The Telecom App Revolution

The surge of apps on the i-phone, android and others makes for a tremendous business case. I mean who was missing the telephone applications till 5 years ago? Let alone that, who was missing the 3-G and the 4-G networks in the first place? At least not the millions of people using it now. Heck, not even thousands of those who test out early-beta versions of these apps even when they are not stable or recommended.

The telecom companies had excess bandwidth, and they didn't know how to monetise it because there were not so many subscribers. So they needed a way to increase the usage per subscriber and that was not going to happen with voice. Then data came in, trickling at first and then flooding all of a sudden. There was always a basic need to let people be connected all the time and mobile phones helped us connect through voice calls. The early adopters of mobile phones, people who were on the move, needed internet connections to check email anyway. They carried a laptop and a mobile phone which was speaking for itself like an opportunity. So, the first applications helped people connect to internet for email. When it really became affordable, people started devising other ways of using this. People on trains used it to check on news, others used it to chat. People used their idle time to play online games, others used it to catch up on emails.

Enterprising people took it as an opportunity and started writing applications that made it easy for people to do these things and much more. And when you hear of people doing financial transactions on the mobile, and new age banks propagating their apps to people for banking, you know that "internet on mobile" has really come of age.

Dual Pricing of Diesel for pasenger cars

I was just reading this article the other day (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/energy/oil-gas/carmakers-fume-over-government-plan-for-dual-pricing-of-diesel/articleshow/9488287.cms) and have been following the developments over internet and TV. The talk on this thing has been on for more than a year now and I am surprised how such an "accomplised bunch of policy makers" cannot take a call on this any sooner. I understand from the "political angle" that they are trying to make a consensus by sending feelers to the general public. But hey, there are more important things to take care of in this country. Why don't they just add a "cess" to this whole business of selling diesel cars and consider it done? D-UH ? Or am I missing something here?

No to Emailing ?

I was just reading this article where the author claims to quit emailing (http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/i-wouldnt-say-ive-been-missing-it/) and that really got me thinking. So what is wrong with email? It was regarded as one of the greatest inventions of the internet age and so many of us owe our daily bread to it.
You just have to go to a government office to see what happens when there is no email. The only way you can reach an officer in the government office is by queuing in front of him, seeking his full attention and then trying to say your point in as few words as possible and backed with as much documentation as possible. Only if people who wanted to get something done from me were that way. Instead, I get all my queries through email. What is wrong with it? Here it is:
a) You can send me an email even if others are writing emails to me at the same time and imagine that you have my undivided attention
b) You can send me an email even if I am sleeping, ill, tired or on vacation and wait for a reply
c) You imagine that I would have understood what you meant just because I didnt reply. Or alternatively, you would imagine that I have ignored your email because I didnt reply quickly enough (according to your benchmarks)
I guess you get the idea !!

Happy emailing ! Adios !

Preparation for Delhi Half Marathon 2009

Tommorrow is July 1, 2009. And the DHM is most probably in November first week like every year. That gives me 4 months to prepare myself to run 21km again.
I used the month of June to make up my mind and have finally decided to prepare. Have started running 3 km every alternate day and ran 6km once in mid-June to stretch myself.
Just like last year, I don't think I should run 21km anytime to prepare for 21km. I want to save the novelty of having achieved that milestone to the last day so that the excitement of achieving something helps me pull through. And believe me, its important.
What I plan to do differently this year is run 12km and 15km more often. I think I did 12km thrice and 15km just once last year. If I can do a 12km once every month and a 15km every alternate month, I think that should strech my legs enough.
Another thing that is going to be very important, I think, is to take care of the food intake. Delhi is anyway party season all year, what with all the get-togethers and never-ending festivals. Have already gotten in the habit of eating a little more than the body demands and this could hurt. Should cut down on the regular diet and I think add more fillers in between to avoid the energy loss. I want to get down by 3-4 kgs before the actual run to ease the burden on the joints. :))
Hope to have a fun-filled preparation. Best of luck to me...

Elements of a successfully tailored career

It is a reality that not all successful careers are made consciously and after years of planning in a particular direction. Many are chanced upon. While we cannot do anything about a career that was chanced upon, because that is the outcome of the diversity of this universe, we definitely can do a lot about the careers that are made.
Who does not want to be successful in this world? Almost everyone loves to be called successful. But the fact remains that not everyone is able to fulfill his/her dreams. And add to that the fact that success is not only a very relative thing by our own standards, it is also a lot about others perception of us.
As soon as a young adult leaves college and joins the corporate world, he looks upon himself/herself as an upcoming CEO. Everyone wants to be at the top of the ladder, whatever they are doing.
This article is not about what you should be doing to get there, because that’s a much discussed thing already. If you look at management books or online articles, you would have read at least a dozen of them talking about the do's and dont's in a corporate world.
We are instead going to talk about when you should start planning, and what does planning actually mean.
Ok, let me drop a bomb. I believe a child's career should be planned when the child is planned. Yes, right when the kid is in the womb! Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to decide if the child should become an engineer, doctor or something like that at this stage. But, it is every parent's responsibility to gain experience from his/her life and pass it on to the child.
One of the things every educated middle-class parent must have realized is that no amount of funds is too much when it comes to college and higher education. In fact, why wait till college, right through school the kind of facilities that you can provide to your child depends on how much funds you have.
So, point number one, start investing money for your child’s education when you start planning for a child. Do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, or hire a professional fund manager. But just start doing something. And make sure you at least classify your funds as “100% secure” and “Depends”. Remember the saying, “a bird in hand is better than two in the bush”. Finally given the times that we live in, I would say, “secure one bird, and then try to look for the two in the bush”.
Ok, moving on, let me say that money is not everything. Times are changing so fast, that when our kids reach the point where they have to decide a vocation, I am pretty sure most of us will be out-of-date with what choices are now available. Every year there are new courses coming in, people are choosing less-heard-of occupations which become mainstream only after a few years. Moral of this part of the story? Point number two is keep yourself uptodate. Make your kid proud of the fact that his/her parent knows everything.
Knowing is one thing, using it to decide one’s choices is adding altogether another dimension to it. So that’s point number three. You are the best judge of what your child is good or not-so-good at because you see him/her for so many hours everyday. If you could just leave that bias of “my kid is the best” and think about a few things like:
a) What is a great career in your part of the world (this helps your kid stay near his/her hometown which is, believe me, the best thing in the world)
b) What is your kid’s strongest point and what occupation suits it
c) What is your background, where you or your contacts can help the child
d) Have you saved enough, will you be able to secure loans to help your child get a good education
This should not just go on in the parent’s mind but also discussed with the child in a positive intent. By the time the child is fifteen, he or she should have a dream career strongly built into their psyche.
Of course, one has to manage expectations and live with realities too. Given the competitiveness of this generation and the uncertainities, there might be setbacks and you need to have backup plans too. That’s point number four. Be ready with some answers, or at least be ready to do some hardwork in coming up with an alternative career should things not work-out.

Now you would say, we already do the above things in an in-formal manner. Yes, agreed, but “informal” means you are not “diligent” about it. And I want to enforce again that the above should become a constant source of interaction in the household so as to focus a child’s energy, dreams and creativity towards the most important thing in life, his/her career.

Point number five and maybe the final one cause this is becoming really long. The college years are when parents finally relax and let a child do their own thing. Well, I understand that they want to give the kid a little space because he/she is all grown up. But look at the society and environment. The kids are getting distracted all the time and concentrating on things that they can do without, at least at that age. What is a college going kid doing thinking for hours how his crush will agree to a date? What is a college going kid doing wondering for hours what dress to wear to the movie outing with friends to impress the gang? I mean aren’t there bigger things to spend time on? Like how can you get to become the CEO of that dream company?

Best of luck folks !!

Entry load on MFs to go - Says SEBI

I read this article in the morning newspaper about "entry load on MFs to go" and it has stayed in my thoughts for the last few hours. The headline screams at you that your 2%-2.5% of the investment, that a distributor ate up earlier at the time of entry, will be spared and now put to good use like the remaining 98-97.5%.

Ok, well, I decided to read on and see what the whole article says. This was actually the transaction cost that your MF house in turn paid to the distributor. You will now have to pay this yourself and you can now pick and choose your distributor based on how much fees he is charging you. So, DUH, what's changed for me? Except that a really big distributor like ICICIDirect could ask even 4% once I have a demat with them and they know a particular scheme is really selling hot. And some local broker could return 1% of the 2% that he charges from known (loyal) customers just like LIC agents.

And hey, come on, you are making this just like stocks. Just like the transaction cost that your broker charges you when you buy or sell shares.

And by the way, didnt the same SEBI come out with a ruling earlier that said there will be no entry load in case we directly approach the MF house and not go through a distributor. In that case, we dont have to pay an entry load.

Instead of concentrating its energies on making it easier for people to decide which MF scheme is better and suits their portfolio, the SEBI is concentrating its energies on this 2.5% commission. Thats what I call penny wise and pound foolish. Only, in this case, it's neither SEBI's penny nor SEBI's pound. The retail investor is still at the mercy of the market. As always...