let’s talk: but what about the generation gap?

Remember the days of Mainframe’s? The large, sophisticated and costliest systems of their times have been replaced by the new Java, C++ and VB programs. Not only this, new languages with web 2.0 orientation like Ruby on Rails are now making their mark in the market leaving us with hardly any reminisces of the legacy systems.

But then, arises the question, is anybody still using the mainframes? Answer: Yes, they are using them. Why? That’s because it’s just too costly and disruptive to go through the entire system implementation procedure just for a new technology. Moreover, these systems work.

So what’s the issue? The issue is that organizations keep buying new systems to optimize its business processes, and these new systems need to communicate with the legacy ones. But none of the systems were ever designed to communicate with others. So we need to somehow integrate them.

And this issue is not just limited to information exchange between the legacy and the new systems, the problem exists with any communication between different systems. Following are some of the technologies which are presently being used for integration, and who else but the usual suspects (Microsoft, Sun etc.) have been behind them:

CORBA – Integration across multiple languages and multiple platforms
JRMI – Integration across multiple platforms talking in JAVA
DCOM – Integration across multiple languages in Windows
JMS – Java Messaging Services
Web Services – SOAP and XML

not just a ‘phone’

Back then in late 19th century when Alexander Graham Bell brought us the telephone, nothing else could have seemed more innovative. The idea of talking to people far far away from you was simply mindly boggling. Of course, we are now in the 21st century and people at Apple and Nokia have to innovate somehow in a fight for market share. So what do they do? Let’s talk about Apple.

Presenting the new iPhone. A helluva OS X running on a phone. Not just you can talk, you can open up Safari or iTunes or whatever you please. Slide your finger over the screen to unlock the phone and have it get locked again when you bring it near your ear. Not only this and lots other innovative features, the phone looks great too!

Nokia of course can’t stay too far behind. In the spotlight is the Aeon, a full surface screen phone with  all the jazz that matters (and what doesn’t matter too!). Can we classify it as another wave of innovation hitting the phone ever since Graham Bell’s baby? Yes or No, get ready to see things like never before. Because what you imagine now will be reality in a hour or so. Such is the pace of innovation!

What “OS” are you?

It all began when the genius “Steve’s” at Apple came out with the idea of personal computing. They challenged the “Altair”, went past it to lead the personal computer market. Of course then, you may wonder, what makes Bill Gates the richest guy in the world with his Windows OS : the most popular operating system amongst masses. Wasn’t it supposed to be the Mac?

To answer that you got to watch this amazingly informative movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)”. Not only it packs the Apple – Microsoft story in less than 2 hours, it gets to tickle your funny bone too while casting good lookalike’s of Gates, Wozniak, Ballmer, Jobs etc.

And if you really can not get it or are out of some cool money to buy it (I am not suggesting Limewire or Ares or Torrent trackers ;p), go search Wikipedia over the history of Apple computer and Microsoft. Not only it is immensely informative to read through, it is “inspirational” to see how the story of personal computing has been created.

And of course, only after watching it you will get the point Jobs failed to:

Jobs : My operating system is better than yours
Gates: Why don’t you understand Steve, It’s not about that!

the future

A billion people country, a 600 Billion US $ plus GDP and booming stock markets, if there is one country you should never even think of ignoring when it comes to new business opportunities, it is undoubtedly India. When people around the world were thinking of its population as its major setback, people in India and China seem to have reversed the story by emerging as large economies of large people.

If this amounts for enough reason why any company can find enough potential in India to jump in and make big bucks, there is more than enough reason for our IS players from around the world to set their stalls in India. When we talk about people, we do talk about information, as the ever increasing number of people bring with them the ever increasing need organizing and maintaining information, primarily what IS takes care of.

Let’s talk about the government. As you may doubt, countries such as India, China along with almost all third world  countries are having poorly managed government functioning. So what does an intelligent IS firm do? identify the problem, convince the bureaucrats and get the dollars flowing. Something Oracle has been doing in India for quite some time through its e-Governance Centre of Excellence partnered by other large multinational and local conglomerates such as HP, Redhat, Sify etc.

As common economic sense would say, growth only leads to more growth. In this context, as more foreign investors and players would come, both the local and international communities are the winners.