Monday, July 30, 2007

Zen of Others

“A consultant is a person who knows nothing about your business to whom you pay more to tell you how to run it than you could earn if you ran it right instead of the way he tells you.”

-William Marsteller, of Burson-Marsteller public relations.

P.S
Did i tell you, I want to be a Consultant :-)

Zen of Others

“Consultants are people who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is and then walk off with the watch.”

-Robert Townsend, former CEO of Avis Rent-A-Car,

இரகசிய சினேகிதிக்காக

தெரிந்தவள் தெரியாதவள்

தென்படுபவள் எவளையும்

பார்த்து இளிக்கிறேன்

பெயரிட்டும் விளிக்கின்றேன்

நீ என நினைத்து

இரகசிய சினேகிதிக்காக(அல்ல)

குறுந்தகவலில்தான் கண்விழிக்கிறாய்
குளிக்கும்போதும் கூப்பிடுகிறார்
காலை உணவும் கலந்தாலோசித்தலில்
கணினியிலும் கதைக்கிறீர்கள்
கனவிலும் கலந்துரையாடல்கள்

கடிந்தகொண் ட காதலி
கடுப்பாக கூறினாள்
கல்யாணம் கட்டிக்கொள்ளுங்கள்
உங்கள் project manager-ஐ

இரகசிய சினேகிதிக்காக

அலங்காரம் அழகென்றேன்
அசடனென விளங்கியது

அலங்காரம் இல்லையென
உரைத்த போதல்ல

அழகின் அகராதிக்கு
அலங்காரம் எதற்கென
உறைத்த போது!

இரகசிய சினேகிதிக்காக

மனசாட்சி இருக்கிறதா?
குத்தலாய் கேக்கிறாள்,
மனதை திருடியவள்!

Friday, July 20, 2007

Google is Still Not THE GOD-Part II

Now coming to the part, Countries and Cultures it Operates?

For sure i can answer w.r.t India. The question becomes more meaningful for a country like India with diverse culture.

I personally feel, from the business point of view Google is lagging behind in the race when compared to Yahoo and Microsoft. In fact I would say Google is not giving due importance that should be given to India.

Recently Microsoft organized an event called TechXchange2007 showcasing important innovations, technologies and products showcasing 50 demos by it's Hyderabad development center and bangalore research center.(Hyderabad is the largest development center outside US).

They do file more number of patents and MS top brass makes statements that Indian research and development centers are more important and critical to them.

Does Google's Indian center's contribute much to google's product line? Can it boast that they are critical and rate of innovation is on par with the Googleplex in california? ( Note: they claim the hiring is stringent across all centers. Nah i havent applied for any technical openings :-)) Is Indian center being seen as indispensable by the Google top brass?

How many high profile visits have been made by Google top brass to India? The top brass visit is not just to woo the government and the public fan fare that surrounds it. It does sends a message to the employees that you are just important to us as the head quarters. We are watching you closely and an eye is over you. We are having high expectations on you and make sure you deliver it. It sure pumps up the energy among the lower ranks.

Google was so keen to be the exclusive ad provider for AOL in Europe. Is Google so keen on such tie ups with the India based web sites or at least for the recently launched aol.in.

Yahoo is very keen on launching , penetrating and expanding and it's presence in the Indian Internet market. Or at least their PR is good in projecting such image in the media. (Isn't today's business is all about perception?)

How many products does Google tests in the diverse Indian market?

In how many Indian languages, Google products and services are available when compared to the Microsoft's product offering in Indian languages?

So I would rather conclude that Google is not a so powerful brand as it could be in India.

Google is Still Not THE GOD-Part I

Mark M posted me a question in the comment to one of my blog post on Google's brand,

"Does Google's brand hold the same power in all the countries and cultures in which it Operates?"

I would love to duck the question with the answer, “that's a very good question!” :-)

Is Google really powerful as it is perceived to be?

Still across the world, if it is search engine the one and only thing that comes across the minds of the people is Google. If there had been a better search engine, we all would have heard about. Such is the power of Internet, transcending national boundaries.

Still Google leads the pack in the on line advertising market. Competitors ( read Microsoft and Yahoo) are still playing the catching up game.

According to me, many people prefer gmail rather than their old yahoo id's The large storage and the invitation could have been the key making the magic of migration possible.I also believe, similarly many people would have migrated to gmail. ( May be there are exceptions like Eric schmidt who still uses his yahoo id)

You still would prefer Google desktop to search rather than the inbuilt search.

Google news is far more preferred than visiting the websites of individual news service.
Still orkutting and scrapping is considered to be hip and cool.

Of course, The question was, Does Google's brand hold the same power?
I would rather rephrase it as, are Google's products powerful?

Yes Google is the place filled with “really, really smart” people. (Even i want to be one of the noogler! )
The rate of innovation is significantly faster than anyone in the industry and significantly faster than their competitors.
Still I wonder why most of their products are still in beta phase. (To name a few, Gmail, Gtalk, Google video) and incomplete.

Google dominates the on line video space, yes but it was only after the acquisition of youtube .
(Is this what is called as inorganic growth right?)

Is orkut the number one networking site? Will it stand up to facebook?

Is blogger the best ,preferred and most used blogging site? Sure you think about wordpress and typepad.

Will you prefer ebay or Google base to sell your products?

Will you use paypal or Google check out to make payments?

Will you prefer amazon or Google books to buy books?

Will you prefer flickr or picassaweb to host the photos online?(Though you may use picassa and gmail to upload photos to flickr, )

Will building a similar set of complementary tools and the attempt to get in to other parts of software will be successful?( read it as, will Google Docs can compete against Microsoft Office and should Bill Gates be losing his sleep?)

No Not necessarily. Google is surely a leader in the certain categories that were created by it. In other categories it is still playing up the catching up the game, just like it's competitors.

“Nothing lasts forever” Today's Google is nothing else than yesterday's Microsoft in several aspects.
Google is just taking off, which could crash land even before take off, if Eric, an avid amateur pilot doesnt does the "adult supervision" properly.
There is a possibility that today's Google could be the tomorrow of some other company.