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Moto Droid v RIM Blackberry PDF Print E-mail
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Written by Kuldip Pabla   
Wednesday, 04 November 2009 17:52

Motorola, Google and Verizon launched Droid a few days ago. At the very first impression, the Droid has been winning the consumer and the analyst appreciation. It has many coop features that a smart phone competing with iPhone should have. And then it has the hype of Android in it. So, the question is, what does it mean to RIM's Blackberry, blackberry users and blackberry developers? IMO, this will have a great impact on the market of RIM handsets and hence an impact on Blackberry apps and developers.

Here is my reasoning. There are just two main wireless carriers in the US: AT&T and Verizon. AT&T has been widely promoting iPhone as its smart phone. Why wouldn't it! With its well know user experience, sleekness and the app store, iPhone has been scoring big as compared to its competition. The iPhone App Store has many many applications that a user would need on a smart phone. With their improved email functionality, even the corporations have been going for the phone. This leaves a little room for any other smart phone on AT&T network. And that other smart phone happens to be Blackberry.

On the contrary, Verizon had only one star to promote and advertise until droid came into the race. And that was RIM's Blackberry. With Verizon's reach and customer base, the market of Blackberry was on the rise in the smart phone category. I would say that was the only smart phone sold by Verizon, there was no #2. And as you may know, Blackberry has traditionally been liked by enterprises due to its enterprise friendly features.

Now enters Droid in the market. As of today, Droid has been the #1 promotional item for Verizon. What does that mean? It means, it cuts into Verizon's budget for Blackberry. Isn't it? And Blackberry has become #2 for Verizon - so it slipped in the ranking. This will lead to slow down in the sale of Blackberry in the short term.

In the longer run, it would depend on the success of droid. If the Droid is able to live up its hype, then Blackberry has long term problems, unless and until RIM launches a more powerful, user friendly handset that outshines Droid. On the other hand if Droid dies its own hype, the Blackberry will bounce back. So, it all depends on how Droid is going to perform and live up to its early hype.

Please note this is my humble opinion that I am sharing via this blog. It has too many ifs and buts and no certainity.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 04 November 2009 18:23
 
Employment: Long way to go PDF Print E-mail
General
Written by Kuldip Pabla   
Sunday, 01 November 2009 02:16

As I have been correctly predicting there is a long long way to go before the employment scenario improves in the United States and then in the valley. Following is what President Obama had to say about the current employment situation.

"While we have a long way to go before we return to prosperity, and there will undoubtedly be ups and downs along the road, it's also true that we've come a long way," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. "It is easy to forget that it was only several months ago that the economy was shrinking rapidly and many economists feared another Great Depression."

"Economic growth is no substitute for job growth," Obama said. "And we will likely see further job losses in the coming days, a fact that is both troubling for our economy and heartbreaking for the men and women who suddenly find themselves out of work. But we will not create the jobs we need unless the economy is growing."

 

Read more >>>

Last Updated on Sunday, 01 November 2009 03:02
 
Employment in Silicon Valley - Part II PDF Print E-mail
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Written by Kuldip Pabla   
Wednesday, 28 October 2009 16:04

First of all, I am glad that people liked my views on the "Employment in Silicon Valley". I greatly appreciate the comments many of you shared with me. A few of them being:

"To the point"

"Well covered"

"Great explanation of symptoms and origins of this problem that we are all facing"

"It is all about the culture of innovation and leadership. Being the pioneers and not the settlers. .... Americans have that spirit of taking big risks for big rewards...."

 

 

 I can't thank enough to all of you who shared your comments. You have helped me add more to the previous article:


I certainly agree that  the Americans are leaders, innovators and that they believe in taking (huge) risk. There is no doubt about it. And it is only the risk takers who get rewarded in the longer run, as long as they can manage the risk.

That said, I am finding more and more Americans, left aside others, are moving that risk into other countries. What I mean is, the think tank is still in the USA, the risk takers are still in the USA, the innovation is still coming from us, but their execution happens to be moving to other developing and cost effective countries, as I mentioned in my previous article. Name any startup here in the valley that doesn't have a BRIC presence. May be a few. Rather, when a startup faces a VC, two of the questions they get asked are:


1) What is your mobile strategy &
2) What is your offshore strategy (do you have your presence in India, China, or ...)

(during the dot com days, it used be "What is you Sun and Solaris strategy)

So, if the VCs are promoting "getting the work done somewhere else" culture, because a startup needs to stretch its funds, how can those jobs come back to the valley?

Second point I'd like to make is that "culture of innovation" can be cultivated anywhere. If an Indian, a Chinese, a Brazillian, .... can innovate in the US, he/she can innovate in their homeland too. Isn't it? Over the last decade, a lot of reverse migration has happened. Indians, Chinese, Europeans who had moved to the Mecca of high tech innovation are now finding themselves making a U-turn - leading to migration of innovation to other countries.

I remember, there was a time when the "R" word was restricted to only an only the US (should I say valley?), it was not allowed to move out of the US. The very same people are taking that "R" word to those cost effective countries to save money, to save cost. (R: research)

Third point, this month of October has been the month of reporting quarterly earnings by corporations. Most companies have reported better earnings and with  revenues. So the question that comes up is, how are they able to raise their earnings without improving revenues. It is obviously due to cost cutting. Now, people may think that cost cutting is same as cutting (Rif'ing) people. No, it also means moving those jobs to cost effective countries.

NOTE: Please do not get e wrong. There is nothing wrong in saving on cost as part of the globalization. My view point is about its impact on our own valley

 
Droid Launched by Motorola, Google ane Verizon PDF Print E-mail
General
Written by Kuldip Pabla   
Friday, 30 October 2009 05:59

When was the last time you heard the three names mentioned in the same sentence? Never, this is the first time, the three companies are announcing a new device, Droid in the market.

The last time a Verizon phone got this much hype was during the launch of BlackBerry Storm by RIM.

Today, trio launched Motorola device named Droid using Google's Android release 2.0 platform. As you may recall, Android is an open source initiative by Google to capture the smart phone market. And with the launch of Droid, this may very well be possible in the near future.

As the first impression, the device is fast, powerful, fully featured and well-designed -- a combination of adjectives that were never used for a Verizon or a Motorola cell phone. The last Motorola phone to catch user's attention was Razr.  I hope, this will not be the last cool cellphone from moto.

 
Employment in Silicon Valley PDF Print E-mail
General
Written by Kuldip Pabla   
Saturday, 24 October 2009 00:23
As you know the world is becoming flatter and flatter with communication infrastructure like Internet, telephony, VoIP, .... With the cost of communication dropping drastically in the last decade, it doesn't matter (pretty much) where I live and where I work. I could be in the other part of the world while working in a company in Silicon Valley (Bay Area). For example, some of the companies started to promote work from home culture during mid 90s (yes, 90s). They pretty much mandated that if an employee is productive, a manager cannot say no to work from home. Obviously, companies were saving huge money by not providing infrastructure, saving resources like power.

With that in mind, when the dot com era busted, the first thing the CIOs, the CEOs and the CFOs looked into was how to cut cost and improve earnings, like today. The result was off-shoring and out sourcing to developing countries.

Initially, it was a little painful to manage outsourced work due to language barriers, communication bottlenecks, etc. However, over the time, with tools and technology emerging, countries investing into English language, people in developing countries getting smarter, managing of outsourcing became easier. That led to more and more jobs moving to BRIC countries, East Europe and Latin America.  Who benefited? Companies and not employees or you can say wall street, not main street.

If a "qualified" engineer can do the same job that a valley engineer is doing, for a small little fraction ( I mean it), why would a company not out source? Over the last decade, I have observed smarter (and expensive) engineers getting Rif'd in the valley to later learn that the project was moved either to India or China, or ... Trend never reversed and I do not see it getting reversed unless and until one of the two things happen:
1) There is almost parity in the world, resulting into similar cost structure and cost of living. This would happen by deflation in the valley and inflation else where.
2) Washington strictly banning out sourcing, not even branches in any other country - which I do not see happening due to various political reasons.

If you look back, there are a very few companies, you can count them on fingers, who have improved their revenues in the last decade. Most of them have improved their bottom line by "cutting cost", mainly by out sourcing jobs. IT has become pretty much production, like auto industry.

The second reason, IMO, is that there has been no innovation happening in the valley. Name a few good innovations for me in the last decade. Valley has thrived on innovation. Solar/alternate energy? IMO, it is unlike valley thing. Web2.0 has yet to make money. All it has promoted is a free culture relying on advertisements to make money. On top of that, with jobs moving out, cost of biz rising in valley (discounting 2009), innovation is also moving out of the valley to other places. IMO, innovation will happen where the work is being done - if not immediately, over the time. Just yesterday, I heard a top executive mentioning "valley is just a bubble."

Bottom line, as long as jobs are getting outsourced and no large scale innovation, I do not see employment scenario improving in the valley.

I jokingly say it: Its an Internet curse.
 
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