Any app, anywhere on any mobile phone?

The recent announcement by the global telecom operators, if operationalised, has interesting ramifications.

Twenty-four telecom operators have formed an alliance to build an open platform that will deliver applications to all mobile phone users in an effort to compete with Apple’s successful apps store.

Analysts have already voiced the doubts if this would happen in reality. But if this happens and I wish that this should happen, it would mean a lot to the mobile subscribers and a lot to the technology industry.

This is what I, as a user, would like to see coming out of it :

  • Ability to access applications irrespective of any instrument
  • Ability to access applications while international roaming – likes of geo specific apps : ATMs, local restaurants, local address etc.
  • Very low tariffs for accessing these applications in international roaming mode

From the technology point of view, if this becomes reality, this would mean example of “mobile apps on clouds” at never seen before size. Imagine 3 billion subscribers accessing thousands of apps.

This would also mean need for massive standisation. No longer would developers have to worry about mobile device or carrier issues. This is a not easy to achieve given that it is on such a massive scale. But we have seen in case of open source software industry, that if collaboration starts working in right earnest, it brings massive gains for the industry, it brings openness, it brings standardisation.

Then the question for operators would be, how to differentiate their offerings. and how to compete. I guess the answer would be on service quality and innovation.

Singapore, consider the open source way to achieve “quantum leap in productivity through pervasive innovation”.

Recently, the leadership in Singapore has stated its intent to grow the productivity by 3% and it has also identified, rightly so, that if it wants to make this happen it has to encourage the innovation. Very true. Gone are the days when you could through more cheap labour to manufacture some thing or you could push same labour to do more things in given time. This is an era of services industry and knowledge economy and not the 19th century manufacturing practices.

Productivity through innovation is the right way to do. But the question is, can innovation happen if you tell bunch of people to go out and innovate? Does it happen if you just throw money after it? Answer is no. Though it needs money and bright brains, it does not happen in isolation and silos.

Consider the examples where innovation happened to solve the real problems :

TED – open translation project :

When the prestigious platform wanted to make knowledge available (through the talks) to millions of people who do not speak English wanted to translate the work in 40 international languages, what did it do. It turned to its users – gave the tools in the hands of the users to translate the work. And the result? Job done in very short span of time, with such a low cost.

Goldcorp

Few years back, a Toranto based gold minning company was struggling with debts, strikes and bad market conditions. Prospects were not looking good for survival. How the CEO turned to mass collaboration and not just saved the company but took it from $100 Million to $ 9 billion company is an interesting case.

GE Plastics

When GE plastic wanted to grow it business even when it has 90% of the market share, how it turned to its customer with “toolkit” concept and not only increased its Total Addressable Market, but retained its lead in the market share.

Wikipedia

How the world’s largest encyclopaedia was created through user contributions in short span of time with little or no money.

The common theme in these disparate examples has been use of “mass collaboration and user driven innovation”

Now these are famous and well documented case studies. There are many more that have innovated through “mass collaboration”. If you notice there has been so much written about it in recent years and so many case studies are available. What Singapore can embrace from these solutions is processes, methodology and environment creation to address the problems through mass collaboration.

Open source software is one the earliest success stories of how collaboration, sharing and standardisation can help you do more with less and democratize innovation. Talking about standardisation, if you want to turn innovation into mass innovation, you need to create standardisation. In the recent presentation at Plug in conference in July 2008 Andy Grove, former chief of Intel, urged the American Automobile industry to learn from open source towards standardisation in regards to creating “ Green energy automobiles”

Creating a culture of adopting open source software in Singapore would help in many ways :

  1. Help create understanding of mass collaboration
  2. Help companies to deploy its capex and opex more efficiently there by improving the productivity
  3. Contributing to open source software would create necessary mindset toward innovation.
  4. Standardization, which comes with the use of open source software would lead towards mass innovation

When Thomas Goetz said the following, in 2003, it was prophetic, today is it is the reality.

“Software is just the beginning … open source is doing for mass innovation what the assembly line did for mass production. Get ready for the era when collaboration replaces the corporation. “

Gong Xi Fa Cai (Wish you very prosperous Chinese New Year )


Powerful selling lessons from ordinary people

It was year 1990. I was new in the city of Mumbai, was travelling in a 3 wheeler Auto Rikshaw with my fiance’. The rikshaw stopped at the busy junction and all of a sudden, popped in a dark face from the open side, with coarse voice and typical sound of clap and hand in from of my face. I was terrified but realised what was happening. The street eunuch was asking for or rather demanding money. Sitting with your fiance, in a Auto Rikshaw, which is not moving now, you are faced with intimidation of big, huge eunuch, you have no option but to give the money to buy peace of mind and time with your beloved.

This is a common scene for all the those living in Mumbai or visiting Mumbi often. Over a period of time I learnt the art of not giving in to these tactics and also learnt to communicate with these eunuch as normal person.

But I learnt 2 important lessons for my sales profession.

1. Prospecting : Usually the time windows available to beg / get money is 30 to 60 seconds, depending upon the traffic jam and traffic signal. If you observe carefully they don’t waste time with those whom they find are “hardened” Mumbaikar. They know what to look for in the prospect. They scan you in quick 5 seconds and decide to pursue the matter or move to next one. They are usally right about selection of the prospects and don’t waste time with others. This is how they improve their closure rate (so to say in sales language). From my observation the key characteristics they look for in the prospects are : Unmarried couple, just married couples, visitor in Mumbai from other part of India, religious oriented man, single lady, foreigners.

2. Delivering elevator pitch and closing the deal : In next 25 seconds are so they need to deliver the message that would fetch them money (close the deal). Depending upon type of prospect, they chose the right language ( give blessings or put a fear of curse) and straight away ask for money. Even here, they specify the amount which means helping the prospect to take decision quickly.

No one has given them sales skills training, it is the hardship of life that forces them learn quickly or they would starve.

At Ashnik, we help you equip yourself with the right skills, processes and methodologies to be successful in your sales career and help companies to grow their business. We are an exclusive partner of Adventace, a global sales change-management firm specializing in helping sales operations Create the High Performance Sales Environment® (HPSE) through an integrated, metric-driven set of products and services, in ASEAN and India region

Adopting open source for the enterprises – Your guide in ASEAN and India

Question is not “should we adopt open source software”, question today in Singapore is “how should we go about adopting”. “What are the best practices, what are the learnings from the global enterprises, where to start from, how to select vendors” etc.

It is important to prepare for these questions, before you embark upon your journey of exploration.

Let me tell you from my own experience of selling open source solution for over 9 years, this journey is quite exciting. It unfolds many more benefits than what you would have anticipated, it debunks many myths that you would have heard from market, it also is a revelation of different software development practices that you would not have seen, but are immensely useful. This journey also lets you understand the limitations and practical usage of open source solutions. Getting to know the services providers is very interesting. You realise the talent and expertise available with the local vendors.

When you want to embark upon such a journey, you need a trusted advisor, who could work with you keeping your interest in mind.

Ashnik, the company that we started, aims to be your such guide. Ashnik provides these consulting services and brings you a network of partners to provide best solutions and services. Ashnik tied up with Xebia recently to bring services around Enterprise Collaboration solutions through Enterprise Java and Web 2.0 technologies to Singapore market. This business model itself is based on the collaboration principal. It aims to put your business on fast track by helping you adopt open source solutions.

Why should I care if it is Android or Symbian or….

When a common man wants to buy a mobile phone does he look for its operating system or its functions, applications and aspiration value (if there is any). I guess in most cases its the later. Then why all of a sudden there is so much noise about Android.

These are few viewpoints.

When you buy iPhone, most of the time users don’t know and don’t care about what operating system it is running. In fact operating system has never been a consideration for common man to buy the mobile phone. It was always functionality and applications it was running and in case of handsets like iPhone it was about hype, curiosity, aspirational value in addition to above things.

So the question is, is Google trying to change the dynamics of marketing and messaging? Is it trying to make “Android” a brand that consumers would understand? So that it would create differentiation in the market over iPhone? If Google wants to create a brand in the mobile phone industry, then why not Google itself as a brand? “gPhone”? “GooglePhone”?.

Google is very smart about not just marketing but also about creating communities and embracing collaboration to grow the business. Google understands that “Google” Vs “iPhone” is a long drawn battle with outcome hard to predict. Also it may divert Google’s attention from its core business. And mobile phone per se is not its end objective. It wants to control the platform through which consumers are connecting to internet. Android is such platform. Phones and smart devices are increasingly going to be the important modes of connecting to internet. Hence it is collaborating with players like LG and Motorola to bring Android based phones and you can call them smart devices as well. It is encouraging more players to use Android platform so that the combined effect is much more powerful than just Google’s efforts.

Then why Nexus? Is it competing against its own partners? Its not about selling phone, it is about putting Google’s might directly behind Android, create more awareness. Consumes are likely to take note of Android because Google is behind “Nexus”. As this brand (Android) establishes, it helps all the players, it helps them to sell more phones. Google may or may not remain in handset game for ever. It may sell its brand “Nexus” to HTC and make good money. It would go back to strengthening the platforms for the devices for internet access. And it would continue to embrace collaboration as its growth engine.