How to choose a stable working software product?

My Product Manager was recently here at our Chennai, India office, currently he stays in the U.S He actually suggested this to our customers or who ever he met at the trade shows, (when customer do enquire about stability) on how to get a stable working software.

Simple look at the build number for a released product, if the last two number was Zero after the last dot, it is not the right time to upgrade from the previous version, Which you currently have. The better one would be when product makes updates of the release and the build number reflects a decent version number. Well the “decent” depends

What makes the difference on the build number?
As soon as a software get released. Customers download a free version of the software or even buy them and install at their working environment. For some it works like a charm, for some the hell freezes over. This doesn’t mean that the software is not tested on different working environments, it is just that very few test bed opportunity happens or few environmental simulation happens, and adding fuel to the fire -  customer environment may have different hardware to software and some software may actually have conflict with the newly installed ones.

So the development team gets the feedback fixes the bugs and make a update of the release. So does the Build number change for any product.

one more other way to ascertain that the product is stable, is to look at the forums of the product or any other public forums if available. Look for number of recent issues, bugs being reported. If it is moderately low, It means you have “decent” version out there for you to install. Kindly note: I assume that the product is fairly known to the outside world.

What he said seems to be very true?
An year ago, I was an early adopter for the Mahindra Renault Logan in India, “Thee Car”, there has been a substantial improvement done on the new Mahindra Renault Logan and the price being much cheaper than when it was released.

The logic can be applied to various other fields, wait and watch.

I am sure most of you know this trick, I just made this post for the new bees. Hope this helps.

Honda hybrid now in India

Good news for people in India who care for the environment, but the cost of these cars will be dear to their pockets. With 104 percent duty levied by the Indian Government the ex showroom price would be 21.50 Lakh INR.

Here are the details about the new Honda Hybrid from the Honda Indian website

Wish there are more buyers, so that Honda thinks about having a plant in India, as we could see the prices of these cars coming down.

My best wishes for the Honda Team – Power of dreams
Technorati Tags: cars, foreign cars, safety, green, environmental, fuel, India, hybrid

Let the Game continue – NSFW

NSFW – Not safe for work.
The content isn’t that vulgar, depends on your boss “it could be your wife too . “
I would say the site should atleast score 5 stars for its execution. (hey sarathy uv are you listening, he is a budding director)  Good story boarding and ultimate use of technology (flash flv video).

Very less interactivity, all you need is little bit of extra time and you would enjoy the “AXE Product presentation” with lots of chases and wild sexy girls haunting this guy. Unilever parent company of HLL (Hindustan Lever Limited) has hosted this site.

Click Here for the site.

Technorati Tags: axe, product, presentation, video, story board, unilever, HLL, flash, flv, NSFW

Good bye mGinger, Welcome SMS2India

mGinger finds a new competitor – sms2India.co.in I am seriously excited about the way their business proposal runs.

1. Referral signup – if you need a referral Signup id: xtremevin@yahoo.com
2. More earnings, because of referral signup
3. More specific categories of advertisement to choose – helps the advertiser as the customer chooses specified advertisement. (targeted customers)
4. Better payout options (paypal also)

This is what the site says

You receive 10 SMS per day.

Your 10 Friends receive the same SMS.

Each of their 10 friends receive the same SMS.

You earn Rs. 6882 per month.

You get 20p for each SMS you receive.

You get again 20 p for each SMS your friend receive.

And you get again 20 p for each SMS your friend’s friend receive.

After signing up with SMS2India.co.in I really feel bad about the way signup happens with sms2India.co.in because you are about to expose your email id for your referrals. I guess they need to find a way to have some number or alpha numerical characters as referral id. I am sure they will change in due course of time.

Currently there is no way to keep track of your network or your earnings, I guess we just entered the Kitchen (should be developing the software).

Anyway I am excited about SMS2India.co.in because they could launch the new product in a months time just after mGinger.
Wishing you all the best for the SMS2India team.

So why wait signup for SMS2India.co.in and incase you need the referral id: xtremevin@yahoo.com
Start earning money today. Let us hope atleast SMS2India.co.in will send us mobile advertisement as SMS.

Technorati Tags: mginger, sms2india, sms2india.co.in, mobile, sms, advertisement, mobile advertisement, sms advertisement, competitor, India, chennai, referrals, signup, money, earn, paypal

What could be the Ideal Business for mGinger?

Dudes strike this deal, Here is my business proposal or call it a new marketing concept, on Digital Advertisements

Call up a meeting with all mobile service providers. You already have the user’s preference of likes and dislikes. Now you don’t have to SMS any one. Instead put up Plasma displays every where in the city (malls, cinema halls, public toilets, if possible trains, buses and think where ever is possible of any public places which could house for these digital plasma screens).

Here is the Math?
What you need to provide is plasma screens with digital Advertisements and the service provider will let you know where you registered users are?

Your math comes here, you know the preference of each user available at a location. Check the highest choice preferred and let the advertisement roll out.

You give the highest digital impression on the advertisement, and you could have more potential customers as they going to getter discounts on the purchase from the shop, your subscriber needs to flash your membership card.

Your subscribers could even sms you to find out the best deals at a local store.

This is my idea, so be sure to take care of me
SMS is annoying, apart from that. The email boxes are getting mGinger signup mails.

What say?

Technorati Tags: mginger, mginger.com, mobile, spam, privacy, mobile service provider, business, proposal, concept, digital, advertisement, public, membership, discount, store

mGinger – mobile SMS nuisance

Do you want to get paid for the SMS which you receive on your mobile?
Here are the ad providers, who would send SMS on your mobile and you could eventually earn money for viewing and deleting the SMS.
Currently the site says

How much money can I make?
Ads you receive per day X
Friends you refer X
Friends each of your friend refers X
there is a calculate button for you to check the revenue you earn per month.

I have been wondering how many of people have been shouting at their own Mobile service providers to stop sending SMS and a new product comes out of the shelf in offering money to receive SMS on your mobile. Well surely mGinger would be productivity killer.

I am sure it is gonna be hit, and I see the potential customers would be the students crowd and you can expect your friends and spam messages asking you to signup.

Thank you mGinger for filling up our mailbox. Wishing the mGinger team a best of luck.

People who wish to Signup can click on this  signup link.

Related topics:

1. Good bye mGinger, Welcome SMS2India
2. mGinger signup not a fair deal
3. What could be the Ideal Business for mGinger?

Technorati Tags: mobile, mobile phone, privacy, SMS, earn, money, nuisance,mginger,mginger.com

Apple iPhone is more on Usability, for the Class and not Mass

Long time ago I said in one of my post
“Why in the first place do we need keys for our gadgets why not just touch screens, view a large video, type things like you find one on the tablet PC or handheld devices (PDAs).” read here –>

Apple is the only company who seemed to understand the needs of customer or can I say the comfortable use of the instrument. The transition from iPod to iPhone is great with out loosing for the usability. From the wheel to the current touch screen which is available on the iPhone.

There are lots of users who are worried about how to depart from word processors which they have been using on black berry or other devices, if you understand that it is only the software which they need to update. Remember the iTunes had couple of updates for your iPod, now mostly looks rock solid. The worst case is that you have sites like writely  or Zoho Writer who could ease processor power of the instrument as well as storage.

Well Indian users want to have a hang of the iPhone, where there is battle for Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and the black berry, in terms of the high end Phones. Wish iPhone could join the battle. They could tie up the biggest network the Airtel in India.

My Bet is iPhone could win in India,Singapore than the U.S market.

P.S Note: Zoho writer is a product of Adventnet, and I work for the product OpManager in Adventnet.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, U.S, India, Usability, Airtel, software, opmanager, adventnet, zoho writer, writely

Proactive Castrol BikeZone MSF Manager

Mr. Baskaran
MSF Manager Castrol BikeZone

First Things First: I would like to appreciate the proactiveness of Castrol BikeZone MSF Manager, actually I was quiet surprised, I didn’t expect it to be so soon, He came down to my office at velachery on rainy afternoon, just to address the procedures what they follow at Castrol BikeZone and what actually went wrong in my case, This just reminded me  of SouthWest Airline, where the CEO or chairman would actually travel in the flight just to get the feel of the customers,  Mr. Baskaran, just did the same thing, I could feel the passion for his brain Child (Castrol BikeZone)
here is where I had blogged before BikeZone – Not your usual Service Center
I made my point very straight, just by penalizing the members of the AnnaNagar BikeZone team is not going to help him out and nor the customers. By the way if you had any complaints, when you receive your invoice you could check for an email id to report your queries.

Mr. Baskaran
Castrol BikeZone MSF Manager
Mobile: 9884400621, email: p_baskaran@castrol.co.in

BikeZone seems to be equipped, not sure whether the assurance/promise will be kept. Will try one more time to service my bike.
Will even blog how was the service.

Castrol BikeZone seems to enjoy the publicity thru my blog (you guys woe me), one thing which I would like to highlight, If people are responding even for the bad service remember that you are actually cared and not ignored.

The above graph is ideal where you can actually talk to your customers, take feedback and fix the same.

Technorati Tags: customer service, customer, service, customer relationship, bad customer service, Bike Zone, Castrol, Castrol Bike Zone, Bikers, Bike, quality of service, bikezone, chennai, india

End to Anonymous Phone Calls & Privacy

I guess Citibank  is the first to be proactive to put an end to anonymous Phone calls, promotional mailers (spam mails). Yesterday I received a Mail from Citibank asking me for the preference of me receiving the mails.

I remember the same when I worked in Clasticon Solutions a year ago, My friend Navin told me that Citibank is planning on sending mails to all its customers, about the choice of mails which the customers would like to receive.

Well it took one year, but good they are likely to be the trend setters as the same may be expected from other banks and mobile operators like Airtel,aircel Hutch.

Here is the mailer which I received from Citibank

But one more thing is that Who ever designed this form is mean
Why don’t they like a customer?
Imagine, I would like to receive email’s but not phone calls- there is no option for me to list in the above form.
The brilliant IIM guys @ citibank suck

Technorati: anonymous, phone, privacy, clasticon, citibank, customer, relationship

Have you heard the about the Word EE?

EE

1. Emulate ( Simulate the application from scratch or with the know source code )
2. Enhance ( Add new Features, Enhance the existing one, tweak the code to work faster )

This holds good for products or service which are available in the market and most of them follow it.

Why?
Users love the existing product, That means they expect most of the features already available in the existing software or service.
Let us say we build a new product like word processing software, you expect the least to have the cut, copy and paste. To my knowledge any new product will incorporate these with out even thinking that they are competing with the giants. what about spell check, WordPress didn’t have them initially, after users have asked this feature they implemented it. You know about any word processing software would expect a spellcheck, then don’t wait, provide them.

Innovation is the key, what if the competitor thinks and implements it faster than you, You provide it before your users ask about it in support or feature request or forums
A small example would be to export the text to different format or exporting them to blogs

I agree with Kathy sierra that running behind all the features of the competitors and implementing them is waste of time and would require a seperate team to enable them to the existing software because the core team will continue to innovate, but atleast trying to provide the best of features available from the competitor list should give you a better edge.

Technorati Tags: competition, feature list, market, management, manager, innovation, emulate, enhance