Making judicious investments in early stage next-gen plays is a great way to understand emerging uncertainties for a firm in a rapidly changing market. These investments act as real options, providing the firm with leverage in case any of the opportunities bloom. In the high-tech internet & media markets, this clearly seems to be the way.
Its interesting to see Google (and its brethren) take on a VC role - particularly in relation to its investments in India.
From Google's New Role: Venture Capitalist:
Google (GOOG) has begun making VC-style investments to the tune of about $500,000 or less in promising startups, often buying those companies afterward, according to partners at Silicon Valley VC firms who spoke on condition of anonymity.
...invested more than $1 million in a Mumbai-based investment firm called Seedfund to gain access to technology such as automatic translation software
Among the reasons for the corporate-investing comeback: an upswing in research-and-development spending after the tech-stock crash; the need to spot promising startups in China, India, and Russia; and increased shareholder willingness to tolerate the quarterly vicissitudes of venture investing in order to create long-term value.
And according to ET's September article by Arun Natarajan:
Google has invested into three early-stage VC funds - VentureEast TeNet Fund, Seed Fund and Erasmic Fund. And if that wasn't enough, it has also joined the India Angel Network - a group of successful entrepreneurs who invest in start-ups - as an institutional member.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Skoda - the true Volkswagen?
From Skoda: Volkswagen's Hot Growth Engine:
Lower-priced and higher-quality than similar models built by Volkswagen, Skoda's automobiles are driving a global growth jag, with sales up 13.2% in the first half of 2006. "Skoda has become the true Volkswagen (people's car)"
...and is considering a lower-priced model that could go head-to-head with Renault's (RENA) no-frills Logan
Analysts say over time VW's management may consider letting Skoda become the larger-volume brand, while making Volkswagen's cars more upmarket to defend its margins...
Skoda has now become synonymous with high quality. In the 2007 European consumer satisfaction and quality studies by market researcher J.D. Power & Associates (which, like BusinessWeek, is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP)), Skoda ranks among the top 10 in France and Germany; and in Britain it ranked No. 2 (tied with Honda), scoring just a fraction below Lexus.
... "Skoda already outperforms Toyota, relatively," says Wittig. "Our return on capital is 19% to 20%—Toyota's is 15% to 16%."
Lower-priced and higher-quality than similar models built by Volkswagen, Skoda's automobiles are driving a global growth jag, with sales up 13.2% in the first half of 2006. "Skoda has become the true Volkswagen (people's car)"
...and is considering a lower-priced model that could go head-to-head with Renault's (RENA) no-frills Logan
Analysts say over time VW's management may consider letting Skoda become the larger-volume brand, while making Volkswagen's cars more upmarket to defend its margins...
Skoda has now become synonymous with high quality. In the 2007 European consumer satisfaction and quality studies by market researcher J.D. Power & Associates (which, like BusinessWeek, is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP)), Skoda ranks among the top 10 in France and Germany; and in Britain it ranked No. 2 (tied with Honda), scoring just a fraction below Lexus.
... "Skoda already outperforms Toyota, relatively," says Wittig. "Our return on capital is 19% to 20%—Toyota's is 15% to 16%."
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
A fortress in the sea - Murud Janjira
Located about 170 kms from Mumbai on the Goa route, is the fortress of Janjira, adjacent to the town of Murud. Considered to be the only impregnable fort on the Maharashtra coastline, the fort lies imposingly about 3 kms into the sea.
We started off on a beautiful clowdy day, early in the morning at around 7 am and headed along the Vashi-Navi Mumbai route. We broke off the Pune route to enter Panvel and headed towards Pen and Alibaug. A few kilometres from Alibaug, a diversion took us towards Murud, a scenic hilly drive with the sea on one side and fields / hills on the other. We crossed the beach of Kashid - one of the better known tourist spots around here and headed further south. As we came close to Murud, the route made a multitude of s-curves, with Keralan palm and coconut trees everywhere.
The first view of the Janjira fort is absolutely beautiful - you see it first as the road jumps over a small hill; the fortress surrounded by waters on all sides, sheltered by hills on so as to be unseen till that time, with fishing boats of all types plying around. Luckily for us, the weather was awesome as well, mildly rainy, but not too much.
Two sailboats ply periodically between the fort and the jetty. The sea was rough and choppy, but it was a great experience to go on a sailboat wedged between some 20 odd people as the sailors (oarsmen?) tried hard to pilot it right into the entrance of the fort.
The entry into the fort is the most exciting part of the expedition. The sea gets really choppy close to the entrance and the boat swings and yaws as it gets near the steps. A group of youth stand at the entrance, helping people get off and onboard. One needs to jump off & on the boat as it swings close with the wave and thats great fun.
The fort itself is pretty dilapidated and could do with a dose or two of refurbishment. Vines and assorted plants grow all over the ruins and clothe the water-bodies in slime. However, the cannons are a pretty impressive sight; supposedly the 3rd biggest cannon in India lies there. In all, it would take at best 20 minutes to make a walkthrough of the fort.
To those following us: The trip can easily be made in a day from Mumbai. The roads are pretty decent (contrary to what I'd heard prior to the trip) and the route is absolutely scenic. Just that first view of the Janjira fort makes the whole trip worthwhile. And it takes about 3-4 hrs to get there from Mumbai. For more, check out murudjanjira.com
We started off on a beautiful clowdy day, early in the morning at around 7 am and headed along the Vashi-Navi Mumbai route. We broke off the Pune route to enter Panvel and headed towards Pen and Alibaug. A few kilometres from Alibaug, a diversion took us towards Murud, a scenic hilly drive with the sea on one side and fields / hills on the other. We crossed the beach of Kashid - one of the better known tourist spots around here and headed further south. As we came close to Murud, the route made a multitude of s-curves, with Keralan palm and coconut trees everywhere.
The first view of the Janjira fort is absolutely beautiful - you see it first as the road jumps over a small hill; the fortress surrounded by waters on all sides, sheltered by hills on so as to be unseen till that time, with fishing boats of all types plying around. Luckily for us, the weather was awesome as well, mildly rainy, but not too much.
Two sailboats ply periodically between the fort and the jetty. The sea was rough and choppy, but it was a great experience to go on a sailboat wedged between some 20 odd people as the sailors (oarsmen?) tried hard to pilot it right into the entrance of the fort.
The entry into the fort is the most exciting part of the expedition. The sea gets really choppy close to the entrance and the boat swings and yaws as it gets near the steps. A group of youth stand at the entrance, helping people get off and onboard. One needs to jump off & on the boat as it swings close with the wave and thats great fun.
The fort itself is pretty dilapidated and could do with a dose or two of refurbishment. Vines and assorted plants grow all over the ruins and clothe the water-bodies in slime. However, the cannons are a pretty impressive sight; supposedly the 3rd biggest cannon in India lies there. In all, it would take at best 20 minutes to make a walkthrough of the fort.
To those following us: The trip can easily be made in a day from Mumbai. The roads are pretty decent (contrary to what I'd heard prior to the trip) and the route is absolutely scenic. Just that first view of the Janjira fort makes the whole trip worthwhile. And it takes about 3-4 hrs to get there from Mumbai. For more, check out murudjanjira.com
AnnoyanceTech
Revenge by Gadget from the Wall Street Journal:
"...the field has caught the attention of graduate students at MIT's Media Lab, where it is known as "annoyancetech." Among their recent creations: a "No-Contact Jacket" that, when activated with a controller, delivers a blast of electricity to anyone who touches the person wearing it.
These devices are also a way for people to bridge the gap between the birth of a new form of annoyance (people driving while sending text messages, for instance) and the point at which lawmakers finally organize a response...
According to Dr. Tenner, the technology historian, the first widely marketed "countergadget" may have been the Zenith remote control of 1950, since it was invented in part to help people skip commercials. The trend continued in the 1970s, he says, with the proliferation of radar detectors.
But inventors say the current gadget boom is far more widespread. The chief difference is the falling cost of programmable microcontrollers, the integrated circuit chips that were once too expensive for small-scale production. Doug Freedman, a semiconductor-industry analyst, says these chips are smaller and more complex than just five years ago and cost about $1.50 on average, down from about $5 to $6 in 2002. At high volumes, he says, these chips can be found for as little as 75 cents each."
From O'Reilly Radar: Revenge by Gadget:
"...new on-demand manufacturing networks put not just the workshop but factories in China at the hacker's disposal.
...entrepreneurs are increasingly taking lessons from open source software, building business models that don't depend on proprietary IP, but instead releasing their designs in hope of building revenue in new ways
More and more sensors of various types are becoming available, making it possible to build devices that respond intelligently to more kinds of external stimuli"
"...the field has caught the attention of graduate students at MIT's Media Lab, where it is known as "annoyancetech." Among their recent creations: a "No-Contact Jacket" that, when activated with a controller, delivers a blast of electricity to anyone who touches the person wearing it.
These devices are also a way for people to bridge the gap between the birth of a new form of annoyance (people driving while sending text messages, for instance) and the point at which lawmakers finally organize a response...
According to Dr. Tenner, the technology historian, the first widely marketed "countergadget" may have been the Zenith remote control of 1950, since it was invented in part to help people skip commercials. The trend continued in the 1970s, he says, with the proliferation of radar detectors.
But inventors say the current gadget boom is far more widespread. The chief difference is the falling cost of programmable microcontrollers, the integrated circuit chips that were once too expensive for small-scale production. Doug Freedman, a semiconductor-industry analyst, says these chips are smaller and more complex than just five years ago and cost about $1.50 on average, down from about $5 to $6 in 2002. At high volumes, he says, these chips can be found for as little as 75 cents each."
From O'Reilly Radar: Revenge by Gadget:
"...new on-demand manufacturing networks put not just the workshop but factories in China at the hacker's disposal.
...entrepreneurs are increasingly taking lessons from open source software, building business models that don't depend on proprietary IP, but instead releasing their designs in hope of building revenue in new ways
More and more sensors of various types are becoming available, making it possible to build devices that respond intelligently to more kinds of external stimuli"
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
A tale of 3 cities
Continued...
Florida, the Keys and Miami
The one thing that strikes you most when you land up in the US from India is the sheer size of the country - the spread is so vast that when paired with its population, the country seems almost empty. Of course the cities are as densely populated as they get, but once you head into the countryside down an expressway, its just miles and miles of open land. Which gets me to the other aspect - the infrastructure.
If there's one thing India should emulate from the US, its how they have put in place and maintained their transportation infrastructure. The vast lanes of expressways are a delight to drive in, predictably periodic signposts highlight entrances and exits, potholes and bumps are practically non-existent and the driving lane ethic is laudable. People often debate the last point, highlighting that the causal enforcement has almost driven the US into a police-state. But I would only invite them to Chennai to experience what lane-less and rouge driving feels like. We definitely need a balance between the extremes, but I would argue that effective enforcement of road discipline is the key to developing a good driving ethic.
Florida, due to its location near the tropics, has a sultry and hot climate (at least when I was there) - akin to Chennai's weather. It also has huge expressways, incredibly rich inhabitants and a wonderful beach-lined coastline.
The Florida Keys is an archipelago of islands, interconnected by bridges all the way for some 100 odd miles (a drive of 3 hours one way). The drive is just wonderful, with hours and hours of blue sea spanning both sides of the road. The southernmost point, on the Key West island, is incidentally also the southernmost tip of continental USA - and is said to be just a few miles from Cuba.
Key West has a very colonial feel to it, with 1950 era houses and walkways. The island is a great place for water-sports. We did a bit of snorkeling in the ocean - were taken to a place where the Atlantic ocean meets the waters of the Gulf of Mexico - and found it to be good fun, with beautiful blue and turbulent waters; but the corals were nothing comparable to the those I saw in the Andamans.
On Miami, what can one say - the beaches with white sands and blue waters, the hip crowd, the colonial look, the night skyline, the expressways, the yachts, the cruise ships, the super-cars … . Just a few things I do remember distinctly though: its tough to find one's way across Miami's streets, even with a detailed map - just too many of them criss-crossing about; even 8 lane expressways can get jammed in rush-hour, and particularly so when you are rushing to catch a flight.
I went on the trip thinking that I would find a lot of things to buy, but surprisingly could hardly get anything that’s not available in India except for the chocolates and the electronics. Everything else is made and exported from China/India/South-East Asia; and is available at much cheaper prices in India. Even most of the chocolates varieties are now a common scene, baring the exotics. The electronics only make sense because they are cheaper by 30-40%. Odd.
Heathrow Return
Had an interesting experience on my return trip at London. I was thirty minutes away from catching my connecting flight from Heathrow, when came an announcement asking us to evacuate the terminal building and move into the parking lot. This was the day of the Glasgow bombings and Heathrow had received a bomb threat. Police swarmed the place and covered all entrances and exits, preventing any entry and exit to/fro the terminal. This was 12AM. There is exactly one toilet in the parking lot, where some 1000 of us were huddled - and soon serpentine queues of a 100 people formed.
Somewhere around 6/7PM, with no information being provided till then, came the icy rain. Soon, I guess in order to prevent a mob surge from the crowd, they announced an entry into the terminal for select flights. Most of them were being cancelled. My flight was in limbo - they themselves had no clue on its status! Interesting.
Somewhere down the line came an announcement that my flight might take off within the day. Thanking my stars I rushed into the terminal, only to hear after going through a laborious security check-in that it was being cancelled.
Now this is the great part - British Airways announces that since hotels in London were running full, they wouldn't take responsibility of the booking us up into hotels and that we were to find our own bearings. Second, they were canceling our tickets and that we need to contact our travel agent to rebook ourselves on the next available flight.
So what happens to passengers on inter-continental flights merely making a transit through London ? So what happens to people who do not have a transit visa to get into London? What happens to people who do not have enough currency to make those phone calls? What happens when a thousand people converge on a limited number of phone booths calling the same BA number? What happens to the elderly and those in wheel-chair? What happens to those who speak so little English that they couldn't make the BA call center understand what they wanted to book? What happens when next outgoing flight from London is 2/3 days or a week away and you do not have a place to stay or enough money? Chaos. Pure chaos.
All my admiration for the efficiency of BA vanished into dust. At 12 PM checked-in baggage came out. That night, the crowd slept in Heathrow, on the floor, on benches and seats, huddled in nooks and corners, like in a typical crowded train station at home. Blankets and food packets were handed around. First class, business class and economy slept next to each other.
My next available flight back home was 2 days away. To some locations it was only available the next week. Cafeterias and restaurants ran out of food. I wandered around Heathrow so much that I can map out its every corner and pathway. Days later, I boarded my flight back home. I shall never forget the relief when I took off.
What an experience.
Florida, the Keys and Miami
The one thing that strikes you most when you land up in the US from India is the sheer size of the country - the spread is so vast that when paired with its population, the country seems almost empty. Of course the cities are as densely populated as they get, but once you head into the countryside down an expressway, its just miles and miles of open land. Which gets me to the other aspect - the infrastructure.
If there's one thing India should emulate from the US, its how they have put in place and maintained their transportation infrastructure. The vast lanes of expressways are a delight to drive in, predictably periodic signposts highlight entrances and exits, potholes and bumps are practically non-existent and the driving lane ethic is laudable. People often debate the last point, highlighting that the causal enforcement has almost driven the US into a police-state. But I would only invite them to Chennai to experience what lane-less and rouge driving feels like. We definitely need a balance between the extremes, but I would argue that effective enforcement of road discipline is the key to developing a good driving ethic.
Florida, due to its location near the tropics, has a sultry and hot climate (at least when I was there) - akin to Chennai's weather. It also has huge expressways, incredibly rich inhabitants and a wonderful beach-lined coastline.
The Florida Keys is an archipelago of islands, interconnected by bridges all the way for some 100 odd miles (a drive of 3 hours one way). The drive is just wonderful, with hours and hours of blue sea spanning both sides of the road. The southernmost point, on the Key West island, is incidentally also the southernmost tip of continental USA - and is said to be just a few miles from Cuba.
Key West has a very colonial feel to it, with 1950 era houses and walkways. The island is a great place for water-sports. We did a bit of snorkeling in the ocean - were taken to a place where the Atlantic ocean meets the waters of the Gulf of Mexico - and found it to be good fun, with beautiful blue and turbulent waters; but the corals were nothing comparable to the those I saw in the Andamans.
On Miami, what can one say - the beaches with white sands and blue waters, the hip crowd, the colonial look, the night skyline, the expressways, the yachts, the cruise ships, the super-cars … . Just a few things I do remember distinctly though: its tough to find one's way across Miami's streets, even with a detailed map - just too many of them criss-crossing about; even 8 lane expressways can get jammed in rush-hour, and particularly so when you are rushing to catch a flight.
I went on the trip thinking that I would find a lot of things to buy, but surprisingly could hardly get anything that’s not available in India except for the chocolates and the electronics. Everything else is made and exported from China/India/South-East Asia; and is available at much cheaper prices in India. Even most of the chocolates varieties are now a common scene, baring the exotics. The electronics only make sense because they are cheaper by 30-40%. Odd.
Heathrow Return
Had an interesting experience on my return trip at London. I was thirty minutes away from catching my connecting flight from Heathrow, when came an announcement asking us to evacuate the terminal building and move into the parking lot. This was the day of the Glasgow bombings and Heathrow had received a bomb threat. Police swarmed the place and covered all entrances and exits, preventing any entry and exit to/fro the terminal. This was 12AM. There is exactly one toilet in the parking lot, where some 1000 of us were huddled - and soon serpentine queues of a 100 people formed.
Somewhere around 6/7PM, with no information being provided till then, came the icy rain. Soon, I guess in order to prevent a mob surge from the crowd, they announced an entry into the terminal for select flights. Most of them were being cancelled. My flight was in limbo - they themselves had no clue on its status! Interesting.
Somewhere down the line came an announcement that my flight might take off within the day. Thanking my stars I rushed into the terminal, only to hear after going through a laborious security check-in that it was being cancelled.
Now this is the great part - British Airways announces that since hotels in London were running full, they wouldn't take responsibility of the booking us up into hotels and that we were to find our own bearings. Second, they were canceling our tickets and that we need to contact our travel agent to rebook ourselves on the next available flight.
So what happens to passengers on inter-continental flights merely making a transit through London ? So what happens to people who do not have a transit visa to get into London? What happens to people who do not have enough currency to make those phone calls? What happens when a thousand people converge on a limited number of phone booths calling the same BA number? What happens to the elderly and those in wheel-chair? What happens to those who speak so little English that they couldn't make the BA call center understand what they wanted to book? What happens when next outgoing flight from London is 2/3 days or a week away and you do not have a place to stay or enough money? Chaos. Pure chaos.
All my admiration for the efficiency of BA vanished into dust. At 12 PM checked-in baggage came out. That night, the crowd slept in Heathrow, on the floor, on benches and seats, huddled in nooks and corners, like in a typical crowded train station at home. Blankets and food packets were handed around. First class, business class and economy slept next to each other.
My next available flight back home was 2 days away. To some locations it was only available the next week. Cafeterias and restaurants ran out of food. I wandered around Heathrow so much that I can map out its every corner and pathway. Days later, I boarded my flight back home. I shall never forget the relief when I took off.
What an experience.
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