Angry Birds – 10 Lessons I Learned

As I sat to write a post in my blog after a really long time, a compendium of thoughts and ideas flowed through my mind. I contemplated for a long time and decided on this. After all, if I am not writing a post on the activity that I am spending most of my time with these days, if I am not writing a post on something that’s keeping me motivated even during this lull, I am doing a serious injustice to this game. Unlike many other games, Angry Birds offers a whole lot of lessons which can be applied in your career and life in general. While many of us may overlook these, fortunately I had the time and energy to ruminate through and come up with this list. This post is dedicated to all those awesome fans of the awesome game of Angry Birds Now, let’s get to the lessons.

1. Keep Learning – Change is the only constant thing in this ever changing world. If you thought you can just deal all those bloody pigs with just the red bird alone, sorry my friend, you are wrong. You need to learn when to tap to speed up the yellow bird and when to split the blue bird. And when time demands, you need to know when to drop the egg of the white bird and when to boomerang the green one. There are always new birds and new demands. Like they always say, it’s an ongoing process, be it Angry Birds or life
2. Perseverance is key – It’s quite easy to withdraw from a challenge with a lame excuse that you can’t do it. But if you keep trying with perseverance, you will realize that all it takes is time and some serious application of thoughts. You will also realize that there’s nothing called a problem that can’t be solved – a serious message for those who are demotivated with life and career.
3. A solution worked in the past is not necessarily the best solution – This is an important lesson taught in many B-Schools for a hefty fee which is offered for FREE by Rovio. The solution you used last time isn’t necessarily going to work every time. While your previous experience can help to some extent, it entails creativity and pragmatic approach from you to solve the current problem, every single time.
4. There’s more than one solution to a problem – this is a classic statement told by professors with multiple Ph.Ds during their business strategy classes or during a case study. This applies to Angry Birds and of course life in general as well. Not many games offer you the luxury of finishing a level through multiple ways but Angry Birds does. Lesson to be learned – there could be multiple ways to reach your goal, consider the options and choose wisely
5. Every step is critical while solving a problem– Killing as many pigs possible in the first step doesn’t necessarily achieve anything. Every step is as critical as the previous one to make sure you kill all those culprits and destroy their safe havens. Similarly, just completing a significant portion of what you wanted to do in life may not produce any fruitful results anything until you finish it completely.
6. You don’t always get what you want when you want it – If only Angry Birds allow us to shuffle birds as we like, I bet we all can beat our best scores easily in many levels. But that’s not the point. You’ve got what you got and you’ll get the next one only when you’ve used what you’ve got. Life is even better for the suspense it keeps where you might not even know what’s in store until you complete what you’ve got in hand now. So put your best effort forward with what you’ve got now and you will be rewarded accordingly
7. Improve resource utilization – Sometimes, you may not need all the birds to finish a level. If you don’t have to use it, just don’t use it, it’s as simple as that. This is an important lesson in any walk of like be it your utilities or a project you are leading to remind you to conserve resources.
8. If it’s not perfect, it’s not perfect – While killing all the pigs alone will complete a level, it isn’t really enough to get 3 stars. You have to think about all possible strategies to maximize efficiency, improve resource utilization, and destroy as much property as possible to get the best score to earn 3 stars. This will make you someone who tries to go that extra mile every time to achieve the perfect result. There cannot be a better motivation for one to achieve the best possible result!
9. Keep ‘Optimizing’ – Being complacent about what you have achieved is not going to help you in anyway. While you can be proud of finishing all levels with 3 stars, there are numerous people who have performed better than you, if you look at the official Angry Birds scoreboard. This will motivate you to beat your own achievement every single time, making you a CMM level-5 player in both Angry Birds and in life. Yes, it is ‘optimizing’- a present continuous which reminds you that there’s always scope for further improvement.
10. It ain’t over until it is over – Just by finishing all levels with 3 stars and finding all golden eggs in Angry Birds, it’s not over. You and I now have the challenge of finishing Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. Most likely you and I will have much more in front of us while we finish these two. So never ever think that you are done with all the challenges in life. Always take the next challenge as a new one and start with #1 from above

PS: While I thought this topic would be very innovative and creative of me, when I searched the internet I found few similar thinking minds around the globe so I had to remove some of my best points to save myself from accusations of plagiarism (as if anyone is going to read and accuse me ). But it’s my duty to share the best one I came across  (of course, apart from the one I’ve written )- http://www.cio.com/article/678656/10_Lessons_from_Angry_Birds_That_Can_Make_You_a_Better_CIO?page=2&taxonomyId=3172; Read both of them and enjoy your Angry Birds even more

Does something called ‘privacy’ still exist?

Recently, I read this article on Google Buzz which exposed vulnerabilities of Google when it comes to privacy of users.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3822&tag=nl.e101

When I read the article, it didn’t impact me that much because we all know that all of Google’s applications are integrated and use SSO. Of course, accessing your address book and sent mail list without your authorization is really bad. Google shouldn’t have done that but I guess they will learn from this blunder. But, is it only about what you have in Google? Human beings, being social animals like to have a huge social life. In this era, the only way to be connected with our friends and loved ones is through social networking sites. I myself am a member of at least 4 social networking sites if you do not include the professional networking ones. Shockingly, even after password protection, you still do not have any control over the privacy of data you put on the www.

Recently, I got to know about this website through a random pop-up http://www.spokeo.com/ If you know any information about a person, such as name/email/phone number, you can get every possible information about that person. Latest tweets, facebook updates, political inclination, credit history, value of properties, family members, sun sign predictions …you name it, the information is out there for a cost of less than 3 dollars per month. Isn’t it outrageous?

The good and bad thing (depending on how you take it) about this site is, it is targeted exclusively towards people who live in US. When I tried with couple of people living elsewhere, it could not pull up details like it did for people who live in US. Is it a security hole of US networking sites or the overall system in the country itself? Thank God we do not have an identity like SSN in India, at least till Nandan Nilekani completes the project.

Be very wary of  what you put on Internet, it can be seen by anyone on earth and not just your friends.

A black Monday and a green(?) Tuesday

This is something which I wanted to write when I attended my first career fair 4 months ago, but then stalled the idea as I was not exactly sure of how the system works here. Now, after attending my 4th career fair today (after a day in which US lost 71,400 jobs), I feel educated enough to write a post on career fairs and the current situation.

Coming to the point, beginning student life again after 4 years of a high paying job is not that easy. Initially you might be enjoying the feeling of being back to the student life but then when you realize that you are ‘actually’ jobless and need to get one, the pressure builds up. Career Fairs will most probably be the first opportunity for many students here to meet potential employers. In every career fair (be it engineering, retail, business, geoscience, etc, etc) you can see Indian students dressed up in suits with a folder in hand carrying bunch of resumes visiting almost every stall. By the end of the day, it hurts when many end up with lot of goodies in hand but not even one promising offer (especially International students).

In fact, I was wondering about how changed I am, for good! I never bothered about a job during my undergrad in India. I was told by one of my friends that TCS is visiting our campus in a week. I just casually prepared and some how made it (Believe me, my confidence with English was extremely low that time compared to now). But then, the competition here with a gloomy market makes you really worry about securing a job and makes you more mature and better prepared. Good thing is that, the job market is dry but still not dire, which was evident from today’s career fair (and the word green has been added to the title to denote that). So, there are opportunities out here and there and it entails lot of efforts to land in one of them. At times, it might make you regret on the decision to leave a job and do higher studies. But, if you are lucky (seriously, that is what is needed with this market), you might get good opportunities too.

I had a very tiring day today having three 1:15 hour classes (I bunked one of them) and a whole day with potential (?) employers at the career fair repeating almost the same dialogs with each of them and handing over my resume. As a resolution, I decided not to collect any goodie this time and I never did I wrote this post not to educate any one on career fairs but to advise those aspirants of Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 from India to reconsider their decisions. A couple of days back, I got a chance to talk with the CIO of AMD. The first question he asked me was ‘So, are you planning to take another course here once you are done?’. Thats the kind of confidence he has on this market. Even if there are some improvements, I don’t expect any miracles within a year. So, its better safe to play a wait and watch game rather than getting into the quagmire like us. Be happy with your current job

A week to remember forever…

When I registered for the case competition organized by our department, I never realized it is going to be so exacting. When I turn back and see how we worked for 1 week, it amazes me…I still couldn’t figure out from where I got such an energy…” It takes struggle, a goal and enthusiasm to make a champion” said some one I remember…how true it is!…week of sleepless nights, arduous effort and dedication has yielded us something that we can really proud of…Yep…Our team won 1st prize in the competition for giving the best solution

http://cmis.tamu.edu/Case-Web/winners.asp

I have to tell you about the background of this competition..the case was a REAL one prepared by a REAL consulting firm…the task was to come up with a business proposal with our suggested solution, technical details, prototype and budget analysis for a given RFP (Request for Proposal)…The experience that I had in real proposals in IT industry really came handy but then the time was so short for the amount of work that we had to do…

It doesn’t stop there…we had a mid-term exam in between and a project report to be submitted as part of another course…and I had an Internship interview…amidst all these, I kept pushing my team to put our 100% on this as the judges were going to be from various reputed companies…I wanted to make a first good impression on them…thats how it started…but it never stopped…we were so enthusiastic and dwelled into the case for a week completely forgetting sleep…but, with 15 teams participating (which had lot of teams who had already participated in similar competitions) and giving a tough fight, we were aware that its not going to be easy for us….

So, we devised a strategy…”Attention to detail” and “Innovative business propositions”…I feel these two were our key for victory…with a time crunch, we were able to come up with a report which addressed every possible detail of the system (the report was 45 pages :O)…and the judges were really impressed by our propositions…I should mention about the PPT with cool diagrams that I had created (IT Experience helps ) which got some extra brownie points ….

350$ Scholarship and 200$ gift cards…thats what I got…above all, a very good reputation amongst potential employers and good recognition in my school…I hope I leverage this in my job search…As of now I am too excited…I am going to Dallas tomorrow to watch THALA in action (Aegan) and will surely come up with my review…Till then, take best care of yourselves and keep watching this space….

How to ensure that a project fails?

As promised, here’s the summary of one of the best articles I read as part of one of my courses. This article “How to Fail in Project Management (Without really trying)” by Jeffrey K.Pinto and Om P. Kharbanda was a pleasure to read. I was able to match each one of the mistakes discussed by the authors with real life scenarios that I had faced. Though this has been discussed in IT context, most of the principles hold good for any project management. This is a must read for any budding or wannabe project manager. The best part here is, the authors convey ‘what to do’ by discussing ‘what not to do’. Here’s my summary:

This is an era which necessitates the use of project management techniques for rapid product development and effective resource utilization. Almost all disciplines have started adopting project management techniques making it an indispensable part of their operations. But why many of them still fail? This article discusses the things that will ensure the failure of a project thereby cautioning us to choose better alternatives. It also emphasize on taking lessons from failures irrespective of the project size, to drive future projects to success. So, how can we ensure that a project gets ruined miserably?  The author lists 12 mistakes to make a project a colossal debacle.

1) Ignore project environment and stakeholder

Ignoring clients, overall market place, internal functional departments and external intervenors is one of the biggest stepping stones for failure. Ignoring potential stakeholders often arise from either ignorance or smugness.

2) Push new technology too quickly to market

This is one of the common mistakes done by organizations to get an early leg up on competition. But they often forget that new technologies imply new and unknown risks.

3) Don’t worry about fall back options

Studies show that managers who prepare for many ‘what if’ questions on the project are more successful than others. Those who are reactive tend to lose the battle often.

4) Shoot only most visible problems

Panic from top management often leads to fiasco by spotting only on most visible problems. It is better to concentrate on the problems rather than blaming people. Analyze the environment and not only the problem.

5) Let organizational inertia kill new ideas

Many times, new, innovative ideas are killed due to organizational bureaucracy and political in-fights. This is something which blocks creativity and better alternatives.

6) Feasibility study is ‘waste of time’

Before commencing a project, market analysis, risk analysis, cost analysis, time frame to completion, stakeholder analysis should be conducted.

7) Never admit failures

This is something to do with the ego and ‘collective belief’ of the projects. Failures should be identified and admitted at right time. A realistic analysis of the current stage is mandatory before spending additional money on the project.

8 ) Over manage project managers and teams

Over managing hurts. Rigmaroles and bloated bureaucracies make things worse. ‘Lean and mean’ organizational structure aids to success.

9) Never conduct post-failure reviews

Failure teaches a lot of valuable lessons if reviewed objectively. The review process should be instructive. One of the effective methods is to maintain a chronicle of failures and their causes.

10) Don’t worry about trade-offs

Managing projects needs dealing with dollar-day trade-offs. Some or the other thing needs to be sacrificed to ensure success. No project can be perfect in all dimensions.

11) Allow organizational politics dictate decisions

This is a real threat for bigger organizations. Many times, decisions are dictated by internal politics leading to less than perfect motives and results. This needs to be controlled by top management.

12) Make sure a ‘weak leader’ manages the project

A strong project manager with excellent leadership qualities is imperative for the success of any project. Weak leaders are not only unhelpful, but they are also counterproductive.

Conclusions:

* Failure is often a by-product of risky ventures, be prepared to face, handle, and acknowledge it
* Don’t ignore or overreact to failures. Take a middle ground
* Failures are excellent source of knowledge and lessons. Learn them and make sure you are avoiding similar mistakes
References:

How to Fail in Project Management (without really trying), Jeffrey K. Pinto and Om P. Kharbanda (1996)

Galz in IT

Usually, a disclaimer is put only at the end of an article. But considering the sensitivity of this article (Girls are always sensitive, aren’t they?), I am forced to put it right here, right now.

Disclaimer:
Whatever I am presenting here are absolutely my own observations. It can no way be called a ‘generalisation’. So, no hard feelings please . Read on…

Girls, the 33% topic of India, are essential part of IT industry. Though they are still less in number, one cannot deny that they already placed their foot firmly into IT. Like how a coin has two sides, from guys’ perspective, girls are distraction as well as motivation, they are the thrust as well as the hindrance. Whatever be your perspective, one thing is true: they are indispensable.

When Kandasamy, Muthusamy, Kuppusamy or Ramasamy (hereafter referred as KMKR) sit and bang their heads on the PC to solve a high priority production issue, Seetha, Geetha, Lalitha or Kavitha (hereafter referred as SGLK) will be rushing to catch the 6’O clock bus to home. If any support is needed on weekends, or at nights, only KMKR will be called and SGLK will not even be aware of such and such thing happened. The worst part is, on a Friday, KMKR would want to leave office by 6 and go to his home town, but SGLK will come to his desk by 5:55 PM with her lunch bag in hand, throw a sweet smile and ask him to attend the conference call on behalf of her. Poor KMKR, being a helmet*, can never say ‘no’.

KMKR will be working at a place which will be way far away from his home town. His parents may be genuinely ill. He would have tried to get transfer ‘n’ number of times, but would have never got it through because of the famous ‘dependency’ factor. SGLK will just tell her manager that she is getting married and so she needs a transfer. Without any further questions, without any second thoughts, she gets it through. There is a popular Tamil adage which says, ‘Even a Ghost will show mercy on Girls’ – words of wisdom.

After working tirelessly for 2 years, KMKR will try for an overseas chance. The manager would say they will try their level best. The HR would say, they don’t have any matching onsite openings for his profile. But, SGLK will simply come with her marriage invitation and give it to her manager and HR. Her abroad trip will be planned instantaneously as her fiancé will be working abroad. Competencies don’t matter, roles don’t matter, people who are waiting in the queues are unlucky, but it is the job of the organization to ensure that she lives her life happily with her husband. Once one of the guys tried the same route. Alas! the reverse has happened. I mean, his fiancée was brought back to India

Girls may claim that they are more efficient than guys at times since they don’t have (m)any distractions. But, KMKRs always point SGLKs as one of the major sources of distraction. Acceptable. But, the other side of the coin always has a contrasting story. One of my friends says(his exact words recited) – ‘After immersing into an issue for 3-4 hours, if you turn to your left or right, there should be a chick sitting to cool you down machi. Otherwise life will be miserable’. Seems to be logical . Whatever the case be, as I said early, Girls are indispensable in IT (at least for the last reason ).

* – helmet is a code-word used to refer a most eligible bachelor

P.S: I am trying my level best not to behave like an IT manic. Almost every alternative post is some or the other way related to IT. But what to do, being an ITian myself, couldn’t really help. But surely, will try to avoid this in future.

IT and our culture

It is a quite disheartening fact that the number of divorces is increasing rapidly in India and ITians hold the major share of it. In most of the cases, the husband and wife have worked in the same office, loved each other and got married. But within months, their conjugal life turned bitter and they stepped into family courts to get separated. Though all the revolutionists are supporting it, love marriage between ITians seems to be occupying the top slot in number of divorces. The kind of love in IT industry is merely an outcome of planning for the future. When both understand that they can pay the EMI for the home loan sooner with 2 salaries, they get married. But since both of them are not ready to leave their egos and not ready to sacrifice even petty things for their better(?) half, they get separated.

Unlike other industries and government jobs, ITians see a lot of money in their very tender age before even they get matured. Please note that maturity here has nothing to do with their level of intelligence. They may be solving real time problems of Nasdaq but they literally don’t know what to do with the money they have in their wallet. Those who have self-control stay within the boundaries and those who don’t break the barriers. Week end parties, boozing, night clubs, dating…there are really a zillion ways to burn your money. And its quite easy for a cat on a wall with money to get tempted and jump into the wrong side.

Pre-marital and Extra-marital affairs were once a talk with the BPO sector alone. It seems the bug has now bitten IT also. Though it is good to see that the majority are still not infected, in many smaller companies and foreign MNCs who have their branches here, this is slowly catching up. A raid conducted in early 2007 on various resorts and villas in ECR Road, Chennai has caught many ITians and BPO persons red handed. But all were amnestied or rather sent out free without charge for a charge. Even last week there was an incident in Bangalore where a person has killed his wife and committed suicide as she has had an adulterous affair.

Debilitating life style, unhealthy diet, unbalanced work and personal life, odd working hours, extreme stress and pressure – all these seem to be making many IT professionals lose their health and vigor and ramble with a potbelly. Since every other colleague is doing, they are joining fitness classes and aerobics and they never seemed to be effective for IT people. Because of their inimical life style, the number of ITians who are losing their sterility is increasing steadily and this has been found to be one of important causes behind the marriage break-ups. For the citizens of US, UK and other countries to lead a sophisticated life, our guys are losing their irrecoverable health.

Every one seems to be interested in knowing the effects of US’s recession on IT and IT’s effects on Indian economy. They don’t seem to be bothered about IT’s effects on our culture which we have been preserving successfully for 1000s of years. Before the situation goes out of hands, we have to take it out of harm’s way.

Onsite

Onsite – This as an indispensable word if you belong to the hot and happening Indian IT industry. It also makes sense to you if you work on some outsourced activity from USA, UK, Australia or any country other than India for that matter. This word is truly a magical word amongst the Indian ITians. If you list the most frequently uttered word by an Indian IT professional, this will secure the first place with thumbing majority. What’s so special about Onsite? Here’s a small attempt on exploring why people are so gaga about Onsite.

While there could be several reasons for a person to crave for Onsite, the important ones are peer pressure, career prospects and more (most) importantly money. Currency value of INR against other currencies plays a huge role in driving a person to Onsite. Once a person is offered an overseas opportunity, the immediate action would be to inquire the details of how much they will be paid, how are the tax rules, what will be the average spent per month and more importantly how much in NET they can save every month. A decision is made only after that.

Unless one is really starving for an overseas chance, any offer which is not lucrative when compared to other countries gets rejected without second thoughts. That’s why most of the crowd prefers to go to USA, UK and Europe and think thrice before going to Australia or other parts of Asia. Though the H1B cap is a big blow for the IT industry, still the major users of H1B are Indian IT firms only. Last year’s report affirms that. With Bill Gates suggesting that more foreign professionals need to be brought in, chances are very bright for the Indian IT firms to tap the opportunities.

Onsite is a WIN-WIN-WIN situation for the Organization which is outsourcing, Indian IT firm and finally we, the employees. When the outsourcing organization gets an employee for a damn cheaper cost without the country’s labor rules enforced, the Indian IT firm gets more money for the individual than what they get when the same person works from Offshore. And from the employee’s point of view, Onsite is a gold-mine. A trip to US or UK for a year can get you a flat in a second or third-tier city. When people from other sectors struggle for years to get an iota of land, a posh apartment in Chennai got booked in full (400+ flats) on the first day of its announcement and 75% was booked by ITians. At the end of the day, your bank balance matters. Doesn’t matter whether its in INR or USD or GBP.

It is not easy to be in India and watch your friend send an invitation for his house warming ceremony when you still keep looking at the NAV of your Mutual Funds everyday. Peer pressure gets the second spot in thrusting one to seriously look for abroad chances. People don’t really see why the other person has got an Onsite and they didn’t. All they believe is since the other person has got an overseas chance, they deserve one. Lack of overseas chances is still a major attrition stimulus and that I believe justifies my words.

And finally, career prospects and chance to work with people of distant culture. An Onsite trip adds countless positive points to one’s résumé. Irrespective of what the person has done at Onsite, experience at customer’s site undoubtedly gives immense knowledge on the business side of IT. In an industry where even a fresher is well equipped with the knowledge of latest technologies, only business and domain knowledge can differentiate an experienced professional from a tyro.

No wonders why our ITians bother too much about an overseas chance. So, when are you planning to have an one-to-one with your manager?

Dollar Dreams $$$

It was a snowy day in New York. ‘Arun, Arun, Dei Arun’, even the neighbor would have responded if his name was shouted like how Amit did. Arun was not in this world. Though his eyes were glued to the window, his mind was rambling off around an apartment near Kutchery road in Mylapore where his home is. His wife is about to deliver his first child in a day or two. His heart was wishing to be there with her, caress her, walk in the corridor of the hospital with much apprehensions hovering over the mind, feeling the warmness of the baby in his hand, enjoying the proud of being a father with his family and much more. Those feelings cannot be verbalized. But his mind was saying leaving New York now is the stupidest thing he can ever do. If he leaves New York now, he doesn’t know when he will be able to come back.

Unlike most of us, it was an ordeal for Arun to get into STC, one of the leading IT companies. He did his bachelors in Mathematics in one of the less known colleges of the country. He knew that he has to put his and heart and soul in making it to his dream college to get settled in life. He did so and completed his MCA. But life wasn’t easier as he anticipated. He completed his graduation during the time when many were getting expelled from IT industry. Some how he managed to get a job in a company with 200 employees and located in one of the busiest streets of Teynampet. His income was not even enough to take a decent house. So he had to accommodate himself with 5 more people in one of the mansions in Triplicane.

After 4 years of struggle, Arun managed to get into STC through referral. He was given a good joining bonus and good emolument with perks. Life was becoming luxurious. It was a steep transformation from Kumar Shirts to Louis Philippe, Bata to Red Tape, Sonata to Swatch, White board buses to Pulsar DTS-I, Akka Mess to Sangeetha and from a congested mansion to a posh apartment in Velachery. After getting all that he wanted, he was missing something which he got from his previous employer. He was kept in bench (idle) for 3 months before he half-heartedly a role which is nothing for his caliber. Arun was one of the irreplaceable resources in his old company. Here he is just another EP (Experienced Professional) amongst thousands of others.

Human appetite for money is insatiable. When he was working in a small firm, Arun’s ultimate aim was to get into a bigger organization like STC. But within one year time after joining STC, his interest grew to get an overseas chance. Though so many things attributed to his desire, peer pressure was the vital reason. When he was about to sweep a chance to go to London, his marriage got fixed. He was already 28 and didn’t want to delay it any further. He was aware of the growing demand for brides. He tried his level best to postpone the travel by two months. But with so many waiting in the queue for such opportunity, Arun eventually had to give up. He was confident he will get some other better opportunity after marriage.

If things go in line with our expectations, life will be a boredom. His wife was the only daughter of her parents. Another mollycoddled kid. She was not even aware of how to boil water. Her frivolous attitude and continuous pestering made Arun shift their house to Mylapore near their in-laws’ house. Break fast, lunch boxes, dinner – everything used to come from their in-law’s house. Life had become so easy for him. But still, he was not able to get the overseas chance for which he was starving. The day finally came. He was asked to go to New York to work for JPMC. A golden opportunity. Like how ‘Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed’, for Arun this opportunity meant much more than just an abroad chance. A week before his travel, they got to know that his wife is pregnant. It is the time, during which he needs to pamper her, get her whatever she wants, share her pains, take her for regular check-ups and show her the meaning of a husband. But, if he turns down this overseas chances, its not sure whether he will be offered one again. After a long discussion, he decided he will take up this offer and his in-laws will take care of his wife. He assured that he will come before the travail and be with her.

Back to NYC, Arun was traveling in Metro to reach his office. He came to this world at Fulton St station when his friend reminded that they need to get down at the next station, Wall St. His office was located on Wall Street, a place which is always busy all around the year. It has made so many millionaires and billionaires like Warren Buffet and brought many more to streets. He started walking slowly from the station towards his office. His heart was still in those messy lanes of Mylapore but mind was debating with heart. His manager had already told that due to ‘dependency’ it is not possible to move Arun to offshore at the moment. He advised Arun not to be too emotional and carry on with the activities for next week’s release.

What will be the repercussions if he goes back at the moment his mind was asking. His dreams of buying a flat in Chennai will have to be deferred. He has to continue with his Pulsar and cannot think about a car at the moment. Sudhakar who is eagerly waiting for Arun to come back to offshore will replace him immediately. Above all, he might not be able to come back after creating an animosity with his onsite manager. Due to depreciated dollar, already he was not able to attain his target savings each month. And at this juncture if he leaves to India, he will have to be in Chennai and pay EMI each month to buy a house and lead a budgeted life.

The message from his home was ‘It will be done before End of the day tomorrow’. Arun was introspecting himself. Taking the newly born baby in his hands or buying a flat in Adyar? Caressing his wife when it is needed most or buying a Santro? Being with his family to share their happiness and joy or saving money for leading a grand life? His heart finally won over his mind. When he was about to book the tickets online, there was a call from Steve, his client manager who was working from home as his wife was pregnant. Arun was silent for 3 minutes when Steve was explaining some vital change to be incorporated in the release. ‘No Probs Steve. It will be done before End of the day tomorrow’, said Arun and cut the call. Tears oozed out of his eyes…

P.S: As this is my first attempt in writing a story, there may be several blemishes. I solicit your suggestions for amelioration.

Microsoft’s Yahoo! bid – What will be the culmination of MS’s gambit?

If you are some one who frequently check the news for the latest happenings in IT industry then almost zero chances that you missed this one…Microsoft has made an offer to take over Yahoo! at $44.6 billion giving a possibility of a head-to-head competition between two online giants…though it has been gossiped for quite a while that MS has plans of acquiring Yahoo!, it’s come from the horse’s mouth now…what do you think will happen if this deal is through?…will it be an end of Google like how MS eradicated Netscape from the industry in late 90s?…or will Google surmount MS with its innovative products?…only time can answer…but nothing wrong in discussing the background and the possibilities of this deal…

it all started when MS took tremors when it turned back and seen where it is in Internet market….before MS could realize Google has almost taken the Internet users by storm with its innovative, uncomplicated and gratis products…MS slowly realized that they need to do something before they get wiped off from the industry as the present and the future is Internet…they started applying the all time famous MS strategy – ‘merger’…it has been discussed from almost 6-8 months ago that MS has plans of acquiring Yahoo!…MS was ambuscading for the right time…now that Yahoo! has announced that it wants to ‘eliminate some areas’ of its business, MS jumped in and made an open offer pricing Yahoo! at $31 per share…

MS is urging Yahoo! to give out a decision before this weekend…but Yahoo! says it needs time…now Yahoo! has three options…

1) Accept MS’s offer

2) Associate itself with Google to make MS bid higher and eventually get out of the race

3) Operate independently like how it is now (very less chances)

What will happen if Yahoo! agrees to MS’s offer…what I could visualize is the next Operating System from MS will have Internet ready tools…as soon as your PC is connected to Internet, you will have messenger, voice chat, video chat, mail, blog, search, news, shopping, market data, blah blah blah readily available for you…sounds absolutely crazy?…but undoubtedly it will be an Internet driven OS…

thats why Google has made an outcry yesterday saying that ‘the deal will affect the openness of Internet and could lead to monopoly’…MS responded well showing the statistics which says that already 75% of Internet search, advertisement and much more are occupied by Google…in countries like India, Internet advertisment is still a potential area to be tapped…so, its not a procrastinated move at all by MS…

meanwhile, Wallstreet Journal has reported that Google CEO Eric has personally called up Yahoo! and offered his unsolicited help to thwart MS’s plans…Yahoo! also feels that the valuation given by MS is not fair..an unofficial estimate by an analyst gives Yahoo! a share price of $39-$41 which is much more than what MS offers…

a clear picture on where this is heading to will be known by the end of this week…whatever be the dénouement of this, the Internet users should be benefited…thats what all I want…

P.S: Another set of users say that even if the deal is through, it might result in a ‘dias pora’ of Yahoo! employees to the rivalry Google deserting MS…one of the reasons they say is Yahoo! and Google follow a very casual dress code where as MS wants its associates to be completely formal….funny…