Indians are Cowards.

A few years ago, I read an article by Francois Gautier (sorry for not using the cedille) that was titled 'Are Hindus cowards?'. I didn't give much thought to the article at that time but every time a bomb blows up killing hundreds of Indians, the article comes straight back to my mind. Of late, there had been so many blasts that I kinda believe in it now. Yes, we are cowards and have been for many centuries now. We've let almost every other race on this planet invade us. Yesterday's bombings have changed me for ever. I do not want to mention what I believe in at this moment as it is controversial but as I end this post I feel that ' We will patiently for another bombing in future, after all we are more than a billion ....life is cheap'.

Music can heal.

This sort of phrase would have drawn a funny response ('Chandler'esque if I may put it) from me a couple of years ago. But no more. I am a firm believer in this phrase at this point in my life. I agree with most of my friends and colleagues when they tell me that I am running 5 years late in my life. I tend to go through stuff that a normal person of my age would have gone through 5 years ago. When I was in college, all I was interested in were Cartoons, F1, Cricket and any damn series on Star World or Zee English as opposed to my friends who had real problems I guess. Looking back, I think I did a damn good job in keeping my mind pre-occupied. Now that I am no longer interested in these and faced with reality, I find myself down a lot these days. Given a choice I would love to go back in time and erase certain things that happenned in my life but that would need divine intervention. The only thing that keeps me lively these days is Music(I hope my boss doesn't read this). If it was Taylor Hicks last year, it is Keith Urban these days. Donno why but I take a huge liking to their songs. Their lyrics touch me like no other. I want to be like how I was a couple of years ago. No worries, all fun and having a point of view on everything damn thing on this planet. It will take time but I will be back.

11g has left the labs

Couldn't resist posting it.

Check out John Wookey hinting at one of the key capabilities of Fusion apps. Zero downtime patching. Beat that SAP!

Disclaimer: All the opinions expreseed here are solely mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Oracle Corporation.

Putting my Apple Inc hat on.

I recently read a post on the fake steve blog that caught my imagination. It explains how things work at Apple. The engineering is in the reverse direction. First the product looks are conceived and then technology is driven to achieve that. I think it is a lot different from how other companies work. Yes, the product to be created is decided at first but along the way, it undergoes changes say because there is no easier way to do it. Eventually the product is compromised and what you get is not what you wanted at the first place. Most people seem to happy at the end that at least they are able to turn around the product.

I have seen this myself in my day to day work. Technology tends to drive my decisions rather than the other way around. For once, I decided to change it, be it for a small application. My first challenge was to come up with an interface that was very intuitive. Once I came up with it, I put that on a piece of paper and would look at it each time I faced a road block in implementing it. It wasn't easy. My mind was ready for a compromise every other day but I just stuck with it. Eventually, I was able to implement it without any compromise whatsoever and I am very proud of it. Not sure if this would still get an approval from my product team but hey I have learnt a very valuable lesson.

Pratibha who?

Come 19 July and Pratibha Patil will most probably be the next president of India. Last week, when her name was pushed into the fray, I had no clue who she was. I thought that she was the wife of Congress' initial nominee Shivraj Patil. I am confident that it is the same with most of the young Indians. I had to actually google to find out who she was and wikipedia presents her as a 'Post-Emergency Indira loyalist'. Well, that should explain it, typical Congress politics. Drill down further and you can find a list of her credentials, credentials that would hardly make my hair on the back stand up. Given that she will be the successor to one of the most famous presidents that India ever had, I am ashamed that the UPA would stoop to such low levels in nominating a President that could best be described as a rubber stamp President.



I am not saying this because she doesn't look glamorous or westernised. It's just that there is nothing special about her. One can find 100's of women like her. If loyalty to the Gandhi family is the criteria for every major post in this country then it is time we kicked the Congress party out of power.

'Makes me wonder' why I love this song?

It's been three days and I must have heard this song at least 200 times, now that is 700 mins or 12hrs we are talking about. Really makes me wonder why the fuck I love this song? I wonder why?

Maroon 5 - Makes me wonder

Jordin...U deserve it...

The Moment


This is my now - Jordin Sparks' last performance



The new american idol has been crowned today. To be frank, everyone knew who was going to win this time right from the start. It had to be either Jordin or Blake. The rest were just crap except Melinda. Once again Simon is proved wrong. His views on Seattle being the worst destination for talent search is proven wrong by the finalists. His blunders in judgement isn't something new. If we recall, he was against Taylor Hicks making the trip to Hollywood last year. Coming to finale, I thought Jordin just swept away Blake with her amazing voice. To me, she was the best in all the three songs. Go Jordin Go...To think that shez just 17, wow! She will be a superstar.

What the ????

I encountered the following advertisement on the streets of Hyderabad. Can't believe the way people are being taken for a ride.

Don't squeeze my hands..Oops!!!

Of late I am learning Salsa and an embarassing thing happenned to me during one of the sessions. I was dancing with this girl and all of a sudden she looked at me with anger and asked me not to squeeze her hands. My first thought was, Oops...had I been doing that out of nervousness. You know the pressure to get the steps right in the first instance is huge. Anyway I apologized, and after the break, I chose another girl to dance with. Whenever I get to dance I make sure to tell myself...don't squeeze the hands...no matter what you do..don't squeeze the hands you stupid!!!

What is a Fusion Application?

For most of you watching the Oracle beast snapping up companies, the word Fusion should sound very familiar. Each of you might be having a fair idea by now as to what it means. For some of you it could just mean merging together all the best features of Oracle eBusiness Suite, PeopleSoft Enterprise, Siebel CRM, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World and Hyperion. Guess what, you are not wrong but there is much more to it. This is how John wookey defines the vision of Fusion applications in most of his famous all-hands meetings.

"In addition to merging many of the best features, functionality and architectures from our various application product lines and using the latest Oracle technologies, our goal for Fusion is to incorporate three strategic drivers into the applications we build and deliver. These strategic drivers will help differentiate us against SAP and bring new value to our existing customers. The three strategic drivers are 1) Adaptive Business Processes 2) Business Intelligence and 3) Superior Ownership Experience."

I am going to delve deeper into each of these aspects.

1 Adaptive business processes:

Let me put your brain to test before I explain what this aspect actually means? What is the only thing that is constant in this world? Bingo! you guessed it right. It is CHANGE. It is very important for today's customer to tackle change in her business by being able to proactively change the business processes in her software. Fusion applications deliver on this front like no other. Technologies like BPEL, SOA let a customer adapt to change ever so easily.

i)BPEL

It stands for Business Process Execution Language and is an emerging XML based standard that uses webservices to orchestrate business processes. Because it uses Webservices, processes that span over multiple platforms/systems can be easily implemented. Customers will be able to easily incorporate Oracle delivered tasks and external non-Oracle tasks into their business process flows. Business Activity Monitoring or BAM sensors are added to these BPEL processes that enable customers measure their service levels. For eg., a customer can easily figure out the time taken to fulfill an order thus enabling easy identification of bottle necks, if any, in her system. She can then immediately act and declaratively change the process to remove the bottle necks.

ii)SOA

Well, this seems to be the buzz world in the IT world these days. SOA stands for Service Oriented Architecture and it enables loosely coupled, coarse-grained systems interact in a seamless manner. In simple terms, it lets a C++ application running on a windows platform interact with a Java application running on a Linux platform in a standard manner. The real power lies in the ability to discover a remote system at runtime and invoke it dynamically. If you take a look at today's Customer portfolio, she has software systems from multiple vendors. For eg., a customer could be running Oracle fininacials, Peoplesoft HR, Hyperion analytics and SAP PLM all within the same org. It is very important for her to make these systems
talk in a seamless manner. This is where SOA fits in. SOA helps businesses respond more quickly and cost-effectively to changing market conditions they may face by promoting reuse and interconnection of existing business logic.

2 Business Intelligence:

Business Intelligence is all about providing users the information they need. They can then act upon this data to do a better job for their customers. Given that Oracle 'OWNS' the data by virtue of its database share, its only logical that it built business intelligence right into the core of the Fusion application architecture. The Fusion business intelligence encompasses four key areas

i) Role based dashboards:

In Fusion, dashboards will provide information and navigation at a glance and will be designed to be role specific. For example a dashboard for a purchasing agent would contain key purchasing metrics and information a purchasing agent typically needs daily to do his/her job. Depending on functional requirements, dashboards may leverage Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) technologies to display information real-time.

ii) Embedded Analytics:

These are implemented as portlets that appear on the right hand side of a web page and are linked to the main page via what we at Oracle call 'Context-Wiring'.Embedded analytics provide key supplemental information/analytics to help a user perform tasks more effectively. Embedded analytics provide the highest value when the task involves the user having to make a decision—like Should I book my flight on Jet airways or Indian airlines? In this example, understanding the historical on-time arrival rates is an example of a key analytic that can help the user make a decision about which flight to choose.

iii) Ad-hoc analysis:

Tools like OBIEE (Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition) formerly known as Siebel Business Analytics can be used to perfom ad-hoc analysis.

iv) Analytical applications:

These are a seperate suite of applications that provide analytic type of information to a select group of people within an organization. Examples include Profitability Manager (my product!!!!), Enterprise planning and budgeting etc.

3 Superior Ownership Experience:
This initiative is all about reducing cost, risk and improving overall customer experience. The main goal is to make Fusion applications the least expensive to own and operate. Some of the key initiatives that fall under this umbrella are

i) Application Lifecycle Management:

It encompasses areas such as reducing the downtime required during patching('0' downtime could be a reality. Just watch out), providing change management for updates and customizations.

ii) Supportability:
Main goals here are:

. Help customers proactively identify issues and resolve them before they become problems.
· Make it easier and faster for customers to solve their own issues.
· Reduce the time it takes Oracle Support to resolve issues that customers report.

iii)Usability:

Here's my favorite part. In Fusion, Oracle is planning to provide an UI second to none. Au revoir to those dull looking green webpages. All forms, JTT pages, OAF pages will be coverted to ADF pages. ADF faces based on Java Server Faces will provide a very compelling UI to the users.

There are a host of other initiatives under this section like better security, easier implementations, better quality and high performace and scalability. New tools and initiatives are being developed that will arm Oracle developers to achieve these.

Thus project Fusion is much more than merging various product lines. It will bring innovation to customers and help Oracle differentiate its offerings in the market place.

Note: All the views expressed here are solely mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Oracle Corporation.

Oracle Headquarters

This week I am at the head quarters to attend Fusion Subject Matter Experts training. I managed to capture a few pics of 'Royaume de Larry'.

Feeling down.

Its 2:43 PM and I am idling away at the office. Don't why but I feel a lot down at this moment. This is the first time in my life that I am feeling this way. Is such a feeling routine amongst adults? Does this signify anything related to my state of mind? Do I need something that I am being wrongfully denied? Too many questions... I feel like listening to something thats close to my heart. Which one? Searching my mind.....searching...still searching....okay, got it! This song is titled 'i will always be right there' and is one of my favs.

And the lyrics....awesome....I still remember them by heart. Here they go....

I swear to you - I will always be there for you -
Theres nothin I wont do
I promise you - all my life I will live for you - we
Will make it through
Forever - we will be
Together - you and me
Oh n when I hold ya - nothin can compare
With all of my heart - ya know Ill always be - right
There
I believe in us - nothin else could ever mean so much
Youre the one I trust our time has come - were not two
People
Now - we are one - ya youre second to none
Forever - we will be
Together - a family
The more I get to know ya - nothin can compare
With all of my heart - ya know Ill always be - right
There

Forever - we will be
Together - just you and me
The more I get to know ya - the more I really care
With all of my heart - ya know Ill always be...
Ya know I really love ya - ya nothin can compare
For all of my life - ya know Ill always be - right
There

I hear my phone ring ..someonez calling...may be the credit card ladies. My mind is programmed with the standard reply.

CC lady: Sir I am calling from XXX bank. Do u want a credit card sir?
Me: Thanks but I already have it.
CC lady: Do u need a personal loan sir?
Me: Thanks again but I do not need any.
CC lady: Sir, My name is YYY and pls take my number &*^%$#@,. Call me if you need it.
Me: Sure.

And I end the call.I do jot down the number though..just in case you know.
Hear the ring at Anupam's or Puneet's desk. Must be the the same lady.

I feel a bit better know after blogging. Blogging does help lighten your heart.

Good bye Kjetil.

I am sad at this moment to learn that Kjetil Kolin passed away last night. My heart goes out for his entire family. It was only 5 days ago that I last spoke to him. He asked me if I had a problem with his baby on the side while on the phone. I jokingly said that his baby was most welcome to give its inputs. We then went on for an hour discussing about XML Publisher. Little did I know about his cancer then. It was only after a day that one of my colleagues informed me about his serious case of liver cancer. My initial thoughts were of guilt for having disturbed him late in the night. Kjetil, forgive me for that.

May God be with your entire family in this moment of immense grief.

Don.

2007, the birth of Fusion applications.

We are only a few months away from building the next generation applications. Ones that could very well rewrite Oracle's fortunes. Ones that could potentially bring the application industry behemoth SAP to its knees and ones that could make Larry Ellison's dream real...beat Microsoft. Given that the stakes are too high, Oracle needed a remarkable person to lead this change. Who better than John Wookey known for his prowess in this field, can realise this dream project? He is been attributed to having the toughest job in the Silicon Valley by the Business Week. Read this: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_04/b3968086.htm

Two years ago when Oracle announced this, I was skeptical. I couldn't believe that it is possible to bring out an application suite that has the best features of Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, Oracle and of course Siebel which came in later, by 2008. I never doubted the technical expertise that Oracle has but it has always been the schedule that baffled me. I put this very question to John himself when he was here in Hyderabad a few months ago. He did not give me any plan or statistic but he just told me ' Heck, I do not care if you or Larry believe that the schedule is unrealistic. I believe that it can be done.' Talk about confidence huh!

Given that the fusion suite is going to include the best features of all the product lines and that it is going to be built on the next generation technology stack, I think its time I start blogging on the very definition of 'Fusion application'. I mean basic things like what does it look like, what will it be built on and how the offering is going to differentiate itself from SAP's products in the market.

I am going to dedicate my next few blogs discussing these things. Look out for them.

Wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2007.

Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed here are solely mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Oracle Corporation.

New album from Taylor

American Idol 2006 winner and one of my favorite entertainers is releasing his first big album. It is due in December and is titled 'Taylor Hicks'. Can't wait to grab one of the shelves but I guess I have to wait as I am in India. He was on 'The tonight show' recently and performed one of his singles from that album. It was amazing and he has packed it with everything that the 'Soul Patrol' expects. You can catch it on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggt2ns8EQrc

This is why I call him an entertainer and not just a singer or a rocker. Go Taylor Go!!!

Me at Hyderabad 10k

Woohoooo! I did it! Never thought I could run 10k non stop in 52 mins. Yes 52 mins! I finished 10th overall amongst Oraclites. Not bad huh! Feeling very good abt it at this moment. Gonna go and have a nice sleep.

Nivea ad song.

I had recently seen the ad of Nivea lotion and taken a liking to the song. Never thought it was from an album until now. It is sung by Asher Lane and the title is 'New Days'. The song is really good. You can catch it on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQSK7yzTH-4
Enjoy!

The Shraddha Project

There are days when I sit back and reflect on the opportunities that I have blown or the mistakes that I made when I was very young. It is very easy for one to get into some sort of depression at that moment. Luckily, I have been able to stay afloat by thinking about those sections of the society that haven't got what I have. I have a happy family, shelter, good health and a cool job to round it off. Such thoughts also urge me to do something for such people apart from donating some money for charity.

The Oracle Global Volunteer Days 2006 program helped me realize a small part of my urge. I had an opportunity to co lead a group of twenty colleagues in spending a day with kids who are basically termed slow learners.
These kids are either mentally or physically challenged and are very different from the main stream.

The event was planned by my team well in advance. We broke into teams and planned out all the activities. All the required items were procured one week in advance. Finally, the big day arrived and we reached the school by 8:30 AM. All the classrooms were decorated before the kids arrived at 9:45AM. The kids assembled enthusiastically and I apprised them of what they can expect during the day. They seemed very excited and the show kicked off.

First there was a painting competition where the kids show cased their talents. We were surprised by the range of their ideas. God isn't bad after all. He did endow them with special talents. Then there was a quiz competition between the Shraddha and Oracle teams which we lost badly. Let me admit that we really lost it. The kids were damn good. They certainly knew their history and current affairs.

We were all hungry by then and had a great lunch. The volunteers took care of serving the kids. The afternoon was left for music and dance competitions where we were enthralled again.

We signed off the day by giving away prizes for the winners. Not to disappoint others,
we distributed gifts to all of the kids. It was an eventful day and we returned to our homes with a deep sense of satisfaction. It was worth more than a 1000$ bonus!

What's wrong in calling a spade a spade!!!

The past week had seen a major crisis in the world of cricket. It all started when a certain Australian umpire called Hair had the guts to judge the entire Pakistani cricket team as cheats in front of millions of viewers. The repercussions have been huge ever since, ones that could destroy the very spirit of the game. Ones that could draw a racial divide. Was he right in doing like that so publicly or should he have waited till the end of the day and taken the matter to the match referee? I personally believe that Hair was spot on here. He did what he had to do. If he felt that the ball was being tampered and believe me I am not surprised at all as the Pakis are well known in the cricketing circles for this, there was no point in waiting for the day to get over. The game could have been well over by then with England crushing to a defeat that they can ill afford just before the ashes. If Hair is indeed a biased person, he would have let the game go on as it would only benefit his Aussie team to face a defeated England side.

The ICC was right in pulling up Inzy for all the fuss created by his team. For God sake there were thousands of viewers at the ground who had spent their hard earned money on the game and Inzy just disregards them?? This is unacceptable and Inzy should be severely punished for this. As far as the media is concerned , I think it went over board in supporting Pakis. This shouldn't surprise anyone as such a stance only dramatises the situation which would mean higher viewership/readership. Parallels were drawn with the Murali's incident which I thought was a cheap shot. The issue was buried years ago and a lot has changed after that. Personally though, I still believe Murali is chucker though not 'technically' as ICC would put it.

Things should be clearer once ICC reveals Hair's side. I see an embarassed Paki side after that. Come on, reverse swing on a pitch that had grass on it and that too in the cloudiest of the climates? Gimme a break Inzy. You guys cheated and you should pay for it.

The beginning of the end for SAP

As someone associated with Oracle, I couldn't help but poke fun at the recent SAP results. SAP's application business grew at a meagre 8% whilst Oracle grew at 83% during the same period. I know some of you would argue that most of Oracle's growth is inorganic but if you compare the growth by the individual constituents, it is still higher than what SAP managed to achieve. So what do you make out of this. Did SAP lose business to Oracle? Did some of the big deals slip into the next quarter as their CEO pointed out or is it that Companies have realised that Oracle just makes better applications?

I for one think that people around the world are realising that SAP's apps are too difficult to implement and upgrade. The worst part is that, during upgrades, customers have to buy the same features that they already have. (I mean upgrades to mySAP ERP etc). As a testament to this, only a few percentage of their install base are on their latest versions which is a shame. The world has also started believing in open standards and the value that brings to them. SAP's apps are these huge monolithic, fragmented ones built on propreitary technologies like ABAP. It costs a lot to hire such skilled professionals from the market. At the same time, Oracle's apps are standards based and even a kid out of college can code in Java.

Where do we go from here? I think if Oracle could manage to string one more strong quarter, it will set a trend and momentum for them. It will be a huge psychological advantage and we can see Oracle stealing more deals from SAP. As one of Oracle's top executives pointed out, 'if Oracle Fusion works in it's very first version, we will be the numero uno in this industry..period..'.