Hyderabad metroblog- LIVE now
Finally.. we have our own Metblog. Metroblogging-Hyderabad. Check it out at-
http://hyderabad.metblogs.com/ . The blog is a multi-author blog, as part of the worldwide Metroblogs grouping. Hyderabad now joins other cities with its own metroblog. Where we will share views and news from/of/for Hyderabad.
Interested in contributing? Can apply using:
http://metroblogging.com/apply.phtml
Hyderabad Bloggers meet, on June 4
YOU (Hyderabadi bloggers) ARE INVITED..
What: An informal meet of Bloggers from Hyderbad.
Why: To help create a community of the bloggers.
Explore possibilities of collectively (interest-groups++)
doing something constructive
How: Initiate a Hyd blogroll or blog directory. Probably a
hyd-bloggers yahoo group- for blogosphere events/activities
coordination (must be non-spam & minimal traffic).
When: 4:00pm, 4th June.
Where:Cafe coffee day (@Banjara hills/Music World) -
C/o Music World 5&6, (near Banjara Hills Pizza Hut)
Fatima Pasha Layout8-2-672,Road No.1,
Banjara Hills, Hyderabad-34
Agenda: Open. Community building is the focus. Get names & blogs
onto a blogroll & DIR (can use a GPRS pda/phone). Disucss anything
else that gets proposed. Informal.
India 2.0? .. then, Hyderabad 2.0?
The Web 2.0 hype has created a "wave" of 2.0's now. So far, have been seeing this only with respectto technologies and frameworks. This week came across a mention of this in a biz and economics context. About India. India 2.0!
This is Red Herring's name for teh emerging opportunities in India. Citing the possible saturation in OutSourcing growth, RH says that the Indian IT biggies will now look towards innovation. Have always believed that Products and IP creation is the serious lasting growth opportunity for the Indian IT industry. Driving development/engineering in a Product startup for a long time, I only know the challenges too well. Even so, this is where we should head as an Industry.
Now if India2.0.. then Hyderabad 2.0 (or even 2.1?) wouldnt be far behind. :-)
Quote from RH's mail brief on the atricle:
IN PRINT: India 2.0
Hindus believe good actions will lead to a better life each time you are reincarnated, and that’s exactly what has happened in the two decades since India’s software industry sprang to life. Businesses built around Y2K fixes for the rest of the world transformed the country into a hub of a multibillion-dollar industry staffed with low-end coders, call center staffers, and back-office processors. Now India’s tech sector is transforming itself again, and the next iteration will engineer high-end products, foster tech innovation, and create intellectual property. University professors and tech industry CEOs say it’s only a matter of time before the country emerges as a global tech behemoth. Thanks to coffers filled with money from Western companies eager to hire low-wage workers for routine tasks, giants like Infosys and Wipro have cash to burn on research and development. They’re hiring top-flight researchers and product managers, and buying up companies at home and abroad. With the Indian outsourcing market unlikely to grow at the same clip over the next decade, innovation will let the country’s tech firms move beyond their humble roots. Firms like TCS, a company building artificial intelligence software that could one day make call centers redundant, is just one example. There are still opportunities for large software services companies to provide something radically new, says Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani—just look at Google. Find out more about the transformation of India’s tech sector in this week’s Red Herring, “India 2.0,” on newsstands Monday. Here is a peek into the rest of our lineup:
• Entrepreneurs and investors think there is a good chance the next Hotmail or Skype could come from India. Learn what they’re doing to encourage promising young companies in All Aboard.
• Kozo Hiramatsu is the new president of Japan’s scandal-rocked livedoor, and Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall discusses whether or not he can help the company recover from the downward spiral created by former CEO Takafumi Horie.
• Campus Rave explains how Rodger Desai used the death of the dorm phone to get Rave Wireless onto college airwaves. His next goal is finding out how to beat Facebook.
Google in Virtual World
CNN reports " Google moves into virtual worlds" by "combining satellite maps and 3-D software, Google Earth is turning into a virtual online playground."
This is going to be one of the most fascinating space to watch for a lot of fireworks especially in the area of propertry rights and issues.
IBM announces SOA Applicance
Check this out.. IBM
announces an SOA Applicance(hardwae based), Under the Websphere brand!
" Last October,
IBM acquired a little-known maker of XML accelerator appliances called DataPower, and today, its Software Group, not its Systems and Technology Group, is launching the first IBM-branded kickers to the DataPower machines."
This is interesting that they shd take a harwdare product under its software brand. But then these days anything and everything IBM does around applications and integration seems to be under Websphere brand.
IBM's India revenue (non off-shoring related) 600million
IBM's CEO is visiting India. In that context IBM has released some sales numbers. India has registered the highest growwth among all countries IBM does biz in. At 61%. This is excluding the software offshoring that IBM does thru its Global Services and Product labs. The general expectations among industry observers is that the local sales & services is at about $600 million. This is just selling hardware and software to Indian companies. In India.
Not surprisng, Just a couple of weeks ago, NASSCOM (the software industry organization in India) annoucned that total Software market alone in India (local consumption) was over $10billion last year. IBM being th eindustry biggies, little surprise then that it has done $600million biz in India. Actually given that this includes hardware sales, this even seems a littl elower than it should be.
As always, I believe that local IT consumption and sofwtare products are the two major thrust areas for Indian software industry. The former is really taking off (eGiv, Banking and Retail industries leading the pack). Need to see more buzz and action happening in the products space. The homegrown or wholesome kind- not the offshore MNC centers (that by and large undertake secondary work in their Indian centers).
eGovernance inIndia & SOA- at NISG Hyderabad
e-Governance in India is really coming of age. We are no longer taking an adhoc approach to it. Recently AP Government took up this massive initiative to model theinformation/data from all major departments in XML. A complete schema definition is created and an exchange server is running that can be used as a startingpoint to build new applications required by any of the departments. This is very forward thinking- rather than define as needed, a comprehensive definition and infrastructure is created upfront, and apps using these will follow. This is driven by Center for Good Governance (AP Govt.). In line with the pioneering spirit of AP Govt. w.r.t e-gov, there are two other institutions nowin Hyderabad- IEG (Institute for Electronic governance) and
NISG (National institute for Smart Governance)- that are also active in this space. Helping define teh standards, architecture and technology framework for e-governance applciations.
NISG is actively working on the
National Gateway project- that is attempting to create a very elaborate framework for electronic interaction between Biz & Government (B2G) and also between governments (G2G).
I happened to get an introduction to Mr. Ashok Krishnan, VP at NISG handling a new initiative on a framework to be built around SOA. I immediately took the opportunity to meet up and understand better. Pretty impressive. While the National Gateway project attempts to build a services and processes infrastructure at the central level, this project attempts to go bottom-up- by helping individual sections or departments embark upon good e-gov practices. The attempt is to have a wholesome view of departmental citizen services, by getting social scientists, beuracrats, business/process analysts, technologists and developers together to provide a more comprehensive solution. That starts from udnerstanding the processes and helping optimize and reengineer. Then help model the data and biz flows involved. And take it to actually helping implement the prototype solutions.
Very impressive. In my capacity as Adjunct Faculty at IIIT and a technologist, I may have an opportuinity to stay engaged with this initiative. Ashok was mentioning that he is looking for Very Techie Architects in the space of SOA, Services/EAI and Biz Process infrastructure. If you know of anyone, do forward teh prpofiles. Apart from the technical challenge this role will provide it is also a chance to particpate in building the e-gove infrastructure in India. A very strong need of the hour. This particlar project is sociallyu very relevant as, this is runningh in tandem with plans to have 100K village/rural integrated service centers, that will provide a host of government services.
For more info, do contact me (
ramesh) or Ashok (
ashok.krishnan@nisg.org).
StirrMixers at Hyderabad? (technology centric discussion/networking)
Came across this interesting movement in the bay area-
http://www.stirr.net They have two main monthly events- Stirr Mixers and Stirr Founders Table. The Stirr Mixers event is interesting (apart from the fact that I just love the name Stirr Mixers- given my deep interest in spirirts :-) ). This is where technologists, entrepreneurs, tech bloggers/journalists and investors can all meet up. The common ground being technology.
This is not too different from what we have set out to do at BootStrappers Hyderabad. While BootStrappers is more about just-start ing-startups, we do stronglybelieve that having it as a technology group will probably help promote more entrepreneural buzz in Hyderabad.
How about a BooStrappers' StirrMixer here? We can have one of the pubs host it. Say on a Saturday 11am? Can be pure dutch event- everyone pays for what they order. Can have a brief tech talk followed bty discussions.
What say?
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At STIRR our goal is to catalyze entrepreneurial activity in the SF Bay Area and beyond.
STIRR currently hosts two monthly events that help make things happen:
Our Mixers are open to everyone in the tech community (stealth-mode folk, startup-savvy engineers, journalists/bloggers, connectors and investors). Stirr Mixers are not sit-down-and-listen events, we want people to stand up, interact, socialize and swap thoughts/ideas. At Stirr mixers we provide an opportunity for early stage entrepreneurs to present ideas to their peer group
At our Founder's Table dinners we host up to 8 startup founders (and former founders) to discuss business challenges and forge relationships. This is a limited space event held once a month in both South Bay and San Francisco locations.
