“You are thrice blessed” sys R Seshasayee, MD, Ashok Leyland in the 7th Convocation at IIIT-B Convocation

You the graduating students are “thrice blessed”

1. You are starting as “knowledge workers”; India always had knowledge at the top; though caste system is the worst curse of the Indian Society it did place Knowledge at the top.

2. You are at a place that is just an arm’s distance from the place where visionaries like Mr. Nr Narayana Murthy work; you studied in an Institute where he is the Chairman of the Governing Council

3. You have the power of the “youth” – it not only is an indication of energy, but also ability to question. With the largest percentage of youthful people, India is at a tremendous advantage today

Count your blessings and take on the world.

Wishing you the very best

(Ashok Leyland MD in his Convocation Address at IIIT-Bangalore on July 8, 2007)

iPod Launch on June 29, 2007

Apple finally launched iPod on June 29, 2007 at 5 PM all across USA in 164 Apple Stores and all the AT&T stores.

Thanks to Apple’s creative marketing campaign that got unleashed on January 9, 2007 when Steve Jobs announced the product, there was almost mass frenzy among millions of Apple fans with hundreds staying outside Apple / AT&T Stores for several days before the launch; some declaring their intention to buy the iPhone on Day 1 only to sell it off for a premium! Greg Packer was the first one to buy iPhone in the 5th Avenue Apple Stores in New York City (probably the very first to buy all across USA).

Anticipating crowd Apple Stores remained open till midnight on Friday and AT&T stores were open till 10 PM. In one of the stores Apple even introduced “wrist band” for controlling the queue (the way Balaji Temple in Tirupati does to control the 40,000 – 100,000 devotees who visit the temple daily).

iPhone is available in 2 models $ 499 with 4 GB storage and $ 599 for 8GB storage. Of course the price is steep; it is not only the cost of the phone but the two-year plan that “locks up” the customer with AT&T with a minimum tariff of $ 60 per month.

Steve Jobs expects to sell up to 10 million in a year; this appears an easy target considering that Apple sold 10 million iPod pieces in the first quarter (Jan – Mar 2007) and it represents only 1% of the global 1 billion mobile phone sales in a year.

iPhone is powered by ARM processor; this company with sales of $ 500 million is likely to make only about $0.10 per phone; the touch-screen is the more expensive one costing $ 33.50; the German manufacturer Balda is a $ 400 million company whose fortunes will soar with soaring sales of iPhone; Marveli Technology supplies the Wi-Fi chip for iPhone may also see its fortunes getting re-defined by Phone; the $ 5.6 billion Micron Devices supplies imaging chip (photo / video), the $ 80 billion giant Samsung that supplied audio chip for iPhone music player and the $ 160 billion AT&T may not see dramatic improvement in fortune; Apple’s stock price has risen 40% in the past one year.

After Windows 95 launch in August 24, 1995, iPhone launch is an event that ha created waves in product launches across the globe.

By July 2 (three days of its launch) 500,000 pieces were sold beating expectations; Apple managed to stock enough pieces and demonstrated an excellent supply chain management as well!

It will be interesting to watch iPhone evolution in the next one year.