Customer Care Dilbert way

"Electrifying" Beauties

Hot Babes, Electrifying beuty... the term now has a literal meaning.

"American designer called Andrew Schneider who has developed, as a project for the ITP Winter Show in New York, what he calls the iDrink swimwear line of solar bikinis. A concept idea has been developed by Schneider to cover it with a socket for recharging a mobile phone while you sunbathe. The iDrink’s photovoltaic film panels allow a fashionable fit while supplying 6.5 V @ 1.5 Amps needed to power a peltier junction and recharge a mobile phone. "

The Bikini also has USB connection so you can charge your iPods and Mp3 players..
Great invention with one problem..... No one wears Bikinis in India and no one sun bathes... i mean no one Sun bathes voluntarily :-).... so how do we modify this to Indian needs.

Our Indian designers must work to develop a iDrink Saree. Imagine what a wonderful use of the pallu this would be to capture solar energy and use it to charge your mobiles and iPods.. Also there shall be no need to sunbathe, all you need to do is get a saree clad woman to raom around on the road.

So imagine Mr. Vijay Shankar who stays in Mulund in Mumbai wants to charge his mobile..... Mulund being Mulund faces power cuts. Vijay is expecting an urgent call so what does he do.... he could loose a multi million deal because of the dead mobile... Bingo...idrink Saree comes to rescue... Vijay asks his wife to go for a walk in the afternoon she comes back in half an hour fully charged and ready to electrify... the mobile in mean... ;-)
Soon we could have Mobile "Mobile charging stations "-- women who shall allow you to "hook" up to them to recharge your "devices"... for a fee and guess what they will be called ..... "Bijlees"....

And guess who should be the Brand ambassador for idrink Saree ---- yes our own ravishing, cricketing, electrifying beauty Mandira bedi....... :-)

Google answer to Microsoft Yahoo! merger

Microsoft To Buy out Yahoo!!! ... Goes the recent headlines in a leading Indian business daily. Media Hype or "there is no smoke without fire" only time shall tell. But Telecom pundits have been hinting of this kind of consolidation for a long time. The Google Microsoft fight has already emerged from being the David and Goliath fight to be the "Clash of the Titans" and its now a game of chess with moves and countermoves... with a difference that both continue to invent pawns with new moves :-).
Hypothetically assuming that Microsoft and Yahoo! do come together what does it mean for Google. Microsoft and Yahoo! have a common DNA -- both once virtual monopolies in their respective games are now defending champions in the telecom arena. Microsoft once the undisputed kind of OS has now to contend with increasing advances of Google who has been increasingly popularising the Software as a service model --- check out Googledocs, google spreadsheet and host of other hosted applications in Googles portfolio. Yahoo! on the other hand once an undisputed king of the mail world and IM (atleast in the world apart from US) is now contending with Skype on one hand and Gmail and Google talk on the other. Yahoo! and Microsoft both have been grapling with Googles advances in the search world and Google seems to be a step ahead with its recent purchase of Doubleclick. Both Yahoo! and Microsoft have been impacted by Googles disruptive market models....... I can go on and on about the moves and countermoves between Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google..... but then this post is not about the war-- its about alliances.
"What will be Google response to a Yahoo! Microsoft merger???"
That is the million dollar question. I am no expert but heres my answer
" Google shall merge/buy Apple"
Sounds wierd -- well it should because most of Google and Apples ideas do.....!!!!
Lets look at a basis for Google Apple merger. Google may have several things but it still lacks one thing an OS. Agreed that it is trying to popularise a SAAS model but you still need an OS till you have every computer in the world having access to an always on Broadband connection. And then too the question of security means that some will still prefer a resident OS. So Google gets an OS from Apple, why Apple you say why not Linux....well simply because the DNA of Google and Apple match ----
Google known for innovation just like Apple for its beautiful and innovative interface (Apple users will swear by it)
Google a challenger so has been Apple since its birth.
Google naming ceremony forced-- the orignal name was Googel but since the firts funding cheque came mispelled as Google they adopted this name. Apple naming ceremony forced -- Apple founder told its staff to find a name by evening or he would name it after the first thing he saw-- an Apple on his desk. ...
Hmm ok the last one is one too far. But the point is Google and Apple both have a DNA fit of Innovation, DNA fit of disruptive business model, DNA fit of challengers.
But what does Apple gain... all said and done Apple has still been a niche player in the OS space with compatibility issues, whereas Google is a master at application development and interoperability. Google could complete the job of getting Apple to mainstream.
Imagine the wild possibilities of marrying the craze of the decade "Apple ipod series" with "Googles video and search capabilities" You could soon be searching, sorting many more things using the ipod than just videos from the itunes store.....
Google is the Media on your iPod -- Google TV, Google Mobile and customised e-newspaper all through Apples mind-blowing GUI and device capabilties. Since viewers had to enter their Google IDs--the same ones they used for Gmail and other premium services--the company had already compiled a rich history of their searching and surfing habits.[3] If you spent a lot of time looking at cars on eBay on your Internet enabled Video ipod , for example, you'd be shown automotive ads the next time you watched Google TV on your iPod. Between 70 and 80 percent of the revenue from each ad went to the content provider, just as it had on the Web. Google TV on the iPod customised for you based on your interests tracked by Google and delivered by Apple.

Google is the Internet with Apple as the interface --- Free wi-fi, a faster version of the Web, the Gbrowser, and the cube transform the technology landscape and our language all delivered on the Apple device of the future which is as freindly and fast to use for video and voice as is the Video iPod.

Google- Apple is God -- Everything you do, every device you touch, every interface that you use, every communication that you do is powered by Google and enabled by Apple device.

The possibilties are unlimited.....or are they????
This is my hypothesis.... I invite the readers to add why they think Apple-Google could be "Tango-Charlie" of the Telecom world and also if you feel otherwise. Let the debate begin......

The Mobile Web

There is a new Internet world and its on your mobile. I see the scorns on your face and i read your thoughts..."Mobile internet is for the savvy and more importantly rich people who can afford the high end phones" " who would want to surf on the small screed" " where is the technology"... and so on. But heres a news which forecasts that the mobile internet mania is not just a "time machine" and there is actually a huge business community out there who beleives in the Mobi mania.
" Now, mobiles have their own Internet sites. Like the com and .net sites accessible through computers, .mobi sites can now be accessed through your mobiles. And the rush to register names have begun. The names that are most sought after are sex (what else) .mobi, adult, hotels, India, finance, entertainment and shop.mobi. These names were among the first 5,000 ones registered and were gone within the first 10 minutes of the opening of the registration process. One-worded less-common names like ‘scooter’ and ‘graphic’ and two-worded common names like ‘chewinggum’ and ‘dropzone’ went within the first 24 hours. According to dotMobi CEO Neil Edwards’ corporate blog, 95,000 .mobi names were bought within the first 48 hours of opening up of registrations. While the registration process for the dotmobi site was opened in last May, in India the momentum has started building of late primarily due to youngsters. Sachin, who heads Mumbai Hosting, a reseller of domain names and web hosting space to the end consumer says that the takers so far have been mostly youngsters. The websites that are accessible over a PC cannot always be opened in your mobile browser. Rich components like photographs and videos need to be removed. Most mobi-sites right now are purely text-based as it is faster to download over the mobile phone networks. Therefore, companies need to redo or optimise their websites to be made available on the mobile phone. This is also called made-for-mobile Internet."

Thus the Mobi-sites shall change the speeds and the surfing expereince on the net. And remember necessity is the mother of invention so once the content is available, the demand starts building up the devices shall re-engineer themselves to suit everyones wallets and technology shall evolve to cater to the masses. Doesnt this sound similar to the times in 1996 when mobile's were first launced? Hold your breaths and be ready to surf the mobile net.....