Rajan's Blog

NoSQL vs RDMS

rajanpatel — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:49:48 +0000

When would you go with NoSQL, and when would you go with RDMS – this might help

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/madgreek/nosql-vs-rdbms-apples-and-oranges-37713

Elevator Pitch

rajanpatel — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:14:16 +0000

Get your point across in 30-120secs .

I had to do this the other day and it could have worked!!!

Better still Harvard as the tools to help you do this.

Sage of Omaha Annual Letter 2010

rajanpatel — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:29:00 +0000

Warren Buffett’s Shareholder letter for 2010

A history of finance since the 1970s is best summed up by his insightful letters.

Apple – Innovators or Extrapolators of Design

rajanpatel — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:35:42 +0000

So Apple are in a quandary – the designer, Jonathan Ive, of most of the products which has redefined the gadget landscape for the last 10 years wants to perhaps to call time.

Apple have no doubt redefined the look and feel of technology but dig deeper and I discover that they have INMHO just hashed the innovations of a one Dieter Rams and modernised it for todays market. Perhaps that is what design is all about – take something add to it and rebrand it. What do you think?

I do think though that these principles of design are true in any medium:

This passion for “simplicity” and “honest design” that is always declared by Ive whenever he’s interviewed or appears in a promo video, is at the core of Dieter Rams’ 10 principles for good design:

Good design is innovative.

Good design makes a product useful.

Good design is aesthetic.

Good design helps us to understand a product.

Good design is unobtrusive.

Good design is honest.

Good design is durable.

Good design is consequent to the last detail.

Good design is concerned with the environment.

Good design is as little design as possible.

However, design aside lets talk about what Apple are good at, marketing. Here is the IPAD broken down and why it will beat the competition.

The three areas in which Sacconaghi believes Apple builds its price advantage, he said, are component sourcing; its own base of retail stores, through which Sacconaghi believes about one-third of all iPads are sold without other retail partners taking their cut; and the fact that Apple designs its own chips for the iPad, while rivals must buy their chips from designers such as Nvidia (NVDA) and Qualcomm (QCOM).

Comparing the iPad to the iPhone, Sacconaghi argued that Apple has effectively created a “pricing umbrella” on the popular smartphone, with margins estimated to be in the 50%-to-60% range.

This allowed competing devices running on Google’s (GOOG) Android platform to undercut the iPhone on price and build market share quickly. Some third-party reports estimate that Android as a platform now has a greater share of the smartphone market than Apple.

“It is unclear if Apple’s ostensible change in pricing policy on the iPad vs. iPhone was shaped by Android’s success in the smartphone market, but we do believe that aggressive penetration pricing makes sense in an increasing returns/platform-based market such as tablets,” Sacconaghi wrote.

Don’t buy until you see the whites of their eyes

rajanpatel — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:25:14 +0000

Same useful articles on PEG evaluation and picking winners for the future

3 High tech companies

The Zulu Principle

PEG Calculations

Building reliable always on systems

rajanpatel — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:28:34 +0000

I never knew there was a concept for building systems that were up 99% of the time (even that is not good enough).

So here is Nine-9s

And a practical example of it is the Amazon Dynamo Storage Mechanism

FB+GS=OS – Internet Bubble (part deux)?

rajanpatel — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 13:34:45 +0000

Here we go again, remember the internet bubble of the 1990s and its spectacular pop…. well it looks like a few are taking the first blow of the next one – we had the credit housing bubble of 2000-2010 – so is 2010-2020 going to be the internet bubble part deux?

Goldman and Facebook
Goldman Pitch
Goldman get out clause
LinkedIn and the rest..
What Facebook can learn from Google IPO

So whose next, twitter?

BTW for the record I am not the only one who thinks this.

Update: 10Jan2011

This is how it all began TheFacebook.com T+5days, an interesting quote from Mr.Z:

“I’m not going to sell anybody’s e-mail address,” he said. “At one point I thought about making the website so that you could upload a resume too, and for a fee companies could search for Harvard job applicants. But I don’t want to touch that. It would make everything more serious and less fun.”

Well it surely is still fun, lets see how long that lasts once it is out in the public landscape.

And here is a useful graphic – something for all those herds on the street.

Update: 12Jan2011
Coming soon to an inbox near you – me@fb.com

“At their annual meeting in Atlanta, Farm Bureau officials on Tuesday said the organization earned $8.5 million by selling a couple of domain names but is barred from identifying the buyer.”