Outsourced: Movie Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LImhTTFu4b8

Janani and I watched this movie yesterday with my friend and his wife. I should say it is one of the best indo-american movies I have ever watched. It is very relevant to the outsourcing industry. Although some moments are exaggerated, there were certainly some aspects that bring out the beauty of India as well eccentricity of running call centers for American companies in India. I had a great time since I have seen all three sides of the subject myself: India, US and call center training (Yes, I have been to a call center to train some of their staff on our products).

It is an independent movie, so it is released in very few theatres. Catch it if you can.

New Role: Back to C

I have moved from the High Speed Serial Interconnect group to the embedded systems group in my company. This change has been pretty exciting and I am learning a lot. For those who just know me as a semiconductor professional, my job is still the same. I am just working on chips that drive IPODs, Digital Cameras, Keyboards, Mice, Fitness Equipment instead of chips that drive CISCO routers, video servers, etc, which is what I was doing earlier.

I have spent almost 6 weeks on hands on training. So back to C coding, microcontroller design and also some analog design.

On different note, you guys should check out this cool game that I found. It has been pretty addictive.

What you don’t know about housing loans in India – Part 1

Last year I bought a home in Chennai and I availed a loan from ICICI bank. In my upcoming blogs I will share what a person like me normally goes through and what you might want to know upfront so that you make an informed decision.

First thing you might want to know: The banks are very forthcoming in giving out loans. You will find that you can easily get a loan of even 1 crore rupees pre-approved with very less paperwork. Gone are the days when it was difficult to get loans. With proof of steady income you can easily get a loan of upto 2x or 3x of your annual gross salary without any problems. You will be amazed by the so called “service” that some banks offer you these days. They send sales people to your homes to get all paperwork filled up. They go above and beyond to hook you up with a loan. You might think that it is wonderful customer service, but watch out if you do not know what you are getting yourself into, you might be up for a huge roller coaster ride. The media does not cover the dark side of this due to obvious reasons, they get significant ad revenue from these big banks. More to follow.

Okonomiyaki: Japanese dish for Indian Taste Buds

There was a time when I used to hate Japanese food. Over the years, I have slowly started acquiring a taste for it. Thanks to the numerous business trips to Japan.

This time around I had a very nice dish called Okonomiyaki. One of our local distributors in Japan, took us to this traditional Japanese place. Each table has a gas heated plate in the middle of the table. When you order Okonomiyaki, you are supplied with a mixture of items like egg, some veggies (mainly cabbage), french onions and mixed with some batter. You mix the whole mixture until it becomes viscous enough to hold up almost like a dough. After applying some oil to the heating pan, you pour the mix onto the heating pan to make thick crepe and let it cook for around 5 mins.  Then you turn it over and let the other side cook for a few minutes. What you end up with is something that almost looks like a super thick crepe. Then you apply some condiments to it before you eat it. For Indians, this dish can be called a close cousin to the south indian Uthappam.

If you are in Japan and looking for good vegetarian options suggest going to an Okonomiyaki place. The same Okonomiyaki heating pan can also be used to grill other items like veggies, potatoes and even noodles.

In San Jose Bay Area, there is a place called Izakaya Japanese restaraunt in North First street that apparently serves Okonomiyake, but I have never tried it myself. I will try it pretty soon and update my blog about my experience.

What’s hot today is not tomorrow!

I was reading Gokul’s post on how things that were hot once could get “boring” eventually. This happens very commonly to tech professionals in any industry.

I guess any application, once it hits mainstream market and starts seeing cycles of cost reductions will eventually get commoditized. With so much R&D money invested by big corporations things become standardized and will be perceived as commonplace or perhaps “boring”. This is what happened to PC hardware industryin late 90s, networking gear in 2000s. It happens a lot in semiconductor industry as well. When I entered the semiconductor industry I got the chance to work on High Speed Serial I/O which was considered state of the art during that time. Now Serial I/O IP is available for sale by multiple vendors and it is headed towards the direction of becoming a commodity.

When things get “boring”, I guess you can take two routes: 1. Get into a different field that requires most of your skillset but still is not commoditized and has lot of open challenges; or 2. Move up the value chain in your field/domain so that you are working on where the challenges and fortune lie in your industry. (Examples:  Adding more services on the top of your infrastructure, adding more software features to your existing hardware, adding applications to your solution that are complementary so that you provide a broader portfolio of products, or just sheer improve the horsepower/performance of your current app if there is a market need for it) 

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Should my Tech Blog be separate?

There is my personal side and the way I view things that are happening in the world, which I love writing about and there is also the tech world which I am passionate about from a professional stand-point. I am debatting if I should keep all my tech material confined to a separate blog mainly geared towards my profession. The number of tech blog entries is going to be lesser and the content is going to be much more in-depth just focussing on narrow field. Comments welcome!

Flights, Bags and Singapore Airlines

I am back and already buried in the world of work. Still trying to cope with my jetlag. My sleeping patterns have not completely settled down yet. It is 5:00 am here and I have been up for almost a couple of hours.

Backing off to where I stopped in my previous blog, my flight back to San Francisco was pretty good. My bags did show up at SFO as scheduled.  My overall experience with Singapore Airlines has always been relatively way better than my experiences with other airlines. The inflight service is one of the best. On my way out to India, I was on a middle seat and I requested one of the crew members for an Aisle seat. The crew member was very courteous and hooked me up with an Aisle seat. The flights were always on time, food was pretty good and no lost/delayed luggage. What else do you need on a 19 hr flight?  

Back to the Bay

I will be flying back tonight. I have a tight connection at Singapore (I have 90 mins in between flights and I need to switch terminals). I will be fortunate if I make it on time to the connection. It will be a miracle if my bags make it all the way to San Francisco on time.

I have a huge list of things that I could chose from to do during the next 24 hrs of travel:

1. Read “Good to Great”. Been reading this for a while. For people who are dreaming to become entrepreneurs or getting to the exec management level and is interested in becoming CEOs, a must read. It compares some good companies that have grown at moderate rates to great companies that have grown at substantially high rates. It does lot of analysis on data as well takes opinions from the good and great companies and tries to articulate ”what is missing” in the good companies compared to the great companies. 

2. Watch the in flight entertainment in the flight.

3. Work. I have some work related docs to review.

4. Shop at the Narita airport. I have 4 hour break in Tokyo.

5. Read the latest issue of Outlook Business or Business World. I find Indian business magazines to have better content than business magazines in the US. Maybe I am biased, but I like the indian ones better.  

6. Meditate during the flight or simply go to sleep.

Hopefully, the steam will not die out as soon as I get back. I will continue blogging. This trip to Chennai has been great. Got back in touch with a whole bunch of old friends and expanded my network in Chennai. And found a new hobby, Blogging.  

My first post – What will I Blog?

I am currently taking a vacation in India. Wanted to start a blog for a while and finally got the time to do it. Not decided completely yet on what I should cover.

I hope to cover a lot of tech material in the field of Hardware and System Design.

I also hope to cover some of my view points on new ventures in the Bay Area in the field of communications, digital video and video broadcast/distribution.

I also intend to cover topics on global management of offshore teams with a focus to the semiconductor industry.