Sunday, November 20, 2005

Global Delivery Model

Ever came across this term? It means work can be done across across time zones, giving a 24 hour processing capability to Work Products.

This is a widely used concept by a lot of IT Services Companies, most of them based in South Asia. The time zone advantage which Asian Countries have, over the countries in the West has enabled outsourcing of a lot of Western World IT and Business related tasks to the Eastern World.

What this means is when Tom Banks, a guy from Minnetonka, Minnesotta in the US goes to bed, a guy in Asia wakes up for him. Mr. Asian works on the prototype of the application, for which Tom had just finished designing. Had Mr. Asian not been there, Tom would probably had to wake up the next day and resume working on the prototype, thus giving way to an unavoidable delay of 12 hours of work. As a result, the work product of Tom Banks can be completed about 40-50% much earlier than it would have, had it not been outsourced.

The Global Delivery Model (lets call it GDM) concept can also be applied to this interesting scenario. A lot of Married Software Engineers from India, who are sent abroad (read US) for their assignments usually travel with their spouses. Its like a sponsored honeymoon. The transition from auto rickshaws to cars, from crowd to sparser population, from pollution to fresh air, from water to tissues is an altogether new experience.

The snow chills, picturesque locales give way to a desire to parent a US Citizen. So after settling down in the first 3 months in the US, the couple starts planning their first child. The wife is carrying for 4 months and suddenly Mr. Java, HTML- ASP-CMM gets the shock which is common for Asian IT Consultants. His manager tells him those magic words "You may have to go back next month". Mr. Java, HTML- ASP-CMM gathers his composure and replies "My wife is carrying and she has been advised not to travel". Manager is bamboozled and is check mated. He thinks of those projects which needed resources. He plays the sentimental card and puts Mr.Java, HTML- ASP-CMM onto another new project, so that he can continue his stay. This may well be at the expense of another deserving bachelor, who has spent countless desk hours striving for that onsite chance. But alas! Mr.Java, HTML- ASP-CMM soon becomes yet another parent of a Naturalized Citizen. The newly born, will never need to care for a work permit/visa when he needs to come to the US. As they say ...its his birthright! Planning to start a family in the "Global" terms is nothing but the Global Delivery Model (in the humorous context!).

Friday, November 18, 2005

H1-B Under Blanket



Blanket ke neeche kya hai?


The picture you see above is the third man in our lives (my life and my roomie Srivatsan's). Hehehe...now dont be naughty. Its our third roomie at 173 Hunters - Durgaprasad Kalicharan Navin Chandra Mahavadi Kesava Sharma.

This image may make you assume that someone under it is sleeping and snoring away happily to laziness. But do you know? The "under-cover" activities are one of the reasons for RelianceIndiaCall, WQN and T-Mobile having huge profits.

The picture u see doesnt have the sound of soft telugu whispers that flow like music from this sleepy pied piper. With marraige just a fortnight away and every minute after work spent on phone...here is wishing all the best to Navin for his future venture.

The Legacy of 17 Hunters



Prashanth, Me and Srikantha at the patio of our house, on 2nd Oct 2005.

The above snap was taken the day my ex-roomies Prashanth and Srikantha left for India.

We had moved into this apartment in January 2005. It was the winter of 2005 and our first exhaustive experience with snow.Srikantha was actually then in India, for a personal trip. Prashanth moved in by January 8th. Even Satish was with us for some time then.

All the 3 of us had a good time together. We used to take turns cooking. My mouth still waters when i think of Iyengar Rasam, North Indian Dal, Aloo Sabzee from Chef Prashanth.
Captain Srikantha always used to have an understatement ready, when one asked what he had cooked for that day. It was "See man i dont know what it is. Something i have prepared" Beware...the statement was just a hog wash. He used to prepare some very good Sambhar, Chutney, Gongura Sambhar ( this was just too good) and always used to have some speciality in what he cooked (and also lot of spice at times!!).

We guys shared a great compatibility and wavelength. Prashanth was really disciplined, regular and very much "Dravid". That means he had all the qualities of a samathu pillai as they say in tamil. Srikantha always had a talent to build rapport with people and was smart and a masalaboard addict!

Miss the times we used to watch Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and the City, Becker together and laugh. Also all the hindi movies that we used to get from Indiamart - Agnee Chakra, Morning Raaga, Anubhav, Ganga Jamuna Saraswati etc. U name it and we have watched it! And at times we also gave away the cassette without watching it, cos it was too boring a movie!

But all good things in life come to an end and so did our association. But life is like that. People come and people go. But its essential to remember the good times and keep in touch with people with whom u have shared an episode in your life.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Lazy Sunday

Went for a drive on late Saturday night, in and around Middletown. Then had gone to a friends house to fix his iPod. Came home, saw some comedy snippet, surfed the net..then slept at 3.30am on early Sunday morning.

Had a lazy Sunday today. Woke up pretty early..9.30am.Shopped,slept,shopped. Had peas-jeera rice, curd-rice and cantelope milk shake for dinner. Didnt study anything today till now.

Yet another week starts from tomorrow. Time is passing so quickly.

Surrounded by the following items, as i write this blog:
  • How to Create,Win and Dominate Markets - Philip Kotler
  • Table Lamp which i had purchased from Walmart for 4.88$, hoping will need it while studying for GMAT :)
  • Table Clock - hardly see time in that these days
  • My Motorola RAZR, which i havent used that much.
  • My 512MB iPod
  • My Nokia 6600 ...most widely used cell phone in my life :)
  • Headset, which i had got from Planet M, Bangalore for 260Rs. 3 yrs back, with Anu, at Brigade Road
Enough of show off...will write later.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Kaatula Mayay

This is the name of the play i watched this evening with my roomie - Vatsan. Kaatula Mayay can have 2 meanings in the Tamil i know - Rain in the wind or Rain in the forest. Its a Tamil Comedy play, by a renowned comedian S. Vee Sekar. This guys sounds and speaks really innocently and cutely. In fact its really sad that we see really less of him in tamil movies of late. An industry that is thwarted by the ever sadistic Goundamani, ever pavam Senthil, ever loud and cheap Vadivelu, has now only the euphoric Vivek, who can come close to S. Vee. Vivek's wit and punch on relevant social and current issues, through his comedy are indeed entertaining.

Its indeed sad that am unable to check how my stocks performed on icicidirect.com. They are down for 2 whole days, due to some technical reasons. Why is icicidirect have downtime so often these days? Even during trading times, its painfully slow.

Did some Sentence Correction exercises from Kaplan. Planning to study solve some Critical Reasoning exercises too.


Will sign off now...tata...