The Freeway of Dreams !

The Freeway of Dreams !

Bash the Bankers !

Bash the Bankers !

Digging deep Down Under ;)!

Every morning I log on to news sites and the news is about some Indian getting beaten in Melbourne, Australia. 'Times of India' screams out that it was racist and 'The Age- australia' screams out that motive is not racist. Gives me the great feeling of being at the center of a war field.

                All the news are pretty much the same, some Indian student is beaten up at insane hours. But this one is different – “Australian Team will not be allowed to play in Maharashtra”- Times of India.

"We will not allow kangaroo cricketers to play in Mumbai and Maharashtra, till the attacks are stopped on Indians,” he announced in Saamna -- Shiv Sena’s mouthpiece.

                So Mr Sr.T read the news one day in the morning and then felt patriotically offended that his fellow countrymen- importantly mostly North Indian(Whom I think he is trying to befriend by this move to gain some ground against Mr Jr T)- are being thrashed mercilessly in foreign land.

Thank god he does not take the whole newspaper to his heart – else the headlines will start reading like :

 “Shootout on US college campus hurts indian – we will not export software to US from Maharashtra”

“Indian student commits suicide after being ragged in Indian college -  Indian team will not play in Maharashtra”

“Indian Woman raped in Mumbai – we will not allow MEN in Maharashtra”

There is one interesting thing though – there are almost as many Sri Lankans and Pakistanis as Indians in Melbourne – not very often that we are getting the news about Sri Lankan or Pakistani attacked in Oz. Wondering how the attackers differentiate ;).

Am not ruling out the possibility of the attacks being racist and truly appreciate the fact that the media is so concerned – but it worries me why we are not equally angry about whats happening inside. Imagine the number of murders, stabbings, rapes, domestic violence etc. is happening in India just as you read this. Forget India – just imagine Mumbai – no one even knows and its not a big deal to call of cricket matches. May be because the TRP has relatively been squeezed out of them.

Ahead is some serious stuff. Give up if you are just reading for fun. But if you want to know my take on what is happening- read on :

I don’t deny the fact that the attacks may be racist. Nobody knows. But it is a fact that even local crimes are happening against local aussie and other people as well. I know that because it gets covered in the local newspapers here. Its just like every big city having its problems with crime. Its only fault is that it has been accommodating to immigrants, who I think, have much more than outnumbered the locals, and are obviously going to be part of everything that goes on including the crime. Media is not doing too well as I guess the criminals now have an incentive to attack Indians- they know they will be in news.

                Actually racism is more of a social issue rather than a crime- so it is even harder for the government to deal with it. How can you change the perspective of a person ? It is one of those things that only God(If you believe or call truth or whatever) can fix out while balancing out your karmas. Well I don’t know how much of the truth I personally know, what I can tell you is just what I experience :

I stay In Melbourne. My housemates are aussies and one of the sweetest people I know. My housemate left her pets(whom she considers her children ;)) with me for 15 days when she was on vacation. I hang out at the beach with friends who are aussie, Chinese and French. I attend parties, chat at coffee bars, work out at swim at recreation center, spend time in local library, and attend business and social meetups with various groups that have around 5% Indians. Everyone including the lady at the grocery store to people whom I cross on road to my diving instructor to people whom I talk business with greet me with a smile and ‘hey how you doing today’. I have seen almost the whole of Melbourne and around. And in all this – I have not once come across an incident where I have been looked down upon because of the color of my skin. May be I’ve gotten lucky.

But hey – the TRP rating is in the ‘breaking news’ – not in rational solutions or deciphering  of the truth !

The pace of technology !

                    1977 !! 80MB =$12000 !















                                                                                                                2009 !! approx 8000MB = $12

Can you imagine how a computer will look like in 2030 or what a mobile phone will cost like ;) !!

The Avatar Plug In !

Avatar is a mind blowing movie. Along with the thrilling 3D effects and crazy animations, it has one amazing concept – every Na'vi (a blue-skinned neolithic species of sapient humanoids with feline characteristics!! ;) -> basically the blue creatures) have an amazing illuminated string like ‘plug-in’ at the end of their plait – which can be plugged into other things like the horse or the ‘tree of voices’ and you can then feel and know the other thing ! Wow – just wish we had something like this today – imagine how the world and people would transform –

The Avatar Software Engineer – Software developers can now directly plug into customers and get their requirements precisely and code – just imagine – you are writing the exact code that the customer wants ! No more leaking of data through managers, no more change requests, no more assuming and coding !

The avatar boyfriend – The avatar boyfriend can now plug into his girlfriend while she is asleep and know what she wants on valentine’s day. Days of efforts saved – i.e. if you are able to know what she wants rather than just seeing her running around trees with with Shahid Kapoor in her dreams ;).

The avatar police can now plug into goons and terrorists and know the truth and would miss all the fun of torturing innocent people.

The Avatar students can now say with authority that their professors don’t know what they are saying ;).

Whats more, plug into your dog and know what are his shitting times – the house is clean!

The Avatar Gadget – Google would launch G-Avatar : A hand held device in which you plug in- and just think what you want to search- it can search out and download all results in your memory.. oops. Brain ;).

Politicians can be plugged in publicly and prosecuted, Call center employees can plug into their phones and control the minds of their customers to fix problems onsite.

And the last one – The Avatar Manager – Extinct ! If developers and designers get everything that the customers want- why managers ;).

The Best of 2010 ;) !

          Everyone is posting the best of 2009. So I am sure everyone is going to know everything anyways. So this is my blog post that I would love to publish on 31^st December 2010 ;).

World :

India has successfully turned all the nuclear guns of Pakistan towards Nepal. (Why Nepal ?.. well.hhmm... who cares ;)) and Pakistan has finally ceased to exist in spite of all the money given by US and is no more officially recognized as a country.

Obama has finally said – ‘Yes we did’ instead of a perpetual ‘Yes we can’. (BTW: shouldn’t new year day be named as Obama day – it’s a day where everyone hopes for the best ahead and who else can show better ‘hope’ than him.)

Copens and Hagens**  have finally shook their hands on the heroic climate deal. Climate is not going to end humanity anymore – war may though ;)

India :

Mumbai police have finally started torturing Kasab publically… and we are loving it ;).

Chandrayaan 2 has successfully planted the first mango tree on the moon and is using the detected H2O to successfully water it. ;)

In a miraculous case of self realization, Raj and MNS have resorted to peaceful satyagraha.

Swine Flu immunization reaches India and perpetually no deaths due to H1N1 in full 2010. J

Sensex closed 45 points higher today at 35,452 pts.

Gossip :

Rakhi Sawnt’s sequel reality show – ‘Rakhi ka Honeymoon’ has gone on to become the most popular reality show in the world.

Woah ! Saif was bi and had Shahid tattooed on his lower back !

We have finally found 100 waitresses who have not slept with Woods ;).

Entertainment :

AR Rehman gets Oscar for 2^nd year in a row.

Aamir Khan had delivered a mind blower that makes 3 idiots look mediocre (now that would be something ;)).

Business/Technology :

Tata has obliged to the PM’s request to reduce emissions and has launched – Tata Pico – worlds cheapest bike for Rs 1k.

Google has successfully launched Google Life – It is an application that is going to scan through all the data on your laptop, your personal diaries, bank accounts, photos, video chats with your girlfriend, your search queries, the songs that you sing while bathing and pass it through the google black box to give out relevant Ads of what you should buy in order to lead a better life.

Facebook’s population that exceeded that of Chinas.

Windows 7 consistently sucks less than Vista.

Completely ‘working’ GPS active in the whole of India.

Sports :

Commonwealth Games 2010 were the best commonwealth Games hosted – ever. J(well atleast grant me a wish to be able to publish – Woah – nothing actually went wrong in the Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi ;) )

Sachin Completes 21 years and sets the record for the highest number of records anyone has broken and set in any sport.

India retains No. 1 in Tests and also in ODI’s.

Cheers !

Rahul

31 dec 2010. ;)

Also – check out this cool site to be used for the new year – http://www.futureme.org/. It lets you email to a future you ;). May seem a bit silly, but actually pretty cool to email a 30 or 40 year old you asking – hey man –  did you finally get the Ferrari ;).

Oh and ya – feel free to list down something that you feel would be great to have in news on 31^st dec 2010. HAPPY NEW YEAR ;) !

[**- Click here if the Copen and Hagen point confused you a bit ;).]

Only Businesses that THRILL win in the long term!

Only Businesses that THRILL win in the long term!
Around 80% of startups close down within their first year of operation. While some of these go down simply because of part time involvement of the founders, lack of persistence and fizzling out of passion, a large percentage go down during their transition from a Startup(Micro) phase to a Small Business phase.................

De-Branding of The Tiger ! ;)

               It would be an understatement to say that Tiger Woods is screwed. Accenture ended their contract with him and are no longer going to endorse him. The superfast and, thanks to the media, thrilling debacle of the tiger is actually an inspiring story for someone who wants to re-brand or de-brand himself.

                  Wiki defines a brand as a distinguishing name or symbol that determines your product or service. But brand is definitely much more than a flashy logo, a jazzy company name and a million dollar Ad campaign. For a company, its basically ‘who’ the company is. If its about a business, you are getting branded every minute – pick up the phone with a frown and a grumpy hello – you are branded, work harder to deliver on time – you are branded, default on loans – you are branded, don’t pay salaries on time – you are branded, communicate fair and honestly – you are branded, roll out a bad batch of products – you are branded, don’t do what you said you will – you are branded, have an untidy, unclean office/shop – you are branded, smile at your customer – you are branded, laugh behind his back – you are branded. So your brand is basically ‘who’ you are.

             Its clear that Tiger Woods had lost his brand value. But the funny thing is, he is still what he is – he is still the bloody best golf player in the world. That’s what has made him what he is. That’s what Accenture signed him up for. I hope they didn’t sign him for “Not sleeping with wrong women”.

              So you can have a flashy logo, jazzy name and be the best in the business – ‘screw’ up and you are screwed ;). And when God decides to set a freaky sensuous babe called destiny to screw you – all you have to do is just knock at the backyard of your own home, with your own car, having your own family in it, to unravel the deep secrets hidden in the hearts of god knows how many mistresses to the entire world.

    So the big lesson to be learned is :
Go to Bed – and you are branded ;).

When Copen met Hagen !! ;)

         This is a story about 2 brothers – Copen and Hagen. Copen is 21 and thus has a relatively ‘developed’ persona and Hagen is 15, but smart and ‘developing’ fast.


One morning, Copen and Hagen decide to go a cafe and have a chat-

Copen : Hey Hagen, how many times have I told you to stop smoking. You are too young to do that.

Hagen : Oh yeah !! but you started when you were just 12 !

Copen : And that was a mistake. And I don’t want you to repeat the same mistakes that I made.

Hagen : Aah ha ! Well I don’t listen to people who make mistakes.

Copen : Listen, I am elder to you and thus smarter and more self dependent. So I have the right to advice you.

Hagen : oh really, then why don’t you give me some more money to buy a ‘hukkah’ ! It would be less injurious you know.

Copen : Buy one?? why don’t you make one just like I have done.

Hagen : Haah, then atleast teach me how to make it or share the technology how I am supposed to make it.

Copen : Oh I will, but you have to promise you will smoke less.

Hagen : Oh yeah ! And what happened to the promise you made to mom (Mrs kyoto) few years back ?

Copen : That was an old thing. Besides, this is between you and me. Don’t get mom in between. Forget about that thing. Besides it not my fault that she didn’t make you promise that time. Who knew you were going to grow up so fast !

Hagen : Forget Mom !! You can default on your promise to her and you want me to make a promise to you !! I am walking out !!!

And thus Copen and Hagen fought happily ever after.

           Climate thus remains limited to some lame essay talk given by some 13 year old that gets shared a million times and tones of people, who I hope, know what they are protesting for.

                 Australia is coming out to be a champion amongst the copens as they are giving in their best shot at scraping their promise to mom Kyoto and Africa is being termed as the champion amongst the Hagens as they are willing to stand tall and refuse to be dominated. Well, Ironic to a summit that should have champions termed on the basis of the vision and valor shown by a nation towards taking initiative for fixing the environment. Copens are worried that it will hamper their capitalist economies – well apparently you taught the world that capitalism is powerful and flexible – isn’t it powerful and flexible enough to accommodate the environment ???

               We have reached such a point that even if some minister from some country comes up with some innovative way and decides to lead by an example, the pride and political ego of his nation will be so badly hurt, that implementing something would anyways be just a dream for him. Handling the protestors will be on agenda for a few months then. The opposition in that country would be celebrating though.;)

Pretty funny we all cannot agree on the underlining necessities for our own survival ! ;)

In a 'STATE' of Break Up !!

2 FEBRUARY, 1835
AN EXCERPT FROM LORD MACAULAY'S ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

"I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation."


Now this is a heavily debated article which has its supporters and skeptics, and though i personally accept Macaulay as a hero who got English Education to India,  lets just consider the part of ideology of the british to 'Divide and Rule'. Divide the country by regions, by religions, by classes and every possible way to rule rule 'efficiently' over the people.

11th DECEMBER 2009
AN EXCERPT FROM LORDESS MAYAWATI'S ADDRESS TO THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT (PRIME MINISTER) :

"I have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to give us clearance for creating independent states of Budelkhand and Harit Pradesh out of a giant-sized and unmanageable Uttar Pradesh.I was always in favour of smaller states as they are much simpler to govern"

Mayawati for trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh
IANS 11 December 2009, 06:15pm IST
The Times of India 

12 DECEMBER 2009
TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao : The 'Fast-ing Hero' of the telangana midnight statehood says there is no turning back and does not even want to share Hyderabad with AP as capital.

No turning back on Telangana statehood: TRS chief
PTI 12 December 2009, 02:44pm IST
The Times of India

Ideology : Divide and Rule. 
Its better this way you know. Mayawati can now get to control 3 states instead of 1. 3 times the number of statues.;) Mr Rao has successfully fasted his way to get his state for his 'underprivilaged' men. Too good now they have their own space to be a non discriminated state. Well, if everyone is unfortunate, who will u discriminate against ;). So good for them.

Long long time ago, some white men thought of breaking the country to rule 'BETTER'. Thankfully we did have some brave people to stand up for our independence. And today, long long time after independence, some smart people again propose to do the same to be able to rule 'BETTER'. Who is going tostand up and for what ;)

And if some other people pick up the agenda, dont think its too far when you have to start paying inter state toll for travelling from Pune to Mumbai ;)

The Indian TEDdy

              Last Month TED had their India Conference at the Infosys Campus at Mysore. As the videos are being published one by one, analyzing the highlights of the conference may give us some idea as to where we are going –


Pranav Mistry : This guy is mad. He is out to get rid of the laptop/desktop/iphone that you are using to read this right now, and put it on you. So your computer is going to be ON you like a parasite wherever you go. ;). On a serious note, a true genius. A true face of innovative India that I feel was lost during foreign rule and pre liberation period. Not surprisingly, he does all his research at the MIT labs. What we need to look forward is that, when we start computing in this way or may be start embedding chips in our bodies, will our educational reforms take us to a position where the pranav mistrys of tomorrow do their research in India. Not that we would not take all the credit of his inventions even if they are done elsewhere ;). Click here for his talk.

Hans Rosling : The king of data and information statistics. He predicts that if the ‘conditions’of the past 2 decades remain constant, India will be at par with the US and UK in terms of economy, health and standard of living by 2048 ! Now the skeptics disagree saying that this is non-sense and that Hans Rosling’s own findings suggest that there are discrepancies due to conditions like war, famines and stuff – but being a true Indian at heart – I like to believe that this is all true. Wow, it would be such an awesome day ! Hopefully the rupee is so strong that it pains much more to pay Rs 25 for a hair cut in India than paying $25 plus tip in the US ;).Our PM bloody has the power to go and poke his nose in any part of the world. Technology being outsourced from India to the west ;).So much power to just crush Pakistan like a fly. Speaking of Pakistan, I have always wondered why no one considers Pakistan in such surveys – oh ya, most probably, they would have ceased to exist by 2048 ;). Click here for the talk.

Mallika Sarabhai : Well here we have an activist, politician and artist dishing out something that was hard core “arty”. I am not too fascinated by slow, puzzling art films dishing out indirect messages to, many a times, very few people, who always look down at people like me who say that they didn’t really understand anything. She focused on including arts along with all the economic, social and political development and that any true development would not be possible without including the development of art. Though her performance is rated as obnoxious and unconvincing at TED, what really came out from it was how the super upper class looks at the social issues. It gave a feel of how showing to do something social is ‘cool’ for what can be called – the page 3 type people. Click here for her talk.


Sunitha Krishnan : Activist working against human trafficking and sex slavery.
I think this short, confident and humble woman represents the true face of the strong upcoming Indian woman – who is courageous, inspiring and fearless. Her talk agenda is very close to what Mallika Sarabhai speaks, but it is straightforward, no non sense and it touches your heart. It takes something for a female to come upto the stage and explain her condition on being gang raped by 8 men when she was 15 and overcoming all that anger to bloom into a super woman who has rescued more than 3200 girls who had been trafficked for sexual reasons. She rightly points out that the society is the major issue that builds walls against accepting rehabilitated women and things are going to change when we just change our outlook even within our small social circle. Well, if this is the face of the Indian woman tomorrow, we are getting there much earlier than 2048 ;) Click here for her talk.

Anupam Mishra : Look at him once and you see a true Gandhian at appearance, speech and attitude. And hell he is. He pointed out an interesting thing – of how traditional methods, in application in draught prone regions of Indian from something like 800years ago, are still working perfectly and how the million rupee projects of the government have fallen flat on their face. Well, we all know for a fact that long long time back, we had fascinating technology, architecture and probably the best standard of living – where we intend to go back again by 2048 ;). He has stressed on how we can still use these traditional and age old technologies even today and it is sheer ignorance of the government that we are not doing that in other parts of India. Now this brings us to an interesting point – if we are going ahead to become a super power, are we going to get there by being true to our roots and becoming an easternized eastern super power or are we going to adopt the west and follow their ways to become a westernized eastern super power. Click here for the talk.

Devdutt Pattanaik : Following the east vs west question above, he speaks about how east is east and the west is west and how our different history and culture have influenced our behavior and how this applies to how business is done differently in India and in the west. Eventually leads to the all important question that almost all businesses in India come across – should we put things in a process or will that hamper the innovative* quotient of the company. *Well, innovation in the Indian way can be defined as finding your way through the traffic and making it to the front, in spite of having 50 cars and bikes packed in front of you at the red light ;). Of how the best Indian companies cannot be driven by institutional demands but by individual instincts. While time will only tell how we adopt or clash when we start influencing the world more and more, I think its time to include ‘jugaad’ as an official management funda and’ jugaadu’ as an official profession.bcoz i think 'jugaading' is the second best thing invented by India ; First is the number zero.;). Click here for his talk.

Shashi Tharoor : I just love to see people like him come up the Indian political scene. He has spoken about the soft power of a country. A power that a country develops as a result of its culture, people, policies and also a sixth sense subjective matter that every country has about itself. You know, like the US portrays capitalism, rich, technology, credit ;). India - rich culture, yoga, technology , population , Australia - beaches, laid back lifestyle, nature . China – cheap quality, small eyes, eating lizards. Pakistan – terrorism. So will India, empowered by all the technology, communication, entertainment, democracy and its powerful growing economy merge these benefits with its ancient culture to come across as a consolidated super country and use all these powers, not to overpower the world, but to overpower its own problems first? May be if more and more guys like Tharoor start coming up instead of the Behnjis, and we start making use of them for their intelligence rather than concentrating on their tweets ;). Click here for his talk.

Just taking an outline from the published talks, do have to say that the Indian TEDDY is looking pretty pink and healthy and laughing all the way ;)

The Truth of the Gatecrashers ! ;)

           The US has apparently termed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to US as historic. Seems there has been some good “strategic discussion” about ‘allied efforts’ that shall lead to ‘long term co operation’. But none of the news channels bothered to have proper debates or any sort of discussions that would help us know what was exactly discussed.

              So we sent our No. 1 reporter – Kunachand Dozy (KD)– to interview some people who were actually inside the White House that time – Tareq Salahi(TS) and Michelle Salahi(MS) – or more infamously known as the ‘gatecrashers’ ;). KD sneaked on one night into their bedroom and since he was carrying expensive wine and champagne with him, they let him stay. Bottles open up –

Drink 1

KD: Hello sir, ….hey baby !!

TS: Hey Indian fella, what brings you here ?

KD: No reply- just staring at MS…

TS: Hey uuuu .. !..

KD: yes, sir , I was hoping to get a first hand information about what happened that night when you gatecra..

TS: We did not Gatecrash…!!!.. we were invited..

KD: Oh ya. Sorry, when you were invited to the White House.

MS: Oh it was an amazing night, we got all these snaps with everyone and look at us.. we are celebrities now..(looks really happy)

TS: Ahem..!

MS: Oh and ya…(super sad expressions) our lives are destroyed now . We were really invited.

Drink 2:

TS : You bloody media people, you misinterpret everything.!! you don’t have any moral sense and just blow up things for no reason..

KD: But what you did was not right na sir..

MS: Not right .. and what about what you guys do.. waste millions of hours of media time on air, critical news spaces and god knows how much money to report 2 people walking into the white house..

TS: Especially when your entire nation and US or for that matter most of the parts of the world should have been airing predictions and debates and information about the discussions going on.

KD: uh.. aah.. hhmm..

Drink 3:

MS: And look at us.. we are worldwide celebrities now.. and your PM’s visit, just got overshadowed by my one ramp walk down the white house.. haah !!

KD(may be thinking of doing some ethical journalism ;)) Actually, I have come to get a first hand feel about what talks took place inside, what were the discussions about.. was it about Pakistan ??

TS: haha.. why are you asking this to me..!! Kids in India would know that elite Pakistani institutions support the Taliban- something that the CIA is apparently discovering for years and reporting. Obama administration are still judging the reports results and devising strategy for the Af Pak mission. I don’t understand why you have to judge the reports of a country that is a synonym for failure.

MS: And I am sure even after everything , they will continue the ‘non-military’ aid to Pakistan and tell them’ “take this and don’t use it against India” ;)

Drink 4:

KD: (needless to say.. feeling really good as any Indian would feel after hearing words of wisdom about their neighbor ;))Wow.. how do you know so much about India, pak and stuff

TS: Because we don’t rely on or watch hopeless news channels which have crap aired by worthless reporters like you..

MS: Yeah, we directly crash in and see LIVE ! ;)

Drink 5 :

KD: Hhmm. And did they mention any allies stuff..

TS: Well you know, if I was responsible, I would have announced a big Indo-US ally and asked Pakistan to choose – Indo-US anti-terrorist ally or the Al Qaeda- Taliban ally. At least that would have made the visit ‘historic’ in the eyes of the world as well. And hopefully, no one would have had the time to lay their eyes on us ;). Nothing but just an announcement – something like the nuclear thing in the 2005 visit, would have created all the masala that you news guys need. Fir dekhte kaise pakistan ki phatti thi !

KD: Wow, you speak hindi !

TS: After 5 drinks, I speak hybrid of Hebrew and zulu as well !

Drink 6:

Wow.. but how was the dinner anyways..

MS: You will never learn will you.. you worthless reporter.. you should learn something from the Pakistani press, see how they must have shown your PM and the president shaking hands with the headlines “How our neighbor enemy is shaking hands with the democratic secular west(enemy 2) ”.. and how we need to get together and stop what they are going to do to the world. They wouldn’t even think of showing some gatecrashers walking in.. learn something.. !!

Drink 7:

KD passed out and doesn’t remember anything else.

Before coming back, KD also met another hot ‘news item’ of the week – Tiger Woods. Poor fellow. The media is slowly bringing up and tearing apart his personal life every single day. Being used the way it is.. Journalism isn’t turning out to be a too bad tool to turn villains into celebrities(Salahis) and celebrities into villains(Woods). At this pace, who knows, there might be a war going on in some part of the world and we would still be seeing some Richard - Shilpa kiss episode ;)

When Dubai Thanked the World !!

       All I have been to Dubai is the Dubai Airport. Its amazing. It glitters and in no time you just forget that you are on an airport and if you are a girl- you also start shopping in no time. Its truly a dream welcome to the ‘land of dreams’, or at least what it was considered until a few days back, just until the Dubai said a big Thank You to all its money lenders on the eve of thanksgiving - thanking them graciously for all the money and also for hopefully understanding that - well- we dont have any to give you back ! I think we would have to rate it as the biggest Thank You of this year ;).


               As all the people are wondering why the Big Thank You came, millions of others are left furious, some for losing millions and some not having made millions to lose them. Its being predicted that some 20000 migrants from India who had been coaxed by agents with the beautiful ‘Living the Dream’ dream, are coming back home this month – or rather are being kicked out of the emirates this month. Its like if you have no work out there, you have some 30 days to get your ass out of the country, or city or emirate or whatever ;). So all these people are going to come back to mommy after having ‘lived their dreams’ and going to be greeted by money lenders to pay back the money they had borrowed to pay the agents. Wonder if they can say the Thank You as well – too bad we don’t have the thanksgiving in India – Imagine how many people would be thanking each other ;)

             I did read in some places, “why don’t they pay themselves with all the oil they have.” How can they ??, they don’t have any oil. All the oil is with Abu Dhabi. They can surely bail out Dubai World, but I guess they have been reading Paul Krugman lately and getting smarter. Hopefully at least someone is coming to know that bail outs are for socially productive companies backed by the government- may be something like a national post and not for companies riding in borrowed Ferraris and building artificial islands that no one has the money to go and stay in – well at least right now.

             Some $600bn projects have come to a standstill in Dubai. Bankers, lawyers, architects and not to mention - laborers –have been axed, in some cases, by SMS- and I was thinking they do this only in China ;). People are selling cars to cover up for their loans, as in Dubai, if you default on loan payment or if your cheque bounces, you go to Jail. Dubai World or Nakheel would have to say another thank you now that the same rule does not stand with their lenders too ;)

         And then as usual, we have all the criticism from the west about future trust issues and all that – Veteran Bollywood over-Actor Rajkumar(Acting as Dubai World this time) has a message for all of you
:(Chinay Seth = money lending banks;) )


Hehe ;) You started it buggers. Now don’t point at others. I am sorta glad that the Sheikhs of Abu Dhabi have turned their backs, why should their people suffer for it, might as well make the brit banks absorb the hiccups ;). After all, they are the ones who had all the money, tones and tones of money to build islands, but none to get some sane advice.

            Shashi Tharoor in his lecture at TED India this week spoke about the ‘Soft Power’ of any country. The power that a country develops as a result of its government, technology, culture, policies and most importantly, its people. The power that attracts the world to that country. Dubai attracted millions with one common philosophy – ‘All that glitters is going to be Gold’ and one prime human tendency – ‘Greed’ and one common globally accepted apparently faulty solution to it – ‘Credit’ ;)

Start Saving for 2012 !

Every morning I get up and turn on channel 9 (there are just 5 channels that you get for free in Australia and channel 9 is the best amongst all that’s free ;)) and after every 20 minutes, a short fat Engligh looking man speaks up in Pure Aussie slang – ‘Yeah Mate, have you thought what will happen if you die tomorrow. Are you prepared for it(yeah right, as if I have nothing better to do than plan my undecided funeral). Would you like to leave your family in all that debt after you are gone.’


Now normally, I would expect someone to say, leave your family in all the mourning, pain, loneliness, sadness and whatever, but why DEBT??.. what do they shower you with gold biscuits when you die ;)

And then I sorta did some research, and believe it or not, the average funeral cost in Australia is AUD $6000 and can go up to a whooping AUD$20k !! and that’s why these guys are hard selling insurance to help you save for your own grave. The short fat man’s apparently scary(funny to me) intro is followed by loads of typical tele-shopping style case studies of how Jason left his family in debt when he died and how linda never thought about her funeral but how the aussie insurance guys have made her ‘aware’ of it.

So why does it cost so much to die in the west ? The answer is real estate ! You are buried here and when you get buried – you occupy space – and for space you got to pay- living or dead. So in fact you got to keep paying rent even after you die. And I am almost sure that we would have a sub-prime crisis for graveyards been allocated at higher interest rates to the dead – and the banks can then claim that the dead are not able to pay back and ask for a government bailout.

Fun fact : Infosys India actually has around 600 software developers employed in what is called as a “Death Care Business Unit” who support softwares that help people sorta save for their funerals.

If the Mayans calendar , India TV, Aaj tak, and now the Hollywood is to be believed, we all better start saving for whats going to happen in 2012 ;).

Backpack Go !

        There are many things that I did for the first time after coming down to Australia. First time jet ski, first time drove a tractor through a farm, first single engine open aero plane ride, first hair cut taken from a lady barber (we can call her barbara)..fist time snorkeling, and finally first night out with one of the most unique creatures within the human species – backpackers.

These guys are amazing, they are available in all the sexes possible, in all colors, but mostly fair colored, believe in wearing minimal clothing, mostly pierced – n yeah.. not just on the face and decorated with unfathomable mural art- on any part of the human body that you can stretch your imagination to and many times carrying huge sacks that are almost 2/3rd their own size. Needless to say, with so much of a fuss, only the fairer sex among them looks presentable- just in case you are interested in ogling at them.

As foolish as I normally am, just to get a closer look at the lives of these guys, I checked into one of the backpackers hotels in south Melbourne.(Serious note for all readers : by reading through the words that you are now reading, you have morally signed the official terms and conditions for not letting the information revealed in this blog post to any one of my family members ;-))

I met Ben who had graduated in mathematics(wished he had learned some programming), was backpacking around Australia and was down in Melbourne to see if he had any job prospects. Sarah who was bored of her work-from-home language translation job and was down for a change and boy.. was she enjoying herself. Rogers who was retired from the US military and was going around places in Australia to see if anyone wanted to support his project for accepting alternative medicine into mainstream medicine line through government support. Gean(Pronounce as John) fuon quaon, French guy, who, along with his irish girlfriend got drunk till 3 in the morning and still got up at 6:30 and took me around for a 12 hour long tour of entire Melbourne in just $3. Stacey and kewn(travelling for being dumped by her boyfriend), travelers from NZ who joined us on the $3/person trip.

They say that you know that you are really living when you would be able to write a book about the past year of your life. These guys certainly can do that. They have a lot to tell if you ask them ‘hey hows your travel coming up’. If anyone thought that the dwellers of slums of Mumbai are the only ones who master the art of survival, these guys do it at a global level. Most of them don’t know if they are going to be able to collect enough money to board their next flight scheduled in a weeks time. They are ready to take up any job that pays hourly and save every penny – just to splurge on diving with sharks in the barrier reef ;). And if anyone got the message of ‘swawlamban’ (self service) from Gandhiji, its these guys. They stay in places that have sharing rooms, common toilets and kitchens and common lounges – and have the greatest time that no five star can offer you. You can easily start a conversation with anyone with 2 easy topics – how beautiful the city in which you currently are and how inconsiderate the bastard employers of the city are who don’t pay more than $12/hour ;).

Almost all these guys live to travel and when you have a closer look at them, many don’t know where they are going to be in a few days time. If their survival capital is in doldrums, they might just have to get instant flight changes and go to some other place. Mostly look aimless and not at all focused in life – but really happy. After all, that’s what all the comparatively sane people are looking to achieve.

Narayan Murthy, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates – all have been there and done that(Narayan Murthy in fact took up entrepreneurship as a result of one of his hitch hiking trips near the Serbia border). And for those who are willing to learn, I think aimless globetrotting does teach you a lot of things. It would enhance your faith. Because when you decide to go all on your own, many a times, things are going to get out of hand and you just have to rely on some higher power to get you through. Fear vanishes as you know that you are just going to fine if anyone throws you in any corner of the world. Apparent risks in daily like start appearing menial. You meet millions of different types of people and come closer to what would be called as a global citizen. And if you ask me, it might just set you free as a person if you are looking out for that- but freedom as usual, comes at a cost. And for those who are ready to pay for it, it’s a f**king roller coaster ride.

Damn you Language !!

      Looong flights from India to Dubai to Brisbane and then to Townsville. Was sitting in between a fat farty old genleman from New Zeleand and a pretty lovely french hottie(LFH from here on). As you must have guessed, this is obviously about the latter one. And simply because such thing never happens to me, I must have been to atleast 500 movies by now, but not once has a girl(or atleast something that can be called a girl) has sat next to me. So we sat down and
Me : So heading to Brisbane ? (As if she is going to jump off mid flight into the Indian Ocean from a non stop flight to Brisbane)
LFH: a.... ah.. ha!
Me: ! .. ok.. so vacation  ?
LFH: A. hh.. ye... arrrrrr.. ah.. nno...
Me: Can I borrow that book for a while ? (LFH had this tour book about australia and since I had changed my plans last minute and was going to go to brisbane and not melbourne. So this was genuine and not just something to add on to the conversation as most of you feel)
LFH: (No response - just staring at my nose)
Me: You fine !! ??
LFH: Aahh..book.
Me: Ya. .
LFH: (Nodding).. I no englisss...  spi.. arrahh.. (signaling some weird things and pointing towards her throat..)..
Me : (Spit !!).. !
LFH: Speak.. French ?
This was the point that my entire academic career came crumbling down in front of my eyes. I wondered why i hadnt taken a french course instead of engineering. Any ways i just freaked out those 4 years, one 4 week french course would have saved me from this terrible communication crisis at 31000 feet.
Me : well no ! :-(
LFH:(Still handed over the book).. aha..
Me: Thanks .. and yeah - it was in French !
Still i chose to just stare at the maps now that she had handed that over to me.
LFH: So you.. (again making that weird throat signaling).. French ?
Cant you see I am staring at this book as Mayawti would stare at some draught economic project report drawn by Chidambaram
Me: hhmm. Naah !
LFH: uh.. ah.. m.. me .. working job vacation !
Me: (Wow.. 3 english words at a go.. great going !! but more happy because she initiated this time) aha.. me business and studies..
LFH: (Smiles)
Lunch arrived and she could hardly tell the air hostess what she wanted. I realize how she much be feeling. Its the sorta feeling that you get even when you go to some other state within India itself. I sometimes get it in Hyderabad and definitely got it in chennai. Not knowing local dialect does alienate people so fast ! May be thats why its possible for any american to move to any part of USA easily- because he knows that his primary source of communication is going to be understood. Imagine if we had just one language- moving across states would have been so much more easier - Imagine landing in chennai and not having to struggle to tell the rikshawwala where you have to go and strike a conversation as well. Shopkeepers, offices and everyone understands one national language and prefers it. Wow ! The country's unity and productivity would have been so much higher. Well .. may be.

            Oh coming back, LFG and me did make some more futile attempts to communicate at times when we were bored of wtching movies, tv seerials, songs and playing games on that small screen which is your whole and sole to distract your attention from sore knees caused by non aisle seats in economy class -  And I kept wondering why God couldnt send us down here pre programmed in a single language.

Naxalistan !

                Narayan is a bright young boy who has grown up in a quiet interior village in south India. A regular topper and an ambitious fellow, he moves to the city for his further education and cracks the JEE to enter into IIT Mumbai. He turns into a super geek and a hard core techie and like most IITans do, goes on to join the IIMs soon after. Being such an academically high profile guy, obviously the big guys pick him right out of college. But he refuses to join and thinks of doing his own thing and working towards his own vision. He starts out small in his hostel room and slowly starts growing with his tremendous will power and tones of peer contacts that you develop on passing out from the II’s. He toils day in and out and grows from micro to small to mid size. All his hard work starts to pay off and he is now being rated as one of the leading entrepreneurs of the country. Then there is the big IPO and Narayan deservedly becomes a billionaire overnight. He now has a big house, few cars and a comfortable but non-flamboyant lifestyle. A few days later – he is kidnapped and beheaded. Welcome to Naxalistan !

So what wrong did Narayan do ? Well, he enhanced his productivity and was rewarded deservedly and that made him into a cruel elitist who is ideologically an enemy of the poor – in Naxalistan. He is the rich who is going to become richer at the cost of keeping the poor where they are or making them even poorer. Narayan is the face of social capitalism and the good part of our democracy. And he is beheaded by the bad part of the same democracy. Beheaded by an ideology generated due to the consistent loopholes in the same democracy.

                Remember the last time you complained about the government not taking action or not paying attention to the poor. Well, the Maoists say the same. They claim to guarantee you a life and a world which is paradise-like. Where everyone is equal and all the resources would be allocated as per needs and not as per the efforts. Where the state will control and ensure that everyone is free. But there is just one small problem. You don’t have a choice for this freedom and equality. You have to accept and live it ;-). Just like your parrot gets food, water, balls and pipes to play with and all the attention. You have all that for you too – but ya..within the Cage !

                And what happens if you don’t want to accept this freedom-at-gunpoint. Well your equality giver sends you back to where you came from – upstairs. But in Naxalistan, this is justified. It would be considered as a sacrifice for a higher cause. It ok ! Mao China sent 50 million upstairs. But its Ok! They would portray it as a violent agitation against a sham democracy.

                Why is it then, that Naxalistan gaining all this strength day by day?  How come they spread over 200 districts in 20 states across India ! We got ourselves to blame. We chose leaders who would go into relatively less accessible interiors of India only during the election time, thus leaving all the remianing time for the Naxals to breed and grow. They want to keep Naxalistan away from the other parts of developed India and gain a firm holding into these major areas. Thats precisely why all the bombing of the roads and rail routes happens. They want to reach everywhere where the government doesn’t and more. Protecting every acquired area becomes their self proclaimed responsibility and when your ideology is supremely flawed, you got to blow bombs hard enough so that people don’t get to listen to the sane world outside. And now they are bombing public sectors too. No wonder Mr P. Chidambaram is perplexed as to what they actually want !

                Another reason could be that Our history books dont have a big detailed chapter on the fall of the Berlin wall. May be if kids learnt it early, many in Kolkata and AP rurals would at least think twice before becoming a part is Naxalistan  ;-).

                When people from across the border with foreign nationality encroach into our area violently – we call them terrorists and shoot them down. What do we do to people of our own nationality who encroach into our socio-economic lives violently ?

Koffee with Kasab !

                Kasab wants mutton biryani, kasab wants rakhi, karsab wants perfumes – what is this big fuss about a brutal human butcher demanding stuff like being some Ambani’s spoilt daughter. So we sent our best reporter from Are Relax Tv – our beloved – Kunalchand Dozy (KD from here on : neatly combed and over oiled hair, khadi kurta over formal pants and as you should expect  – Tuffs sports shoes-shiny white) to find out the inside story about all the fuss about Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab (AK from here on) –  KD, typical of him, bored the jailer at Arthur road jail to death and managed to get a chat with AK –

KD enters wearing his million dollar smile and hits on :

KD : Hello Mr. Kasab.

AK : Aaadaa Barse !

KD: Ya Same to you – aadab harse ! So how are you ?

AK : Doing good. A little disappointed that they didn’t send a lady reporter though.

KD: Oh! I think I would be able to satisfy you, uh oh.. I mean through my superior reporting skills. BTW, you seem to have put on a lot since you have been arrested ?

AK: Hhmm, not much, just about 4-5 kgs. Happens when you are on vacation.

KD: Vacation !!!

AK: Oh, I mean I am not doing my regular job – so putting on a bit. Besides there is no Gym in this bloody jail. Wow, you just gave me a good idea to throw my next tantrum.. I need a gym.. thanks.

KD: Well.. welcome.., speaking of tantrums, we hear you want to eat mutton biryani and basmati rice ?

AK: Of course, my taste buds cant stand this stupid jail food.

KD: Well, sir, I suppose that is a part of your punishment.

AK: Punishment !! What punishment. I like it here. A billion people and more want to know anything and everything about me. Even my irregular bowel movements causes a stir in the media. I enjoy the attention and the limelight.

KD: Don’t you miss home ?

AK: Are you mad ! don’t remind me of that place. Bloody get up at 3 in the morning, climb mountains, work out like mad, tones of gym, Bombing drills, AK47 drills, swimming, trekking, suicide practicals  and stuff you cant even imagine. Your turn into an android – you know thats why they are able to program us against the fear of dying. Dying is sorta  In.. there. And after all this, you got to share your dinner with a dozen of guys in the same plate. I am in jannat(heaven) here.

KD: Oh, so you like it here ?

AK: Like it??  I love it ! They spend Rs 2500 from your tax money every day on my security, stay and food. You know how many Indians make less than Rs 20/day.

KD: You seem to be having a lot of knowledge for a person exiled here in a jail !

AK: Yeah, its this micro chip fitted behind my ear(Kasab bends his ear and leans forward towards KD to show the chip- KD almost faints with AK’s odour). It gets continuous audio feed from the LeT website. Keeps me updated.

KD(awe): Wow !

AK: Also, ask those twitter guys to stop napping and upgrade. Duh ! I need to post audio feeds from this chip below my tongue. What do they expect me to do : Have chips in my eyes for God sake ! Tell them to do it else we will hijack it.

KD:  Oh Uh.. You mean Hack.

AK: Yeah same. Don’t act smart. (Seems nobody told AK that KD doesn't need to 'act' smart .. huh!)

KD: Oh sorry! Why did you……… (KD just watches the next question, remembers something and cancels it out ) – Why did you ask for a perfume ?  Well, sorry , we heard you wanted rakhi ?

AK: What !  NO ! She is good for loosers like Eelesh only .

KD:  Oh no no. Not Rakhi Sawant sir. As in Raksha Bandhan Rakhi.

AK: Oh ya, my lawyer explained me the importance. Besides my TRP was dropping down. H1N1, elections almost beat me to it. So you know, I had no other option. People love ‘breaking news’ on holidays.

KD: Just diverting from the topic, if you like it in here so much, why did you confess and ask to be hanged some time back.

AK: Mind games baby, mind games ! If I ask them to sentence me to death, and they do, then you will never have the satisfaction of hanging me against my will. So i know you wont. Besides the opposition will get an agenda to accuse the ruling party of listening to a terrorist

.

KD: Oh thats intelligent. And whats with all this lawyer thing?

AK:  Well, I seriously don’t know. May be they want some TRP too. Who cares anyways, my chargesheet is 12000 lines long and there are about 200 witnesses. Its going to take millions of years. And ya, its going to cost all you tax payers crores.

KD: Hhmm, you seem to be a lot worried about TRP and publicity don’t you ?

AK:  Of course I am, how many people do you think follow your stupid blog !! My photo is one of the highest published and distributed photo ever- this one ->. Man I must have beaten Megan Fox at it. Its my duty now to keep it up to date.

KD: Oh, why don't you try some reality show then ?

AK: Grinning. Well.. I did have an invitation from Big Boss 3. They even built a separate jail cell out there for me.

KD: Oh that was for you. We were wondering why they are not able to utilize it properly. But what happened ?

AK: Oh its dates collided with the elections . So the government has asked me to go in Big Boss 4 instead. This time they took that Kamaal instead of me.

KD: Oh ok. Why does it seem that the ISI and the LeT are not worried about you being here.

AK: Oh they know me. I have doom going inside my head. I killed 166 people dude! Aamir khan from Ghajini can be relied to remember things and be consistent more than I do.

KD: Didn’t they audio tweet you not to spill out the details of the training camps ?

AK: Phissss.. you believed that didn’t you. Thats what got me the Big Boss invitation btw. Frankly I love making a mockery of the judicial system here. Instead of ripping my ass off for throwing away dinner dishes, these guys report me to a special court and I get reprimanded every week. I am a good source for entertainment for the underworld too you see. They like it. And when I am not doing it, they get bored and go out and start bombing and abducting. So you see, my actions are actually leading to world peace. I should get the Nobel peace for that. If not at least fund my antics. At least give me a mutton biryani. Give me Mut…(starts barging at KD)… tton biryani you.. whats your name you..

KD: kkk.. uu.

AK: Ya you Ku !

KD passed out and the jailer got him back to us – without his report copy ! I believe Kasab ‘hijacked the report .  We had to hack into archives of Kasab’s  tweets to get you this.

                                                                                                                                Are Relax TV !

Egolution !

                When you are a little kid going to school and your partner takes a pencil from your pencil box and keeps it in his, what do you do ? You fight to get it back, get into a tiff and get punished when the teacher comes along.

Consolidated loss :  Both knell down for 1 hour in front of the class  – child ego.

                Then you grow up into a smart teenager, get your first bike, toil hard and get a lovelly girlfriend. Alls fine until the college bully starts hitting on her. You stand up to protect her, get into a tiff and fight it out.

Consolidated loss : A few broken bones and a week long detention – teenage ego.

                You pass your graduation, get a high flying job , churn out some good work, just to realize that your boss and the person sitting next to you gets all the credits and perks. You get into a tiff with your HR(those who don’t stay in a perpetual conflict with themselves), and give in or get out.

Consolidated loss : Your job and some internal peace – professional ego.

                You make some money, get married and buy a land for your new home, just to realize that after coming back to the place after 6 months, the neighbors’ newly built boundary walls encroach by 3 meters. You get into a tiff and take him to court and settle it out.

Consolidated loss : Huge pile of lawyer’s fees, peace of mind and slight amount of social humiliation - Common man ego

              You inherit one of the biggest businesses in the country from your father, become one of the richest person on earth and still you need the government to interfere and solve out an internal family MoU you signed with your brother. – God knows which Ego !

                You step into independence after huge amount of sacrifices, unshakable will power of great men and stand up tall for yourself and breathe a long sigh of freedom, just to realize that all your neighbors’ want to amputate some part of you for themselves. One asks for your head and the other for your arm. You have no choice but to get into a tiff. Your big father turns up and scolds your neighbors, asks them not to wish to steal again(While giving them chocolates toys(non-military aid for pak – ya right !). You give everything to protect yourself, be really good and not even eye the others hoping that your good karma will do justice to you eventually.

Consolidated loss  : Thousands of lives, disruption of international peace – international ego.

                Author Guru Charan Das has mentioned an amazing thing in his book - India Unbound : ‘When a father makes a mistake, the entire family suffers, but when a national leader makes a mistake, the entire generation suffers. ’

                We call small kids immature, undisciplined and stupid for fighting over petty erasers and pencils. What should we call the bigger evolved ones then ? Maybe, if we really wish to upgrade our scale of evolution, then we seriously need to downgrade our scale of ‘egolution’.

               

Open Source- open Money !

                At EC, we have a lot of people coming to us with all these different ideas about building portals. More because we often push Ads like ‘Have an Idea ? We have the technology. Build your dream web portal with ECBuzz.com’. So we get to listen to a lot of ideas everyday. And as true software guys, what do me and sushant do when we have to work out a proposal for something new, we follow the standard coders maxim : Good coders code. Great coders reuse !, and look out for existing softwares. We look out for all that free stuff, or better call it open source to reuse. And every so often, we used to wonder- how do these guys make money ? With all the code up for grabs, are these people so noble at heart and want to earn so much goodwill – of course not ! So this leads to the all important question – how do open source companies make money ?
           There are 2 entities here, the ones who write the original software (‘original company’) and the ones who take it, reuse and deploy (lets call these ‘parasite company’). The case of the latter is easy to understand- why reinvent the wheel, if someone is just giving it to you, take it, polish it and sell it. So we will consider entity 1 here. Lets try and see.
           So you come up with this great idea, find a loophole in the market, or just have a super enhanced version of some existing concept and you decide to make a software solution. After toiling hard and working with great passion, you build your product. Lets say you spent about $20,000 building it. Lets see how going open source is going to help you make money, both in terms of saving of essential investments and actually generating revenue.

Marketing : once you have decided to go open, you give away your code for free download, have it for a free download on your product website, blog about it like mad and post about it in every possible place you can. You start attracting some developer community attention – obviously its free and no one has anything to loose to download and see what you have done. It’s amazing how the word FREE has a specific magnetic effect on your mind no matter where you see it. Anyways, so people start downloading and messing around. To your surprise, the software starts reaching customers who would have never have even considered or even come to know about it. Here comes the most important point about going open – you need a software that is seriously good – because it is naked out there, a good enough will never attract developers and downloads. You didn’t spend a penny and your software is already going places by harnessing the power of open source to market itself. This much about saving on money – now about actually making some-

Service : You then put up pages on your website about a complete installation suite(1st source) – a preinstalled OS, DB, App Server and your free application over that and offer it for some price, say $5000. You can now officially use – free, open source, $0 only to attract all the attention you want. There is a good chance that a lot of prospects considering your software will go for you as of all the parasites thriving on you, you yourself are obviously the most reliable. Next comes your customization : Many of the users who consider going in for your free software, would need some arrangements to suit their own needs and since the idea of getting the software for free has already gotten them excited, they would not mind shelling out something like a $100/hour for customization(source 2). And once you have gotten your customer – you always have the enhancements :-) @ may be $150/hour which becomes our 3rd source.

Support : By now, with some amount of downloads and some community focus on your software, you would probably have an active support and knowledgebase on your site. Its obviously free until now. But now onwards, you start charging for a support package selling support on case basis or a monthly or yearly basis(Say $100/month). Consultants depending on your software and serving customers will not mind paying you for all genuine support. Every programmer has their style of coding that other coders dont understand and trust me, even if its open- tones will need support which is our 4th source.

Demoware Open Source : This is a somewhat debated but definitely a very effective way. Give a really basic, almost commercially non usable version of the software as complete open source. And have a professional and enterprise paid edition over it(Say $500 and $900 respectively). The lowest version suffices the basic needs, but people are stuck up during critical customer custom deployments and have to upgrade. Sugar CRM does this. But attracts a lot of criticism for marketing itself as open source while truly being our demoware open source. But they seem to be better off than other truly open source CRM’s. Proprietary softwares like Salesforce.com, Oracle On Demand and FreedomCRM are way better off in the CRM market though. Anyways, so this is our 5th source.


Collaborative Money : This is where open source is used to collaborate and help some other aspect of your business to monetize itself. Google have Wave and Android open for developers and cant we see the android boom now(2% to 7% growth in market share in just 6 months). Turning these into open source is actually their marketing strategy to market their software through the power of the community in order to be able to sell more Advertisements. So that’s source 6 to use the self marketing power of open source to generate revenue through some other aspect of the business.

        So as per our(just some rough) analysis, you need to sell 4 Installation suites($20000) or 200 hours customization ($20000) to break even and we have not even considered other sources.

        So open source is not about goodwill or spirit, its about fierce competition and capitalism. You know that the company next to you has the same piece of clay as you have and it all boils down to who can mould it better and sell, thus fostering innovation and productivity. No one can put it in words better than Red Hat CEO, Jim Whitehurst “If we all had to walk around naked, we’d spend more time in the GYM”. :-)