quality to Quality

It is time leading companies like Infosys look at quality more as strategic weapon than mere conformance to benchmarks. That is the transition I refer to as “quality to Quality”

I drove home my point by taking examples from other industries, notably manufacturing in 80s and 90’s in India

I also impressed on Infosys SEPG team the need to play “leaders’ game” than “followers’ game”; followers meet others benchmark, while leaders create new benchmark

I suggested to the quality team at Infosys that it is time they look at some “out of box” thinking; possibly looking at “proving programs correct” as an alternative to “software testing”

(Talk given to Infosys SEPG Group on Tuesday February 9, 2010)

Converged Infrastructure – HP is ahead with BladeSystem Matrix

The two mantras that I used in this talk are

1. SSN is one (SSN stands for Servers, Storage & Networks)
2. You need to optimize globally

Over the years server consolidation, virtualization (Storage, desktop, applications…), layered network architecture, storage using SAN.. have dominated the CIO’s toolbox of facing increasing applications demand and decreasing budget. In the process the optimization has often been local – servers, storage or network. What is needed today is to “globally” optimize across servers, storage and networks – the essence of my “SSN is one” mantra.

Servers need storage; networks needs heavy computing and storage; and, storage needs both networking and computing; the three are intrinsically intertwined.

To optimize across the system you need tools – the real strength of HP today

With its BladeMatrix System HP offers a “3-in-1 box” that consists of servers, storage and networks – all configurable with software tools that automate the whole process; the pre-defined templates captures the essence of best scenarios that are “perfected” in the Lab.

In that sense compared to every other vendor HP seems to have a well-orchestrated strategy (announced in October 2009), products (November 2009), consulting practices (January 2010) and marketing communications (Feb 2010)

If well executed this can be a game changer

(Invited talk given the very select CIO’s in Udaipur on Feb 5, 2010)

Sun has finally set in the IT landscape

Typing www.sun.com takes you automatically to Oracle website with Oracle acquiring Sun Microsystems for a whopping $ 7.4 billion after months of wrangling with regulators, particularly in Europe.

With this the world’s No 2 software company, gets into hardware business (servers & storage)

What it will mean for customers it not yet clear; it will take a while before the picture is clear.

Many of us will miss the company that put “University” at the “center” (Stanford University Network), created NFS, Java and the early workstations; for many Indians it was one large American company co-founded by an Indian engineer (Vinod Khosla)

Many of us remember Wipro bringing Sun into India in 1987-88 with the tagline “Sun rises in India” today “Sun has set”!

Apple announces great results for July September quarter

Apple announced the results for its third quarter (July September 2009), with sales of $ 9.87 billion and profit of $ 1.67 billion, the largest ever profit.

It is amazing that Apple managed to sell 3.1 million iMac computers, 7.2 million iPhones and 10.4 million iPods; with holiday season around the corner Apple can only do better in the next quarter; in the process Apple revenue might touch $ 40 billion for the year 2009. Achieving such growth in one of the worst recession it indeed remarkable

Infosys postes good quarterly results for July – September 2009

Infosys announced the quarterly results today

With revenue of Rs 5,585 crores and profit of Rs 1,560 crores it shows 7.5% QoQ increase

Infosys also gave a guidance of nearly Rs 22,000 crores for the year (Apr 2009 to March 2010)

Considering the global business sentiment it is good; hopefully other results to follow (Wipro, CTS, TCS, HCL) too will be good

EDS brand is no more

HP decided to retire the EDS brand today. With this comes an end to a long standing IT services brand that started way back in 1962 (much before the IT services was viewed as an industry segment, let alone a huge industry)

With Dell acquiring Perot Systems on September 21, 2009 the IT services saw further consolidation, with Accenture, CSC and Cap Gemini remaining as the IT Services majors (along with IBM and HP) and the Indian IT Services biggies TCS, Infosys & Wipro.

Many younger IT professionals may not know that EDS started off as a wing of General Motors!

EDS has a large presence thru Jerry Rao founded MPhasis; it became an EDS Company after being acquired by EDS a couple of years back; now it becomes an HP Company!

Interesting times indeed!!

Dell decides to buy Perot Systems for $ 3.9 billion

Dell the PC (desktop, laptop and server) giant that pioneered the “mass distributed production” of PCs and their “mass customization” announced its decision to acquire Perot Systems an IT services major.

Interestingly Dell used to be Dell Computers earlier and decided to be just Dell Inc just a few years back; one thought that such a move signals its diversification into printers, PDA’s and other peripherals; with Perot Systems acquisition Dell gets into IT services dominated by IBM and HP.

It is interesting to see the consolidation across the entire IT industry – servers, storage, networks, application software and services with Oracle getting into every segment including hardware and HP acquiring EDS last year.

The Indian IT industry used to be dubbed as “low value” services industry; with every high tech major including IBM, HP, Oracle, Microsoft and now Dell getting into the IT services segment, it appears in hindsight that Indian IT majors TCS, Infosys and Wipro had bet on the right horse! Also all major IT vendors with services focus, IBM, Accenture for example, have large presence in India; one hopes that consolidation only helps to grow further India’s major presence globally in the IT services space.

Intuit buys Mint today

Intuit with its Turbotax and Quicken has a niche position in personal finance products. It has remained a “great place to work” and an admired software product company, though really small in size.

With its acquisition of Mint, Intuit will enter financial planning and information management delivered as SaaS.

I think it is good for the customers (majority of Intuit customers are individuals, who cannot afford the services of financial advisory services firm!)

Both Apple and Palm announce price cuts and low cost phones

Interesting coincidence (may be planned) Palm reduced the price of Palm Pre by $ 50 and announced the launch (date not specified) of Palm Pixie at $ 99 (appears like a real steal based on first impressions). Apple announced $ 99 iPod Touch!

Interesting; good for the consumers

EMC starts their New Campus in Bangalore today

EMC CFO David Gouldon and Jack Mollen EVP Human Resources along with the Chief Minister of Karnataka formally opened the India Center of Excellence New Campus in Bangalore today (an interesting date 9/9/09!); I am sure it will prove 9 times lucky for EMC and Bangalore!

With million square feet of space spead across two large towers (8 floors tall) it is an amazing facility with an Executive Briefing Center and a very large lab and a data center.

You feel proud of Bangalore and the country as you walk into the facility.

Bangalore and India continue to be the destination of choice for high tech R & D companies.

Over the past one decade some of us are lucky enough to watch amazing facilities coming up in Bangalore, each raising the bar on quality, size, scope, aesthetics and the sheer beauty; ITPL in 1998, Infosys in 1999, GE in 2000, Oracle in 2001, Intel in 2002, SAP in 2003, iFlex in 2004, Accenture in 2005, Microsoft in 2006, Mindtree in 2007, Cisco in 2008 and today EMC. May the tribe multiply (the dates may not be exact as many of them created multiple facilities in different years)