Photo by Seven Morris

Cloud ComputingHave you voted?

Amongst a lot of goodies that the fast internet speeds have brought include the ability to work on the clouds. Yes, we’re talking about broadband and the post-broadband world and it’s hand in bringing up cloud computing. Off late, the ability to cloud-source an organization’s data instead of buying self hosted applications has seen a significant rise amongst SMEs.

One of the prime reasons for the same is the price factor. The ease of scalability and setup is the second. Another significant reason behind the rat race of adopting cloud computing technology is the recession. The companies which have been hit by the wave have realized that by clinging on to the cloud, they can get access to some kick ass business applications and can drastically boost their infrastructure resources, all at a negligible cost.

Cloud computing incorporates providing software, platform and infrastructure as-a-service. Wikipedia has a classic definition of what is cloud computing.

Cloud computing is a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the “cloud” that supports them.

This looks to be a perfect solution wherein you pay-as-you-go. For small and medium scale enterprises, this makes sense. Rather than buying the entire hardware or the software library, they may prefer to pay the service provider using a pay per license model.

Cloud computing is already termed as one of the most hyped technologies of this year.

Moving along, the most debatable issue with the cloud has been the security. Hosting a company’s data over the cloud can be an invitation to a security breech. At the RSA Conference held earlier this year, there were mixed opinions on the adoption of cloud computing. While a few speakers were excited about the technology while others were skeptical about the fact that moving to a world where large chunks of confidential data get hosted on small and confined datacentres would indicate a possible attack by the hackers and hence a catastrophe.

However, looking it with a different frame, most startups and medium scale enterprises are not sufficiently strong enough to protect their data and servers. Attacks like DDOS almost break the backbone of the network for long hours. Hosting the data with comparatively large houses like Amazon, Google, XCalibre, Joyent, Bungee, etc. can probably be safe on that front as these giants have much better shield and ammunition.

Apart from the attack there are other reasons which need to be taken care of before rushing to enroll a saas product. One of the many reasons as reported by ComputerWeekly is,

“Regulatory or legal requirements are often forgotten, and this can expose businesses using cloud computing to unnecessary risk” says Andrew Scott, partner at law firm Dickinson Dees.

John Chambers, Chairman and CEO at Cisco Systems said,
“You’ll have no idea what’s in the corporate data center. That is exciting to me as a network player. Boy am I going to sell a lot of stuff to tie that together.” Meanwhile, he added, “It is a security nightmare and it can’t be handled in traditional ways.”

There are various virtues of looking at the cloud computing business model. However, there is still some time for it to graduate to see a large number of big organizations chaining themselves to the cloud.

Praval, the author of this article is an independent blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He writes articles, stories and reviews on Startup ecosystem, Blogging, Internet business, Wordpress, Linux, Open Source Software and technology in general.

Photo by Brajeshwar

Indian StartupsTaking the right steps ahead.

Here is a new blog and a must-read for everyone in the Startup business. Indian Startup Gyaan is from Abinash Tripathy, a very successful Startup guy.

Abinash resigned in Feb 2009 from Zimbra, started his blog and is trying to associate with the Startup scene all over again. It may be noted that Zimbra was acquired by Yahoo! for US$350M.

Abinash is on a mission to communicate and spearhead a different Startup culture with young Indians about the experiences of being a high tech innovator, an entrepreneur and a change agent for the New Modern Developed India.

You should read some of his recent writings, specially the likes of — Building a Kickass Team, where he talked about the talent or rather the lack of it in India.

I really like some of his filters

• if candidate has worked in {ibm|infosys|tcs|satyam|patni… any services firm in India} then move to Trash
• if {MBA | product analyst | business development type| project manager…} then make sure you are absolutely sure that they are not empty suits.

Talent acquisition in India SUCKS! I have tried to work with a number of talent/recruiting agencies in India including the big names and each and every one underwhelmed me. Unlike the Valley where some of the top recruiters understand how to source top notch talent due to their sheer experience working with startups and product companies, the recruiting firms we have in India have ZERO capability to hire quality talent. All recruiting companies simply go and search the popular job boards for resumes and do a simple key word search extracted for the Job Description you provided them and then the only level of filter is a casual conversation with the candidates on their requirements.

His latest article advises Product Startup companies to stay away from Services.

The Indian IT services industry is not about IP creation and works in the wafer thin less than ~20% profit margins zone. Product companies need to develop IP and working on projects does not help as you are generally working on somebody else’s IP. I believe this kills the innovation capacity of startups. Nasscom would like for you to believe otherwise. You should seriously go to Nasscom’s site and start reading their paid research if you believe them.

Abinash says, “if you are going to create a tech startup to build a cool new product or service, then you need to have the discipline to not get tempted by consulting/services opportunities. Stay the course, raise enough money to fund a team that can execute and execute like crazy. The IP you create will ultimately get you the valuation that will make you rich.”

“Services companies are typically valued around ~1.6 to 2 times revenue. The Indian IT services industry is an anomaly compared to the rest of the world and enjoys better valuations as IT Services is what is considered to be the Tech industry in India. This will change rapidly when IP creating technology companies start to grow and succeed in India.”

Recently, he started Paisa, which aims at redefining the Consumer Finance market in India. Visit Abinash Tripathy’s Blog. Be warned, “Startups are not for the faint-hearted.”

Recently, Hover.in started start.hover.in, a library created by for developers and publishers to easily add user engagement and rich media (or hovering widgets called hoverlets) within their webpage.

Their product demo along with the library, is available on their site, focussing on inviting application developers from facebook, opensocial and other distribution platforms to build compelling contextual applications.

Start.hover.in are currently aimed at two distinct realms;

for developers
Developers and content-providers can get access to the HOVER API that exposes metadata like which word was hovered, from which url, user behaviour, targeting and many more being added over time that will help build contextual applications.

for publishers
Blogs and websites can easily decide their user-engagement strategies by just including a script and specifying certain URI’s for their links corresponding to available hoverlets. They’ve already got a Wordpress plugin which can be used right away by bloggers.

Hover.in is an intext content+ad delivery “platform”, that gives publishers complete control on what elements of their site they want users to engage with & what content or ad to be shown during the interaction.

So, start hovering.

If we try to find out internet users who would manage to do their job without using a service from Google, it would be a tough search. Today, several product names from Google are vividly used as an adjective amongst the internet users, esp. the kids and teens.

Years ago, Sabeer Bhatia came up with world’s first webmail which Microsoft owns today - Hotmail. It had all goodies one would want to see. Yahoo mail, Rediffmail and others came alongside but Hotmail and Yahoo continued to battle for the number one in this segment. All this continued to happen while Google was known to be a search engine, of course the best in what it does.

Blogger was with Google but it had yet to see its best days ahead. Then came Gmail — fast, intuitive and brand Google! Students, freelancers, internet savvy men and women wanted to have one with their name. (and possibly a “.” to distinguish the first name from the last!) Ever since, we’ve seen masses moving to Gmail. The rest is history. Google Apps was another feather in it’s cap. Today, many of us proudly use Google Apps for email, calender and more!The story with Blogger was no different. Not all of us know that what is today known as blogger or blogspot was once developed in August 1999 by Pyra Labs.

Today, twitter has hit the mainstream social media. Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the co-founders for this amazing service were the two people behind blogger as well. But Blogger could see its success only after Google acquired it. That may be one of the reasons why Twitter isn’t yet ready for a sale! YouTube was a yet another profitable buy by Google.

Even today, Blogger is the leading hosted blogging platform. Wordpress.com follows next, despite a sharp growth in Wordpress users over the past 2 years. Blogger will be 10 years old this August and is still growing.

On this note, Google has come up with a story writing initiative by blogger users. Google asks,

What’s your story? Did your blog help you find a job? Learn a language? Interact with your fans? Master a new skill? Battle an illness? Turn a hobby into a career? We read as many blog posts as we can, and what we do read is often brilliant. But we want to know more - we want to hear from you about what Blogger has meant to you over the past decade.

Do what you do best: tell your story. Write a post, and then let us know about it by filling out this form. Keep an eye on Blogger Buzz, where we’ll be sharing some of our favorites over the coming weeks.

The dent which is to be noted here is the reason behind the success of a product or service which comes with the Google brand. Having said that, it’s not every product that comes up from Google’s pouch is a success. You would want to check out a list of products that emerged out of Google’s inventory and eventually failed.

However, products like Adsense, Orkut, Adwords have seen some immense success without a second thought.

The magic of google is prevalent while Gmail and Orkut are still in beta. There is a lot more which is yet to be unrolled in the times to come. A company founded in 1998 with just over 20,000 employees worldwide today has given a lot to the world. All this when computing is more about connectivity and portability today!

Praval, the author of this article is an independent blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He writes articles, stories and reviews on Startup ecosystem, Blogging, Internet business, Wordpress, Linux, Open Source Software and technology in general.

Photo by Brajeshwar

Nokia and iPhoneLooks alike? Oh well, not quite!

Despite being the world leader in mobile phones for several years and with every 1/3 mobile phones being sold is known to come off Nokia’s couch, the brand is being taken for a ride by Apple’s iPhone. With the new iPhone 3G S coming up, Nokia just found another competition to what was already a chaos.

An outstanding touch screen performance, cheap initial investment of $199 (now $99 for the old iPhone 3G phones), the Apple brand and iTunes addiction are some of the valid reasons for people mounting themselves to get an iPhone. App store has several thousand apps which have come up in a short span of few years. Thanks to the easy of use iPhone provides and the terrific touch support that carries it a step ahead. Rubicon Consulting, a research company has come up with a few other shocking statistics which includes insights like;

• More than 50% of the iPhone users have switched carriers.
• The average bill for mobiles have increased by 24% for iPhone users.
• 75% of people agree to the fact that their mobile browsing volume has increased.
• Email is the highest used iPhone functionality amongst text message, web browsing and listening to music.

Nokia has always had a great signal reception and a build quality. Alongside, it has done pretty well with various form factors apart from the touch screen masterpieces. That is one area where the iPhone rocks!

RWW had an interesting article on iPhone, titled — “Today’s iPhone Users are Young, Rich, and Technically Savvy”. We all would agree to this. But the same iPhone users were happy using various phones from NOKIA before iPhone took birth. The question here is, was Nokia not smart enough to give them something that could add to a few decades old NOKIA history of providing great phones with a good battery backup, user interface and robustness? A good level of Nokia Support to add to it.

Nokia, I guess realized the same and has come up with the all new series of touch screen phones. Nokia XpressMusic 5800 was the first touch screen phone from their pocket. Buzz today is about the all new Nokia N97. Nokia is promoting the same by means of press conferences, giveaways, etc. You may want to check out the contest running on this blog.

Nokia N97 undoubtedly has a better camera than an iPhone. Thanks to its Carl Zeiss lens. The availability of a physical QWERTY keyboard is an added advantage for most bloggers and heavy internet users on a mobile device. A higher storage capacity (32GB built-in) and plethora of other features add to it.

Why is an iPhone more than just a phone whilst a feature packer Nokia phone doesn’t yet qualify for the first choice. Will Nokia be able to get the same buzz as iPhone has received amongst the users and not just blogs, tech lovers and geeks?

Where is Nokia, despite reaching several milestones in the mobile market stand next to an iPhone in the feature packed hand held devices. We have already read several articles on what is bad about an iPhone and still Apple proudly stands to it?

There is certainly a lot more than a new phone launch, a press conference and contests that’s needed to get to be the number one in touch screen mobile phone market.

Btw, best wishes and get yourself a Nokia N97.

Praval, the author of this article is an independent blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He writes articles, stories and reviews on Startup ecosystem, Blogging, Internet business, Wordpress, Linux, Open Source Software and technology in general.

Graphics from Nokia

Nokia N97For the always-on Internet-savvy users.

1. Kabir
2. Arun Muthuvel

Congratulations! You’ll be contacted by Nokia for the formalities.

These were the 5 questions for the contest that started on 15th June, 2009.

15th June, 2009
Q. It makes your internet experience more personal. What is it?
A. Widgets
Clue: “The Nokia N97 allows you to personalize your Internet Experience with Widgets. The phone screen can be fully personalized with frequently updated widgets of your favorite web servies and social networking sites. Widgets can thus bring forth a whole new personal experience to your Nokia N97.“

16th June, 2009
Q. Thanks to this feature, you won’t need a keypad. What is it?
A. “Touch” or “Touchscreen”
Clue: Advancement in technology have made it possible for everyday usage to be more natural. Form factors have improved and the experience have improved a lot — evolution from the Touch interfaces of day-to-day activities to the QWERTY to the new Touch Screen — consumers have evolved and are now looking for more intuitive interfaces.
Nokia have taken a paradigm shift with the new Touch screen on new Nokia devices. The Nokia N97 sports an intuitive Touch interface so you can personalize your home screen in an easy and interesting way.

17th June, 2009
Q. A virtual store that lets you store, share and access content.
A. “Ovi Store”
Clue: To make the hardware experience better and help the device evolve via appliations or widgets, Nokia have introduced the Ovi Store, where you can get more widgets for your Nokia phone. Ovi Store is a self-service, web-based tool that provides content providers and developers with an easy way to distribute and sell mobile applications and content to millions of consumers.

In short, Ovi Store;

• Delivers smart content recommendations based on user actions, handset and location.
• Supports a range of content types including applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services and much more.
• Leverages Nokia’s scale to provide content providers, developers and operator partners with a potentially lucrative and unrivaled opportunity to target consumers.

18th June, 2009
Q. The first six letters in the modern day keyboard layout.
A. QWERTY
Clue: Be it typing or gaming or just navigating, consumers like to have different forms of inputs — touch, keypads and some prefer best of both worlds. An insight from the Axel Meyer, Global Design Head for Nokia is that QWERTY is important for gaming as people are used to using both their hands.

The QWERTY helps transform the product from a monoblock to a multimedia computer. The thought behind was to make a world class QWERTY with equal spacing between keys, spacebar to the side, consumers can use their 10 fingers to write, and also enables ease of use and speed of writing.

19th June, 2009
Q. Currently the largest storage available for any Nokia Phone.
A. 32GB
Clue: The Nokia N97 have a whooping 32GB built-in Storage and another 15GB expandable. Users can carry everything — music, games, emails, contacts, photos, videos and much more.

Rules

• There will be a total of 5 questions to be answered during the contest period.
• The participant has to answer all 5 questions correctly to be eligible for the prize.
• Correct and fastest submissions (from the time of the question being released every day) will stand a better chance to win the award.
• There will be 10 winners declared at the end of the contest, 2 each from participating site/blog.
• In case of ties, the winners will be selected through a draw of luck.
• The decision of Nokia India will be final and binding.
• The contest is an online contest only and no offline/mobile submissions will be accepted.
• Only one entry per day per participant will be eligible.
• Nokia India is offering one unit of Nokia N97 each as the prize to each of the winners.
• Contest starts 15th June and continues till 19th June, 2009.

For more details, visit the Search for N.

Photo by Leonard John Matthews

Search for NCome, join the hunt. The Nokia N97 can be yours.

I’ve been briefed about the rules, regulations and details where Nokia will give out 10 Nokia N97 as part of the Search for N.

What is ‘Search for N’?

Nokia have hidden 97 New Nokia N97s Across 13 Countries and is giving them away, for free, before they hit the shelves in-store. The only catch is, they’re hidden across 13 countries and the only way to find them is to crack five cryptic clues online.

Imagine being able to test drive the advanced multi-media, multi-sensory mobile device to date before anyone else, and knowing that only 96 other people around the globe were part of the same exclusive ‘Search for N’ winners club; all of whom solved the Nokia clues and discovered a new Nokia N97 before anyone else.

Running over a period of seven days, in advance of the Nokia N97 going on sale worldwide, the ‘Search for N’ clues will be released on the exact same date and time across each country. Five clues will be asked on the site which could relate to news that week, feature aspects of the new Nokia N97, or include clever cryptic clues that encourage consumers to explore content online.

Once contestants successfully answer all five clues the race is then on to locate a hidden Nokia N97 device — either in a physical location, or online. Only 96 other people around the globe will have the chance to find a Nokia N97 before anyone else, and join a ‘Search for N’ winners club which will span three continents.

When?

To be part of the international ‘Search for N’ treasure hunt, and join thousands of others, mark your calendar — 15th June, 2009. Ten lucky winners will be selected from across India, 2 each from these sites - Techtree, ThinkDigit, Fonearena, Brajeshwar and Digital Inspiration.

Rules

• There will be a total of 5 questions to be answered during the contest period.
• The participant has to answer all 5 questions correctly to be eligible for the prize.
• Correct and fastest submissions (from the time of the question being released every day) will stand a better chance to win the award.
• There will be 10 winners declared at the end of the contest, 2 each from participating site/blog.
• In case of ties, the winners will be selected through a draw of luck.
• The decision of Nokia India will be final and binding.
• The contest is an online contest only and no offline/mobile submissions will be accepted.
• Only one entry per day per participant will be eligible.
• Nokia India is offering one unit of Nokia N97 each as the prize to each of the winners.

[Video] Get Up Close and Personal with Facebook on Nokia N97

What’s in the new Nokia N97

• S60 5th Edition
• Extends support for touch with full support for tactile feedback
• Supports advanced sensor technology
• Desktop quality browsing with Adobe Flash lite 3
• Browsing is much more optimized, kinetic scrolling
• Facebook application especially developed for the platform and Flash Lite 3.1 are available, coming directly from Adobe.
• The new Facebook client can be found at the Ovi Store and comes as a Web Runtime widget, while Flash Lite can be updated to the latest version through the “App update” utility.

What’s Next?

Stay, follow and watch the Search for N.

Axel Meyer, the Nokia NSeries Head of Design, was in India to do a showcase preview of the new Nokia N97. Meyer was convinced about people relate to one another, how the Nokia N97 can be a natural part of sharing, be it text, photos or videos over the currently available social mediums like the Facebook, Flickr or just plain blogging.

Meyer lead a number of conceptual projects for Multimedia product experiences as well as heads the Nokia Design team in Oulu, Finland. In May 2002, he took the responsibility for the strategic and advance conceptualization for the Nokia NSeries design portfolio.

By end of 2005 Meyer became the Group Design Director of the multidisciplinary Multimedia design team in Nokia Design and a member of the Multimedia Design Management Board. He is currently Head of Design for the Explore Category, leading a multi-competence design team in Nokia Design and is responsible for the overall design for the Nokia NSeries.

Designed for the Internet-savvy users, the latest NSeries flagship device — Nokia N97 – integrates Nokia’s latest services including the Ovi Store, Nokia Music Store and the Ovi Maps with an advanced technology that includes a live home screen with fully customizable “widgets”.

More;

• Read more at the Nokia NSeries Blog.
• Explore the Nokia N97.

Would you like to get a Nokia N97?

Within a week from now, Nokia will soon be doing some easy yet challenging contest across couple of sites in India including brajeshwar.com. So, watch for updates, perhaps subscribe to the Feeds or just visit everyday and you can get one of the Nokia N97 (at least 2 devices are confirmed for this site).

Best Wishes in your Search for N Enjoy your Nokia N97.
Btw, if you get a Nokia N97, how would you use it?

Photo by Juicyrai

PortabilityThat’s what they’re waiting for!

Today, mobile phones have become inevitable in one’s life. We’ve seen it grow from a mere luxury to now a necessity. The transformation in the lifestyle of we, the people is a major reason for this change. What started with a several bucks for incoming call has moved on to a plethora of plans which have free outgoing calls today.

The telecom sector has had a great time in the past 10 years. Early players have minted a huge sum of money already despite the licensing fee they would have paid to get into the play-field. From just 40.6 million mobile phone users in Spetember’2004, India is to have over 650 million users by 2012, as predicted by the Indian prime minister last year.

Admist all the number games, an acronym which is of more interest to the mobile phone subscribers is MNP or the well known and self explanatory, Mobile Number Portability.

Mobile number portability (MNP) enables mobile telephone users to retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.

A large percentage of mobile users are willing to switch to a different service provider but cannot afford to change their phone numbers. MNP is for them. The latest news in this context was DoT’s notification on rolling out MNP by September’2009 in Delhi, Mumbai, Maharashtra and Gujarat which form Zone I and Kolkata, Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka of Zone 2 within the following 6 months.

MNP is active in countries like Australia, Denmark and Sweden since 2001. Even Saudi Arabia has it since the year 2006.

On researching about the delay in MNP getting introduced in India, despite the country being one of the largest in terms of mobile phone subscribers, I could infer to some surprising insights. A well known telecom blog owner and digital media reporter called it to be a delay due to a major telecom waiting to roll over the ramp before MNP kicks off. Looking at the repeated extensions of the MNP roll out, the statements appear to have a cause.

The irony is, there is no single service provider which the people wish to stick to. There are people who are running on a provider A and wish to move to provider B. On the contrary, a lot of subscribers from provider B wish to move to provider A. Hence, if MNP is to help the subscribers in general, it would do so by creating a competitive environment amongst the players in terms of network, plans, etc.

It would be a great watch to see a country like India rolling out MNP and how do subscribers react to the same. Which provider is to suffer the most with this move and which one is to be the top gainer? Another important segment would be the CDMA v/s GSM services and the fate of the players which operate in both the technologies.

A lot of questions shall remained unanswered until we see the DoT notification implemented, without any further delay.

Praval, the author of this article is an independent blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He writes articles, stories and reviews on Startup ecosystem, Blogging, Internet business, Wordpress, Linux, Open Source Software and technology in general.

Photo from Flickr

StartupPizza + Work = Success!

The start-up ecosystem in India has taken a new height. Today, a lot of talented, fresh graduates from college have an inclination towards entrepreneurship. The case was not the same a few years back. While entrepreneurs are made by both - choice and circumstances, a handful of them have graduated to a full fledged company with a long list of employees, a heavy portfolio of clients or an application that’s stuck to the heart and minds of many.

While trying to find out reasons for this change in India, I could smell several reasons for growth in the Internet based start-ups. Not all may be true for an entrepreneur but somehow the strings are attached to one of these.

Few reasons for the growth in the web based entrepreneurship include;

• Emergence of web based start-ups which could eventually reach good heights. These include Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Orkut and many more. A web based startup does not involve large amount of initial investment and if the product gets popular, a lot of VC’s step in to escalate the ranch.
• Availability of high speed internet is another pillar to allow budding entrepreneurs to think on these lines. Dial-up days in India could never see as many internet start-ups to roll in. Popularization of Rich media has an important role attached to it.
• Recession for sure has given birth to a lot many freelancers which turn on to start a company if things go well for them. Decrease in the number of job opportunities has led many fresh graduates to utilize their talent and work on freelance projects.
• The lifestyle of a start-up and the feeling of creating something from scratch which would be credited to one’s own name is a yet another strong reason for talented youth to start a venture. Not all companies would allow you to work in shorts and have a pizza slice in a hand while you code!
• Emergence of events like BarCamp, iAccelerator, Proto, HeadStart and other have created a good knowledge amongst people to understand what lies beneath this ecosystem and how can things work well (not always though!).
• Mentors like Paul Graham and others are now popular across the pan-asian countries. Thanks to WordPress, Blogspot and other publishing platforms which created a wave of online journalism and blogging.
• Presence of several incubation centers and mentorships provide temp a lot of youngsters to chain themselves to an all together different environment which involves a lot of role-plays. An engineer at a start-up is often a multi-task specialist.
• India as a good outsourcing option is a reason for a lot of foreign businessmen to allocate projects to Indian startups. This brings in some good amount of foreign currency and a viable reason to run your own show.

The reasons are many. The idea is to sustain a living, escalate a product/service and emerge as one of the bluechip companies which either continue to get bigger or find a prospective buyer and make big money. The credit in either of the cases remains with the start-up who toiled hard to get there.

I would want to elaborate on the lifestyle a start-up has in one of my future posts.

Praval, the author of this article is an independent blogger, entrepreneur and social media evangelist. He writes articles, stories and reviews on Startup ecosystem, Blogging, Internet business, Wordpress, Linux, Open Source Software and technology in general.