuesday as Google's explanations for its outages (via its dashboard) are short and kindergarten-like.
The NTSB would seek out the root cause of the outage, hold hearings and issue a report with recommendations for fixing the problem. But Google follows the standard operating practice of cloud and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) providers, and that is to tell customers as little as possible about an outage. They treat their customers like dumb bunnies.
A Gmail outage isn't on the scale of a contaminated food supply incident, the discovery of lead paint on children's toys, or a plane crash—all events that trigger a federal investigation and detailed reports that flesh out causes and remedies.
But what happens if Google wins contracts to provide applications and mail services for Los Angeles and other government entities?
Cloud and SaaS providers increasingly want to manage critical services for government. And in time, outages that are now annoyances may have critical implications to them. Los Angeles' IT department is recommending the city move to Google Apps and says the company's services "often exceed the current city level."
That's a plus for Google but if something goes wrong with LA's IT systems, at least there is still a clear line of accountability to the managers responsible and an opportunity to probe.
But along with telling customers as little as possible, hosting, cloud and SaaS providers indemnify themselves as much as possible from any business losses resulting from an outage.
In theory, the accountability is provided by the market: a customer can move to new service provider. But a migration to the cloud may be a path of no return. LA, in its assessment of cloud services, said that if it ditches its current infrastructure, "it may be cost-prohibitive to return to the city-owned and operated structure."
Today, the harm is mostly economic. When eBay Inc.'s PayPal service crashed last month, it was just something customers had to deal with it.
PayPal blamed the failure on a "back-end router" and some redundancy issues, and left it at that. That meant the companies like Sailrite Enterprises Inc., a sailing supply company, which relied exclusively on PayPal, were unlikely to learn what happened and had to suffer the loss.
But if cloud and SaaS providers manage government services then it's unlikely that an informed public will settle for incomplete explanations about outages.
If the service is critical, they will want to know what went wrong. Was the equipment upgraded, patched? Was staffing at proper levels? When was the last time someone tested the emergency generators? And so on.
Answers to fair and legitimate questions will be sought and little "dashboards" aren't going to cut it.
Agencies
The NTSB would seek out the root cause of the outage, hold hearings and issue a report with recommendations for fixing the problem. But Google follows the standard operating practice of cloud and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) providers, and that is to tell customers as little as possible about an outage. They treat their customers like dumb bunnies.
A Gmail outage isn't on the scale of a contaminated food supply incident, the discovery of lead paint on children's toys, or a plane crash—all events that trigger a federal investigation and detailed reports that flesh out causes and remedies.
But what happens if Google wins contracts to provide applications and mail services for Los Angeles and other government entities?
Cloud and SaaS providers increasingly want to manage critical services for government. And in time, outages that are now annoyances may have critical implications to them. Los Angeles' IT department is recommending the city move to Google Apps and says the company's services "often exceed the current city level."
That's a plus for Google but if something goes wrong with LA's IT systems, at least there is still a clear line of accountability to the managers responsible and an opportunity to probe.
But along with telling customers as little as possible, hosting, cloud and SaaS providers indemnify themselves as much as possible from any business losses resulting from an outage.
In theory, the accountability is provided by the market: a customer can move to new service provider. But a migration to the cloud may be a path of no return. LA, in its assessment of cloud services, said that if it ditches its current infrastructure, "it may be cost-prohibitive to return to the city-owned and operated structure."
Today, the harm is mostly economic. When eBay Inc.'s PayPal service crashed last month, it was just something customers had to deal with it.
PayPal blamed the failure on a "back-end router" and some redundancy issues, and left it at that. That meant the companies like Sailrite Enterprises Inc., a sailing supply company, which relied exclusively on PayPal, were unlikely to learn what happened and had to suffer the loss.
But if cloud and SaaS providers manage government services then it's unlikely that an informed public will settle for incomplete explanations about outages.
If the service is critical, they will want to know what went wrong. Was the equipment upgraded, patched? Was staffing at proper levels? When was the last time someone tested the emergency generators? And so on.
Answers to fair and legitimate questions will be sought and little "dashboards" aren't going to cut it.
Agencies
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