2012 Technology Landscape

The coming year 2012, it is expected that the following five companies will dominate the US and global technology landscape.

1. APPLE
2. MICROSOFT
3. GOOGLE
4. FACEBOOK
5. AMAZON.

The technology trends will be

• CLOUD,
• MOBILE,
• SOCIAL.

As at the end of 2011, Apple leads in the Mobile Phone iPhone and Tablet PC markets and with its iTunes, iCloud synching service it is in to Cloud. Apple is facing competition from Google and Amazon.

Microsoft has started with Windows Phone 7 and expected to get its Windows 8 platform going strong in 2012.. With Nokia launching Windows Phones in the year end, and expected Windows 8 phones in the first half of 2012, Microsoft is expected to pick-up the market share. In Cloud, It has its leading AZURE platform. With the acquisitions of Skype in 2011, Microsoft is expected to announce Messenger and Voice Call Integration.

Google the Internet search leader has captured considerable market share in all the three trends. In cloud, with Gmail and Google Apps. In Mobile with ANDROID. In Social with YouTube and Google Plus. Android will continue to dominate the coming year 2012.

Facebook is the leader in Social in 2011. No much competition expected in 2012 as the user base has gone bigger in size.

Amazon is leader in Cloud with its AWS- Amazon Web Services. With the launch of Kindle Fire Tablet, it is eyeing the second spot in Tablet market share. Already dominating the online shopping, Amazon will go to new heights in 2012.

What about IBM, Oracle, Cisco, HP, Samsung etc., I think they wont make up to the top five.

Malick.

Informal Learning

Recently I heard from one of the Engineering Colleges in Chennai that they are building exclusive lab facilities to give on the job training to Engineering college students before they get placement in companies. While it appears to be a good move to do the finishing school training, give an edge to the students, I feel still there is no substitute for work place training ie., training in the company along with experienced co-workers and in work place environment different from separated class room environment.

A trainee

• should be in a position to learn as he or she does the work.
• should have access to reviews of his work performance.
• should learn from a variety of experienced co-workers in the work place.
• should be able to appreciate the difference and variety in work place.
• should try to accommodate with tense work environments.

This is quite possible when some one gets training in a company environment.

The following internet resource makes an interesting read:

http://c4lpt.co.uk/nta/understanding-informal-and-social-learning-in-the-workplace/

Non-training

A non-training approach is one that takes place in any work place along side training with supported course materials. Training approach and non training approach differ mainly in participation of the trainee. In the non-training approach ‘engage the trainee and encourage him’ is the method followed.

“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn”

- Einstein

The following is one of the Internet resource for non-training:

http://c4lpt.co.uk/nta/

You can read this blog post by Jane Hart:

http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/blog/2011/11/23/the-non-training-approach/

Learning & Development, LMS – Learning Management Systems are one of the key trends for the year 2012.

\Malick.

Recently I finished reading a book titled Time Warrior – How To Defeat Procrastination, People Pleasing, Self Doubt, Over-Commitment, Broken Promise and Chaos. This book is authored by STEVE CHANDLER and available on Amazon Kindle Store.The book extensively talks about NON LINEAR APPROACH for dealing with time. What is non linear time management? It is a committment to action in the present moment. It is now or never.

An average person like me, constantly change depending on what we face at the given situation. One time buoyant mood and hopes up; another time sad mood and no hopes. The book says that a warrior is also an average person with laser like focus. The books wants us to become vertical instead of inching along horizontal.

In learning to see timelessness, Eintein writes

Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent “now” objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.

Well, it is difficult for me to understand what Einstein belief of four dimensional time and seperation of now, as explained here.

http://everythingforever.com/einstein.htm

Today 17.12.2011 being my birth day, I ponder on whether my life is linear or non linear, vertical or horizontal… If it is linear then it starts with birth and ends with death. But if time is non linear then there are no birth days. Is it not? Whatever be it, this day I am more committed to new technologies and learning them, more willing to experiment than be conservative, more willing to enter in to new fields…

\Malick.

•       If you think that the web has revolutionized the way we live now, no, wait for a moment, the Augmented Reality is arriving in to the scene.

•       AR should change everything in computing. Starting from the way that we use it, to telling night time bed stories to children.

Let us explore the huge potential the Augmented Reality holds for the future: AR is not confined to a specific industry. There is AR in Gaming, Automobiles, Defense & Security, Education etc.  With the new era of mobile computing, suddenly huge potential is unleashed. Several apps using this technology, such as Yelp, Layar, Urbanspoon’s Scope, are already available on the iPhone and Android.

Research Activities: Although researchers and engineers at Universities and high-tech companies are still working on developing and perfecting the technology, enthusiasts say that an Augmented Reality System may hit the market by 2020 and that a sophisticated AR system could become the primary means of accessing information and potentially eliminate the need for desktops, laptops, smart-phones and such.

Applications:

•       Apple has demonstrated the power of Applications through their innovative product of the time,  iPhone.

•       The trend is continuing and taking a massive shape. Not only with Apple but with others too, for example Google’s Android, Blackberry etc.,

•       Augmented Reality Applications users are expected to surpass 150 million by the year 2012. Smart phones thrive to become smartest!

Some Great AR Mobile Applications:

Layar, Yelp Monacle, Wikitude World Browzer, AR Compass, Acrossair, Worksnug, Dishpointer, Pocket Universe, Car Finder, Panoramoscope.

Some Great AR Startups:

•       Tier I : Metaio, Total Immersion

•       Tier II : Zugara, Layar

•       Tier III : int13, Ogmento

Mobile Augmented Reality is one of the great business opportunities.

This industry is primed to explode!

“It’s 9 am in the augmented reality industry…without vision people perish…it’s your chance to bake a big pie before you start slicing it up…it’s time for you to get dressed…good luck to you, I’ll be watching you”

-          Bruce Sterling’s (the prophet of the augmented reality industry) keynote…

/Malick.

Apart from the fact, Sudoku is a game played by more people in the world, one thing that makes it great is the universal appeal that it enjoys; the challenge can be simpler in every step but the reasoning required to complete the step is difficult.  The book ‘Career Sudoku: 9 Ways to Win the Job Search Game’ outlines nine powerful steps. 9 steps, 9 chapters, every step makes the next step easier as in Sudoku! The analogy is striking!

This is a book for those who want to make it as good jockeys of their job search race; from the start point of resume, to the finish line of the day landing in the job. Oh! Just slightly more than that! First 90 days in the job. The 9 ways as it is described in the book flows like a river stream with nature’s power. You can get immersed on to the stream and reach the finish line.

·         Take off with a resume

·         Personal Branding with your UVP

·         Impressive Interview

·         Networking Naturally

·         Ubiquitous social networking

·         Your game plan for the race with job boards and recruiters

·         Job Myths debunked

·         Offer negotiations

·         Landed!  The first 90 days runway…

The nine straight forward chapters that keep the whole flying process simple; with inspiring quotes, real life testimonials, applications, scenarios, insider tips, career quiz etc., In ever changing and never settled US Job market, the 9 ways described in the book shows you to tackle all the challenges that you will ever face.

And this comes straight from the horse’s mouth! Adriana Llames, the author of the book is an accomplished expert in the field job search strategy. A trusted authority, considered to be the one in closest touch with insider information. A veteran career coach who has worked with thousands of professionals across the country’s small to Fortune 500 companies.

As the author points out at the end, one should really be proud of the game played.  You have picked the correct number for every cell and finished it to success. You have picked the right book.  Any job seeker is sure win with this book ‘Career Sudoku: 9 Ways to Win the Job Search Game”.

/ Malick.

I just chanced to read two different blog postings on a somewhat similar subject.

One in Trak.in and another in Liveops.

Both posts look at the way we spend time in our work places.

You can read the Trak.in post ( India )

http://trak.in/tags/business/2010/05/20/working-full-time-24×7/

And in Liveops Blogs ( USA )

http://blogs.liveops.com/2010/05/11/adjusting-our-work-life-balance-in-the-internet-economy/

Unless you think out of the box, you can’t see targets. Unless you see targets, you can’t work out of the way. Unless you can’t work out the way, you remain stagnant.

 Work is no longer about part time or full time. It is about real time. Real time calls for new thinking

Comments?

/Malick.

Thus say the Lord : Set your house in order.

After TCS Website Hacking Incident:

Put your web site in order! Otherwise be ready to see a message as “ This domain name is for sale. Please contact us for further information”

In what could be considered as a potential embarrassment to top Indian IT service majors, TCS website hacking incident in this month ( February 2010 ) – the news of the same spread like wild fire  – thanks to media and social  networks. What are the takeaways from the incident ?

It is said that, it is breach of DNS Name Server, the domain name registrar being Network Solutions, in this case. The incident can be briefed as, the hacker(s) got entry in to the domain name servers and altered it entries against tcs.com; so that the dns entry is redirected to another site. Whether it is a typical “pharming” attack or a “email phishing” is not known yet. Though it is external, it does not save TCS from excusing itself as its reputation is at stake.

Dinesh O Bareja, CISA, CISM, an information security consultant in India says “My take is that if the world looks up to you for excellence, then it is very important to keep in your house in order. Tata has a large data center and hosting facility; Tata Communications is an ISP, so why does TCS needs to involve outside vendors?”

One of the fundamental question asked is what sort of SLA we have with our domain registrars. And in turn, what sort of regular vulnerability assessment is done on the registry servers.

This apart, there is news that the hackers location of recent China’s online invasion in to Google and other servers in USA, has been identified. These are two educational institutions in China. Shanghai Jiaotang University and Lanxiang Vocational School. These institutions are said to be running top computer science programs, producing and supplying computer scientists to Chinese Military. A web security professor of the institutions has reportedly told: “Actually students hacking in to foreign websites are quite normal. I believe that there are two kind of situations. One it is individual activity of wrong doing done by one or two geek students, who are keen on experimenting the hacking skills learned, or it could be that university’s ip address is hijacked by others”

The threat is real. Let us resolve to put our house in order.

/Malick.

Several decades ago, I have read that, the western advertisement plotters came to a conclusion that there are only two ways to capture the great Indian mass. Cricket and Cinema. For some decades now, this diction holds true. If there is one thing that comes closer to combining these two, Cricket and Cinema, that is IPL Twenty20, an annual sporting event held in the summer. As the 2010 edition of IPL Twenty20 is nearing now, there are some interesting technology marriages taking place. One with the Google’s Youtube!

Please watch these two interesting videos:

IPL Twenty20 is one of the best business ideas of the time, that is happening in India. With Continuous Innovation, it is evolving…

/ Malick.

"Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Thinking and Organizational Tools for Large-Scale Scrum " is a book by two authors:  Craig Larman and Bas Vodde. Coverage of this book includes: Lean thinking and development, Agile practices and Methods, Scrum teams, Agile enterprise that delivers value fast.
This book is recommended for offshore product development team. One of the chapter in this book deals with, the most often heard, old advice:
Hire the best. Is this really a good advice? Is it possible, particularly for small teams?

Bramagupta who is a Indian mathematician lived in 6 th century. Without modern day scientific methods, he tried to prove that
‘Accuracies of your action tend to improve with the number of trials’.
Later in 17 th century "Golden Theorem" and in 18 th century the "Law of Large Numbers" were formulated. Simply put, assuming that the probability of best hire is 50% when we hire about 100 software engineers, the same is not true when lesser (say lesser than 10 ) people are hired!

The concept of Augmented Reality – AR – is a decade old, but recent developments make it look that, it is still in its infancy, for the reason that mobile applications are growing like anything. It is estimated that in next two years, 40% of the phones sold will be smart-phone category and mobile internet will explode. See a video of an iPhone application:

A new report from Juniper Research tells that the revenue of Mobile AR will grow as we reaches the year2014.

Mediapost blog on the report.

Jeremiah Owyang, a famous digital strategist, also predicts the same. His detailed article is linked

Jeremiah Owyang Web Strategy

Mobile Augmented Reality may become a game changer and so there is a need that mobile application developers, ISVs update themselves on this concept and equipped to the AR development.

/Malick.

I attended Cybermedia DQ CIO Summit at Chennai – Park Hotel on 3 rd February 2010. The event was titled as – "Optimizing IT Infrastructure, the simple mantra" – sponsored by IBM and attended by well over 60 IT professionals in and around Chennai. A panel discussion on the challenges faced by IT department was done. This was moderated by Rajneesh De, Associate Editor, Dataquest. Panelists: Clynton Almeida, CIO – Redington, Sri Ram Pasari, Sr. Manager IT, Real Image Media Technologies, N. Varadarajan – Sr. GM-IT Madras Cements, Vishweswaran CTO MaFoi, M.K.Manavalan DGM Technology Sankara Nethralaya, Viswanathan Manager IT EBM NADI International, N.Tamilvel Head IT – Take Solutions.

The challenges mentioned were: IT Cost reduction, Rationalization of Data Center, utilization of IT capacity, aligning business goals with IT, connectivity, bandwidth, service level agreements, security etc., From the audience side, I spoke to the panel that for almost all the challenges mentioned except bandwidth issue, cloud computing appears to be the solution. But, unfortunately, Indian SMBs are slow adapters of cloud computing.

Internet bandwidth is an issue that is playing in between cloud adaption. A recent Akamai report points out that India’s average internet bandwidth is less than 1 Mbps. The same for South Korea is about 16 Mbps. Most of the SMBs in India are having internet bandwidth around 2 Mbps or up. One of the panel members, pointed that bandwidth costs are coming down; a few months back 2 Mbps rate was around 6/7 Lakhs Indian Rupees  ( 15000 US $ ), now, for the same cost, 10Mbps is available.

As an enthusiast of cloud computing, I look forward to more adaption of cloud computing in India.

/Malick.

Imperva, data security firm’ s revelations are rocking every one. They say that the top ten most commonly used passwords are: 123456, 12345, 123456789, Password, iloveyou,princess,rockyou,1234567,12345678 and abc123.

How the rockyou came in to the above?

These revelations are based on a breach in to the website of

RockYou

Cybercriminals accessed the account details of 30 million users!

Earlier also we know that, most of us use names, dictionary words, slang words,consecutive keys or adjacent letters. This has serious repercussions. Ars Technica reports that 32 million passwords show users are careless about security. Good read for Information Security professionals like us.

Please read the referred document in pdf, here.

Fox First at Ten, Video:

//Malick.

 A short video from IBM:

Malick Md PMP

Committed Expertise

ARR is making a point on Bollywood:

Malick Md PP

Committed Expert.

Las Vegas 7 – 10 Jan 2010: The most talked about event, in technology circle. Also, said to be the largest tech trade show in the world! Streamed live by many like, CNET, Bitgravity, Ustream, Justin tv etc., Most of the technolgy bloggers have turned their attention to it. Twitter 140 charecters conference, Microsoft Steve Ballmer’s kick off key note, Broadband getting into car with Ford and Sync, 3D TV, Apps apps everywhere, Smartest phones, e readers, displays etc.,

Some videos:

There is more to consumers, in this year.

Malick Md PMP

http://www.committedexpertise.com/

Cinema Industry is moving towards technology space! This is the conclusion one could easily arrive at, after viewing the Avatar movie – released world-wide- in December 2009; and by taking note of the publicity the film receives in technology sites. All wonder how many technology companies were globally leveraged and how many technologies were involved! This movie, well, it may not immediately change the movie making forever, but definitely a bold step towards technology space.

The Avatar:

The name “avatar” is from Sanskrit In Hinduism ( India ), Gods various incarnations are described as Avataras in epics. In an interview to Times magazine, James Cameron, director of the film stated that “ its an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking flesh form” He further stated that he uses the name avatar here in this film, to mean that human technology is capable of injecting a human’s intelligence in to a remotely located body, a biological body.

James Cameron:

The movie Avatar is written and directed by James Cameron. It is told that the scriptment ( the story script and its treatment ) was done by him in 1994, but he waited “the technology to catch up”. In his own words, James Cameron says he wanted to film synthetic or computer generated actors. Towards this, he made a partnership with digitaldomain ( America )at that time itself, and later with WetaDigital ( New Zealand ). India’s Business-Standard reports that a significant part of visual effects was done by Indian company PrimeFocus.

The Plot:

The story is slightly complex science-fiction. Though one could not find a clear message out ( at-least myself! ), in the film, of-course except that terrific technology showpiece, some themes like imperialism, biodiversity etc., could be identified. The film is said to be containing an implicit criticism of America’s ‘War on Terror’, and the use of automated warfare. Cameron says that “American’s had the moral responsibility to understand the impact of their country’s recent military campaigns and those killed during them.”

The Making:

The making makes it special. Visual Effects apart, the R&D done by Cameron. Some mentioned here:

• James Cameron created a new digital environment by using motion capture animation technology. Cameron’s new virtual camera allows him to observer directly on his monitor how the actors virtual counterparts interact (with the movie’s digital world in real time) and adjust and direct the scenes just as if shooting live action.

See this video to learn how this works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wK1Ixr-UmM

• Another method he used is advanced ‘motion capture’. Called as performance capture by him, he made actors wear skull caps with a tiny camera attached in front of the actors faces which collects expressions and send to computer. According to Cameron this method allows 95% of expressions to be transmitted to computers. As per him, the film is 60% of computer generation and 40% of live action shooting.

• In the production of the planet ‘Pandora’ more than 1000 people worked which was replicated on screen with photorealistic CGI.
• The language spoken by the planet people were created with a University research; the language with about 1000 words is still available. The film has a theme song called “I see you”.

• The 3D INAX effects are special. It is told that Cameron feels that still the 24 frames per second 3D is not good enough and strobing is noticeable by audience. Live actions were shot by propriety 3D Fusion Camera System. 3D Projector aspect ratio recommended by Cameron is 1.78:1 while most of the 3D Projectors use 2.35:1 extract. Non IMAX 3D is by RealD Cinema technology.
• The total cost of the film is estimated to be around $ 500 million ( Indian Rs. 2500 crores ) out of which, production cost is said to be $ 235 million. An estimated 2500 – 3D Screens ( including 216 INAX 3D) are showing in USA.

• As of now, there is no standard 3D format available in DVD or Blu-Ray and so the only experience possibility is 3D Cinema projection. This makes the higher profitability expectation.

Well, this movie is a 160 minutes (technology show piece which can be called as a) real art. One can experience this, more than once, preferably in highest 3D theatre ( digital 3D > RealD > INAX) available.

\Malick. Chennai. India.

25 December 2009.

Strategic Technologies can be mentioned as technologies that will have a significant impact on the business operations of the enterprises. These technologies have become strategic because they have passed the concept phase and found to be enablers of IT operations. It is not necessary that all the enterprises should plan investment in these technologies but in their investment decisions these technologies will play a considerable part.

Some of the strategic technologies:

Cloud Computing, It is real now. SaaS

Analytics,

Vitrualization,

Green IT,

Social Computing, Social Media Optimization

New Data Center.

These strategic technologies are expected to play a major role in IT Business operations in the next few years as per Gartner and ITP.

/ Committed Expert.

Six months ago, Microsoft announced the availability of a new global program for Startup companies  called Microsoft BizSpark. Now the news is that more than 12000 startup companies have joined this program.

BizSpark is available in 82 countries around the world, and, interestingly enough,  significant uptake in countries like Brazil, Russia, China and India (4 out of the top 6 countries in terms of enrollment). BizSpark is fulfilling unmet demand for tools and technologies and Microsoft sees an increasing number of startups in these markets with high potential software industries.

Simply put, software side of the program where Microsoft software licenses are provided under certain terms and conditions is the great attraction. The whole project is being managed in a excellent manner.

BizSpark is designed to help accelerate the success of early stage software startups by providing entrepreneurs fast and easy access to software, support and visibility.

BizSpark hosting partners like RackSpace, Peer1, GoGrid or Navisite, are also significantly driving enrollments and helping startups to get hosting service with a significant discount. The List of BizSpark hosting partners keep growing and Microsoft recently announced that GoDaddy just joined the program.

Kudos to Microsoft.

/Committed Expert

Microsoft is to formalize it efforts to explore the impact of social media on computing with the setting up of a new research laboratory at its Redmond Head Quarters. The 80-strong Future Social Experiences (FUSE) unit is to be headed up by Lili Cheng, who was once the director of user experience for Microsoft Windows, where she oversaw design and user research for Windows Vista. A trained architect, she was once at Apple.

The FUSE Mission

Ozzie, the driving force behind Microsoft’s increasing interoperability with open source described the rational behind FUSE in an internal memo:

“the three groups being combined have concrete skills and code in areas where ‘social’ meets sharing; where ‘social’ meets real-time; where ‘social’ meets media; where ‘social’ meets search; where ‘social’ meets the cloud plus three screens and a world of devices,”

according the Seattle P.I. Microsoft blog.

What’s Really Going On

But what does the reorganization, and this sudden focus on all things ‘social’ mean?

Reports on the Web have jumped to a number of conclusions such as, Microsoft is scaling back Live Labs-style R&D in tough economic times, or that the company will enter the Facebook/MySpace fray.

What seems more likely, is that they simply see a need for a collaborative approach to integrating social network sites.

As such a big company like Microsoft can not remain silent in the huge irrational exuberance that is going on in social networking and the expected massive market effect.

FUSE Labs could be an attempt by Microsoft to integrate collaborative technology throughout their range of products, along the lines of Salsa, a project previously headed by Cheng, which combined email and social networking concepts, or Townsquare, an enterprise news feed solution that CMSWire reported on a while back.

I expect  big things coming down the pipeline. Let us see what Microsoft, the unbeatable in the last 35 years, can do in Social Media space.

/ Malick.

In the information era, inside knowledge economy a sub set called the conversation economy. what is the conversation economy?

Where is it?

The conversation economy:

If there is one thing that is still more a mystery, and less confined to art and science, it is human behavior. And if there is a particular aspect of it, to be mentioned here, then it is the endless desire to communicate and make a conversation. In my life span of past 50 years, the past several decades, I have been  fed by, with various communication channels like print news, magazines, books, radio, television and finally internet. However all these mediums – mostly – did a one side communication with me.

For long, businesses released advertisements, used all the communication channels;promoted their products thro’ celebrities, brand ambassadors. Still they do. But now, at least some businesses, try to engage in a conversation with the so called consumers, who are no longer consumer but also play a part as producers.

To site, this post appeared in Businessweek, 2.5 years back!

It’s the conversation economy, stupid.

The conversation ecosystem:

Last month, I wrote a  blog post on freemium business model. If I go for a freemium business model for my business service, I get four type of users or consumers.

• Those who actively use my service for free.

• who rarely use my service, free.

• who actively use my service for a cost by paying a fee to me.

• who pay me but inactive for most of the time.                                              In this scenario, how do actively engage in a conversation with my users?

For my business to succeed, I need to concentrate on those customers who are actively particiapting in conversations. Because they can make me or break me.A conversing customer is the one who does engage with myself and community and thus by promote my business by encouraging others to come to my service. They are following me in Twitter,

and they tweet and retweet about my service,

They are fans in facebook to my company,

And from that conversation I listen, engage; try to improve my service by understanding about users, markets, competitors.

In the world now, there is a considerable part of people who live a digital life. They can be described  as fortunate or un fortunate, privileged or under privileged or so, whatever way you look at it. And in this, a part who actively engage in Social Media, and participate in the conversation. There is also another part who are doing business as usual in the digital life.

Which part you are in?

join the conversation.

/ Malick.