Russia - Linux over Windows!

What your Business can learn from Russia – looking at this sentence the first thing that cropped up to my mind was – Is Russia the world leader in Business strategies now? But later reading at the article it made me feel that leaders are made with thought provoking moves. 

This is all about Russia’s move to build its own national software system based on Linux and not on Windows. First point that I would agree is “Linux is free”. Flexibility, security, reliability are also the major points that every Business would like to keep stable every minute of their existence. The bold move of setting aside 150 million rubles for building the software system on Linux that is open to all and to which updates are created almost every day with new applications and sidelining Windows across the entire nation is really something to be looked at.

Linux gives the flexibility for an individual to change the source code and add as many features as you want but of course this is dependent on the level of programming one has. I do not doubt this would be an issue as we see how many are into hard core programming nowadays. This move would be very beneficial for companies that still use older hardware on their computer as Linux would run on even the NT series desktops.

According to a recent study, Linux is highly preferred than Windows nowadays mainly because of the creative involvement of different companies for its development and help and support provided by these companies. If this is followed by every other nation now, I think there won’t be a day far away when Windows will be planning to create open source software and attract its once loyal customers back.

Reverse Outsourcing

"Reverse Outsourcing" is the new buzz word in today's IT industry in India. IT projects being outsourced to India use to be the norm but now-a-days Indian IT companies are outsourcing some of their bigger projects to the US. Indian IT giants such as Wipro and Infosys, whose majority of clients are US based, are expanding to the US for the following reasons:

1. Reduce overall infrastructure and overhead costs:
Since the majority of the clients of these companies are US based, they spend a lot on traveling to interact with the clients and also it would cost them dearly from time delays in getting feedback on the on-going projects.

2. Expanding their market:
Firms can get contracts with US healthcare clients, government agencies etc that don't allow their data to go beyond the US border. Also creating American jobs is pretty useful for Indian IT companies since majority of their clients are within the US, it will also lead to a lot of political benefits.

The "Reverse Outsourcing" model looks to play a major role in the expansion of the Indian IT industry in the US.

Clash of the Titans

http://www.cio.com/article/621267/Microsoft_Sues_Motorola_Over_Android?page=1&taxonomyId=3000

“Look at the charts, ANDROID’s momentum is killer”. This phrase from the above mentioned article describes ANDROID’s position in the smart phone market today perfectly. The article talks about the patent infringement complaints filed against Motorola by Microsoft in the International Trade Commission and the Federal court. It also mentions a list of other lawsuits to be filed against ANDROID by the other technology big-wigs.

Android is sure making waves with its increasing number of customer, so why wouldn’t its competitors find ways to slow it down. The patent in issue is the Microsoft Exchange Active Sync that is being used by the Android OS. Though Google has taken the patent for it, Microsoft now claims that even the handset manufacturers should be buying a patent. Ok! good, so what happened to this claim when ANDROID was being introduced with Motorola? All of a sudden they want to file complaints? I would say it leads us to the stance of Microsoft Windows 7 against ANDROID. May be they are following the good old school thought – make hay while the sun shines.

Not one, but there is actually a list of patents that they plan to file. So what’s in for Microsoft if they do this? One thing is for sure, they expect Motorola to shell loads of money for the patent. This would definitely increase the pay offs from the customers in order to get their investment back and may be reach Microsoft’s goal of declining ANDROID users and hopefully increase Windows OS phone followers. But looking at the split that Motorola is about to go through, none of the trade experts think that it will be investing billions of dollars for the patent. 

Microsoft is not the only company rooting against ANDROID. The list might even increase over the coming months, like Apple’s lawsuit against HTC and Oracle suing GOOGLE over Java in ANDROID. Microsoft sure seems to be happy with the un-declared support that APPLE and ORACLE is offering to it against ANDROID. How will ANDROID sustain this pressure is definitely to watch out for. Motorola has already declared itself to have a leading intellectual property record and is very confident to come out of this hopefully brief law fights. What APPLE, ORACLE or even MICROSOFT does not know now is if ANDROID and MOTOROLA come against all the odds in a short time, it will definitely climb up the ladder and can even be on top of SYMBIAN (leading OS from NOKIA) one day.

All Hail ANDROID! [And why not!! I own one of these masterpieces!!!]