Being a photographer I feel like a sucker at most times, when my friends to friend of friends download my photo and upload to their profile on Facebook and don’t pass on the due credits.
It just happens all the time for a photographer alone. I have fought with a close friend right on Facebook and indeed lost the entire confidence of his family. I lost him.
But the worst thing is that other professionals are not vulnerable to this kind of attack.
Why me?
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.
These days I have been traveling by local train, the MRTS in chennai, While I was returning home the other day, it was 7:30 PM. I saw a juvenile girl singing some weird language song, While her younger brother been collecting money in the compartment where my friend and myself being present. I was so pissed of with this activity of sending this girl to do the beggar job. I started scolding their parents and was telling my friend. So my friend asked me on an average day how much money will they be making. My friend has been traveling for years, I just started accompanying him for the last few months.
Can any one guess? The train had 9 compartments running time 45 Minutes. And frequency of this train on an average would be 10-15 Minutes during peak hours.
So I replied my friend saying a 100 Rupees a day. He just laughed at me and explained that they would have already obtained 100 or more Rupees on this trip alone. He went on explaining that an average Indian would give a 1 Rupee to these beggars. The regular travelers know these beggars. So they don’t give them money. It is floating population which falls for these people. Take a single compartment at least 10 to 15 people flick a one Rupee coin and by that 9 compartment of this train they make an average of over 100 Rupees. Imagine if they make around 8 or more trips a day.
I said to my friend, that I was not making that much money being a software professional after all the bloody useless taxes which I have been paying for the Indian Government.
He went on and said, that he had no clues on what happens to that money. But he said, that is one reason we see the parents encouraging their children to beg for money. So for generation they are in the Beggar Business. So now you known why Indians are being considered as Beggars by foreign nationals.
So what is the solution for an unproductive Indian?
While the middle class has been loaded with more and more taxes and the top class has been evading from tax and while the poor has no idea about What taxes were meant to be.
One possible thing which stuck my mind was that these beggars have to be in prison and asked to work on different trades, some thing like the co-operative societies do and be paid really less. It is some thing like saying if you beg you will make 10 Rupees a day. While you work outside you could earn more, So the choice is theirs. Well some one could make Indian roads to every place clean.
Next time you see any one begging on public places please don’t serve that Rupee you are in the process of making an unproductive Indian. Think twice please.
If you have any more ways to make them work do comment.
Technorati Tags: productive, Indian, Chennai, train, MRTS, Child labour, juvenile, taxes, India, Rupee
Before you jumping in to making of a software you looked in to the market and realized there is enough market share. Now you made it, wanted to test them. You made it free as a beta Phase, you now started making commercial version of the same and by retaining the free version with limited features for people to try.
Guess what? A new player comes and provides a me too version of the software for free, only revenue channel being advertisement inside the product.
How do you fight the free version?
Now let us look at same problem solved by the big software companies, I am just taking 2 examples.
Microsoft Windows – People continue to make fun of the “Blue screen of Death” in Windows, but funny bone people continue to run their machines with the same Microsoft Windows OS at least the majority of them.
When the threat came from Linux for Windows, I remember every media said that it was death of Windows and even now people say that web will be the new OS, that is still speculative.
What did Microsoft Windows do?
If I am not wrong, they came with lot of advertisements to educate users about the benefits of using Windows. They came with Windows XP SP1, SP2 & SP3 and fixed as much as they could. They executed it well.
I believe the marketing spend on Microsoft XP could have been almost or significantly nil when XP sales was at its peak. Word of mouth still holds good in business. Techies still continue to say XP is stable compared to Vista and there is no major innovation in Vista, that people have upgrade to Vista.
To say, we are still dependent on Microsoft for most of our office productivity. Aren’t we?
The second story is the most significant one. Their product is easy to create and it requires less effort and they still continue to be leaders in their USP. I am taking about TechSmith the makers of Camtasia Snagit.
They did face the similar issue of free software from the open source community.
The popularity of Firefox add ons created a market slow down for Camtasia Snagit and on top of that was the Freeware software called WINK, it did almost the same functionality of Snagit and it was free and forums was available for support.
How did TechSmith Camtasia Snagit fight?
Camtasia Snagit 7.2.5 the earlier commercial version of the software was given free.
Do you want to know why they made it free?
The story goes like this in the Indian shop vendors or Medical Shops, If you ask for a medicine and if it is currently out of stock, they will send one of their members to collect the same medicine from the medical store just opposite their store or even few streets away to procure the same and give it to their customers. It is that the customer gets a feeling that any medicine he needs can be obtained. And that he will come back to the same medical store if he needed one.
TechSmith didn’t want end users to try free software instead allowed users to try the previous commercial version for free.
I use Camtasia Snagit free edition as I experience the reliable, proven and easy to use screen capturing/recording software. BTW, I have already tried the software and its features, and even know each and every interface. It is just that it is easy to use, Comfortable. The only feeling being left out, that I am unable to use the advanced features, which are available in the current commercial version.
For the extra mileage they have contributed few projects called Jing Project and ScreenCast
That takes care of community etc etc
Final Notes: Winning over Free is difficult, but not impossible. If you believe in Free, you can’t win over Free. Undo the learning and fight against Free. If you wish to.
Technorati Tags: software, free, commercial, fight, microsoft, Linux, techsmith, camtasia, Snagit, Jing, Screencast, story, advertisement, revenue, marketshare
What is Cuil?
It is the new search Engine for the web.
Cuil to be sounded as cool.
Who is bringing us the new Search Engine. guess who?
Check the management page and that should lead you to old pals from Google top minds.
My only thought is that, How could people at google search engine team leave and start a new one as competition. I should say people at google are either kind enough or being really stupid.
Cuil – All the best guys. Don’t be a disappointment for Google.
Terms of use:
InfoSoft Global grants you a nonexclusive right to use FusionCharts Free subject to the following terms and conditions:
That’s right it is free and the best part is the license, check the full terms of use right here.
Now your websites and products could offer RIA experience with interactive & meaningful flash charts.
You may want to know why the software is free and the comparison between the new Fusion Charts V3 and V2, find the info right here
Start downloading the Free Fusion charts V2 software right here
When was the last time you used internet search to buy new or old homes, or when was the last time you made a search to find used cars.
Try searching this site like magicbricks.com to find new homes at low prices. Well the answer you are sure to hear is “Boss it is sold out, there are some more homes in that range, do you want to try?”
You take the lead, they will show you homes at the sky rocketing market prices. The real market.
Well internet has become their local leads than usual petty shop leads.
