blog of a technocrat on latest technologies.......

30 years of personal computer market share figures

2005-12-20T22:26:00.000+08:00

While pondering over the debate on 100$ computer - views against by Intel and a set of counter arguments, courtesy of James Seng, came across this excellent article on the recapping the thirty year of personal computers. The story of the personal computer is a fascinating tale, it is ever exciting to read. As Jeremy points out, When you step back and look at the big picture, the overall dominance

Bruce Perens' Forecasts for 2006

2005-12-20T22:24:00.000+08:00

Bruce Perens makes a set of forecast for 2006. With increase interest in opensource showing up and with developments like this taking place - it is certainy worth watching what Bruce perens has to say - with my comments added. 1. Java begins its decline as an Enterprise Platform : As he sees it,Java falls flat in one critical area: time-to market. Upstart web platforms like Ruby on Rails have

Google - Gtalk API

2005-12-20T22:16:00.000+08:00

The pace at which things move in the online world is indeed amazing.Google has just released a set of components called Libjingle that allow third party applications to interact with Google Talk. The components, which include some source code, are being released under a very liberal berkely style license allowing for free incorporation into commercial and non-commercial software. Google says in

Google, IBM team on deep-research tool

2005-11-05T09:36:00.000+08:00

IBM and Google Inc. are collaborating to make it easier for office workers not only to search for local documents and personal e-mail but also to delve deep into corporate databases, the companies announced today. IBM is linking its OmniFind corporate search system with Google's free desktop search for business to make it easier for users to locate information that's often locked up in many

Mobile-blogging poised to explode

2005-11-05T09:32:00.000+08:00

When Merriam-Webster compiled a list of the most searched words of 2004, the word 'blog' (short for weblog) topped the charts.However, blogging's younger sibling, the mobile-blog, is rapidly becoming one of the most popular online phenomenon worldwide. Mobile-blogging, or moblogging - basically, using camera phones to post pictures and text on a weblog - is captivating thousands of new converts

4G Web Strategy

2005-10-25T08:59:00.000+08:00

The web technology is indeed undergoing major transformation. Around the world, I definitely see a major overdrive by enterprises to leverage web technology in multiple ways. David Coe writes about the revolutionary advances into the fourth generation websites. He characterizes the various generation websites as: 1G - welcome to first generation websites - it’s 1994 and big brother just bought a

Cell Phones Are Next Frontier For Internet Companies

2005-08-04T21:03:00.000+08:00

As Internet companies look for new revenue streams and customers, they see particularly fertile ground among the millions of cell-phone users. The Yankee Group reports that 65% of the U.S. population owns a cell phone. And increasingly, cell phones are becoming highly customizable and personalized devices that can be used for more than just phone calls, including E-mail, video streaming, and even

Apple vs EcoSystem

2005-08-04T21:02:00.000+08:00

The iPod is doomed. Not this month, not this year, and maybe not the next. But soon enough, Apple will lose its hold on the marketplace for both digital-audio players and digital songs. It's inevitable.Already the iPod's features are being copied by Samsung, Dell, iRiver, Sony, and others. Competitors are adding tuners, cameras, gaming, and more to devices. They're rolling out a host of new music

US vs Global Technology Competition

2005-08-04T20:58:00.000+08:00

It’s a crisis of confidence unlike anything America has felt in a generation. Residents of tiny Newton, Iowa, wake up to the distressing news that a Chinese firm—What’s it called? Haier? That’s Chinese?—wants to buy their biggest employer, the famed but foundering Maytag appliance company. Two days later, out of nowhere, a massive, government-owned Chinese oil company muscles into the bidding for

Getting Paid For Free & Business Models

2005-08-01T13:57:00.000+08:00

Fred Wilson writes that from a free model to a paid model for value added services can actually be beneficial, - is really interesting and needs to be better understood. He cites Google giving away an incredibly powerful Internet search service every day millions of times a day & getting paid by advertisers who also get to run their text ads for free. The only time an advertiser pays is when the

Ajax Disrupts Web Analytics Industry

2005-08-01T13:56:00.000+08:00

Ajax is already befudlling traditional web vendors while relying on a mishmash of existing Web technologies to create a new breed of fast, highly interactive sites. These kinds of interactive apps continues to catch on, & they could force Web publishing, advertising, and traffic-measurement companies to change how they do business. Exemplified by Google Maps and Yahoo's Flickr photo-sharing site,

Ajax - The New Technology Moniker

2005-08-01T13:55:00.000+08:00

Curt Hibbs writes,"In a few short months, Ajax has moved from an obscure and rarely used technology to a very hot thing".In the beginning, there was the World Wide Web. Compared with desktop applications, web applications were slow and clunky. People liked web applications anyway because they were conveniently available from anywhere, on any computer that had a browser. Then Microsoft

Open Source : Maturity Journey

2005-08-01T13:47:00.000+08:00

I have always been maintaining that open source requires more concerted growth and organsational support while covering Some Perspectives About Open Source, Open Source - Reality Check, Open Source Support ModelseWeek highlights that several product pitches - freely use the term "open source" in discussions, and occasionally in product marketing material, when the products involved aren't

Theaters Testing Out Free Mobile Content If You Go To A Movie

2005-06-12T22:04:00.000+08:00

For many years we've been suggesting that the movie industry was worried about the wrong thing when they feared copied movies would keep people from going to the theater. Instead, the reasons people weren't going to the movies was because the experience just wasn't worth it. It was expensive and crowded, the floors are sticky, the seats uncomfortable and the rude people talk away

Intel, Nokia team up for mobile WiMax

2005-06-12T21:59:00.000+08:00

Intel Corp. and Nokia Corp. have teamed up to back the development of mobile WiMax technology and will work together to see that the technology is standardized soon, the companies said today. WiMax, part of the the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.'s 802.16 standard, is a wide-area wireless networking technology that promises to deliver wireless broadband access over a

WLAN-enabled MP3 Players

2005-06-08T08:31:00.000+08:00

Samsung in Korea has joined up with Korea Telecom to offer WLAN connections to Samsung’s newest MP3 devices. Using the Nespot Wireless network, the WLAN-enabled MP3 devices will give users wireless access to streaming music directly to their MP3 player. Users will also be able to purchase and download music directly to the device, and even create personal broadcasts through online blogging

Best Practices In Offshore Software Development

2005-06-08T08:18:00.000+08:00

A Software Model that emphasizes on global delivery of quality software build by talented pool of professionals at an economical cost from a development center that is located in a foreign land is Offshore Software Development.The burgeoning competition to be branded as the Quality Offshore Software Development Company has signaled the requirement to implement the best of the resources and

Bluetooth Now Poised To Fulfill Its Promise

2005-06-08T08:15:00.000+08:00

No question about it, Bluetooth is very handy thanks to its improved integration with computers, cell phones and automobiles.When Bluetooth first appeared about five years ago, the hype far outstripped its usefulness. The ability to eliminate the tangles of cords and cables was very alluring. Unfortunately, cost and complexity almost brought the technology to its knees.Now its back, alive and

How To Make Your IT Project A Success

2005-06-08T08:12:00.000+08:00

In his article for webpronews.com, Dr. Gerald M. Hoffman highlights that there are three key points for an IT project to suceed.Those three criterias are:1. it must be completed on time, 2. it must be completed within budget, and 3. it must provide the full functionality originally promised. The IT profession has been conducting IT projects for over thirty years. Yet about 75% of all IT

Are You In The Mindset For Yahoo?

2005-06-08T08:06:00.000+08:00

The intent for this is an intent-driven search. It will allow users to decide the type of information they need. The SEO folks have been fooling around with this idea but Yahoo is the first to go live with this beta. I think it's nice offering because most search engines base their listings at least in part on the number of hits a website gets and the volume of sites out there. Whether it will

Ten Reasons Why Blogging is Good For Your Career

2005-06-08T07:57:00.000+08:00

Courtesy : http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/03/08/BloggingIsGood Assumptions Let’s assume that you’re reasonably competent, reasonably coherent, and reasonably mature. Cynicism aside, a substantial majority of the people in the workplace qualify. Blogging clearly isn’t going to help that proportion of people who aren’t really up to their job, or who are prone to inarticulate

MSN takes on Skype

2005-04-10T09:25:00.000+08:00

Microsoft does a lot of things, most of them are either poor or average at best. Their products have a feeling of feature creep to it. Microsoft Outlook perhaps is the only product they get right (on surface, but miss out on security).The same more-is-better approach comes out in their yet another attempt to reinvent MSN Messenger software. Microsft says MSN is more VoIP friendly, and will allow

Website sharing

2005-04-05T13:15:00.000+08:00

StumbleUpon is an intelligent browsing tool for sharing and discovering great websites. As you click Stumble!, you'll get high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by friends and other SU members with similar interests. Rating these sites shares them with your friends and peers – you will automatically 'stumble upon' each others

Steal this bookmark!

2005-04-05T11:37:00.000+08:00

There is a new social networking phenomenon called "tagging". Howard Rheingold ,In his message for Salon.com article has shared his views on this new phenomenon "It's like Friendster for knowledge as far as I'm concerned. I look to see who the other people are on del.icio.us who tag the same things that I think are important. Then, I can look and see what else they've tagged ... And isn't that

Phones with eyes

2005-04-05T00:34:00.000+08:00

The Economist Technology Quarterly includes a thoughtful article on the developments around camera phones (Monitor Phones with eyes The Economist Technology Quarterly, Mar 10th 2005 [subscription required]). It notes that "[c]amera-phones are not just for taking pictures. They can be used for other things too, from shopping to treasure hunts" and discusses phones being used as business-card

The Role of Infomediaries

2005-04-04T21:07:00.000+08:00

Dave Pollard has an excellent article on the topic of intermediaries. Dave writes we live in an age of "disintermediation" - the cutting out of the middleman.Excerpts with edits from the article:We do bank transactions without tellers, we browse libraries without librarians, we learn without teachers. Intermediaries-Infomediaries are finding their roles are getting redefined. Blogging is in a way

Social Software for Social Entrepreneurs

2005-04-04T20:17:00.000+08:00

Lee Brynat of Headshift Moments makes a recent presentation on how the new "social software" can help scale communities of interest at very low cost.1. Social networks are at the heart of social enterprise so called "social software" can make it easier to build and scale these networks in support of collective action.2. Social computing is not new; social software is a welcome return to the

Tagging : Novel Net Navigation

2005-04-04T20:15:00.000+08:00

Flickr became very popular by leveraging tagging. Bweek writes about the phenomenon that tagging is. Excerpts with edits and my comments added:On del.icio.us, people are able to tag any link they choose for easy recall later. That tagged link is stored on every subscriber's personal area on the service - and it's added to the overall service so that users interested in a specific topic can

The Skype Economy

2005-04-03T09:05:00.000+08:00

Like the iPod, free phone service Skype is creating a coattail economy as hungry developers rush to cash in on its popularity. In just 18 months, Luxembourg-based Skype has signed up some 31 million registered users, promising free phone calls over a broadband connection between two members anywhere in the world. Now Skype is hoping to take the service even further by recruiting

Yahoo vs Google, battle Intensifies......

2005-04-02T16:12:00.000+08:00

Yahoo is the new Google. Google is the new Yahoo. Up is down, and black is white. This spring has been very strange. Google, it seems, has jumped the shark. It has been overtaken, left standing, and not by some new startup of ultra smart MIT alumni or by the gazillions in the Microsoft development budget, but by the deeply unhip and previously discounted Yahoo. Google's reputation comes from

Discovery Search Engine

2005-04-02T16:07:00.000+08:00

Transparansee is a neat technology that lives on top of structured search. The model is to sell it to other sites as a custom install. Think of it as a smart layer of search on top of database-driven applications like dating, home or car buying.Transparansee's "Discovery Search Engine" seeks to address the "stupid computer" problems which plague most structured databases. You most likely have

Developments in the content world

2005-04-01T13:58:00.000+08:00

Digital content on both supply and demand side is going through lot of changes. Open media fans have launched Ourmedia.org. This throws new possibilities in terms of how you can produce derivative work, more power to the remixing culture. Keeping content distribution democratic and out of the conntrol of those who have deep pockets is another matter. Mark Cuban has decided to finance the

RFID Benefits

2005-04-01T00:18:00.000+08:00

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology can work on several levels. In the first wave of its enterprise adoption, the one prompted largely by the Wal-Mart mandate, RFID has been applied largely at the case and pallet level.But RFID can be used to track individual items as well. This kind of RFID use isn't very popular yet because suppliers are still scrambling to meet the case- and

iTunes for Movies

2005-04-01T00:09:00.000+08:00

As if the content companies haven't already been making fools of themselves with some recent strategic decisions, things are only going to get worse. Sony is now saying that it wants to create an "iTunes for movies," saying it will "set business models, pricing models, distribution models like (Apple chief Steve) Jobs did for music, but for the film industry." First of all, that's simply not

FREE MEDIA STREAMING - ORB

2005-03-31T23:31:00.000+08:00

Orb Networks, Inc., a developer of streaming media software and services, announced the company’s groundbreaking streaming media software, Orb Media, will now be FREE to all users. Orb’s software and service gives consumers the ability to spontaneously access their live TV, music, photos, videos, and other digital content located on their home PC from virtually any Internet-enabled device, from

Xerox strategy focuses on colour products

2005-03-31T00:02:00.000+08:00

Xerox Corp is betting its future on a more colourful business world. The Stamford-based maker of printers and copiers is launching new products geared at allowing small- and medium-sized businesses to produce photo-quality colour documents.It's part of what the company calls the second phase of its colour strategy. 'Colour is no longer a 'nice to have',' Xerox chief executive

2005-03-29T23:44:00.000+08:00

When it comes to selling to corporate America, there's good news and bad news for small and midsize companies. The good news is that today's corporate buyers are less likely to select vendors based on prior relationships or reputation alone -- meaning that more suitors are allowed into the dance. The bad news is that the dance has become a lot more formal.Where there's formality in corporate

Amazon.com Knows, Predicts Shopping Habits

2005-03-29T23:36:00.000+08:00

Amazon.com Inc. has one potentially big advantage over its rival online retailers: It knows things about you that you may not know yourself.Though plenty of companies have detailed systems for tracking customer habits, critics and boosters alike say Amazon is the trailblazer, having collected information longer and used it more proactively. It even received a patent recently on technology aimed

iPod Phone

2005-03-29T23:03:00.000+08:00

It seemed like a sure thing: the iPod mobile phone. What could be more irresistible than a device combining the digital-music prowess of Apple Computer with the wireless expertise of Motorola ?Motorola and Apple want to hold off until the phone is closer to hitting store shelves. But three industry sources say a lack of support from such giant cellular operators as Verizon Wireless and Cingular

Flickr Phenomenon

2005-03-27T08:47:00.000+08:00

Flickr.com is a new online photo management and sharing application. Founders have told Fastompany, Flickr has grown from 0 to 150,000 users while still in beta and with zero dollars ($0.00) in marketing investment. This growth has been entirely organic, based on word of mouth, blog postings and positive press. We have quickly created the largest and best-organized online photo library in

New Web sites to store public's digital content

2005-03-27T08:12:00.000+08:00

Tapping into a growing interest in so-called grass-roots media, two Web sites launched this week that aim to become repositories and clearinghouses for a wide variety of digital content created by the public. Ourmedia, started by Pleasanton writer J.D. Lasica and Walnut Creek technologist Marc Canter, is offering a central place for people to upload and store any digital media they want to share

Open Source CMS Edges Toward the Mainstream

2005-03-26T20:38:00.000+08:00

There's a very interesting article on EContent Magazine on Open Source CMS moving towards Enterprise Content Managment.Led by the growing popularity of the Linux, Open Source Movement has gained momentum, with an increasing number of open source content management products on the market . What separates companies such as Zope, Lenya , eZ publish, and Nuke from better-known counterparts at

Social bookmarking on the web

2005-03-26T20:34:00.000+08:00

Furl is a free service that saves a personal copy of any page you find on the Web, and lets you find it again instantly by searching your archive of pages. It's your Personal Web. Furl offers the best ways to share the content you find on the Web, and recommends new Web pages that may interest you. You can also search Furl to find the best sites that other people are saving. Furl claim that it's

New Method of Searching on the Web

2005-03-26T20:20:00.000+08:00

I Recently came across this website(FindArticles), providing a new facility to find focused information. FindArticles is focused on delivering the best and most essential search results. There are different kinds of searches. They claim to have assembled all the essential publications covering a wide range of subjects namely Arts & Entertainment, Automotive, Business & Finance, Computers &

Software's Top 10 2005 Trends

2005-03-26T20:17:00.000+08:00

Bill is spot on when he writes, XML is at the heart of almost every significant trend in the software industry from Service Oriented Architectures, to Message Aware Networking, to Composite Applications, to Data Abstraction. Bill writes, for all its importance though, XML has always played second fiddle to HTML. However 2005 may well be remembered as the year in which XML eclipses HTML in terms

Simpler designs needed for handsets

2005-03-20T09:01:00.000+08:00

According to the inventoer of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee "A mass market exists for the mobile Internet, but it will remain untapped until designers make simpler Web pages that can be viewed properly on handsets".(The mobile Internet) will be a huge enabler for the industry .. and for big profits," . "Web designers have learned to design for the visually impaired and for other people.

Google - How It Works

2005-03-06T09:29:00.000+08:00

According to Urs Hoelzle at Eclipse Con 2005, Googles scaling strategy was integral to their search dominance and later emergence as a major player in this net-based software era.They use cheap, commodity hardware, not high-end servers. Lowers cost/CPU allowing for greater redundancy. But, this increases potential maintenance. They run Linux. To win, they planned to fail; seems to break

The tiger in front

2005-03-06T09:25:00.000+08:00

Recently i read this interesting article on Economist. In this Simon Long argues,"India can learn much from China's breakneck economic expansion. But it has valuable lessons for China, too.." HOME to nearly two-fifths of humanity, two neighbouring countries, India and China, are two of the world's fastest-growing economies. The world is taking notice. In December, a report by

Better buying on eBay

2005-02-24T09:50:00.000+08:00

1. Snipe it ManuallyIt shouldn't take long to figure out that it's usually better to bid later in the auction--the later, the better. Many eBayers wait until the last few minutes of the auction to bid, leaving no time for lower bidders to be notified and respond with higher bids. This is called sniping, and all it takes is a little nerve and the ability to tell time. Sniping leaves no time to

Chinese currency and its effects on Global Economy

2005-02-13T15:41:00.000+08:00

China has once again proven its mettle. The Bull cannot be bullied.The Group of Seven industrialised nations might have thought that they can extract a promise from China's minister of finance Jin Renqing to revalue the yuan or let it float freely. But their efforts were in vain.China is as strong as ever in its conviction to wait till the infrastructure and the brainpower is ready to support a

Google Rocks : Gearing To Rule The Internet World

2005-02-06T23:28:00.000+08:00

Once again Google surprised the street with much higher than expected earnings. The stock price has jumped $20 today to more than $210 per share and the market cap is almost $58 billion. Paul Allen writes,"Google is on track to being the most valuable company on the planet". Earlier Paul wrote before,within 10-15 years Google will surpass Microsoft in market cap. He now writes, 7 reasons why it

The New Dotcoms Of The New Rules Economy

2005-02-06T23:27:00.000+08:00

Tom Foremski writes,There is a new kind of dotcom company that will emerge during Internet 2.0 this current and very distinct emerging phase of the Internet. New-rules companies will decimate established companies in many/most sectors. And it will happen very quickly when it happens. The characteristics of a new rules enterprise: Excerpts with edits: - The first rule of the newrules enterprise is

New Technologies, New Opportunties, New Offerings - View Through A New Prism

2005-02-06T23:26:00.000+08:00

Techbeat writes, "Be afraid of new technologies" trying to disrupt existing technologies and moving in a different trajectory. Views like Voice Over Internet Protocol will take a long time to make much of a dent in plain old telephone service. Once in a while, you receive views like "You're not going to get a mass migration to VOIP until such time as the service becomes the equivalent of what you

The Global Internet Shift?

2005-02-06T23:23:00.000+08:00

Om Malik writes Growth is slowing for US centric Internet business models. After years of high double digit growth, the "US" sales of many large Internet companies are showing a gradual plateau.The Internet is morphing from a mostly US-centric phenomenon to a truly global phenomenon. EBay and Amazon’s examples show that there is a momentum shift happening – the power of the Internet is moving

Dell - Don't Give Way For The Niche Players

2005-02-06T23:19:00.000+08:00

In his article for business week,Nicholas Carr writes, "Dell shouldn't dismiss Apple's design driven success" .Markets historically evolve past commoditization to value style and special features. Excerpts with edits and my comments added: Until now, Dell has been able to use pretty much the same strategy in selling computers to consumers as to business buyers: Offer functional, standard

Where Do Your Great Ideas Come from?

2005-02-06T23:10:00.000+08:00

In his blog, Dave comes with an approach to create your Personal Creativity Profile. The Profile will tell you: - When and where you get your best ideas - How your sources of great ideas differ from others, and why - How you can make more time and space for creative activities In this post, Dave helps with A. Survey creation process for yourseld B. Copy the questions, normalized average

How to build a Great Company!!

2005-01-31T22:33:00.000+08:00

N R Narayana Murthy, Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies, outlines the key ingredients to building a great company and the role of 'compassionate capitalism' in society. Narayana Murthy is a co-chair of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. Excerpts from an interview with the Infosys Chairman: You are fond of using the term 'compassionate

6 tips to make great a presentation!

2005-01-31T22:31:00.000+08:00

ne of the greatest challenges when making a presentation is to prepare for it. Most of us sit down, pick up a sheet of paper, and our minds go blank. We don't know where to start. Or we may have so many ideas that we don't know how to organise them. Or we don't have enough information to choose a format or decide on the points to be covered. And this is why I recommend the book Use Both Sides

Which perfume suits your personality?

2005-01-26T19:44:00.000+08:00

good perfume or cologne might prove heavy on the pocket. But it gives the best value for money compared to other packaged fragrances like deodorants, body sprays and eau de cologne. First, they have the longest staying power. Just a whiff is enough to keep you smelling great for hours. They also lend relief when you are crammed in public transport system! "I find myself clambering for just a

NRIs may regain tax sop

2005-01-12T22:45:00.000+08:00

The Centre is re-looking at the tax status of non-resident Indians who have returned to India for good. The United Progressive Alliance government is likely to re-introduce the nine-year period in which a returning NRI is classified as "a resident but not ordinary resident," said sources close to the development. If the proposal is approved, returning NRIs will not have to disclose or pay tax on

World on your Mobile

2005-01-11T01:12:00.000+08:00

Indian infotech companies are fast coming of age as dozens of young entrepreneurs display determination and unleash a range of world-class innovative products and services. This is the story of one such entrepreneur, Neil Salvi, whose PACE Soft Silicon specializes in video software solutions for mobile devices. rediff.com brings to you the second article in a special series on India's best

How to Succeed ?

2005-01-11T01:11:00.000+08:00

Two words that Doubting Thomases rarely use in the same sentence are 'India' and 'innovation.' But that only indicates lack of awareness. Innovation, today, is the buzzword in the world of information technology. And India is very much in the race for recognition and reward, as dozens of young entrepreneurs display feisty determination and unleash a range of world-class innovative products and

Want to set up a successful IT firm? Work hard!

2005-01-10T23:04:00.000+08:00

Indian infotech companies are fast coming of age as dozens of young entrepreneurs display determination and unleash a range of world-class innovative products and services. Five-and-a-half years ago, Liqwid Krystal was started by two friends, Anand Adkoli and Ramana Gogula, both of whom had returned home from the United States. Now, Liqwid Krystal is one of six companies chosen by the National

7 Tips to Successful Marketing

2005-01-09T22:09:00.000+08:00

Tip #1 Always Include These 3 Elements in Your Marketing Messages Element 1: Powerful Headline Use the headline to grab your customers' attention and let them know what you can do for them. State the biggest benefits up front. Focus on benefits of your products and services, not the features.

Dual citizenship to be extended to all Indians: PM

2005-01-07T17:31:00.000+08:00

The government has decided to extend the offer of dual citizenship to almost all Indians living overseas. "The government has decided to offer dual citizenship to all overseas Indians who have migrated from the country after January 26, 1950, as long as their home countries allow dual citizenship under their law," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in his inaugural address on Friday at the 3rd

Your USP: Use it or lose it

2005-01-06T22:56:00.000+08:00

Every day, you′re inundated with more than 1,500 advertising messages. If you′re like most people, you′re spending huge amounts of energy just trying to block out those messages. Now, turn this issue around and ask yourself: "How do I get my message across when most people are trying hard to dismiss it?" The answer is in your USP — your Unique Selling Proposition. USP defined The concept of "

What to know before buying a franchise

2005-01-06T22:47:00.000+08:00

With many people living out their dreams running franchises, there′s got to be something right with the whole concept. Hundreds of thousands of franchise operations exist, offering some people a chance to become millionaires buying and running them. Many are willing to pay significant sums to get into a franchise — it costs about a half-million dollars to open a McDonald′s, which by some

10 Common Restaurant Startup Mistakes (and how to avoid them)

2005-01-06T22:36:00.000+08:00

In any new business venture good decision-making is vital. Opening a new restaurant requires so many decisions that it’s not hard to make some bloopers along the way. The key is not totally missing the mark on the really important issues that can make or break your chances for success. Here are some of the more important common missteps new owners make in areas that play a big

Essence of Leadership

2005-01-06T20:26:00.000+08:00

A leader is an agent of change, and progress is about change. In the words of Robert F Kennedy, 'Progress is a nice word; but change is its motivator.' Leadership is about raising the aspirations of followers and enthusing people with a desire to reach for the stars. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi created a vision for independence in India and raised the aspirations of

Wedding Planner

2005-01-06T20:22:00.000+08:00

How much should you spend on your wedding? t is one of�the most memorable and most important days�of your life. No one is blaming you for wanting it to be absolutely perfect. But that does not mean you blow up all your savings and take a loan to make it happen. Whether your wedding is a few weeks�or a few months�or a year away, you have got to start with two