Bangalore : Will it Survive?

Business week writes Bangalore is the city of dreams. It is the city where failure is a stranger, and expectations climb as high as the booming Indian stock market. Bangalore today accounts for a large slice of India’s revenues in outsourced services and offers a model that cities around the world are emulating. Many American companies view it as an place to pursue innovation, while American knowledge workers see it as a threat to jobs.
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It’s also a city where the clock is ticking.

The ugly truth is that, while this southern Indian city of 7 million may be a global center of information technology and other services, business in Bangalore is essentially a “me, too” activity with little true innovation. Multinational corporations come to reduce their costs, and the Indian companies set up shop to offer services to whomever wants to reduce risk as well as cost.

A WINNING PLACE. It’s a comfortable and, so far, highly profitable arrangement. But it’s not what India needs in the long run. The growth rate for such services as information technology and business-process outsourcing cannot be sustained. The cost pressures on outsourcing and offshore providers from a booming local economy, combined with competitive price pressures from rivals in many parts of the world, will slow the expansion.

The first reaction to slower growth will be to lower prices, but the pressure on margins will demand more creative solutions. How can Bangalore sustain its strong position beyond 2007, and what is the right model for other regions and cities aspiring to a winning place in the race towards the globalization of innovation?

The answer lies in vigorous, robust, and innovative tech companies that can develop new products for the world. These companies will be a new breed, with the ability and nerve to generate ideas and then use science, technology, and engineering to produce high-value results. Most — perhaps 90% — of all such attempts will fail, but the successes will sustain the regeneration of the economy.

TECH ADVENTURES. Silicon Valley is the benchmark example for this concept of serial innovation. The micro economy running from San Jose, Calif., to San Francisco has given birth to generations of risk takers who have taken technology to market and, in the process, changed the world. The globally recognized names of Hewlett and Packard, Wozniak and Jobs, Page and Brin, are representative of the many individuals at smaller companies who engage in innovation risk as a way of life.

Bangalore must build such an environment if it is to prosper. India has done it before — the space program is an example — but it has never done it on a sustained basis. The key component of “serial” has been missing from innovation. Until it reaches such a level, Bangalore cannot be said to have a truly innovative technology sector and will continue to rely on cost arbitrage-based information technology and other outsourced services.

How will such a climate of innovation come about? Despite the success of India’s space and defense initiatives, serial innovation cannot be dictated by government. Nor can it be created by multinationals, which are too risk-averse for such adventures on a sustained basis. It will happen when enough entrepreneurs and venture capitalists enter the field, and when failure is accepted as part and parcel of success.

NO RISKY BUSINESS. The instances of serial innovation in Bangalore are few, indeed almost nonexistent. Bangalore has a number of wonderful technology service companies that meet and beat their clients’ expectations on a regular basis, but are they really driving and building a culture of innovation? I think not — everything is just a bit too easy.

In a recent interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Vivek Paul, late of Wipro (WIT), said: “India lends itself to lower risk and more processed activities, rather than taking a gamble…if you look at that service business as leading to innovation and product outcomes, the answer is absolutely not.”

Bangalore is full of bright engineers and businesspeople. There is ambition and there is expectation. There’s cash in the pockets of professionals and in the coffers of the successful companies, but there’s no compulsion to take big risks.

CONSTANT UPHEAVAL. Today, unlike in California, there are no tectonic plates to disturb the Bangalore serenity, no fault lines that can spur individuals to take a chance with something outside their comfort zone. These exist as a natural phenomenon in Silicon Valley, where upheaval occurs constantly and there is continuous regeneration of ideas. Bangalore wants to be compared with “The Valley,” but first must come the earthquake.

This earthquake could be caused by a severe downturn in the economy, or by some spectacular business failures, or by major mergers or acquisitions. It could even be the result of an organic movement among the professionals who today are driving the Bangalore miracle from the inside.

Any of these events would bring bright and resourceful individuals onto the street in sufficient numbers that a new ecosystem of innovation would emerge. Many would fail, but there would be enough successes. These would inspire more attempts, and the failures would provide the learning ground that is vital for serial innovation.

PAINFUL RELEASE. The impact of such a revolution would be felt around the world. Businesses in the developed world would see new reasons to invest in India and to take more risks in product innovation. Engineers and entrepreneurs in developing countries would be encouraged to follow the Bangalore examples, with resultant step increases in global innovation.

Bangalore has a surfeit of great talent. There is plenty of money to fuel innovation, there is ambition, and ideas are plentiful. What’s needed now are the right conditions. Old and new money has to be extracted from safe havens such as real estate and put in the hands of people willing to take risks.

This, in turn, will lead to a steady stream of new products and innovations. The change may be painful, but it will also be a release. Bangalore will then begin to realize its true potential as a global center for serial technological innovation — and break away from the bonds of an outsource services model that is rapidly becoming a global commodity.bangalore,innovation

Irving Wladawsky-Berger writes: Business Process Innovation and Social Networks

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a breakfast roundtable in Palo Alto on Social Media and Web 2.0 hosted by Tony Perkins, founder and former editor-in-chief of Red Herring, who now leads AlwaysOn, an interactive online network.Read More…
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Cliff Reeves: What happens when business data is liberated?

What happens when business data is liberated?

I often get asked where I think the opportunities are for innovators and investors. Well, business data is about to become accessible as never before. There is opportunity here for any innovator who know how to get the best out of the data historically locked away in business systems.

We are about see a transformation in business applications. Mary Jo Foley hints at this future in an eWeek article today, but I think there’s a lot more to be said. Realtime dashboards (mashboards) will select and combine Information dynamically from rigid, structured systems like Oracle and Siebel. Situational applications (like email) will let us look up inventory, accept orders and submit bills, without ever seeing the SAP system that actually carries out the transaction. As a result, software innovation will centre on components that offer access and insight into business systems. IT’s focus will be managing interfaces and metadata.

IT and by major ISVs are adopting web services and service-oriented architectures, and that’s making the back-end systems accessible. Microsoft Office Smart Tags and the Information Bridge Framework (IBF) give business users the access they need. Accessibilty will get a major boost from Office 12 and the (virtually unnoticed) Sharepoint Business Data Catalog (BDC — noted by Stefan Gossner here; with an insightful view from Eli Robillard, and another from Joris Poelmans).

Here are a couple of real-life examples of mashboards and situational apps:

A major oil company built a mashboard based on OSISoft’s Realtime Performance Manager, RtPM). Using it, a refinery operations manager sees an alert on an overheating pump. Clicking on the alert (actually a symbol for the pump in a schematic of the whole refinery) he sees the real-time data (temperature, pressure, throughput, etc) as well as a list of situation-specific information located and presented dynamically — such as maintenance records for the pump, people who can help (the authors of the maintenance records, people near the pump, the department responsible for that area of operations, etc). The operations manager can check the maintenance data for clues, send an SMS or IM to someone nearby (maybe ask them to go and kick the pump), or notify someone he’s about to turn the pump off.

We developed this situational trading application as a proof of concept for the same oil company, using IBF. In it, an oil trader receives an email in Outlook with an order for December delivery of 100,000 bbl of Brent Light Crude, conditional on a price ceiling. Outlook has recognized that “Brent Light Crude” is a company product type and subtly highlighted the words. In the background Outlook asked IBF to identify for the trader, all the company’s back end systems that she can access for product-related transactions: checking prices or inventory, for example, or placing orders. The trader clicks on “Brent Light Crude” and from a series of options she selects “Pricing.” IBF queries the back-end system (in this case a trading Exchange) and presents option prices for Brent Light Crude in a task pane alongside the email. The task pane includes additional options, such as “check inventiry” and “place order.” The trader places the order and IBF extracts related information (such as purchaser) and initiates the the appropriate SAP transactions — verifying credit, placing the order, initiating an invoice. The trader is presented with a pre-filled email (actually an Infopath form embedded in an email) that confirms the request, which she sends to the purchaser.

Not many commentators have picked up on this but, as Office meets ERP systems, it will democratize business intelligence in much the same way that desktop word processors democratised document preparation. This will put a premium on people and innovation that can provide easy (situational) access and insight. Email and portals are the likely situational applications and mashboards, and insight will be provide by innovators like Metapraxis (board-level insight into company performance), Tableau Software (data and relationshop visualization) and CXO Systems (business and IT visibility).

Jazz in Bangalore

“A pinch of Jazz”, concerts of Jazz in Bangalore are rare and here is one coming up.

William Joseph International Academy For Performing Arts Presents

An Evening Of Classical And Jazz Music. A Tribute To Maestro
J.T.William Joseph
Sunday 27 Nov. St John’s Amphi Theatre -Koromangala 6:30pm

Admission To The Concert Is Free So Do Come With Family And Friends.
The Evening Would Feature Dr. Ashley Williams Jazz Piano-Vocals. Also
Performing Will Be -

Aarti Desikan-Sowmya Venkatesh- Gauri Burde-Divya George- Vocals
K.N. Prakash- Classical Guitar
Johnny & Pranav- Piano
Violin Trio- Prafulla- Dawn- Dr. Giles
Admission To The Concert Is Free So Do Come With Family And Friends
Oops Dont Forget To Bring Your Wollens And Something For The Mosquitoes

For Detail Contact 98442 75837- 9844077004Jazz,Bangalore,music in bangalore

Bangalore Habba is back; events to start from December 2

The Hindu

Parallel show in Mandya, Mysore, Dharwad, Mangalore, Tumkur and Chikmagalur

Bangalore: The annual city festival, Bangalore Habba, is back and has become more broad-based than last year. The habba will be celebrated from December 2 to December 11 at various venues around the city.

This year, parallel events are to be held in six towns — Mandya, Mysore, Dharwad, Mangalore, Tumkur and Chikmagalur.

According to the organising committee, led by Nandini Alva and Padmini Ravi, the pre-habba promotional events are on with Festival Stories, organised by Kathalaya, going on at 40 schools in Bangalore, till November 30.

Much attention has been given to Kannada theatre, music and literature this year. The inaugural ceremony at Ravindra Kalakshetra on December 2 will be followed by a theatre presentation: Typical T.P. Kailasam by the Vedike troupe. Street theatre will be another component with plays staged by Voices at Bangalore Centre near Mayo Hall, Big Bazaar in Banashankari, on Mahatma Gandhi Road, at Jayanagar, Koramangala and Indiranagar, on Brigade Road, Residency Road, Commercial Street, Cunningham Road and in Malleswaram and within Cubbon Park. Besides entertaining people, the street plays will carry messages.

The concept of ” neighbourhood cricket” will be given a boost with tennis ball cricket tournaments between teams representing the south, north, east and west of the city. In all, 16 teams will play the matches.

December 4 will see the rage of city youth, a Drag Race at Jakkur airfield. Motor sports enthusiasts and speed loving amateurs, can race on a quarter-mile strip, open in different categories to cars and motorbikes, Indian and imported models. The same day will see a Vintage Car Rally.

With the aim of reaching out to all sections of Bangaloreans, there will be a Bangalore Habba Golf Tournament organised in association with the Karnataka Golf Association, on December 2. Youth who seek thrill are to be given a chance to experience adventure sports with the Adventure Maze to be offered from December 2 to December 8, coordinated by Chandrasekhar of “Escape”.

Now, for some “highbrow” events for the artistic and intellectual side of the city: The Art Espressor to be held from December 2 to December 8, will be in association with British Council’s Culture Care and will see prose and poetry readings at Café Coffee Day outlets in Indiranagar, Frazer Town, Koramangala, Malleswaram, on Brigade Road, Commercial Street, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Cunningham Road, Lavelle Road, BEL Road, at Garuda Mall, Bangalore Central and Infosys and Wipro. There will be a Book Lounge at Palace Grounds to create a space for the literary-minded and an outlet for Kannada writing. Bangalore Central has emerged a major supporter of the habba, offering space for events at their malls. Dance, music, theatre and fashion events have been planned for these venues.

A film festival, supported by the Kannada film industry and other Southern film chambers, will be held during the habba. Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films will be screened at special shows at cinemas. There will be a Food Festival at a number of venues, in collaboration with Nammura Hotel. The flavour of the season will be culinary specialities from different parts of Karnataka.Bangalore,Bangalore Habba

Who Has Time For This?: How To NOT Write A Business Plan

David Cowan:

Entrepreneurs often ask me for a sample business plan they can use as a model for their fundraising efforts. They are surprised when I send them a powerpoint file.

It’s always a good idea to put down on paper your plans for the business, so that your team can build consensus around objectives and metrics. Make it as thick and wordy as you like (though show some restraint–over-modeling the future only wastes your time). I’m sure that Brad Feld’s upcoming series on business plans will become the authoritative online reference for this kind of internal operating document.”

SAP to acquire Khimetrics

CNet: SAP AG announced Tuesday plans to acquire retail software maker Khimetrics, a privately held start-up that develops analytical pricing and forecasting technologies that will bolster SAP’s presence among retailers.

SAP’s pending acquisition of Khimetrics comes months >after it lost a bidding war against Oracle for retail software maker Retek. SAP plans to enlarge its retail software suite with Khimetrics’ revenue management and pricing software. Financial terms were not disclosed and the deal is expected to close in January.”SAP

Line56.com: ERP Apps Vendors: Who’s Ahead

AMR recently released its enterprise resource planning (ERP) survey, which saw a big opportunity for vendors in 2006.

Now here’s a look at who those vendors are, in order of the frequency of their appearance on evaluation lists:
Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS): 58 percent
Oracle: 57 percent
SAP: 49 percent
SSA Global: 32 percent
Infor: 25 percent
Geac: 24 percent
Lawson: 22 percent
Intentia: 21 percent
IFS: 19 percent
QAD: 17 percent
Activant: 15 percent
Epicor: 14 percent

The list does not itself reflect a pecking order of ERP vendors by revenue or other metrics of success, but it tells you who is going to be most involved in 2006’s bake-offs. In that sense, the list is an indicator of momentum.

The survey demographics do not skew towards the lower end of the market, in which Microsoft has its historic stronghold. Forty-five percent of respondents were from enterprises with over $1 billion in revenue; and 19 percent were from the mid-market ($500 million to $1 billion). As such, the results are good news for Redmond in that, at least in ERP, it has significant traction at the enterprise level.

The distance between Oracle and SAP is also intriguing, as SAP has long been the leading global ERP player. As such, the survey will be good news for Oracle as well, since the company is enthusiastic about overtaking SAP.ERP,SAP,microsoft

Sal Walton teaches Google what Microsoft didn’t

Play to your strengths. That’s the key to success in any industry. This is the week I promised to explain where I think Google is headed, and playing to the company’s strengths is key if they are going to do what I think, which is effectively take over the Internet. Oh they won’t steal it or strong-arm us. They’ll seduce us into giving it to them. And I am not at all sure that’s a bad thing.

Google’s strengths are searching, development of Open Source Internet services, and running clusters of tens of thousands of servers. Notice on this list there is nothing about operating systems. There are many rumors about Google doing an operating system to compete with Microsoft. I’m not saying they aren’t doing that (I simply don’t know), but I AM saying it would not be a good idea, because it doesn’t play to any of the company’s traditional strengths.

The same follows for the rumor that Google, as a dark fiber buyer, will turn itself into some kind of super ISP. Won’t happen. And WHY it won’t happen is because ISPs are lousy businesses and building one as anything more than an experiment (as they are doing in San Francisco with wireless) would only hurt Google’s earnings.

So why buy-up all that fiber, then?

The probable answer lies in one of Google’s underground parking garages in Mountain View. There, in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn’t just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We’re talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid.

While Google could put these containers anywhere, it makes the most sense to place them at Internet peering points, of which there are about 300 worldwide.

Two years ago Google had one data center. Today they are reported to have 64. Two years from now, they will have 300-plus. The advantage to having so many data centers goes beyond simple redundancy and fault tolerance. They get Google closer to users, reducing latency. They offer inter-datacenter communication and load-balancing using that no-longer-dark fiber Google owns. But most especially, they offer super-high bandwidth connections at all peering ISPs at little or no incremental cost to Google.

Where some other outfit might put a router, Google is putting an entire data center, and the results are profound. Take Internet TV as an example. Replicating that Victoria’s Secret lingerie show that took down Broadcast.com years ago would be a non-event for Google. The video feed would be multicast over the private fiber network to 300+ data centers, where it would be injected at gigabit speeds into each peering ISP. Viewers watching later would be reading from a locally cached copy. Yeah, but would it be Windows Media, Real, or QuickTime? It doesn’t matter. To Google’s local data center, bits are bits and the system is immune to protocols or codecs. For the first time, Internet TV will scale to the same level as broadcast and cable TV, yet still offer soemthing different for every viewer if they want it.

As for the coming AJAX Office and other productivity apps, they’ll sit locally, too. Two or three hops away from every user, they’ll also be completely backed-up by two to three data centers down the line. Your data never goes away unless you erase it. Your latency and system response are as low as they can possibly be made for a network app.

And remember the Google Web Accelerator that came and disappeared? It’s back! Only this time the Web Accelerator will have the proper hardware and network infrastructure to make it worth using.

This is more than another Akamai or even an Akamai on steroids. This is a dynamically-driven, intelligent, thermonuclear Akamai with a dedicated back-channel and application-specific hardware.

There will be the Internet, and then there will be the Google Internet, superimposed on top. We’ll use it without even knowing. The Google Internet will be faster, safer, and cheaper. With the advent of widespread GoogleBase (again a bit-schlepping app that can be used in a thousand ways — most of them not even envisioned by Google) there’s suddenly a new kind of marketplace for data with everything a transaction in the most literal sense as Google takes over the role of trusted third-party info-escrow agent for all world business. That’s the goal.

All this is based, of course, on Google’s proven network and hardware expertise. Have you seen Google’s Search Appliance? They ship you a 1U prebuilt server. You connect it to your network, fill out a simple configuration screen, and it scans and indexes your web site (or sites) for you. Google monitors and manages it remotely, and sucks up the data and adds it to theirs. You just plug the thing in and turn it on. It just works. You need do nothing else to keep it running. Google understands how to do this stuff. Microsoft definitely does not.

And there lies the differences between the two companies. Last week, I wrote about Windows Live and Office Live as Microsoft’s best attempts at pretending to be Google. And Google will do those kinds of applications, too. But they’ll build them atop a network infrastructure that Microsoft can’t match.

But that doesn’t mean Microsoft customers will be denied access to the Google Internet. Quite the contrary. Google would be insane to exclude Microsoft customers, which will be as welcome as any other. Only Google will be benefiting far more than Microsoft from that usage.

Google has the reach and the resources to make this work. There are only so many fiber networks and they’ll be BUYING service from those outfits — many of which are in or near bankruptcy. Say the containers cost $500,000 each in volume and $500,000 per year to run. That’s $300 million to essentially co-opt the Internet. And you know whose strategy this is? Wal-Mart’s. And unless Google comes up with an ecosystem to allow their survival, that means all the other web services companies will be marginalized. There will be startups and little guys, but no medium-sized companies. ISPs, which we’ve thought of as a threatened species, won’t be touched, but then their profit margins are so low they aren’t worth touching. After all, Wal-Mart doesn’t try to own the roads its goods are carried over. And the final result is that Web 2.0 IS Google.

Microsoft can’t compete. Yahoo probably can’t compete. Sun and IBM are like remora, along for the ride. And what does it all cost, maybe $1 billion? That’s less than Microsoft spends on legal settlements each year.

Game over.

And yet next week I’ll take it one more step.Sam-Walton,Google,Microsoft

Hindu: Abdul Kalam’s vision for Karnataka

Abdul Kalam’s vision for Karnataka

The Hindu

The President unveils 11-point plan, wants economic activity spread across the State

# The goals set Achieve 100 per cent literacy by 2012
# Increase per capita income to Rs. 75,000 by 2009
# Develop tier-two cities such as Mysore and Mangalore
# Create Metro rail system for Bangalore

Bangalore: President A.P.J Abdul Kalam on Sunday set the Government and the legislators of Karnataka thinking and placed before them an 11-point agenda for development to transfer the State into an economically-developed model State over the next four years.

He was addressing a joint sitting of the two Houses of the Legislature at a function held at the ornate Legislative Assembly chamber, heralding the inauguration of the “Suvarna Karnataka” anniversary, the 50th year of the reorganisation of the State.

In an inspiring address, Mr. Kalam played the role of a think-tank and he wanted the missions he was placing before the legislators, debated in depth by the State Legislature, which is one of the few bicameral ones in the country.

Quoting from the development radar of the Planning Commission, Mr. Kalam pinpointed the problems of Karnataka, which he noted has a “core competence”. He also noted that the Government of Karnataka has already chalked out a road map for the State’s full-fledged development. Karnataka has 19 per cent of its population living below the poverty line.

“The first mission is to elevate all of them and bring smiles to their faces”. It could be done by focused development leading to higher per capita income and better quality of life. The literacy rate in the State, which stood at 67 per cent, should be increased and emphasis laid on spreading literacy among women. The State should aim at realising the goal of 100 per cent literacy by 2012,” he said.

The per capita income of Rs. 26,000 estimated in 2004-05 could be almost trebled to Rs. 75,000 by 2009. An investment-friendly climate should be created to open employment avenues to the two million unemployed or underemployed persons of the State, the President said.

The 11 missions he exhorted the State to take up are textiles, energy (bio fuel mission and power through municipal waste), horticulture, agro-processing, water management, tourism, preparing paramedics and technicians with quality training, creation of industries for knowledge products, grid connectivity for sustainable growth, providing urban amenities in rural areas and development facilitators. Noting that the high revenue information and communication technology industries are concentrated in Bangalore, which occupies one per cent of the area of the State but has 14 per cent of the population, he wanted economic activity distributed across the State to ensure homogenous growth taking into consideration the core competence of the regions.

There is need to develop tier-two cities such as Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Gulbarga and Madikeri. Reliable air connectivity, construction of four to six-lane roads and fast train services. “I have seen Bangalore in 1970s, 1980s , 1990s and now. Bangalore’s economic growth has far exceeded the growth of development facilitators. The core attraction of Bangalore as a development facilitator is getting slowly eroded,” Mr. Kalam said. The President, who was a Bangalorean right from 1958, noted that the “road capacity in Bangalore has reached a saturation point. This can be achieved through alternative possibilities such as creation of metro rail system and early commencement of the project is a necessity”. He also emphasised that the development of the city should not be at the cost of its greenery, which makes Bangalore beautiful.

Mr. Kalam also wanted the Government to turn its attention to development of entrepreneurship among the youth.

Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh spoke of the dynamism of the State in thinking and action.

Governor T.N. Chaturvedi said that Karnataka is already foremost in many areas and it will keep up the momentum of growth.karnataka,bangalore