Today in Tech: Mary Meeker on spotting talent; Maps; Onsite utilisation; Cloud factories & Info edge
Here’s one of my favourite parts from a recent Wired interview with Mary Meeker, an analyst who saw the potential of internet long before many saw, retained faith in it even after the bubble burst, and is now a venture capitalist.
If you haven’t had a chance to look at Meeker’s presentation on internet trends, you must. Recently, reading about Apple’s ongoing battle with Samsung and Google, I remembered a slide from that presentation which helped me see things in perspective.
Apple has said its maps will get better. “We launched this new map service knowing it is a major initiative and that we are just getting started with it,” it said. However, the disappointing maps that replaced Google’s in iOS6 have triggered a lot of discussion. (There’s a Hitler video already). Now, would Steve Jobs have released a product that’s not complete? A Forbes piece says yes, citing MobileMe (which we discussed last week) and the iPhone 4S antena problem. A Guardian piece has a longer list of Apple mistakes – that happened when Jobs was still around. Was Apple right in discarding Google Maps? Some have argued it had no choice.
Meanwhile Google, which has over 7000 people working on its maps, is making it better for a bigger set of people. Today’s Financial Express has a report on how Google Map Maker is reaching deeper rural India. A few weeks back, it added the traffic information for a few cities in India. (Here’e a Quora thread on how it estimates traffic). Business Line today writes about Bird Eye Systems‘ Traffline, which provides traffic information in its website and also as an sms service for a couple of networks.
Low onsite utilisation rates for IT services companies could drag the margins down by 150 basis points, according to a report in Economic Times. Software companies tend to use almost all its employees (95 in a hundred), because of higher costs. Low utilisation suggests low demand. Things are actually a little more interesting than that. Sub contracting, which also comes down with lower demand, has actually gone up .
A contentious New York Times piece talks about a different kind of utilization rate – that of data centres.
Some of the numbers are scary, and makes us wonder if the new companies are as green as they are projected to be. The cost seems to be huge. But, remember, it’s good to think in terms of opportunity cost. What will be the energy cost if we do things offline. It says companies account for 2% of total energy. What will that be if we do the stuff offline?
Mint reports that Info edge, best known for Naukri.com (and Hari Sadu ads) has invested at least Rs 200 crore in unrelated businesses in the last three years.
That’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani’s strategy. And, here’s how my colleague Prince Thomas captured the reasons behind his gameplan just as Sanjeev started stepping on the gas.
May be it’s not entirely unrelated. Some disgruntled employees running away from Hari Sadus might embrace entrepreneurship after all.