Krazzy Hrithik

Virgin Mobile to ring in India

Richard Branson’s Virgin Mobile is entering the Indian market through a 50:50 joint venture with the Tatas. The Tata Group’s telecom arm, Tata TeleServices, will form the JV to introduce the Virgin brand in the world’s fastest growing telecom market.

Virgin will exclusively license the Virgin Mobile brand and technology expertise in the area of value-added services (VAS) and handsets to TTSL. This will allow CDMA operator TTSL to use Virgin’s core expertise in marketing and service innovation to create offerings which will be largely targeted at the youth segment, sources told ET.

The two parties are learnt to have started recruitment for the joint venture, expected to be functional this quarter. The UK-based global executive search firm CHR Global is recruiting staff for the new entity, sources added. The search for a CEO for the joint venture is on.

The Tata Indicomm brand will be positioned as the mass market brand while Virgin will be a more youthful brand as it is seen globally. The move is likely to help TTSL expand market share from the current 7.1% as Virgin, one of the most respected service brands in the world, has a global connect with the youth segment. Youth comprise nearly 50% of Indian cellular users.

A TTSL spokesperson refused to comment. Virgin Mobile is present in six countries — the US, the UK, France, South Africa, Australia and Canada. Each of its businesses acts as an independent entity, usually in partnership with another local company which provides the network infrastructure.

The company is the world’s first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). It does not maintain its own network and instead has contracts to use the existing networks of other providers, on which it offers services under the Virgin brand. In the United States, the Sprint code division multiple access (CDMA) network is the carrier while in France, it uses Orange.

However, MVNOs are not yet permitted in India, though telecom regulator Trai has recommended that they be allowed. As a result, Virgin will not be an MVNO here. Instead, it will be an agent of TTSL and Virgin Mobile-branded services will be available over TTSL’s network. Virgin has a similar non-MVNO arrangement with South Africa’s cellular firm Cell C.

Virgin’s innovative VAS offerings include video calling, where the user can see the person she’s talking to, video clips of celebrity interviews, film snippets, comedy clips besides games and a vast coverage on news and sports. Virgin Mobile USA has partnered with Yahoo to offer Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger preloaded on several of Virgin’s handsets.

Sources said TTSL and Virgin will also jointly explore opportunities to develop and promote newer products and VAS for TTSL subscribers. TTSL currently has over 11 million users.

In India, the Virgin Group has a technical and consultancy services agreement with Essar Telecom Retail, the retail venture of the Ruias. Under this agreement, the Virgin group is providing its expertise in the areas of branding, marketing, customer care, store operations and staff training to Essar stores.

Tendulkar one of most enchanting players of all time

Press Trust Of India

Melbourne, March 05, 2008

Showering encomiums on Sachin Tendulkar for his back-to-back match-winning knocks against Australia in the ODI tri-series' finals, noted cricket writer Peter Roebuck said the little master counts among the most "enchanting and compelling" players the game has seen.

"Over the past 15 years, cricket enthusiasts have enjoyed many delights but two stand out. Anyone able to follow the careers of Tendulkar and Shane Warne at close quarters has been privileged," Roebuck wrote in his column for 'The Sydney Morning Herald'.

"Both were craftsmen of high calibre but also artists of supreme talent. Warne was a mesmerising tweaker with a fiercely competitive streak. The Indian remains a classical batsman unburdened with ego and capable of exquisite stroke-play," he added.

Roebuck was also all praise for the Indian young brigade for putting up a fearless challenge to Ricky Ponting's men in both the Test series and the one-day tri-series.

"India defended their score with spirit and left the country with heads held high. Throughout a contentious trip these tourists played with tenacity and audacity. It has been a colossal struggle between an ageing champion and a bold challenger," he said.

The former county player said the second final in Brisbane that turned out to be a cliffhanger was a fitting finale to the ill-tempered series and singled out Tendulkar's 91-run knock as the best memory that one could take home from the game.

"A match jam-packed with desperate action has brought a pulsating summer to an appropriately dramatic conclusion," he said.
"Apart from the frenzied finish and the curious outbreak of tackles on the field, the abiding memory of the match came from Tendulkar's bat. The first final, in Sydney, had produced one of the game's finest chasing innings.

"Alas, the hullabaloo distracted attention from Tendulkar's hundred. Accordingly, reporters hoped for a second helping from the maestro. Happily he obliged with a superb effort in the second final," he added.

Roebuck said Tendulkar did well to allow his bat do talking when it came to responding to critics who questioned his track record in Australia.

"It is not so long ago that observers wondered whether the time had come for the veteran to slip down the order. He had been losing his wicket to the new ball and seemed to have lost his edge.

"Recently, another critic pointed out that Tendulkar had never scored a one-day hundred in Australia and had a relatively poor record chasing targets. Never awaken the sleeping tiger," he said.

Google's Engineering Philosophy

A slide from a presentation at last year's Google Engineering Open House listed 12 principles that guide programming at Google:

1. All developers work out of a ~single source depot; shared infrastructure!
2. A developer can fix bugs anywhere in the source tree.
3. Building a product takes 3 commands ("get, config, make")
4. Uniform coding style guidelines across company
5. Code reviews mandatory for all checkins
6. Pervasive unit testing, written by developers
7. Unit tests run continuously, email sent on failure
8. Powerful tools, shared company-wide
9. Rapid project cycles; developers change projects often; 20% time
10. Peer-driven review process; flat management structure
11. Transparency into projects, code, process, ideas, etc.
12. Dozens of offices around world => hire best people regardless of location