New Tech's Rapid Evolution

Knowledge@Wharton writes:

TiVos and Treos and BlackBerrys. Wi-Fi and HDTV and plasma screens. Picture phones, digital cameras, iPods and now iPod cell phones. Using sophisticated products and keeping pace with their new features requires significant time, interest and a certain amount of smarts on the part of consumers. It also takes a lot of energy to sort out the bells and whistles you really need from those you sort-of need and those you don't need at all.

Complexity among consumer technology products has never been greater -- a good thing if the complexity means product improvement. But Wharton experts say new bells and whistles pose challenges to businesses and consumers alike. Complexity -- along with choice -- can have a big impact on how firms make and market new and improved gizmos, and on the decision processes of the people expected to buy them.

Apple's Nano's Mega Margins

Business Week writes about iSupply's analysis: "Market research firm iSuppli set out to satisfy the curiosity by buying the $199 2-gigabyte version of the Nano and tearing it apart. The verdict? It costs Apple $90.18 in materials to build the unit and $8 to assemble it, leaving a profit margin before marketing and distribution costs of about 50%. That's consistent with the margins on earlier iPod versions and serves as a reminder of what a profit machine the iPod family of products has become for Apple since it was introduced in 2001."

Google's Secret Garden

Mitch Ratcliffe writes:

I've decided that what Google is doing is the Web services-version of AOL's once-formidable "walled garden" strategy.

In the walled garden, users had to log in and stay within the AOL service—making the challenge for AOL one of constantly adding new features to entice loyal usage, a virtually impossible task when the Web was exploding with new voices—and the wall was slowly torn down by the diversity of destinations a user selected to visit while online.

In Google's "secret garden" strategy, the company hopes to engage users through a variety of free services that allow it to collect information about individuals in order to better target advertising. The secret is the fact that your explicit relationship with Google, that is the times you search and create an ad-placement opportunity, is orchestrated by all the non-explicit contacts you provide Google to information about you. It slowly extracts your information, building a portfolio of value based on that information and leaving you a ghost of your former private self that is unaware of the deep dependency on Google for access to information.

2005 Asian Innovation Awards

WSJ lists the winners:

Gold Winner: Motorola Asia Pacific Ltd., for a method of sending text messages in China using the finger to draw characters on a pad.

Silver Winner: Dr. Paul S.F. Yip and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research at the University of Hong Kong, for the "Little Prince Is Depressed" Web site that helps young people cope with depression.

Bronze Winner: Agilent Technologies Inc., for a color-management system for backlighting LCD TVs.

Honorable Mention: Professor James Goh, of the National University of Singapore, for a prosthetic socket system for amputees.

Global Entrepolis@Singapore Award: The Journal also presents the Global Entrepolis@Singapore Award, which honors a company that has a strong business model and the potential to become a global market leader. The award, presented in association with Singapore's Economic Development Board, goes to Hong Kong Broadband Network Ltd., for its high-speed residential broadband service.

Here is a previous story about the finalists.

Microsoft's Vista and Google's Apps

Preston Gralla writes:

The real danger to Microsoft isn't from another company overcoming it with a rival operating system. It's from Google, which is taking an end-around, and building applications on top of the Internet, which in essence has become the world's largest operating system, dwarfing even Windows.

Google's applications are simple, lean, and elegant -- everything from Gmail to the Google Toolbar, Google Maps, Google News, and more. It may ultimately even build Internet-based applications like a word processor. And there is plenty of evidence it may even be launching a national Wi-Fi service, and appears to be building what may be the world's largest backbone network.

Microsoft, meanwhile, slaves away on Vista, and fumbles every time it tries to create a Web-centric service. Does anyone remember Hailstorm from several years back? Enough said.

Google appears to be proving that in an Internet-centric world, the operating system may not matter. Internet-focused applications do. And so despite all the hype about Vista, what's really important may be Google applications like blog search and whatever else the company is cooking up in the labs. Vista may be pretty and powerful and useful, but it may be a look backwards, not to the future.

TECH TALK: Rajasthan Ruminations 2: Water Solution?

One option which emerged as I talked with local people in Rajasthan is the interlinking of rivers project proposed by the Vajpayee government. Many environmental concerns have been raised around the project. But that was also the case with the Narmada Dam. The people I talked to were of the opinion that the Narmada Dam has made a big positive difference in Gujarat.

Lives will be affected in either case – whether a dam is built or not. At this time, people in Rajasthan wait for miracles from the sky in the form of rain – which rarely comes. So, it is year after year of drought. Without external intervention, I can see little hope for the much of the desert state and its people.

I came across this August 2003 note on the interlinking of rivers from the Government’s Press Information Bureau:

Interlinking of rivers in India is expected to greatly reduce the regional imbalance in the availability of water in different river basins. Surplus water which flows waste to the sea would be fruitfully utilized. It is assessed that the inter-linking of rivers will provide additional irrigation benefits to 35 million hectares (Mha) -25 Mha from surface water and an additional 10 Mha from increased ground water recharge- which will be over and above the ultimate irrigation potential of 140 Mha envisaged from the conventional irrigation projects.

Construction of storage dams as proposed will considerably reduce the severity of floods and the resultant damages. The flood peaks are estimated to reduce by about 20 to 30 per cent in the Ganga and Brahmaputra basins.

The benefits of drought mitigation from inter-basin water transfers will accrue to an area of about 25 lakh hectares in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Hydro power could also be generated on a massive scale by the storage dams proposed under the interlinking of rivers. Hydro power development has not kept pace with the potential and requirement in our country. Against a potential of 84,000 MW, only about 22,000 MW capacity for hydro power generation has been developed so far. For an efficient working of electrical energy generating system, the mix of thermal to hydro should be about 60:40. In our country it is about 75:25. The storage dams proposed under interlinking of rivers will greatly improve this situation. The total hydro power potential of the interlinking systems is estimated to be 34,000 MW.

I am not an expert on this subject. What I see is a problem where the non-availability of water stagnates an entire region. India needs “disruptive innovations” and big thinking to get its regions on the development path. I see a government that seems more interested in outlays rather than outcomes. I also see a country whose coffers are filling up (at last count, India had $145 billion in forex reserves). What we lack is imagination to think big and make things happen.

What can explain the fact that after all these years the government is still not able to provide the fundamental building blocks (clean water, continuous power, good roads, quality education) to a significant number of its citizens? Indians don’t want dole in the form of employment guarantee schemes or anti-poverty programmes. What they want are opportunities to get control of their own life to make things better. People are naturally resilient and entrepreneurial – they will build their own bright futures. What they need are the basic building blocks. Is that too much to ask from the government?

Tomorrow: Bright Spot

Related Entries:  [All]
TECH TALK: Rajasthan Ruminations 2: Bright Spot [September 30, 2005]
TECH TALK: Rajasthan Ruminations 2: Water Problem [September 28, 2005]
TECH TALK: Rajasthan Ruminations 2: Timeout [September 27, 2005]
TECH TALK: Rajasthan Ruminations 2: Temples [September 26, 2005]
TECH TALK: Rajasthan Ruminations: Rural Development and Entrepreneurship [February 20, 2004]