Buzz of the week: 21-Jul-08

1. MTN and Reliance deal called-off

South Africa's MTN said it had failed to reach a deal in talks with India's Reliance Communications. Reliance said in May it had entered into exclusive merger talks with MTN Group. "Owing to certain legal and regulatory issues, the parties are unable to conclude a transaction," MTN Group said in a statement posted on the web site of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. "Accordingly, it has been mutually decided to allow the exclusivity agreement to lapse." More here.

2. Micorsoft's web ad business rocky

Shares of Microsoft sank more than 5%, a day after the company missed Wall Street's earnings forecast by a penny, and issued softer-than-expected guidance for the current first quarter, an Associated Press report said. Microsoft cited weakness in the online business, which makes most of its money from web advertising, the report said. More here.

3. US investors team up to bid for Huawei unit

US private equity firms Silver Lake and Providence Equity Partners have teamed up to bid for a stake in a unit of China's Huawei Technologies, a Reuters report said. The Reuters report, citing sources involved in the process, also said the deal could fetch more than $2 billion. Another team is AEA Investors, a mid-sized private equity firm, and General Atlantic, according to one source involved in the process. More here.

4. Bharti Airtel profit soars in Q1

Bharti Airtel' first-quarter net profit increased by a better-than-expected 34%, as subscriptions rose in the world's fastest-growing wireless market, an AFP report said.

Net profit for the three months to June was 20.25 billion rupees ($470 million) from 15.12 billion rupees ($358 million) for the same period a year ago, the report said. Revenues climbed 44 % to 84.83 billion rupees ($2 billion). "On the mobile side, monthly customer adds crossed the 2.5 million mark in the quarter," Bharti chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said in a statement. "This demonstrates the Indian telecom growth story is intact, with the rural markets witnessing strong uptake," he said.

The company added a record 7.5 million customers during the quarter, the most ever in a single three-month period. The customer base jumped 61% to 70 million most of them in the mobile sector, during the quarter from the same period a year earlier.

5. Qualcomm and Nokia settle long-running dispute

The many bitter patent disputes between Qualcomm and Nokia have finally ended. The two telecom giants announced they have entered into a new 15-year patent agreement that effectively settles all litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its complaint to the European Commission and numerous lawsuits filed in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Nokia filed a complaint with the EC in October 2005 with five other companies, which led to a flurry of lawsuits between Qualcomm and its rivals and several regulatory probes into Qualcomm's licensing practices. The two were also miles apart for some time when it came to renegotiating a new license agreement that expired in April 2007. More here.

Thank you very much,


RamP!

Strategy School 5: The Cognitive School

5. The Cognitive School (Strategy formation as a Mental Process)

This post is continuation of my previous posts on strategy, based on Mintzberg's book Strategy Safari.
If we are serious about understanding strategic vision as well as how strategies form under other circumstances, then we had better probe into the mind of the strategist. This is the job of cognitive school:

• Cognition as Confusion
• Cognition as Information Processing
• Cognition as Mapping
• Cognition as Construction

Premises of the Cognitive School

• Strategy formation is a cognitive process that take place in the mind of the strategist
• Strategies thus emerge as perspectives that shape how people deal with inputs from the environment
• These inputs flow through all sorts of distorting filters before they are decoded by the cognitive maps
• As concepts, strategies are difficult to attain in the first place, considerably less than optimal when actually attained, and subsequently difficult to change when no longer variable

Critique of the Cognitive School

The school is characterized more by its potential than by its contribution.
Thank you very much,

RamP!

Strategy School 4: The Entrepreneurial School

4. The Entrepreneurial School (Strategy Formation as a Visionary Process)
This post is continuation of my previous posts on strategy, based on Mintzberg's book Strategy Safari.

In this school, the strategy formation process is focused on the single leader (usually the CEO) and is built on a vision. Proponents of this school saw personalized leadership, based on strategic vision , as the key to organizational success - not only in starting up and building new organizations, but also in "turning around" faltering organizations.

The chief characteristics to strategy making suggested by Mintzberg, 1973:

• In the entrepreneurial mode, strategy making is dominated by the active search for new opportunities
• In the entrepreneurial organization, power is centralized in the hands of the CEO
• Strategy making in the entrepreneurial mode is characterized by dramatic leaps forward in the face of uncertainty
• Growth is the dominant goal of the entrepreneurial organization

Premises of the Entrepreneurial School

• Strategy exists in the mind of the leader as a perspective, a vision of the organization’s future
• The process of strategy formation is semiconscious at best, rooted in the experience and intuition of the leader
• The leader promotes the vision under close personal control in order to be able to reformulate specific aspects if necessary
• The strategic vision is thus malleable, and so the entrepreneurial strategy tends to be deliberate and emergent
• The organization is likewise malleable, a simple structure responsive to the leader’s directives
• Entrepreneurial strategy tends to take a form of a niche, one or more pockets of market position protected from the forces of outright competition

Critique of the Entrepreneurial School

It presents strategy formation as all wrapped up in the behaviour of a single individual. This has remained largely a black box. So for the organization that runs into difficulty, this school’s central prescription can be all too obvious and facile: find a new visionary leader.

Thank you very much,

RamP!

Android woes

The Apple iPhone App Store is giving Google a for its money on Android. Android started great, with Google behind it and also supported by operators and OEMs. The first signs of "after all it may not be so great", appeared when Google released the top 50 winners(pdf) of the Android contest - the applications were at best mediocre.

This week Google committed a major faux pas when an email that was intended only for the top 50 winners went to everyone that had submitted the application. What is irritating to Android developers is that the new version of the SDK is being made available only to a select few - talk of Android being an "open platform".

At this time, I feel iPhone is miles ahead of Android. What do you think?

Thank you very much,


RamP!

Strategy School 3: The Positioning School

3. The Positioning School (Strategy Formation as an Analytical Process)
This post is continuation of my previous posts on strategy, based on Mintzberg's book Strategy Safari.
While the Design School and Planning Schools didn't put any limits on the strategies that were possible in any given situation, the positioning school, in contrast, argued that only a few key strategies - as positions in the economic market place are desirable in any given industry: ones that can be defended against existing and future competitors. Cumulating this logic across industries, this school ended up defining what are called generic categories of strategies - for example, product differentiation and focused market groups.
Premises of the Positioning School

1. Strategies are generic, specifically common, identifiable positions in the market place.
2. The marketplace (the context) is economic and competitive.
3. The strategy formation process is therefore one of selection of these generic positions based on analytical calculation.
4. Analysts play a major role in this process, feeding the results of their calculations to managers who officially control the choices.
5. Strategies thus come out from this process full blown and are then articulated and implemented; in effect, market structure drives deliberate positional strategies that drive organizational structure.

Enter Michael Porter

Porter's Competitive Strategy (1980) and Competitive Advantage (1985) offered a set of concepts to build on. The most prominent among these concepts have been his model of competitive analysis, his set of generic strategies and his notion of value chain. We will take a brief look at each of these:
Competitive Analysis:
Porter's model of competitive analysis identifies five forces in an organization's environment that influences competition. They are:

• Threat of new entrants
• Bargaining power of firm's suppliers
• Bargaining power of firm's customers
• Threat of substitute products
• Intensity of rivalry among competing firms

Given the range of possible external forces, one might imagine that the range of possible strategies is large. But Porter takes the opposite position: only a few generic strategies survive the competition in the long run and this notion is what really defines the positioning school.

Generic Strategies:
Porter argued that there are two basic types of competitive advantage a firm can possess: low cost or differentiation. Being "all things to all people", Porter argued, is a recipe for strategic mediocrity and below-average performance. Combined with the "scope" of a particular business, Porter defined the following three generic strategies:

• Cost Leadership: Low cost producer in the industry.
• Differentiation: Development of unique products or strategies
• Focus: Seek to serve narrow market segments

Value Chain:
Porter introduced a framework he called the value chain. It suggests that a firm can be disaggregated into primary and support activities. Primary activities are directly involved in the flow of product to customer. Support activities exist to support primary activities. Firms achieve profit margins based on how the value chain is managed.
Critique of the Positioning School

1. Concerns about Focus: The approach is not wrong, but the focus tend to be narrow.
2. Concerns about Context: The bias is clearly towards traditional big business
3. Concerns about Process: The message is not to get out there and learn, but to stay home and calculate.
4. Concerns about Strategies: At the limit, the process can reduce to a formula, whereby such a position is selected from a restricted list of conditions.

We are not ready to explore the Entrepreneurial School.

Thank you very much,


RamP!

Strategy School 2: The Planning School

2. The Planning School (Strategy Formation as a Formal Process)

This post is continuation of my previous posts on strategy, based on Mintzberg's book Strategy Safari.

Lot of work has been done on "strategic planning". Even though there are several models of strategic planning, the basic idea is this: take the SWOT model, divide it neatly into delineated steps, articulate each of these with lot of checklists with special attention on objectives and elaboration of budgets and operating plans. The figure below shows the Steiner model of Strategic Planning.


The main steps are as follows:

• The Objective Setting stage: Quantify the goals of the organization. Used mostly to control
• The External Audit stage: Forecasts about future conditions of the external environment
• The Internal Audit stage: Study of Strengths and Weaknesses of the organization
• The Strategy Evaluation stage: Mostly financial analysis
• The Strategy Operationalization stage: Strategies are broken down to sub-strategies and detailed plans are churned out here

Premises of the Planning School:
1. Strategies result from a controlled, conscious process of formal planning, decomposed into different steps, each delineated by checklists and supported by techniques.
2. Responsibility for that overall process rests with the CEO in principle; responsibility for its execution rests with the staff planners in practice.
3. Strategies appear from this process full blown, to be made explicit so that they can be implemented through detailed attention to objectives, budgets, programs and operating plans of various kinds.

Scenario Planning
Scenario planning is a variant of strategic planning. It is based on the assumption that if you cannot predict the future, then by speculating upon a variety of them, you might open up your mind. There has been a good deal of interest after Pierre Wack described the scenario-building exercise at Royal Dutch Shell, that anticipated the nature of the 1973 dramatic increase in the world petroleum prices. Wack described the complexity and subtlety of the exercise, which depended on judgment beyond simply the foramal analysis ("less on figures and more on insight" in his own words).

Critique of Strategic Planning:
1. The fallacy of predetermination: Assumes that the organizations can predict the future or assumes that the environment remains stable.
2. The fallacy of detachment: Strategy planners are detached from the ground. Effective strategy making connects acting to thinking which in turn connects implementation to formulation - this is missing in this school.
3. The fallacy of formalization: The formal systems could certainly process more information, cosolidate it, aggregate it, move it about. But they could never internalize it, comprehend it, synthesize it.
For more information on Strategic Planning, you may want to refer to Henry Mintzberg's book The rise and fall of Strategic Planning.

We shall next look into the Positioning School.

Thank you very much,


RamP!

Strategy School 1: The Design School

1. The Design School (Strategy formation as a process of conception)
After understanding the 5Ps of strategy, I'm summarizing the methodology of the Design School in this post.

At its simplest, the design school proposes a model of strategy making that seeks to attain a match, or fit, between internal capabilities and external possibilities. The model places primary emphasis on the appraisals of the external and internal situations, the former uncovering threats and opportunities in the environment,the latter revealing strengths and weaknesses of the organizations (aka SWOT analysis)
The figure show two other factors believed important in strategy making.One in managerial values-the belief and preferences of those who formally lead the organization,and the other is social responsibilities-specifically the ethics of the society in which the organization function,at least as these are perceived by its managers. Once alternative strategies have been determined,the next step in the model is to evaluate them and choose the best one. Finally, virtually all of the writings of this school make a clear that once a strategy has been agreed upon, it is then implemented.






Premises of the Design School:
1. Strategy formation should be a deliberate process of conscious thought
2. Responsibility for the control and consciousness must rest with the CEO
3. The model of strategy formation must be kept simple and informal
4. Strategies should be one of a kind: the best ones result from a process of individualized design
5. The design process is complete when strategies appear fully formulated as perspective
6. The strategies should be explicit, so they have to be kept simple
7. Finally, only after these unique, full-blown, explicit, and simple strategies are fully formulated can they then be implemented.

Critique of the Design School:
1. How does an organization know its strengths and weaknesses? Can organizations be sure of its strengths before it tests them? The discovery of "what business are we in" cannot be undertaken merely on paper. More often than not, strengths turn out to be far narrower than expected, and weaknesses far broader.
2. Certainly strategies must often be made explicit, for purposes of investigation, coordination and support. The questions are when? and how? and when not?
3. The major assumption is that the data can be aggregated and transmitted up the hierarcy without any significant loss or distortion. This assumption often fails, destroying carefully formulated strategies in the process.
4. Other significant assumption in the Design School is that environments can always be understood, currently and for a period well into the future and that the environment itself is sufficiently stable or atleast predictable.

There is, however, no one best route to truth in strategy, indeed no route at all. In the next part, we will discover the Planning School.

Thank you very much,


RamP!

Buzz of the week 14-Jul-08

1. SK and Sprint: Considering alliance, not merger.

The Wall Street Journal and a few other news outlets are reporting that SK Telecom and Sprint are considering a partnership in which they would jointly develop handsets and services. Last November, Sprint rejected a $5 billion investment offer by SK Telecom and Providence Equity Partners. Recently Sprint has shown some signs of a rebound. The company's new Samsung Instinct phone is selling well and the company is expected to have improved its churn when it reports its second-quarter earnings on Aug. 6. In late June, SK Telecom invested $25 million in equity capital in Virgin Mobile USA as part of Virgin's acquisition of MVNO Helio. SK will have a 17 percent investment in Virgin Mobile and two seats on the Virgin Mobile board of directors. The deal is supposed to close in the third quarter. More here.

2. Mobile Video battling consumer concerns

Mobile video interest is growing despite lingering technological challenges according to a new consumer survey issued by mobile video solutions provider Avot Media. Among the 400 mobile users queried after viewing mobile video content, outdated devices, limited phone or operator support, user error and/or poor network coverage were frequently cited as major obstacles; 33 percent of users also expressed concerns about download time, another 33 percent pointed to freezing/stuttering issues, and 32 percent expressed image quality questions. Despite their concerns, 36 percent of respondents said they would view movie trailers on their mobile devices, with 31 percent stating an interest in instructional how-to videos and 32 percent expressing an inexplicable desire to watch American Idol performances. More here.

3. Google touts mobile ads

Google shares dropped in after-hours trading Thursday after the web services giant's second quarter earnings report failed to match expectations. Google reported Q2 earnings of $5.37 billion, a 39 percent year-over-year increase and a 3 percent jump over Q1 totals; still, the growth was insufficient to investors spoiled by the firm's traditional 50 percent quarterly growth. During a conference call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt maintained the company is in good shape to survive a forthcoming economic downturn, with Google execs blaming Q2 results on a decline in AdSense revenue and paid clicks as the firm continues to place a growing emphasis on ad quality, not quantity. Co-founder Sergey Brin also cited the promise of the mobile ad market: "We've substantially increased the size of our index ... Now our users get much fresher and faster results across a greater range of sources," he said. Brin added that the mobile ad market will improve with the addition of location-based data personalization. More here.

4. Nokia's and Sony-Ericsson's profits plunge:

Nokia's profit fell 61% in the second quarter from the same period a year ago, when the company booked a large gain from its network joint venture with Siemens, an Associated Press report said. The ASPs also fell. More here.

Sony Ericsson's second-quarter profits dropped a dramatic 97 percent causing the company to cut its workforce by 2,000 people. Second quarter profits were $9.5 million, down from $348.6 million in second-quarter 2007. In addition, net sales fell 9.4 percent to $4.46 billion down from $4.92 billion. Sony Ericsson shipped 24.4 million phones in the quarter, down 2 percent from second-quarter 2007. The average selling price of its handsets was $183.72 down from $191.64. in the year-earlier quarter. More here.

5. Rumors back on Google's GPhone

Here we go again. Just when you thought rumors of a Google-branded mobile device (a.k.a. the GPhone) were finally put to rest months ago with the announcement of the Android OS, tongues are wagging once more. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the web services giant's co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt met with a dozen journalists last week for an informal and far-reaching discussion that touched on "the inroads the company is making with its own branded mobile phone as a replacement for the iPhone." Huh? Turns out Hollywood Reporter writer Dan Cox got the details mixed up--Silicon Alley Insider reports the Google execs were in fact talking about their Android-based devices, not a Google-branded handset. More here.

6. Developers growing impatient over Android Updates

It appears that third-party software developers are becoming increasingly frustrated over the lack of information pertaining to the status of the platform. Nicolas Gramlich, who runs the independent Android Development Community message boards, lamented about the unresolved bugs in the existing SDK, as well as the lack of information on future developments. For some unfathomable reason, it appears that a new and improved SDK is being shared only with the 50 finalists in the Android Developer Challenge instead of being publicly released. To rub salt on the wound, an email congratulating the 50 finalists on their access to the private download site was accidentally sent to everyone who have entered the contest. More here.

Thank you very much,

RamP!

Mintzberg's 5Ps of Strategy

Started reading Strategy Safari as per my July reading plan. The book gives an overview different schools of thought on strategy formation. Over the next few days, I plan to summarize the main tenets and the critique of the same for each school of thought. As the authors claim, the book is a field review as opposed to a literature review.

The word strategy is so influential, yet when you ask someone to define strategy, the answer varies. Explicit definition of the same could help in better understanding of this complex topic. Here are the 5 definitions that Mintzberg offer:

1. Strategy is a Plan: Strategy can be defined as a direction, a guide or a course of action to get from here to there.
2. Strategy is a Pattern: Here strategy is defined as consistency in behavior over time (a company that perpetually markets the most expensive products in its industry pursues a high-end strategy).
Strategy as a pattern is looking at past behavior, whereas strategy as a plan is looking ahead.
3. Strategy is a Position: This way the strategy is described as locating particular products in particular markets (McDonald's Egg McMuffin for the breakfast market).
4. Strategy is a Perspective: Here the strategy is defined as an organization's fundamental way of doing things (The HP way, for example).
Strategy as a position looks down to the spot where the product meets the customer, as well as out-to the external market place. As perspective, in contrast, the strategy looks in-inside the organization, but it also looks up-to the grand vision of the organization. Changing position within a perspective may be easy; changing perspective, even while maintaining the position is not.
5. Strategy is a Ploy: Here the strategy is defined as a specific "maneuver" intended to outwit an opponent or a competitor.

Organizations develop plans for their future and they also evolve patterns out of their past. Mintzberg call the former intended strategy and the latter as realized strategy. Further, intentions that are fully realized are called deliberate strategies and those that are not realized are called unrealized strategies. More often than not, a pattern is realized which was not expressly intended. This is called emergent strategy. Hardly strategies are purely deliberate, just as few are purely emergent. One means no learning, the other means no control. All real-world strategies need to mix these in some way: to exercise control while fostering learning. Emergent strategies are not necessarily bad and deliberate strategies good. What is needed is the ability to predict as well as the need to react to unexpected events.

We will now look at a framework developed by Richard Rumlet for evaluating alternative strategies. It is described in a series of tests:

Consistency:The strategy must not present mutually inconsistent goals and policies.
Consonance:The strategy must represent an adaptive response to the external environment and to the critical changes occurring within it.
Advantage:The strategy must provide for the creation and/or maintenance of a competitive advantage in the selected area of activity.
Feasibility: The strategy must neither overtax available resources nor create unsolvable subproblems
We shall now look into the advantages and disadvantages of the strategy:

1. Strategy sets direction, but can also serve as a set of blinders to hide potential dangers.
2. Strategy focuses efforts, there may be no peripheral vision and can become heavily embedded into the fabric of the organization.
3. Strategy defines the organization, but defining it too sharply results in the rich complexity of the system being lost.
4. Strategy provides consistency, but could hinder creativity.

Mintzberg has identified 10 different schools of thought on strategy formulation and implementation. We will explore them one by one. In the next part, I'll summarize the methodology of the Design School.


Thank you very much,
RamP!

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

Please find some time to watch the Mile Sur Mera Tumhara video that some of us grew-up with. Its music is brilliant, picturization top class and Bhimsen Joshi, BalamuraliKrishna and Lata Mangeshkar proves why they are all time greats. It was a very nostalgic experience going back in memory.


We had only one channel, DD-1, at that time (1988). This video was played on and on and the theme "music for national integration" kind of caught-up with this video. If you are 35+ and living in India, you can more or less recall the complete song and sing along.

Prakash Padukone, Hirwani, Arunlal, Big B, Jitendra, Kamal Hassan, Kirmani etc., look so young. Watched it several times. Could recognize only Hemamalini amongst the actress. More details on the video here.



I also liked the next one in the series based on Raag Desh (Baje Sargam), and you can find it here.





Thank you very much,

RamP!

iPhone, iPhone apps and a wasted marketing opportunity?

Apple had sold 1million 3G iPhones by Sunday, just 3 days into its formal launch. The first generation iPhone took 74days, but the new iPhone was released to the market simultaneously in about 21 countries. More here. This is anything but stellar. I've been in the mobile phone industry for long and have been a part of an OEM myself, but I had never seen the kind of hype and the subsequent meticulously done execution. I can't recall any other handset that has been sold in so much numbers.

Another note worthy thing is that 10million downloads have happened from the iPhone app store. According to Apple, there are now more than 800 native iPhone applications available via the App Store, with 200 of them offered free of charge. The launch of the app store (and the wide variety of downloadable apps) is also something new and could change the way the new phone launches happen in the future.

Not everything was hunky dory though, especially several people reporting problems in activitation, both is the US and in UK. Note that this time Apple and AT&T decided to keep the activation in-house and dropped their partner Synchronoss Technologies (Nasdaq: SNCR) from the loop.

However, viral marketing guru Seth Godin is not all that impressed the way the iPhone was marketed/launched. He feels Apple and AT&T could have got a lot more positive publicity by treating the early adopters little differently:

Smart marketers understand that scarcity (intentional or not) is a tool, one that can be used to enhance the story, not detract from it.

Thank you very much,

RamP!

Buzz of the week 7-Jul-08

It was a quiet week in the world of telecom.

1. 3G iPhone debuts
As has been covered extensively, 3G iPhone made its debut 11-Jul, with crowds reported from most of the places it went for sale. Early reviews say that its a better device than the first generation device. In another interesting strategy Apple would make available some 500 apps through its stores.

2. Americans spend 3hrs per month on mobile video
Despite a prolonged writers' strike that essentially voided the 2007-08 prime-time season, Americans are watching more television than ever according to a study released by global information firm The Nielsen Company, which also reports small but steady growth in mobile video viewing patterns. Nielsen says the average American now views 127 hours, 15 minutes of television programming per month (up from 121 hours, 48 minutes in 2007) while also increasing their Internet time to 26 hours, 26 minutes per month, up 9 percent over the previous year. While Americans spend 2 hours, 19 minutes per month viewing video online, they now spend 3 hours, 15 minutes per month watching video content on mobile devices. Nielsen adds that as of the first quarter of 2008, 91 million Americans (roughly 36 percent of all U.S. mobile phone subscribers) now own a video-capable phone. Teens ages 13 to 17 are the most avid mobile video consumers, watching 5 hours, 25 minutes per month--adults ages 25 to 34 screen 3 hours, 36 minutes of mobile video per month, but adults ages 55 to 64 view just 2 hours, 10 minutes a month. More here.

3. Orange aggregates Social Networking Sites European mobile operator Orange announced it will aggregate leading social networking partners including Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to create a single mobile destination on its Orange World portal. The unified service--which also reins in sites like Skyrock, Pikeo, Flirtomatic, DailyMotion and Meetic--will first launch in France, with Orange's U.K., Switzerland, Spain and Portugal units slated to follow soon. According to Orange, the move heralds an effort to improve the mobile user experience by enabling single-click access to the most popular functions of each site; subscribers will be able to send and receive messages, upload photos and check status updates without browsing individual URLs or logging into separate sites. Orange added there are plans to release the social networking service as an embedded application accessible via the home screen of all Orange Signature phones. More here.

Thank you very much,

RamP!

Jury on the 3G iPhone is out

FierceWireless has summarized the analysis of a handful of people that got access to the 3G iPhone slated for release on 11-Jul.

• Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. Pro: The new iPhone is much, much faster at fetching data over cell phone networks because it uses a speedy cellular technology called 3G. And it now sports a GPS chip for better location sensing. Con: The iPhone 3G's battery was drained much more quickly in a typical day of use than the battery on the original iPhone, due to the higher power demands of 3G networks. This is an especially significant problem because, unlike most other smart phones, the iPhone has a sealed battery that can't be replaced with a spare. For more, read the article or watch this video of Mossberg's review.
• David Pogue of The New York Times. Pro: The audio quality of the iPhone 3G has taken a gigantic step forward. "You sound crystal clear to your callers, and they sound crystal clear to you. Few cell phones are this good." Plus, Pogue praises the iPhone App Store, which he says is a central, complete, drop-dead simple online catalog of new programs for the iPhone. Con: AT&T's 3G coverage is spotty. A coverage map reveals that in 16 states, only three cities or fewer are covered. In 10 states there is no coverage at all. For more, read the review here.
• Edward Baig of USA Today. Pro: Messages and calendar entries are "pushed" to the device, so they show up right away, just as they do on other computers. Set-up is a cinch. Con: You still cannot shoot video or take advantage of Bluetooth stereo or dial with a voice command. For more, see the full review.

Reading list for Jul'08

Yet to complete Peter Senge's Presence from my previous month's list, while continuing to enjoy the exercises from DeBono's book How you can be more interesting. Here is my plan for this month.



Strategy Safari
This is a part of my PMBA reading on the Strategy category (even though this book is not part of the PMBA reading list). I chose this book to read as it seem to give a good overview of different strategic approaches developed in the last few decades.



Escape from Corporate America
I got interested in this book after reading about the same in Guy Kawasaki's blog. Last week, I found this book in a bookstore, glanced thru the same and found it very interesting.





Autobiography of a Yogi
I was discussing yoga, meditation and spirituality with a colleague of mine recently and he pointed me to this book and the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. I also learnt that this book was acclaimed as one of the 100 best spiritual books in the 20th century. Yoganandaji also started Yogoda Satsang Society (YSS) of India which strives to propagate the teachings of Yoganandaji.

What next for Google?

After Sergey Solyanik posted his reasons for quitting Google and going back to Microsoft, blogosphere is abuzz with what would/should Google need to do to hire and retain top talent. First lets see the reasons why Sergey was not happy with Google:

1. He talks of silly politics, underperformance, ineffectiveness and inefficiencies - something that most people would readily admit to having witnessed in their own organizations, wherever they are.
2. Orientation towards "cool" rather than "useful"
3. Lack of processes due to #2. Sergey says that becuase "coolness" is the preferred way, it affects the way software is built and the software is driven primarily by engineering- PMs and testers having no meaningful role to play.
4. Google dev manager has no meaningful role to play, though they are very busy and have lot of people reporting into them.

Betsy Schiffman in his column in the Wired magazine gives a list of top notch Googlers that have left and gone elsewhere.

It appears that the #1 challenge of any company would be hiring and retaining the top talent. Turbulence at Google seem to have been noticed by the Fortune magazine too. In this article the author wonders why so many people are leaving Google even though it is making tons of money, full of smart people and a wonderful place to work.

Finally, this ZDNet article lists the following five realities of Google or any other workplace wonderland:

1. Honeymoon doesn't last forever
2. Lack of career development
3. Hiring system that favours a particular type (Google's hiring system is optimized to hire the frest grads that can slog, but may not be suited to established professionals)
4. Mundane work for high achievers
5. Freebies loose their sheen over time

Interesting thoughts. What have you done today to retain your top talent?

Thank you very much,

RamP!

Buzz of the week - 30-Jun-08

1. Warner joins Nokia's Comes With Music:

Nokia announced that Warner Music Group has officially joined the handset giant's Comes With Music initiative. Warner joins fellow major labels Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment in Comes with Music, which enables consumers to purchase a year of unlimited music downloads via mobile handsets bundled with Nokia's Ovi web services platform--while EMI Music remains a holdout, Nokia has said it is confident deals will be in place with all four majors prior to Comes With Music's late 2008 launch. In addition, WMG content will now be available via the Nokia Music Store download and streaming service, which Nokia said will expand to new international markets in the near future. More here.

2. No security threat from Blackberry - Says India

India's Telecom Ministry does not see any security threat from BlackBerry email services and has no plans to shut the services in the country.A Reuters report also quoted Telecoms Secretary Siddhartha Behura as saying that "there is no threat from BlackBerry services." The official further said operators did not need the ministry's approval to offer such services.

Security agencies had concerns Research In Motion's popular BlackBerry service could be used by militants to send e-mails that cannot be tracked, and the government wanted RIM to install servers in India to help monitor traffic.

3. Microsoft to have another go at Yahoo!?

Microsoft reportedly is hoping to snap up Yahoo's online search operations with the help of News Corp. and Time Warner. An Associated Pres report also said the latest twist in Microsoft's convoluted courtship caused Yahoo's shares to rise more than 3%, even though the chances of a deal getting done still seemed remote. More here.

4. Users cite texting as the most important handset feature!!

Almost three quarters of mobile phone users cite text messaging capabilities as the most important feature when purchasing a new handset, according to a consumer survey conducted by mobile solutions provider Access Systems Americas and independent research firm Amplitude Research. Given a list of 19 different mobile features and services, 73 percent of consumers cited texting as the most critical data component--cameras were second with 67 percent, followed by mobile email (63 percent) and web access (61 percent). Music (34 percent) and video (33 percent) also featured prominently in the poll. Conversely, only 0.5 percent of consumers said battery life plays a role in their phone purchase, with voice activation earning just 0.33 percent.

The Access survey also reports that 39 percent of respondents have added new applications to their handsets, with just over 21 percent adding six or more new apps. Forty-two percent of respondents cited stock tracking applications as the most necessary, followed by sports teams/game trackers (36.6 percent), business applications (10.3 percent), productivity apps (7.5 percent) and utilities (4.8 percent). Almost 40 percent of respondents said they use their cell phone for "alerts," e.g. traffic, weather and stock market updates. Nearly 30 percent of respondents said they use their phone for banking transactions or to check account balances. More here.

Thank you very much,

RamP!

RamCharan's thoughts on Innovation

RamCharan, author of some of the popular management books like Execution, Know-how, What the CEO wants you to know, etc., is one of the most influential corporate consultants. Along with A.G. Lafley, chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble, lay out a process for systematic innovation -- the very thing that has turned P&G into an innovation powerhouse, in their new book titled The Game-Changer: How you Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth.

In an interview to the fastcompany, RamCharan talks about his thoughts on innovation. Here are the three key points :

1. Innovation is a social process: The conversion of an idea (invention) into a product (innovation) often involves more than one person/department and therefore it is a social process and has to be treated that way.
2. Work simultaneously, not linearly: Since many departments are involved, it is important that they sit together right from the beginning to see the complete picture, identify hurdles and solve the problems together. RamCharan believes breakthroughs can happen only by working simultaneously.
3. Kill the ideas: Companies will have bucketfull of ideas and no company would have infinite resources to fund them all. RamCharan emphasizes the need to kill a few ideas, so that the ones that are prioritized would get all the resources and attention to succeed. He emphasizes the need to review a portfolio of ideas and not a single idea in isolation.

While you are here, you may want to watch a video clipping of RamCharan's lecture on Execution.

Thank you very much,

RamP!