Disqus - Latest Comments for Venkataramanan S

Re: Twitter as Customer Support

Venkataramanan S — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:39:07 -0000

Jake, thanks for this perspective. Twitter as a new search tool sounds cool and might very well change the way support is delivered. The most appealing factor is the element of trust. I can now relate Twitter as one of the elements of Self Support 2.0.

I always thought of twitter as hybrid of a blog and an instant messenger. Now, because of this twitter would be most appealing to those causal bloggers or those who don't blog at all.

Twitter will no doubt play an important part in increasing Self Support 2.0 quotient of a product. Let me know what you think about this.

I have defined Self Support 2.0 and Self Support 2.0 quotient in the two comments on David's blog. They are available here - http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/why...

Re: Going around, Coming around

Venkataramanan S — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:45:32 -0000

I totally agree with you. Google will eventually move into the enterprise application space through what I refer to as GERP (Google's ERP). Now, what is alarming is that they will not only do this very quickly, but also will acquire customers rapidly. The kind of customers they will initially acquire will be the ones who never tried out ERP Software or Small and Medium Sized (SMB) companies who are fed up with their custom built products. Google would no doubt develop a formula to integrate with existing ERP products and will modularize their application. This will encourage the big companies to move systematically into GERP. Eventually, in the years to come, they will redefine the ERP industry and how products are make. GERP will create a new enterprise market segment, something hard to define now. The big ERPs will re engineer their product to work with that of Google's. Needless to say, one of the key features of GERP would be that it is hosted on demand like Google Apps.

Now, let me explain the most important point - Why will GERP gain acceptance quickly? The word quickly is important here. Let me start with an example. Google Apps for example has been very successful with the SMBs soon after they launched enterprise class support for it. I use Google Apps (the free version) for my domain TechProtocol and its useful in many ways. One of the key features is the ability to store all your emails on the server. Email storage is a big problem for all companies including the big giants. IMAP has made it convenient to store emails on folders, but searching though them is a big problem. Its not possible to store all the emails as the mailbox sizes are limited to a few hundred megabytes. Storing emails locally on Thunderbird or other clients has its own problem. Google Apps offers 25GB of space and provides a fantastic search mechanism. Hosting and anytime availability of email is very essential. Ability to search and retrieve the necessary email improves productivity. Win win for everybody - End Users, Company, and Google. All this plus enterprise class support and low TCO has make Google Apps popular among SMBs. My friend, who is the Manager IT of a SMB tells me that the end users of his company cannot do without Google Apps. Google Apps to them is like Google to others. They in fact use most of the feature of Google Apps like Calendar, etc. In reality, what has actually driven these SMBs to use Google Apps is the pressure from the end users.

When GERP is launched, this will create a similar impact. Not only will they integrate it will Google Apps, but with every other possible online product and existing ERPs. Needless to say, Self Support 2.0 quotient for GERP would be high. Google realizes the importance of Self Support 2.0 and will ensure that it is high. Connectors, Mavens and Salesmans (as described by Malcom Galdwell in Tipping Point) benefited by GERP will help spread the word quickly. All this will contribute to the quick acceptance of GERP.

Re: Going around, Coming around

Venkataramanan S — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:54:27 -0000

And if you end up finding Paul Pedrazzi, ask him to read my comment. Will be interesting to know what he thinks.

Re: Does Spam Irritate You?

Venkataramanan S — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:08:27 -0000

Taking it further from the above comments, spams are of two types. The Real Spam and the Friendly Spam. The Real Spams are the regular ones which we are all aware of. More often than not anti spam engines do a fairly good job at handling these spams. The other spam is the Friendly Spam. These spams are the emails that we classify as junk usually sent by friends or people we know. The anti spam engine for such spams is our brain.

Say, one of my friend regularly sends me email that I am not interested in. Soon or later I will add him/her to the junk senders list in my head. Any future email that I receive from him/her will be automatically classified as junk and deleted without reading. However, there are also these set of responsible people who I admire or respect. As mentioned by Assaf, such people are carefully when sending any kind of email. Email from such people usually are read carefully. Most of us fight friendly spam in this manner. This also results in genuine mails being treated as spam. For example, I received several invites to join facebook from people I classified as junk senders. Ended up deleting all these invites. Finally joined facebook when I received an invite from someone whose opinion I respect.

What I am trying to explain is that if you want to market mix or any product for that matter through email, the best way is to ensure that you find the right people to send these emails. Emails send by responsible people are usually never treated as friendly spam. Yes, doing this is probably difficult or maybe impossible.

Re: Fun with Numbers, Mix Edition

Venkataramanan S — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:15:02 -0000

You don't have large data, but how about doing something like Six Degrees of Separation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_sep...)

Re: Virtual Adventures

Venkataramanan S — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:37:58 -0000

I have been playing around with virtual machines for a very long time. Started with VirtualBox about a month back. VirtualBox has been the simplest to configure and use. VirtualBox OSE is definitely something you don't want to try out. Its very buggy. However, the licensed version shipped with the installer is much better. None the less, its still buggy. The best part of VirtualBox is that the images are very portable. My friend installed Solaris on his mac using VirtualBox and I had to copy the image to get it running on my x86-64. Sweet.

I have been trying out legacy operating systems on VirtualBox, like Slackware 96. Installation started but then it conked. Had some luck with Red Hat 5.2, but the installation hung at the last stages. Planning to try out BeOS and OS2Warp.

The other interesting think what I did, is a nested virtual machine installation. Installed Windows XP on openSuse 10.3 x86-64 host. Then installed Virtual Box on Windows XP and then tried Ubuntu with Windows XP as guest. The installation did not start. Not sure why. Will give this a shot again.

The other good thing about VirtualBox is that it is very scalable. I could run Windows XP, Solaris 10 and Slackware 11 at the same time on openSuse 10.3 host without actually having any lag. My configuration is good. Here is my configuration:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000
6GB Dual Channel DDR2 667
250 + 200 GB SATA HDD
openSuse 10.3 x86-64 (Kernel Recompiled)
(Dual Booted with Slackware 12)

Yes, I am a Slackware and openSuse fan. Slackware is the quickest and openSuse is very well suited for a desktop. I strongly recommend you try these out.

And, ies4linux works beautifully on my openSuse box. Not sure whats wrong with your installation.

Re: Going around, Coming around

Venkataramanan S — Sun, 18 May 2008 06:58:25 -0000

Google has integrated Google Apps with Salesforce. Check this out - http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/new...

Re: HP iPAQ 510 Voice Messenger SmartPhone Review

Venkataramanan S — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:00:10 -0000

I use the latest version of Fring on iPaq and it rocks. Got my iPAQ more than 10 months ago and looks like the prices have come down. I got mine for around $300.

Re: HP iPAQ 510 Voice Messenger SmartPhone Review

Venkataramanan S — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:03:15 -0000

I recommend the following softwares for iPAQ 500 series:

1. Fring
2. Google Maps (download it from mobile.google.com)

Please post your comments on other softwares that you have tried out. Preferably the ones that are free.