Earlier this year, I tried to gather What Indians are searching for.  The results I found were quite interesting and a few are little surprising too. Over the last 6 months I have observed a clear change in that trend. More Indians are increasingly looking for Investments, Auto and Digital gadgets.

Entertainment is no longer in the top of the list towards the end of the year of those elite few who access Internet regularly. See the top 10 gaining queries as in November 2007. The November numbers clearly consolidates the trend that I have been trying to predict for some time.

(Source: Google Press Center: Zeitgeist )

Read NPR’s report on Animation Industry’s increasing reliance on Indian Designers to produce stunning animations for Hollywood.

Both The Golden Compass and Alvin and the Chipmunks used digital animation that was created in Mumbai.

India is rapidly becoming a player in the global cultural marketplace, and animation is no exception. Los Angeles-based animation company Rhythm & Hues worked on the films from their Hollywood offices — and from the offices that they have opened in India. Employees stay in contact through daily video conferencing, bridging 12 time zones and 13,000 miles.

NPR : Frame by Frame, Animation Moves to India

Also read  "Ancient Indian Tales Inspire a Modern Indian Art"

.. in a building on a quiet residential street downtown, an army of Indian animators is working to export their culture to the rest of the world. Their source material: The elaborate pantheon of Hindu mythology.

TCS released results of a survey conducted by Dynamic Markets on behalf of TCS recently. Folks from TCS suddenly think that they uncovered something new. I am not sure I understood the revelation part of their press release.

1 in 3 companies’ IT projects fail to perform against expectations. Yet despite these worrying levels of failure to deliver, 43% of organizations say that their business managers and the Board accept problems as the norm. This attitude is especially common in Europe (44%) and Asia-Pac (48%). (Source)

Consider the snip, I understand, released in 1995 revealing something about IT Project failures.

According to the Standish Group … … only about one-sixth of all projects were completed on time and within budget, nearly one third of all projects were canceled outright, and well over half were considered "challenged." Of the challenged or canceled projects, the average project was 189 percent over budget, 222 percent behind schedule, and contained only 61 percent of the originally specified features.

Major Causes of Software Project Failures - Jul 98

How TCS Stacks up?

Delivered on time:
Industry survey: 37%; TCS: 97%, customers give it an 87% rating.

Quality meets expectations:
Industry survey: 42%; TCS: 97% without severity level 1 or 2 defects, customers give it an 86% rating.

Budget compliance:
Industry survey: 11% average variation; TCS: 0.05% average variation (Source)

Not surprisingly, TCS claims that it performs monumentally better than its counter parts. It would be interesting if TCS release more information on IT firms that these businesses have been dealing with and some numbers for other top 10 firms as well to validate the unique distinction of TCS. Without those numbers, % comparisons could be totally misleading.

Some thing incredible about Japan

Japan stands out in many aspects for its quality. Does ‘Made in Japan’ say something? As per the report 71% of Japanese IT managers say that their Business Managers and Board of Directors tend to accept the problem as a norm and necessary evil. What? And 81% say that their IT Projects are continued to be funded.

This is quite incredible. Having worked with one of the top 3 out sourcing IT companies for about 7 years, I guess there is something fishy about this report. I never heard of a Japanese client manager considering not-on-time delivery or budget over run a norm and necessary evil. Ask any body that is working or worked on a IT project for Japanese client. Our teams have been literally killed even for a delay of one day.

97% on-time-delivery record of TCS, too good to be true. Hope it is true.

The unusual name dimdim attracted my attention when I was searching on the web for free web collaboration alternatives to webex. 

dimdim is the world´s first free web meeting service based on the open source platform. dimdim is a browser-based web 2.0 service that allows anybody to share their desktop, show slides, as well as talk, listen, chat, and broadcast via webcam. dimdim´s hosted service is available for free and can be easily used for small gatherings, to seminars with hundreds of attendees. With absolutely no software to download for attendees, dimdim gives everyone the opportunity to hold Web meetings and to customize and brand these meetings.

Welcome to dimdim

I finally found dimdim on moodle discussion group.  I looked it up and visited the dimdim web site and watched a demo and wanted to try out but little disappointed when I saw limited beta only by invitation.

Then I saw Open Source Community edition that I can download and install on my own server to host the application. Again I was disappointed to see that installation requires ‘root’ access and I am currently on shared hosting server that doesn’t give root access.

I registered for invitation and was waiting for one.

This morning I was configuring a few things on my moodle site and I hit discussion groups to answer a question on themes. I found out that DimDim has been integrated with moodle. Live again. I went to dimdim site and downloaded moodle integration kit and installed it in a minute. In the next minute, I could host a web meeting.

The application is wonderful and is beyond my expectations.

Few lovely features

First of all, the application works wonderful. I had little difficulty in sharing an application. But everything else works beautifully.

1. Hosted Application. So we really don’t have to worry about infrastructure. If needed, there is always an option of installing on our own servers.
2. No installation other than a browser Add-on is required for both Presenter and Attendees. I tried with Fire fox browser.
3. If your Internet connection allows, you can in fact  use both Audio and Video of the presenter in the meeting. No additional conference bridge is required or need to start another special application. (Take Yugma, you need to pay for their conference bridge or use skype for audio and video. That would mean your attendees have to have a skype account)
4. You can allow your attendees to use their microphone to make the meeting interactive.
5. Unlike Zoho and Yugma where the video quality suffer a lot while sharing your desktop, DimDim did almost 100 times better in terms of quality of video.
6. The latency between presenter and attendees is very low and not noticeable. Particularly if you use PDF or PPT to present, you don’t notice any latency at all.
7. Whiteboard is simple and yet elegant. You can in fact have multiple pages of white board and you can move between those pages. Excellent. You don’t have to erase to make room for next dabble. Just move to next page.
8. Integration with Moodle. Few simple steps, I could get it working with Moodle. 

Few things I couldn’t do (Not possible or I don’t know yet)

1. Ability to save whiteboard drawings to a file.
2. It would be excellent if we can record the web meetings like webex. There are other alternatives to record, but they may interfere with performance of dimdim if started.
3. I couldn’t share a specific application yet. I could share a PPT and desktop itself. But not a specific application. There is an option, but couldn’t get it working.

Great application. Thanks a ton DimDim team.

India, a Stirring Giant, Is the New Place to See and Be Seen - New York Times

A soaring economy and crumbling trade barriers are making India a “must visit” destination for foreign politicians and executives. The crush of visitors, often first-timers but also companies seeking to expand their existing operations here, lands daily. They all hope to sign deals, find local partners, sell their wares or just soak up the contradictions that characterize the world’s largest democracy, a singular melding of chaos and opportunity.

Bald demographics make India impossible to ignore, and the slowdown in the United States economy adds to its appeal. About half of the country’s 1.1 billion people are under 25, and its rapidly expanding middle class is already estimated to be as large as the entire population of the United States. A rocketing stock market and a fast-growing class of the superrich add to its appeal.

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