Suicides among farmers have been among news for long. Another group is now fast catching up! The new addition to this worrying list is the IT professionals. It may be ironical that the two groups represent the opposite ends of the economic spectrum though! The later one however has hardly attracted enough social attention yet. Seems it is time some concerted efforts is put to understand the dynamics behind the increasing numbers among the IT workers who take to the extreme step. Appropriate action plans need to be drawn up to instill awareness among the group and provide them support in the times of despair! There is an urgent need to intervene to arrest this alarmingly increasing trend in the most coveted professional stream of the modern times in India.
Many times these suicides are brushed aside as personal problems. The motivation varying from extra marital affairs, broken relations, health issues, acute depression to career related disappointments. Most of these triggers are dumped as personal problems, suggesting they are ‘not related to work/company’ in any manner. However, the role of work related factors that give rise to such personal issues leading to desperate situations in one’s life are often over looked. The fact that a 14-16 hrs work schedule with often it further spilling over to home is a sure shot recipe for disaster in family relations is often ignored. According to WHO, depression is the No 1 occupational disease of the 21st century! And, depression is one of the key triggers in most of the suicide incidents.
One of the statistics brought to light by a study by NIMHANS Bangalore is very disturbing. It says one in every 20 IT professionals contemplate suicide! That is certainly an alarming number and is a loud cry for help. The study also suggests that 27.6% of IT professionals in India are addicted to narcotic drugs. Lot of people takes solace in drugs and alcohol as stress reliever to escape from the high pressures of the work. Another equally worrying observation is that 36% of IT professionals in Bangalore show signs of psychiatric disorder. A survey conducted among around 500 IT/ITeS employees in Bangalore by ‘IT and ITeS Employee Center’ (ITEC), a welfare and support forum for IT/ITeS employees, suggested that almost 70% of the respondents reported sufferings from work related high stress and job insecurity fears.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau statistics, a suicide is committed every five minutes. And seven times more that number in fact attempts to take their lives. And, the most depressing fact is that more suicide occurs between the ages 18-45, ie in the most productive age group of the society.
As per the study, 85% of people under stress tend to have strained relations with family and friends. 71% people under stress refrain from social activities. 50% of people under stress say they are not able to pursue leisure activities or hobbies. 35% people suffering from social anxiety disorder say they avoid intimacy with partners.
IT/ITeS jobs, while offering a better standard of living, is taking its toll on mental and physical health as well as on the social and family relationship aspects. Work overload resulting in spill over of workload at home, guilt over being less attentive to family, career related issues and dissatisfaction all adds up taking severe toll on one’s overall health and wellness. Many people reports feelings like frustration, being overwhelmed, anxiety, other health problems like headache, backaches, hypertension, insomnia etc.
While every job may have its own stress and related problems, IT jobs pose different problems compared to the traditional jobs and are quite different from the typical secured employment that Indian middle class is accustomed to. The jobs are mostly contractual with less job security (even for so called ‘permanent’ employees, the jobs are very much tied to the project inflows and thus always at the risk of losing based on the global swings in the business and economic environment). Thus the professionals are stressed from both job pressure as well as the job insecurity. Jobs in IT are most coveted in India. Every middle class family wants their children to succeed with a high-flying career in the IT field. Increased burden of these high expectations comes with its own added stress. Social pressures and expectation from the family force people to continue in the IT field even if many would like to switch to a less demanding field
Employees in ITeS profession work in shifts ranging anywhere from 12 to 16 hrs a day. Much work in night shifts and their partners will also be working in the IT field working in day shift. With many BPO companies, it being 6 day a week, hardly the couple meets each other. This severely affects the harmony at home and strain family relations. High competition at work place, high rate of employee turn over, less involvement in corporate decision making, lack of career progression are all some of the factors these individuals face with.
Work environment, nature of work, performance assessment methods, high competition, job compartmentalization all have made IT professionals highly individualistic. IT jobs are not of the nature where large number of workers needs to continuously support each other or closely dependent on each other. People sitting in the very adjacent cubes physically for 12-14 hrs daily are still highly isolated as individuals. Job time span with a single company becoming as low as 1-2 years for most people, rarely close friendships are cultivated. With very superfluous relations being created among the peers and team members, it is no surprise that at the time of distress the person see no one to turn to for emotional support. It is here that an industry-wide welfare and support forum and togetherness of IT employees can contribute a lot.
Recently a friend called for help to find a new job. He works as a manager in a BPO company in Chennai and his shift starts at evening 5pm. He works for US shift as the company caters to US customers. His shift often extends to morning 8 or 9 and he has a 6-day week. His wife works in another IT company. ‘They hardly meet each other’ would be an over simplified description of the situation! He suffer from health problems, stress, sleep disorders and to top it all, an about to collapse married life! His cry for help is certainly not an isolated one in the industry!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Ban on Outsourcing once again exposes the Free Market apostle!
Recent pronouncement by the Ohio State Governor Mr.Ted Strickland ordering a ban on outsourcing government projects to companies outside the US and subsequent announcements by the US President that tax breaks should go only to companies that create jobs in the US and not overseas have raised concerns among the IT fraternity and have invited strong reactions from the Indian IT companies as well as from some quarters in the Indian government. These steps followed similar restricting actions earlier like increasing the visa fee for H1 and L1 Visas has added to the concerns of the Indian IT industry. The fact that the US government might have been forced by their own local compulsions like a faltering economy, high unemployment levels along with other political factors has not been a source of solace for the IT industry barons in India.
Indian IT industry has grown considerably over the last two decades and has become a significant contributor to the national GDP with 5.5% coming from the IT and ITeS sectors. 2 million people are directly employed by the $70 billion IT sector with another 7-8 million being employed indirectly. UK and US continue to be the major market for the Indian IT Companies with 61% of the revenue coming from the US, 18% from the UK and the rest from other European countries. Thus, outsourcing is the lifeline for the majority of our IT Companies and hence they are naturally in the forefront of the ongoing outcry against the ban imposed on the outsourcing. The NASSCOM head has been very prompt in pointing out that the IT companies were always been supportive of free trade and open market policies (it is another matter that in many instances these policies have been detrimental to our own economic and national interests). The Indian IT Company’s representative body had no hesitation in calling the action as ‘discriminatory’ trade barrier. However, besides the perspective from a narrow business interest of the Indian IT Companies, the issue of outsourcing needs wider examination from a broader perspective to evolve the appropriate response towards the ban imposed.
One of the triggers for the Ohio Governor’s order was the public outcry following a revelation about a call center services for a federally funded program being outsourced to El Salvador. The program, which was funded by the US government's $780 billion stimulus package (The package released by the US federal govt to help their economy recover from recession and to bail out banks, create employment, boost consumer spending etc), was to provide tax rebate to consumers who purchase energy efficient appliances. Ohio State contracted the project to a Texas based company Perago Inc. This company then outsourced the call center connected with this program to El Salvador. This was in fact discovered by a citizen (not the state) and caused a public outcry against the impropriety of siphoning out the public money, targeted for stimulating local economy and create jobs, by corporate to make profit for themselves. So, the irony was that a program which was designed to generate jobs and stimulate economy locally ended up creating jobs in El Salvador instead of Ohio because of the greed of the contracting company to increase their profit. A program designed to help people out of recession by pumping tax payer's money was ironically taking the jobs away! The situation naturally prompted the state government to act to remedy the situation. Will it be appropriate to condemn this decision of Ohio state government?
‘Outsourcing ban’ per se thus is not something that needs to be objected. Should we be asking US to encourage outsourcing? Should we be arguing that US should uphold India’s interest above own interest? Should we be aligning with the US corporate who in their greed to farther their huge level of profits outsource work to each and every corner of the world wherever cheap labor is available, completely ignoring the local people’s interest and growing unemployment? Answer to all these questions should be in the negative. We should respect Ohio State’s right to ban outsourcing to protect local employment and US government’s decision to withdraw any tax concessions to the companies who take job elsewhere in pursuit of higher profit via cheaper labor. However, it should be pointed out in the same vein that the US is preaching the whole world to abstain from these very protectionist actions that they are currently indulging in to protect their jobs and economy. The current ban brings out this contradiction all the more glaringly once again to the utmost discomfort of the free market apostles!
It is important for us not to miss the fact that the ban is clearly another example of the double standard that the US time and again pursues in the matters of ‘free market’ and ‘free trade’. As numerous other incidents and instances have repeatedly demonstrated, US’s preach on free market lasts only as long as it suits their interests and whenever it doesn’t, they have no inhibitions to employ trade restrictions and protectionism to safeguard it. It is very ironical that while the US President on one side argues for protecting US jobs and economy by banning the outsourcing, in the same breath, he demands India to open up the market for the American farm products imports. While he is loud and clear to stress on US’s right in protecting employment in the US, he turns a blind eye when it comes to appreciating India’s right to act in the interest of her farmers. Wish the Indian policymakers can see through the scheme and learn from it instead of blindly jumping on the globalization bandwagon and surrendering the nation’s interest to the global corporate in the name of ‘liberalization’.
The irony once again is highlighted by the fact that the US is a member of GPA (Agreement on Government Procurement), which is an agreement under WTO for setting fair rules for public purchases. The fact that the US while advocating such an agreement to other countries is violating the very spirit of it by relying on such protectionist measures helps only to expose once again the double talk they indulge in. US wants India to open up every conceivable markets, including insurance, banking, retail, media, services, nuclear etc but doesn’t want to open up own backyard for the Indian IT Companies speak volumes of the hollowness of US’s preaching on the free market and free trade. Apostle of free market has to turn to the methods of government intervention to control the market forces once again demonstrates the failure of open market policies to work for the welfare of the people. Current ban on outsourcing should make all the developing nations to open their eyes to the dangers of unilaterally submitting their national interest to the forces of the west lured by the hollow promises of globalization and free market capitalism! .
India government and Indian IT Companies have valuable lessons as take away from these developments. Indian IT sector has been overly relying on the US and European markets for too long. For example, 98.2% of Infosys revenue comes from outside with US accounting for 62.6%, Europe 26.8 and rest of the world 8.8%. The domestic share lay at a paltry 1.8%! Apart from diversifying the market to other parts of the world, it is also critical that the Indian IT Companies start increasingly looking to cater to the domestic market more seriously instead of continuing to heavily rely on outsourced projects from outside. May be time to start another self-reliance movement, this time for indigenous software?
Suresh Kodoor
Indian IT industry has grown considerably over the last two decades and has become a significant contributor to the national GDP with 5.5% coming from the IT and ITeS sectors. 2 million people are directly employed by the $70 billion IT sector with another 7-8 million being employed indirectly. UK and US continue to be the major market for the Indian IT Companies with 61% of the revenue coming from the US, 18% from the UK and the rest from other European countries. Thus, outsourcing is the lifeline for the majority of our IT Companies and hence they are naturally in the forefront of the ongoing outcry against the ban imposed on the outsourcing. The NASSCOM head has been very prompt in pointing out that the IT companies were always been supportive of free trade and open market policies (it is another matter that in many instances these policies have been detrimental to our own economic and national interests). The Indian IT Company’s representative body had no hesitation in calling the action as ‘discriminatory’ trade barrier. However, besides the perspective from a narrow business interest of the Indian IT Companies, the issue of outsourcing needs wider examination from a broader perspective to evolve the appropriate response towards the ban imposed.
One of the triggers for the Ohio Governor’s order was the public outcry following a revelation about a call center services for a federally funded program being outsourced to El Salvador. The program, which was funded by the US government's $780 billion stimulus package (The package released by the US federal govt to help their economy recover from recession and to bail out banks, create employment, boost consumer spending etc), was to provide tax rebate to consumers who purchase energy efficient appliances. Ohio State contracted the project to a Texas based company Perago Inc. This company then outsourced the call center connected with this program to El Salvador. This was in fact discovered by a citizen (not the state) and caused a public outcry against the impropriety of siphoning out the public money, targeted for stimulating local economy and create jobs, by corporate to make profit for themselves. So, the irony was that a program which was designed to generate jobs and stimulate economy locally ended up creating jobs in El Salvador instead of Ohio because of the greed of the contracting company to increase their profit. A program designed to help people out of recession by pumping tax payer's money was ironically taking the jobs away! The situation naturally prompted the state government to act to remedy the situation. Will it be appropriate to condemn this decision of Ohio state government?
‘Outsourcing ban’ per se thus is not something that needs to be objected. Should we be asking US to encourage outsourcing? Should we be arguing that US should uphold India’s interest above own interest? Should we be aligning with the US corporate who in their greed to farther their huge level of profits outsource work to each and every corner of the world wherever cheap labor is available, completely ignoring the local people’s interest and growing unemployment? Answer to all these questions should be in the negative. We should respect Ohio State’s right to ban outsourcing to protect local employment and US government’s decision to withdraw any tax concessions to the companies who take job elsewhere in pursuit of higher profit via cheaper labor. However, it should be pointed out in the same vein that the US is preaching the whole world to abstain from these very protectionist actions that they are currently indulging in to protect their jobs and economy. The current ban brings out this contradiction all the more glaringly once again to the utmost discomfort of the free market apostles!
It is important for us not to miss the fact that the ban is clearly another example of the double standard that the US time and again pursues in the matters of ‘free market’ and ‘free trade’. As numerous other incidents and instances have repeatedly demonstrated, US’s preach on free market lasts only as long as it suits their interests and whenever it doesn’t, they have no inhibitions to employ trade restrictions and protectionism to safeguard it. It is very ironical that while the US President on one side argues for protecting US jobs and economy by banning the outsourcing, in the same breath, he demands India to open up the market for the American farm products imports. While he is loud and clear to stress on US’s right in protecting employment in the US, he turns a blind eye when it comes to appreciating India’s right to act in the interest of her farmers. Wish the Indian policymakers can see through the scheme and learn from it instead of blindly jumping on the globalization bandwagon and surrendering the nation’s interest to the global corporate in the name of ‘liberalization’.
The irony once again is highlighted by the fact that the US is a member of GPA (Agreement on Government Procurement), which is an agreement under WTO for setting fair rules for public purchases. The fact that the US while advocating such an agreement to other countries is violating the very spirit of it by relying on such protectionist measures helps only to expose once again the double talk they indulge in. US wants India to open up every conceivable markets, including insurance, banking, retail, media, services, nuclear etc but doesn’t want to open up own backyard for the Indian IT Companies speak volumes of the hollowness of US’s preaching on the free market and free trade. Apostle of free market has to turn to the methods of government intervention to control the market forces once again demonstrates the failure of open market policies to work for the welfare of the people. Current ban on outsourcing should make all the developing nations to open their eyes to the dangers of unilaterally submitting their national interest to the forces of the west lured by the hollow promises of globalization and free market capitalism! .
India government and Indian IT Companies have valuable lessons as take away from these developments. Indian IT sector has been overly relying on the US and European markets for too long. For example, 98.2% of Infosys revenue comes from outside with US accounting for 62.6%, Europe 26.8 and rest of the world 8.8%. The domestic share lay at a paltry 1.8%! Apart from diversifying the market to other parts of the world, it is also critical that the Indian IT Companies start increasingly looking to cater to the domestic market more seriously instead of continuing to heavily rely on outsourced projects from outside. May be time to start another self-reliance movement, this time for indigenous software?
Suresh Kodoor
On the issue of the US ban on Outsourcing
The upcoming visit by the President of USA to India next week provides an opportunity to all the progressive minded individuals and groups to express their strong protest and condemnation at the imperialistic, undemocratic and anti-people policies pursued by the USA all over the world. Some of the key issues that could be highlighted as part of the protest campaign include US’s insistence and pressure on India to get India’s markets open up in the areas of retail, banking, services, education and others, US’s continuing pressure on developing nations to allow US conglomerates to relentlessly exploit and loot their economies, continuing embargo on Cuba irrespective of overwhelming condemnation from all parts of the worlds, Atrocities on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, Nuclear liability bill, so on and so forth.
However, it is felt that protest against ‘Ban on Outsourcing’ not be part of this list. ‘Outsourcing ban’ per se is not something that should be objected but at the same time it should be used as a campaigning issue to expose as yet another example of the double standard of US in the matters of ‘free market’ and ‘free trade’.
Following points be considered while formulating a reaction to the issue of ‘outsourcing ban’.
* Should we be asking US to encourage outsourcing? Should we be arguing for asking US to uphold India’s interest above own interest? Should we be aligning with the US corporate who in their greed to farther their huge level of profit outsource work to each and every corner of the world wherever cheap labor is available, completely ignoring the local people’s interest and growing unemployment?
* Background on Ohio state passing the bill on Outsourcing: One of the triggers for the bill was the revelation about a call center services for a federally funded program being outsourced to El Salvador. The program, which was funded by the US government's $780 billion stimulus package (The package released by the US federal govt to help their economy recover from recession and to bail out banks, create employment, boost consumer spending etc), was to provide tax rebate to consumers who purchase energy efficient appliances. Ohio state contracted the project to a Texas based company Perago Inc. This company then outsourced the call center connected with this program to El Salvador. This was in fact discovered by a citizen (not the state) and caused a public outcry against the impropriety of siphoning out the public money targeted to stimulated local economy and create jobs by corporate to make profit for themselves. So, the irony was that a program which was designed to generate jobs and stimulate economy locally ended up creating jobs in EL Salvador instead of Ohio because of the greed of the contracting company to increase their profit. A program designed to help people out of recession by pumping tax payer's money was ironically taking the jobs away! The situation naturally prompted the state govt to act to remedy the situation. Will it be appropriate to condemn this decision of Ohio state government? The point is, banning the outsourcing per se is not a wrong thing. However the double standard of the USA, who force every other country to act against such protectionism and open up their market, as once again demonstrated by this act which is against their own ‘free market’ preaching is to be exposed.
* The irony once again is highlighted by the fact that the USA is a member of GPA (Agreement on Government Procurement), which is an agreement under WTO for setting fair rules for public purchases. Only a few countries are member of this agreement and India is not one. As per this agreement a member nation cannot discriminate countries in cases of public purchases. The point is, US who advocate such an agreement to other countries itself relying on such protectionism only expose their real intend. ie loot other market while protecting their backyard whenever it find it necessary. This is what need to be exposed in this context.
* So, our contention in this is that when US protects their interest by imposing restrictions and intervening in the market, US should agree that the developing countries also are equally within their rights to impose such restrictions to protect their economy and safeguard their people's interest. US making hue and cry in the name of free trade and free market in those instances when developing countries try to protect their economy is hypocritical, selfish and double standard. This double talk and deed is what should be exposed.
* A system that boast of 'free market' and 'free capitalism' engaging in such protectionism should be viewed as a public admission of ineffectiveness and inability of 'capitalism' and 'free market' to protect people's interest. It is the public demonstration of the fact that government intervention is very much necessary in the market and economy to ensure the welfare of the society and large section of the people. This is against the very tenants of free capitalism and a falling back to some of the ways of 'welfare economics'. Thus actions such as 'Outsourcing Ban' coming from the apostle of free market should be used as the biggest campaigning tool to expose the hollowness of 'free market' claims. This should be used to strengthen our campaign against Dr.Manmohan Singh government’s shameless submission to the demands of US in opening up markets and signing up trade agreements that is blatantly favorable to the interests of the US and against our own economic and people’s interests.
* Suppose Indian IT companies choose to bring in IT workers from say Nepal or other third world countries (they will be able to get workers at a fraction of the cost being paid to Indian IT workers then), what would be our stand? Or say if Indian IT Companies choose to outsource all the work to Bangladesh, Thailand, Srilanka or other such countries leaving Indian IT workers jobless, what would be out stand? Or if Indian diamond industry outsources the whole diamond cutting jobs to outside, what should be our stand? What is 'right' for us cannot be 'wrong' for others!
* We stand against the irresponsible import of agricultural products and other goods, which will put the life of our farmers in difficulties (our protect against importing rubber, edible oil, sugar etc a case in point or our objections on India entering ASEAN or similar treaties and for that matter many of the agreements under WTO itself). This stand is from the realization that developing nations need to rely on protectionism to safeguard their economy. Any nation might have to turn to such practices to safe guard their economy. Again our contention is that US should respect this rights of all the sovereign countries instead of trying to impose their hegemony and force market world over to open up to allow their looting. The present issue of outsourcing ban should be used to once again highlight this fact. Arent we time and again stressing on the need to restrict foreign investment only to those fields which are absolutely necessary (that too based on conditions that are favorable to us) and to be very judicious in allowing foreign investments? Then how can we argue that US should export their jobs outside in spite of so many people going jobless there?
* Finally, the ban on outsourcing is only for federal jobs, which is only an insignificant part of actual outsourcing work. So, in practice, this is not really going to make any impact. US senate passed a similar bill banning outsourcing in the year 2004 as well. However hardly it was enforced or been effective.
However, it is felt that protest against ‘Ban on Outsourcing’ not be part of this list. ‘Outsourcing ban’ per se is not something that should be objected but at the same time it should be used as a campaigning issue to expose as yet another example of the double standard of US in the matters of ‘free market’ and ‘free trade’.
Following points be considered while formulating a reaction to the issue of ‘outsourcing ban’.
* Should we be asking US to encourage outsourcing? Should we be arguing for asking US to uphold India’s interest above own interest? Should we be aligning with the US corporate who in their greed to farther their huge level of profit outsource work to each and every corner of the world wherever cheap labor is available, completely ignoring the local people’s interest and growing unemployment?
* Background on Ohio state passing the bill on Outsourcing: One of the triggers for the bill was the revelation about a call center services for a federally funded program being outsourced to El Salvador. The program, which was funded by the US government's $780 billion stimulus package (The package released by the US federal govt to help their economy recover from recession and to bail out banks, create employment, boost consumer spending etc), was to provide tax rebate to consumers who purchase energy efficient appliances. Ohio state contracted the project to a Texas based company Perago Inc. This company then outsourced the call center connected with this program to El Salvador. This was in fact discovered by a citizen (not the state) and caused a public outcry against the impropriety of siphoning out the public money targeted to stimulated local economy and create jobs by corporate to make profit for themselves. So, the irony was that a program which was designed to generate jobs and stimulate economy locally ended up creating jobs in EL Salvador instead of Ohio because of the greed of the contracting company to increase their profit. A program designed to help people out of recession by pumping tax payer's money was ironically taking the jobs away! The situation naturally prompted the state govt to act to remedy the situation. Will it be appropriate to condemn this decision of Ohio state government? The point is, banning the outsourcing per se is not a wrong thing. However the double standard of the USA, who force every other country to act against such protectionism and open up their market, as once again demonstrated by this act which is against their own ‘free market’ preaching is to be exposed.
* The irony once again is highlighted by the fact that the USA is a member of GPA (Agreement on Government Procurement), which is an agreement under WTO for setting fair rules for public purchases. Only a few countries are member of this agreement and India is not one. As per this agreement a member nation cannot discriminate countries in cases of public purchases. The point is, US who advocate such an agreement to other countries itself relying on such protectionism only expose their real intend. ie loot other market while protecting their backyard whenever it find it necessary. This is what need to be exposed in this context.
* So, our contention in this is that when US protects their interest by imposing restrictions and intervening in the market, US should agree that the developing countries also are equally within their rights to impose such restrictions to protect their economy and safeguard their people's interest. US making hue and cry in the name of free trade and free market in those instances when developing countries try to protect their economy is hypocritical, selfish and double standard. This double talk and deed is what should be exposed.
* A system that boast of 'free market' and 'free capitalism' engaging in such protectionism should be viewed as a public admission of ineffectiveness and inability of 'capitalism' and 'free market' to protect people's interest. It is the public demonstration of the fact that government intervention is very much necessary in the market and economy to ensure the welfare of the society and large section of the people. This is against the very tenants of free capitalism and a falling back to some of the ways of 'welfare economics'. Thus actions such as 'Outsourcing Ban' coming from the apostle of free market should be used as the biggest campaigning tool to expose the hollowness of 'free market' claims. This should be used to strengthen our campaign against Dr.Manmohan Singh government’s shameless submission to the demands of US in opening up markets and signing up trade agreements that is blatantly favorable to the interests of the US and against our own economic and people’s interests.
* Suppose Indian IT companies choose to bring in IT workers from say Nepal or other third world countries (they will be able to get workers at a fraction of the cost being paid to Indian IT workers then), what would be our stand? Or say if Indian IT Companies choose to outsource all the work to Bangladesh, Thailand, Srilanka or other such countries leaving Indian IT workers jobless, what would be out stand? Or if Indian diamond industry outsources the whole diamond cutting jobs to outside, what should be our stand? What is 'right' for us cannot be 'wrong' for others!
* We stand against the irresponsible import of agricultural products and other goods, which will put the life of our farmers in difficulties (our protect against importing rubber, edible oil, sugar etc a case in point or our objections on India entering ASEAN or similar treaties and for that matter many of the agreements under WTO itself). This stand is from the realization that developing nations need to rely on protectionism to safeguard their economy. Any nation might have to turn to such practices to safe guard their economy. Again our contention is that US should respect this rights of all the sovereign countries instead of trying to impose their hegemony and force market world over to open up to allow their looting. The present issue of outsourcing ban should be used to once again highlight this fact. Arent we time and again stressing on the need to restrict foreign investment only to those fields which are absolutely necessary (that too based on conditions that are favorable to us) and to be very judicious in allowing foreign investments? Then how can we argue that US should export their jobs outside in spite of so many people going jobless there?
* Finally, the ban on outsourcing is only for federal jobs, which is only an insignificant part of actual outsourcing work. So, in practice, this is not really going to make any impact. US senate passed a similar bill banning outsourcing in the year 2004 as well. However hardly it was enforced or been effective.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Women reservation. Making it 50%!
Our parliament is struggling to pass a bill which, if passed, will guarantee that 33% of our representatives in the parliament would be women! Dont the women actually deserve 50% of the share? Many of the political parties are dead against providing 'reservation' to the women in parliament! Fate of the women reservation bill seems to be still in balance, though it has been passed by the Rajya Sabha.
It is most critical for the advancement of Indian Democracy that more and more women comes to the domain of politics and public life. India still continue to be a male dominated society. Oppression against women dates back to thousands of years! Women should get their share in all sphere of life, not through any 'reservation' or 'favour', but by right.
We should contemplate an alternative solution to make '50% women representation in parliament' a reality! We should reduce the number of total loksabha constituencies to half of what it is currently (there are 545 seats now) by joining every two adjacent constituencies into one. From each constituency, two members should be elected. One Male and one Female!
- SK
It is most critical for the advancement of Indian Democracy that more and more women comes to the domain of politics and public life. India still continue to be a male dominated society. Oppression against women dates back to thousands of years! Women should get their share in all sphere of life, not through any 'reservation' or 'favour', but by right.
We should contemplate an alternative solution to make '50% women representation in parliament' a reality! We should reduce the number of total loksabha constituencies to half of what it is currently (there are 545 seats now) by joining every two adjacent constituencies into one. From each constituency, two members should be elected. One Male and one Female!
- SK
If they dont have rice to eat, let them watch Cricket!
"If they dont have rice to eat, why dont they watch cricket" is the new mantra for the people of Kerala! The advice comes from none other than the modern-time Kerala version of the Queen Marie Antoinette, Mr.Taroor! He doesnt understand a bit why people are so wild at him when he 'sweat' it out so much to bring 'cricket business' to kerala! Oh, well... did someone say why dont Taroor do half of what he did to get the fair share of rice for Kerala people? Rice?! that is all for the politicians. Mr.Taroor of course is not one! You may call him a writer, intellectual, diplomat, minister, business man etc etc etc, who should be directly nominated to Rajya Sabha so that he never has to walk under sun begging for votes in his constituency! it is too below his dignity! Leave him alone to do what he is best at. Twittering!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Software is still Soft!
Hardly a day passes by without having to hear about a new bug in Windows! No major commercial software application lives its life healthy, even for a few weeks, without a patch coming to its rescue. Hundreds of thousands of small, medium and large software programs that the software developers around the world write are delivered with bugs that come with it for free and are ready to fly right on the face of the user at the first given opportunity. Nobody will take a software engineer to the court saying his/her software had a bug for he/she will quote the fourth law of ‘software physics’, namely, “no software is ever written bug free”! ‘No test can prove a software program bugs-free, so, why ever bother to write one’ would be the argument ‘your honour’ will be subjected to in any case. Seem the elite practitioners of the technology in the software industry, would rather like to take comfort in this eternal knowledge and continue to enjoy producing bug compatible software programs until eternity.
It is not very easy to get an end-user upset very much (to the point of him breaking his keyboard and mouse) even with a software application that dumps its core at precise intervals or throws exceptions that question his commonsense with messages that only Martians can understand. If nothing else, the application might want to at least hang once in a while just for the fun of it! Still the user will simply reboot the machine and restart the program (to the absolute frustration and dismay of the developer. How much hard he/she should try to get the user kick his/her back?). The secret is that the users have by now learned very much not to trust any software applications and by chance if any of them decide to work correctly, well, sometimes it rains in the summer too! In short, the Software is still, well, what its first name says. Soft!
A user may think if he can at least expect to see similar errors and failures in two similar software applications. Well, you may pardon him for his ignorance as he surely must be a novice to the software industry. As they say, that would be like asking for two people traveling in the same airplane going to the same destination paying the same price. For serious ones, as we all know, it can’t happen primarily because there is no standard way of ‘manufacturing’ a software product and hence no basis in expecting the end products to meet any sort of ‘standard’ too. No two software engineers write a program the same way (hey, don’t we consider that a little below our dignity?). So, one can always guarantee that if two software developers write the same application and if there are X number of bugs in one version, the total number of bugs will be 2X with hardly any duplicates!
All the pun aside, it is very evident that the software house as a whole need to undergo a big cleanup. It is time we see a major paradigm shift in the software industry that would enable creation of highly robust and reliable software products far more consistently. The time has come where the software companies should start making product recalls whenever they find critical problems with their products out there in the market as the automakers recall their design-flawed vehicles or the tire makers recall their faulty rollers. And for this to happen in the software industry, the way software products are created today would need a radical change.
Currently existing models for certification and evaluation (CMM models, for example) of software creation processes are not equipped to meet these challenges. There is no notion yet of certifying the end product. These processes still leave too much to the individual fancy when it comes to the actual act of creating the software. The developer will still may opt to catch an exception or check for a null division in his code if he is on at least half his right mind or will prefer to care the least for those fineries if he had to juggle with his boss the previous night and is sitting there with a fuming ‘devil may care’ inside!
In not so far a future, software may have to cease to exist in the form as seen today. Software engineers may not write programs anymore using programming languages like Java, C++, C or BASIC, or even English for that matter, in ‘emacs’ and ‘vi’ like text editors or their other higher-end fancier counterpart IDEs (Integrated Development Environment). Software may be created through a well-defined and unified process that adheres to a strict industry standard using tools that implements the said standard, giving no room for programmer errors. The paradigm might be, “Software no more be written, they be manufactured”. Software will no more bear the excuse of being an “art”, they will be the result of a mundane commodity creation act. One may think in terms of software products being manufactured in a manufacturing setup that will deliver consistently the same quality software product time and again, the set of inputs, external and internal, and the process being the same. Needless to say, the said ‘Software Manufacturing Process Standard’ is something that is non-existent today and will have to be evolved and established by the software community. This standard will set guidelines for creating the Software Manufacturing Tools, including essential features and programming constructs to be provided, process flow for program creation, code translation standards etc., and will set the quality standards for the end product.
Many of the modeling tools, paradigms and automatic code generators were efforts to address a few of the dimensions of this bigger challenge. However these efforts with their limited scope had hit end of the road and would desperately need a breakthrough in terms of a fundamentally different solution idea. Meanwhile, on the other extreme side, majority of the software applications are still made in the ‘IT cottage industry’, where the word ‘design’ itself is considered a luxury and ‘primitive’ environment in term of mindset, competency and tools define the norm inside those cozy multi-storied high-tech glass buildings.
An auto shop will not let two different technicians on the manufacturing floor create pieces differently, probably walking around with a hammer and a handheld welding machine, even if they wish so. Uniformity and discipline gets auto-enforced in the form of well-defined processes and quality control. This is what is giving us the confidence to drive our car at 100mph on a 35mph zone. Software products needs to provide this level of confidence and should come equipped with those air bags to protect against anything untoward.
It is not very easy to get an end-user upset very much (to the point of him breaking his keyboard and mouse) even with a software application that dumps its core at precise intervals or throws exceptions that question his commonsense with messages that only Martians can understand. If nothing else, the application might want to at least hang once in a while just for the fun of it! Still the user will simply reboot the machine and restart the program (to the absolute frustration and dismay of the developer. How much hard he/she should try to get the user kick his/her back?). The secret is that the users have by now learned very much not to trust any software applications and by chance if any of them decide to work correctly, well, sometimes it rains in the summer too! In short, the Software is still, well, what its first name says. Soft!
A user may think if he can at least expect to see similar errors and failures in two similar software applications. Well, you may pardon him for his ignorance as he surely must be a novice to the software industry. As they say, that would be like asking for two people traveling in the same airplane going to the same destination paying the same price. For serious ones, as we all know, it can’t happen primarily because there is no standard way of ‘manufacturing’ a software product and hence no basis in expecting the end products to meet any sort of ‘standard’ too. No two software engineers write a program the same way (hey, don’t we consider that a little below our dignity?). So, one can always guarantee that if two software developers write the same application and if there are X number of bugs in one version, the total number of bugs will be 2X with hardly any duplicates!
All the pun aside, it is very evident that the software house as a whole need to undergo a big cleanup. It is time we see a major paradigm shift in the software industry that would enable creation of highly robust and reliable software products far more consistently. The time has come where the software companies should start making product recalls whenever they find critical problems with their products out there in the market as the automakers recall their design-flawed vehicles or the tire makers recall their faulty rollers. And for this to happen in the software industry, the way software products are created today would need a radical change.
Currently existing models for certification and evaluation (CMM models, for example) of software creation processes are not equipped to meet these challenges. There is no notion yet of certifying the end product. These processes still leave too much to the individual fancy when it comes to the actual act of creating the software. The developer will still may opt to catch an exception or check for a null division in his code if he is on at least half his right mind or will prefer to care the least for those fineries if he had to juggle with his boss the previous night and is sitting there with a fuming ‘devil may care’ inside!
In not so far a future, software may have to cease to exist in the form as seen today. Software engineers may not write programs anymore using programming languages like Java, C++, C or BASIC, or even English for that matter, in ‘emacs’ and ‘vi’ like text editors or their other higher-end fancier counterpart IDEs (Integrated Development Environment). Software may be created through a well-defined and unified process that adheres to a strict industry standard using tools that implements the said standard, giving no room for programmer errors. The paradigm might be, “Software no more be written, they be manufactured”. Software will no more bear the excuse of being an “art”, they will be the result of a mundane commodity creation act. One may think in terms of software products being manufactured in a manufacturing setup that will deliver consistently the same quality software product time and again, the set of inputs, external and internal, and the process being the same. Needless to say, the said ‘Software Manufacturing Process Standard’ is something that is non-existent today and will have to be evolved and established by the software community. This standard will set guidelines for creating the Software Manufacturing Tools, including essential features and programming constructs to be provided, process flow for program creation, code translation standards etc., and will set the quality standards for the end product.
Many of the modeling tools, paradigms and automatic code generators were efforts to address a few of the dimensions of this bigger challenge. However these efforts with their limited scope had hit end of the road and would desperately need a breakthrough in terms of a fundamentally different solution idea. Meanwhile, on the other extreme side, majority of the software applications are still made in the ‘IT cottage industry’, where the word ‘design’ itself is considered a luxury and ‘primitive’ environment in term of mindset, competency and tools define the norm inside those cozy multi-storied high-tech glass buildings.
An auto shop will not let two different technicians on the manufacturing floor create pieces differently, probably walking around with a hammer and a handheld welding machine, even if they wish so. Uniformity and discipline gets auto-enforced in the form of well-defined processes and quality control. This is what is giving us the confidence to drive our car at 100mph on a 35mph zone. Software products needs to provide this level of confidence and should come equipped with those air bags to protect against anything untoward.
The premise of Free(dom) Software!
We are in an era that is defined and shaped largely by the emergence and amazing growth of the Information Technology. The ever-increasing role of IT in defining and changing our life profiles has been overwhelming. One of the key and unique attributes of this digital age has been the creation of humongous volume of ‘information’. Naturally, presence of such huge pile of information has also given rise to various forms of channels and media to cater to the needs for distributing and disseminating this information. The irony however is that while on one hand we witness the high-volume generation of information and emergence of newer and sophisticated technologies and tools to distribute and process such information, on the other hand we are seeing attempts to make this information more and more restrictive, inaccessible and expensive for the common man. In short, as the creation and distribution of information becomes easier and the potential of this information to influence the lives around increases, the efforts to claim exclusive rights on it and establish monopoly on the same also increases exponentially.
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The Information Technology revolution has given us a powerful means to reach more information to more people easier, faster and efficient. IT carries tremendous potential to act as a strong catalyst in the efforts to improve the lives of millions, especially that of the underprivileged and the uncared majority. It offers an effective platform to provide impetus to the struggles world over for positive change. Thus any effort to allow such a potent platform to be hijacked and (mis)guided by the greed of profiteers would be highly regressive. Unfortunately this is exactly what the corporate world want to achieve through draconian Intellectual Property Right laws.
Ownership for information is a creation of the modern profit interests. Allowing uninhibited spreading and sharing of information will mean that the corporate stand to lose the opportunity to make huge profits for themselves. Today the owners of information are the profit mongers and the monopolists, not the enlightened souls who had only the good of the society at their hearts. Had it been in the hands of the greedy modern day corporate, even Fire and Wheel would have been under patent today! For the corporate, an ideal world would be the one where the users never get to own a software but continue to keep paying them royalty whenever we see, hear, read or use any piece of information they created. They would not only want to protect their software from copying, they would, if possible, even want to stop emergence of any means that would help copying! Corporate may want to put behind bars not only the people who copy a software from one computer to another inside their own home or give a copy of the CD to their friends, but also the people who don’t ditch their friends or neighbors by not informing the corporate about their ‘piracy’! They fill their coffers by maintaining their monopoly on the information and they are willing to go to any extent to protect their ‘rights’ to rob the people!
The IT revolution has resulted in creating a distinct economy of its own and it has brought a new imbalance in the existing economic orders. The IT economies have successfully established an artificially inflated exchange value in their favor over other agricultural and industrial economies world over. The fundamental difference in the manufacturing process of software products versus other material goods is at the core of the huge profits that the IT conglomerates manage to amass for themselves. What enabled IT economy to create such a huge surplus is the fact that the software needs no investment or expenses to replicate and make copies once the original is made, unlike material goods or other agricultural products. And the prices of these software products are kept absurdly huge that it has no relation whatsoever to the investment made to create it. The companies continue to reap in profits for years and in many multiples of the actual expenses incurred to create the first copy. With its unique value creation paradigm, the ‘digital economy’ has thus managed to disconnect itself from the very realities on the ground.
For example, the price of a Windows XP CD (~$275) becomes equal to around 600kg of rice in the Indian market (read it 6000kg if you go by Rs.2/kg scheme)! Microsoft can simply give a CD to a farmer in India and take away 600kg of rice from him. Did Microsoft lose anything in this deal? Nothing absolutely! They still have their original XP CD with them and they can create another hundreds of thousands of such CDs with just few cents per CD (the cost of the disk ie). What about the farmer? He lost 600kg of rice and you can calculate the effort (money, time and labour) he has to put in to create another 600kg of rice! The disparity cant get ridiculous than this! And Microsoft insists each one of us should buy new Windows XP CD for each of the computers at our home or office! It is this economy that the software giants want to protect through their monopolies and ‘Intellectual Property’ rights.
Thus, it is more important for developing economies than anybody else that they dont allow the monopoly interest of these IT corporate take precedence over their own national interests. Free Software movement thus attains more political significance for countries like India. Economically it makes a perfect case for developing and underdeveloped countries to go the Free Software route as the cost for Proprietary software becomes prohibitively huge. But more than the cost, it is the Free Software philosophy and the development model that should be more interesting for these societies. The Free Software initiative demonstrated how a common cause can bring a whole community together and how they can work in unison for the common good of the society as a whole. Profit has been the least motivating factor in this grand collective initiative. The core philosophy as epitomized by the Free Software that the freedom for all is much more important and sacrosanct than the greed of a few may guide not only the Software world but every other endeavors of our social life as well.
.
The Information Technology revolution has given us a powerful means to reach more information to more people easier, faster and efficient. IT carries tremendous potential to act as a strong catalyst in the efforts to improve the lives of millions, especially that of the underprivileged and the uncared majority. It offers an effective platform to provide impetus to the struggles world over for positive change. Thus any effort to allow such a potent platform to be hijacked and (mis)guided by the greed of profiteers would be highly regressive. Unfortunately this is exactly what the corporate world want to achieve through draconian Intellectual Property Right laws.
Ownership for information is a creation of the modern profit interests. Allowing uninhibited spreading and sharing of information will mean that the corporate stand to lose the opportunity to make huge profits for themselves. Today the owners of information are the profit mongers and the monopolists, not the enlightened souls who had only the good of the society at their hearts. Had it been in the hands of the greedy modern day corporate, even Fire and Wheel would have been under patent today! For the corporate, an ideal world would be the one where the users never get to own a software but continue to keep paying them royalty whenever we see, hear, read or use any piece of information they created. They would not only want to protect their software from copying, they would, if possible, even want to stop emergence of any means that would help copying! Corporate may want to put behind bars not only the people who copy a software from one computer to another inside their own home or give a copy of the CD to their friends, but also the people who don’t ditch their friends or neighbors by not informing the corporate about their ‘piracy’! They fill their coffers by maintaining their monopoly on the information and they are willing to go to any extent to protect their ‘rights’ to rob the people!
The IT revolution has resulted in creating a distinct economy of its own and it has brought a new imbalance in the existing economic orders. The IT economies have successfully established an artificially inflated exchange value in their favor over other agricultural and industrial economies world over. The fundamental difference in the manufacturing process of software products versus other material goods is at the core of the huge profits that the IT conglomerates manage to amass for themselves. What enabled IT economy to create such a huge surplus is the fact that the software needs no investment or expenses to replicate and make copies once the original is made, unlike material goods or other agricultural products. And the prices of these software products are kept absurdly huge that it has no relation whatsoever to the investment made to create it. The companies continue to reap in profits for years and in many multiples of the actual expenses incurred to create the first copy. With its unique value creation paradigm, the ‘digital economy’ has thus managed to disconnect itself from the very realities on the ground.
For example, the price of a Windows XP CD (~$275) becomes equal to around 600kg of rice in the Indian market (read it 6000kg if you go by Rs.2/kg scheme)! Microsoft can simply give a CD to a farmer in India and take away 600kg of rice from him. Did Microsoft lose anything in this deal? Nothing absolutely! They still have their original XP CD with them and they can create another hundreds of thousands of such CDs with just few cents per CD (the cost of the disk ie). What about the farmer? He lost 600kg of rice and you can calculate the effort (money, time and labour) he has to put in to create another 600kg of rice! The disparity cant get ridiculous than this! And Microsoft insists each one of us should buy new Windows XP CD for each of the computers at our home or office! It is this economy that the software giants want to protect through their monopolies and ‘Intellectual Property’ rights.
Thus, it is more important for developing economies than anybody else that they dont allow the monopoly interest of these IT corporate take precedence over their own national interests. Free Software movement thus attains more political significance for countries like India. Economically it makes a perfect case for developing and underdeveloped countries to go the Free Software route as the cost for Proprietary software becomes prohibitively huge. But more than the cost, it is the Free Software philosophy and the development model that should be more interesting for these societies. The Free Software initiative demonstrated how a common cause can bring a whole community together and how they can work in unison for the common good of the society as a whole. Profit has been the least motivating factor in this grand collective initiative. The core philosophy as epitomized by the Free Software that the freedom for all is much more important and sacrosanct than the greed of a few may guide not only the Software world but every other endeavors of our social life as well.
The Product Mindset
The business model followed by most of the companies in the IT/Software industry generally falls in to either of the following (or a combination or varying flavors of these):
* Create/Sell Product(s)
* Provide/Sell Service(s)
Based on the model the organization follows, they fall into one of the two broad categories of ‘Product Companies’ or ‘Service Providers’. It is true that the distinct line that defines a Product vs. Service company is getting more and more blurred as some of the key product companies themselves (Oracle, Microsoft, IBM etc for example) are engaging in both models within a single ‘roof’. However, this distinction still may be relevant for individual ‘organizations’ or ‘entities’ within a parent company based on their charter and the model they are engaged in.
The word ‘Service’, off late, has been burdened with a lot of different ‘things’, even within the limited terrain of IT parlance. The implication varies significantly as evident from the ‘Service’ word in ‘Service Industry’ versus in ‘Service Oriented Architecture’ (SOA). Functionalities which are low-end and support in nature like network administration, PC maintenance, other IT infrastructure related functions etc. are clubbed as ‘Services’ and the companies offering these services generally are dubbed as ‘Service Providers’. Some organizations also have taken this a step further by adhering to ‘Service Subscription’ model, with the software products being leased against annual subscription or subscribing to a ‘total support service’ package as in the case of ‘One Care’ package offered by Microsoft. On the higher end of this family, there exist organizations which provide project execution services or in some cases, even core product development engineering services for clients.
The key organizational characteristic or the ‘Organizational Mindset’ of a Service Company evolves from the search for achieving maximum ‘execution efficiency’. The focus is on achieving maximum efficiency for project execution in terms of producing best results within the constraints. The teams are oriented in terms of projects, mostly one-off, turn-key type projects the companies execute for their clients and, the motivation there is to complete projects within the specified constraints in terms of time, scope, resources and quality standards. The organization would be more customer-centric (most of the projects being customer funded ones) and the success is assessed in terms of customer satisfaction and repeat business referrals. The scope of work is tightly defined within the boundaries of the project, with the project coming to a logical culmination when the software systems are delivered to the client (or installed at the client site). The mindset in such organizations is generally more towards ‘execution efficiency’ against what I would call ‘innovation efficiency’, which is the earmark of a product company.
Product Companies typically follow a business model that is aligned with the objectives for successfully creating and selling specific products. Identities (brand) and ‘pride’ of such organizations remains closely attached to their flagship products out there in the market. To grow and sustain the said identities and intellectual assets, the Product Companies model their operations based on a different business paradigm in comparison with the Service Industry.
The core organizational characteristic of a Product Company need to evolve around achieving maximum innovation efficiency, which reflects the strategic focus of the organization towards promoting and driving continuous product innovation in search of key market differentiators against competitions. They are more product-centric than customer-centric. The success is assessed by the product market and the stress is to expand the market reach and brand awareness of the product. The ‘Product Mindset’ asks for developing expertise around specific verticals or product areas and drive innovation in the respective specialized areas by the respective teams, both in terms of feature sets and the technology. The teams are formed around product areas and relevant expertise and they continue to be associated with their respective product areas for relatively longer periods. This helps the teams to develop ‘pride of ownership’ and it allows the teams to be forward thinking in terms of current and future planning. It is very critical that various teams responsible for different product areas stay connected. Thus the organizational culture and the work environment should be oriented towards encouraging high level of interactions between teams to avoid formation of silos. A culture that is very open in terms of absence of or very minimal existence of hierarchical and formal bureaucratic roadblocks, in terms of nurturing and valuing creativity, in terms of facilitating idea exchange within and across teams and in terms of providing an atmosphere that promote free flow of ideas would be a key contributing factor to the success of a product company. And, the ‘Product Mindset’ is the sum total of these set of values, thinking, practices and the enabling work culture that would be an integral part of any creative and successful product development environment. Some of the key attributes that would define a ‘Product Mindset’ may be summed up as listed below.
* Highest level of Innovation and Creativity
* Vertical expertise in specific product areas and technology
* Continuous thrive to identify and incorporate key product differentiators
* Forward looking
* Technology oriented
* Product centric
* Customer focused
* Quality conscious
* Technology and Market leadership
An important hallmark, which may be viewed as a manifestation of how strong the existing ‘Product Mindset’ in an organization is, of a strong product company would be a strong presence in there of a vibrant, highly focused and market aware product management team. An organization that can boast of having a brilliant engineering team which is perfectly tuned to the product vision and roadmap defined by their equally smart product management counterparts, more often than not, will have a better chance of achieving the glory of being a market leader in their chosen space.
* Create/Sell Product(s)
* Provide/Sell Service(s)
Based on the model the organization follows, they fall into one of the two broad categories of ‘Product Companies’ or ‘Service Providers’. It is true that the distinct line that defines a Product vs. Service company is getting more and more blurred as some of the key product companies themselves (Oracle, Microsoft, IBM etc for example) are engaging in both models within a single ‘roof’. However, this distinction still may be relevant for individual ‘organizations’ or ‘entities’ within a parent company based on their charter and the model they are engaged in.
The word ‘Service’, off late, has been burdened with a lot of different ‘things’, even within the limited terrain of IT parlance. The implication varies significantly as evident from the ‘Service’ word in ‘Service Industry’ versus in ‘Service Oriented Architecture’ (SOA). Functionalities which are low-end and support in nature like network administration, PC maintenance, other IT infrastructure related functions etc. are clubbed as ‘Services’ and the companies offering these services generally are dubbed as ‘Service Providers’. Some organizations also have taken this a step further by adhering to ‘Service Subscription’ model, with the software products being leased against annual subscription or subscribing to a ‘total support service’ package as in the case of ‘One Care’ package offered by Microsoft. On the higher end of this family, there exist organizations which provide project execution services or in some cases, even core product development engineering services for clients.
The key organizational characteristic or the ‘Organizational Mindset’ of a Service Company evolves from the search for achieving maximum ‘execution efficiency’. The focus is on achieving maximum efficiency for project execution in terms of producing best results within the constraints. The teams are oriented in terms of projects, mostly one-off, turn-key type projects the companies execute for their clients and, the motivation there is to complete projects within the specified constraints in terms of time, scope, resources and quality standards. The organization would be more customer-centric (most of the projects being customer funded ones) and the success is assessed in terms of customer satisfaction and repeat business referrals. The scope of work is tightly defined within the boundaries of the project, with the project coming to a logical culmination when the software systems are delivered to the client (or installed at the client site). The mindset in such organizations is generally more towards ‘execution efficiency’ against what I would call ‘innovation efficiency’, which is the earmark of a product company.
Product Companies typically follow a business model that is aligned with the objectives for successfully creating and selling specific products. Identities (brand) and ‘pride’ of such organizations remains closely attached to their flagship products out there in the market. To grow and sustain the said identities and intellectual assets, the Product Companies model their operations based on a different business paradigm in comparison with the Service Industry.
The core organizational characteristic of a Product Company need to evolve around achieving maximum innovation efficiency, which reflects the strategic focus of the organization towards promoting and driving continuous product innovation in search of key market differentiators against competitions. They are more product-centric than customer-centric. The success is assessed by the product market and the stress is to expand the market reach and brand awareness of the product. The ‘Product Mindset’ asks for developing expertise around specific verticals or product areas and drive innovation in the respective specialized areas by the respective teams, both in terms of feature sets and the technology. The teams are formed around product areas and relevant expertise and they continue to be associated with their respective product areas for relatively longer periods. This helps the teams to develop ‘pride of ownership’ and it allows the teams to be forward thinking in terms of current and future planning. It is very critical that various teams responsible for different product areas stay connected. Thus the organizational culture and the work environment should be oriented towards encouraging high level of interactions between teams to avoid formation of silos. A culture that is very open in terms of absence of or very minimal existence of hierarchical and formal bureaucratic roadblocks, in terms of nurturing and valuing creativity, in terms of facilitating idea exchange within and across teams and in terms of providing an atmosphere that promote free flow of ideas would be a key contributing factor to the success of a product company. And, the ‘Product Mindset’ is the sum total of these set of values, thinking, practices and the enabling work culture that would be an integral part of any creative and successful product development environment. Some of the key attributes that would define a ‘Product Mindset’ may be summed up as listed below.
* Highest level of Innovation and Creativity
* Vertical expertise in specific product areas and technology
* Continuous thrive to identify and incorporate key product differentiators
* Forward looking
* Technology oriented
* Product centric
* Customer focused
* Quality conscious
* Technology and Market leadership
An important hallmark, which may be viewed as a manifestation of how strong the existing ‘Product Mindset’ in an organization is, of a strong product company would be a strong presence in there of a vibrant, highly focused and market aware product management team. An organization that can boast of having a brilliant engineering team which is perfectly tuned to the product vision and roadmap defined by their equally smart product management counterparts, more often than not, will have a better chance of achieving the glory of being a market leader in their chosen space.
Is SaaS a threat to Free Software?
Software as a Service is software delivery model where the application is hosted on a network server which can be accessed by users over the net and pay as per the usage instead of owning the software by paying the license fee. For example, a word processing program, which is installed on a network server and accessed by users to create and edit their document, can be termed as a SaaS application. Google Doc is an example of word processing program deployed as SaaS. SaaS has lot of positives as it take advantage of the 'economy of scale' and application standardization. For organizations, SaaS helps them to reach out to the global market. SaaS allows users to altogether do away with in-house servers, application and the need for software installation or maintenance, key reasons why they would opt to go the SaaS way. SaaS also poses a key threat to the software freedom, the core value embodied in Free Software movement.
As far as Free Software / Open Source paradigm is concerned, SaaS, by the very nature of the model, poses important concerns from its core philosophical perspective rather than from a technical / implementation perspective.
SaaS as a software delivery model strikes at the very core of the Free Software philosophy. It is not about implementation of the solution as such. A User of a SaaS application does not necessarily bother about whether the application is built by Open Source technology or not. The Users are using the service to perform their computational need (they submit their data to the application and get the computation done by the SaaS service). And SaaS by definition is not anyway wedded to the technology underneath with which the application is built.
Where the SaaS becomes a threat to the philosophy of Free Software, ie 'Freedom to the User of the software' is that SaaS makes the question of source code availability irrelevant and thus take away the 'means' of the User to control the behaviour of the software as per his/her needs (even if a SaaS provider agrees to distribute the source code and thus address the question of 'access to the software'). ie Even if the User gets the source code of the SaaS application, as long as the User is still using the SaaS service, his/her 'freedom' is as much as allowed by the service provider only. Both the data as well as the control (how the software behave) are with the provider and not with the User. Thus, SaaS might be seen as in the opposite camp to the spirit of 'Free Software'. In the SaaS world, availability of source code now no longer guarantees the 'Freedom' for the Users!
As far as Free Software / Open Source paradigm is concerned, SaaS, by the very nature of the model, poses important concerns from its core philosophical perspective rather than from a technical / implementation perspective.
SaaS as a software delivery model strikes at the very core of the Free Software philosophy. It is not about implementation of the solution as such. A User of a SaaS application does not necessarily bother about whether the application is built by Open Source technology or not. The Users are using the service to perform their computational need (they submit their data to the application and get the computation done by the SaaS service). And SaaS by definition is not anyway wedded to the technology underneath with which the application is built.
Where the SaaS becomes a threat to the philosophy of Free Software, ie 'Freedom to the User of the software' is that SaaS makes the question of source code availability irrelevant and thus take away the 'means' of the User to control the behaviour of the software as per his/her needs (even if a SaaS provider agrees to distribute the source code and thus address the question of 'access to the software'). ie Even if the User gets the source code of the SaaS application, as long as the User is still using the SaaS service, his/her 'freedom' is as much as allowed by the service provider only. Both the data as well as the control (how the software behave) are with the provider and not with the User. Thus, SaaS might be seen as in the opposite camp to the spirit of 'Free Software'. In the SaaS world, availability of source code now no longer guarantees the 'Freedom' for the Users!
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