My latest column in Business Standard:

May saw plenty of action on the gaming console front with announcements by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo about their new products due for launch in the coming months. Chinese online gaming leader Shanda also disclosed plans for its interactive entertainment box. The net result: video gaming is set to go mainstream, and the broader battle for control of the living room is well underway.

An article in the Wall Street Journal summarised the key selling points of each of the three new game consoles: “Sony PlayStation 3: Ultrafast, powerful chips for movie-quality graphics and complex videogame environments. Will also be able to stream and download music and movies. Microsoft Xbox 360: Aims to be a hub for all kinds of digital media -- movies, music and online content as well as games. Nintendo Revolution: Emphasis on innovative, networked game play and simpler, cheaper game development rather than power and graphics.”

Another story in the Wall Street Journal captured the importance of the new generation of consoles: “While the PlayStation 3 is seen as more powerful than the Xbox 360, both will have the speed to render complicated computer environments and permit complex game play, game company executives and experts said. As developers become familiar with the new machines, video games should make a dramatic transformation. ‘You're going to see a much bigger emphasis on physics’ giving games ‘a much more responsive and interactive world,’ says Peter Hirschmann, vice president of product development at LucasArts. ‘It's about creating an authentic kind of world.’ The last transition to new consoles, about five years ago, brought the gaming world three-dimensional graphics. Experts say photo realism might be the best term to describe the change this time. But it is about more than just advanced graphics, says David Zucker, chief executive of Midway Games Inc. ‘To me, it's really about artificial intelligence’ creating environments that react the way they would in real life.”

Over the years, the power available on the consoles and the ambitions of the console makers has grown dramatically. Both Sony and Microsoft look at their products as the entry point into the living room – with hopes of becoming the multimedia hub and gateway for all entertainment delivery, creating significantly large revenue opportunities.

TIME magazine wrote in a cover story (May 23, 2005) about the Xbox: “D.E.L – digital entertainment lifestyle – is shorthand for the notion that all media – movies, music, games, cameras, phones, TVs – are becoming digital media, and that’s changing how we relate to them and how they relate to one another. They’re merging into a single integrated, portable, customizable media gestalt…As music and movies become more and more digital, the entertainment business is transforming into a software business, and somebody has to build a master platform on which all the software runs, and the hardware through which it flows.” In short, the Xbox 360 is Microsoft’s Trojan horse to get into people’s homes and be the hub for the emerging digital ecosystem.

This is also what Shanda in China hopes to capitalise on to become an interactive Disney. Forbes wrote recently in a cover story (May 23, 2005): “Only 94 million of China's 1.3 billion people were Internet users at the end of last year, but 330 million have TV sets. A huge chunk of Shanda users are nomads, logging in from Internet cafes….Later this year [Shanda] will unveil a new interactive entertainment box, dubbed the Shanda Station, that will allow TV viewers to go online, play Shanda's games and buy music and, eventually, films. Developed in part with Intel, the product uses Microsoft software and connects to the Internet over high-speed DSLphone lines. Shanda is considering putting voice and video calling features inside the Shanda Station, which will be sold through electronics chain stores, plus Shanda's own sales channels…A home audience will also give Shanda a better claim on China's torrid advertising market.”

The video games we are familiar with in India are the ones we play in entertainment arcades or on PCs. Game consoles have traditionally been absent from the Indian market for a simple reason: console companies lose money with every console they sell, and make money as the consumers buy the games. In piracy-ridden markets, the opportunity to sell games disappears leaving only losses from console sales.

Broadband and mobiles offer new models for gaming. Broadband makes possible online gaming, where players can buy pre-paid gaming cards and connect to servers on the Internet to play – either by themselves or against others. (There are also many free Internet game sites.) Mobile gaming is also growing rapidly and has emerged as one of the sweet spots for operators and gaming companies for generating additional revenues. Coming soon: networked mobile gaming, where mobile phone users can play against each other.

With a youthful population, gaming has the potential to be a killer app for broadband in India. The low installed base of PCs and the non-availability of consoles in India creates an opportunity for an IP set-top-box, which provides not just a gateway to gaming, but also computing (and Internet access), telecom and television – the triple play that the consumer electronics has been talking about for some time. The set-top-box should be able to connect to both a TV and a computer monitor. Such a box will probably need to sell for about Rs 5,000 ($110) and should leverage the Internet for offloading computing and storage. Services would be offered on a subscription basis to home users.

The game is afoot! Are we ready to hunt?

[via Jeff Nolan] HBS Working Knowledge has an interview with HBS associate professor Andrew P. McAfee. Excerpts:

Web services technologies work equally well within and between companies. Cross-company implementations, however, are still comparatively rare. We see them between large and technically sophisticated organizations who have longstanding ties, and we're also starting to see them between big companies and their smaller suppliers.

Big companies have the power to convince or compel their partners to participate, and to shortcut negotiations by simply dictating terms. Amazon and eBay have both done brilliant work with Web services to open up their IT infrastructures and let thousands of small sellers plug into them, but it's a "take it or leave it" proposition. Amazon and eBay don't renegotiate Web services standards with each seller; they simply publish their standards and wait for other companies to adopt them.

So far Web services are being used to automate simple business processes—transmitting an order, acknowledging a shipment, describing an item for sale, etc. Over time the processes enabled via Web services will become more complex, but it's best to start small and build incrementally.

Tim Berners-Lee gave a keynote in April. See especially the discussion on the mobile web.

Tom Evslin writes:

Presence management – a key feature of both cellular telephony and instant messaging today – will be a key ingredient of voice services in the future. Presence management instant messaging style will eventually crater the lucrative roaming business of traditional mobile carriers and make these carriers themselves obsolete.

Presence management cellular style is an overpriced kluge. The good news is that it will be replaced by presence management instant messaging style once true VoIP over IP-enabled mobile phones is implemented. Moreover, this presence management will make you reachable (assuming you want to be) whether you are on a computer, a PDA, a landline phone, or a mobile handset. There will be no cost per minute for voice any more than there is for instant messaging. Distance will be irrelevant as will location. You will still pay in some form for your IP connection (although it may be in taxes if you are on a municipal network). And some service provider somewhere will have a business model based on providing you with presence management.

Business Standard writes:

Over the last few years several firms have turned to e-sourcing and are completely sold on the idea.

Last year, Dabur managed to save 10-15 per cent of expenses of Rs 700 crore on raw materials, packaging, sales and travel. In the last four years auto major Tata Motors has spent around Rs 220 crore less on buying components, while Emerson Power Network , which makes UPS systems, has managed to prune expenses on switchgears and magnetics by 10-15 per cent.

Even the public sector Bharat Earth Movers has kicked off online buying and insurance company ICICI Prudential which e-sourced insurance training programme lap tops last year, is now buying furniture and fixtures the same way.

From Diwali gifts, to balance sheet printing – almost anything can be e-sourced today.

What is driving companies to buy wares online is the saving that they make on the purchases. Crompton Greaves has in the past two years paid about 10-15 per cent less on its bills for inputs of packaging materials, bearings, stampings and other metal items.

Dear Abhishek,

Technology and the Next New Things have always fascinated me (and I hope they will do the same to you). Not for me the beaten path. I like to think and ponder about the world that can be – and the world that we can help create. When I was young, I would spend hours sitting in the balcony of our flat in Mumbai listening to radio. TV was very limited – we just had one channel broadcasting a few hours a day! But radio – that was a window to a different world for me. My favourite programmes were BBC’s Discovery and Science in Action. Both, not surprisingly, explored new horizons. As I closed my eyes listening to what they talked, I also would imagine the future.

Every few months, there would be a different passion. When I was very young, I would accompany my father to the various construction sites – he was a civil engineer and designed skyscrapers. Then, bridges fascinated me. There was something majestic about the linking of two different worlds, I guess! My father would explain me about the different types of bridges through pictures in books – and there was a time when looking at a bridge, I could tell what type it was. Then, for some time, it was space travel. I remember sitting up late and listening to the live coverage on BBC and VOA (Voice of America) of the space shuttle take-offs and landings. That was amazing to me. I even wrote a long essay once on how I saw space as the final frontier and how its conquest was the next big untapped opportunity.

When I was 14, there were two interesting events that took place. The first was a tour of Europe. The second was Nehru Science Centre. The trip to Europe was my first outside India. We went as part of an SOTC tour. We visited almost all the Western European countries during a 3-week tour. I was fascinated by the history and the progress. One would read about “the West” but this was a first-hand experience. India, by comparison, was quite poor and backward. When I look back, perhaps it was that visit which instilled in me a desire to do things which will make a difference for India.

Nehru Science Centre was an interactive scientific extravaganza. There were various exhibits there and one could learn scientific principles by actually doing a few actions. I went there multiple times. Later, with three of my fellow-students, we participated in the Inter-collegiate science quiz contest organised there. 120+ schools participated – and we won! The Nehru Science Centre is an abiding memory from childhood. I pass it every day on my way home from work. A couple decades ago, it was another key component in helping build my scientific temper.

Tomorrow: Parents, Teachers and Friends