Chrome OS update on twitter

The title of this post might seem a weird combination but that’s how you can sum up the last two weeks on technology world. The technology world, that average people like me gets involved for their daily activities.

First it was the launch of Google’s operating system, Chrome OS, another out of the world, free product from Google. Even before people like me could understand what Chrome OS is, almost entire media termed as the real threat to Microsoft Windows. It would not be difficult to even get the data from stock market to see how it affected the stock prices of Google and Microsoft. On a random basis, after every 10 articles boldly promulgating the end of Microsoft dominance; one could see an article saying “not so fast” on this analysis. The new OS was heralded as the latest revolution where a whole OS could be based on browser utilizing cloud services for all the desktop apps, e.g. Word processor and spread sheets. Google had indeed dropped “mother of bombs on Microsoft”

A week later after getting world’s update on Twitter, there was an update about Twitter itself. So the world had update on Twitter’s business model, how it wishes to reach the target of 1 billion users and other assorted strategies. It happened cause someone from Europe hacked into the email account of one of the Twitter employee and got access to all the documents that were kept on the same cloud environment courtesy Google. The anatomy of this operation is minutely detailed on web. One password was all that was required to get into this revolutionary concept, the same concept that is going to be part of Google’s Chrome OS. So much for being threat to Microsoft. It took just one week !

I don’t know which corporate would trust its documents by way of word processor, or spread sheets to be kept on Google’s servers. Extrapolate this to every other document and you get an OS based on Cloud Computing.

Microsoft is not only about technology, it is much more than just a tech giant.

Main Street or Wall Street ?

Almost a day later, things are looking a bit better. The angst and frustrations are bit modified on seeing the ‘greens’. None the less it was unbelievable – a deal which took a week to be accepted by two political parties fell by 12 votes! I can’t seem to understand who stood defeated, the political managers or the bill?

The worst outcome of the whole process is the debate on Main Street and Wall Street. There can’t be an inopportune time to discuss this topic than at this juncture. Why is it a problem of Wall Street? Does not the main street lead to Wall Street or may be Wall Street is on an island?

I agree firms and associated eco-system took a little more than necessary risk, there were maybe little less regulation, lure of lucre, but did these lead to the fall? Let me try to put this in simplest way possible. The Wall Street went down because they had too much confidence on Main Street. After using all of the Financial Engineering, they carved out, bundled few other assortments and created instruments called Credit Default Swaps(CDS). Guess what, these CDS are derivatives, which inherently mean they derive their value from underlying asset, and in this case the asset was those mortgages. Those mortgages, which people from Main Street took, without giving a damn, because they were cheap! Yes, because they were cheap and the government had totally incentivized the whole borrowing process. The CDS went bust because those living on Main Street didn’t pay back their mortgages. Consider an analogy. If all of us have car accidents and the insurance company goes bust, then we will blame insurance company for taking risk. But remember the insurance company is dependent on a fact that not all of us will have car accidents.

Further, this whole thing is not about Wall Street and Main Street. If our neighbor’s big house, which we envied when they bought, faces foreclosure then this whole phenomenon, is also bringing down the price of our own house as well. The credit crisis not only hurt Bear Sterns, or Merrill Lynch but is also hurting the small mom and pop stores. It not only brings down the stock price of Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, but also the value of Microsoft shares, in which many of us have invested for our retirement.

Let’s not make the whole thing trivial by putting this as Wall Street problem or end of capitalism or win for Socialism or vindication of Asian economies. There is a serious problem and everyone should work towards addressing the situation. Admittedly, there have been mistakes, not enough regulations, too many incentives for cheap loans, etc. Let’s debate about how to improve things and invigorate the economy once again.

PR Co-incidence

We have seen lot of strange co-incidences across the world many times. I don’t know how many of us noticed, but there was one such co-incidence this week as well. It was about two big corporate names fighting their PR battle.

First case is of British airways, which is now facing one of the worst PR disasters ever. BA would never have imagined that the much hyped opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow by the Queen of England herself, would land it in such a trouble. There are reports of heaps of 20,000 backlogs of misplaced luggage. One can only imagine the plight and helplessness of the harried BA customers. The prediction of Martin Broughton, BA Chairman that the new terminal would “put some fun back into flying” came totally true. Who can tell more about it than Naomi Campbell herself? The job of BA CEO Willie Walsh seems to be secure as no one other than harried customers have asked him to be sacked. BA might term it as ‘teething problem’ but it has made a huge dent into image of BA How is British Airways fighting its way back to reputation? It is taking use of its website and put a permanent “We’re Sorry” board to apologise to its customers.

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Internet website is being put to use across the Atlantic as well. Two American corporates are fighting an epic PR battle, which is getting interesting with each passing day. The case is 35 Bn USD contract of US Airforce refueling aircraft. Boeing would never have dreamt that it will lose the contract after already supplying refueling aircraft previously. To add insult to injury, the contract was won by joint group of Northrop Grumman and Europe’s EADS (parent of Airbus). Boeing has appealed against the contract and trying to invoke popular sentiment of job loss to the case. It ran full page advertisement in the major US newspapers about the tanker deal, saying “Why It Doesn’t Add Up”.

Northrop Grumman was fully prepared to return the favour. It didn’t use the newspapers but its website. It put a picture of the deal winner plane with the words “It DOES Add Up” This particular deal is a case study who has even a slightest bit of interest in sales strategy and more has to come.

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Two corporates in the same week fighting their PR battle through their website in the same week. It could not get any more interesting.

Anonymous fun in corporate world

The advent of Web 2.0 with platforms such as online discussion forums, blogs, networking sites has started to make even corporate world quite interesting.

I think the first among this(or so I know) is the blog by Fake Steve Jobs (FSJ). This hugely popular blog is being penned by someone who writes as if he is real Steve Jobs. No one knows who Fake Steve Jobs is? Few have guessed him as Leander Kahney (MD of Wired.com) and few thought he might be Steve Jobs himself. Whoever it is, but the blog is a place to read interesting spoofs about Apple, jab on its rivals and news about technology world. Fake Steve Jobs has even been ranked as 41st most influential person in Business by Business 2.0 magazine. The blog is a must read for anyone who wants to be see the interesting side of technology world.

The most recent example is that of the CEO of Whole Food Market, John Mackey. For seven years he has been posting on Yahoo Finance’s bulletin board. Most of 11,000 entries by him were in support of his company and occasionally critical of his competitor ‘Wild Oats Markets’. This fact was disclosed only when Whole Food Market filed court document in the process of buying Wild Oats Markets. Without it, this disclosure might never be known.

Though this incident of John Mackey might have some ethical or may be legal implications, the Fake Steve Jobs seems to be innocent fun. Or not, if he is real Steve Jobs. One might keep arguing about the ramifications of these pseudo posters or bloggers, but the fact that these incidents highlight is “there is always more than what meets the eye in online world”