Microsoft.com goes AJAXed

This is perhaps the first time I have seen a big corporation choose to revamp their entire Corporate Website into an AJAX-enabled rich experience.

Microsoft.com now uses rich-client webtricks.

Does that actually help make your experience better? I need your vote in the comments?

My two cents?

1. Like all MS products, the website has bugs. Maybe they are trying to highlight that fact in their corporate website brand.
2. It is way too slow — ironically slower than without the AJAX. That could be another metaphor for how poor architecture results in bloated apps from the company, but I wont pin that on them.
3. I find it more difficult to find things. The previous main page was well structured to find information — the new “rich popup menu interface” is just slow and confusing.
4. They have mimiced the MS Office “Ribbon” interface… not sure if that improves my experience much.

So all this ends up requiring me to do is (1) tolerate bugs on what was previously a perfectly runnign solution and (2) go through the entire learning curve of a more complex interface, if not as complex.

If they had shifted from the previous one to a much simpler interface, I wouldn’t complain so much. The same rule applies to product design — you product should be much simpler than the existing pain.

I had just expected the Father of PC Software company (MS) to be a better leading example of the importance of doing that.

The thirteenth floor of OSes…

An interesting trend is rising among web.2.0 companies — fully online, fully operational Operating Systems that run in your web browser.

Yes, so it is an OS that runs from an OS — much like the movie “The Thirteenth floor”.

I was discussing this with one of our engineers today. I personally think they are (mostly) useless. They offer a single familiar interface rather than having to wrestle with many types of software, but that is a very tough thing to convince users about.

What I do find interesting about the best of them — Glide — is their “mobile OS”. That could be useful if I need to carry 1GB around with me on my cell phone, but then I could just carry a thumb drive.

At the end of looking at them, these are the only thoughts I can muster:

1- Why do people keep thinking that technology wins? Why do they invest hundreds of hours of coding useless things and expect people to buy them?

2- Scrybe’s calendar effect with context seems to be more common now (look at the picture below of Glide’s Calendar)

3- I really need to find out how they made the nice-looking “frosted glass background” effect (see second picture below with faded background).

Kudos Series - 7: The innocent for their patience

Here is a salute to all of the people who have suffered through the mistakes of the regulatory authorities.

All you who have had to face insurmountable circumstances but have passed through this storm with Patience.

May Allah give you Sakinah for this tolerance.

I hope I can be a part of helping you all get back on track.

Kudos Series: 6- The Wheel of Justice

The past two weeks have been very very grim.

A perfectly running IT house was raided illegally — their business and repute facing a major impact; the families of the owners suffering irreversible losses.

It is a very sad day in the IT industry to see this happen.

Especially made sadder because PTA / PTCL confirmed that they ‘raided the wrong office’. This has been too costly a mistake, with too much of a personal loss to the people accused.

But I cannot give a bigger kudos and Salute to the blog The Wheel of Justice, for their immediate action in pursuing the relevant formalities to get all parties to admit the mistake, retract the arrest warrants and pursue the release of all arrested.

Even better is the responsibility they have shown to society, and giving very accurate and detailed news coverage throughout this time.

Kudos and Salute to The World of Justice. I am impressed beyond words with your efforts.

Free our innovators and entrepreneurs!!

With Strikes in all cities, the entire IT industry is upset over a recent arrest of the CEO of a local IT company over suspected VoIP termination.

I wont name the CEO or company (let’s call them Innovator-X), nor will I claim to know the specific circumstances or evidence behind the arrest, but I did meet with them a few times last month and I can tell you what I know.

These people had worked very hard the past 4-5 years building a concept into a very well respected brand in Pakistan. Beating all the odds against every entreprenuer, and also every odd that doing business in PK adds, AND the odds of starting up without US-based VC funding, Innovator-X is perhaps a shining example of how to contribute to your country’s economy.

So why were they arrested? Let’s give it some context.

VoIP is by and large disrupting the telecom environment all over the world. In 2005 global IP-PBX sales outgrew sales of traditional PBX systems, creating an entirely new market for enterprise IT software that provides value-addition over converged IP networks.

The promise of Converged IP Networks for global enterprises is NOT cost-effective call-plans over the next few years, but how it enables new paradigms of business solutions for the firm, resulting in greater ROI. VoIP-based IT solution is the holy-grail of intuitive interfaces — wouldn’t you rather get an SMS, or be automatically connected in a call with your Supply manager as soon as your stock level went down? Wouldn’t you rather have CRM systems that can perform pattern recognition on recorded audio to give you an instant search on typical customer questions or answers?

That is the next frontier of IT solutions, and Innovator-X was the first-to-market with an enterprise convergent IT solution product to give that value-addition. They were planning to launch this product with a presence that they were setting up in Palo Alto, CA. They were planning to hit the US Enterprise market with a product allowing for value-added IT solutions over Convergent networks.

So, why were they arrested? On the charges that they were running an “illegal VoIP termination point” for services such as Skype.

According to the PTA in a press statement on Tuesday (paraphrased) ‘The agreement signed with the DSL provider was that bandwidth was for Data only — we found that it was being used for VoIP’

This casts a heavy veil of confusion for any similar but future innovations — should WebEx or MS Live Server be banned too? How does anyone decide if a set of bits on a pipe is ‘data’ or ‘voip’? What about Geo and CityFM89 streaming their radio shows through their website?

What about IPTV — or for that matter Remote Desktop? Should people get a license before Remote desktop over VPN just because it seems like video trasnfer between two parties?

Things such as these make Pakistan seem like the toughest business environment in the world.

However, like Jawwad mentions in his blog — there are bad, confusing, frustrating days, but then there are many great points about Pakistan’s economy that makes it a worthwhile business environment.

Because of our good social values, we will ensure that Innovator-X gets through this current hiccup smoothly. I wish them well, and if there is anything I can do I am available for it.

Nice writeup on the State of the IT Industry of PK

Mohtashim wrote a nice elegant rant about the IT Industry of PK — it is almost poetic, in that you can tell it comes from the heart.

I’m quoting it here.

I salute the brave and the bold who come back to Pakistan an setup an outsourcing shop. You guys are the best, and you trule understand that we live in a flat world and we are no longer immune to events happening outside our borders. And you truly understand the value of moving to achieve lower costs and economies of scale. Technology is disruptive. get on board, or get run over. Technology comes and wipes out countries, economies, ethinic groups.

Today was another strike in Karachi, and Im sure it affected Mobilecomplete’s operations. As most of you know by now, the government has arrested a technology entreprenuer on the basis that he was running an illegal Vo-IP operation in Islamabad. He actually was building innovative products around VoIP technology, probably for the US market and he had similar goals as Mobilecomplete did. Systems is facing problems as well. Because of local inflation in Pakistan, their composite rate has gone up a few dollars and is edging towards the rate Wipro/Tata/etc charge. I wonder what a western customer would do then…let me tell you. If your composite rate/hr is USD 25 say and Wipro’s is 35, he’ll stay with you. If its $32 and Wipro’s is $35, he’ll go with them. And your rate is higher cause everything in Pakistan now is too expensive, so not your fault really. Thats what Netsol and Systems are facing.

The government of Pakistan sorely needs to look into these issues and do more than simple lip service to the only industry that is actually growing faster than the economy.

Instead of literally squeezing us for every half cent in taxes and expenses and jailing the very people who provide jobs and build value for an economy , why dont they provide us with some funding, (and i mean a few hundred million US to the industry overall, not the chump change they give through PSEB) , give us half a peaceful environment (in karachi, lhr and isb are ok really) and sponsor industry and university relations? atleast? Im asking for too much arent I ?

More sneak peeks on Scrybe

Here is a longer demo of Scrybe. I love the introduction of this one — 1:15 to build a perfect case for Scrybe.

This is not a game anymore

What is common between electricity, the telephone, the personal computer, the internet, and the Atari game system? Why did they change the world completely?

Every culture-shifting technology has permanently bent the world. That is, after the technology it is impossible for people to go back to their former state.

It is happening again.

Take a look at the Virtual Worlds explosion that has started in this year. What started as a harmless medium of entertainment has become a business enabler for people such as Nike and now IBM. They are not a game anymore — they are becoming a permanent part of life on Earth.

I will spare a long lecture on the promise of Virtual Communities such as Second Life, and just give two examples of how the world is changing.

First, IBM is opening up public and private “islands” in Second Life. They are investing in building private islands as a communication channel for the CEO to address the global workforce, and as a means of conducting training to their employees or holding cross-country workshops.

Think about that for a moment. A giant corporate leader chooses a virtual world because they can simply create a classroom in there, show the same attendees, have the same lecture, only that the students can be from any of their country offices.

Second, The Chinese Yuan (actual currency) is getting deflated because of Virtual Currency in western China. This is because people are actually buying and selling real world items (e.g. a car) using virtual money — both sides accept it. As a response, China has ordered stricter control of online gaming.

Both of these examples are not market forces to take lightly — it is almost unbelievable the extent to which virtual worlds are impacting the real world.

Maybe it is time to start investing in Virtual Startups while the economy is still in boom times — hmm maybe CDF can incubate some virtual businesses.

The 5-Second Brand…

Recently I have been training my team to create 5-second brands.

My description of that is that the 5-second brand is an elevator pitch for logos. That I will only notice you for less than 5 seconds in the day. That if I cannot clearly understand everything you stand for in those 5 seconds, then you will never have me as a customer.

If your image / picture / brochure / ad cannot disrupt me and my thoughts in those 5 seconds, then you are invisible to me.

If you CAN disrupt me, then I will stop what I am doing. I will blink, look hard, read the finer details; think about it when I’m asleep; talk to my friends about it with coffee. Take charge at marketing as a representitive of YOUR brand to all of my contacts. For free too — how nice would that be?

 

Our local version of Kinkos comes to Islamabad

Usually I wouldn’t cover the opening of a local shop (I’m no journalist) but seeing something close to the beloved Kinkos made me want to share my joy.

Print Mall has quietly risen in its ranks in the corner of the F-6 market in Islamabad to become a one-stop all-in-one printing shop for customers. Going in reminded me a lot of Kinkos, which has been very successful on the same model in the USA.

Walking in a breath of fresh air for printing buffs. Lines of color / b&w copiers, an HP plotter, two laser color and photo printers for all sorts. These people claim to do anything under the sun with printing, and they mean it.

Here is the best part: