some sweet Christmas holidays' memories

Our Q2 exams got over a week ago & I am enjoying Christmas holidays now. Thinking of Christmas holidays, I was reminded of one my most visited places during Christmas holidays during primary school days: Kapalli. That was the place where my dad's brother was residing during his tenure as a high school headmaster in that area. Click on this Google Map image to know where its located. This is a tiny village in the midst of Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border, about 23 km from Chintamani, the taluq headquarter.




There were few private buses that went to this village, such as Balaji (with a distinctive yellow color), ATS (Akbar Transport Service, or something like that) and another simply called '8-single' (signifying that this bus plyed 8 times a day). These buses plyed between Chintamani & Gavunipalli or between Chintamani & Irgampalli. The buses were usually packed to the brink & it would be your lucky day if you secured a seat in the bus. The journey itself used to be a rocky one. The driver would play loud Telugu music (we were near Andhra border after all & yeah, Telugu movies was more popular than Kannada movies during those times) for passenger entertainment. An occasional drunkard used to provide more on-board entertainment. All said & done, if you were a well dressed kid from Bengaluru, you'd be in all probability the center of attraction. Someone would invariably ask me about my whereabouts and where I was heading to. "to Kapalli headmaster's house, I'm his nephew" used to be my standard reply. The bus would stop at Kapalli cross & it was a 2 km walk through the farms to the village. During my earlier childhood, there used to be fireflies in these farms that used emit fluorescent light through its tail. Trapping those insects used be my favorite time-passes. But as I grew up, these insects mysteriously disappeared.

My uncle's house was near the village entrance. A 150-200 yrs old stone arch stood at the entrance & it was now being used to tie-up cattle. The village also had some 8-10 gobar gas units that was supposed to generate cooking gas from cattle dung. But the project seemed to have flopped and most of these units had either become dumping grounds or were rusting.

The Hanuman temple at the center of the village was undoubtedly the cultural heart of the village. There was a large platform under the shade of a pepal tree that would be the place for lazy or old people to have a sieste or discuss about regional politics. A touring drama troupe would hold its night-long drama on the road opposite to the temple. An inter-village kabaddi contest would also be held under the blessings of Lord Hanuman.

Although most of main groceries were done from Chintamani or Guvanipalli, there were two small tuck shops. One was run by a single lady in her hut near the temple. Most of her wares were sweet meats, catering to small village kids. Finding a Coffee-Bite chocolate would be a rarity here, leave alone a Cadbury Five Star. Nobody knew how much she made, but I don't think she made much even though she had a near monopoly situation. Maybe she was happy with making her ends meet & wasn't caught up with expanding her business or increasing her gross margins, etc.

Needless to say, the village was surrounded by farms from all directions. One that reminds me the most was the betel leaves plantation of Subba Reddy that had a H-U-G-E well. This well was undoubtedly the largest I've ever seen & would be as large as a quarter football field. I remember going for a swim here once, only to find myself surrounded by snakes in all directions !! I've had nightmares about this well ever since.

Dairying also seemed to be a source of income for the villagers. Dairy co-operatives have been a huge success in Karnataka and have uplifted the lot of the farmer communities. The manager of the milk collection center, Venkatasubba Reddy was a very friendly person & would allow me to conduct milk purity tests & count the amount of milk brought in by each villager. Let me tell you this was quite a pristigious position & not many people would have got it.. :)

The best thing about this village was definitely its people. Everyone knew everyone else here, all of them had the innocence of the village & all of them were extremely friendly. I could write down few pages about each family & this would make this write-up so boring for you to read.

My uncle returned to my native village after he retired 10 yrs ago & my life had kept me so busy that I was barely in touch with this place or the people there. The last time I went to this village was to attend a marriage, I think 7 yrs ago. I've been to Chintamani quite a number of times in these 7 yrs, but never thought I'd miss this place so much. I've realized that there are somethings in life that you wouldn't realize how much you miss them until you are too much out-of-reach from them.

I've decided that during my next trip to Bengaluru, I'll be returing to this place that has been so much a part of me & its people who've partly shaped me to be what I am today. I'll surely make it a point to re-live some of those old memories & capture a few as a sweet remembrance of those childhood memories that I can no longer get back..& may be I'd do some not-for-profit consulting for the tuck shop lady to increase her profits.. :)

It's sometimes hard to imagine for people in big cities such as Toronto or Bengaluru or NYC that a place that doesn't even figure on the GoogleMaps can be such a lively entity. This I believe is the irony of today's world. Hope this little blog would put this tiny village: "Kapalli" on to the map of the Internet age.

Is telecom industry attractive?? - an analysis using Porter's framework

Background:
Telecom equipment industry is undergoing lot of changes. Many large companies have merged (NSN, ALU) and many others are selling off their key assets (Nortel selling its 3G portfolio and now contemplating about selling its MEN technology). What’s the reason behind these moves? Is it because the industry as a whole has become unattractive or because of bad decisions on part of the companies?
Lets use Porter’s five forces framework to analyze this industry & try to find how profitable this telecom equipment industry is. See Exhibit 1 for an overview of Porter’s framework.
Industry:
Telecom equipment manufacturing companies comprising of: wireless, data-networking, optical, access, NGN/IMS & s/w apps.
Main companies:
NSN, Nortel, Ericsson, ALU, Motorola, Cisco and Huawei. See Exhibit 2 for a brief overview of their financials.
Exhibit 3 clearly shows that performance of telecom vendors is much below S&P 500 signifying that this is a non-profitable industry.

1) Value creation
a. Buyer power: Buyer consists mainly of mobile service providers such as AT&T, Vodafone, Bell-Canada, etc; large companies such as IBM, Walmart, Shell for Enterprise Applications and governments such as the Chinese & Indian governments for optical and wire-line solutions. As we can see, these are very large entities compared to equipment companies.
These companies buy in large volumes and equipment costs form a significant part of their expenditure (except the governments). Hence they involve in negotiating good bargains.
Mobile service provider companies also have power to direct which technology is to be introduced to the market. For example, vendors perceived VOIP to be a substitute for mobile communication and did a huge investment in developing this technology. But service providers see VOIP as a major threat to their revenue generation model since VOIP is drastically cheaper compared to the existing mobile service thereby substantially impacting their revenues. Hence adoption rate for VOIP products is low among service providers due to which vendors are struggling to recover their initial fixed costs. The same is true with slow adoption of high-speed evolutions such as 3G & 4G among end-users. Vendors have spent huge amounts in developing these technologies but are not able to recover their initial sunk costs.
As mentioned above, vendors have high fixed costs (for initial R&D) and minimal incremental costs. Hence they would like to keep their sales volume high in-order to recover as much fixed cost as possible.
There is very little differentiation among the products and switching costs are low due the existence of standardizing committees such as ITU, 3GPP, WiMAX forum, etc.
Due to all these reasons we can conclude that buyer power is high in this industry.

b. Supplier power: The main suppliers to this industry are silicon chip manufacturers (for processors, memory chips, etc), sub-contractors and employees.
Due to heavy competition among chip manufacturers, their bargaining power is low. But there is medium switching cost for telecom vendors since changing their hardware would lead to additional cost in modifying their architecture.
Employees don’t have much supplier power since the required talent is widely available and companies can easily lay-off redundant work-force.
Sub-contractors also don’t have much power due to heavy competition among themselves and their relative smaller size compared to vendors. Telecom vendors make sure to outsource their work to a wide range of companies so as to not become completely reliant on a single sub-contractor.
Overall, power of suppliers is medium to low.

c. Threat of substitutes: There are not many substitutes for the products developed by these companies. Mobile services are considered a strong substitute to wire-line services. Today, mobile n/w equipment forms a major part of telecom vendors’ portfolio. Vendors have even taken a further step to understand possible future threats such as VOIP and have incorporated it into their portfolio.
Hence, threat of substitutes is low for this industry.

2. Value capture
a. Threat of entry: It’s not uncommon for some employees to join hands, take a funding from an angel investor or put in their own savings and start a company, competing against the parent company. But the products developed by these companies are piece-meal and cater to a very small set of customer requirements. Hence they may not have very strong preference among service providers; unless they offer a superior product at lesser cost. These startups neither have financial strength nor the kind of connections to bid a formidable threat against the larger incumbents.
Hence threat of entry is low.

b. Threat of rivals: Rivals are roughly equal in size and power and they cater to roughly the same customer base. They produce nearly identical products. Hence their best way to attract customers is by cutting prices. This is where Chinese firms such as Huawei are making inroads due to their low manufacturing costs and Western competitors are trying to minimize their overhead by cost cutting redundant expenses.
Another way to differentiate is by displaying to the customers the company’s technological prowess so as to assure its customers that their product is the best in the industry. This encourages companies to bet and invest more on future technologies even though they may not generate revenues in near future which in turn leads to low profit margins.
Therefore we can conclude that threat rivalry is high.


Conclusion
From the above analysis we found that buyer power and threat of rivalry is high. Both these factors are formidable. This could be reason of non-profitability and consolidation in the industry. Companies try to reduce threat of rivalry by merging or buying out rival companies.
Our overall analysis show that telecom vendor industry is not an attractive industry.

Exhibit 1: Porter's 5 forces framework


Exhibit 2: Main competitor's financials

*There was a goodwill impairment of $1,1142 mm due to EN & MEN business units
**Taken from Nokia’s consolidated statements
***Quarterly finance information not available


Exhibit 3: performance of S&P 500 and all telecom companies

ಎಲ್ಲಾದರೂ ಇರು, ಎಂತಾದರು ಇರು..(wherever u r, however u r..)

Dear friend,
Its been more than a month since Kannada Rajyotsava (formation day of my state: Karnataka that's celebrated on Nov 1st), but in keeping with true traditions of K R Puram (which had been my home since birth), I am wishing a warm belated Rajyotsava wishes now. Just remembered that last year we had Rajyotsava celebrations in early December. Even our Sasken Rajyotsava celebrations were in late November.

Now that I am in Toronto & so involved in studies, I barely get time to do these things. But here's a beautiful pearl of a song I unearthed from Youtube. I've missed the count of number of times I've seen it since & I'm sure even you'd love it..



This song has probably the two best Kannadigas ever. Hats off to our Rashtrakavi Kuvempu & one & only Annavru Dr. Raj..

ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ಸತ್ಯ, ಕನ್ನಡವೇ ನಿತ್ಯ..

Where The Mind is Without Fear..

170 odd people dead..entire city & the nation traumatized..
who's responsible for it: ISI? Deccan Mujahideen? or our "nothing can be done" government??
Will our representatives stop expressing shock & giving condolences remarks & take some decisive action atleast now?
I don't understand why this is a continuing issue. Successive governments be it Congress or BJP, forget that they have head on their shoulders when this issue comes up. Is it the complacency of the leaders or that of the RAW/police babus?

I hope its the defining moment for India. We have only 2 choices: continue to kneel down in front of those irritants or stand up brave & do something about this.

Hope our leaders haven't forgotten the aspirations of our forefathers, beautifully elaborated in this following poem by Rabindranath Tagore:

WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Rabindranath Tagore

As winter sets in..

Things are changing so fast & so much out of your control, not just the weather...even your own life.


Yesterday when I came out of school I was delighted to see a white blanket of snow all over. I was witness to withering of leaves from the past one month, but today's sudden transformation of green to white was unexpected. Seeing snow for the first time was an experience in itself. I had to consciously restrain myself from not touching the snow so that I my health doesn't get screwed at this crucial time.


This weather change is in sense a mirror to the way my life is getting transformed here. These three months have done so much polishing to me that I never expected before I came here.
At school, each day we are bombarded with so many bewildering choices and challenges. You can schedule each minute of your time to atleast two tasks. You could either work on you project or the weekend's case competition or you can study for tomorrow's Statistics quiz or do Business Finance assignment. What do you choose? All are are of equal priority.

Here are some of the cool things I've learnt in past few weeks. This is just to show you how much intersting learning in a B-School is. Mind you these are just few of the plethora of things that are currently on top of my head:
1) New technology doesn't always mean big money. Ex1. InVitro Maturation Artificial Reproductive Technology (IVM-ART) - Medi-cult, a pharma company had a real bad time selling it. Ex2: Very Light Jet (VLJ)- Linear Air, an air-taxi service started by an HBS grad is facing a tough challenge making profits out of this cutting edge technology due to the already overcrowded airline industry.
2) Lets say there are two stocks with risks r1 and r2 such that share2 is riskier than share1. If you create a portfolio having these two stocks, the effective risk r(1,2) of the portfolio can adjusted to be lesser than r1. In other words, your portfolio risk is lesser than the lowest risk of individual shares in the portfolio.
3) There are quite a number of ways for a company to borrow money from a bank but not show it on its balance sheet !! This one is really intersting isn't it? :)


I had almost forgotten what a festival celebration is till I got a lucky chance to watch a Santa Claus parade on Bloor street this Sunday. There were tiny tots with their parents waving their hands and singing "jingle bells". I could actually feel the joy in those small kids by remembering the jovial mood I used to be in during "pallakki" festival in my home town.



This picture is from the parade passing near the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) near my school.

We've got two more weeks for Q2 exams to commence and before that submissions of various assignments and projects are due. I've joined as a PM for an UofT student project, I'll discuss more about it in a later blog. It's been a very good experience with lot of learning till now.

So these are some of my updates from past few weeks..

Mobile advertising on the go

Mobile advertising is one of those fields that has high expectations but hasn't quite delivered to the expectations till now. This week I had the opportunity to interact with two leaders working on cutting-edge stuff in mobile/Internet space: Mr. Sumeet Khanna VP of Microsoft, Canada & Mr. Shane Green, VP of Navteq (recently acquired by Nokia). This article is based on my learning from these meetings & some research.

The two key aspects why mobile advertising has lured advertisers are:
1) Targeting - Mobile ads are highly effective in targeting customers.
Television, called the primary media is a very general form of media. Every member of the family watches TV, hence it's difficult for the advertiser to focus on the target audience. PC advertising has more focus, thanks to content based advertising pioneered by Google, but the effectiveness of the Ad is reduced because of far too many Ads on the screen. Mobile phone, with its personal use & far little display space can be most effective in advertising.

2) Location based ads - mobiles can be carried around everywhere & its easy to track the customer location. Because of these reasons advertisers can run location based ads. For instance assume you are in a shopping mall now. A clothes store that's running a discounts sale can send you an SMS about its sale. This might trigger you to go to that store even though you had no intent of shopping for clothes.


Let's now focus on the mechanisms that advertisers use to sell their product.
SMS, due to its ease of use & basic system requirements, continues to be the primary form of advertising. It leaves way behind other forms of advertising.
An average SMS takes much lesser space than the 160 character limit. Some of the service providers are experimenting with appending an advertisement to each incoming message.

With the advent of high speeds & smarter phones, advertisers can deploy graphics based & more interactive ads. Since mobiles are relatively slower devices with lesser graphics support compared to PCs, displaying mobile advertisements require a company to maintain a separate site for its mobile customers. 26% of top 100 US sites have a mobile micro-site now. Check m.facebook.com for an example. As I had mentioned in this previous article, iPhone seems to be real trend setter & has driven mobile data rates to new high.




To make effective campaings, its good to understand when a customer uses her mobile to access the Internet. According to Interactive Advertising Beureu, a mobile user accesses the Internet mainly in the following scenarios:
1) When the user is busy in a work & wants to access the Internet to lookup for some references. He doesn't want to switch on his laptop/PC for a small job.
2) He wants to kill some time by playing a mobile game or some similar app.
Understading these usage patterns of the user is essential to build effective mobile ads.


The main roadblock in future increases in mobile Internet access seems to be high prices charged by service providers for these services. Going forward, with increasing ad based revenues, service providers may reduce these rates. Virgin mobile with its "sugar mama" campaign is already experimenting on this front.


The future of mobile advertising seems to be on the slow but steady path now..

References:
http://www.iab.net/media/file/moble_platform_status_report.pdf
http://www.telecommagazine.com/article.asp?HH_ID=AR_4357

A new series in terraintamer.blogspot.com

Q1 exams got over yesterday. Q2 will be starting in full flow from Monday. I Need to read through 2 two topics for Strategy class. And by "reading" I mean I need to be completely through with the topics & also gather few points for class participation. My gut feeling that I may need to slog the entire Q2 like we did in last 2 weeks before Q1 exams.


The past few months in Rotman has been a truly International experience for me. My classmates are from 30 odd countries. For any topic discussion in the class, each student brings out her perspective that's so unique to their culture & different from mine that I instantaneously feel "wow !! what an amazing point that was". This has inspired me to start a new series on my blog. I am planning to interact with some of my classmates & understand what's unique in their country/culture that many of us don't know of. Then I'm gonna compile it on my blog with a title like "10 things I didn't know about countryX".
Hopefully, this exercise will let me learn a little bit more about global cultures & also spread the "gyan" to you guys..

For a starter, did you know that "hola" with stress on "A" is Portuguese & "hola" with stress on "O" is Spanish? Basically, you greet a Brazilian with the 1st option & any other person from Latin America with the 2nd option.


Ciao..

What a hectic week !!

It had never dawned to me how hectic MBA is until last Wednesday. I was talking to my team regarding the various submission we had to make in coming week. This was the list:

group assignments:
Stats project step1 - 10th Oct
FIT presentation - 14th Oct
MPO case analysis - 16th Oct

individual assignments:
FIT - 21st Oct
MPO - 23rd Oct

We had planned our team assignments properly, so there were no problems there. But time required for individual assignments are grossly undervalued & we need to slog over now.

In between all this we needed to make time to prepare for the exams starting from 20th Oct, i.e. from next week.

Time to head back now..
bye..

Indian Railways @ Rotman

We got this article from our Media Relations office this tuesday:


Indian Railways Return to UofT’s Rotman School of Management.

Toronto – For the second year in a row, a program at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management will provide a look at the latest trends in management thinking and transportation for 40 senior managers from The Indian Railways, the second largest railway network in the world. Managers, from the finance and human resources functions of The Indian Railways, will be in Toronto from September 22 to October 4.

The two week program will provide participants with focused classes in finance, human resources, strategy and marketing. In addition to the classroom-based activities, the participants will have site visits to transportation and logistics firms.

“The Indian Railways have underwent a grand transformation in recent years becoming one of the most successful transportation companies in the world,” says Prof. Dilip Soman, Corus Chair in Communications Strategy, at the Rotman School, who is the academic director of the program. “Education and training, such as this program, are important for the company to continue its renaissance.”

The Indian Railways is the second largest railway network in the world and the largest civilian organization under a single management. It carries over 13 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of freight every day, runs 12,000 trains daily with nearly 8,000 Railway stations.

The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world’s most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The School is currently raising $200 million to ensure Canada has the world-class business school it deserves. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.



This explained why we were seeing so many well dressed Indian men & women in the School over the weekend. I has initially thought that Rotman had rented out our CIBC Hall on 3rd floor for some Indian business meeting..


Later, I was able to collect some more info from Prof. Dilip Soman. This program was previously being done at NYU-Stern & Prof. Soman was instrumental in getting this program to Rotman.


Indian Railways has been a life-line of sorts for India, ever before Independence. So much so that there's a separate Railway Budget presented by the Central government.
It has been performing brilliantly well of late, very much inline with the economic boom in India. Contrary to most of the PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings) that have crumbled post liberalization, Indian Railways has been one of the few organizations that was able to capitalize on the booming economy.

Imparting top-class business education to top management is one facet of its willingness to innovate & revamp itself. But I think this is one the most important steps towards nurturing a better organization. Its this top management that's going back to implement new strategies to increase profits & at the same time move to around tonnes of freight & millions of Indians at least possible prices.

This program is going to be a good image building for Rotman as well. Now you know Rotman is behind all those innovations Indian Railways is going to roll out in the coming years. Hope delayed trains will be a thing of the past soon.. :)

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RIM's shares down by 25% on a single day

If you are in Canada, you would realize the weight of this blog's title. Of late there's been a strong correlation between RIM's performance & TSX's performance.
RIM is a household pride & is the newest face of Canadian technology prowess.

Today's value is the lowest in more than a year.
There have been two opposing reasons given for this downturn.
Some market analysts say that this negative dip is in line with the current global cues that hasn't spared even the best performers. More specifically, RIM has been over-evaluated for quite sometime & this downward slide was market correction.

On the other hand, RIM sympathizers argue that the reason was that RIM's Q3 results haven't met the market expectations. The market was expecting a return of 98 cents per share whereas the actual earnings have been around 88 cents!!
The markets may seem to be a little too severe on this company. Given the kind of cutthroat competition that's happening in mobile handset business, its imperative for RIM to invest more into R&D and bring out several more products to retain its market share.

RIM officials have clarified that R&D costs that were incurred in the present quarter will show profits in the coming quarters.

yet another new bottom..

Whoever thought that we are coming out of the slump of sub-prime crisis after the Citibank & Bear Stearns turmoils was mistaken. He would have been under a swirl of shocks in the past few weeks. It was Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac first & followed by Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch & AIG on a row this week.


There's a heated debate on why should the US Fed government bailout these firms for their follies at the cost of tax payers' money.
It seems to me that the sub-prime crisis has turned out to be a night-marish situation to the entire Capitalist society. The government is bailing out these firms so that they survive to disburse more loans to the people, people who are already neck deep with loan defaults.

But it seems this is the only easy & visible path that the Fed officials can see as of now. US is the richest country, its GDP is $13.8 trillion, Japan, the 2nd richest is a paltry $4.3 trillion. Developing economies such as China, India & Brazil are extremely dependent on the US for selling its goods. So if there's none buying in the US, these countries take a big hit. Although there are burgeoning domestic markets, they are in no comparison to the US market & they need more time to grow to the size of the US. So retaining the US market liquidity is crucial in maintaining global economic stability.



Its believed that the market goes into this scary, bearish mode every 5 years. Last time it happened during the Internet companies fallout & 9/11 crisis. That slump wiped out a good portion of the enthusiastic Internet startups in the Silicon Valley. The picture has never been the same for those who survived. They never again saw the kind of appreciations they saw in the last 1990's.

The situation today is somewhat more difficult. The companies involved are the biggest names in the financial world, the amounts involved are way beyond a common man's imagination. The blood-bath seems to be not over yet. How will the future be for those who survive this?

Have we hit the bottom? Or are we still to see it? Are we getting back to revival?

camp Manitou - an unforgettable experience

"Dude, this orientation camp was so dis-orienting" -- this was what one of my friends said after we came back from the 3 day camp to Camp Manitou (http://www.manitoucamp.com)
It was 3 days of exhausting fun. We had lots of team building competitions during day & we then partied all night. The entire period was so action packed that we didn't have time to gasp a breathe.



On the way to the camp, we had speed networking sessions (a 2nd year's idea, inspired by speed dating) by which we were supposed to meet many of our bus mates. I had a nice conversation with Jen Provan, a sailor who had represented Canada in Beijing'08.

After reaching the camp, we were shown to our cottages where we threw our luggage & headed to the dining hall to have lunch.
After lunch we had the Finance competition. Were given about 30 cards of 4 different colors, each representing land, labor, market & money. The mission of the competition was to form as many possible combinations of land, labor, market & money of the same color. If we needed any cards to complete our combination, we could trade it with any of our cards in a trading session that was held for 10 mins at 3 intervals. My team ended up garnering 880 points, the winning team had about 1200 points.


After the competition, the Desi gang went out to play cricket. Guess where we played? In the baseball ground. Indian improvisation right over there.. :)

Later, our Dean, Roger Martin visited the camp. We had an interactive discussion about his brainchild & the main buzzword at Rotman: Integrative Thinking.

That evening we had a casino event hosted by the faculty, including the Dean & the Vice Dean. We got to play with all these big guns in a very informal environ. There were free drinks to further relax our nerves when talking to them.. :)



Next day morning after the breakfast, we had the Consulting contest. The case was to come out with a recommendation for a leading credit card company that wants to enter the calling card market.
We came out with quite an out-of-the-box idea & we presented it quite well, so we got a clearance for the final round.
But in the finals, we missed out the 1st place by just 2 pts & had to content with the 2nd prize.

After lunch we had one of the best events in the camp: the Olympics. We were again split up into teams of 5 & were to play some of the more popular games such as basket-ball & volley-ball and some customized games such as "Grapefruit passing" (its a very interesting game, you've to play to know it). I got to play ice-hockey for the 1st time & I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even scored the winning goal for my team !!
By the end of the Olympics all of us were completely, all-and-out exhausted.
The soccer fans still had some batteries left, we went & had a good game of soccer.

As the sun came down, the party animals started coming out. Today's theme was movie costumes. We had been previously informed about the theme, so all of us had brought some kind costume along with us. I had brought a flashy "jhink-chak" shirt that I had brought in Pune, a pair of sun glasses. These were enough to make people believe that I was some Bollywood star.
One guy in my cottage had a costume of Ghost Busters while another had dressed himself as some Star Wars characher.
At the venue, it was amazing to see so many colorful people. One girl was a Marlyn Manroe in her famous white dress, there were a bunch of pirates & a whole lot of Jokers, inspired by the cult icon Heath Ledger. Can't forget his line "do you how I got these scars?"
Some of the Desi gang recognized me as Rajinikant, so I decided that's what I am gonna be. I was boasting some of the heroics of Rajini such as lighting a cigarette with a gun, etc to some of the curious "phoren" students..




Next morning was our last day in the camp. All of us were dead tired by now. I saw most ppl limping around. It must be either coz of the Olympics or they had tripped while heading back to cottages after all the drinking & partying. I confess mine was because of the Olympics.. :)

We had a marketing contest right after the breakfast. Most of us were too tired to participate. Winners were decided based on which team receives the max numbers of claps or table banging for their performance. The winning team had put in quite a good show.

We then had lunch & got on to the buses & head back to the school.

All-in-all, it was a great effort & co-ordination by the 2nd years that made this event a great success.

latest in Canadian telecom industry

Canada seems to be quite a happening place for telecommunications. With still 1/3rd of the population not having mobiles, there's a large market out there that needs to be tapped into.


Some of the recent happenings just show how dynamic the industry is:

1)Spectrum auction
New entrants would definitely lead to more options for customers.
New entrants would also invest in telecom infrastructure, and potential new entrants such as the traditional cable operator Shaw Communications suggest its intent to foray into the Broadband and IPTV domain. These provide an opportunity for already over-heated Network Equipment Manufacturer (NEM) space.

2)BCE & Telus going the 3G way
BCE & Telus finally decided to give Rogers a run for its money by announcing their foray into 3G space. They've announced that they'll jointly deploy a 3G HSPA network & have selected Nokia Siemens as their supplier and would spend $1 billion over a span of 3 years.
This network upgrade would allow them to sell the legendary Blackberry Bold & iPhone 3G that have a huge market but were not currently supported by BCE or Telus networks.

3)Acquisition of BCE
Posed to be one of the largest deal of the year, this $51.7 billion acquisition is certain to bring in new life into the largest communications company in Canada.


There are going to happen at a faster pace once the spectrum allocation results are announced.

my updates

Dear friend,
Just few more days left before the D-day when our MBA program starts formally. Almost all the profs we meet scare us by telling it’s going to be a grueling fall/winter session. We are getting mentally prepared for the worst.


The past 3 weeks have been a completely different experience for me. Never ever have I stayed away from home for this long & that too so far away. Every now & then I’m reminded of mom & dad, I think “should I have listened to dad & stayed back in my home-sweet-home?”

Each time I have something at McDonalds or Subway, I’m reminded of those occasions where mom used to prepare some curries that I didn’t like very much & she used to plead “eat this one time son, I’ll prepare your favorite mutton curry tomorrow”
But each time such emotions run through me, I’m reminded of the moral of how even gold needs to be heated & melted in order to make it an aesthetic jewel.


Nagaraj uncle & his family are a great respite for me. Staying with them, I feel as comfortable as I would have staying with my family.
Internet has also been of great help. By visiting some of the Kannada websites, we can ‘almost’ feel at home. I frequently visit kannadaaudio.com, thatskannada.com & prajavani.com. I am constant touch with all my dear friends through mails & chat.


I happened to visit a few must-visit places in & around Toronto such as the Niagara falls, Toronto islands & the CN Tower. We decided we’d rather visit them now, since there may not be much time later to go around.
We had also been to the Toronto Blue Jays baseball game with Boston Red Sox. It seemed more like a networking session where I got introduced some of my Rotman classmates.


In the past 3 weeks, I’ve stayed at different places in Toronto such as Brampton, Dundas West, Elmhurst, Lansdowne & Toronto Downtown. The one thing that completely impresses me is the cultural diversity that’s made this beautiful city. I think you’ll find people from almost all places in the world such as Ethiopia, Ukraine, Burma, China & India (of course).

I think Toronto is a blown up version of Bengaluru. Just as you’ll find people from every corner of India in Bengaluru, you’ll find people from every corner of the Earth here.
SABA (South Asian Business Association), a Rotman club, had organized a very useful session on PR (Permanent Resident, equivalent to US Green Card) application. This has given me some josh to complete the formalities & submit the application. Will have to dedicate some more time this week & weekend for this.


Most of the recommended book list for this quarter is out & most of the students have started preparing seriously. Even I need to start off now, hunting for the books i.e :)
Ok, too much info in this 1 posting. Bye for now..

Charles Schultz's philosophy & future of the Internet

Came across this nice article: http://www.rogerknapp.com/inspire/schultzphilosophy.htm.
I think this article very aptly represents the recent trends of the Internet. Of late, social networking sites & sites with user developed content such as photos & blogs have been the most popular sites.
So, what has led to this demand for such community based sites? I figure out sociological & technological reasons for this.
Technologically, as memory becomes cheaper, websites can host more users for much lesser costs.
But at a sociological level, I think its our growing passion to share our world with our near & dear ones and also our excitement to know more about the people we care.

tips for a good presentation

1st week of International Student Orientation Week just finished today & the air is filled with so much competition.
There was a presentation competition where all the students were split into teams of 4 (mine being the last team had 3 members), each team had to give a presentation on a chosen topic. My team's team presentation on Operation/Supply Chain Mgmt. was a big disappointment. Although we had some very good visuals & had aimed at reducing text in the ppt to as low as possible, the judgment panel had a Logistics Prof who grilled us thoroughly.
Although, we didn't quite manage to get to the finals (any surprises here ??), I did managed to compile few tips that need to considered when giving future presentations. This was a collection of feedbacks that our & other teams received from the panel. (after adding Soumak's contribution)

When preparing the presentation:

1)1^st word of each bullet should be of same case (upper case/lower case).

2) Show slide number, date & ppt title on each title.

3) Diagrams must be easy to read, non-cluttering & not confusing. If too big, cut it & split it to the next slide.

4) To impress the subject expert, try to cover the future trends of the topic.

5) Use humor, but let not the humor be criticizing the topic.

6) Ensure there's a logical structure to your presentation. For instance, it must have a contents & conclusion section.

7) Do not have too much text.

During the presentation:

1) Dress code should be uniform for all the team members.

2) Support a team member if he’s stuck at a particular point.

3) For guys, having hands in the pocket is a big no-no, since it may seem that the presenters are bit laid back for the occasion.

4) Beware of the time constraint.

5) During the presentation, don’t “read out” what’s on the slide. Don’t turn back to the display to refer to it. Look at your laptop in your front to get clues if you are stuck.

6) Its better to not move around. Too movement may distract the audience.

I'm sure you'll have more tips that could be added. Please add them as comments, I'll consolidate them.

Update on Sep 9th, 2009:
Here's an interested read on this topic: LINK

a week that was..

phew..
what a week this was..
It was in this week that I've embarked on a new life of sorts. New place, new role, new friends...
With so many new changes, there are bound to have quite a few commotions.

Since I reached Toronto a week later than most of the Indian guys, accommodation turned out to be quite an hurdle.
On a particular day, Ramit & I walked almost 20 kms & 5 hrs around the Downtown area but in vain.
I was temporarily staying in my dad's friend, Nagaraj uncle's house. I finally managed to move in with Pavan, Vinay & Sid.

Getting adjusted to Canada takes some time. Back in India, we are so used to chaos that a sudden wave of discipline & orderliness takes you by surprise.
Say you were crossing a Toronto road, you see a car speeding towards you, you wait for it to pass, but as the car nears you, the car waits for you to pass. Both you & the driver are at confusion for few moments, waiting for each other to pass.

Traffic rules here are pedestrian friendly. Well, its supposed to be the same in India too, but here the difference here is that the rules are strictly adhered.

Toronto is a superb city, innumerable number of skyscrapers, interspersed with older Victoria styled structures dating back to late 1800's, wide roads, beautiful boulevards all will leave awestruck.

In the past week, I've seen almost all the cars I used to dream about since childhood. Here's an easy way to see you fav car in Toronto: 1) think of ur favorite car: a Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini or a Mustang 2) go to Downtown 3) close your eyes for 30 secs & 4) slowly open your eyes. You'll see that car speeding past you.

TTC is another great feature in Toronto. Trians come, people get down, people get in, a music indicates the train is leaving & the train leaves. Everything happening in perfect precision. So much precision that sometimes life may feel too mechanical for us Indians..

I must say, the way we associate Germany to engineering or Italy to design or Japan to technology, we must associate desciple & order to Canada.. :)

One more thing we Indians need to get adjusted to is deal with an array of coins. Its coins & coins wherever you go.. $2, $1, 50c & so on till 1c. It'll fill ur purse so much that in the end you'll be forced to donate some of them.

Overall, its a beautiful city, so much to explore & learn. Hope to buy a camera soon & capture some of the snapshots here.



P.S. This article was started on Saturday evening but due to all sorts of pressures, was able to complete only on Tuesday.

a glutton's dream come true..

Just have look at my this week's (last week in India) schedule. It's sure gonna make the glutton in u get mouth-watering dreams.. :)
Tuesday dinner -- @ Vinay's house. As usual Raj had come late, but was trying to pass the blame on me & Machi. But we are well-versed with his ways. The food was typical South-Indian Vysya fare. His mom had taken pains to prepare some wonderful coconut obbattus. Plus there were lots of other sweets, tasty fried items, sweetened sambar, etc & ending with the typical serving of puffed rice!!

Wednesday lunch -- treat given by me to my Alcatel-Lucent team. Dominos Pizzas with various delicious toppings. Had to make a hard negotiation with the cashier to get a decent discount.

Wednesday dinner -- @ my cousin's house. His wife had prepared some amazing kababs, chicken chops & mutton curry; all giving a terrific combination to the ragi mudde.

Thursday dinner -- @ Raj's house. As usual, he was late, making all of us furious. But our furiousity was dampened soon by his mother's cooking. Although non-veg was the main course, his mother had taken pains to prepare vegetarian food for the vegitarian parties of our gang: Vinay & Manja. For the non-vegitarians, we had chilly chicken & mutton fry & a very thin mutton curry that my mom occassionally prepares. In no time, each of us had downloaded 2 generous servings of rice..

Friday lunch -- gave a treat to my Sasken team. Yet again, it was a pizza treat, since nothing seemed to fit my "tight budget". We got a good number of pizzas & everyone were quite filled in the end..

Friday dinner -- @ Manja's house. His mom comes closest to my mom in terms of taste. I reason out this could be because both of them hail from the same geographical area of South Eastern Karnataka (his mom is from Kolar & mine is from Devanahalli, just 40 kms apart) & hence a similar use of ingredients & preparation methods.
Ok, analysis apart, his mom had prepared wonderful dal obbattu & jamoon (esp. for Raj & Vinay). As such, even I am not a very big connoisuer of obbattu, but its preparation is such a tedious & pain-staking process that you need to eat few as gratitude for the cook. The dal rasam was so delicious that I helped myself with some more servings of rice.

Tomorrow's breakfast is in my home. Mom has said she'll prepare Vegetable Palav & jamoon.

So this was my eating itinery for this week. Now, dont u think this wld make anybody's mouth water?

Before I end this write-up, my heartfelt thanks to all my friends & cousins & their families for showing so much love & affection towards me.

a movie that leaves u thinking

Yesterday I got a send-off party from my long-time PESIT buddies: Prashant, Veda, Harsha & Khalid.
Despite the largely looming terror threat in Bengaluru, we decided to go for the much awaited movie, Taj Mahal.

Few of the songs on the promos were good & the posters indicated that it was pretty quality stuff. But half of our josh was down when Veda indicated that the feedback was lukewarm. We've seen this pattern reccuring: good promos--all of our spirits are high, can't wait to get a First Day First Show ticket---later, u come out right after the interval, as though you are escaping from a prison.. :) I was thinking we are heading for such a disaster once again..

Overall, the movie seemed to be like a ODI between the good-parts of the movie & the bad-parts. The initial opening was a movie-crazy young boy running away from home fearing his father & finding a diary of the protagonist. This seemed like story telling with-in a story that was well presented. Then the bad-part took over: which place on earth had a number plate with S-143?? Switzerland??
Then following that, the hero puncturing his bike to wish good morning to our heroine (sakkat hot Pooja Gandhi) & ending off with an insequential romantic song. This was enough to put us off.
Then the movie continues with many absurdities, such as: the heroine, who has never talked to the hero & admittedly doesn't even know his name, agrees to go for coffee with him!! Unfortunately, it seems, the director didn't know that real girls in this real world aren't that liberal :(
Its only the occassional dialogs by Rangayana Raghu that really keeps the spirits up at some places.

But the highlight of the movie, that makes it worth wathching is the metal pressure that the hero goes through in choosing between his extreme love for the heroine & his duties & responsibilites towards his parents who have have sold their everything & living in extreme poor conditions so that their son studies well & becomes an engineer.
Its isn't that difficult for any of the guys (esp. me at this juncture of my life) to draw an analogy to the hero's state that really makes the impact on all of the guys.
The parents fetch more brownie points by forgiving the son who comes back & surrenders himself in front of this telling his bad state & parents accept him for what he is & forgives him. This again, seems to be a gentle reminder that parents, from the times of the Prable of the Prodigal Son, are a trove of forgiveness.

At the end of the movie, you really start thinking what did the hero achieve, after all?
Couldn't have he lived happier if he hadn't gone out of his small village or hadn't fallen in a wierd love with that girl?
This's what makes the movie a memorable one, even thought there are quite a few absurd, vague & far-fatched scenes.
Here's a link to one of my fav songs in the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYs-InGHMtQ&feature=related

m-commerce - the way people do business in 2015

I attended a session at Sasken on mobile Value Added Services. One of the most important avenues for growth for mobile VAS will be m-commerce. The speaker, Mr. Raja Chetlur shared with us some interesting prospects on this topic.

So, what is m-commerce? Suppose you are browzing through e-Bay with your new iPhone. You found a diamond necklace that you want to gift to your girl friend (obviously you are a rich guy). You just click on "add it to my cart".
The rest is taken care of e-Bay & your mobile service provider. Your service provider will act as your credit-card company, pays for that item & provides your billing address to where your item will be shipped to.
Thats how simple shopping is going to be in future.

Basically, m-commerce will be a spin-off from e-commerce, powered by broadband wireless speeds, Web 2.0 technology & new service delivery platforms like IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem).

M-commerce seems to be the next ultra-cool app after SMS. But when looked at 2nd time, you'll realize there are more subtle things associated with m-commerce than what meet the eye. When your service provider pays for your product, it assumes a financial role, a role that's currently done by banks such as Citi, ICICI, etc.
As m-commerce grows rapidly, the banking biggies are certain to have a look at SP as possible acqusition targets. This development might revolutionize telecom space. Until now, it was just telcos acquiring or merging with other telcos, but with m-commerce even banking companies will get into the picture.

So, interesting times lie ahead.. :)

A million $$$ question

Dear friend,

Here’s a million dollar question to you.

Suppose you suddenly hit a jackpot of Rs 20 lakh. You spend Rs. 10 lakh lavishly on all your favorite things & now you wanna invest the remaining amount that would give you a good return on investment.

Let me try to help you with this problem.

Consider some of the options you have:

1) Fixed deposits – this is a traditional investment plan with low returns & low risks involved. This lacks the challenge that we seek whenever we make investments.

2) Real estate – this is in pretty bad shape now, esp. around Bengaluru & as it is you may nothing for Rs. 10 lakh these days :)

3) Stock market – with soaring oil prices & inflation, there doesn’t seem to be much in favor of investing in stocks. There are predictions of US Presidential elections reviving the market. But as we have seen, Indian market seems to be sometimes aloof of global cues. So it might be an unpredictable investment.

At this juncture, let me provide you a new option. Say suppose, I need Rs 10 lakh for my MBA course & I request you to lend some money from your Rs. 10 lakh reserve. If you do so, I’ll pay you back your initial investment amount with additional incentives after my MBA. Would you do this investment?

All of us have heard that the best form of investment is education. But of course the primary benefactor of education will be the student himself. Can there be some form of mechanism where even others can obtain monetary profit from your education?

Lets forget for sometime that we are friends & see my proposition from a purely investment perspective. Here is the description of the returns I’ll give:

After passing out from my MBA & obtaining a job, I’ll set aside half of my salary for my yearly expenses (including income tax payment), a quarter for paying back my student loan and the remaining quarter as payment for my “education investors”.

Here are some objective facts that might help you in your decision making:

1) Placement rate in Rotman School of Management (the school I’ll be attending) with-in 1st 3 months : 94%

2) Average salary: CAD $ 120,000, highest: CAD $ 300,000, lowest: CAD $ 50,000

3) Average work-experience: 4 yrs, my experience: 4 yrs.

4) Average GMAT score: 640, my score: 720. Please note that GMAT score can’t be directly correlated with academic performance. Moreover I happen to be from a very competitive Indian IT pool which will have much higher average GMAT score (my estimation is ~700)

5) An important macro-economic consideration you’ll need to make is the increasing trend of CAD $ against the Indian Rupee. Would it continue for few more years?

Let me explain your returns with an example. Say you’ve invested Rs 1 lakh. After 2 yrs, I get a salary of CAD $120,000 (i.e Rs 48 lakh @ Rs 40 per CAD $). I have allotted 25% of my salary for returning to my investors which will amount to Rs 12 lakh. Since you’ve invested Rs 1 lakh, you’ll get 10% of 12 lakh, i.e Rs 1.2 lakh. So your return on investment for 2 yrs is 20%.

You’ll be entitled for more if my salary is more & lesser if lesser. But you may lose some money if my salary is less than CAD $ 100,000.

So my million dollar question is, are you ready to invest in my education? If yes, how much?

Please add your answers/doubts/suggestions in the comments section below.

N.B. some of the numbers mentioned below may be deviated from actual figures.

Fight for the 4G dominance

Although GSM & CDMA still rule the roost in most parts of the world & 3G n/w deployments have just begun to yield returns, the fight for the nextGen n/w has already begun. Its called the "4G War".

The 3 contenders are WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), LTE (Long Term Evolution) & UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband). In this article, I'm analyzing the potentials of each of technology from various perspectives.

From technology point of view, all use OFDMA air interface with IP for data (and voice as VOIP) transmission. But UMB is supposed to provide the best bandwidth, with upto 260 MBPS (Fwd Link).

From backward compatibility with existing n/w's perspective, LTE with a strong evolution from UMTS-HSPA & UMB evolving from 1x EVDO, prove to be favorites among the Service Providers (SP) cos due to lesser deployment costs.

But from a 1st entrant perspective, WiMax had a clear lead over the other 2. Its already been deployed in some developing countries such as India, Egypt & Indonesia. In a sense, these countries have taken a leap above 3G & have embraced 4G technologies, making 3G to restricted mainly to North America & Europe.
LTE is nearing initial development & could be installed for trail runs very soon. UMB has got a long catching up to do here.

Regarding getting SP providers patrons, Sprint has already announced that it'll deploy WiMax for its 4G costomers, while Verizon has pledged to spend a few billion dollars on LTE upgradation of its current UMTS n/ws. But after its Alltel acquisition, will there be enough money for this venture remains to be seen.
UMB seems to have lost here also. Until now none of the SP's have announced that it would install UMB.

So, with two large disadvantages but being the best technology, can UMB still make it? Can Qualcomm, its sole evangelist right now, find good customers to support its development work?
But right now, it seems that only LTE with a strong customer backing & a logical evolution path from UMTS, can provide some competition for WiMax.

Note added on 6/7/8:
Chinese CDMA giant, China Mobile has also announced that it favors LTE for its 4G evolution. Can this be a death blow to UMB?

hey..

Dear friend,
Another weekend draws to a close. So less time, so much to do..
Mind is full of ideas to write, but not getting time to think abt them put them here. Since I'm planning to go to Dharmastala next weekend, not sure if I'll get time next weekend also.
Anywayz, please be assured that I'm doing the best I can to maintain this relationship.. :)

Blackberry & DoT locking horns

It happens only in India!!
The executives of RIM must have realized this in a nasty way. Nowhere else in the world have any governments asked the Blackberry to reduce encryption levels so that the government can spy on what their citizens are mailing each other & to the outside world.

The DoT (Department of Telecom) officials seem to have realized bit late how their supercilious demand will impact the entire E-Commerce industry. For an economy that has risen to power on the back of information technology industry, such a move will for sure send wrong signals to the rest of the world. Hence they have started a backing off action such that the government's face is not lost.

We need to wait & watch what these babus are going to do. The Canadian High Commission backing RIM is not doing any good to them.

On the other hand, RIM, well aware of the fact that India is the world's fastest growing mobile market & already having half a million customers, is discussing with Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) the various possible solutions for the encryption issue & for setting up a Blackberry server within India.

I'll be tracking this story & post updates as & when they arrive.

some respite atlast..

So, after eventually getting the education loan sanction letter, I for the Canadian Visa on 06/06/08 ( 6th of June in either American or English style :) ). So now the waiting starts. Hope everything goes fine & I get my Visa before July 28th, 6 PM, the time for my flight.

After running from pillar to post during the past few weeks, I certainly deserved a break. So I headed off with Vinay & Raj to one our friend's brother's marriage in Tiptur. I had armed myself with the Canon S5 IS & wanted to try something myself after seeing so many mesmerizing pics in BWS.
Here's a link to some of the better 1's:
http://picasaweb.google.com/raghu.ramu/TipturTrip
The quantity is low coz of the high battery consumption of this cam. But thanks to the cam, I made an effort to explore this small town, somewhere in the middle of southern Karnataka & got to learn a few things about this place:
There were umpteen number of British style old buildings, many dating back to early 1900's. This showed that this town was well developed even during pre-Independence era & was of importance to the British Raj. The is in quite a contrast to other similar towns I had been to, such as Kolar, Chintamani, Chikkaballapur, etc. These towns must have gained importance and prosperity more recently due to proximity to the capital, Bangalore & even more recently due to the real estate boom.
So, this begs the question, what does Tiptur have that the other latter towns lack?
I guess I should be the coconut trade that happens here. Apparently, this place is supposed to be having one of the largest coconut godowns in India. That's the answer in a nutshell.. :)
Speaking of godowns, I have suddenly realized even I need to shelve myself off into my godown now till morning.
Good bye..

@ STARTUP CITY

I had been to a convention yesterday, organized by SmartTechie called Startup City. The program was to showcase the works of the some of the high-technology startups that have been groomed in Bangalore. The were also some sessions & panel discussions catering to the startups' needs.

A panel discussion moderated by Dr. Y.L.R.Moorthi (an IIMB prof) focussed on marketing techniques for startups.
Bharat of Amazon.com opined that a strong word of mouth is essential for a startup.
Paul Murphy of Microsoft felt that its important to build a good network of partners, a B2B network.
Suresh from Nokia said that a product needs to have key differentiators & it needs to be innovated continously.
If you were wondering what were these people from the big companies doing in a convention meant to focus startups. The answer is these companies were main sponsors for the event & these companies are supposed to have initiatives specifically focussed on startups as customers. (I haven't been able to explore them yet)
In the Q&A section, when someone asked how the big cos reward failures. Paul answered that his department used to give bonus to the concerned executives on each failure!!

Later, I attended a seminar by Jinseh Varia from Amazon Web Services on Utility Computing or Cloud Computing.
Basically, Utility Computing has emerged with the idea that access to servers for storage or computation is no longer dependent on the server location, thanks to high speed broadband. Hence there's no more need for companies to have their own dedicated servers. Instead, they can make use of several terra-byte servers from host companies who provide the service for a fee. Use of such a service are supposed to allow you to work "under the clouds", anywhere on earth. This is also supposed to make your web portals more agile to sudden spikes in accesses.

After this I visited few of the desks of startups & got to see some of the cool work that's currently being done by these cos. Surprisingly, most of the apps showcased were for m-commerce, mainly catering to the local market.
A application developed by Seclore caught my attention. This application allows secured, password protected access to documents (MSWord, PDFs, etc) having different options to save locally, print, distribute, modify the document, etc.
I also got to talk to guys from Sloka Telecom who have developed a patented architecture for WiMAX. I was awestruck to see a Base Station of a size of a 14'' laptop, this was drastically smaller compared to its UMTS equivalent that I work on. The company has already deployed its solution in France, Sweden, Indonesia, etc.

Even though I wanted to attend few more sessions & explore more stalls, I was constantly getting calls from my gang to return soon as we had to go to Bonda's marriage. So with a heavy heart, I left early.

my recent updates

Dear friend,
I am sorry I was not able to write much in the past few weeks. Colloquially speaking, I have been "busy like anything" or "sakkat busy maga" in the last couple of weeks. :)

The IEFC loan rejection has had few serious repercussions. Now I had to apply to Indian banks which besides the exorbitant interest rates require an endless number of docs to be submitted. I finally got all the relevant docs ready & submitted my loan application last week. I would be hearing from the bank about my loan in a week's time.

With the Indian loan I can get only half of my estimated expenses. In order to show to the Visa authorities that I have sufficient funds to fulfill all my expenses I needed to prepare another extensive set of docs. The entire last week was spent on collecting that. This week I need to get all my finance docs certified by a CA. After this is done & I get a sanction letter for my loan, I can apply for my Visa. I hope to do this ASAP.

I am also working on tickets booking & on the look for a good laptop.


Things have got a bit hectic at work place also. I submitted my resignation last week & have got a mail mentioning the formalities of the exit process. I need to follow up on this.
I'm currently working on quite an interesting & a challenging feature. I need to finalize the Deisgn Document before quitting.


The biggest causality of my hectic schedule is my reading. I've stopped reading Telecom Flash newsletters altogether. In my mailbox I see I have 30 unread CS newsletters. I hope I finish going through them before the content becomes too stale.

Despite of all this I've able to take some time off to meet my would-be class mates gang from Bangalore yesterday night. Chatting with this guys definitely helps to take off some pressure since these guys are also sailing in the same boat as I am.

Bonda's marriage, the 1st marriage in my gang, is coming up this weekend. Vinay, Viji & I had been to Commercial Street in the evening to get a nice little gift for him.
Its Sunday 11 PM now & another weekend draws to a close. Time to sleep & prepare myself for another high activity filled week. Good night.

its voting time guys..

Just a week to go for the 1st phase of Karnataka state assembly elections & the campaigns are reaching a feverish pitch. Thanks to the Election Commission, buntings have been banned, effectively eliminating pollution due to plastics & the use of loud speakers has also been banned that has reduced the regular din that we were so much used to all this while. Doesn't this seem a lot more mature now? The way to go for the largest democracy & unarguably the country that sees the maximum elections in a year.. :)
The candidates don't seem have an option but goto each voter & literally beg each one for his/her vote. This might help them in shedding a kg or two from their bodies.. :)

It was shocking to see a common problem among all the leading parties: so many contenders for a single party ticket. This has lead to quite a few skirmishes, the defeated has promised vendetta. I felt a bit pity for these guys; the booming economy has created so many nouveau riche & each of are in a mood to "serve the people". How can you accommodate all of them without increasing the seats? Why couldn't have the delimitation committee created some more constituencies?

If you are a rich guy, planning to stand for elections, here's an argument you could make: each year the IITs & IIMs increase the number of seats to accommodate the ever increasing number of applicants, in the same vein, why shouldn't EC increase the number of constituencies?

For the rest of us, from the voting fraternity, who still don't know how to choose the "best among the worst" (as one thinker asked us to vote), here's an argument that you could make: Why shouldn't the ballot paper contain a "none of the above" option? There have been on & off discussions on this & I think its something worth a try, instead of lamenting on low voter turnout.

As for me, I am still thinking how to make the "best among the worst" choice. If you know how to make this choice please let me know.. :)
Happy voting !!

the legend lives on..in our hearts

Today is Annavru Dr. Raj's 80th birthday. There are celebrations all over the state; so many cultural programs, blood donation camps -- all in the honor of the Kannada matinée idol. Two years have passed since he has passed away, but he remains fresh in our memories.

I don't intend to write an essay about him because I'm afraid it many run into tens of pages. :)
But I want to enlist few of his qualities that has made him the icon that he is.

1. He was a perfectionist - he would retake his shots several times until he was completely satisfied with his performance.
2. He knew his core skills & didn't allow distractions to lose focus on his core abilities - after he gained immense publicity after the Gokak Chaluvali, many political parties pleaded with him to join their party. But Dr. Raj plainly refused responding that he was not made to be a politician. He would continue to serve Kannada & mankind along with his acting career.
3. He gave back to society from where he had gained so much. He donated generously to orphanages, widow upliftment programs, etc. But while giving such donations he always made sure that his left hand wouldn't know what his right hand gave. Isn't he so different from those whoDuring the Kargil War crisis, he roamed across Karnataka to collect donations for the Kargil fund. Gokak Chaluvali that was initially started by the Kannada thinkers assumed the proportions of a movement only Dr. Raj joined in his hands.
   

Above all this, he was a talented & diversified actor, unparallel to none other. This combined with singing talent made him such an unique personality. Who else have got a Dada Saheb Phalke award and a National award for the best playback singer?

3 days-3 marriages

Mom returned today evening from her '3 days-3 marriages' trip to Kolar. Its the season of marriages here now. So its not uncommon to have 5-6 marriage invites for a single day!! My dad is on a business trip to Mumbai, so its was imperative for my mom to attend all the marriages.
When she returned, she gave quite an interesting account of her experiences, something worth blogging about. So here it goes..
She left on Thursday morning to attend a family friend's marriage in Chintamani (my native). It was a "no hassles" marriage & everything went fine, as in 99.99% of marriages.
That evening she traveled from Chintamani to Kolar (about 40 kms) to attend a far relative's marriage-reception. As she was entering the marriage hall, she saw the bride & party (our relatives) standing outside the hall. For some unknown reason (with so many people around, its easy for the main reason to be lost in translation :) ) the bridegroom was objecting the bride's party entering the hall. The bride's party were all waiting there, at the enternce. Then Bang!! entered my mom, went & spoke to the groom & his parents & managed to get the bride & party in. After that the groom (again for some unknown reason) refused to wear jewelery during the function & objected even the girl wearing it. This was turning to be really absurd, a nightmarish situation to the bride's parents. Again Bang!! entered my mom, convinced the groom & he agreed to allow the bride to wear jewel but he wouldn't wear any. A groom's jewel would be hidden by his suit anyway, there wouldn't be many objections to this condition.
All the experiences my mom had from arranging umpteen number of marriages for my cousins had proved useful here ..
Later that night, she along with my sister, 2 cousin-sisters & their bunch of kids has to spend the night at another cousin's house & return to Chintamani and travel further 40 kms to attend another relative's marriage, the next day.
My cousin had been out of town (for a marriage ofcourse :) ) & had given the keys to a neighbour. Mom & gang were welcomed to the house by a swarm of mosquitoes. Unluckily for them, mosquito mats were empty & the mosquito net would be sufficient for just two people. After all the confusions in the marriage, everyone seemed to have lost their apetite during the dinner & now with the mosquito menace, they were feeling the hunger pangs. But nothing could be done now, it was 10:30 PM & all the stores in that small-time town would be closed. The elders in the gang packed up the kids on the cot having the mosquito net & they got into bantering that comes so naturally to women folk. But the mosquitoes & empty stomachs wouldn't allow them to have a meaningful conversation.
Only those who've been through such experiences can understand how dreadfully long such nights can be. You'll be just waiting for even a small streak of light outside your window to conclude that its morning atlast & run out of your bed.
The next day the elders got ready at 4:30 AM itself & got their kids also ready in jiffy & headed to the bus stop to catch the 5:30 AM bus to Chintamani. Still starving but nothing to eat, they luckily found some snacks at Chintamani bus stop. With their stomach Gods happy, they boarded the bus that would take them to another of those 99.99% successful marriages.

an embarrassing start

Certainly Dravid, Vijay Mallya and gang haven't done a good job in team selection. They had to pick up a few good hitters. Without these run making machines its not possible to do well on such batsmen centric wickets.
We need good fast bowlers than spinners, coz usually the later can be easily taken for boundaries than fast bowlers.
Hope Dravid & Mallya keep these in mind when selecting for the next season.

Today's fielding has left a lot to be desired. C'mon Royal Challengers, u need to better than this to make us proud.. :)
All the best for the next matches!!

Some brainless talks..

The evening coffee breaks these days with my coffee-gang: Manoj & Ashok, have invariably have lead to some interesting discussions.
The other day, while we were sipping coffee, as usual an a plane flew past our GVC (Golf View Campus) office. "ಥ್ಹು, ಈ ಪ್ಲನೆಗಳದ್ದು ಏನ್ ಕಾಟನಪ್ಪ..." (these planes are a pain in the ***) I said to myself. I think, only those who have been victimized by the constant sound of flight takeoffs can understand my then state of mind. :)
Anyway, the discussion had been shifted to air travels and Manoj was mentioning how some people throw-up (a condition where the food you've eaten moves in the opposite direction in your digestion tract, resulting in the emission of the food through you mouth) during flights. Just as I was wondering what could be the reason behind this, Ashok mentioned the research he had done on this topic.
As we become air-bourne, our inner ear that is sensitive to even slight pressure differences sends a signal to the brain that it senses motion, while on the other hand, our eyes sense that our surroundings are static since there's no relative motion visible and hence signals that everthing is still. Now the brain, the master controller, detects that there is inconsistency in the data received from the sensory organs & concludes that the body is under hallucination caused due to poison ingestion and induces the stomach to "throw out" whatever was eaten. In biology terms this is called "Motion Sickness"

Now, being a techie that I am, I couldn't resist the temptation of writing down the brain (modelling it as a programmable machine) implementation in this condition:

/*this is the brain code */

main ( int argc, char* argv[ ] )
{
while (1) { //run this forever (till we are alive :) )

//many things happen here..
//a few hundred billion lines here..

receiveMsgFromEars( &msg );
setMotionStateFromEars ( msg.MotionState ); //values = inMotion or static
receiveMsgFromEyes( &msg );
setMotionStateFromEyes ( msg.MotionState ); //values = inMotion or static
if ( g_motionStateEars != g_motionStateEyes )
{

//poisoned !!!
while (!TheDigestiveSystem.stomachContentsEmpty ( ) )
TheInvolutaryMuscleManager.move ( INVMUSC_STOMACH, DIRECTION_REVERSE );
}

//a few more hundred billion lines here..
//many things happen here..

} //end while :(

} //end main :(


Seems to be some crappy code, right? But by writing these few lines of pseudo-code, I've realized how immensly complex our brain/body is. Call it God or call it evolution, it has given shape to one hell of a machine: ourselves..

I't it fascinating how evolution & natural selection has shaped organisms to handle even minutest situations in order to ensure their survivability?

It may however take a few hundred generations for our brains to learn not to trigger "false alarms" of poisoning just because we are flying.. Seems providing the patch-fix takes time. It certainly wont be delivered in our lifetime.. :)

So the next time you feel like puking during the flight, you know whom should be blamed.. :)

why we should thank Steve Jobs

First, let me clarify who the "we" here means -- its the multi-trillion dollar telecom networks business fraternity. An industry that is already running reeling under pressure from diminishing ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) rates and further deteriorated by the largely looming global slowdown. Many of the NEM (Network Equipment Manufacturers) biggies have been posting losses from past few years.
The NEMs were spending their fortunes to push the limits of high speed data transmissions (UMTS HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) field trails showed speeds of 2 MBPS), while the LTE & WIMAX are poised to have speeds many times this.
But alas, not many end-users needed this much bandwidth. So it made no business sense for the SPs (Service Providers) to buy these new high-speed networks.
Infact, there were a few speculations that the SPs had already peacked their revenues in developed nations and from now on the strategy was more of sustaining those revenues. The game had changed from attacking mode to defending mode.
For the NEMs this simply meant: less revenues -> lesser R&D investments -> even lesser or no money for R&D staff like me..
Then came the ray of the hope, the "iPhone". Can you believe just in few months of its release, it has sold more than 4 million pieces? 2 million with AT&T itself?
According to AT&T figures, on a certain day, iPhone accounted for 80% of AT&T's Internet traffic, with the all the remaining mobiles accounting for the remaining 20%.
So the message for the telecom industry is quite clear: continue development of higher speed wireless technologies, but at the same time come out with super-cool & easy-to-use gadgets to harness the power of these technologies. This would ensure that the revenue graphs would look upwards once again..
This lesson had to be taught by someone of a stature of no less than Steve Jobs himself.