RSA Conference 2013: A Perspective on Security Technologies
March 04, 2013
by Abhijit Pandit

RSA Conference at San Francisco is an annual event where the best of the security product vendors and industry experts convene to share & exhibit their security offerings. Participating in this conference last week (25-Feb to 28-Feb) alongwith the leaders and visionaries in the IT Security was an enlightening experience. It not only showcased some of the best products available today in the security industry, but also highlighted some of the upcoming trends in the security technology. In the next couple of years we will see some of the following technology areas that will dominate the security landscape.

 

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Testing trends in APAC
March 01, 2013
by  Mudit Kumar, AVP, Testing, Mahindra Satyam

I will cover two different subjects in this blog, first the growing testing trends, and second how these trends are reflected in organizations in APAC region. The topics have been stitched to demonstrate how customer expectations have changed over the years and how testing trends have changed w.r.t. growing complexity of applications, infrastructure, architecture, technology etc.
 
 
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StaySafe CyberCitizen Free ebook on cybersecurity released
February 05, 2013
by Lucius Lobo, Head Security Practice(TechMahindra and Mahindra Satyam)

Whether for business or for personal use, the ubiquitous cyber world will only become more pervasive in the future. A small but swiftly growing portion of all global trade is transacted through ecommerce companies. Physical goods are traded through online auctions and shops, while digital products such as music, ebooks, games, films and software are readily bought online.
 
 
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Top 10 Trends to watch out for in 2013
January 15, 2013
by V Srinivasa Rao (VSR)

2012 witnessed some huge changes in the world of Information technology, largely with the focus being on nexus of forces in disruptive technologies like Networks, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud, Security, and Social. As the 2012 draws to a close we take a look at a few trends for CXOs to watch out for. We believe that these trends are going on become mainstream in 2013.
 
 
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A Critique on Emails
November 15, 2012
by Balaji TS

The system of electronic mails that is in place today, is an archaic system, in my view. It has just rendered electronically, a centuries old process, with very few value additions.
 
 
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Technology as a path to a better tomorrow
September 12, 2012
by Rohit Gandhi

The enthusiasm was palpable as I met world leaders today at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2012 in Tianjin, China. It struck me that the endeavour to achieve an optimal future scenario...

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Improved Insights using Big DATA
September 10, 2012
by V. Srinivasa Rao

Data explosion is unavoidable. A Jet engine generates 10 terabytes of data for every thirty minutes. There may be near 20,000 flights flying in the air for many hours in a day. Twitter generates nearly 10 Terabytes of data per day.

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Enhance Cross channel Customer Experience, there is no better time than now
September 10, 2012
by Debjit Chakraborty

Have you ever come across a situation where you tried to purchase a new hand-set online, saved your data but for some twist of fate lost all your details in the vast quagmire we call 'www'?

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Big Data- The New Buzzword
August 23, 2012
by Kanchan Manoharan

Big Data is the new buzzword to describe the exponential growth of data, both structured and unstructured. The real challenges that organizations face due to the exploding data are...

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Big Data Analytics- A competitive Advantage for Unstructured Data Analysis
August 16, 2012
by Kanchan Manoharan

Data is exploding. Unstructured data is growing faster than structured data. Big data is the buzz everywhere. Big data refers to huge data sets characterized by larger volumes...

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Big Data on Cloud
August 16, 2012
by Kala Veda

Big data gives the ability to use commodity computing to process distributed queries across multiple data sets and return result sets in record time.

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Socrates and the Relational Database Management System
August 13, 2012
by L.Murali Madhavan

Socrates was a Stonecutter, in Ancient Greece.

One day, as he was hard at work, his friend came running excitedly.

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Spectrum Management as a National Resource
August 08, 2012
by TS Balaji

During the course of last one week, I travelled as part of a team drawn from various Telecom units within our organization to engage with the leadership team from various non-telecom business verticals of the organization to define a cross-selling strategy that has recently been launched.

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Social Innovation: Using Mobility for Employment in India
July 26, 2012
by Rohit Pandharkar, Deputy CTO, CanvasM

On an average, 13 million mobile phones are being added to the Indian telecom network every month. To set the context, this means within 2 years India will have more phones added than the total population of US. While these numbers are staggering, internet penetration in India is just 12%

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Your Subzi - wala, Twitter, and Credit Cards! Guess what’s the Connection?
July 13, 2012
by Murali Madhavan

A few days ago, I was buying vegetables from a neighbourhood shopkeeper. Generally this department is left to the able hands of my wife, but this time she was away and I had the responsibility of keeping things going at home.


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Are you IN the INitiative?
March 13, 2012
by Riyaz Mulla

In a world that is continuously changing the problem is not that there is a lack of change initiatives. The problem (at least the perception of it – and perceptions are the perceived reality, no matter what the real reality is if there is such...

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15 Categories that constitute Cybercrime
January 31, 2012
by Lucius Lobo

It is acknowledged that there is no comprehensive definition for Cybercrime. Definitions vary, as cybercrime is a new and rapidly evolving theme...

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2011- An year that put spotlight on Business continuity planning for large enterprises and SMBs
January 13, 2012
by Lucius Lobo

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) involves understanding risks such as natural disasters, facilities and supplier outages to a business, and putting into place a robust mitigation plan for prevention. BCP is important for both large and small enterprises.

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Africa at the cusp of Broadband Revolution
January 13, 2012
by Santosh Anchan, Portfolio Management Group, TechMahindra.

Arrival of Under Sea Cable link Over the last decade, the African region has been the world's fastest growing region in terms of mobile penetration. Whilst fixed line penetration has stagnated at 4% in Africa....

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Expedite Wireless Broadband rollout with optimal TCO
January 06, 2012
by Santosh Anchan,

The telecom market is at an inflexion point following the arrival of 3G. The hyper-competitive market is likely to flatten out in terms of subscriber growth over the next two years. The proliferation of smart devices and availability of high speed data access will result in new service consumption patterns.

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Key trends in OSS/BSS
December 22, 2011
by Dhananjay Pavgi

Have we ever seen a restaurant which doesn’t have its kitchen synched up with that of its menu items?

Having spent about 15 years of my life in Telecommunications IT systems and the most of it in back-end applications; it was a daunting task for me to explain...

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A Strategic Approach to Security Risk while CloudSourcing
December 12, 2011
by Lucius Lobo

I was privileged to address a distinguished audience of leading Indian CIOs at the IDC Cloud 2.0 Asia Summit in Mumbai last week to present my thoughts on how companies could adopt a strategic approach to using third-party hybrid or private clouds from a security perspective...
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Social Media Assessments crucial to measure online risk to company brands
December 12, 2011
by Lucius Lobo

Has your company undergone a social media security assessment which assesses social media employee policies, their implementation and online employee behavior? If not, it’s perhaps time to start as the lines between what’s public and private tend to get blurred online...

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Lack Of Interoperability Can Throttle Cloud Adoption
November 09, 2011
by Vikas Gupta,

Lack of interoperability among cloud service providers (CSPs) and absence of well defined standards will throttle large scale adoption of cloud computing at least in the near term...

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Next Generation Networks, Services, and their Management: A Quick Survey Part 1
October 31, 2011
by Murali Madhavan

Next Generation Networks ( NGN) and Next Generation Services are something we keep hearing about. And we also keep hearing warnings and advisories from OSS vendors about how their management is going....

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Changing an electric bulb!
October 31, 2011
by T S Balaji

Recently, I participated in NASSCOM Engineering Summit conducted in Pune as one of two panelists for the roundtable discussion on “Telecom: Blending Costs and Innovation”. This post is a continuation of my views expressed during that event.

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Automation - A Boon
October 31, 2011
by HR team

HR as a discipline has evolved! From transaction to support to strategy – it has indeed been a long journey. While the changing face of business has played an important role in necessitating this transition, the change has been accelerated by the desire of the function to transform itself from...
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What the Hack is going on
September 16, 2011
by Dominic Mascarenhas

One of the greatest myths that I have realized in the current world is that There is Security.

We are not talking about kids or novices on some other social networking web site or some site that offers free “cracks and cheat code” for various games, and the like. All that is “kid stuff”.


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Going Green - Are we really serious?
September 09, 2011
by Milind Vaidya

For going green, many dos and don’ts are suggested by people/companies/employers. They are good ideas for a noble cause but most of it are theoretical and less practical. Some are quite expensive to implement, require good amount of...

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Business, Economy and us
September 09, 2011
by Anant Sukhdeo Dhavale

A debt crisis essentially means a government’s failure to pay back its debts in full. Whenever a government faces a situation where in it does not have the money to pay back to the bond purchasers, there is a dramatic rise in the interest rate which can lead to a sovereign debt crisis....

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When Charles met Ada…
August 08, 2011
by Murali Madhavan

Having lost his wife and two children in bewilderingly quick succession, Charles Babbage was a devastated man.

His mother Betty moved in with him to look after his remaining four children. Charles himself tried to find solace in his long time friend from Cambridge days, John Herschel.....

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Eight Political Issues around Security and Privacy in Cyberspace
August 01, 2011
by Lucius Lobo

As cyberspace becomes a dominant form of global communications and trade, so does its political use. This is the first part of a multipart blog on the eight key political issues around internet security and privacy...
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Hackers are Easy to Train, Difficult to Motivate? As of today that is!
August 01, 2011
by Lucius Lobo

A 19 year old man has been detained in UK by Scotland apparently in connection with the spate of cybercrimes against US Senate, CITI and the CIA. It is commonly acknowledged that hackers are...

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Can Enterprises Crowdsource Security Testing of their Websites?
July 26, 2011
by Lucius Lobo

The rate at which external websites are being hacked demonstrates the lack of an effective defensive mechanism in enterprises. Cyber laws were created to safeguard against script kiddies from hacking into websites and defacing them.
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Tragedy Strikes!
July 20, 2011
by Murali Madhavan

Charles Babbage built the Difference Engine - or a small model of it- at his home workshop in 1822 . And he was satisfied that it worked well enough, so he went ahead and publicized it. He also wrote a detailed description of the device in a mail to Sir Humphrey Davy ( of the Miners’ Lamp fame) – who headed the Royal Society at that time.

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Telco’s on a cross road – Changing eco-system and security impact
July 11, 2011
by Gaurav Sharma

Telco’s on a cross road – Changing eco-system and security impact

The time I joined telecom sector, so much have changed but still the pace of change hasn’t slowed down. To my surprise we are witnessing a phenomena (be it in terms of technical innovation, changing social need or newer business models)
 


 
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Machine-2-Machine – Security Challenges
July 04, 2011
by Abhijit Pandit

M2M refers to communication between machines without any human intervention. It is based on Telemetry which is any technology that allows remote measurement and reporting of information. Traditional telemetry applications (e.g. weather forecasting data collection), used proprietary radio signals via satellite communications...

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A Steam-powered Computer!
June 22, 2011
by Murali Madhavan

Charles Babbage’s Cambridge education ended in the spring of 1814 when he graduated. That he did not attach much import to the formal qualifications was evident from that fact that he refused to attempt an Honors degree. In his own words, he valued the University education more for the friends he made there and for the books it enabled him to access, and far less for the formal degree it conferred on him.

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The Disgruntled Calculus Student
June 22, 2011
by Murali Madhavan

This English Mathematician is credited to be the first person to develop a machine that could do calculations.

He burst on the scene a whole century after Isaac Newton, the greatest mathematician of all time. Cambridge University had lost its leading position in the Mathematicalarena to French and German scientists in the period that followed Newton’s demise in 1727.

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Types of Access Control Mechanisms
June 16, 2011
by Monica Rana

Types of Access Control Mechanisms

Many of us have come across the terms like MAC, DAC, RBAC, ACLs while reading various e-security related articles. However not all of us (except the CISSPs) know the meanings of these terms and the differences between these Access Control mechanisms.
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Collaboration and its importance in organisations
June 10, 2011
by Amit Namjoshi,

The bee hive and ant’s nest have been the favourite metaphor of human collaboration for generations, Shakespeare used it and management courses still use it. It is a known fact that collaboration is essential for the collective good of the organisation.

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Our neighbours from Gujarat
May 25, 2011
by Dominic Mascarenhas,

The news soon broke out among all who knew them, and also all who probably cared for them. That our neighbors from Gujarat were back after a long, long time. They are known to be regular on their trips to "Amchi Mumbai". But this time they had been long delayed.

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Smart ideas, Bright minds and Digital Armageddon
May 16, 2011
by Alex Mathews

Smart ideas, Bright minds and Digital Armageddon

It took the utilities almost a century to come up with the idea of “Smart Energy” and as the “bright minds” around the world debate on its impending consequences, we are yet to comprehend the hype and realities around it.

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IAM - Is Building Consolidated Identity repository a must for an Org - Internal
May 11, 2011
by Nilesh Shirke

IAM - Is Building Consolidated Identity repository a must for an Org - Internal

I always come across questions from customer about automation of user provisioning / deprovisioning. For provisioning Enterprises generally create user identities first in HR system (Oracle, SAP etc.).

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Decoding the Fastest Worm in Internet’s History
May 11, 2011
by Kamlesh Patil

Decoding the Fastest Worm in Internet’s History

During the final stages of World War II a small atom bomb explosion caused huge devastation in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing nearly 90,000–166,000 with loss over 200 million. Similar to this attack was the attack on MS SQL systems.

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A Roomful of Women 'Computors'!
April 28, 2011
by Murali Madhavan,

The United States of America had a problem.

The Second World War was raging. And the design, manufacture, and induction of new Arms and Ammunition was happening at an ever-increasing rate.

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Tere Mere Beech Mein...
April 13, 2011
by Guneeta Singh

It’s 13th of April again! That time of the year when spring is at its peak, flowers are in a happy bloom, wheat fields are swaying in joy in anticipation of the new season and yellow mustard fields are coyly smiling at the love-drenched couples! Some people view 13th suspiciously because of the ominous beliefs around it.

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Secure Code Review- Filling the Essential GAP in Software Security
April 11, 2011
by Shivi Arora

Secure Code Review- Filling the Essential GAP in Software Security

The telecommunication industry has faced many changes in the last decade. By the end of 2009, nearly 70 % of the world population had access to mobiles. This Telco success is also attributed to widespread growth of web applications.

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What’s Common Between a Hawaiian Greeting and a Laser Printer?
March 17, 2011
by Murali Madhavan,

When Robert Metcalfe began a new assignment in 1973 with the Palo Alto Research Centre of XEROX Corporation, little did he realize that the work he was embarking upon would shake the computer-telecommunications world!

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Cooke, Wheatstone, and the British Telegraph
March 17, 2011
by Murali Madhavan,

When William Fothergill Cooke, the maker of anatomical models who had turned to Telegraphy, approached Sir Charles Wheatstone for help in making his telegraph work over long distances, he discovered that the idea was an old one- Wheatstone had already solved the problem and had made a practical telegraph instrument!

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Well behaved women seldom make History.
March 08, 2011
by Vrinda Pisharody,

Do you believe that to be true? Or are there enough women who’ve silently and effectively made a difference to lives around them?

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Telecommunications Aided by the Petticoat!
February 14, 2011
by Murali Madhavan,

It was the winter of 1826, when Joseph Henry returned to his native town of Albany in New York State.

Young Joseph was tired. He was tired returning from his latest job as a surveyor, having endured the biting cold of the Canadian forests for several months.

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Are we going to Abilene?
February 02, 2011
by Aditya Gadgil,

Abilene Paradox is a management theory, in which a group of people agree to a course of action that is counter to individual preferences.

The concept is attributed to Jerry Harvey, a management expert, and it has been captured in a short film of the same name!

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Virtualisation – challenges to Indian Business Professionals
February 02, 2011
by Paresh Pikale,

For India, the implications of the new world are significant. I have tried to list a few challenges I feel will be posed to the business community sooner than later.

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Security Threats will rise as Application Stores become Popular
January 25, 2011
by Lucius Lobo

In the past six months most of the major carriers in India have rolled out their own application stores. Today, there are over 500,000 applications available to Indian mobile users. India is a fast growing mobile market, with 500 m mobile users and a population of 1.2 billion people. A large majority use inexpensive handsets but with the availability of cheaper operating systems like Android, smart phones are set to gain a larger market share.

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The Global Recession – new challenges & opportunities
January 18, 2011
by Paresh Pikale, Sr. Process Consultant,

Sept 2008 has been a special month in global history – it has reset the global economy and presented challenges to the business models as we know. These challenges do provide with plethora of opportunities for growth but will have to reassess the business models and probably result in a paradigm shift to our approach of doing business in itself.

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Computer Hackers and We
January 11, 2011
by Lucis Lobo,

The movies helped us conjure an image of a computer hacker as a shabbily dressed, nerdy, bespectacled individual surrounded by gizmos, perpetually looking into a computer screen surrounded by half eaten pizza and bottles of beer. Most hackers are in reality, passionate, well dressed, highly informed and delightful to talk too.

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Internet Enabled ‘Corporate Unbundling’ Business Model
December 23, 2010
by Shekhar Tankhiwale,

John Hagel’s concept of ‘unbundling of corporate’ talks about a company being an unnatural bundle of three very different types of businesses- product innovation & commercialization business, customer relationship business and Infrastructure management business.

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Social Networks & Collaboration - Our vehicle to get the next waves of topline
December 18, 2010
by Krishna Kumar, Senior Principal Consultant – Technology

B/OSS Integration with Social Network will be the next wave …. Delivering this innovation itself will be transformation in itself.

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The Italian Boy Who Dreamed
December 16, 2010
by Murali Madhavan,

As the 19th century drew to a close, there was an understanding of radio waves; it was known that they could be transmitted and received over short distances; experimenters like Hertz and Bose had established that waves could be produced consistently, and received at a distance, without the use of wires.

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A new era for PTTs…
December 16, 2010
by Balaji TS, Assistant Vice President

The most happening news story in the telecom industry where billions of dollars are being invested today is obviously that of the National Broadband Network in Australia.

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The Telecommunication Revolution that was Triggered by a Surgeon!
December 10, 2010
by L.Murali Madhavan,

How many of you have been fortunate/unfortunate enough to undergo a procedure called Endoscopy?

Endoscopy refers to the process of looking inside the human body though a small hole drilled into the appropriate point, inserting a camera/light source etc., and examining the contents through the trained eyes of a surgeon.

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This Eccentric Genius was Guided by Ghosts, to Trigger the Transition from Analog to Digital!!
November 25, 2010
by L.Murali Madhavan,

It was Alexander Graham Bell, who made the Telecommunications world transition from the on-off signaling of Telegraphy, to the analog transmission of ‘voice-shaped current’- a term he coined to indicate the continuously-varying analog speech signal.

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How to Meow Without a Cat ! – Part I
November 22, 2010
by L.Murali Madhavan,

"The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat."

Do you know to whom this immortal quote above is attributed? None other than Albert Einstein!

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How to Meow Without a Cat ! – Part II
November 22, 2010
by L.Murali Madhavan,

The first two parts above are a part of normal (wireline ) Telegraphy. And the last part is Wireless Telegraphy!

Simple?

In today’s context of 4G, LTE, 3G, EVDO, WiMax, Wi-Fi and all such radio technologies and standards, sending and receiving messages on wireless seems absurdly trivial. But think of a time when radio waves were but a mathematical concept, with no reliable way of generating or receiving them: this, then, was cutting-edge, requiring a quantum jump in thinking, and a big experimental flair.

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Passion versus Profession. Should the twain meet?
November 09, 2010
by Yadavendra R. Dobhal,

Something which I had contributed in the past…

"East is East and West is West and the twain shall never meet"

This saying is part of `The Ballad of East and West’, a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling.

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Making the decision right!
October 28, 2010
by Krishna Gopal,

Most times as professionals we focus all our energies in trying to make the right decision and go about with data collection and checking out various scenarios before coming to what we believe is a right way ahead.

But more important than this many a time is to develop the ability to make a decision work. MAKING THE DECISION RIGHT.

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If you get into a hole, how do you come out of it unscathed?
October 26, 2010
by Krishna Kumar,

Securing the Leadership
On one hand the Chilean president was on the ground - he made it a point to be there at all times in the 70 days to drive the government machinery, provide the leadership to drive home support & confidence, and above all to mobilize his good offices to secure the best talent available in the industry to get the planning and the rescue started. By his presence he ensured that all the necessary support required to the crisis through was discharged with minimal slack in the process.

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The Man Who Gave Up His Life Because He Pioneered Telegraphy
October 26, 2010
by L.Murali Madhavan,

He was a practical genius of the first order. He created the first, countrywide Telegraph system covering all of France, which saw France through the turbulent times of the French Revolution. And his system was so eco-friendly, it did not even need electricity!

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Telecom Vignettes
September 28, 2010
by L.Murali Madhavan,

His name was Brown Strowger.
He lived in Kansas City, USA.
His profession was that of an undertaker.

To enhance his business and social stature, he got a telephone installed in his home.

In those days, telephone exchanges were manual. The telephone instrument provided to you did not have a dial. You picked up the phone, and waited. An operator would answer, and you named the person with whom you wished to speak, and the operator connected you.

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Aligning your IT with Technology trends
September 15, 2010
by Balaji TS, Assistant Vice President

Riding on a wave of technological, regulatory and competitive forces, communication services today are a far cry from the kind of telephony services that were available even two decades ago. Based on trends observed, Balaji TS, asst. VP at Tech Mahindra analyzes changes possible in the near future.

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Behavioral Economics and its importance in Organisations
September 10, 2010
by Amit Namjoshi,

Our ability to have a brain that thinks has led us to believe that by and large we (people) make decisions that are rational particularly in issues that concern monetary gain or loss. This notion has farfetched consequences. People who drive the stock market use rationality or individual rational action to make collective behavior of the stock market.

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What is a Cloud? Part I
September 08, 2010
by Sunil Unavane, Testing CoE

Lately there has been a lot of buzz about “the Cloud” and what it means for the IT industry, and the organizations they serve. The word “Cloud” can mean a lot of things, from hosting data (often called “somebody else’s hard drives) to running software where the user logs into an application hosted on a web server somewhere.

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What is a Cloud? Part II
September 08, 2010
by Sunil Unavane, Testing CoE

Similarities and differences in Cloud testing and traditional testing -

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IMS and OCS: Why carriers need a convergent charging solution
August 03, 2010
by Suresh Bhandarkar, Director of Technology

Recent reports in the press indicate that for the first time in the US, the number of new prepaid mobile customers is more than the number of new postpaid customers.

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Encapsulating IT Transformation
July 31, 2010
by Abhijit Lahiri, Senior Vice President

To deliver a truly transformational success, organizations need to take it up as an active strategy. Innovation in execution is cornerstone to leadership in transformation. Being a global communications player with experience in large-scale transformations, Tech Mahindra deeply understands the power of innovation.

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IMS and SDM: How IMS will spur the growth of SDM
June 08, 2010
by Suresh Bhandarkar, Director of Technology

With smartphones like the iPhone and Android continuing their domination over the mobile web world, the amount of data traffic (mainly browsing and video) going over mobile networks is expected to grow 40-fold over the next five years. This may sound like music to the ears of the smartphone vendors, Over-The-Top (OTT) players and application developers, but for carriers offering “unlimited data” plans, it spells doom because of the prospect of increased network congestion and worsened network performance.

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Krishna Gopal, Vice President - MEA SAARC (Sales) and Global Alliances, in an exclusive interview with Business Standard
June 08, 2010
by Krishna Gopal, Vice President

With a successful track record of 15 Greenfield implementations in the region,

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L. Ravichandran, Executive VP and COO, in an exclusive interview with NASSCOM
June 02, 2010
by L. Ravichandran, Executive VP and COO

L. Ravichandran shares his experience of building and delivering businesses to organizations across the globe. Ravi’s strength lies in creating new business lines, besides creating high performance teams,

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Google App Engine, Public Clouds, Collaboration Technologies and B/OSS
June 02, 2010
by Shailesh Patwardhan, Principal Consultant – Technology

Google App Engine is Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offered by Google. Google App Engine (or GAE) allows organisation to build, and run applications on Google’s scalable infrastructure. Google charges for the usage of the platform in terms of CPU Time, Incoming/Outgoing Bandwidth, and Stored Data etc.

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Business Transformation & Attitude Transformation
May 27, 2010
by Balaji TS, Assistant Vice President

People keep talking about the importance of attitude over aptitude, especially in the context of individual development. Personally, I have encountered many cases where attitude makes up for aptitude.

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Tapping Innovations
April 19, 2010
by Satish Patharkar, Tech Mahindra

All ideas can be exciting and many can change the world. But that does not happen easily. An idea has to wait till its time has come. I feel now is the time to look at one such idea or a concept. Before that a preamble is needed.

When India gained Independence, the leadership chose a certain path of central planning with twin objectives. First, to be self sufficient in agriculture, and second, to industrialize fast to overcome poverty. Thus, a long march of Five Year Plans began from Fifties. Later, in 1991 we modified this course by superimposing liberalization and modifying the central planning commitment. In the last sixty years we have achieved many milestones. The most important is that the world at large has seen and recognizes India as an important player in the world economy. Our strength in Information Technology has been a major contributor in this achievement and recognition.

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Chicken and Egg Story
April 19, 2010
by Prabha Aithal, Chief Technical Officer, CanvasM

The evolution of VAS has started an interesting debate, will VAS determine handset features or will it be the other way round? The VAS industry is now deciding the rules of the telecom market. The trend once was that value added services were being innovated and modified so as to suit the kind of handsets that were available in the market. But, the recent times has seen a reversal.

MVAS in India is unfolding newer opportunities as the mobile customer base has grown manifold and is continuing to grow with 9-10 mn subscribers being added every month. India accounts for 10% of the operators’ revenue at present, which is expected to reach 18% by the end of 2010, says a report by PwC. According to a study by Standford University and consulting firm BDA, Indian MVAS is poised to touch $2.74 bn by this year.

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KPO : The next wave of evolution for the outsourcing industry
April 09, 2010
by Lira Priyadarsani, Associate Director - Operations (BPO & IMS), Tech Mahindra

Observers of modern society have long commented on the trend of societies’ progress from a “command and control” mindset to “connect and collaborate”. Certain technological advances have amplified and turbocharged this societal trend; termed as “the steroids” of the flattening world by Thomas Friedman. The technologies that Thomas Friedman refers to includes computing, instant messaging and file-sharing, VOIP, video conferencing, computer graphics and wireless technologies and devices; everything related to the telecom and communications industry.

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Save Tigers - 7 Steps to Erudition
March 10, 2010
by Siddharth Verma, Tech Mahindra

Save Tigers…. But How?

Recent buzz about saving our national animal has caught everyone completely off guard, common folks and celebrities alike. People who have nothing to do with forests and tigers are coming on TV to talk about saving them. I was wondering how we as regular urban citizens can contribute to this cause? I have chalked out a 5 point agenda to deal with this situation. I am not preaching, just reiterating steps I would take to save our national animal.

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Innovation in Telecom Services Industry: Indian Scenario
January 20, 2010
by Dr. Avinash Joshi, Tech Mahindra

Although the pace of 3G adoption has been slower than hoped for in the developed markets, it has been growing steadily and 3G will be the key segment of growth for the cellular sector in the coming years.

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How can we impact Earth?
December 14, 2009
by Krishna Gopal, Tech Mahindra

I was reading about Copenhagen in Times Crest edition last week. While climate change and carbon footprint was there at the back of the mind the full import of it all just sank in.

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Innovation ideas are ‘Simple’
December 02, 2009
by Shrikant Sundaram, Tech Mahindra

I was amazed by this simple idea to spread literacy that I read about lately.

Given the phenomenal consumption of cinema songs - Hindi or otherwise, in the rural areas where literacy levels are low, I found Dr. Brij Kothari’s idea brilliant, to say the least. The effectiveness of this idea will be surely measured in the time to come.

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Launching IPTV services
November 19, 2009
by Balaji T S, Tech Mahindra

Recently, I was watching an advertisement from one of the leading providers of technology and services to telecom operators about standardization of IPTV services that was available on YouTube. The entire presentation of IPTV sounded very naive!Whether it is a veteran player like the Equipment Vendor community or the latest startup that mushroomed yesterday, there seems to be a child-like presentation of benefits - too theoretical to say the least - when it comes to describing new-age services like IPTV.

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Mobile Networks: How to assess if they are meeting customer’s service expectations?
October 20, 2009
by Vijayalakshmi Chetlapalli - Sr. Consultant-Technical, Tech Mahindra

The mobile subscriber base in India currently stands at 479 million, against a total landline subscriber base of 37 million. Over the past decade, there has been phenomenal growth in the use of mobile phones, thanks to the availability of affordable handsets coupled with stiff competition amongst the operators bringing down the cost of airtime considerably. The comfort of being ‘reachable’ for communication irrespective of time and location is quite compelling, and will continue to remain so.

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Non Linearity in Software Testing
September 10, 2009
by Anthony D’Souz, Director - Business Unit, Tech Mahindra

Introduction
Most IT Services vendors have grown in a linear model, wherein revenue growth is directly proportionate to the employee strength. First ISO, then CMM and now CMMI standards and frameworks aided and continue to aid linear growth, as they introduced the use of standardized software management.

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Threats in the Networked world
September 08, 2009
by Lucius Lobo, Director, Security Services

Organizations today are facing security threats that would have been un-imaginable only a few years ago. It is unfortunate that security continues to be an afterthought, based on the fact that though most of the security threats surge through a communication network, security was never built into it.

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Music, Books… what Next?
August 17, 2009
by Balaji T S, Sr. Principal Consultant, Tech Mahindra

First they took our music, now they are after our books. What next?


In case you are wondering what is it that I am raving about, I am referring to the advent of Kindle from Amazon and the response from Barnes & Noble through the launch of their e-books collection (July 20).


Kindle, in the way it operates, reminds one of the business process followed by iPod / iTunes. Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, wants to beat Amazon’s first-mover advantage by espousing the cause of standards and by delivering to existing devices such as - don’t laugh

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Driving Business Value through Open Source
March 23, 2009
by Bipin Patwardhan, Project Manager, Tech Mahindra

As we are all aware, all businesses are going through tough economic times. Though the impact of the crisis may not be visible right now, surely the crisis is going to deepen in the coming months.

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System Migrations and end-customer experience
March 23, 2009
by Pravin Muchintaya, Project Manager, Tech Mahindra

Last week, I received a notification from one of my Utility Companies mentioning that my consumer reference number had been changed from a 6 digit number to a totally new 14 digit number.

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Can Leadership be taught?
March 18, 2009
by Rajat Chawla, Practice & Capability Lead, CRM, Tech Mahindra

We all want to be a leader but only a few become one!

Question is: Is it inborn talent to be a great leader, or can it be taught? Is it not same as asking- Is it inborn to be a - doctor, Actor, Sportsperson or a Cook

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Customer’s perceptions and how our thought process is aligned to meet them
March 18, 2009
by B.Y. Yalawar, CE Delivery Manager, Tech Mahindra

IT industry is going through one of the roughest patches in recent times. After the Y2K and the dotcom bust, this I believe is a time of re-evaluation and re-visiting our strategy.

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Challenges in Migrating Applications to IPv6
March 18, 2009
by Balaji Krishnan, Senior Project Manager, Tech Mahindra

As we all know, IPv6 is the next generation network layer protocol for packet switched networking. This has been designated by IETF since last 10 years as the successor to the currently widespread Internet Protocol (aka IPv4).

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