Armstrong cleared of 1999 doping: lawyers - REUTERS

 Viva La Lance!!

Quoted from – HP boost profits by 51%


"On Tuesday he (Mark Hurd, CEO, HP) showed progress in achieving both objectives as HP reported fiscal second-quarter profit that jumped 51 percent, largely on sales of more profitable types of PCs and printers and from stealing market share from its biggest rival in PCs. The results contrasted with a gloomy forecast last week from Dell Inc., the world's biggest PC maker."


Mark might be executing like he was built to, but this is Carly's strategy working. HP may never have been in a position to make money from PCs if volumes from Compaq were not there.

I still think, Carly got booted out for the wrong reasons. A CEO cannot execute when the board is not supportive. A leader that created the strategy should be given the opportunity and support to execute it. To dispute the fact that Carly may not have executed as well, you need to look at HP’s results for the quarter after Mark Hurd took over. It reads on similar lines as above. I guess this is continuing proof enough.

It is interesting to see Dell's ability to fight in a more mainstream market, where resellers and distribution channels need to be paid. Why is Dell even trying to look at these channels, when IBM and Compaq gave up figuring this out. They should be focusing on moving more people to a platform they own for sales, rather than try their hand at distribution channels they have beat earlier. I guess you need Dell to be back in the chair as Kevin Rollins might not respect this fully.

It is sad to see the media being used in such a spineless fight. Printing actual news is one thing, but proliferating speculation is plain immaturity at best.

I have watched Lance, live on TV for the last three Tours and seen him win. He and his team have been masters at all the ingredients - Strategy, Tactics, and Endurance - that were required to win a relentless race like Tour de France, not to speak of technology. This mastery has been evident in every one of his wins.

In fact, Lance has said so in so many words. He has told his opponents how to beat him. Asking them to train harder and understand what it takes to win the Tour. His teammates, witnesses to his brutal training practice cannot understand what drives the man. He seems to be a sucker for punishment when his opponents are enjoying a break in their training.

Any athlete would know what it takes to complete an event that lasts 20 straight days covering 2000 miles. Let alone competing to win. If you run everyday, you will know that your 20 min jog in the park on some days become pure agony. Nobody loves it all the time. Yet, some of us endure it. That is the thrill. Training for a 2000 Mile cycle race over the mountains?

Tour de France, can be considered a sport all by itself.

Hewlett-Packard, in its third fiscal quarter, earned $73 million (3 cents per share) versus $586 million (19 cents per share) a year ago, although the figure was drastically affected by a one-time tax adjustment, officials said. Revenue was $20.8 billion, versus $18.89 billion last year. HP's PC business was stable, the imaging/printing group saw profits fall but revenues grow, and the storage/servers division grew all around and made a profit, unlike last year. Services grew as well. Following recent layoffs, CEO Mark Hurd said he's still evaluating his next moves.

Me thinks this is still Fiorina's work that is paying off. Mark has not made many moves apart from a couple of layoffs. So HP may be sharper in getting things done now. But apart from that it is the Enterprise business that is working well with a massive 20% increase in revenues. PC is stable that is quite a achievement considering the market conditions.

I think this trend will run for a few more quarters before, new initiatives and thinking will be needed. So cheers to Carly!

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Originally uploaded by beteljues.

As alwasy I am cocky in the face of reponsibility!
God Save me.

There were exceptions!

Survival of the fittest was close.

But it should be "survival of the smartest……
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By association!"

I am going to be dad!

I am sure most of us that use auto’s in India would have had a feeling of being cheated due to faulty or tampered meters. I had this experience the other day that was unbelievable.

Taking a auto to work daily has given me an idea how much it usually costs and the distance from home to office and back.

The other day late in the night about 11.00 pm or so, going back home a friend dropped me to an auto stand, which was a good kilometer and a half from office. At the stand the usual bickering ensued and they found a guy that lived in my locality and asked him to take the fare. This guy demanded twice the meter. I was not sure if they were supposed to charge twice the money at 11.00 pm, and anyways this guy was headed where I was I told him I will give him one and a half times the fare. We quickly and finally settled at Rs. 20.00 more than one and half times the fare, which was almost what he, had asked for initially.

By the end of the journey I realized this guys meter was tampered with and the fare showed about 30% more than what is normal. Before paying I just mentioned it to him in the passing. This guy just took off on me and started yelling. I said I will call the cops and complain about him. He did not believe I would do that and when I actually called the 100 number he got really quite.

As I was explaining to the cop at the other end of the line, this is what I got to hear;

Me: Hello, I have a problem with an auto guy, he is charging me more.
Cop: Why don’t you just pay him whatever he wants and go!
Me: But he is cheating his meter is very wrong…
Cop: (Rudely) how do you know?
Me: I know because I travel …..
Cop: (Cutting me off) what are you a meter doctor or what?

At this stage I hung up and this had given the auto guy a new fillip. The auto guy had heard everything that was said. He started shouting and abusing me even more till I decided to call the Local Police Station. This time the cops were friendlier and promised to send a patrol immediately.

At this he suddenly became polite turned the meter to zero and said he does not want problems and asked to pay him what ever I thought was correct. I paid him and he scooted before the cops came.

I thanked the cops and went my way. But I was really really mad at the first response I got. Where the cop asked me if I was a Meter Doctor? All this after the local cops spend so much money advertising that we should call them in case we suspect overcharging or tampered meters.

What should I do? Complain or assume that he was just one ass among many that we have to deal with.

Went to the Mark Knopfler concert. Well, loved Dire Straits. Love his new music. He was awesome. For a musically challenged guy like me, his guitaring was beyond phenomenal. The audio quality was a big letdown though.

At the concert I overheard a conversation that is becoming a buzz in my ear and causing a lot of thought lately.

Episode One
A bunch of guys were running around the concert area in a human chain. Very obviously they were there for the fun of it and perhaps it was the thing to do. Apparently they got a little violent with a bunch of people during their run. 7 big guys against one or two guys is no match. These guys were gloating on the fun they had while pushing or beating the rest that wouldn’t give way. Some 3-4 instances of this occurred.

Folks with wife’s or Girlfriends who stood their ground and got beaten up for affirming their rights.

Episode Two
The other day I was chatting with an IT Industry veteran, among other things about the way big companies hire 1-4 years experienced people from smaller companies. Usually the hire gets no time to complete their notice period with the old company. As the offer is usually too good to pass up the young hire does not mind walking way from his current employer leaving things untied. This more than anything else, puts his / her colleagues through a burden that is unnecessary. The same guys that probably once worked as a team.

After all the usual reasons that did not quite provide a compelling answer, came a bombshell. “The biggest will do what they want. Try beating it, its survival of the fittest”

Episode Three
A couple of weeks ago, my brother got waylaid by a bunch of drunken political supporters of a small local election on the Highway to Bangalore at about 10 PM . These five guys pulled out a knife and proceeded to rob my brother and his friend of substantial amount of cash and two valuable gold and platinum chains.

The cops swung into action on receiving the complaint and as the details of the vehicle the description of the assailants was clear they were able to arrest the culprits the same night. Turns out, these guys were a son and relatives of a local panchayat leader. The father is running pillar to post to get these guys released without going to court. These guys are now pressurizing my brother and his friend to withdraw their complaint.

Behind bars and sober, the culprits and their family (which is very well to do) claim they did this for fun and can ascribe no reason at all for their behavior. Apart from robbery the act included almost stabbing my brother in the back and stomach with a fairly long knife.

In the first case it was educated people with professional responsibilities, in the second was a top management executive and in the third a bunch of hooligans that rule our nation.

In my opinion not much of a difference between these episodes. The common thread is that there is no need to fear the law or a self imposed code of conduct that respects everyone’s space and right to live in dignity. How long will this last?

I would say not long. There are not that many strong arms to go around. Once the weak rally, they will be a potent force. There will be no need to pardon the strong their sins. I guess the meek SHALL inherit the earth.

It is just a question of time, before the cup runs over.

My thinking is that HP first needs to decide what it wants to be. And any CEO that runs the business will need to define that. You cannot have a board interfering once the job has been handed over to someone it trusts.

Sure, the printer business is worth 90%+ of the HP valuation. But by same accounts GE Capital could see similar numbers; IBM Global Services will see similar numbers. Closer home the Tata’s and Birla’s face the same situation. These are big diverse businesses that can compare, with HP’s diverse businesses. It is a totally different ball game when you look at businesses that large and that diverse. You need many growth engines and not just one. It is another matter that most of these guys have one or at most two growth engines working for them.

What people do not seem to understand is that the growth engines of the future are built using cash flows from the not so glamorous foundations that you already have. Again, GE Cap, IBM Global Services, Microsoft Office, Project, MS Backoffice, Apple iMac, iPod, Reliance Infocomm, Finacle, Progeon, Mphasis etc. Yes you cannot ignore them.

When Lou took the top job at IBM, he was expected to cut up the company into bits and pieces. If he had done that he would have played to the gallery and IBM would have lost valuation in bits and pieces. The sum of the parts will never really account for the whole. Does anyone remember how much Aligent is worth now? You only discard businesses that are not strategically important to you. You rarely discard a highly profitable business.

My call is that Wall Street knows nuts about businesses or building them. So all the HP board has done was to play to Wall Street. Yes, the existing investors can get a big cash payout. But that is about it. The long term future of HP as a company it was, is in very serious jeopardy.

It is easy to say beat Dell. But one has to consider the ground realities of this statement. Dell does not have to pay dealers or distributors. This alone accounts for over 15-20% of your margins. Dell makes that money. Compaq sold out as it botched up its distribution network. They tried to emulate Dell but ended up antagonizing their dealer network that was driving their business. Big gamble that did not payoff. Different dynamics but the same goes for people that ask why cannot apple unbundled OS and Hardware?

The real money is in services, this is largely becoming apparent as the services business grow. The aborted PwC buyout was in that direction. Digital, has a large services business or a good foundation to grow one. That was what made it interesting to Compaq. My call - that is what Carly wanted to do too. Grow the services business (Growth engine) while depending on the printers div to manage the numbers. But unfortunately, the focus was all on the PC and server div.

I think more than Carly, the HP board screwed it up. If they wanted someone to sell the company the mandate should have been to cut and sell as against innovate and build. Time will tell but Carly paid the price.

Nothing personal but about employee dislike, I just cannot help but say this, from what I have seen, employees especially in large corps have no clue about what is happening at the corporate level and are even less clued in on running the corporation. Oh! They are good at running their divisions and their dynamics, no doubt. But till they reach a corporate VP position they usually sport myopic views.

I also saw Monster. Left me sad. Not about the tale of Arlieen, but the fact that there are so many people in the world today, those are unfortunate enough, to not be able to recognize the good from the bad. Not to be able to logically conclude what makes sense for them, what is good for them? Not to be able to get up and ask for an opinion from someone as to where they could seek help. I am sure there are a ton of institutions and organizations working to solve these exact bunch of issues. Is it just a matter of connecting these people? Or is it deeper? Something I cannot understand.

The role of Lallan in Yuva, also got me thinking in those lines. But of course Arlieen is worse.

To think of being so fortunate to have had an education that drilled into me the power of logical reasoning. To be able to recognize when one is totally off base and to be able to ask people for help, even strangers if need be, is a challenge for some.

On the other hand, the distance that Arlieen goes to, just be discovered is a tribute to her persona. So of course you may argue that, this logical reasoning has left people in a not very curious state, and accept a status quo without questioning…. But surely in their own way everybody questions reality as some one put it, so I would not be entirely convinced about that line of reasoning.

However, it is definitely sad that a lot of our fellow humans have to suffer life and go so grossly wrong to just survive.

I just watched Kill Bill Vol. 2 on DVD y’day. I must say it rocks.

It is vastly different from Kill Bill Vol. 1, which I loved too. I guess between the two this must be the movie (series) that I have loved the most for its style, and unique way of telling a story.

While I enjoyed the attitude, single mindedness and swordplay of Kill Bill 1, the characters and relationships were very well handled in vol. 2 without pandering to the poetry in action of Kill Bill 1. Too much of anything is bad, even if it was beautiful.

After reading a couple of interviews of QT and many a critiques from a bunch of critics I began to wonder if I missed the Kung Fu Influences in Vol. 1. Because it was always lost on me. I wonder, if the so called critics were only mouthing the sentiments of QT. Or did they have a sneak preview of Vol. 2? I doubt it. I am a pretty cynical person, and assuming that these guys actually saw Vol. 2 before they wrote about the Kung Fu influences on the movie, would be surely taking it a bit far.

But out and out classic.

I am posting this stuff here because of what happened in Shiok, a couple of months ago. I have visited Shiok and enjoyed their delectable cuisine, excellent ambiance and service with friends and family. All in all, a great place to be!

If you're in Bangalore, visit Madhu's new restaurant, Shiok Far-eastern Cuisine that serves good Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singaporean food. The restaurant is on CMH Road, Indiranagar, Bangalore.

But I guess every one of you that have been there will testify to the fact. I would like to narrate what happened when I took my “normally cynical about hotel food” Mom to Shiok on Mother’s Day. Everything we ordered was a mess, a disaster for me and my Mom, whom I had promised a good meal.

Knowing the waiters well, we all commented on the food. Generally let it be known that food just sucked that day. They came up with excuses like we have a new cook etc., no this stuff tastes like this only etc. etc.

Finally, after trying over six starters and four main courses, thoroughly disappointed with everything and profusely apologizing to mom about how this place was much better and we have never had a bad experience here etc., we asked for the bill.

The folks just refused to give us the bill! They said, you were not satisfied, so no bill. Man, now this was different. Not wanting to accept the favor, we insisted, they insisted right back! We were adamant, they adamanted back! Finally we gave up and decided that we will come back some other day and give this place another shot.

I swear, I would not have gone back to that place again after that experience. But the attitude of the folks at Shiok, made me do it.

I am glad to declare that they are back with the same good food. I have visited Shiok a number of times after that, entertained more friends and acquaintances. Things are back to being good.

Contrast this with “Dosa Camp” in Jayanagar (The one in the corner, next to Gaythri Stores). We went there one Sunday hoping to get a good breakfast. The place was dirty, busy but we prevailed, found seating, and ordered for our dosas. Over thirty minutes and still no dosas made us enquire with our waiter.

Man that was a sin, because this guy just erupted and declared “What do you think I am doing? I will get it when I get it” and rushed off! We were stunned. We had just politely asked him about our order. While we were contemplating, our next steps, this guy comes in and bangs our dosas in front of us. We were famished but decided to walk out, but since the dosas were on our table we offered to pay for them while registering our complaint with the manger that looked like an educated bloke. (Could have been the owner’s son or relative). His reaction was even more astounding; he took our money acted as if this stuff happened every second at this place. His answer was, eat it if you want, else it is alright, we have other customers.

We just walked out feeling foolish for even trying to provide the feedback, still famished.

I knew that crows are very sociable creatures; I have seen them help other crows, communicate well and coordinate well with their own when abundant food is available. I have also seen them take on hawks, eagles and the like when they feel threatened, want to steal food or I guess when they feel like bullying other life forms.

I was amazed when two crows attacked and kept buzzing people at a park near my home. They must have had a nest or something, but these guys were just in the vicinity, and were just minding their business. Moreover this is a walking path for the people in the park and attracts high rates of traffic. I am sure the crows would have noticed this before or while building their nest. I must happen often as I have seen other guys in the park protect themselves using a branch or a bunch of leaves. Was wondering what were they upto till I saw this.

DVD’s Rock!

I just went to symphony (among the better managed theaters in Bangalore) to book tickets for the first show of the evening. I am a little picky of where I want to sit and watch the movie. (From completely unbalanced, loud sound to the rowdy asses unable to respect women that you will have to share your aisle with and other such problems irritate the hell out of me and spoil the experience)

So, I asked for the choice of my seats. They were not taken according to the chart that the joker had at the box office. (These were not the ones booked by the Dial a ticket guys, they were different) But he claimed that they were already booked. I pointed out a different choice, to which he responded by saying why don’t I take something else totally absurd. Finally, I had to be extra nice and plead with him to give me my choice of seats. To which he grudgingly agreed. This is a perennial problem as I have faced it over a dozen times in the last 12 months.

My question is - why should these people have these charts if my choice is not respected?

Why should I have to explain why I need those seats when this guy’s job is to give out the ones of my choosing if they were available?

This leaves me frustrated as hell. I am sure a lot of others if not all have the same set of issues! No wonder it makes sense to get a DVD at home and watch the movie peacefully even if it is pirated. These guys are pissing in the same plates they eat from. A National Indian Pastime. Of course you will have to contend with the fact that these theater owner and their asinine employees will take out dharnas and rasta roko’s to make life miserable to save their jobs or demand more subsidies!

To all of you nuts that are a part of this business first learn to respect your customers, if not they will find other ways to entertain themselves, even in this overpopulated and lacking for choices country!

If anyone reading this knows the owners and managers of Symphony please let them know of the rant or give me their contact info I will post it to them.