Monthly Archives: July 2009

PUG’s Microsoft Technologies Developer Conference – 8th/9th Aug

July 31, 2009Events, Technology.NET, community, Events, Microsoft, PUG, user groupsNavin Kabra

What: Pune User Group (PUG)’s DevCon conference on Microsoft technologies
When: 8, 9 August, 9:30am to 5:30pm
Where: College of Engineering Pune (COEP)
Registration and Fees: This event is free for everyone. Register here.

Details:
PUG Devcon is an event for developers to share, collaborate and meet up with like minded technology enthusiasts. Along with interesting interactive sessions, DevCon proves to be a platform for learning and sharing new technology. You get to meet the industry gurus, people in Microsoft and explore the issues in working on mobile devices, working on Windows application development, integrated Web solutions, Microsoft Office programming ,language enhancement and IDE productivity features. Issues such as easier development of applications across client types and migrating applications to .NET are all discussed here and new optimized solutions are provided.

DevCon is a Developer Conference from the developers, by the developers and for the developers. Developers may be professionals or students who will represent next generation developers. The agenda consists of two tracks that will cover .NET, Azure, Silverlight, and a bunch of other technologies. For information about the expected presenters look here.

Featured Products/Topics: .NET 4.0 Internals, Azure Services Platform, Silverlight 3 with Blend 3 Sketch Flow and DeepZoom, ASP.NET MVC, MS Office for Developers, PowerShell extending and embedding.

Recommended Audiences: IT Professionals, Microsoft Partners, Solution Architects, Software Developers, Students, Technical Decision Makers, Developers, Architects

For more information about the organizers, see the PuneTech profile of Pune User Group.

Introduction to the ASP.NET MVC Framework (codebetter.com)
Is Microsoft Starting a Cloud Price War? (elasticvapor.com)
TechStart.in: Microsoft Azure Training Program for 2009 CS graduates (punetech.com)

TechWeekend: Three tech talks on Google Android, 4:30pm, 1st Aug

July 30, 2009Events, Technologyandroid, google, gtug, java, techweekendNavin Kabra

: Image via CrunchBase

What: TechWeekend featuring “What makes Google Android different from other systems, and from regular Java” by Navin Kabra, “Maps, GPS and sensors in Android” by Rohit Ghatol, with a demo on an Android G1 phone, and more
When: Saturday, 1st August, 4:30pm
Where: Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Atur Centre, Model Colony. Map.
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all to attend. Please register here.

What makes Google Android different from other systems – Navin Kabra.

Google’s Android is a brand new platform for mobile phones, and has been created from scratch specifically for this purpose. This means that it is a “modern” system that does not suffer from any legacy issues, and has taken the best ideas from various other projects to build a system that is arguably better than any of the other, competing, systems. Thus, for example, it uses the Java language as the development language, but has rejected the rest of the Java ecosystem. Specifically it uses a compeletely new virtual machine (Dalvik) which is redesigned with mobiles in mind – and has a number of very interesting design decisions that we will discuss. Similarly, the Android application framework represents a departure from the traditional way of doing things, and has a learning curve, but once you get used to it, it is great, especially for allowing different apps to share data, code, and in general co-operate.

We will explore and discuss this and various other design decisions in Android.

Maps, GPS and Sensor Capability – Rohit Ghatol

Rohit Ghatol is a co-founder of the Pune Google Technologies User Group (PuneGTUG), and one of the early adopters of the Google Android platform. He has already built a number of applications on Android, and is working on some interesting ideas in this area. In this talk, he will be discussing the mapping in the Android framework, and how the GPS and sensor capabilities can be combined with it to give powerful and rich experiences to users. He will be using his Google Android G1 phone to demonstrate these capabilities.

There will be one more speaker, but unfortunately, the details of that talk were not ready in time for this announcement. Please check back in a day for that update.

Also check out Dhananjay Nene‘s slides from the first TechWeekend: “REST Explained.”

Actionable Insights into the World of Indian Startups – Abinash Tripathy’s blog

July 29, 2009Featured, Peoplebloggers, POCC, startups, web-2.0Navin Kabra

Abinash Tripathy is credited with building the best web-2.0 team in India (for Zimbra which sold to Yahoo! for US$350million.)

Abinash Tripathy’s blog, “Insights into the World of Indian Startups,” is a must read for all Pune Technology professionals.

Abinash is a serial entrepreneur who is now on the loose in Pune. Most recently, he spent a few years building Zimbra from scratch in India, created one of the best web-2.0 teams in India, a team that build a product that was acquired by Yahoo! for US$350 million. Abinash quit Yahoo! in February 2009, and is going down the path of entrepreneurship once again. He is an advisor for Enterux, the company whose English Seekho product was one of the highlights of proto.in Pune.

In his own words, Abinash represents:

the new generation of Global Indians who spent 10 years in the US in the High Tech Industry and decided to return to India to be close to family and to be a change agent who will help young Indians understand the power of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Having decided to spend the rest of my life in India, it is also in my interest to be a change agent (not just a voice) in the new, modern, developed India.

For the last few months, he has been writing a blog focused on the startup ecosystem in India. On the blog, he promises to be “highly opinionated (fair warning) and a straight shooter who likes to base his theories on personal real world experience,” which should be very welcome insights for any entrepreneur.

Here are a few excerpts from his posts on the blog.

In “Building a Kickass Team Part II“, he writes:

4. Reward Performance – Anyone that has worked in tech and has a thorough understanding of this business knows that the output of one great engineer adds more value to the company than the output of one hundred average engineers. Unlike the services industry which prides itself with the numbers of warm bodies it has on its rolls, the best tech startups pride themselves for being able to create huge value with the least number of people. We all live in a capitalist society and the laws of capitalism are designed to reward the best.

In “What Ails the Startup Ecosystem in India,” among a host of other insightful things, he says:

If you are not a hacker, start today. Stop wasting time on Drupal or other CMS platforms and start real programming. ASP and .NET don’t count either. Learn real programming languages like Java, C, C++, PHP, Python, Ruby. Start by contributing to open source projects to measure yourself against the best in the world. We need lots of this breed for the startup ecosystem to grow and thrive. We absolutely cannot rely on the government or our esteemed institutions like the IIT to produce hackers. Hackers are mostly self taught creative geniuses who code for pleasure.

Tech startup founders need to be people with very deep technology backgrounds as well. There is a reason our industry is called Hi-Tech. If founders lack this key ingredient, then they are going to hire duds who cannot deliver.

Read the whole post, it is quite interesting.

You should subscribe to the blog, and also follow Abinash on twitter (and unless you’ve been living in a cave, you should know why you should be on twitter.)

Introducing PuneTech Video – your feedback needed

July 27, 2009Featured, punetech, videofeatures, punetech, video, websiteNavin Kabra

We are now experimenting with an additional format for PuneTech updates – short video clips hosted on YouTube.

Almost since the time PuneTech started, people have been suggesting to us that we should use video. Finally, something clicked last week, and we decided to take the plunge and start it on an experimental basis.

Our first few video posts are up here (proto.in reactions) and here (Druvaa update). Admittedly the video quality is not great. The sound quality is also quite variable. The main issue is that we are basically trying to balance the quality of the video against the amount of effort required to produce each video. Right now, we are in favor of going with a minimally acceptable quality of video that we can produce with as little effort as possible. This ensures that we continue to produce videos regularly (as opposed to starting with a bang and then discontinuing it because it is too much work.)

So the question for you is this:

Is the current quality good enough? (Sound quality will probably improve a little bit over time as we get more experience. Picture quality is unlikely to improve.)
Are you able to stream/download it conveniently and watch it, or is it too painful?
More generally: Is this useful? (Please note: doing the video takes about 5 minutes, while writing an article with the same information will probably take us 1/2 hour. Which means that either you get all this info in video format, or you get 20% of this info as articles, and the remaining 80% is lost. So please answer yes for this question if you think you will watch at least 30% to 40% of the videos, and answer no, if you think you’ll probably not watch the videos at all.)
Any other suggestions are welcome

Please leave your responses as comments. Your responses will help us decide whether we should continue this, or use that time to work on some other aspect of PuneTech.

Druvaa: From proto.in presenter to proto.in sponsor in 18 months

July 27, 2009Interview, videobackup, protodotin, startup, storageNavin Kabra

Pune based backup software startup Druvaa has gone from being a 3-person startup that presented at proto.in 18 months back, to a 16-person company that is profitable, and sponsored proto.in this weekend. We caught up with Jaspreet Singh of Druvaa during proto and had a conversation with him about how they are doing.

Note: Please turn up the volume. The sound quality is not-so-great. (Hopefully future videos will be better.)

Please also check out the older PuneTech articles about Druvaa:

Understanding RPO and RTO in Backups

Interesting note: You’ll notice that over the years, Druvaa has shifted gears from selling continuous protection (which they started off with) to remote backups (which is their primary product now). This is a feature of any startup – adapting to the needs of the market.

Too Soon to call for a Semiconductor Recovery?

July 27, 2009punechips, TechnologyEDA, punechips, semiconductorAbhijit Athavale

(This post by Abhijit Athavale, the driving force behind PuneTech’s PuneChips forum, is cross-posted from his blog.)

Are we really out of the most dreaded recession after the great depression and on our path to recovery? The answer might be a resounding yes if we look at the recent crop of earnings reports from technology companies, and other data emerging from market analysis firms. In fact, the NASDAQ composite is already into deeply positive territory on the expectations of an imminent recovery.

Revenue and Inventory Declines from 2008 to 2009

However, a quick dissection of recent earnings announcements from a few prominent semiconductor companies shows that we are not out of the woods yet. The chart above shows that sales numbers are still horribly bad compared to last year, and inventories have declined sharply as well. This means that companies have managed to satisfy the underlying demand by using up their inventories, and will or already have started ordering replacement units from fabs. This explains why the fabs have reported better numbers than the IC vendors. In a normal growth phase, every company wants to keep its channel well stocked to feed demand. This is not the case now as companies are drawing down on finished stock to reduce costs and improve margins. So much for the expected recovery in demand …

Where does this demand come from ultimately? The consumer, of course. The US, Europe (as a whole) and Japan are the three largest economies in the world.

People living in these countries constantly keep (or, at least used to) buying new things such as laptops and PCs, cell phones, gaming consoles, automobiles, audio and video equipment, personal media players, TVs, toys, and other gadgets. Companies that manufacture consumer electronics ICs directly feed this demand. Consumers also buy services such as wireless and wireline voice and data, broadband, cable and satellite TV feeds. This in turn generates demand for the entire telecom, datacom and wireless infrastucture and service providers. Infrastructure IC manufacturers are responsible for suppplying this demand. In the US alone, the consumer is 70% of the entire economy. The consumer is also a major portion of the EU and Japanese economies. The consumption in all three major economies in the world has cratered, as evidenced by the continuous 6 to 9 month declines in the exports from China, Taiwan and Japan, major export reliant countries.

The real demand will not be back till the consumer starts spending again. And, that is almost impossible in this economy. Take the US for example – official unemployment is at ~11% (some say, it is near 16% unofficially), one in ten homeowners is underwater, and credit lines have been severely downgraded by banks. Three major sources of funds used by consumers have been seriously compromised. To use a banking term, the consumer is now de-leveraging and getting his house in order. There will be no more spending sprees till the US savings rates are back to historical levels. The EU and Japan are in even worse situations as their banks are still over leveraged and that still needs to be played out a la Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers.

My belief is that the semiconductor industry and the companies that serve the semiconductor industry are not coming back till personal finances get better. That is not likely to happen for a while. Some analysts are calling Q2, 2009 as the bottom, which very well may be so, but I don’t expect to see a quick recovery from this point on. In fact, the worsening unemployment and foreclosure numbers may push us back into a double dip recession. If not, the recovery will be tepid and totally unspectacular.

Attend proto.in from home – follow the live online coverage

July 25, 2009Live Blogging, videoentrepreneurs, protodotin, startupsNavin Kabra

Click on the logo to see all PuneTech articles about proto.in

Proto.in is in Pune today, and one of the ideas they are pushing this year, is live online coverage of the event. The idea is that while only 400 people can attend the event in person, many more should be able to follow the details online. With this in mind, this proto promises to the the most connected proto so far.

Here are the different ways in which you can follow proto online:

http://proto.in/live: is proto’s live portal where you can follow all the proto activity. It aggregates all the live tweets about #protodotin. Bloggers can also submit their live-blogs and selected ones will be put up on this page. You can download information about the companies that are presenting, and you can leave feedback for the companies.
@PuneTechLive will be live-tweeting the event. Unfortunately, twitter search does not pick up punetechlive’s tweets, so the proto.in/live page and the twitter search pages will not show you these tweets. So you have to follow punetechlive in twitter (or go to http://twitter.com/punetechlive and refresh periodically).
The hashtag for proto.in is “#protodotin”, so searching for that on twitter, or on technorati should give you the latest on what is going on.
On an experimental basis, PuneTech will be trying to videoblog. We will have short (1 or 2 minute) interviews with various interesting people throughout the data. Check PuneTech’s youtube page and refresh periodically.

Keep checking this page also, we’ll try to keep it updated with …umm… updates throughout the day.

PuneTech is also trying out live-video updates of proto.in. Check out this video:

Highlights of Proto.in Presentations

Here is what we feel were the best parts of proto so far:

Vardenchi motorcycles on stage. Awesome audience impact!
HyCa presenting a product based on very complicated chemical process in words that we understood.
EnglishSeekho demo – The product speaks for itself. No explanation needed
EnglishSeekho founder asking: we could be providing pesticide info to farmers, we could be providing information about contraception to rural girls, in a convenient and confidential setting, we could be providing life-changing, life-saving information at the right time, at the right price (maybe Rs. 5). Isn’t that better than spending time building websites that sell movie or airline tickets or books online?
TouchMagix demo of Magix 3D Sense. Someone on twitter pointed out – proto.in felt like TED for a moment!

Demo Tips for Startups

Based on what we saw at proto.in presentations, here are some tips for those who presenting their startup:

Read Jason Calcanis‘ “How to demo your startup”. It’s a must read
Dress conservatively! You don’t want to draw attention to your dress. Definitely do NOT dress in a white suite and white-and-brown shoes.
If you have 30 minutes, then spending time on the educational and professional background of the team makes sense. If you have just 6 minutes, skip it. Go straight to your product.
You shouldn’t need to spend half your time motivating your product. Just show your product, and the audience should be able to see the motivation. Otherwise your product is not compelling enough (or you are pitching to the wrong audience)

Audience Reactions

These are reactions of Pune tech community regulars to the proto.in presentations:

Proto.in Facebook Developer Garage is free & open to all (not just proto.in attendees) (punetech.com)
How to increase community participation in the Pune tech scene? Best suggestion wins a proto.in pass (punetech.com)
Pre-Proto Startup Networking event – July 24 (punetech.com)

How to increase community participation in the Pune tech scene? Best suggestion wins a proto.in pass

July 23, 2009punetechcommunity, competition, protodotin, punetechNavin Kabra

Update: The “contest” part has ended, and the winner (amongst those who want a pass) is Annkur. But, please keep the suggestions coming in. We have some great suggestions up here. In a week or two, we’ll have a follow-up initiative to identify which specific ones to actually implement immediately (and who will do it). Thanks!

Pune’s tech scene is rocking.

How do we rock it more? How do we get more people involved? How do we get more students involved? How do we get more people from large companies (Infosys, Wipro) involved? Please give ideas.

Maybe you have an idea for a new series events that will be very useful. Maybe you have an idea for how to get more people to collaborate with each other. Maybe you have an idea for an interesting use of technology to improve the ‘community’. Maybe you have an idea for how to get people to contribute more to our wikis/social-networks/mailing lists.

PuneTech is giving away a proto.in pass (worth Rs. 750) to the person with the best suggestion. But please don’t let that be your motivation. Even those not interested in the proto.in pass please give your suggestions.

Here are the approximate rules:

The suggestion does not have to be about punetech.com. It can be about improving any aspect of the tech community in Pune. e.g. you can suggest how to make the Pune OpenCoffee Club more useful that it already is, or something to do with the Pune Linux Users Group, or anything at all.
Criteria for evaluation will be: practicality of suggestion, what are the chances of success, ease of making it happen, and the impact it will have.
Leave your suggestion as a comment on this post; or you can put it up on your own blog and leave a link from here.
If you’re not interested in winning the proto.in pass, please say so in your comment, so that the prize can go to the next best comment
The best comment received until 5pm on Friday (24th) will receive the prize. Please ensure that you leave appropriate contact info so that we can contact you on Friday evening if you win.

Get set. Go!

Key Legal Issues in InfoTech – Seminar, July 28

July 23, 2009EventsIntellectual property, legal, seapNavin Kabra

What: Seminar on key legal issues in InfoTech – key clauses, law, enforcement, jurisdiction in tech agreements, and IP issues
When: 2pm to 5pm, Tuesday, 28th July
Where: Bhageerath, Persistent Systems, S.B. Road
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all. Send mail to tanvi@nishithdesai.com if you’re interested.

Details:
Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP) and Nishith Desai Associates will hold a seminar on various legal issues an infotech business needs to worry about. The workshop aims to address issues related to intellectual property, trade secrets, usage of open source along with insights on key clauses pertaining to technology agreements from a legal as well as a commercial perspective. The workshop would also provide insights on enforcement and jurisdiction issues which are commonly faced in cross border technology agreements.

Agenda:

Protection of Intellectual Property, Confidential Information, Trade Secrets – Usage of Third Party IP and Open Source. Gowree Gokhale (Partner, Nishith Desai Associates)
Key Clauses in Technology Agreements along with negotiating tactics. Bharat Mehta (Vice President-Legal, Oracle Financial Services Software Limited)
Governing Law, Enforcement and Jurisdiction Issues in Technology Agreements. Shafaq Uraizee-Sapre (Senior Associate, Nishith Desai Associates)

About the Speakers

Gowree Gokhale

Ms. Gowree Gokhale heads the IP, technology, media and entertainment law practice of the multi-skilled, research-based international law firm, Nishith Desai Associates. Her specializations also include litigation and dispute resolution, franchising, pharma and life sciences laws, commercial laws, HR laws. Ms. Gokhale has led several IP, technology and HR litigations. She has been involved in negotiations of large BPO and technology contracts. She is involved in patent oppositions and devising patent litigation strategies for clients. She has assisted international media and productions houses and pharmaceutical companies in structuring of their India operations, including IP structuring, and advice on regulatory issues. She specializes in structuring of cross border outsourcing and franchising arrangements and has negotiated several transactions both for Indian and MNC clients. Ms. Gokhale is a Solicitor and a registered Patent & Trade Mark attorney and has been practicing for the last 13 years. She is a visiting faculty at Institute of Intellectual Property Law Studies at Mumbai. She has authored research reports and articles on variety of subjects and has presented at various national and international seminars and conferences on IP, pharmaceutical, media and technology laws. She has is a regular speaker at NASSCOM TLF seminars on technology contracts, CII on enforcement of IP in India.

Bharat Mehta

Vice President – Legal at Oracle Financial Services Software Limited is an experienced professional in legal and commercial matters related to IP and IT industry worldwide. Bharat has the opportunity of interacting, negotiating and concluding business deals globally with experience spanning across functions including mergers & acquisitions, intellectual property, customers, partners, vendors and employee related matters, corporate affairs, group integration, business practices, risk management and compliance. Bharat enjoys the continuous challenge and rewarding experience of working with professionals of different worldviews. He is actively involved as a speaker at various forums in spreading awareness about intellectual property, technology contracts and compliance. He is also one of the founding members of the Technology Law Forum (TLF). He graduated out of Mumbai University and has a Degree in Law.

Shafaq Uraizee-Sapre

Ms. Shafaq Uraizee Sapre is a senior member of the Technology, Litigation & Dispute Resolution, Fund Investment and Real Estate Practice Groups at the firm. Ms. Sapre received a Bachelors and Masters degree in law from the University of Bombay. Ms. Sapre’s practice focuses on cutting edge complex cross-border litigations and international commercial arbitrations. Ms. Sapre is a leading attorney in assisting clients to reach creative and pragmatic solutions and effective dispute resolution strategies. In addition to in-house representation, Ms. Sapre represents clients in Supreme Court, High Court and respective Tribunals in a wide-range of sectors including corporate, media, entertainment, franchising and oil & gas. Ms. Sapre’s practice includes a variety of transactions with both domestic and international venture capital and private equity funds. Ms. Sapre has advised and assisted clients on issues concerning the legal aspects of structuring and restructuring investments in India and globally, documentation, private equity investments and mergers and acquisitions across a multitude of sectors. Ms. Sapre has led several legal due diligence teams and often renders opinions on issues concerning litigation, arbitration, Indian labor laws and contract law.

Ms. Sapre has spoken at the Confederation of Indian Industry and actively writes for publications such as the Indian Venture Capital Journal. Ms. Sapre is a member of the Bar Council of Maharashtra & Goa and has been practicing as a litigator at the Bombay High Court since 2000.

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