Some Random Thoughts

After a long tenure of nearly 7 years at the niche BI and Analytics player SAS Institute I will be moving on to a new role with one of the three IT giants. This blog will announce my new location in the next few days. I think SAS was a excellent place for me to formalize a lot of ideas and the new opportunity will allow me to put these into practice on a much larger canvas.

I have just installed the Prism Beta version on my laptop to check it how.. Seems Ok to me as of now but really can't make out the real difference between the browser based and Prism based platforms.. Well the developers may consider this to be a good sign but for me it still does not show me a killer app potential. Still need to be convinced on this application platform let see how it evolves. BTW if you are interested in the Project then do visit the official Prism page at the hyper linked words that follow: Mozilla Labs Blog » Blog Archive » Prism Cheers till then.

I have been spending the last couple of days recuperating from a emergency operation for the a severe nerve root compression. In fact its been a period which has given me time to catch-up with some serious reading. That means on a average 2 books a week and that will need to go on for another couple of weeks basis the Doctor's Order. A topic I have been reading and researching a lot over the last couple of years has been the nexus between politicians, business, bureaucrats and the common man. It sort of explains a lot of things happening in todays India and put the dynamics behind the things into perspective. Two very interesting books that I read were the Ambani Saga "Storm in the Sea Wind" and a political commentary on the Russia of Today very aptly titled "Inside Putin's Russia". Both these books are a must read for any student of Politics and Business in todays world. While the former book will provide you insights into the Art of Policy Formation in Ind

I guess this is a good idea. Will give us the best of both MS innovation and Open Source Freedom. The people who want a beefed up Wordpad can go in for STAR OFFICE/ OPEN OFFICE. For the power users there will be Microsoft Office.. France suggests merging OOXML into ODF : "and fireworks, and what a show it has been. If this weren't such a hard fought battle of fairness and competition against greed and monopoly for the future of record keeping in governments and businesses, it would be a comedy. But, because this is serious, it's more like watching the tragedy of a massive train wreck in slow motion. One is both horrified and fascinated. That said, here's the latest news, such as it's reported so far. Hungary decided to revote due to 'irregularities', although that bland term doesn't even begin to describe the intensely contentious meetings that reportedly led up to Hungary's first vote. Due to its seeming inability to reach anything resembling con

Hi All, The purpose of this blogpost is to test if the firefox button works. Install firefox upgrade yourself..

This is a very balanced article in weather testing is required or not. Worth a read. IndianExpress.com :: Test of a nation

The CPI is meeting today to finalise the next course of action IF the government continues with Operationalisation of the 123 Agreement. Frankly the people of India should care a damn about the same. I think MMS needs to hold fast and keep the momentum. The possiblity of the Coomis calling the bluff is pretty remote. Lets analyse the reasons for the same: The recent Nandigram Tragedy has put the commi's onto a weak foot in their own home territory of West Bengal. Their own position in Kerala is also not worth writing home about. The Coomis will be making common cause with the NDA. That will expose their true nature, so the possibility of they doing so is remote. If the NDA and the Commis can't make common cause the congress can continue in Power till the next General Election even though it will be a minority Government. The NDA with a fractured leadership is not and does not want a mid term election. Consequently all one can say is that "LET THE HEADLESS CHICKENS RUN AROU

Lets have a Web campaign just like the Youth for Equality did for the OBC reservation legislation For a change lets use the web to support the government.. Any thought are welcome Powered by ScribeFire .

Hold tight mate... Well thats my message to the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers. This Nuclear Agreement has to be operationalized and these is no going back on that. My guess is that the Chinese will announce a similar deal with Pakistan in the coming 2-3 weeks and then the dust will settle down. The only difference will be that the Chinese move will not have the blessings of the IAEA and the NSG and will further isolate Pakistan in the global diplomatic circles. If that was to happen then I guess we should send all of our Communist Brothers across the border. The reason will be as follows: Well if the Sino-PAK agreement was to take place, Pakistan will get further isolated and will be forced to give up its sovereignty in the TRUEST SENSE. Our commi brothers will then have a legitimate cause to fight for. The Chinese will require a whole bunch of Politburo members to run the place called Pakistan. Where else other then India will they get indiginised and loyal communist

This evening the government announced that they will setup a panel to discuss the agreement with the Commi's. I say lets stop talking to a bunch of people who lack maturity, a sense of balance and purpose. I completely agree with one of the negotiators when he said that the agreement cannot be changed for a bunch of politicians who lack personal self esteem and further lack confidence that the people who negotiated the agreement are well wishers of the country. In my opinion the government carry out the following activities: Make available the test of the agreement to the people. Explain the agreement to the common folks in simple language. Tell them the process that needs to be completed before the agreement come to force. Tell the people the benefits that this agreement will bring to the country in the long run and explain How and why this is critical to us. List out the alternatives that are being proposed by the Commi's and tell people why they are irrational. Share with th

Lets all accept a few facts: All of the Key Civilian Indian Nuclear Reactors are running at less then their rated capacity. The main reason for this is lack of quality fuel. We got some emergency shipments from Russia last year but those stocks will not last for ever. WE DON'T HAVE TOO MANY CHOICES. Read the 123 agreement carefully along with the Henry Hyde Act. While there is a provision for termination of the agreement this requires a determination by the President of USA that the suspension/termination will not harm the interests of the USA. The stakes for both India and US are substantially raised in the event of the termination of the agreement. The Agreement has been created basis the explicit acceptance by the USA that India is a responsible Nuclear Power. Testing for the sake of testing is not-responsible. If testing of a nuclear device has to be carried out by India in the present geopolitical scenerio that would happen only of China was to take a offensive posture. N

I have been looking back over the last 5 years trying to recollect what has changes in all of this time. Has india moved forward or has it recessed into some thing thats difficult to describe.. At the end of all the thought process there are even more questions then there are answers. Yet there are some conclusions that once can reach: Inequality in India has increased for sure. The Rich are becoming super rich. The Poor become super poor. The middle class end up paying for every one i.e. the Super Rich and the Super Poor. The triad of the Politicians, the Bureaucrats and the Businessmen is out to sell this country to the highest bidder. Corruption if at all is becoming more and more rampant. Okey some folks will claim that corruption has decreased but one needs to put things in perspective. One of the most vibrant sectors of the economy is real estate development, and if one was to look around we find that the lobby of Bureaucrats, Builders and Politicians typically bend all rule

Another view: Don’t expect SOA to fix ERP quagmire by ZDNet 's Joe McKendrick -- ERP, or enterprise software systems, have gained little for companies, and SOA is too slow to make a dent in the complexity these systems have wrought.

Hi All, I have been reading the newspapers about the recall of toys manufactured by the chinese. Reasons, Huge level of lead content in the paint used in the toys and the Magnet fiasco.. As a concerned parent of a 3 year old I think its time that India banned the imports of toys made in China. What are your thoughts?

Hey guys there is this interesting article on Oracle introducing a low priced bundle for SMB Markets.. The Article can be accessed from here . However the critical question of how the BIG O will support these companies remains. There is another question for the folks out there, Is this something really new.. Well the answer to that is a BIG NO. BIG O has always has a very lucrative price on the Enterprise Bundle for companies creating packaged solutions using the Oracle Platform. This meant that the $1500 / Seat license was always available for a lot less. U just had to know where and how to get it. For companies in the partner ecosystem of the BIG O, this may not be the best news. They will now be compelled to make a decision between BO and the BIG O. BO being the traditional frontend of choice on Oracle based BI Solutions. The market is consolidating and its predicted that if BIG O acquires either BO or Cognos then IBM will acquire the surviver. This pricing strategy least to say wi

Okey folks this blog is going to be senseless since I am writing this blog before I leave for home for the day.. I am hearing this audio blog called Beware of the Walking dead .. Makes sense I have seen this happening on some of the Telecoms projects I have carried out.. To be specific I saw this happening when I was in a Eastern European country. The objective of this project  was to model the probablity of churn in the pre-paid segment. What we found very interestingly was that the behavior of the guys who were most likely to churn resembled the walking dead.. Intersting since I did not have a term for them at that point of time.. Hehe we just called them ROAD KILLS..

Its been a year since I took a break.. I think Its time that I did that.. How and where should I go I have still not made up my mind on.. But a monsoon break will be a welcome respite.. I have joined this site called linkedin and its been fun meeting all of the folks you can touch base with.. The world of WEB2.0 indeed opens up possibilities that did not exist a couple of years ago.. So what been big on the news this week. I would say The return of the Atlantis space shuttle, The presidential election nominations, Some very heavy showers and some friends coming over for the weekend. I will be doing some cool stuff over the week. If it is successful we will have created a really cool application. I think I love what I am doing right now. The day I get bored it will be time to move on.. Powered by ScribeFire .

I am now testing The ScribeFire Tool which is a replacement for the Blogging tool set that I used to formerly use. Powered by ScribeFire .