The Dawn of E2K in India - By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I think every one has got the mail commenting on foreigners trying for VISA and jobs in India. Dream of joining Satyam etc. Here is a article published on the same lines. If you don't have time to read the whole message, read the last two lines.

Form the author of "The World is Flat"

November 7, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist

Remember Y2K? That was the “millennium bug,” the software glitch that threatened to melt down millions of computers when their internal clocks tried to roll over on Jan. 1, 2000, because they were not designed to handle that new date.

And remember that the only country that had enough software programmers to adjust all these computers so they wouldn’t go haywire, and do it at a reasonable price, was India. And remember that it was this huge operation that launched the Indian outsourcing industry — which is why I have long felt that Y2K should be a national holiday in India.

Well, remember this: there is an even bigger opportunity for India than Y2K waiting around the corner. I call it “E2K.”

E2K stands, in my mind, for all the energy programming and monitoring that thousands of global companies are going to be undertaking in the early 21st century to either become carbon neutral or far more energy efficient than they are today. India is poised to get a lot of this work.

I first started thinking about this when I heard Michael Dell declare that Dell Inc. would become “carbon neutral” in its operations by the end of 2008. He said Dell would take inventory of its total greenhouse gas outputs and then develop plans to reduce, eliminate or offset those emissions.

With a carbon tax or cap-and-trade legislation looming, every day you are going to see more and more companies doing the same thing. It is going to be the next big global business transformation. And it’s going to require tons of software, programming and back-room management to measure each company’s carbon footprint and then monitor the various emissions-reduction and offsetting measures on an ongoing basis. Guess who’s got the low-cost brainpower to do all that?

Some of the smartest Indian outsourcing companies are already positioning themselves for the E2K market.

“What did Y2K do?,” asked Nandan Nilekani, the co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, one of India’s premier outsourcing companies. “It was a deadline imposed by the calendar, and therefore it had a huge ability to concentrate the mind. It became a drop-dead date for everyone. Making your company carbon neutral is not a date, but it is an inevitability.”

When Y2K came along, some companies responded tactically, doing only the minimum reprogramming to keep their computers operational after Jan. 1, 2000. Others approached it more strategically, saying: “Since we’re going to have to go through all our software anyway, why not just retire all the old stuff and upgrade to the newer, simpler systems that will make us more efficient.”

These companies went from seeing I.T., or information technology, as a cost to looking for ways to make money from it — through data mining and using better information to cross-sell products, reduce cycle times for introducing new services and to manage inventories more efficiently.

The key to winning E2K business for the Indian outsourcing firms, said Mr. Nilekani, will be showing big global companies, like a Dell, how becoming more energy efficient or carbon neutral doesn’t just have to be a new cost they assume to improve their brand or satisfy regulators, but can actually be a strategic move that makes money and gives them an edge on the competition.

“The strategic companies will say: ‘We are stuck with this problem — why not take advantage of it and use it to revolutionize and rejigger our whole energy infrastructure,’ ” added Mr. Nilekani. They will use E.T. — energy technology — “to reduce material costs, simplify logistics, drive down electricity charges and shorten supply chains.”

As they start to do this, it will require a lot of data management, which companies will want to do as cheaply as possible. Hello India. Hello E2K.

“My impression is that there is certainly a significant opportunity for Indian outsourcing companies,” said B. Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services, another top Indian outsourcing company, adding that the precise size of that business will depend on “the speed and scale at which the carbon neutral policies are adopted by the global companies.”

To better compete for such business, Mr. Nilekani is installing solar systems and other efficiency technologies at Infosys’s Bangalore campus. Satyam is planning to do similar things with its verdant Hyderabad complex, which already has its own zoo.

I.B.M. seems to be moving into this space, too. Big Blue knows that even if Indian companies do a lot of the back-room work, there will be lots of front-end jobs nearer the customers.

So, mom, dad, tell your kids: if they’re looking for a good stable-growth career — green consultants, green designers, green builders are all going to be in huge demand. And if they can speak a little Hindi — all the better.

Happy Days- review, my view

A full length entertainer, as seen in all tv channels its a big hit of the season. As the big releases are not faring well, this can go bit higher too. Performance of new comers, direction and songs are very good. This said, there is some thing you expect and not present in the movie.

College life, when specified engineering, has many other things than girls. And that every thing else is left. It is sure that every one will have a crush, may be some will have a girl friend, and yes some might be ditched by their girl friend/ boy friend. But that alone is not college life, not for any student. There are many important people, things, events in college life.

The best part lies in hostel life, in the relation shared with seniors and later juniors, and all the time with staff. The fun being pet of few staff and being the most pointed by few staff is the last thing one can forget. There may be crush on some beautiful staff, but thats not all. The exams, copying, results, attendance and attendance shortage, bunking of classes... lots and lots. I miss that in movie from my expected list.

Then the relation with seniors. They are the one who give us the courage to go through difficulties, advise us on career and life and at times teach us the greatness of friendship. This is from them we learn the tradition of birthday bumps, engineering salute, bunking and many other things. The same we do spread to our juniors. Getting our records written by juniors, ragging them, inquiring about the girls of their batch... lots to say.

Even the too good songs in movie are not at right situations. The lyrics do not match the situation. They could have been utilised in much better scenes.

I feel Nuvve Kavali was a better college life, and love life. May be we can call Happy Days as Nuvve Kavali-2 or Meere Kavali ;). With no doubt it is as good entertainer and makes you nostalgic and a must see.

Notes

Some interesting software...

Every time I think I need to have a fast note of something, the option is to open notepad and save it. But I can't put and manage these notes every time, or I will end up saving .txts with numbers or short names depending on the info noted.

So I have searched for some desktop notes. I have used one that slides when you want to take note and hides itself once it's done. Few months later I moved to a new firm and thought to use sticky notes, found hottnotes interesting. Now I have moved to another firm again. Hottnotes gave some problem and is not starting up, saying dll missing. Also it's sticky notes and so the desktop gets messed with transparent notes. So thought to move back to the sliding notes.

Unfortunately I forgot the name. Googled many times but most of them are the stikcy notes kind of result. I have to move thru pages of search results and try few screenshots to find if its the one I am looking for.

Finally found this. The freeware edition is developed by and present at http://notes.aklabs.com/

You too may like it, a light weight and friendly notes with reminder facility.

I dont know why being good doesnt work

I have been fighting to claim full and final settlement from my previous organisation from past 4 months. No mail or phone worked out when I tried to be good. And now, I got a fast reply when I gave this mail. I dont know why people put a deaf year till it blasts.

Hi XYZ,

Its more than couple of weeks that you said you will revert in couple of days. Request you not to take my requests as helplessness. The salary from Jan is pending, and its bad to see that none cares to reply back. Inspite many mails, I see no reply from YYY till now. Please remeber that I am not begging.
Please close my dues asap, in week or so. Because the response is very embrassing, I may resort to legal procedures now if this continues.

Thanks
Vinil

MP3 cutter

Many times I find the music bits in songs very appealing and intersting, but all the time I try to cut that bit, I get a very bad solution. Free trial, that and this.

Finally I have found this, a very good open source cutter. You may find it interesting.
http://home.hccnet.nl/p.luijer/
With 645775 visitors, as of now, you have the option to choose among different builds, though you can always prefer going for the latest. The instructions to use are also very clear, and simple.
He says This page has been KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) enhanced.

I use these bits mostly for my ringtones. May be this will not cater to all, but you have a option to have your music bits.

Happy Days

I am very much inspired by the music of this film. My eyes went wet listening to songs, and so thought to make a blog of my college days, happy days. I am making notes in a word doc and then blogging with that help. But ordering of episodes is getting tough. And I even donno how to narrate properly. Lets see how it goes.

As soon as I started writing, the obvious title I got is 'The Beginning'. And the next thought is whats the end. I got this line to end - and now after being in love twice, I am on the way to attend my friend Jana’s marriage. May be by the time I end the blog, I need to change the bridegrooms name ;)

A serious mail

This was a mail to Yash Tech. after I got a disappointingly bad way of response from the people after HR Round. I think you can get the pulp of discussion from the mail. I think they don't want to go great, but just have people for the sake of having an IAM division and charge the clients. And they are not even professional enough to reply back!!!

In the mail X, Y, Z are the sensored HR discussion numbers.


Hi,
   Pls find the mail attached, in which I have clearly stated the expected salary. If you have noticed it was written already on the backside of my CV copy with you, and that was the same I have quoted with Mr.ABCDE.
    I am not trying to fight, but I wanted a justification for my time. Three days I had come there and returned as no one was available for interviewing and 5 hours or so was spent on further telephonic and hr discussion.
    In our discussion, you have said that you would scale up to X and if it is X.Y the you would have some clauses. The next day I see a sms saying you are not interested in any discussion unless I agree on Z.Y.
    This could have happened on the first day, saving 15 hours of mine and almost 5 hours of you and your staff. I was thinking why this time was wasted even when my expectations and your offering was clearly apart.
    And if you permit me a question, on the lines of asking me how would I guarantee that I will join you on Z.Y… if you were not ready to scale 70k or so more when the candidate had a choice to choose Yash or not, how do I believe that you would be ok with a 1.5 lakh hike in next 6 months. You were not ready to listen to the add-on value I get, then how do I believe that my add-on value will be recognized after joining.

Thanks
Vinil



Disclaimer: This is not to showdown Yash or its people, but to announce the idiotic time waste for me.

what's next

On a move out of Ilantus I have moved to Deloitte after a one month struggle. Donno how many changes am to make still, but definitely there are going to be many.

Wipro was a kind of stunningly good offer. Every one is surprised to see the package they have made, but some how the location made me choose Deloitte even for an idiotic offer. Only concern was home, hyderabad at that time.

Obviously with a disappointment that I joined with an idiotic offer, nothings going to make good. So I forgot that for the time and started on how to make it big here. The learning centre is good and big and so I have started doing online learning and things went fine till now. So just thinking.. what's next? a change or to remain here.

Happy Bday Modi

not Narendra Modi of Gujarat. I have a frnd called Narendra and we call him Modi, Jiggu and so on. Its his bday. The sweet heart of our batch had a blast

Blast... real blast. Whatever he does for two days, the blast will keep reminding him of the celebrations. I just came to learn the modifications in the celebrations. They got a new way of bumps and other shots. My Goddd, he had real bad shots. I think you will need to see some pic to assume how the new procedure was.




Unfortunately he was one of the active participant in the new proc when it was introduced. Now he is a victim.

He broke the proc by not dancing and singing. Hope we cover this for the next time as an added item ;)

Busy days

This month and the previous went very busy. I donno how many days I saw something called evening. I donno if God knows, we had no clue of what we were working on and how it runs.

VMware, a nice tool making us idiots. Its gud if you want a virtual machine as a client, but damn sure that you cant run servers on it as you can on a normal desktop. Oh my.. too many errors which gave no clue. Permission denied, host not found and finally my mind not found. And every thing ran same if the server is a desktop. And using these for POCs (Proof of Concept) is idiotic. None can assess the real time and performance.

Now we are praying that things go on fine after this great 9th wicket partnership kinda work we did. But the risk is that we are having the things on VMware.

Things could have been configure much easier and faster if atleast we did it all. To add to the problem, our partners did half work and asked us to continue. We had to wait for a password which they missed to inform for one whole day with out any progress.

Too many too much issues and finally hope this will the last weekend in this company that I need to work.

I had to see weekend atleast the next weekend.

btw.... Happy Weekend

sucking month in company

This month my pay is delayed by 15 days. First said as 7, then made 15. My dues and head aches are not much, but a prob for those who have. It may be there next month too.

Now no work in office, still have to sit for 8hr count and so everyones getting so much sick sitting that they are planning for their new jobs ;). More common in any comp if people sit on bench.

On the name of changes, these are doing many things that mean nothing or those mean more trouble. If you want, you can just question. They will answer and only answer, no action. I am sure this makes more trouble later. Lets see how it goes on.

BTW... this month we(Niru, Sonal and me) are to get confirmed from probationary, am I??

New Beginning

Taking big gaps in blogging. Everytime I think to write more and everytime I get busy with other things.

I do too many things at one time and so lack time for every thing. Am learning now, learning from my brother. A cool, rather level headed person and one who knows what he is doing. Be it career or investment or any thing els, you ought to think like him- whats it for you and is it what you think. Now I've started accounting everything am doing. Be it my certification and MS or be it my credit card and career. I am implementing the rules I learnt.

As a first step am cancelling the numerous cards I hold and also started the account on what I am spending. And the other steps mentioned here. Pray that things go great for me. I too prayed the same. Hey forgot... want to see my new look. Then loot at this. A long time thought to visit Lord Venkateshwara and get tonsured is now filled as a part of this beginning.

Wish me luck (I do have confidence, luck is what I miss ususally).