I might be generalizing an issue here, but nonetheless here it is.

At our office (Vishwak) we have people visiting our US office for short trips every other week. Our travel desk uses our regular travel agent for booking these tickets, don't experiment a lot as the last thing they want to have people stranded in Timpakto and calling them. Most of the time, we get good fares with BA or Lufthansa for Chennai-Seattle-Chennai, though I prefer BA due to its shortest journey time. In terms of service though, my favourite is always Asian Carriers - Jet, Singapore, Malaysian (in that order). For Domestic Sector, there is hardly any margins so ticketing agencies are not interested in the business - we do these bookings through Websites like Cleartrip or Yatra or directly in Airline websites.

This week we got a last minute confirmation for a training programme in Microsoft Redmond, WA for one of our Senior Developers. I became adventurous yesterday and booked his tickets on Expedia.com instead of our travel desk. Though the routing was long (Chennai-Dubai-Zurich-Paris-Seattle), I went with Expedia as I got a good fare @US$1300 Round-trip. It generated confirmation for every sector and I got it verified by Emirates local office in Chennai as well. Today morning when he tried boarding he was refused as there was no Airline ticketing number. I was taken aback and on checking my email I find an email from Expedia (after 10 hours of booking) saying the below - basically that they are not able to issue a Ticket.

"We are contacting you in regards to your recent purchase on Expedia.com. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to process your request for a ticket. Please call us at (800) EXPEDIA as soon as possible so that we can work with you to make alternate arrangements - Expedia Inc."

And on calling the number repeatedly, we were kept on hold and no person answering the call. Finally I gave up, wrote to Expedia to cancel the ticket. I then called my travel agent and though it was a Sunday he came to work and got a ticket in Air India for the same day @US$1650 Round-trip. So finally a happy ending to the story.

I am puzzled on why Expedia failed. May be they couldn't get the fare when they did ticketing (or) Security restrictions in US/India requiring 24 hours notice (or) simply an one-off occurrence. Whatever it is I am back to my good 'ol travel agent for my international bookings.

I have been charged on my credit card and after two days still no response back on Expedia or my money back.

I always liked the lifestyle and health articles shown in top area in MSN.COM. This week MSN published few interesting articles relating to raising kids, all had some unconventional wisdom that I thought it was worth to link from here.

• Turning to nannies and day care, many working moms have mixed feelings about leaving the kids at home. How to handle this? 
• The other article was on The Making of a Modern Dad. The article says there is more than what meets the eye of fatherhood. In fact there seems to be considerable hormone changes happening in a father just like it happens to a mother after pregnancy. Fathers tend to become more caring and loving than before having a child.  Being a father of a 4 year old boy, I tend to agree with this article, though I don't understand the biological effects. The best part in the article was the phrase "Honey, we're pregnant"
• This is a question that all parents have - how good or bad is Television?. This article says that Television viewing is not encouraged for kids below 2 years, but can be good if moderated for kids between 3 to 5.

This post is about three items related to blogging.

Windows Live Writer Beta 2

Microsoft have finally released the new version (Beta 2) of Windows Live Writer. I consider Live Writer to the best software from Windows Live team. After their initial release - no news from them for almost a year now. It was as bad as dead, and I thought it is one of those Microsoft's experiments that don't make it. Writer is probably the software I use most after Explorer, Outlook, Internet Explorer in that order. I am happy to see the project living and improvements made in the new version. And it supports dasBlog better than ever.  Windows Live Writer (and the new Messenger 8.5) introduces a new installation UI that gets displayed on the Right Hand Bottom of the screen area - this is unlike the regular installers which take up center of the screen and disturb your regular work.

30 Guidelines for a Good Blog

Since I have been blogging for few years now, people  ask me about what are the guidelines to follow when you start a blog. I always got away by saying keep posting often, don't just post links and don't talk about work. Today this need is solved with Scott Hanselman posting an excellent list of "30 Guidelines for a good blog". Scott Hanselman is one of my fellow Microsoft Regional Directors and a regular technical blogger.

What is a Blog?

About a year back (I read this only today) John C.Dvorak has commented on how large sites push out ordinary web pages and call them blog. He was expressing in this column his anger on the loose usage of the term "Blog" and what he expects to be in a good blog.

This week, it was news everywhere in the technology world about Microsoft's new computer interface - Surface. It is basically a Coffee Table that doubles up as an interactive computer device that recognizes Multi-touch.

At first when I read the news about Microsoft Surface, I dismissed the idea as one more Fancy world imagination. After I saw the below video, the article from Popular Mechanics that went it and this video from 10.net, I was simply blown away.

I can image a day in the next decade when I might be struggling with one of these devices while my 4 Year son zips with it. It will be just like how today kids teach their parents on how to use Mouse and Keyboards.  

The entire UI for Surface I am told is done with WPF. Surface runs a customized version of Windows Vista, a rear projection screen and five cameras that look through the screen from behind to recognize and read items placed on the surface as well as to track hand gestures and touch. It has wired 10/100Mbit Ethernet and wireless 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 support built in.

I am not predicting that this exact one from Microsoft will be the only one or that this interface will completely eliminate Keyboard and Mouses. But I certainly feel that something on these lines will be a big hit in next decade.

Though I was thinking about this for sometime, I didn't feel like posting this till today. Today I had a general discussion with a colleague on the extremely low cost (sometimes free) pricing model of Air Deccan and other LCCs (Low Cost Carriers) in India. I don't fully agree on the extend of price cutting done, which definitely is below cost and is non-sustainable for the long-term. At the same time I feel you cannot term the whole business model unvaiable. If the same approach of low pricing was to be done by groups with deep pockets like Reliance, Tata or UB, then it will be seen by media as a bold step and a big strategy. Just because it is done Air Deccan, it is being criticized heavily.

Anyways, for these LCCs to succeed the approach has to be different in India. Unfortunately every carrier is targetting and falling over each other for the big six metros, instead it will be wise to go after Tier-II / Tier -III cities. This is more like the approach Wal-Mart in its founding years choose to do - go after towns with less than 10,000 people, which eventually makes them circle completely big cities without getting into them. Also in many cases, though the tickets are sold at few hundred rupees or even Zero (free by Air Deccan) it costs more than Rs.1500 for the consumer because of the huge Taxes. India doesn't have a Low Cost Airport like Singapore has for LCCs .

The problem for the carriers certainly is a lack of necessary Airport infrastructure in the non-metro cities. But here, I see a big oppurtunity for them. The plan should be to start tens of mini-airports in private or in partnership with Government. Each of these Airport should be situated in Tier-III towns or certainly not inside a Tier-II/Tier-I city.  The Airports themselves can be extremely small, handling the smallest commercially viable planes and should cost few hundred crores (as low as say Rs.100 Crores). Government can help by giving the non-agro lands on lease and the airports can be on a BOT (Build Operate Transfer) model. For a country as big as India, where it takes 2 to 3 days to travel by Train/over a week by road from North to South (or East to West) this will produce tremendous movement of labour and oppurtunities.

As an example, consider this. Instead of building a new Airport for Chennai, it can be build on Pondicherry. The new Airport can handle mainly International traffic and Airlines should be charged considerably less (or Zero Tax like in a SEZ) to land in Pondy than in Chennai Airport. This way consumer will get a choice, it should cost few thousand rupees cheaper if I choose to land in Pondy. As a consumer I will go for it, because it just takes just 2 to 3 hours and few hundred rupees to travel from Pondy to Chennai - which I won't mind for the savings I got. Hypothetically consider the venue instead of Pondy to be the temple town - Tirupathi. Airlines can offer a package deal of Lord Balaji's Darshan plus flying, they can even advertise with the slogan "Pray and Fly" (Pun Intended).

15th June 2007 Update: I am surprised that my wish for a Puduchery (Pondicherry) Airport is coming true with in weeks - though not for international flights but Pondy Govt has decided to give land to AAI to make it operational and expand a domestic airport.  

I was reminded yesterday while reading Economic Times paper, of a book "Far from the Madding Crowd" by Thomas Hardy. The book was in my 12th Standard syllabus and our English Teacher "ShantiShri" was very fond of the book that she made us read it umpty number of times. The most likely question on the book was to be on "Chance Happening" - on how few of the unplanned events resulted on big turning points in the characters lifes.

(Scanned copy from my XII school book)

Anyways, the reason for me to be reminded on "Chance Happening" and hence the book, was a piece on the paper's ViewPoint section. The piece was an extract from a lecture given in New York University-Stern by Infosys Founder Mr.N.R.Narayana Murthy. The lecture was titled "Learning from experience: Some lessons I have learned from my life and career" where Mr.Murthy talks about "Chance Events" that changed his life and hence Infosys. What I enjoyed most was his first paragraph where he talks about the impact role models or a one-off speech can have on an individual. I could relate to that in an indirect fashion.

"The first event occurred when I was a graduate student in Control Theory at IIT, Kanpur in India. At breakfast on a bright Sunday morning in 1968, I had a chance encounter with a famous computer scientist on sabbatical from a well-known US university. He was discussing exciting new developments in the field of computer science with a large group of students and how such developments would alter our future. He was articulate, passionate and quite convincing. I was hooked. I went straight from breakfast to the library, read four or five papers he had suggested, and left the library determined to study computer science."

LIFCO's (our family publishing firm) guide to Far from the Madding Crowd (Published:1957)

Yesterday I felt very happy, special and humbled all at once by my well-wisher Mr.J.Kesavardhanan, CEO of K7 Computing - the makers of World Class Anti-Virus Solutions for nearly two decades.

The reason I was happy was the occassion of K7 Computing moving to a new sprawling 25,000 square feet new office in OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road) about a kilometre from Tidel Park - in between MARG and HCL buildings on the left hand side when coming from Madhya Kailash Temple. I have great admiration for Mr.K7 (as he likes to be called), learned from him over the years on both technology and on running a business. As a matter of history, K7 Computing is the only employer for whom I worked for (for about 3 months), before I started Vishwak and I greatly cherish the experiences I went through in that short duration.

I was feeling special, because K7 after honouring his guru Mr.Pulikesi, gifted me with a "Gold Coin" for being their first customer of Vx2000 15 years or so back. In 1991 or 92, when I bought the copy of Vx2000 for Rs.190 for our publishing company LIFCO, I was in my school and honestly didn't know I was their first customer nor realized it will become history one-day. I remember seeing the below issue (November 1990 or an early issue of 1991) of SysReader, going to a small lane in Saidapet, Chennai and meeting a smart, bearded person Mr.Balu in a tiny room with a PC. Balu acted normally, sold me the product and that I time I didn't get to meet K7. In the next few years from then, I met K7 many times in SysReader office and events. It was in 1996-97 when I worked briefly (thanks to my other long time well-wisher Mr.Asokan P) in K7 Computing I got to meet K7 closer and the Balu I met in 1991-92 was my line manager (he was a tough manager to satisfy on delivery schedules). 

 
(Vx2000 Floppy placed on top of a November 1990 issue of SysReader)

See here Vx2000 earliest advertisement copy that appeared in the above SysReader issue.

Finally, I was humbled to see the simplicity of K7 - even with all these successes behind him, K7 hasn't changed a bit, he is the same person I met 15 years or so back.

Instead of gifting people items which never gets used, they kept a selection of books in the exit. People were requested to pick their choice. A very thoughtful act, considering that K7 Computing is a Knowledge (IP) Company and even on these Google days - what is more apt to symbolise knowledge than books. Earlier someone gifted me a book was in an event at TCS - read that post here.

Today in HBO I saw a good comedy movie "Vice Versa". Simple story line on how a father and son get switched between their bodies through a magic. It was hilarious to see a 8 year old brain for a 30+ Year successful manager and vice-versa. When I searched Internet I was surprised to find the movie was 20 years old taken in 1988, and around the same time about 5 other movies and TV Serials had come with similar story lines.

While watching the movie, the boy actor was very familiar. When I searched on the Internet, I learned his name as "Fred Savage". Going through his movies/serials I recollected having seen him in his very popular serial of 1980-90s - Wonder Years and enjoying it a lot in my high-school days. I should have seen the entire serial, the serial had the boy speak out his feelings to the audience in an adult voice. Every boy in adolescent age could relate to this serial, an all time classic.

I also learned the boy seen above has now grown up (obviously of course), married and have a kid!

Recently I read in Economic Times this article about a forrester report. The report said over 60 per cent captive centres in India are struggling and this trend would further accelerate the move favouring third-party outsourced vendors by 2009. Running a outsourced IT services firm this is a topic of significance and interest to me, I have lot to say, but I will try and keep this post brief. 

In the early 1900s the trend was to do everything yourself to ensure quality, classic example for this was Rockefeller's Standard Oil, India's Tata and others world wide. They didn't have much of choice to do it any other way as well. Rest of the industry (eco-system) didn't exist or was not yet ready. In the late 1990's the trend with Jack Welch in GE and Louis Gerstner with IBM was to focus on your core competence and outsource everything else. This helped cutting costs certainly but more than that freed management focus and time to do what the company was all about in its core. This is why Indian IT companies are successful and I believe will help them to retain their edge.