So Long, King Gates

FINALLY, THE IT TZAR TAKES THE BACK SEAT. And as Mr. Bill Gates completes his last full working day by the EOD today - June 27, 2008 - at his Richmond, WA office, an era of Biggest, Richest, and Fastest draws to a close. Call him Innovator, Software Evangelist, Chief Software Architect, or by any other name, above all, Mr. Gates is a successful businessman, Zero-to-billions kind. And that is how I would want to reckon him, for Mr. Gates is not perhaps a mesmerising orator, neither a charismatic leader, nor a magnanimous personality. Even if he is all of these, they rather remain secondary, for the bottomline is, Mr. Gates knows business, does business and means business. Period.

The world's most famous dropout - and thus perhaps the tallest example that education and money may not have a direct corelation - wrote the first BASIC compiler 17 years ago, and left the legacy as the world's richest man with such words: "There is nobody getting rich writing software that I know of...".

[Left: Bill Gates, CEO, about 27, in his Microsoft office in 1982. Source: time.com. Do you also feel that the DOS screen in front of him reads something very similar to "Bad Command or File name?"]

Mr. Gates indeed has been the biggest catalyst for last two decades for the IT industry and for the global economy at large - Windows OS still runs more than 90% of personal computers in the world, and Microsoft Office artefacts are the de-facto standard for offline information and data transaction. This has made Mr. Gates the richest man on earth; reaching there in the fastest possible manner - at the speed of thought, if you like...

On my part, it was a wonderful experience to listen to him from a mere few feet away in Sep 2002 while he was delivering a lecture and providing with his vision (such as, "XML is the future...") at the time of the launch of Windows XP. It being my first encounter with a global leader at close proximity left me with a lasting impression.

Competition has not been kind to Mr. Gates, and visa-versa is probably equally true. Sort of a reminder of the old saying that Friends come and go, enemies accumulate...

The success of Microsoft Corporation undoubtedly has contributions from many more than Mr. Gates and his "Big Picture" memos alone, but in the world-wide (Globalization?) game of business where media and economy are increasingly tying up, and where winner takes it all, the credit nonetheless has almost always been attributed to Mr. Gates as the poster-boy face of Microsoft. At the same token, the discredit of bad designs, security flaws and sloppy software performance is also to the discredit of Mr. Gates.

[Right: Culturing Innovation; Sponsoring ImagineCup. Bill Gates in Korea for the event in 2007.]

It would be an interesting experience for Bill Gates to become a user from the owner of Microsoft products. His displeasure towards many thing Microsoft, especially the usability and user-friendliness, has been known. (Here is the full text of a rather interesting and lambasting email supposedly from Gates himself.)

BillG, as they call him, has never faced any job interviews, and in that respect he would perhaps always remain inexperienced! Unless of course any of the prospective next career moves (as in the following video) click for him :-)

Mr. Gates opened his keynote of TechEd 2008 last month with the following video. This is where Mr. Gates tries various career changes now that he is to move out of Microsoft. It has been making rounds on YouTube since Jan this year, and it's honest, well choreographed, very humorous and well entertaining. Not worth missing at all!

[Above: Bill Gates, Last Day at Microsoft. Simply Brilliant! Go here for the YouTube link.]

Bill Gates is going to be just fine whatever new avtar he may adorn next. But the industry observers seem to be divided over what would happen to Microsoft in absence of its poster-boy. I recall a media interview a few years ago where the reporter indirectly inquired about the "Google threat".

Mr. Gates replied and I quote, "Every couple of years a new company comes up and people say that it would put us [Microsoft] out of business. And every time I say, 'No, not this time'..."

If monopoly and monarchy have anything in common, we should shortly hear, "The King is dead... Long live the King!"

Let's see who would stand up and say "No, not this time..." for Microsoft next.

[Go here at time.com for the Photo-essays on Bill Gates' early days.]

"The Beautiful Mind" Turns 80

"The special commodity or medium that we call money has a long and interesting history. And since we are so dependent on our use of it and so much controlled and motivated by the wish to have more of it or not to lose what we have we may become irrational in thinking about it and fail to be able to reason about it as if about a technology, such as radio, to be used more or less efficiently..." -- John F. Nash, lecture at CII in Mumbai, Feb 2007

IF THE WORLD IS CONSIDERED A "CLOSED SYSTEM", deeming it a Zero-sum game, Nash Equilibrium could certainly offer a different meaning to the notion of money, and thus, to the word 'richness' or net-worth and the world economy.

[Today, June 13, John F. Nash, Jr. turns 80. A humble tribute to the 1994 Nobel Laureate legend. Go here for Nash's personal home page at Princeton.]

Arguably, the Nash equilibrium is the single game theoretic solution concept that is most frequently applied in economics. (See also: Investopedia) In terms of strategy and planning, the equilibrium could be simplified as:

"For any finite, non-cooperative game of two players or more, no player can improve his/her pay-off by unilaterally changing the strategy..."

[Above: Actor Russell Crowe in his Oscar winning portrayal of John Nash in the 2001 Hollywood film "A Beautiful Mind". Photo courtesy: Prof. Lynne Butler.]

The Green Wall of China

TODAY, JUNE 5, IS THE WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY.

It is an open secret that China is the biggest abuser of environment in the world. Most of the manufacturing in China uses coal-burning furnaces, and that one single industry equals more than the most the whole of Europe in terms of CO2 emission.

At the same time, China is the single largest country to have invested the most - USD 8 bn - into planting trees. Criticised yet again though it is doing some serious spend, the reason is rather different from a change-of-heart or accountability or even a soft-corner for environment. Beijing, its capital is being subjected to sand storms so frequently that the Chinese have already coined a term for it - Yellow Dragon. Sand from this area have already started crossing the Pacific and reaching Americas.

[Above: an artist's impression of the Green wall of trees stopping the Gobi desert in its tracks.]

This is the Gobi desert from Mongolia making inroad into China at an alarming pace - claiming 3,600 km² of Chinese grassland per year and converting it into a desert, and creating "sandy" environment all over the place. The denting Chinese economy by nearly USD 50 bn every year. To check this dangerous progress China has finally decided to hug the trees, and we have the (great) Green Wall of China - the largest afforestation project in the world today.

The Green Wall is a project to plant a 4,480 km (2,800 miles) shelterbelt of trees across the North-Western rim of China skirting the Gobi Desert. To avert the ghost of de-forestation, this afforestation project is phased for next 70 years starting 2001.

Better late than never...

[Go here for a related coverage by BBC.]

My Net-worth is in Millions Already!

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE AMONG MILLIONAIRES? If you are a professional working in IT and based out of India, perhaps you already are!

First, some bullet-points about the global and Indian IT industry that got me thinking:

• Indian Software Industry is approx 66% of Worldwide Software Services
• Top 6 Indian IT Companies makes of approx. 50% of total Indian IT Industry
  
• In terms of sales among these top six (in descending order of reported figures for 2007 - TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant, Satyam, and HCL), the first three clocks almost 60%

Now, a Forrester Research forecast reports says that the total Global IT spend (IT industry potential) is projected to be at USD 1.55 trillion in 2007-08.

Wow! A quick back of an envelop analysis reveals some pretty interesting monetarily figures. (above: rather front of the envelop; the back was already taken by the groceries' list...) Enjoy:

Global IT industry at USD 1.55 tn (2007)
|
v
66% of it is served by companies in India
|
v
50% of which is with the top 6 players of India
i.e. 33% of global IT services business is with 6 Indian cos.
|
v
About 7% of Global IT business is with Infy
and
Infy has about 70k employee-base
|
v
So, an Individual net-worth could be 7/70,000 = 0.00001%
|
v
applying a multiplying factor* p @ p = 3.5
0.00001% x 3.5 = 0.000035%
|
v
net-worth of 0.000035% of Global IT business
|
v
my net-worth could be 0.000035% of USD 1.55 trillion
= USD 1.55 tn x 0.00000035 = USD 5425000
= approx USD 5.5 million

* To account for the disparity of "value-add" across various levels and roles in a given organization and in the industry at large, let me introduce a 'premium' factor p, which takes into account factors such as experience, longevity and loyalty, value-add-over-tradition, client-relationship-quotient, niche skills/domain knowledge, roles/management abilities, innovations/leadership demonstrations, reputation/recommendations/published papers/blogs etc., I-am-the-best-attitude, and alike.

As the base, a 'pure' and productive software engineer in Infosys would have her contributions to the industry measured at p = 1.

For my p factor, I have considered value 1 for 10 years of industry experience, 1 for effectively delivering in client-relationship and value creation (business development) roles, added 1 to it for venturing into and bringing back 'goodies' from unchartered territories (business development, and successful greenfield projects), and 0.5 for doing more than 3 years at Infosys (longevity and loyalty), which makes my p = 3.5.

And, in terms of the Global IT industry, that brings my current 'Professional' net-worth at USD 5.5 million!

Now, that 'Feels' good!

How much is your worth? Aren't you a millionaire yet!

For relevant Forrester Research forecast for 2007-08, go here.
For the corresponding NASCOMM story of 2007, go here.
For Forbes.com report on Ambani's 'costliest home in the world', go here.

"Fred the Shred" Under The Weather?

THEY CALL HIM "FRED THE SHRED...". If you count "few good men" who took the lead in the "rationalisation" of workforce in the conservative European banking and Financial services, Fred has to be in the front row.

Sir Frederick Anderson Goodwin, remained in the news in Europe, mainly Britain, for his often visionary yet unorthodox methods of running Britain's second largest Banking group. After he assumed control, the RBS groups, perhaps for the first time, saw a rather American-styled cost-cutting, or Shredding as the Britons prefer to call it.

Managing nearly 1000 people worldwide at the age of 32, the acumen more than the aggression made Fred the CEO of the Clydesdale Bank at the age of 36. He has been quoted as famously saying, "I have no time for cynics, spectators or dead wood". And as we speak, being with the RBS group, he is the longest serving CEO in the FTSE-100 index. (That precisely makes me wonder if the pool underneath is in a pull-down mode...)

Knighted at the age of 46 for his services in Banking in 2004, the RBS group saw its highest ever rapid inorganic growth since Fred was brought in by another Scot and the then Chairman of RBS Group, Sir George Mathewson. Whilst being at a couple of bids of hostile acquisitions, he has been quoted saying, "There may be some possible mercy killings".

Chosen as the "Businessman of the Year - 2002" by Forbes, Fred began with the humongous acquisition of NatWest in 2000 with unusual amount of due diligence of nearly 500 man-days, and the latest is acquiring of ABN AMRO for about Euro 70bn by the consortium let by RBS Group. All in all, in last nine years that Fred has been with the BRS group, their 'shopping list' lists 26 buy-outs at the value of GBP 33bn (about USD 66bn). (See also: The "Richest" CIO)

[Above: (L-to-R) Maurice Lippens, Executive Chairman of Fortis, Jean-Paul Votron, CEO of Fortis, Fred Goodwin, CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and Emilio Botin, Chairman of Spanish banking group Santander Central Hispano (SCH) in Edinburgh, Scotland, 10 August 2007, at the time of acquisition of ABN AMRO by the BRS-led consortium.]

"I have no time for cynics, spectators or dead wood..."

It is that time in the turning wheels of world economy that the Citigroup reports a loss of USD 5.1 bn, and the chairman of UBS already fallen on his own sward, Fred is equally under fire for (yet undisclosed) rights issue coming from RBS for nearly GBP 9bn.

It is perfectly all right, I suppose, that there are other, younger, aspiring 'leaders' waiting in the wings to take command, the aegis of Fred and the likes has to be honoured nonetheless; for what it is - the aegis; though you may also count those rather "dodgy deals" that Fred supported for the sake of "business" at "huge" environmental costs in the Oil & Gas sector... (See also: The Green wall of China)

Though it remains to be seen what the final outcome in Fred's chair would be, personally I feel would hold on...

Oil Money Powering Windmills

WINDMILLS WERE A THING of fascination, especially in the farmland of picturesque Europe, more so perhaps because they spoke of a bygone era that I felt I just missed. To much delight, the winds continued to blow in their directions, as it were, and the windmills kept going around. With time, however, as the water-table got deeper and deeper, the Netherlanders found other ways and means to keep them spinning, namely, Electricity generated by turbines spinning by the winds. And I would say, this is a niche electro-mechanical engineering field - building a very energy efficient and 'light' turbine, such that the winds can spin at, and at the same time it gives sufficient torque to the dynamo to create electromagnetic charge that could be refined as usable domestic electricity. And along with all that technical things, the ROI turns profitable within reasonable metrics (and also, that we don't end up having a dog catching its own tail).

Now, so far there was no direct conflict of interest, if you like, between oil-burning (read: automobiles) energy devices verses electricity generation using water-spun, coal burning or nuclear turbines. And while saying that, I am choosing to ignore that portion of energy consumption where European and American homes prefer to use gas instead of electricity for domestic heating in the winter. I appreciate that this percentage might be big enough to ignore, but let's keep it simple here for the sake of argument.

The Oil-man announced at Georgetown Uni to pump USD 10bn to create world's largest wind-farm...

As Al Gore would love to tell you in a dark room with a huge LCD projector - both of these 'consume' natural resources, which are not renewable. And (to some degree) he is right. Unfortunately, the Earth could host only as many dinosaurs as few million years ago to turn them in oil today that could go on and on.

The interesting part begins when the ROI (return on investment: time to turn profitable) for the oil companies starts stretching with every oil well getting deeper, water-source running dry, coal-mines hitting hard-rocks, and atomic energy falling hostage to missile-making men. For them, 'going green' proposes the logical next 'green field'.

The news as it is reported by Reuters today says that Mr. T. Boone Pickens, the legendary Texas Oil Billionaire it 'going green'. The Oil-man has plans to pump in USD 10bn into Wind-energy, and the proposal, which would start acquiring land next month, is to create the world's biggest wind farm. The estimates have it that when those 2,700 wind turbines would eventually generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity - the equivalent of building two commercial scale nuclear power plants - enough power for about 1 million homes.

Mr. Pickens would also want to take the 'pressure off' the automobile sector by freeing up gas by not using it for energy production, but to let it go to those (billion dollar) refineries to pump out gasoline and diesel for the cars. At the same time, also take the pressure off from the American auto manufacturers to be energy efficient (and shake Toyota and Honda off?).

I have come to admire the old Oil-man, not simply for him shrewdly planning for another 'windfall' (no pun intended) of billions, but also contributing to the geographical landscape of North America: Windmills look pretty... Anywhere.

[For the complete Reuters story, go here.]

Lama Meets Mahatma

I FOUND IT VERY SYMBOLIC SEEING The Dalai Lama paying homage to Mahatma's memorial. And, rightly so. Mahatma, who always advocated for equanimity of all religions, was not a Buddhist, yet, without any exaggerations, he was a perfect example of one. Mahatma brought independence to his people through non-violence, and that is what the Lama teaches the world.

[Left: Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama throws rose petals at Raj Ghat, The Memorial to Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi on March 29, 2008, to attend a public inter-faith prayer meeting for those who lost their lives in Tibet. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Jain leaders offered prayers along with The Dalai Lama and hundreds of Tibetans and their supporters at the cremation spot of Mahatma Gandhi. - tiskali.co.uk]

The Dalai Lama is a defacto (though dethroned) King of the Tibetan people. And he is at his Kingly duty while he takes on China with respect to the rights for the Tibetans. In doing so, as always, as Bodhisattva incarnate, he has taken the peaceful (middle) path, and his 'meeting' the Mahatma was more than a statement to this effect.

On the other hand, there is this 'fraction' made up of Tibetan students, who have taken the route of giving the Chinese military a taste of their own medicine - in an equally violent manner. It's rather natural. But they should be under an effective leadership, and should be knowing what they are doing, else they would likely end up damaging the Dalai Lama rather than China. History has it that every peaceful protest or uprising is accompanied by a violent one, and vice versa. After all, not everybody who would want to attain the same aim would consider one path as the only path.

One of the common most dividing range among peoples of all kinds and cultures - An apparent generation gap..!

The twist truly comes in the way the 2008 Olympics games are entwined into this ethnic issue. China could have done without it at any rate, but the Tibetans saw a 'global' opportunity to capture world-attention. It appears that they were also backing upon the by now well-known oppressive nature of the rule that China imposes under its regime. A little provocation by a certain bunch of Tibetan students in Lhasa, and China happily obliged. And when it realised that it was rather a lure to the dragon into the cave, it started calling foul on the Dalai Lama for allegedly 'master-minding' the 'violence'. Too late to figure, I suppose.

[Right: Police pull down a demonstrator along the route of the Olympic torch in London. Protesters advocating Tibet's independence disrupted the torch's path in London, Paris and San Francisco. - time.com]

The bad aspect of Olympics being dragged into this is, as I observed in some online forums, that it has confused as well as divided people world over in terms of their support to the Tibetans, and in doing so, have lost some good souls to the opposite camp. Someone said, "Keep sports out of it, whatever it may be... [Sports] is probably only place left with some spirit...", Someone else, "Olympics does not belong to China, it belongs to the world, are they [Tibetans] boycotting the world?" another said, "Let's boycott USA for its treatment to the Indians, and Russians for this, and German's for that, and Britans for another, and... You would not end up having any place [wealthy enough] to host Olympics... " These people are generally sympathetic with the oppression that the Tibetans have been through, like they do for Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Darfur, or any other place...

On the beneficial part, the Tibetan gained world-stage to put-up their protests, largely peaceful ones, and attracted the attention to their cause. The media, who it appears remained shrewdly divided, have had multiple field-days. While they 'worded' condemnation for the Olympics boycott-calls, at the same time, they gave certain people and nations the arm-twisting opportunity to twist China. That said, it is not for the first time that Olympics face a boycott issue; the world has seen it thrice already. But in all those cases, the issues were international and political rather than ethnic.

[Above: Countries that have boycotted Olympics - Montreal-1976 (yellow), Moscow-1980 (blue) and Los Angeles-1984 (red).]

At the end of the day, however, China would remain unstoppable, and the chances of the Olympics being deferred/called-off and next to nil. And the reason is simple: Economics.

Economics and the numbers involved in this Beijing Olympics event does not favour either deferment or cancellation. Today, Sports is a huge business globally. With all due respect to its international 'community spirit' and all that, Olympics is after all an economic event of the largest scale in sports today. While it requires a huge investment, it also promises to bring in a mountain worth of foreign exchange within a very short run of about a month. Perhaps, the Bird's nest has some golden eggs!

China has a lot at stake, for, along with it's investor 'friends', it has infused billions into infrastructure development in/around Beijing to host this event. China's business plans in terms of first breaking even, expand infrastructure at the cost of tourists' money and hyper-consume it's own products in the process, and then make billions in profit, had not accounted for Tibet - Or might have underestimated Tibet, because that's what it seems now. And I suppose that is where China is at its most vulnerable (numbers are not released by China; for London 2012 the budget is £ 9bn = ~USD 18bn). After all, it's all about Money. Threats to Beijing Olympics were first proclaimed by China (not the Dalai Lama, as some media had first reported, and then corrected. The Dalai Lama has rather favoured the Olympics, calling them a peaceful event.). One of the reasons why China had to sound the bugle could be for all those US/EU investors to help cover the grounds. It is supposed to be a very effective strategy if executed properly - let those 'western' investors resist anti-Olympics (i.e. anti-Chinese) propaganda in their respective home-land for the sake of their own invested money.

The Olympics would go on, on schedule, as planned, and we would get to see everyone falling in line as well.

And at that rate, Tibetans seem to lose out; on one hand they could not dislodge Olympics, they might have made enemies out of innocents, and the 'uprising' remains oppressed. (Also, any uprising has to be from within, and not without.)

This is perhaps the toughest time for the Dalai Lama since his exile. And I hope the Mahatma had a word or two of respite for him...