Employees First, Customers Second (Part 1)

By guest author Vineet Nayar

[Vineet Nayar, vice chairman and CEO of India-based HCL Technologies (HCLT), had no illusions about the fact that by the spring of 2005, the company was slipping: “HCLT was like [a] childhood friend who suddenly looked old. Once one of India’s corporate stars, HCLT was growing more slowly than the market leader in its industry […] and slower than its immediate rivals, losing market share and falling behind in mindshare, too.” One day, says Nayar, HCLT decided to change. He discusses how the company went about its transformation in his book, Employees First, Customers Second, which was published in 2010 by Harvard Business Press and available from the press; on Amazon, Powell’s Books, and Flipkart; and in bookstores. >>>

Catching Up On Readings: Challenges For Intuit And Dell

Intuit and Dell are being challenged in their respective fields. Click on the full paragraph to read this and the rest of this week’s posts. >>>

The Poetry Of Rabindranath Tagore on Facebook

Readers, those among you with an interest in poetry and/or Tagore may find this Facebook page interesting: The Poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. If you have access (without copyright violation) to good renditions of readings, recitations, translations, etc. feel free to share through the site. I am going to keep an eye on the curation, so if the quality standards don’t meet a certain level, I’d prefer that you don’t post them here. I’d like this to be a source of quality instances of Tagore’s poetry – in its original and translated form.

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Sankarson Banerjee, CIO of IndiaInfoline (Part 11)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: How active is this market segment comprising Netmagic-type cloud services in India? Are there a lot of startups coming up in that cloud segment?

SB: No, no. Data centers have large startup costs, and there is a [high] barrier to entry. So, I don’t see that Netmagic has too much competition yet. >>>

Borges: The Dagger

My book of poetry opened to this page yesterday …

A dagger rests in a drawer.

It was forged in Toledo at the end of the last century. Luis Melian Lafinur gave it to my father, who brought it from Uruguay. Evaristo Carriego once held it in his hand.

Whoever lays eyes on it has to pick up the dagger and toy with it, as if he had always been looking out for it. The hand is quick to grab the waiting hilt, and the powerful obeying blade slides in and out of the sheath with a click. This is not what the dagger wants.

It is more than a structure of metal: men conceived it and shaped it with a single end in mind. The dagger that last night knifed a man in Tacuarembo and the daggers that rained on Caesar are in some eternal way the same dagger. The dagger wants to kill, it wants to shed sudden blood.

In a drawer of my writing table, among draft pages and old letters, the dagger dreams over and over its simple tiger’s dream. On wielding it the hand comes alive because the metal comes alive, sensing itself, each time handled, in touch with the killer for whom it was forged.

At times I am sorry for it. Such power and singlemindedness, so impassive or innocent its pride, and the years slip by, unheeding.

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Sankarson Banerjee, CIO Of IndiaInfoline (Part 9)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: You are saying that in terms of the Indian market, customers want local support network and vendors to have retail offices [in India].

SB: Yes. Netmagic is located in India, and that offers a face which people can see and relate to. I would say this is more of a psychological barrier. It is not a mindset that will go away any time soon. >>>

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Open Source Go-To-Market Success: Liferay CEO Bryan Cheung (Part 1)

Bryan Cheung is the CEO and co-founder of Liferay. Drawing on his technical experience, understanding of customer needs, and a passion for end users, Bryan leads Liferay in meeting its commitment to deliver focused and effective business solutions to its customers and its community. He graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and is a frequent keynote speaker at industry events such as JavaOne, JAX Asia and Europe, and Open Source Meets Business.

Sramana: Let’s go back to the beginning of your story. Where do you come from?

Bryan Cheung: I was born in Los Angeles in 1977. I have lived in California pretty much all my life. I went to school in Southern California. When it came time to go to college, I was choosing between Berkeley and UCLA and my parents told me that Berkeley was a great school and would give me a lot of opportunities, so I took their advice and went there. >>>