Outsiders...

I came across an article in New York Times today, and it absolutely surprised me. Just last week, I was discussing with a cousin of mine on what is the laptop he should be buying and I told him, "Go HP, else Go Dell else Go anything else, and buy Acer if you are strapped for cash". My statement was not based on market share or any such thing. It was purely based on personal experience using these products in India (bought in the US) and their technical pros and cons and most importantly their support responsiveness. Yet, very quietly Acer has moved up the ranks and is now challenging Dell, the rags to riches american story for the No.2 slot in PC/Lappy sales! Quite commendable, especially in this economy.

I was similarly caught on the wrong foot when I was making another buying suggestion (I do that a lot :-)) on a MP3 player, and I said "Go Ipoo if you want to follow the trend, Go iriver/cowon if you want quality (and feel geeky) or Go Sandisk if you are strapped for cash". Very soon I got to know that Sandisk has grown to be next only to ipod in mp3 player sales across all models of mp3 players! Its a different matter that Sandisk seem to have given up on their mission to be the "ipoo killer", but none the less, this latecomer and ranked outsider had played the market right, more with respect to pricing than with innovation and won (for most part)!

I suppose its these kind of stories that smaller companies and ranked outsiders need to think that they can make it big some day, though thinking and getting there are very very different ball games. :-) BTW, I am thick skinned enough to continue with my "buying suggestion" sessions. ;-)

Change...not really

This cartoon is courtesy Basic Instructions.



:-)))

Too Smart...

... for your own good. That is what comes to mind as I see India play Bangladesh in their first match in the T20 World Cup. And the comment is only to do with arguably Indias most innovative captain, Dhoni.

Yes, in his pre-captain days Dhoni was one of the most feared batsman in world cricket. But captaincy has brought responsibility and Dhoni has slowly but steadily moved from the blaster role to a grafter role. While in the same time guys like Suresh Raina and Yusuf Pathan have won many a game on their own, not to mention Yuvraj and his explosive power. Yet for some reason, Dhoni thinks he is a better bat than all of these folks. Maybe every other game, just for the shock factor he can come one down, but he is now making it a habit and as habits come, this is a bad one.

Now, any one who wants to stick around in Indian cricket (Sreesanth definitely doesn't) knows that they don't wanna piss off Dhoni and telling him to come down to order would piss his off I suppose. But like in todays match, Dhoni came in one down after Rohit Sharma had given a good start. Gambhir has been struggling with form off late and in the company of Dhoni the two were scoring at around run a ball for the better part of 8-9 overs. Dhoni ended with 26 or 21 with one six and Gambhir to a 50 off 44 balls. Thanks to Yuvraj we had a decent score at the end, but left to "out of form but wont get out" Gambhir and "I am better than all" Dhoni, we would have definitely given Bangladesh a chance to smile, again! Who knows we still may...

Money, Money...Must be funny...

Intel has started on a fresh wave of Ads titled 'Sponsors of tomorrow'. Below is the original Ad.



People can't let anything this fancy go by without a spoof, so here is the Oops version. :-)



Apparently, the guy featured in the original Ad is not the real Ajay Bhatt and is an actor. Kinda killed the concept for me...

Anyway, what I was coming to was, a friend of mine who works in the US told me that the same Ads run there too, which means that a lot of money is being spent on this campaign across the globe. What is quite strange about this Ad and the whole campaign is the timing. I know friends at Intel who have told me about colleagues who got pink slips and possible pay cuts. And this is the time that Intel wants to build a "feel good" factor in people minds about itself? This is not a product Ad, this is not a technology Ad, this is a generic Ad telling that smart people work at Intel and since we are firing and not recruiting you are not welcome. ;-)

Looks like Intel has a lot of money, just not for retaining existing jobs.