Internet of things - Demystified

Internet of things is one area, which I have been focusing on last few years

It is predicted that 30 billion devices would be connected by 2023, from the present 15 billion devices. This would create huge opportunity potential for IOT and machine learning experts as well. Moreover, the source data or data set for machine learning are likely to be from IOT system. While machine learning or AI would be is around algorithm, IOT would be combination of electrical, electronic and software programming.

Quite happy to announce that, I was able to create the course passionately and launched it as online digital on demand course in Udemy.

It's one unique covers that, it covers the commonly used IOT devices such as - Arduino UNO, ESP8266 NODE MCU and Raspberry Pi 3. Interestingly, for ESP8266 NODE MCU has extensively used micro python firmware. The course also guides one as how to flash micropython.

Now, offering introductory discount on the list price. Please refer link for more details and about the introductory pricing.

https://www.udemy.com/internet-of-things-iot-demystified/?couponCode=IOT-D01 

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The Grand Mall, Chennai

The list of mall included in Chennai city seems to increase day by day. Till about last year, Chennai had Citi center, Ampa mall, Abirami Mega mall and Express Avenue. All these came into existence post year 2008.

Now, after Pheonix at Velachery, Forum Vijay at Vadapalani which opened early part of this year, the latest addition to Chennai is Grand Mall at Velachery. This is located on Velachery - Tambaram main road very near the Velachery metro rail station.

As of now, Croma, Shopper stop and food court is open. Many others are expected to open in due course of time.

                
                                 

Compared to Pheonix mall, this is comparatively a smaller mall. Its said to be about 3.5 lacs sq feet. Its just about 2KM from Pheonix mall.

One of the attraction seems to be 'food street' as advertised. But, it is yet to be completely open or occupied.

With online shopping site like flipkart, Jubang, Snapdeal,ebay and many others now being increasingly used by technology savvy people of India primarily due to convenience and better discount offered, one needs to see as how these malls keep up its attraction with buyers and thereby break-even, considering quantum of capital investment and recurring investments.

Anyways,consumer would have multiple choices to have a real time look at products. By this consumer can also compare the prices with online web store, when they really decide to buy.

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Shopping : Future predictions.

The shopping methods had evolved over the years. When internet become available globally in 90's I still remember, it was just static website designed and used for product promotion or as in information about availability of products or offering. There was no search engine to look upon to search information. Search engines and then, came commercial transactions through website later in early 2000s.

In later part of 2000's there were independent sites which used to collate products offered by various manufacturers under specific product space, which were like a telephone yellow pages. The yellow pages were common used in 1990’s for business to business requirement. 

As we progressed over time, changes happened, there were more interaction with different device and systems started happening. No more it’s just the website, the website interacts with bank or credit card site and further towards enhancing the security these days we find OTP (one time password code sent to mobile device) for user log in. 

Now, if one looks into the future online shopping system, it’s definitely not going to be standalone application, it will have apps or interface protocol through which it needs to communicate with range of devices and systems, then the business logic needs to analyze, provide a intelligent response to requester though touch of button. By next decade and so, without getting out of once place, one can get the best product and best fit product in matter of few minutes. It’s just being survival of the fittest and necessary intelligence would be built into system to offer the best.

 How is this going to happen?

First and foremost, in about fifteen year are so, we would have ‘WWUI’ in place. 

What’s WWUI?. 

I call it ‘worldwide unique identifier’ for humans. Each one will have a ‘worldwide unique identifier’ in an encoded machine readable form. This WWUI consists of one’s retina and fore finger images impression captured through a high resolution biometric sensor which would be digitally encoded and stored in central worldwide computer server governed by ANUIO (All nations unique identifier organization - global welfare organization supported and funded by participating countries governments federal banks). There would be agreed protocol interface, through which any web application can request for already stored unique identifier linked to a person's retina and finger impression.

If one want to check bank balance, all they need to go is go to bank web page and click on log on button. Once this is done the built in high resolution scan camera or biometric sensor in the computer device switches on, scans the finger and retina impression, then the related web application would send scanned image as request signal to central WWUI server and retrieve unique identification number of this person to bank system. If this person has an account in that specific bank and identity matches with unique identification already in bank database, it would automatically log into the user’s banking transaction page and provide banking page for further action. 

The ‘unique identifier’ would also be used for online credit, debit card transaction and ATM. Further this not would not be just for commercial transactions, it would be also used for social media sites like bodybook (similar to current face book) , whistter (similar to current twitter) and voicer ( a new application by 2030, were user can provide product reviews and user experience online).

Worldwide unique identifier system

Eureka !!!….. There would be no need to remember any or multiple passwords or forget, request for password reset or  more critically, there is no cyber crime due to hacking of online system and website.

Now, let’s look at how this is going to be used in online shopping. I would classify the online shopping experience by 2030 like this,

Review sell: If one wants to travel from Chennai to New Delhi. All one need to do is, log into online shopping system which specialize on travel and enter travel location, date of travel and budget available. The portal or application will then crawl through websites and analyze the best fitment travel based on  price, travel mode (check all flights, express buses or trains), tickets available, customer reviews and then, rank the list of all travel options, that can selected by user. It will also analyze the reviews and customer experience and provide a list of ranking fits. Meaning, if there is more negative reviews on various social forum, then site would rank the specific travel option lower.

But, then how do one say reviews are genuinely provided by users?. A valid question indeed.

Well, as I had discussed earlier, even for writing reviews in social web site, the log in process would be through WWUI interface mechanism, so naturally every living individual can have only one account in all the discrete systems and web sites. Hence, naturally reviews would be genuine as it is linked to a specific person. Such review sell process will be applicable for hotel accommodation, certain products as well. Finally, if you wish to purchase, then WWUI interface works with internet banking, credit cards system. So naturally no hacking or password stealing happens. 

Building intelligence  .. for informed purchase decision

Fitment sell: There may be case where, one needs to look for best fit for a person. Say apparels, shoes and other accessories purchase. All these products normally you try or wear before choosing the products. I call this ‘Fitment sell’.

When one is interested in products such as shoes or dress. The biometric sensor in the your system will scan and measure the size of your foot or body according to product need, after which a fitment match is done with shoes or apparels available online for sale and then indicate back not only whether the fitment is right or not, but also it would display on screen as how one would look like wearing the shoes or apparels on screen. This would be the ultimate virtualization. If you feel good to purchase, then it would invoke the WWUI interface for payments.

WWUI, can be extended for retail store outlets sale as well and our wallet could well be free from plastic credit or debit cards.

Well, if one rewinds about decade or two back, very few people knew what internet was all about. From then on, the technology had galloped so very fast that mobile phones, internet has become part and parcel of our life. Hence, in future, I believe we would well have above technology in place particularly to avoid cyber crime and take a well informed decision to purchase a product in matter of few minutes.

** ebay has introduced an ebay application plug in which works with google crome browser. It looks like  business intelligence is built in, to provide a comparable ebay best price for a product even  if you are searching out side ebay. One could explore about the  product by clicking on link  here **

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Gold bounches back

While stock market is taken a beating on Friday, gold seems to bounced back in the last few days and it was trading Rs 2946 per gram (22 carat) on Sat 17th Aug.

Apart from hike in gold prices in world market, following other factor seems to drive prices up,

•  Depreciating INR.
•  Import restriction and higher duty. 
• Condition of world and  Indian economy at this point of time.
•  Last but not the least the start of festive season in India.

Next to petroleum product, gold import is the highest drainer of foreign exchange in India. Added to this India is top consumer for gold. Further, its never going to easy for Indians to move away from attractiveness gold .

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Managing Oracle EBS implementation better.

Over the years, ERP product modules foot prints have grown and so is the complexity associated with product.  In about a decade time with increased complexities, the implementation need to take care business requirement vs module fitment for solution, shorter implementation time frame, and quick turnaround testing the solution, performance issue due to volume of transactions and accessing transaction on wide area network needs to be taken in to account.

If application is available to access though internet, it also increasingly difficult to perform load test or predict volume growth of users. It is increasing common these days, witness certain systems like Banking, Railways getting into performance issues at the peak hours as due importance might not have been given to loading of application during implementation stage. 

Appropriate product fitment to business requirement and product license of modules alone would not make an implementation successful. Implementation needs to be managed effectively right from conceptualization stage to beyond post implementation to be successful. Had earlier written about factors ( part1, part2, part3) which influence success of ERP implementation in a phased approach.

Apart from ERP product & managing implementation project, there are products available to enhance / support & manage the implementation at pre & post implementation stage better.  It’s critical the project stakeholder analyses the feasibility of using these tools. 

Brief overviews about the products, which can support Oracle EBS implementation, are, 

Oracle EBS Business accelerators: Every effort is made these days to reduce implementation time of Oracle EBS without compromising on business requirement. Hence one would find OBA quite useful during the requirement gathering & thereby automate functional set up during CRP stage (iterative process) of the implementation and thereby shorten the discovery start phase of the project.  Additionally, It provides information about flow based functionality of implementation, which is also quite critical in understanding the overall business process end to end, right at start of the project.. 

Oracle application testing suite: Oracle Application testing suite can used automate functional regression testing, Oracle Load testing. Process of manual testing can be a time consuming and hence OATS place a critical role in faster testing process and enhance productivity.

Oracle application management suite: The task of managing Applications is complex, time-consuming, and costly.   The Application Management Suites for E-Business Suite can reduce this complexity, and dramatically improve the availability, reliability, and predictability for E-Business Suite. The Suite leverages Oracle Enterprise Manager to provide enhanced system and user monitoring, configuration monitoring and change management capabilities.

Oracle Enterprise manager: Enterprise manager is quite useful to manage the entire technology stack of Database, middleware application. OEM is useful right from start to post implementation support.

Oracle Infrastructure: During implementation or post implementation, the infrastructure plays a crucial role in success of implementation. There could be a situation where, the ERP implementation from business solution perspective is said to be very effective. However, infrastructure challenges might prevent the effective implementation.  For example, tasks might take a long time to be executed, this issue may be related to network bandwidth, multiple time I/O operation, resources busy due to peak hour or resource intensive. Its critical, infrastructure is given right focus at right point of time.  Exadata machine, RAC, Data guard can be thought about and explored to overcome the infrastructure issues. Also, Saas (software-as-service) concept related to cloud computing is catching up. One of the characteristic of cloud service is Rapid elastic scalability, which means the ability to add computing capacity on demand. This feature would be useful to allocate resource for computing during peak time. 

With positioning of global single instance for multi-org operation, the application needs to be available for access 24x7 towards global operation. An application scalability suiting ever evolving business requirement is one part of it. Cost optimization in form of shorter implementation, effective testing, managing application post implementation, reliability and scalability of hardware infrastructure also plays critical part in success of implementation. Hence, naturally, one needs to look at various software tools which would enhance productivity of Oracle ERP implementation.

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Spicy air travel

Was on short vacation to Goa few weeks back , while on my return I did have enough turbulence before we reached Chennai safely. Well, it was not turbulence due to weather, but due to cancellation of flight from Goa to Chennai. One would think, so what, flight cancellations are common, but I felt mine of unique.

Our return flight was at 4:40 PM, since we had visited scenic beaches the previous day, we did not have any plan to visit place the day of our return journey. Our initial plan was to check out at Hotel around 1:00 PM have lunch and proceed to airport, which is about 35 KM from our hotel. However, the previous day our cab driver suggested to start an hour early and he can take us to couple of beach in south Goa near airport before dropping us at airport for flight. This seemed fine and we agreed.

The next day, the driver picked us up at hotel post check out at 11:30 AM and we went to restaurant for lunch. Post lunch as the driver was taking us to a beach, it was 12:20 PM and a got a recorded phone call from airline stating the flight is cancelled for the evening and asking me bluntly to reach out to call center.

While on the way to a beach, I called up airline call center at 12:30 PM and gave my ticket PNR number and waited for a moment. The rest of it,

Call center: Yes, Sir how may I assist you.

Myself: What does your system say about my booking

Call center: Sorry sir, we really apologize for inconvenience caused, you flight is cancelled for the day.
(This was after I asked about the booking).

Myself: Why?.

Call center: Technical problem in flight,sir.

Myself: That's you problem to fix, so what are the options?

Call center: We have a flight tomorrow at 1:00 PM and you can travel with same ticket with no extra cost.

Myself: What??.... Will you provide for accommodation for stay, as I am not native of Goa and checked out of hotel? It will cost me a fortune for a night stay with family.

Call center: Sorry sir, we can’t provide accommodation (same reply came again and again).

****I was asking myself whether I have taken air ticket or a bus ticket to get such response? ****.

Myself: Come on, if you are not providing accommodation, is there alternative flight to other location like Bangalore, Hyderabad or Mumbai from where I can take flight to Chennai.

Call center: No sir, it already 12:45 PM, we have a flight to Bangalore at 1:55PM and to Hyderabad 2:15PM (then onward to Chennai at 19:25). From call center system allows for changes only upto 2 hours prior flight. Hence, unable to make change.

** I got some solace, immediately asked the cab driver to how long it takes to reach airport from that spot as he was driving towards beach location. He told me 30 minutes, immediately instructed him to drive to airport. ***

 Myself: Please get your supervisor, online. I will be in position to reach airport in another 40 minutes should be in time to reach in time Goa to Hyderabad flight. Hence put me on Hyderabad flight and had to shout" *********** and finally"

Call center: Hold on sir……….. Finally call center person confirms flight changes are done.

My wife and daughter, watching this, made a remark that they way, I was handling the situation was as thrilling like a movie scene..:).

In fact, there also a call few minutes later from airline spokesperson, stating my flight was cancelled, I shouted and asked her to check my reservation update in the system, she took few minutes and confirmed back...Hmmm....
 
Finally, we reached airport for flight by 1:10 PM and where in time for the flight check in and reached Chennai via Hyderabad.

Though, I was able to reach my home and flight cancellation is part and parcel of this industry, I had to manage the crisis on my own initiative for the fault on airline part.

Few question, for which I do not have answers,.

1. Airline being part of travel and hospitality industry, is it not the airline, who should have called me and informed about the flight option as from their internal computer system as they would know that, I am traveling with family and base location is different?.

2. In worst case, if airline cannot provide alternative on same day, should they not provide with appropriate accommodation?.

3. Being a no frill airline, compensation or accommodation are not applicable ?. If this is true, then passengers can be taken for a ride, particularly for small aircraft, when there are no adequate bookings and they can cite this point, if really needed.


Interestingly, the in flight crew circulated the feedback forms and collected it back, though I did mention few points in feedback. Not sure, whether these would be addressed OR is their a guideline/rule of law for passengers in event of cancellation by airline regulatory body for domestic flights in India?.

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Indibloggers - A force to reckon with.

This is my 5th year in blogging and had been associated with indiblogger since 2009~10.However, had never attended an indiblogger meet, each time had been pre-occupied with some engagement which was either personal or professional.

This time, when I received the email about the 'Ambi pur' blog meet, I immediately registered for the same and wanted to attend it, though it was on Sunday afternoon which would require me to sacrifice my Sunday afternoon nap.

Based on indiblogger email, being a blogger, writing on mainly business and review topics, some thoughts kept flashing in my minds. The meet is organized at Hotel Hayat and lunch is to be provided to close to 250 bloggers plus incurring other expenses. Oh.. so much......., does it mean blogging community have really become a force to reckon with? Similar to product launch press meet, which are normally done by corporates!!??!. Hmm… happy to be part of this journey.

Finally the D - day arrived : Sunday - May 26th noon.

Started from home around 12:40, due to metro rail constructions, the Annasalai now has so many deviations. Thank god, being a Sunday was able to drive through quite easily and reached hotel around 1:10PM and had the valet parking slip provided by security.

As I entered hall, was pleasantly surprised to note arrangement and ambiance made in professional way. The seating logistics was nice and the registration process was seamless as we moved in. I scanned around the packed hall, it was interesting to note, majority of them present should be in the age group of 20~30 year. This is a clear indication, that blogging is still young man's forte and growing in India. In developed economies, the newspaper industry is in doldrums the reason attributed was information available in web and blogging. Will this, percolate to Indian market as well?. May be yes, as years pass by when bloggers become more mature and readers gets interested in quality of information presented, blogging will naturally grow and mature. Looks like, we are already having the indication of blogging growing with each passing year.

Coming to the blogger meet, we did have some interactive session and got to know more about some of the bloggers through "30 secs of fame” on which I did have an opportunity to present myself. This was followed by Lunch, which was sumptuous with very good spread.

Post lunch had a presentation by sponsor - Ambi pur, some part of presentation was technical with chemical structure. However, I got to know that Ambi pur neutralizes the bad odor and thereby eliminates odor completely, where as normal perfumes does not neutralize bad odor and hence, as long as perfume is strong (few minutes), the perfumes smell just overrules bad odor and after some time bad odor wins again.

The first thing, I did post the meeting is test up Ambi pur car fragrance. In last 10 days or or so, my every drive in the car had been refreshing and pleasant. Further, compared to regular or old model Ambi pur the new one easily fixes A/C vent grill and able to remove it if not required, particularly if you are leaving the car for service or any other time, when you wish to have the Ambi pur removed. Also, unlike the earlier once, the liquid comes is sealed pack, so that it does not spill over easily – full marks from design improvement perspective compared to earlier one.

Another 2~ 3 weeks is still left to finally certify the product as a blogger :-), as Ambipur had claimed that the fragrance will last for about 30 days and so far it has been performing well.
At the end of the meet, happy to note, the blogging community is becoming a force to reckon with, as product companies are now are ready to sponsor such event for bloggers.

Thanks to Indiblogger team for all your efforts towards the blogging community and happy to be part of it. Need to have such meet more frequently.....Good-luck and hope we find more sponsors for such meets......

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Body + Mind treatment = Medical Tourism.

IT back office, outsourcing including medical transcription has re-defined the outlook of India in the last 10 years or so. In today’s world one may not find top fortune company which does not have back office operation or processing in India. The other emerging field in India is medical tourism.

According to reports, it’s reported that 150,000 medical tourists came to India in 2005, based on feedback from the organization's member hospitals. The number grew to 200,000 by 2008. A separate study by ASSOCHAM reported that the year 2011 saw 850,000 medical tourists in India and projected that by 2015 this number would rise to 3,200,000.

As medical treatment costs in the developed country can be many folds when compared to India, this make prospect of international travel for medical care increasingly appealing. International health care accreditation and affiliations, medical support technology equipments and high speed internet communication make treatment effective through a collaborative approach could be a per-requisite for medical tourism. Clearly India has distinct advance here, as there are hospitals with facilities as comparable to any developed country.

Medical tourism is mostly sought for treating a critical health condition and hence it’s not just about medicine alone which can successfully treat a person. To be in good health trust, environment, and positive mind plays a critical role in recovery. India have a distinct advantage here as well, all year through sunny weather, visit to nature scenic places like Kodai, Ooty, Munnar in south, Kulu, Manali, Darjeeling in north would be so soothing to mind. On top of this, India is said to be one amongst the oldest civilization in history. Hence for those who are interested to understand life and evolution of mankind, there are supporting literature and distinct historic places of importance. All this can be so relaxing to mind.

As the journey called ‘life’ progresses, the machine called ‘body’ starts getting old it requires medical attention at times. The medicine and technology can bringing in necessary correction to keeps this body functioning. However, there is a mind game which is critical not only in recovery, but also understanding life and getting on with it. This is where India can play critical role, particularly for those who want to get deep into self realization.

To me, medical tourism is a function trust, usage of advanced medical technology to diagnose and treat health problem in a cost effective way, proper pre and post care – this is where there need to be collaborative effort between hospitals of different countries and hospitality partner who need to play a vital role to ensure that mind is at peace due to medical condition and its associated treatment.

Medical tourism is still in its infant stage and has long way to go. Clearly, India would have a distinct advantage on many fronts.

* This article is a part of Indiblogger's Modern health care touch lives contest in association with Apollo hospital. Apollo hospital do offer international patient services *

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Virtuality to reality : Evolving business.

Some time back, had written a blog post on telecommute and cloud computing Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3. The associated links provides detailing on telecommute and cloud computing, it’s also critical, one need to have proper support system to make telecommute and cloud computing successful.

We might well be moving away from human physical presence model of business at Office to a virtual business model, where business associate could be spread across the world. The reason, I called them as business associate is that, these folks would be experts in field and come together to accomplish a specific work after which they could move out. This could well mean in high technology oriented organization, could move more from employee based to a business partner based model in future.

In manufacturing there is concept called 'Lean' process of manufacturing, which is basically increasing productivity and reducing waste, well... we could evolve into a 'Lean' business model, where every resource need to be engaged only if essential.

Business, in prevailing global market - has to watch out competition, optimum price, low cost prototype development and production so as to sustain and grow. Moving people across globe from time to time will not only involve cost but also time and effort to adapt to geography. Business these days have to be ahead of competition, this can be possible only when all business associates have work collaboratively and stay connected.

For an entrepreneur to plan and execute, he should keep himself abreast with work carried out by virtual teams from anywhere across the globe. No longer has team to be physically present at same place to carry out work, they may be at different places and be much more productive through use of latest innovative tools and techniques.

If we ask our self , a question as why we need to present in office, the answer could be meeting, effective communication, collaboratively passing work from one to other dept till it becomes a tangible product, more importantly there need to appropriate control and change of plan as desired.

Can this be accomplished with team spread across at different place of globe and even have expert team member working from home?. This is where usage of high speed internet and effective office or project automation tools could plays its part.

Evolution of internet has brought in products like video conferencing, document holder, planning and execution of work, workflow based automation and assignment of work at appropriate time, business intelligent status reporting. It started with different discrete products doing these work and at time, once physical presence is required at certain location to utilize it.

However, Office product such as office365 makes it possible to accomplish this from your laptop or mobile computing device.

Early 90's usage of internet revolution the way of communication through emails, 2000's was about outsource model of collaborative work done - however interactive communication in form of video and audio, work flow planning and execution was remaining evasive and I believe usage of cloud computing and necessary application software towards bring control in collaboration could start next revolution in IT industry.

A dream company could have product or service conceptualized in America, designed in Germany, prototyped in China or Hong Kong and finally processed or manufactured in India, such approach is made possible through office365 application software. By using these products, one can truly claim their products to be “Made in Universe".

The future of the technology industry lies in transforming traditional outsourcing into higher-value services that solve business problems with technology innovations.

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Sedan Cars – Indian Market

About six month back, we decided to change Hyundai Santro. More than me the demand to change the car was from my wife and daughter. The six plus years old Santro was absolutely fantastic, the mileage I had done pretty less and I did not face much problem with it.

 In the last few years, there are many more choices for consumer for any segment, be it hatch back or sedan or SUV. As a matter of fact, we kept changing our choices, before we finally decided on one.
 When looking at sedan car, we had decided on certain points to look for, 


• Budget – restricted to range of INR 8 Lacs. 
• Elegance and looks.
• Performance in Indian market in last few years and service points post sales. 
• Driving condition and features.
• Mileage. 
• Petrol - I like petrol car pick up, my car usage is pretty less and hence, did not call for diesel car due to higher upfront investment.

 Based on these points had restricted my search to Hyundai Verna, Suzuki SX4, Ford Fiesta and Toyota Etios. There might have been few other Sedan, which could satisfy or even better the above criteria, however due to paucity of time, I did not opt for them.:


Hyundai Verna:
Stunning look and new age design simply ‘sport ......ish’. Nice interiors and many added features, particularly on high end variant. Having used Santro, I was almost hooked to Verna from the time it was released last year.


My budget had to be stretched, as even base model of 1.4 variant was in range of INR 8+ Lacs. Further, to my surprise I did not find many Verna in 1.4 variant on road, it had always being 1.6 variant. The 1.6 variant was costing INR 9 + lacs and definitely not in my expected range. 


The other one, I felt while test driving is that, Verna does not seem to have good ground clearance. The front hood (bonnet) looks longer. With bumper to bumper driving condition in India, I felt there may be issue with ground clearance, particularly the front hood (bonnet) not visible from driver seat.


Suzuki SX4: 
Looks sturdy, can be named .....’man...ish’ or ‘muscle...ish’. Nice interior, seat adjustment horizontal and vertical. Base version, was only in my expected range.


Further, since SX4 is around or more than 6 years, the model change was also in back of my mind. 


Ford Fiesta: 
There are two variant, ford fiesta ‘classic’ and all new ford fiesta introduced last year. The new Ford fiesta have a ‘sport...ish’ design like Verna Fluidic. Like Verna, might have a ground clearance issue, though have not test driven this car. I did not opt for this car on road price was in range of INR 9 lacs.


 The ford fiesta ‘classic’ was in the range of INR 8 Lacs and pretty neat car. Like SX4, Ford Fiesta ‘classic’ model is in market for 5 to 6 years now, hence the model change was in back of my mind. 


Toyota Etios: 
I would say this car was introduced with Indian road condition in mind. The exterior looks good though the same cannot be said about the interior.  However dual colour seat are available from ‘V’ variant, this makes the interior presentable.

 Found this car built with all safety features for the price in range of INR 8 lacs. The 'V' variant is available with alloys wheals, air bags, ABS, which I don’t think any other sedan car manufacturers offers considering the basic points and price, which I had mentioned at the start of the article.

 Importantly, felt it had good ground clearance comparable to SX4 and Ford fiesta ‘classic’. Further, Etios is expected to provide better mileage in Sedan category. Its total weight is comparatively less than most of the sedan, hence naturally one can expect better mileage .

 Finally, decided and purchased Toyota Etios ‘V’ variant and now need to see how it’s going to perform.

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Everything evolves, so is ERP

Recently, I received a forward note from my friend about an article "The End of ERP", however could not agree with key point mentioned in the article and hence thought of sharing my view points.

Any high tech product, whether hardware or software evolves over period of time, one would normally end up getting a better product by features and easier in use over certain period of time. Now to the topic of discussion, ERP had evolved over period of time. It was started as MRP(Manufacturing industry) and mainly in a mainframe environment, in early 90's with advent of client / server technology it evolved into ERP with finance based modules introduced. Still remember the days, in late 90's when ERP did not have modules to support marketing or sale activity and generally it started, with the business flow from order processing.

With Internet boom starting from year 2000 onwards, saw ERP vendors venturing into 3 tier architecture of browser, middle tier and DB tier. Naturally, when field force like sales and service can access ERP system from anywhere the ERP module footprint got extended into sales, service, CRM etc. All this time, the server and  application had to be procured and owned. In the last few years, a new paradigm is getting evolved in the form of cloud or subscription based computing model, where the company need not procure IT asset. This concept is catching up slowly, but may not be without challenges particularly if data is related to financial / statutory requirement. Some countries, may not allow a company financial transaction data to be stored in a different country due to statutory requirement.

These days with even business intelligence part being integrated with ERP, the ERP module footprint getting wider across industries with standard industry specific modules built and put to use. Hence, one cannot compare features across modules of ERP with specific functionality of sales and further ERP module footprints and features will evolve over period of time.

The cloud computing or subscription based model is more to do with where and how data is stored and accessed or its about the ownership of IT infrastructure. Hence, I feel this yard stick cannot be used to compare the specific products or its features.

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Good bye, 2011... Welcome 2012.

As 2011 come to a close and a new year begins, wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year!

Looking back at 2011 from economic perspective, we have seen reports, that the world had not come out fully from recession and some even predicting a double dip recession. 'Gold' has out shined all other investments in the year. From about 1900 INR (22 carat) towards close of 2010, it had reached to about 2600 INR, a whopping 40% return on investment.

Had predicted and written in my blog in Sep 2010, that gold will continue to raise and the same happened. However, along with gold, the USD appreciated against INR towards close of 2010, the likely reason provided by experts is the slowing down of Indian economy in the last quarter of 2011. In spite of repeated raise in the interest rate by RBI, the inflation refused to come down, which can also be the possible cause of slowdown in the economy.

While developed countries real estate sector woes continued, I would say, India real estate market was able to sustain in 2011. However, I read an article about the challenges in Indian real estate sector and hence one need to see, which way it would go in 2012.

Indian automotive sector which had  been reporting increase in sales even during 2008-09 recession period had for the first time  reported a dip in the sales towards in last couple of months of 2011. So, would this be the indicator for Indian economy in 2012?.

Lastly, the Indian IT sector had been able to sustain its growth, though it did not have an exponential growth. The operating model might see a change in coming years. To me, the word onsite, offshore or near shore might disappear in few years time and the focus would be towards ' Cloud' computing.

Well, time is the answer..... For the moment lets be optimistic, welcome year 2012, which is my 4th year in blogging as well ....

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FDI in retail sector

Couple of days back, India had given green signal to FDI investment retail sector. We are seeing a mixed response on its impact in media.

I still remember early nineties when there used to be protest for introduction of computers in government sector and when a famous food joint opened its operation at Bangalore, but all these died down over period of time. Hence, these days, we find food joints like KFC, Mcdy's, Subways becoming common name in Indian market and co-exists with Indian restaurants. I don't think Indian restaurants had any impact, it only gave consumers more options and also probably, increased Indian restaurant quality in service due to competition.

Also, interestingly, FDI investment was allowed into real estate sector in 2005 and I do not remember any such protest when FDI investment was allowed in real estate sector in 2005. Considering, south east asian crisis, that happened in late 90's, real estate would have been the sector which might have required protection.

This being the case, I do not understand the point in keeping retail sector under protection. By opening up retail sector, I believe its going to provide more options to consumer. When we have accepted 'Washington' apples to be sold at mamaji's shop, what's the point in opposing 'Nagpur' oranges to be sold at MNC hyper market?

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Cloud computing - Part 3

This is in continuation of my part 1 and part 2 on cloud computing.

As we progress, we would well be moving away from ‘Silos’ based computer system and application. Cloud computing infrastructure would be residing in data centre, this would call for efficient use of hardware and more over manpower would need to support multiple servers or application. Optimization and effective control would play larger roles in infrastructure management of these data centre towards cloud computing.

As per National institute of standards and technology, US , some of the key characteristics towards cloud computing are,

Resource Pooling : The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources.

Rapid elasticity: Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time

Measured service: Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability1 at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

As this leads to a situation where, cloud computing needs to provide services wherein there is zero downtime and resources being shared, so naturally hardware for cloud computing is getting evolved, the technology related to Grid computing, clustering – RAC, Data Guard, better performing machines like Exadata has been increasing offered by vendor towards satisfying the characteristics of cloud computing.

A brief look at the terminologies and technology used,

A cluster consists of a group of independent but interconnected computers whose combined resources can be applied to a processing task.

A clusterware is a term used to describe software that provides interfaces and services that enable and support a cluster. The combination of oracle Clusterware, Automatic Storage management provides a unified cluster solution that is the foundation to Oracle real application cluster database.

Real Application Clusters allows multiple nodes in a clustered system to mount and open a single database that resides on shared disk storage. Should a single system (node) fail, the database service will still be available on the remaining nodes.

It might still require few more years before cloud computing matures and it might well re-define the IT outsourcing map.

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Cloud computing - Part 2

This is in continuation of my part 1 on cloud computing.

Organizations are not going to jump into cloud computing, they would evolve and move towards characteristic of cloud computing infrastructure over period of time as they feel confident about the same. As far as cloud computing is concerned, I believe we are at stage, similar to, as of early 90’s with respect to IT services outsourcing. IT services were outsourced, so that organization could concentrate on the ‘core’ business area, cloud computing could well be a further step forward.

Now, let look at the service models normally considered in cloud computing.

SAaS : Software – as – a service :
This model is talked about quite some time now, business application are hosted on server maintained by data centers. Legal issues, security, integration and confidentiality of data of the deterring factors on this model at this point of time. Once policies, procedures and standards get defined and refined our the period of time, this is bound to get adopted, over period of time.

In terms of usage, the application are accessed through web browser and terms and condition could be governed by service level agreements.

Possible examples could be simple free generic email service to complex ERP system. Some time back, read an article in leading newspaper about ERP application in cloud computing at Tirupur, India. Its interesting to note, cloud computing has gaining acceptance even at a generally convervative society like India and that too at small town like Tirupur.

IaaS : Infrastructure – as – a service:
Computation servers, storage, hardware are considered under this service model. One would also find free on storage offered in web, this could be refered as IaaS.

PaaS : Platform – as – a service:
Development and deployment platform could be offered as a service to developers to build, deploy manage, application on SAaS.

If one looks at cloud deployment strategy, its normally, public, private and hybrid clouds. I feel the name itself quite significant to describe about the type.

The next question is any one's mind would be, what kind of hardware does one require towards hosting cloud computing?.

At this point of time, normally cloud computing is deployed in traditional model. By traditional model, I mean one might have a server to cater database tier or application tier, which is almost a 'silos' based model. But, since cloud computing, one need to have efficient hardware and manpower(refer to my example of restaurant) to manage cloud better in a data centre. This is where hardware could play a main role, the new technology like grid computing, Real application clusters, automatic storage management, server scale up features plays in important role toward better management and deployment of cloud.

Will briefly provide more details about the hardware part in the next write up.

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Cloud computing - Part 1

As the IT field evolves, it becomes more mature & the need to optimize cost naturally drives the innovation and creativity. The new concept coupled with technology, which is now doing rounds is ‘Cloud computing’.

I had come across people, with limited IT knowledge enquiring me as what is ‘cloud computing’ ?, though I had tried to explain to them in best possible way, most of the time, I end up a vacant stare from them, which was indicative that they did not understand the concept or background behind cloud computing.

Quite recently, I have started giving them example of home with Kitchen Vs restaurant towards explaining the concept behind ‘cloud computing’. A kitchen at home is dedicated for home, the resource – may it be the vessels or appliances or the cooking person is dedicated to that home. The owner of the home invests in kitchen and avails the benefit of having the kitchen to him or her or the members of his family. It’s the owner of the house who has to maintain the kitchen. When one compare home kitchen with restaurant, the end objective is same, which is specific food offered, but how food is prepared or serviced is different. One does not own anything is a restaurant except for the food offered. In a nutshell same is concept between Traditional IT offering Vs cloud computing.

Just like home kitchen, in case of traditional IT offering, the company owns the hardware and licenses for software and at times company outsources application development to a 3rd party which is comparable to chef hired (if a person is rich) to prepare food at home. With Evolution of IT sector in hardware & software, we are marching towards ‘restaurant’ model of IT services; you just pay for what is your end objective - ‘processed food’ or services. Like in a restaurant, in which you are only concerned about the quality of food and expected service offering and not much bothered about who is the chef, waiter or the kitchen appliances or even where the kitchen is, so is the case with ‘cloud computing’, the customer is focused on service offering and not on hardware, software or resources employed to provide the service offering or end product.

In the next part, I would dwell more technically on cloud computing… till then happy reading!!!..

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ERP - SME groups on cloud computing.

I read with interest a recent news article in a leading daily about a cluster of garment making unit in Tirupur, India, predominantly SME joining together to go in for Enterprise Resource Planning through cloud computing.

'Cloud computing' is one where in the application is used over Internet, where the customer pays only for the services of using the application and he does not pay for the cost of owning the application (software), hosting the application on the server, both of this can call for a huge investment.

'Cloud computing' service provider will own the software (application) and host the application on the server and upgrade both hardware and the software from time to time, so that business using cloud computing should not need to worry about the same.

I believe this should be best suited for SME's (small and medium sized) enterprise, particularly if the SME's are from same business verticals.

Like in the case, of Tirupur, garment manufacturers have joined together toward using ERP through cloud computing. Being from the same business vertical, the business process is going to be almost same (Procurement through Pay or Order through Cash receipts) or common, which would benefit the group from overall cost & resourcing prespective, they can even explore the possibility of shared service centre. Probably, the associations can have tie up with cloud computing vendor so that it benefits more business entities within the association.

Now, that ERP's offer multi-org facility, meaning, there is a privacy and confidentially of data being ensured even, if data or transaction reside on the same data base, it would really benefit if ERP is used under cloud computing by a group.

Good business initiate, which is worth exploring by cloud computing vendors, associations or groups of same business verticals!!.

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'Apnacomplex' - Apartment living made easy - Part2

Last week had written about the excerpts of my discussion with Mr Rajshekar, the chief promoter of Apnacomplex venture in part 1. Now, for the rest of our discussion:



iv. In the last couple of years, we are able to see few other similar web based application towards apartment management. How different is your application OR what is your unique selling proposition as compared to other's offerings in similar such product.

Resident Welfare Associations have existed for over decades and there have been software(including web-based software) addressing the needs since many years. There are few players who entered the market after us and few are in the process of entering. This shows that there is market and it is in nascent stage. We believe that there is enough market for quite a few players to co-exist easily at this stage - especially considering that entry barriers into this field are not high. Over a period time in future, like with any industry, the area will see consolidation.
Differentiating ourselves from many other solutions out there in the market is a continuous process. We respect our competitors and are always in the process of innovating to attract and retain customers. The core differentiation is our approach of providing a value for money solution which addresses the needs of the complex with a great customer service.

While one can get flavor of all the features we offer at https://www.apnacomplex.com/features, some of the other differentiating features are:

1. Integrated Solution – We probably have the most integrated solution offering among all the players. ApnaComplex addresses end to end needs of the scenarios that we address. For example, the system can take the input of meter reading for piped-gas (or water or DG) for all flats, raise consolidated invoices for flats (utility charges + maintenance charges), and notify the user of the charges via SMS and email. It allows the administrator to track the payments against these charges which are then available on financial reports such as income/expense statement and the balance sheet of the complex.
2. Anywhere / anytime access to the application - Most of RWAs are managed by folks on voluntary basis. The folks managing the complex have access to the system whenever they can devote time for doing the management activities. They don’t have to be in the association office to be doing this work. The residents have access to the application for viewing information related to their flats and the matters related to the complex. This brings in a large degree of transparency in the complex.
3. Free from infrastructure needs and IT expertise - The application is run by the us in the cloud. The complex is able to get started within no time, needs no investment in special hardware such as server(s) etc. They also get a peace of mind as we backup the system and data at regular frequency.
4. User Friendly – The application is designed for use by novices. Even the accounting features are available as ‘scenario based’ interface rather than accounting terms based. This greatly reduces the learning curve for the users. There are advanced interfaces, for the professionals, which provide greater power and control over the application too. The bottom line is that one need not be a professional accountant to use this application successfully.
   

v. Whats the absorption rate (user /customer licence) since inception?
While we are unable to disclose the exact numbers at this time, the product has been very well received by the market with in a very short span of time. Our customers have been steadily increasing with presence all over India. There has been tremendous interest in our application for all corners of the country.

vi. Apart from apnacomplex is there any other product offering from your company?
Currently, we have a single focus on innovating on ApnaComplex. We are focusing on taking this product to markets outside India.

Hmmm... as you have rightly pointed out, using of the application towards apartment maintenance is still at a very nascent stage. For that matter community living of 1000+ families is a very recent phenomenon, may be less than 5 years. The residents in these communities is yet to get the real feel of the challenges they are bound to get when community living happens. So I believe as the time progresses the absorption rate will become quite high.

Signing off with an anecdote, no body would have thought, 10 years before that matrimonial website will become a reality and popular in India, but in less than a decade many Indian marriage are settled through matrimonial website and hence I believe in less than 10 years time facility management through SAas can become really popular due to the sheer size of community type lying happening in the last few years!.

Good luck Mr Rajshekar for the future of your venture!

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'Apnacomplex' - Apartment living made easy - Part1

In the last few year, apartment complex with more than 100 apartments in same complex is quite common and been accepted way of living particularly in Metro's. However, post handover woes are quite common and so is the maintenance being overlooked. Maintenance management, communication management, issue tracking is challenge for the owner's association. With penetration of Internet, in the last few years, they have been some web based application, which are making the post handover easy through portals.

With each residents having their own priorities and work routine, they hardly find time to meet each other to discuss common issue and work towards resolution of issues, this is where web based application facility management application can be beneficial .

One among such web based application towards facility management is Appnacomplex (www.apnacomplex.com). I had an opportunity to interview Mr Raja Sekhar, the promoter of this innovative venture, presenting below are the excerpts from the interview.

i. Can you please provide a brief about the venture (http://www.apnacomplex.com/)?

ApnaComplex is a web-based Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) solution for residential and commercial complexes. The solution helps in efficient management of Gated Communities and Commercial Complexes by Resident Welfare Associations, Commercial Complex Owners and Facility Management Firms.

Residential and commercial complexes today lack integrated tool which integrates accounting and finances, maintaining facilities including assets, communication between members, tracking and managing residents/tenants and staff. They use a set of disparate manual and computer aided processes for meeting these needs.

For residential complexes, the existing models are not able to scale up resulting in poor management of complexes, escalation of costs, discontent due to lack of transparency, inability to roll out enhanced processes like staff verification and act as blockers in adoption of new technologies.

Commercial complexes have additional requirements around frequently changing tenants which require on-boarding and separation processes. They have unique requirements around monitoring and maintaining SLA, tracking issues, and billing for services provided.

Our offering provides an integrated solution to meet the needs of commercial and residential complexes. It is provided as a hosted solution with zero setup and maintenance cost for the client. It also allows for easy upgrade of functionality and anywhere access to all these functionalities. This comes as pay as you use model without the huge upfront cost associated with traditional approaches.

Our target customers are - Resident Welfare Associations, Commercial complex Owners.
We believe ApnaComplex is ideally positioned to take advantage of the increase in penetration of Internet and mobile, continued addition of new complexes, and shift towards professionally managed complexes to become a credible player in this segment.

ii. Since how long is www.apnacomplex.com is online now?.
Apnacomplex has been online since May, 2010. As this is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering running on the cloud, we have been able to push out new features on a regular cadence since the launch to bring more value and features to our customers.

iii. How are you funding your venture and have you taken the venture capital route?

It is a self-funded venture by the co-founders.

Well.. will continue part 2 shortly, till then if you are an apartment owner, its time to think about the benefits such application would provide or if you plan to buy apartment, think about what is in store after handover by the builder to the association.

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My top technology prediction for next decade..

I would say this decade (2001 to 2010) saw some great technology innovation which made common man life much easier. If some one had asked me in year 1998 whether ATM, mobile technology, online banking etc would be used by common man or people of developing nation, I would have had my own doubts at that point of time.

Moving on, what are going to be such technological advance by turn of next decade, I mean by 2020, would be used by a common man without costing a fortune?. To be within the reach of a common man's budget, the technology has to be mass produced or mass used in case of services, may be in millions.

The top of my list is smart phone. Feature enrichment or the next generation happens every six months, the next one which is due is the video phone. By this time, we are in 2020, this device might even have features toward personal identification (touch screen combined with thumb impression scanner), enabler in bank transaction & credit cards.

The last two years saw growth towards 'Cloud' computing. It is predicted that, there is bound to be a decrease in IT asset ownership in the next few years and it would be pay per usage or Saas (software as service) licence. Similar to Cloud computing, IT services could well be 'remotely' driven. 90's was a time when software services were provided as "Onsite", 2000's was based on "Offshore" services and the decades towards 2020 can be remotely driven, which means project team can be located across geographies with server at a different location.

In next few years, key boards could well become history, touch screen would be the answer for key boards. We would also see common usage of tablet PC with touch screen key board. The paper based magazine and newspaper might lose it sheen in circulation due to reduction in advertisement and cost involved in physical distribution. Advertisement would become more online and may become more related to the topic viewed.

TV and Laptop could be integrated. Also, alternative energy like solar, wind power energy devices would be on increase.

Interestingly, as I step into my 3rd year of blogging, I am just pondering whether I would be in a position to review my prediction through my blog in 2019 :-) ...

Good luck and a very happy new year to all!

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