As year the draws to an end, I stop and think what is going to be the most important thing for me as an Indian techno-preneur in 2009? Is it going to be the 3G communication, Rise of WiMax, Social media, Clouds or something else. But answer is as an Indian techno-preneur I will be watching very closely how the project by Government of India in which they will be deploying 200,000 technology kiosks in Indian villages and tribal sector.
Why is this project so important to me? Because this project can really accelerate growth of literacy and Internet literacy in India. Most of the Indian entrepreneurs so far have focused on applications and products which are targeted at metro India. These applications have not reached even semi-urban areas until very recently. Now with these kiosks, GoI is opening up wide range of possibilities for technology sector. 55% population is still in villages and around 80%+ population is semi-urban + villages based. Now reaching this population and users will be a far more easier through these Kiosks.
Let’s hope this project will progress as per deadlines and will be a smashing hit!
Happy new year to everyone. Let us hope that 2009 will be safe, healthy and prosperous for everyone.
Please do not drink and drive.
Misc
2009, capitalism, entrepreneurship
I thought it will be a good follow up from my last post. In the last post I talk about things I know are happening in 2009 and hence looking out for. Now, what I want from 2009, not really from technology but in general.
- Die socio-networks die - Well I am heavy user of Orkut, Twitter and Linkedin. Limited user of Facebook. Everything apart from that in Social networking should just go away. I don’t need your spammy invitations. I don’t need, so called, ‘niche’ social networks to talk about music, movies, cricket, Amrita Rao or any other thing. Linkedin/Facebook/Orkut groups and communities is enough for me to do that. But I know building a niche social network seems the easiest way to become an entrepreneur these days. We have so far seen social networks for BPO professionals, IT professionals, Cricket lovers, movie goers and what not. Day isn’t far where people will build social networks for Reynolds 045 Pen lovers. Give me a break!
- High speed, low cost, high availability Internet - I strongly believe that government should subsidize Internet and not just for home use but for business too. BSNL is probably the most profitable government undertaking and Babus should do something so that it can provide connections to everyone at much lower costs. In US it costs about 10 USD/month for 4Mbps connection with Static-IP. If I have to get that kind of connection in Nasik its almost more than 200 USD/month!! Please some one do something about this. Internet is equalizer which will enable us to take on developed countries and its about time we get that for cheap.
- Restructuring of Company Laws - Well I know its asking for a little too much and I dont think it will be done even till 2019, but I am optimistic person to the core. So Mr. Finance minister and Mr. commerce minister, please have some common sense and make it easier for us to setup companies and operate them. Please provide us some ease with laws so that we can concentrate on creating value for our clients and hence wealth for our country rather than having sleepless nights over 100s of forms and accreditions and blah blah to fulfill. Please, its not funny any more.
- Better ways to organize online presense - So I have a blog, actually three blogs. Few more blogs focused on certain things are coming up too. Apart from that I have micro-blog ie twitter account. Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn accounts. Lot of linkedin groups. Subscription to lot of blogs/feeds. Thinking of opening FriendFeed account. 3 Email accounts. Picasa, flickr accounts. I need a better way to manage all this. I need a dashboard, single sign-on across multiple vendor websites. Or else Google, acquire all these services and integrate them in your services stack.
- Lesser online time and a little more offline time - Spending 16+ hours a day on Internet has really given me very less time to read, reason, think. Though I make it a point to read at least 30mins to 1 hour even today, almost everyday, gone are the days where I used to read almost one entire 300 page book everyday
. Though I am not complaining or not even deeply sad about this. But seriously I want at least 3 hours of time where I can be alone and it has become increasingly difficult to be alone while logged on to Internet. Though I know its more of my fault and hence I will be working on this in 2009.
And yes please no new Matrimony site. I have now disabled all of them on my broadband by setting up rules and told my Mom that all these sites are shut down due to no business. So please dont launch another one, else I will have to again take the pain on updating my routers rule-set. So please have some mercy. Oh yes and I will not say to new laptop too (Sony VAIO, latest model).
Misc, philosophy
2009, facebook, Linkedin, Orkut, social networking, web 2.0
Well everybody is talking about what to watch out for in 2009, so here is my own list of things I am looking out for in 2009.
- Cloud - I would not be surprised if Cisco finally decides to throw away appliance model and embrace cloud for its VoIP product offerings. Clouds are here to stay. Replicated, distributed (continentally) pay as you go payment and deployment models are working out good for all sorts of businesses. It is going to explode in 2009 given the current economic situations. Its sad to see though that bad times like war, recession are required to propel growth of the common sense and technologies based on common sense.
- SaaS - It was web based applications that dominated the enterprise market in late 90s and 00s, next entire decade will see world transitioning to Cloud based SaaS applications. But I would like to see collaborative SaaS something which takes ESBs as way to integrate various services available in the SaaS form and provides single-sign on and integration to end user. I would like to see integrations between various vendors like Salesforce, Google, Zoho for a start. Widgets/Gadgets/Plugin based Enterprise SaaS platform is what I am looking out for in 2009
- Android - Well you will not agree on this and I know why. But let me tell you Android is going to be big. Bigger than Symbian, bigger than Win mobile and bigger than iPhone. 2009 will see it getting the true momentum it deserves. If you want, check the amount of job postings for Android on freelancing websites. It has rose by at a very high rate and in 6-12 months time it will take over iPhone.
- Mash-up - With Mozilla ubiquity now available for beta testing, I see mash-ups hitting a whole new level in next year.
- Enterprise 2.0 - Its not more of technology, but still there is significant technology part involved in it so. Enterprise 2.0 is not just about having collaborative environment for enterprises, but its about collaboration between tools, frameworks from different vendors to talk/communicate collaborate with each other. Open ended architectures with web service interfaces are already being implemented. But with rise of SaaS I see this taking a big leap. So all your tools, frameworks, no matter if Microsoft, IBM, HP or any one else is the vendor, should and can collaborate with each other. Any one who is working in this space, do contact me asap
.
Startup, Technology
2009, android, cloud, enterprise 2.0, saas, startup advice, startups, Technology
