Of all the dratted... were my first words about the Chrome browser. Ok. They have another great product launched, the point being? I think the way Google is goggling itself; it's bound to end short of its much hyped cash reserves soon. The sooner the better. Let's take a peek into what Google is focusing on.

Firstly, what are they trying to achieve with a new browser in an already established market? We have had more than 50 different browsers so far and the winner is clearly Mozilla with a 20 % market share. Microsoft has a 72 percent market share, however, much of the lead is due to it being a free bundle with the OS. Google's other free offering in direct competition should have offered them a lesson – Star Office. Continued faith reposed by companies in Microsoft Office just proves MS's leadership. End users continue to use pirated MS Office editions, while there are still no takers for Star office. But as a corporation is this the direction Google should be headed?

Browsers are no longer paid software. Netscape winded up as a result of it. There is no way additional revenue can be generated other than the face value offered. Can you establish a market value it would put to Google with the browser?!? Let's imagine Google has over 90 % of the market share with its Chrome. Web experience might be great, but how does it add up revenues to google? It might improve revenues to Google's ad sense, but that can be done using existing browsers too.

Unless Google does get paid for softwares/services other than its ad leasing services, it would always depend on other companies and market conditions for revenue. I have written on this done to death topic earlier, but will do the same again. Google 's mergers have been with companies whose focus has solely been on free versions. Star office is one case in point. Their only two big tickets are Double click and Adsense. Think of any other? (The rest of the websites which they have purchased were previously their biggest revenue crunchers - Orkut, Youtube) I am not saying that MS does support open source. It does, but only after having established different multiple streams of revenues in each. By doing so, it is offering Microsoft a key learning from open source.

Google does not realize that by focusing its resources on the development and improvements of a new browser, it is wasting its time and resources and in no way offering competition to Microsoft. If you have not realized it, Microsoft has a significant contribution to the development of the Mozilla Firefox which shows they are not worried about the competition. Some of the improvements noticed in Mozilla are added to newer versions of IE. Who knows, tomorrow Microsoft might just pull the rug off IE and ask end users to use Mozilla or any third party browser. The reasoning being - As long as browsers are free, why should Microsoft waste its time on IE? Besides, it would also get the anti trust guys off its back. Even if Mozilla were to capture 90 % of the market share, Microsoft would probably pitch in to help Mozilla or purchase it outright to integrate it with Windows. Either way, Microsoft has a win-win situation with Mozilla.

In contrast, Google might be making a pitch for products, but shouldn't they start with enterprise software? HP's Neoview is a recent case in point. (The equivalent of Oracle DB with powerful scalability for enterprise datawarehousing). Getting into the browser market is a long shot and a risky one. If the browser succeeds and does get over 50 % of the market, it earns a name in the browser market, which would still not translate into revenues.

Already, there are a few downtrends for Google. This year Google is expected to cross the 20 Billion mark in revenues, which is way higher than the revenues for last year. But look more closely into the fine print and there you have the devil in print. The increased revenue is partly due to an increase in ad rates for leasing ad spaces. Google did anticipate the market downturn and raised rates in Q1-Q2. So while adspend of companies has significantly decreased, they were actually paying more due to the increased rates. If the current downturn were to continue for the next two years in the tech sector and significantly in the US, then Google would have to watch its revenues tumble. In such a scenario, if Microsoft and Yahoo offered to decrease ad rates by around 25 %, imagine the cascading effect... Google would be forced to reduce rates or loose customers.

Google has increased its headcount significantly this year and its operating expenses also double from next year.

Click Fraud is another concern for companies. There is never an accurate picture on actual customer s thanks to it. Click fraud accounts for atleast 30 % of Google's ad revenues. (Employees tacitly do it too) The rest by click for pay sites

Just remembered one of Juggie aka Rustic aka DB's lines... If you don't know Jugs, let me introduce him. Juggernaut aka Rustic aka DismantleBrigade is a terrible writer (as all of us fortunately are). Unfortunately, the dunce overdoes it sometimes with the English part which makes him an outstanding(ly arrogant) writer. Rohitthebest will vouch for that. Even a Prof in English would stress on other aspects too, but not our DB.So here I am on a point raised on one of his earlier reviews.  

Remember the first oath (or rather prayer) you ever took at school? - 'All Indians are my brothers and sisters...'

Now that is probably the first oath, prayer we take in our lives. Damn. To top it, we said it quite proudly with a tinge of satisfaction. And I broke it by marrying another Indian. And so did 99 % of us (I don't know the statistics, but believe there are less than 1 % who married foreigners) . When we break promises as children, how can the government expect the Police, Lawyers, Engineers, Doctors and politicians to stick to their promises?!?

Should the school motto be changed and stop this from recurring?  Go figger... ;)

Mukesh Ambani's new residence - a 27-storey glass-fronted building will have parking for 168 cars, three helipads, a theatre and 600 staffers for its upkeep. Mukesh Ambani's new residence being constructed in Mumbai's Altamount Road is the stuff myths are made of. Named after the mythical island Antilia, the house-in-the-making will be completed by next year. It is being built on a 4,532 sq metre plot that was acquired by Ambani in 2002.

27 FLOORS:
According to the plan, the house will rise to a height of 173.12 meters, equivalent to that of a regular 60-storeyed residential building . However, Antilia will have only 27 storeys in all.

SIX FLOORS FOR PARKING :
The first six floors will be reserved for parking alone, and that too for cars belonging only to Mukesh's family. Space for a total of 168 imported cars has been earmarked here.

ENTERTAINMENT FLOOR:
The eighth floor will have an entertainment centre comprising a mini -theatre .

BALCONIES WITH GARDENS : 

The rooftop of the mini -theatre will serve as a garden, and immediately above that, three more balconies with terrace gardens.

HEALTH FLOORS:
While the ninth floor will have a 'refuge' floor - meant to be used for rescue in emergencies - two floors above that will be set aside for health. It will have facilities for athletics and a swimming pool, while the other will have a health club.

FOR GUESTS:
There will be a two-storeyed glass-fronted apartment for the Ambani family's guests above the health floors.

FAMILY:
The four floors at the top, that will provide a view of the Arabian Sea and a superb view of the city's skyline, will be for Mukesh, his wife Neeta, their three kids and Mukesh's mother Kokilaben

AIR SPACE FLOOR:
Two floors above the family's residence will be set aside as maintenance areas, and on top of that will be an 'air space floor,' which will act as a control room for helicopters landing on the helipad above. There will be three helipads there.

STAFF: Nearly 600 staffers are expected to work in the building.

COST: House with a Price Tag of Rs.4000 crore ( > 1 Billion US $ ) for 6 people and 600 staff

Source : Received as an email forward....

Whoever said that must truly have said it in one of the earlier centuries. True, necessity does auger well for inventions, but is the invention a perfect piece of useful work? Not always does it satisfy all your needs. Most inventions nowadays are borne due to some commercial value, not necessarily dependent on necessity. I mean, c'mon, there are better devices with more value than one which purports to do so.

And so, below is a simple list of the worst inventions/innovation relating to internet affecting you everyday.

SMS %^&$ to check your account balance'

Of course SMS do have an intrinsic value, when you get poetical with your gal or want to convey a short message at lesser cost. No longer. Which idiot thought of using it to check account balances or rating TV shows through SMS? You can check your account balance online or if the bank does not have online facilities, would certainly provide you a passbook. Besides paying an additional charge to view your account balance, you also get it much slower. For ex., while watching cricket matches, try asking for score updates. The updates are probably half an hour late of watching it on telly, while a TV transmission is 2-5 mins delayed than a live match. The only account balance which actually ever increases is your mobile bill. Well, mankind is getting dumber by the day.

‘The most positive sign that intelligent life exists somewhere in this universe is that none of them have tried to contact us. Can they be more intelligent than that?’- Annonymous Quote

SMS would be my first choice in this list. Of course you can always SMS me if you think otherwise.

Online shopping - If shopping is easy, what the heck has online shopping got to do? It was meant to be convenient besides cutting down costs. The only thing which has happened is redefining convenience as not so convenient. Most often you have booked a ticket on the wrong route or the site is down when most required. The cost is much more than what you expect to buy from a retailer or nearby store. Let's take ebay. All the thrash selling on ebay sell from more than the original cost to double. Take any simple mobile or a laptop. Besides when you add up the shipping costs, it makes it more expensive for us bummers. And the picture describing the item is very often not the item received. Show me one site like Tigerdirect for India and I'll show you umpteen others which ain’t.

Telecallers – Sir, we are offering you a loan of… Dude, firstly let’s get this right. I am interested in taking loans or whatever you offer me. Provided you give me the sum I want, not a paltry sum enough to buy peanuts. If you have no freedom, and cannot offer the sum I want, no point in asking me for the paperwork and later giving me a pointless answer. If you can, I will, if you can’t, I don’t want to hear about it especially during my siesta time.

All inventions are not necessarily mothers, some might be brothers too... ;) (The irritating kind)

Ruffling through my old stuff, I found my autograph notebook. I never had the gall to throw away those idioms of my past life. I wonder – What are they all doing now? Goodbyes can be sweet even from your foulest enemies. That’s memories for you.

Yesterday, I saw this Kannada movie, Autograph, a movie about a student meeting up with some of his friends from college days. Pretty cool. I think this movie merits a watch. And that brings me to this topic…

I shall delve shortly into writing those goodbyes. Prior to that, I recently read a survey on why friendships end. Below are the results of the statistics.

a. Changes in life are the biggest contributors (Moving, marriage, divorce, birth of child, new career) – 77%
b. Lack of reciprocity in relationships – 20 %
c. Betrayal – 17 %
d. Jealousy/envy – 25%

Two words- internet and email has made it advantageous for far flung friends to get in touch easily atleast for the initial 77%. It has certainly made life instantaneous. 20 years back you had snail mail and cramming words onto paper was tedious. With email, I can ask lameduck questions like - what are you eating? Keeping the character of our relationships alive, inspite of the distance has been a marvelous achievement.

If you are a teen and in your grad years, don’t be in a hurry to reach home after those last grad exams. Home is where the heart is but 10 years later you probably regret not making those last goodbyes with friends. Take time off. Spend 10 -15 days with all your friends and making those enemies smile. Meet up with friends and binge for those 15 days. Travel. Get into a enjoy mode. Hey! You are about to enter the trap called work soon. And lastly get your scrapbooks and throw it at everyone. I mean everyone. Have them give a picture, and enter any information which describes them, you, and any other titbits they can think of. Hey! Its you who’s going to read this. I had mine as a scrapbook. A few of the below tips are derived from the Hindu. (Newspaper)

1. When breaking up with friends, I had the fortune of seeing emotions in a few friends. And you notice that one of the misconceptions about men is broken - Guys do cry. When friends go away from visual view, the last visage is painful. You remember it for the rest of your life. While we may find it silly, some emotions are better off running true.

2. ‘The last goodbye should be in character’. (not filmi) It should be an imprint of your individual personality. If you are the strong, silent type, you don’t have to get flowery and sentimental. A firm handshake, straight look in the eye or a simple, ‘ I’ll miss you’ suffices. If you really feel the need to express more, ensure that you have the contact details to stay in regular touch. You will if you have a strong like for the person. But it is important to state the expression of your honest feelings. Believe me it makes a huge impact on the other person’s life. I have seen a few of my friends change locations just to stay close together. That’s something!

3. A goodbye signifies a change in your life. Change is rarely easy, but is the only constant companion in your life. It breaks our hearts. When we sever ties with people, places and things we love, a part of us is lost.

4. ‘The last goodbye needn’t always be in words’. Even a glance or a simple smile goes a long way.

5. If you treasured something most during ‘those’ days and give it to someone as a memento while parting, mark his reaction. He would probably be indulged to live that life and remember you by. And probably the first person to remind you continously to keep in touch.

6. ‘The final goodbye must come from the heart. And its indicators – the eyes’. Those are the last impressions left to take away of the essence of a person – character.

Finally, an incomplete goodbye is one with half complete information in your scrapbook.

Let people enter whatever they see fit –advice to you, what you are good at, what you need to change, contact details, their personal preferences, life and wutnots.  Leave a page blank so that they can scribble anything they like on that page.  And another half a page for specifically cursing you. (Most wouldn’t. Even if they did, a few are embarrassed later when shown, and wanted to change it. Others cursed me while loving the column)

Ofcourse, leaving aside scrapbooks, there are also the occasions when you never know that this is the last meeting with the person. Death and work can take people unexpectedly to distant places. That’s something you always feel incomplete.

I am into a new relationship. I don’t know when or how it will end, but I want the recipient of my trust to remember me forever.  There she is and calling out to me – 

“Papa, come”

Mr Jagdish Khattar sounded very cynical about Tata's buyout of Jaguar and LandRover in today's interview on CNBC TV18. I mean he promptly asked a very enthusiastic nut of an editor from OVerdrive, 'if Jaguar have a very good model with the launch of the XS model, why is Ford selling it in the first place? And why is China not venturing to buy it? They are more aggressive players than us'

There was no clearcut answer to his question and you could see a smirk on Udayan and Khattar's faces. We all know that Khattar has been the most vocal opponent of the Tatas and would love to see Ratan stumble. Even the small one lakh Rupee car faced major opposition from the Maruthi lobby.

I don't know about the 1 lakh rupee car, but would bet that the one lakh car if possible would only be from Tata, none else.

Jaguar and Landrover fit into Tata's scheme of things. They are not looking for growth in the European markets. They are looking at making a name as a quality player. The product appreciation, patents, existing technologies and research advantages would result in a growth for Tata's low end products too as with any quality player. Remember Onida?!? BPL? That's been their gameplan all along. Now the only point which counts here is if they can make it profitable. Once it turns profitable, they can then focus on importing these marques to Asian markets ( China and India)

I'd like to point out here that the major factor in the price of a car is steel. Mr Khattar himself will vouch for the fact that a 10 % hike in the prices of steel (by Tata) would result in a corresponding rise in the prices of their cars. Almost 60 to 80 % of Maruthi's steel components is sourced by its ancillary units from Tata. And remember that Tata has already taken over Corus. If you have noticed, they have even spent 2.3 billion (a similar amount to the purchase of the auto marks) in upgrading the Corus plants to be green compliant. Corus would also be more profitable than European ones since they also source cheap ore from Asian mines.

Steel prices are already at an alltime high. What Tata will definitely do is cut down costs of Corus and also Jaguar and Landrover. In addition, a reduction in steel prices to its ancillary vendors as in India would definitely affect the profitability of Landrover and Jaguar. Remember that the cost of a car is labor and steel. These together add up to around 60 % of the costs. Now Mr.Khattar, does Maruthi have this steel advantage?

When Microsoft initially introduced Agile, they meant it for fields where the future of the products was uncertain. And that's where Agile technologies pays off. Lately, small and medium sized firms are adapting to Agile. The whole point of adapting to Agile works like this. Currently the company may have a few projects and there may not be any after that for some time. There may be an increase in the number of projects after that to almost double. In all these situations, the company adapts itself by being fleetfooted.

Agile works more on instant communication or informal chats rather than written documentation and procedures. Heated debates lead to faster implementation cycles and patches thus increasing the interactivity between the end user and the developers. There is a constant buzz everyday till all or most issues have been ironed out. Once that is done, the team ceases to remain agile and allows the application to enter the support phase only. The major addition in value is a constant streamlined focus on changing circumstances and a good design.

Note that with Agile, only competant staff are retained and the least contributors are eliminated since their job is redundant. Besides, in case of a downturn and a lack of projects sees staff seated idle which is used to work them on other projects and gives an accurate headcount of idle labor. In Agile, a modification has been the cleanroom engineering which focusses on preventing a defect rather than focussing on patching.

Scenario - Cut to the last fight between two superpowers. America aids Taliban in their fight against regional supremacy in Afghanistan. Russia throws up its hands unable to withstand Glasnost and changes back home. Around 20000 armed Taliban 'fighters' are left without a cause.
End Result - On September 11th 2001, the Twin towers were literally destroyed confirmed to be an act by Taliban.

Scenario --Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (or LTTE) were funded and supported majorly by the Rajiv Gandhi government in the 80's. The ballooning of the LTTE from a lightweight organization was not possible without help from Indian authorities.
End Result - We don't need history lessons to learn who killed him and how he died.

The base of the Taliban is in Pakistan. It was supported in a major way by an erstwhile democratically elected 'ruler' Benazir Bhutto. She was the sole cause the Taliban found a base in Terrorist land.
She was the first major political target of the Taliban in the same country. They are now emboldened and aiming at Nawab Sharif too.

History is replete with such lessons about the hand that feeds get bitten. Will Pakistan ever learn and end it now?!?

A century old rule that a witness has every right to refuse to answer any question he thinks may incriminate him – let’s discuss that today. If A killed B and stood witness saying that he had seen A kill B, would he be convicted? My point is – such incidents rarely get highlighted and are subject to legal manipulation. For ex., Mr. xyz has killed his wife and surrenders in court stating that he killed his wife. He then gives evidence and here comes the crucial part – the motive. He can say that he killed her in a fit of passion – meaning the sentence is reduced. He can also provide any reason and get away with it. But would a crime of passion or any other crime still not qualify as murder? Whether pre mediated or not?

Let’s take a peek at another reason why a witness need not answer any question. A witness may be murdering someone, or running around trees with a paramour, or simply taking drugs and hence definitely need not answer so simple a question as “What were you doing at that time?” This can trigger a barrage of questions which can also question the credibility of the witness and hence he can seek not to answer it…

The right to live is the first and foremost right of every human being be it even in a dictatorship. However, this is subject to a few exceptions. One is he is subject to the law of the nation. The other exception is subjective to his not having killed anyone else. And hence you understand that white collar crime –taking possession of your money and property does not entitle me to death. Money is inconsequential, so how does it matter how much money I make of your guiles? In a way it makes sense as long as there is no death involved. However, with most that is what causes the murder. Enron provided false statements of its corporate results thus pumping up its value. When millions of investors lost, there were reportedly a few suicides. Now shouldn’t the person behind the embezzlement be hanged for causing murder?

After the second biggest fall which amounted to nearly a 1000 points, it has left me smacking my lips in anticipation. For the past four years, they were mere corrections, not dampeners. And the current swing has been best for the world.

The current crash worldwide is due to liquidity in certain markets like the US, Europe and most others, China is generally overvalued and most of the market stocks are hypothetical, not based on technicals. So even a slight rumor can manipulate its market. We felt the liquidity crunch more with the Reliance Power IPO. Noone wanted to hold it for long and everyone was looking for a profit.

Factors to watch out for  -

Commodity prices are finally coming down. This means that most funds and managers now think it is time to rethink their investments away from these as they might fall or correct with a huge factor. Stay away from commodities and derivatives. This translates to high commodity prices only for select required items. Inflationary concerns remain in certain select products/items.

Gold, and Oil prices which reached all time highs are expected to be on the correction path. Oil(currently at 105) should be down and would probably stabilize at below 70$ levels in the long term. This ofcourse depends on how strong the dollar remains. If the dollar strengthens to 50 + rupees, that would be enough to stabilize the current economy. Oil prices might immediately see a huge correction to below 70 dollars even. Expect correction to last for another 6 months to 1 year before stabilizing. Also for the first time in the past 10 years, the dollar has gone below the 100 yen mark, which is a good sign. If it rallies consistently enough for the next few trading sessions, then that should be enough to pull the markets out.

What happened with Bear stearns is unfortunate. If the .75 basis cut had occured a week earlier, it would have been a lifesaver. The US Fed rates is at 2.25 currently.Stears invested when the markets were high and were forced to sell to pave off liquidity concerns. But it would have been a different matter if they had just stayed away from Asian markets when they were already at an alltime high. It would have eased their liquidity.

Contrary to what most people say, the US is what drives the world. The economy of the US alone equals to India, China, South East Asia, entire Europe, Russia, Australia, Japan, Brazil and all emerging nations. We do not want the US people to start saving. Not in the sense of holding their buys. All these countries together export more to the US and still, the US wants more! That's the power of the US economy. What we need to see in the US is more jobs, and as Bill Gates says, that can be created only if more H1B visas are available. It is exactly true that a person holding a job in the US indirectly employs around 5 emerging nations employees.

The US market should hold at the 12000 levels and improve its breadth. If it does, there would be great news worldwide. But if there is another Bear hiding with Lehman's  then that would definitely depress the US markets!

If the growth of China slows down to even 8 to 8.5 percent, it would mean a huge job loss to the economy. Which indirectly pushes the cost of Chinese imports to India. What we should be looking for is importing more US goods to create the valuable jobs and at the same time provide it with the exports it is looking at.

At current levels, there are some choice picks, but not the right time to invest as even at the least levels, they would not appreciate much in the long term. So wait it out till April and then cherry pick depending on the sentiments.

That reminds me, the sentiment is one bad factor which affects the Indian market. Even when the US market corrected itself on news by Repulblican senator that the worst of the recession was over, the Indian market was down. This seems to indicate that most of the buying/selling was happening only by day traders. To enter the current markets, I would want it to appreciate a steady gain of atleast a 1000 points over a trading week.

Finally start investing after April 15th. No more bad news can only mean that the markets would be stable from here on. At this point, the financial year closes, a lot of the contracts expire and most companies account for expenses in the previous cycle.

One problem with the Indian media is that they are days behind from the US. There was a minor recovery while the newspapers showed negative news. Infact I even read an article about people investing in Gold. This is one which is headed for correction with the strengthening of the US dollar and I suggest stay away.

Suffice to say, I have an active interest in the stock market. Tip - If you are looking for a personal loan, head for the bank now, as this is the most likely time it would be approved.