Strategic Insight and Thought Leadership

Troubled Telco's

2011-11-30T22:34:00.000+11:00

When 7 out of top 12 Telco's are in zone of trouble, then its easy to make out that industry has some challenges to tackle.

GFC - 2 In Making..

2011-11-08T23:34:00.000+11:00

This is what forthcoming GFC - II is about in a single snapshot.

Internet Trends 2011 by Mary Meeker, Partner at KPCB

2011-11-02T13:28:00.000+11:00

KPCB Internet Trends 2011

View more presentations from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Strategic Analysis - Facebook

2011-04-12T12:56:00.000+10:00

Facebook Strategy Analysis - (2004 - 2011)

Corporate Strategy Analysis - News Corporation

2011-02-01T11:59:00.000+11:00

News Corporation - Corporate Strategy

2010-10-05T20:06:00.000+11:00

Australian NBN's Impact on Industries

2010-07-16T22:37:00.000+10:00

Thoughts For Nike Strategy - 2010

Cloud Computing For Enterprise IT

2009-02-03T00:34:00.000+11:00

Cloud Computing

Sydney in race to develop first bionic eye

2008-07-28T22:26:00.003+10:00

Bionic eye is very close to my heart. I would definitely love to see something in this space. In future I also intend to set up a wiki/website where I will try to put as much information about where people can learn about the developments in this space. More on the developments here [Via Slattery Watch]

A Centre for Implantable Bionics is to be established at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and one its first aims is to commercialise a functioning bionic eye. UNSW's Advanced Vision Prosthesis Group has been working on a bionic eye since 1997, and has produced over 70 peer-reviewed scientific publications and filed multiple patents. Other research efforts of the Centre will include trefined bionic hearing devices and artificial heart technologies, and development of electronic stimulation technology. A new leading research chair, the Paul M Trainor Chair in Biomedical Engineering, will be affiliated with the centre and an international search is currently underway for the inaugural holder of the position.

Where is The Value In Enterprise Architecture

2008-07-22T12:37:00.001+10:00

Finding Value In Enterprise Architecture

view presentation (tags: strategy capgemini enterprise-architecture ea)

Report - Sensis and the Australian Search and Directories Market

2008-04-15T22:53:00.004+10:00

I have undertaken this report to explore, learn and analyse the local online search and directories market to understand the developments that are taking place in this area. There are more than 18 players, from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to large corporations trying to get some share of this market.

The main focus of this report is on Sensis and its competitors and how it can reinvent itself in a rapidly changing local market.

I would like to thank Mark Rimmer from Rave About It and Meg Tsiamis from dLook for providing lot of invaluable information, insights and help while preparing this report. Read it here or download it from here

Top 4 Probable Digg Buyers

2008-03-08T20:04:00.007+11:00

Rumors are hot again about Google/Microsoft planning to buy Digg. When I wrote about Top5 probable Digg buyers in 2006 it was a rumor, but this time reports coming out suggests that this time Kevin Rose might sell it, esp when stock market is going down and US is technically in recession. Only difference between now and than is, one of the suggested 5 players, Yahoo itself is in trouble. So only 4 players remaining in the race and these are :
1. News Corp
2. Time Warner
3. Microsoft
4. Google

I'm quoting from my previous post here with some modifications why these 4 players are after Digg:

News Corporation - Newscorp would love to have this esp; after their acquisition myspace has lost traffic/users and momentum to Facebook. And as a media company it makes sense to have the most popular portal for news/technology/current affairs to be in their armour.

Microsoft - Microsoft will be the obvious choice because Microsoft is lagging in this Web 2.0 phenomenon. There hasn't been any decent/buzzing service offering by Microsoft in this space. If this comes on board, it will provide them a kick-start, which they are hoping for a while. Microsoft has got all the ingredients the to make this happen. Only problem i see is they are offering less money than what Google is offering and they are tied with Yahoo acquisition.

Time Warner - Time warner group which own Netscape will be other contender. Netscape has launched their portal on digg style but is not popular as digg is. Netscape previously asked top digg contributors to join and get paid for their contribution. Netscape would definitely like to acquire this.

Google - If nobody can buy digg than Google will definitely try. It will be more of a strategic move, to not to allow, Microsoft or News corp to buy this. Google can pull this off. Also Kevin Rose would love to be part of Google rather than Microsoft.

I can think of only these 4 contenders, what do you think? is there any other company (media) which might be interested in?

Catchup at Cebit

2008-02-01T13:03:00.000+11:00

I will be heading to Sydney on May 22 to attend CeBIT's Transaction 2.0 conference. For those who are interested in catching up with me, please feel free to come and chat with me. Our Australian Startups Carnival 2008 winner Scouta has got a pod for exhibition in TechRamp Pavilion, so will be there for some time as well.

Its going to be exciting and a little bit hectic, but its worth it. I'm looking forward to catch up with lot of new friends.

My Thoughts on HP + EDS Acquisition

2008-01-07T19:52:00.000+11:00

I have penned down my thoughts on the recent acquisition of EDS by HP, which is about 3 C’s - Consulting, Cloud & Computing. Read it here.

Microblogging with Twitter

2007-12-23T11:24:00.000+11:00

Guest Post Written by Ujjwal Grower and edited by Vishal

Vishal's intro: Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an application such as Twitterrific. Twitter was founded in March 2006 by San Francisco start-up company Obvious Corp.

The restriction to 140 characters has resulted in Twitter being labeled as “micro blogging”. A traditional blog is a log of what somebody is up to, but in a richer, more detailed format. One of the keys aspects of Twitter is to send and receive updates (also called tweets) via your browser, email , instant messaging clients and SMS so you can keep in touch no matter where you are.

How it works :
When you send in a mobile text (SMS), Twitter sends it out to your group of friends and posts it to your Twitter page. Your friends might not have phone alerts turned on so they may check your web page instead. Likewise, you receive your friends mobile updates on your phone.

Enough from my side. Let's jump into Ujj's post on Twitter for Microblogging.

Twitter is the newest baby in the blogosphere. If I try explaining what you can do with twitter, you will most certainly feel its useless, but once you 'twit' for a while, you will get addicted in no time. Twitter is a mix of social networking and internet messaging, we call it microblogging. Its a way to tell your friends what you are doing. To get started you
create an account, start following some people already on twitter and you'r good to go. People who start following you will receive your updates on their twitter page. So if I am following Amit,

I will receive his latest update - > Amit: skipped break fast to crunch pointers in office :(
and he will recieve mine -> Ujj: new caterer serving awesome food..lifes good again :)
and so on.
Amit can also reply to Ujj directly -> Amit:@ujj kewl ..enjoy :)

Interested enough. Let me tell you the real power of Twitter. Twitting's most fun when you sync up your twitter account with your Gtalk and Cell phone. Once you do that you will recieve updates as messges from twitter id from your friend. You can also directly send updates on Gtalk and even via text messages on cell phone (but thats a lil expensive).

Twitter is being used extensively by pro bloggers like Techcrunch, Tech2 who need to inform their followers about their latest posts. Surprisingly even Bollywood has not ignored twitters presence on the web. An account of recently released Bollywood movie Saawariya was spamming twitter accounts extensively during the release of the film.

The other huge plus with twitter is its API which can be used by anyone very easily to create web mashups and write their twitter bots. One such bot was written by Taggy, men in blue which would automatically update the twitter account. You can develop twitter bots using php and Java. More about it here. A detailed tutorial next time.

Australias MBA School Ranking for 2007

2007-11-23T17:39:00.000+11:00

AFR Boss has published a much needed ranking for Australia's top MBA colleges/institutes/schools. Currently their is no formal ranking system for universities in Australia on the lines of what we have in Units States (US). This is a good guide for aspirants, who want to explore management, entrepreneurship or trade, especially overseas students planning to do a MBA course in Australia.

Further details on this detailed survey by AFR BOSS can be found here

Other useful articles:
Top 20 universities worldwide
Best Computer Books

Ten steps to making money from smart ideas

2006-11-30T01:00:00.000+11:00

IP Australia has this advise for people who are planning to startup business or has smart ideas.

1. Treat intellectual property as a business asset by putting a dollar value on it and look to protect it in the same way you do your tangible assets. This is important for your balance sheet if you want to attract investment to grow your business, or to find out what your business and your IP is worth if you want to sell it.

2. Understand the different types of IP and the advantages of each one. Patents protect inventions; design registration protects its look. A registered trade mark protects brand names, logos, original sounds and scents and even aspects of packaging. Or you may want to rely on rights such as copyright or trade secrets, which do not need to be registered, to protect your IP. IP Australia’s website gives you more details about your IP options at www.ipaustralia.gov.au.

3. Keep your smart idea confidential—until it’s protected. If talking to others about your idea, use a confidentiality agreement, otherwise you could risk your right to legal protection and competitive advantage. Once signed by the party, a confidentiality agreement prevents them from disclosing your ideas to others without your permission.

4. Protect your idea using the IP system. Wise innovators seek advice from an IP professional sooner rather than later.

5. Build a model of your invention, where practical, to help prospective financial backers visualise your smart idea and its market potential. However, don’t let anyone see it without having a confidentiality agreement in place first. Also, if you have an invention, be cautious not to chase money in relation to that invention before lodging an application for patent protection. A ‘commercial use’ of the invention prior to filing your patent application may destroy your chance of receiving a patent.

6. Keep track of all your development and protection costs to help you put a value on your IP and give you an idea of how profitable your venture should be to recover costs.

7. Every business needs to research its potential market and understand its likely consumers, competitors, buyers, licensees, investors, manufacturers and distributors. Doing this will help you work out if your product or service is competitive. It will also assist you to avoid infringing the IP rights of others.

8. Many inventors are great at inventing but to commercialise your idea you need a variety of business skills. Taking a course in business management or at least educating yourself via books or accessing information on the web is fundamental. Use support groups such as inventor’s associations, your local Business Enterprise Centre and government agencies. However, before taking major steps, invest in quality professional advice.

9. There are different ways to make money from IP. You can sell it, license it or make products yourself. It might be more profitable in some cases to not manufacture it yourself. If you do this, get legal advice on any contracts you intend entering into with other parties.

10. Keep an eye out for infringers. Not only do copycats erode your hard-won market share, poor quality imitations can quickly ruin your brand reputation. Seek the advice of a lawyer or patent/trade mark attorney to help you to decide on the best course of action against infringers. You may need to take legal action, but infringers can often be stopped without having to resort to legal proceedings.

More on this here.

Unholy alliance - Microsoft, Novell partnership

2006-11-04T22:20:00.000+11:00

Microsoft has announced its partnership with Novell to put Suse Linux (2nd no Linux distro) on a Windows desktop. As part of the deal, Microsoft will offer sales support for Suse Linux and also co-develop technologies with Novell to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft Windows on their computers. Microsoft plans to distribute 70,000 coupons for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server maintenance and support to customers that want to run both Windows and Linux in their environments. In addition to this, Novell and Microsoft will work together to improve interoperability between Windows and Novell's SuSE Linux.

Some insights from infoworld why this partnership has come along:

Scenario one: Looking to the future and seeing the proverbial handwriting on the wall, this stops the bleeding of Windows to Linux desktops.

Scenario two: Did the desktop OEMs push Microsoft toward this deal?
More of their customers want Linux and so the PC manufacturers want this technology so they can give them both.

Scenario three: The most intriguing possibility of all.
Did increasing sales of Apple Macintosh which now has Intel inside and uses OS X which is a form of Unix, have anything to do with this decision.

All this sounds very compelling for Linux enthusiasts, but in reality its not, esp when Microsoft talks about interoperability. Microsoft over the years has been opposing Linux and open source solution and now this deal, doesn't ring a bell to me. Novell and Microsoft have come together because they both want to screw Oracle and Red Hat. This unholy alliance of arch rivals getting together is to strike on the head of other guys.

Is this alliance going to help Novell? In short term yes, but in longer term no. As Foley from zdnet adds, "Microsoft is not conceding that desktop Linux is gaining ground. It's not admitting that its closed-source strategy has failed. Sure, Microsoft is licensing to customers' requests for better interoperability. But if you think the Redmondians are throwing in the towel, vis-a-vis open source, you are underestimating severely Microsoft's well-proven ability to come out ahead on any partnership to which it commits." And that, I think, may be the real take-away from this, aptly described in this post from ZDNet's Mitch Ratcliffe. Microsoft is not changing its license to GPL, it is still going to sell it s/w under strict license, but Novell has opened the gates for Microsoft to sell to its customers.
This alliance is a win-win situation for Microsoft and it proves again, it has no soul at all when it comes to business.

Looking ahead, this deal and Oracle's recent unbreakable Linux move has definitely put lot of pressure on RedHat.
It will be interesting how RedHat responds to these changes in marketplace. Until now there hasn't been much pressure on its share price, its holding up, which suggests market has lot of confidence in RedHat. Let us wait and watch how this unholy alliance comes out in future.

Top 5 Probable Digg Buyers

2006-10-25T15:11:00.000+10:00

Rumors are hot about News Corp planning to buy Digg. It’s a rumor right now, how much truth is there, is anybodies guess. This can be a real news and might have been leaked to press as a part of strategy as suggested by Internet Analyst, Henry Blodget,

Settle on basic deal terms and a provisional price, leak details so the market has a couple of days to chew on the idea, see how the stock reacts, neutralize the market’s biggest concern (lawsuits) by announcing a distribution pact with the main guy who might sue you, fix the price, rubber-stamp the press release, and go.

Coming days will tell us how much truth is there. If News Corp cannot buy this then these might be probable buyers for digg.

Microsoft - Microsoft will be the obvious choice because Microsoft is lagging in this Web 2.0 phenomenon. There hasn't been any decent/buzzing service offering by Microsoft in this space. If this comes on board, it will provide them a kick-start, which they are hoping for a while. Microsoft has got all the ingredients the to make this happen.

Yahooo - Yahoo's revenue is not increasing and is losing to Google on many fronts. If yahoo can pull this off it will be their third prize catch after flickr and del.icio.us. Both of these are brilliant applications. Digg will fit well into their service offering.

Time Warner - Time warner group which own Netscape will be other contender. Netscape has launched their portal on digg style but is not popluar as digg is. Netscape recently asked top digg contributors to join and get paid for their contribution. Netscape would definitely like to acquire this.

Google - If nobody can buy digg than Google will definitely try. It will be more of a strategic move, to not to allow Yahoo, Microsoft or News corp to buy this. Google can pull this off.

I can think of only these 5 contenders, what do you think? is there any other company (media) which might be interested in?

Top Web 2.0 Apps in Australia

2006-10-18T18:08:00.000+10:00

Everyday we read/hear about the new web 2.0 applications start up with interesting concepts used. Recent acquisition of Youtube by Google has raised hope for new start ups to realize there dream of making it big time. Aussies are not behind in this trend. There are quite a few interesting applications which have come out of hibernation.

To do list - Remember the Milk

It allows users to manage tasks online as any to do list will do. It is integrated with Google Maps, Skype (IM) and is available on Mobiles as well. This is a very popular application around the globe with more than 100,000 users from 155 countries. It was launched in October 2005.

Digg clone for funniest email - FWDitOn

This is inspired by digg. It allows users to read hilarious emails, do a rating and share it with others. It is an interesting concept and has caught attention from few Venture Capitalists from overseas. This site was covered recently on techcrunch.

Community for parents - Minti

Minti provides an online platform for dads & moms to share and rank their advice about parenthood in a simple way and with lots of fun. It was launched in March this year after raising USD$1.2M.

Connecting students in Australia - Student face

It is a social networking service inspired by Facebook, Orkut, which allows students to share information, swap pictures, videos and more. It helps in uniting students with similar interests from all over the country. Membership in StudentFace is exclusive to students who are enrolled in an Australian university and have a valid university (.au or .edu) email address. The site was lunched this year.

Marketing for bloggers using emails - Zookda

Zookoda is a blog broadcasting service provider. It allows bloggers to spread the word about their blogs by sending blog summaries via email. Zookoda provides blog owners with the tools to manage their mailing lists, design their emails, broadcast blog summaries and track recipient usage. It was launched this year in March and is now up for sale.

The Universal Web Storage Platform - Omnidrive

This is a full-scale web storage platform that can be accessed from a web browser, Windows or Mac desktop and even a mobile device. It allows users and developers to easily access and share content and files on the web. This was started by Nik Cubrilovic and launched in the beginning of this year. It was covered by techcrunch and recently got coverage in nine msn's The Bulletin magazine.

Blog search engine - Gnoos

It is a blog search engine which is inspired by Technorati. It's main focus is towards local bloggers. It was launched in May 2006.

Social networking service - Babbello

It is a social networking service inspired by Myspace. It allows people (popular with teens) to write blogs, chat, download ring tones for mobile, swap photos and more.

Connecting buyers and sellers - findit.com.au

Its a portal inspired by Craiglist. It provides a free forum for all community advertisements and listings .

Property Search - Spyk

This allows you to search all residential properties for sale or rent across Australia. It is a project designed and developed by Tim Kremer.

Other notable ones in dealing with real estates are :

Update: I have found two more notable sites.

News rating- Sukk

Its a Digg clone for rating of news from Australia and New Zealand. Site was lunched on September 5th, 2006.

News rating- PerthNorg

Its a Digg clone for rating of news from Australia. Its more comprehensive and allows news to be published and rated separately in different categories like technology, sports, lifestyle, business and others. Interestingly in addition to voting, it increases the rating if some one post a comment on a news/story/article .

Note: I can't think of covering all the Web 2.0 applications in Australia, if I have missed any application. I would like all of you to share information on other Web 2.0 applications in Australia. Please do leave a comment.

Disclaimer: Views expressed here are my personal. I am not a paid employee of any business/organizations covered in this article. I work for a software development and integration company TUSC, in Melbourne, Australia.

6 Ways to make people's life better worldwide

2006-09-24T12:52:00.000+10:00

I have been thinking for a while how user generated content sites like Digg, Flickr, Wikipedia and others can be used for people's benefit. This is my list of ideas how we can bring more transparency and accountability in our day to day life engagement.

1. Combination of Wikipedia and Digg style rating system for government offices.
People (users) can come and post their experiences with with photos (taken from mobile phones or others). This has the potential to be a successful venture in places like India, Brazil, Italy, Russia, where corruption and non transparency is very high.

2. Digg style rating site for hospitals.
Its mash up with Google maps and Flickr will provide missing details.

3. Digg style rating site for schools and universities.
Mash ups of Google maps and Flickr will add more value in it.

4. Digg style rating site for TV channels, magazines, newspapers and books.

5. Digg style rating site for aviation and transport industry.
Like rating for airlines and their flights, trains, buses and their routes.
Its mash up with Flickr and Google maps will be a plus.

6. Digg style rating site for restaurants, hotels, motels.
Its mash up with Flickr and Google maps will be a plus.

If there are any other ideas please post them in comments and i will add to
this list.

IBM acquires Datapower - Will software be same

2005-10-24T21:39:00.000+10:00

IBM has acquired Datapower, one of the non (web 2.0) companies in the overly hyped environment. And it seems it hasn't got any coverage in main media yet, but might get in coming days. Currently, everyone seems to be focused on Web 2.0, but it looks like this acquisition might have long term effects on software (S/W) applications.

Question is what exactly Datapower do and how IBM's acquisition is significant ?

Today, S/W applications built on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Legacy applications are enhanced to have SOA based infrastructure. What it means to lay man, is that there is a service available on some web site like (Google, Amazon) and you can send a request for that service, and it replies you back with the desired answer.

SOA based applications mainly has data sent over wire as XML, it can be SOAP (XML/Http) or XML/JMS. In broader sense, it's a message (containing XML data on some transport protocol) which is sent across the wire between two interacting (homogeneous, heterogeneous) components. Having said that, it doesn't mean you can't send binary data, but than who want to debug binary data, especially when the processing power is becoming cheap and cheap.
Worth noting here that SUN's JINI is another example of SOA, which has been open sourced recently.

Now, currently data processing happens at S/W application level. What it means, XML as data once received by interacting client or server has to be processed into binary and than to machine code and vice versa for the communication to take place. In between client and server, there are few network interacting S/W which runs on some H/W, like firewall (can be H/W embedded or S/W based), proxy server, routers and others. These S/W applications or H/W aren't designed to handle XML based data yet and this is exactly where DataPower comes into picture.
For example with Data power's XS40 XML Security Gateway, which is a 1U (1.75" thick) rack-mountable network device purpose built by them to secure XML and Web Services transactions. What else it can do.

XML Encryption
XML/SOAP Firewall filtering
XML Digital Signatures
XML Schema validation
Two-way SSL
XML Access Control
XPath
Detailed Logging

Currently, this is unimaginable with the above H/W or S/W which doesn't know XML.
Now, IBM has acquired this company, which corresponds with their business strategy as they have been focusing on SOA and services around that for a while. This acquisition takes their vision further which is about AON (Application Oriented Network). Now other important aspect is, how about vendors like CISCO, as 90% network equipment used world wide is CISCO based. What are they doing in this domain. Than you guessed it right they are on it. Read more about that here.

Well keeping all this in mind, I think the nature of future S/W applications interaction with network will change forever and that's why this is so interesting.

Bill Burnham, a renowned venture capitalist (VC) and who invested in Datapower, lays out his thoughts on this.

He writes :

From an industry perspective, IBM’s announcement is significant for a few reasons:

1. It represents very a powerful endorsement of the long term promise of message aware networking.
2. It underscores the inevitable collision between enterprise software and enterprise networking vendors.
3. It marks what is likely the beginning of a very aggressive push by IBM to develop a fully featured SOA “stack”.

More on this acquisition and its effects can be read here.

Books Worth a Look

2005-09-21T23:20:00.000+10:00

The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs have announced the finalists in this year's Book of the Year Award, which include:

John Battelle, The Search
Thomas Friedman, The World Is Flat
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics
Constantinos C. Markides and Paul A. Geroski, Fast Second
Pietra Rivoli, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy
James B. Stewart, Disneywar

Chinese Yuan Revaluation - Why

2005-05-22T14:36:00.000+10:00

In last few weeks there has been rumors that Chinese government is under pressure from US and EU to revaluate their currency. Currently their currency is undervalued 15-40%. What that means to a lay men is that their exports in US and other countries are very cheap as 1$ (US) can buy more Yuan at current price, which is 1$(US) = 8.27 Yuan. But if it revaluates then 1$ (US) will give you less number of Yuan, that means that US dollars purchasing power will decrease, that is, Chinese export becomes expensive in US and other parts of the world and US companies mostly which have invested heavily will get more US dollars from profits made in China. Other thing to keep in mind here that Chinese do business in US dollars only! rather than in any other currency, which means, for EU it is more serious issue, because Euro has appreciated as compared to US dollar in last 3-4 year. That has lead to cheaper Chinese export in Europe because the trading is only in US dollars. That's why there is a lot of pressure from US and EU on China to revaluate their currency. Currency is China is controlled by government unlike US and EU, and Australia where it is controlled by market.

With this background in mind, Economist writes in it's article What do yuant from us?
Quote :
Both the European Commission and the American Congress have begun proceedings to protect their citizens from the threat of cheap Chinese textiles. Both are unhappy with the effect of Chinas currency peg to the dollarAmerica because it makes inexpensive Chinese goods even cheaper, and Europe because the euro is having to bear the brunt of the dollars depreciation. On Tuesday May 17th, America's Treasury gave warning that unless China relaxes its peg, it is likely to be classified as a currency manipulator. In Congress, a proposal is afoot to slap punitive tariffs on Chinese goods unless the yuan is revalued within six months. Such moves are sufficiently worrying that on Friday the official Xinhua news agency reported that China would impose export tariffs on its own textiles starting in June, presumably to ward off more draconian measures abroad.

Certainly, the head of Chinas central bank has recently been making noises that sound an awful lot like revaluation. But other officials are reluctant to tamper with a peg that they perceive to be working well. This week Wen Jiabao, Chinas prime minister, thundered that his country would not bow to outside pressure on the yuan. Indeed, many think that hotter rhetoric from American politicians will only make China delay any revaluation plans it is working on. Having enacted export tariffs in response to protectionist politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, China might now be even more reluctant to relax its peg, for fear of being seen buckling under foreign demands.
Revaluation certainly looks tricky for the Chinese government. It believes that for the sake of political and social stability, it needs 15m-20m new jobs a year. Increases at that level will be enough to absorb population growth, plus displaced workers from the agricultural sector and Chinas ailing state-owned firms. And the export sector is seen as a crucial vehicle of job creation.
But this is not the only reason that Chinese politicians are reluctant to revalue. By some estimates, as much as three-quarters of Chinas foreign-currency reserves are held in dollars; if the central bank allows the yuan to rise against the dollar, it will also in effect be allowing the value of its reserves to depreciate. Moreover, if slowing the flood of dollars that Chinas central bank is pouring into American debt markets does cause those markets and the American economy to contract, Chinas exporting firms will have worse problems than a more expensive yuan. And problems for those firms could translate into big trouble for Chinas frail banking system.

Nonetheless, China seems to be preparing the way for a slightly freer currency. This week it allowed some foreign currencies to be traded against each other for the first time in China. This is widely seen as a preparation for reform of the tightly controlled currency regime. And if a revaluation seems unlikely to please Americas protectionist politicians, it should nonetheless help to correct the imbalances caused by the gaping American current-account deficit, if only by weaning Americas spendthrift consumers and government off cheap Chinese credit. If the hour of reckoning is not quite at hand, it seems only a matter of time before Chinas financial system, and Americas borrowers, begin to grow up.

Before this story in Economist, Lawrence Kudlow writes in his blog about, that US blunder is in making, when it comes to China and it's monetary policies of controlling their currency under "Blundering on China".
He writes, quote :
Since 1994, when China instituted a quasi currency board system, the Chinese economy, linked to the greenback as its reserve currency and standard of value, has created more prosperity in that huge country than at any time before in its history. Since 1994, real growth of gross domestic product in China has averaged about 9% a year. During this time, in a country previously plagued repeatedly by unreliable money and a volatile but usually high inflation rate, the Chinese consumer price index has risen only slightly above 3% a year. Japan would die for this kind of economic performance. So would Western Europe. Why would anybody in his or her right mind wish to meddle with this kind of economic performance.
Just ask the other developing economies in the Pacific Rim. Neither Free Korea, nor the Philippines, nor Thailand, nor Indonesia, nor Malaysia can boast of this kind of track record. Turn the clock back to 1997 and 1998. All those aforementioned countries were pegged to the dollar and enjoying solid prosperity. So what happened? Robert Rubin's Treasury, along with the geniuses at the International Monetary Fund, decided that these countries should float their currencies and de-link from the U.S. dollar. What happened? The currencies promptly sank.
There's a lesson here. It's a simple one. Emerging currencies don't float. They sink. Why is this? Because they have a history of instability. They do not have a history of monetary value that is reliable. That is why the dollar link was correct in those days and that is why the consequences of this currency meddling by the IMF nearly threw the world economy into a deflationary spiral. And those countries suffered the most, as foreign investment flows were immediately withdrawn. As such money left those countries, their economies shrank, unemployment rose, and in many places there was rioting.

It will be seen in coming months what Chinese government do, whether it takes a firm stand or bow down to US and EU pressure. As far as what will be it's consequences in Australia I wrote this entry, Chinese currency - yuan's revaluation - After effects, on my blog few days back.

Infosys - What Dell did to the PC industry

2005-05-14T16:09:00.002+10:00

After finishing writing my blog on Google vs Microsoft I bumped onto this post on Wired.com which has published this article on top 40 technology based business in leading innovations... and surprisingly they had Infosys.
I know about Infosys for two reasons, a) They are one of our competitors in Australia and putting too much pressure on us as our jobs are under threat b) Second reason is I was born and brought up in India, So I know that, as I have grown up seeing this as the leading and one of the best companies to work for in India at least.

According to this article Infosys is going to be Dell in consulting business what Dell is in PC industry today. Some thoughtful thinking for the likes of IBM, Accenture and EDS.