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The Intra-Governmental FOSS Conflict

Gagan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:08:36 +0000

Today Economic Times reported about the benefits of FOSS as analyzed by a study according to the Professor Rahul De of IIM Bangaloare. That’s good, superb we already knew about the benefits of FOSS, but yes now we have a study backed up by one of the geniuses of the country. However isn’t it that it has already been there? The LIC using it, or the Govt. of Kerala leveraging the benefits FOSS Technologies. Same goes with corporates, they have always preferred Sendmail over Microsoft Exchange, and Linux over Windows and more and more FOSS when it comes to Server technologies. Organizations have been using OpenOffice.ORG from past so many years to save upon their costs.

But this study is sure to create an impact in the minds of more and more people, and ultimately drive Microsoft to their worst nightmare of Open Source taking over the corporate word (at least). But let’s talk about Government Initiative in the Open Source… Now there’s a catch!

WARNING: In the following section, I might sound Frankenstein running after NIC’s to rip it’s neck of it’s body.

IBPS Site may damage your PC

Does government actually support FOSS Initiatives ? I don’t know if you are looking at th small line at the bottom of most of the Government websites, where it says – “Please use Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or “Best viewed on Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or something analogous. Does it

SBI site is on ASP (Microsoft Active Server Pages) meaning NOT FOSS, they are using Microsoft Technologies and are actually not leveraging the benefits of FOSS where they can be best achieved – WEB and SERVER Technologies. If you anytime in your life have applied for any of the Country’s bank exams be it PO, Managerial or Clerk, you have to visit the site of Institute of Banking Peronnel Selection (IBPS). You would notice that it won’t open on Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari or Google Chrome – it’s is simply loyal to Microsoft Technology – Internet Explorer.

Let’s visualize a simple example, where a person who loves linux or cannot afford Microsoft Window Operating System and want’s to make every move chaste, without the pains of proprietary software involved – Is demoralize, demotivated, his faith shattered to dust with a website popping up saying I need INTERNET EXPLORER! That wasn’t the idea of Tim Berner’s lee when he proposed Internet.

Does Government really support FOSS?

If the government really want’s to take initiatives, it should have made all the websites on NON-Microsoft Technologies, it would have saved them Millions actually Billions. Today NIC has 90% of their websites being maintained on proprietary – age old technologies, that are in no way match for today’s glossy looking, superbly interactive, and Intelligent websites. Are they ? They don’t even look like Corporate/Identity websites for Company information. Even if NOW!, after going through the Prof. Rahul De reports they think of moving from proprietary to FOSS Tech’s – who the hell be accountable for the earlier un-informed baseless decisions ?

The only one of the few website I’ve seen is the NIC’s Indigov. Its’ one of the best website, and based around php. Now what new I see is a Quality certificate being attached to the website by SQTC. Does that make a difference? What is then W3C for? CDAC, NOIDA has been one of the biggest contributor and promoter of W3C in Indian Government sector. However, now NIC & SQTC comes out with their Certificate attached to the website, ignoring all the work done so far in the field by W3C and unnecessarily putting their precious efforts into standards that have been pre-established. No doubt the website is accessible, but that accounts to just 0.1% of the websites NIC is hosting/developing/maintaining (I would rather say lingering on with). Most of the disabled people are ignored in the country (I know low floor buses just landed in Delhi, but that’s just Delhi -not India right!) and Information Technology is the last seen area where you could consider disabled people to be preferred – in INDIA.

The author is not Anti-Microsoft, he just want the web to be independent, free from the boundaries just like a free bird. As Internet / Web was essentially created to be platform-independent so that we could; and today as we are able to browse websites over Mobile Phone, Browser’s across operating systems like – Windows, Mac and Linux. And they look same everywhere.

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Unsubscribe to emails – A Courteous concern

Gagan — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 08:48:51 +0000

I had subscriptions to a few web sites that are quite big in content, but I think they lack courtesy. Though they are very popular across medias, however a small loophole can actually bring out the reality. And the reality is they don’t have unsubscribe link, or even if they have they don’t show it! Okay, I think its time to disclose the biggies:

BollywoodHungama.com (Formely IndiaFM.com)
IN.COM (A Network18 Venture)

Talking about IndiaFM, its a very popular website for Bollywood News, it has several brand associated with it one being Mr. Taran Adarsh who’s very popular as an Industry analyst. Quite a large user traffic and a Google Page Rank of 6. I think that is pretty definitive.

IndiaFM includes an unsubscribe link (an email address: unsubscribe@bollywoodhungama.com) at the very bottom, and that is how every one works, however the font size for the unsubscribe links are always compromised. But, and yes here comes the ugly part the link doesn’t works! I search the site, and NO you don’t have it. You don’t have any setting or link that says opt-out, unsubscribe, leave us, R.I.P.

Now lets come to IN.COM and believe me its a very-very big website. If you want to have a look at statistics – follow here.

So, now how about IN.COM, I really don’t like their mails. All they do is meshing up things spread across the web. So I really thought of unsubscribing from the emails, and Voila’ you don’t even have a link down below the email, just a quote -

Please go to http://www.in.com to unsubscribe

And would you believe it, you have everything on their web site (you can find almost the whole web out there), except the unsubscribe link. Some times its even harder to find where to log in!

That’s just 2 of the shoal of big sharks out there. But I believe I’ve done my job of putting them naked in front of you. I’ve mailed them long time back too, but haven’t got the response for the emails, probably they ended up in their junk box.

I’m quite sure they don’t have an real auditing department doing the real checking, and I’m damn sure since they have started making money out of absolutely nothing of their own, they would not be worried about the email ordeals people are going though.

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HCL to support Nokia

Gagan — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:06:56 +0000

We earlier wrote on Infrastructure Management and all the research firms did the analysis on it telling you how big the market was, and it still needs to be tapped. HCL-Nokia Alliance is the proof of research, and by a proven player – HCL. The deal has been recorded as the largest ever Infrastructure deal in global arena.

Multi-million Dollar Contract, spread across 5 Years, encompassing desktop support across 76 countries in 13 languages. HCL says it has bagged the deal among competition from Global as well as Indian players.

The Scope of the contract -

global account management,
workstation packaging,
creation and maintenance,
workstation security management and
On site support services

HCL plans to offer a variety of new features for Nokia’s staff including a chat facility that will allow users to get support quickly without having to open a service ticket, and a self-service portal with service information, said Pradeep Bindal, senior vice president for Europe of HCL Technologies’ Infrastructure Service Division.

HCL has opened up a new near-shore center in Helsinki, Finland to support Nokia. HCL through its subsidiary – Infrastructure Service Division (ISD) is setting up a 100-person support center in Finland for Nokia and other customer in nordic countries.

The deal has been considered as the biggest infrastructure deal, however Mr. Bindal says the margins are lower in such deals are lower. Generally Infrastructure deals involve taking over the assets (Data centers and workstations) and the prices are part of the deal. However the HCL-Nokia deal is a pure service deal. Mr. Bindal says the billing would be done on

Number of Help Desk requests received
Number of workstations being supported

HCL Facts revealed by Mr. Bindal

HCL currently manages over 650,000 desktops under its remote infrastructure management program.
HCL already has capabilities in-house in 12 of the 13 languages in which it will be offering support to Nokia.

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WordPress on TV!

Gagan — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:15:09 +0000

Your favorite WordPress is on Videos now! Like all other web apps like YouTube, MetaCafe, etc. WordPress has also moved to WordPress.tv – your visual resource for all things WordPress. Watch the video…

On WordPress.tv, you’ll find tutorials for both WordPress self-installs and WordPress.com to help you get blogging fast and hassle-free. We’ve kicked things off with the basics — now you can shape what comes next. Just drop us a line and let us know what you’d like to see added.

WordPress.tv is also now the place to find all that awesome WordCamp footage that was floating around the web without a home. See the presentations you missed and get a peek at behind-the-scenes action. We call it WordCampTV.

You’ll also find slideshows of presentations made by WordPress gurus, plus interviews I’ve done with the media and fellow bloggers.

I hope you’ll consider WordPress.tv not just a support resource, but also a place to hang out and keep up with all the geeky goodness going on in the WordPress community. Tune in regularly for fresh content and updates to the WordPress.tv blog. Lots more is on the way.

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Infrastructure Management Services – India’s Next Mega Trend!

Gagan — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:58:03 +0000

Well, after BPO and Offshore Web Development, Offshore Software Development the next big wave of IT Industry would be economics of Infrastructure Management Services. The most profitable being the Remote Infrastructure Management which enables Organizations in US (or elsewhere in the world) to outsource their infrastructure management which may usually includes supporting Data centers activities comprising -

Storage Support – Tivoli, EMC, etc.
Operating System support – Linux/Unix, Windows
Application Servers Support – IIS, Apache, Tomcat, WebSphere, Glassfish, JBoss
Database Support – Oracle, MySQL, MS-SQL Server,etc.
ERP Support – SAP Basis Support
e-Mail Server Support – send mail, MS-Exchange, etc.
End-User Support – Identity Management, Active Directory, LDAP, etc.

According to top Research firms, RIMS has a lot to contribute to the countries economy. It is estimated that RIM Services can help organizations save 60% of the costs that they are incurring NOW!

NASSCOM – Out of India RIMS Business is $ 200-300 Million.
RIMS Business potential estimated by TOP Research firms -
- NASSCOM: $ 150 Billion
- Forrestor: $ 111 Billion
- Gartner: $ 80 Billion

There’s a very good small presentational PDF Document published by HCL on NASSCOM Website is available for reading. You can download it from NASSCOM’s Website (or Download Directly from DT: Remote Infrastructure Management Overview – HCL).

Maples ESM, a Global IT Infrastructure Co. has already come up with a course offering in RIM, Networking, UNiX Support, SOA/Middleware Training and Mainframe Training. One of the reason of Co. doing so is McKinsey India report which says that RIMS alone would create 3.25 to 3.75 Lakh job opportunities by the year 2013 capturing $ 13-15 billion worth of share. Adding to this the best of all the features is RIMS is being considered recession proof as what VM Kumar COO, Maples ESM. He say’s …

In times of slowdown in the US, it does make sense for companies to outsource the management of existing IT infrastructure rather than pay a local engineer $16,000 as salary to do it, That way, this sector is recession proof for India as companies can postpone application development to save costs but will have to manage their IT infrastructure, which can be done less expensively by outsourcing

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