Manish Dhingra: Computers and Internet

Knowledge Management 2.0 - A Structured (Blogging) Approach to Knowledge Management

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 14:31:06 GMT

As mentioned in my last post, quite a few people commented on my presentation at Barcamp , held almost a month back in sprawling Adobe campus in Delhi. I should have posted this a long time back, nevertheless here it is.

My presentation focused on how to build a quick solution to inculcate Knowledge Sharing in an organization, using the raw power and versatility, structured blogging (SB) gives you. In my opinion structured blogging has unlimited potential and can be put to use in a lot of innovative ways, Knowledge Management is just one of them.

So let me elaborate on how you could go about building a Knowledge Enterprise, using the SB plugin in a wordpress or movable type weblog publishing platform.

In general SB revolves around creating your own customizable templates. The templates are referred to as microcontent. The microcontent definitions are specified in an xml file. Now a standard knowledge management system allows you to publish the following types of artifacts:

Reusable Code / Reusable Modules
Learning's Based on Experience (LBoE)
Fun Literature you want to share (like an article, story or quote)
Reviews of certain Websites
Event Material
Tutorial
Product Review or Product Comparison

So all you need to do is build the microcontent definitions corresponding to the above knowledge artifacts, and you have the ability to publish these content types.

Sure that's just the difficult part we solved. Here's how we further take the advantages which a blogging platform offers you to expand the capabilities of such a solution. The weblog platform will offer you an integrated search capability, integrated comments (which of course expands the realm of knowledge captured), ability to review content before publishing (a.k.a drafts) and even the functionality to rate content.

Again as I mentioned, this is a quick solution to Knowledge Management, and guess what, it comes to you at almost no cost. There are organizations who have spent millions of dollars to build systems which accomplish just all of the above I mentioned. However the power of SB and a little bit of innovative thought can get this system up in a matter of hours.

Now here is where I start dreaming, and dream about a world where we have standard templates and open formats for knowledge management, which are searchable, thus catapulting the world into one knowledge society, where it's so much easier to find bodies of knowledge and knowledge artifacts, related to any and every sphere of capital assets which are purely intellectual. With SB we have a platform and blogs have gained acceptability, so maybe my dream may soon turn into a reality.

The audience who attended my presentation at the barcamp were sceptic about the possibilities of this, but nevertheless shared my dream.

In case you are interested in getting a copy of my presentation at barcamp, follow this link.

Also Published on the Tekriti Corporate Blog

The evolving theory of life-long beta software

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 06:20:14 GMT

As Web Applications become a commonality and the ability to build powerful feature laden web applications increases, a continuous beta cycle is starting to make more sense.

Google (or Gmail) has been accused by many of keeping it's software in beta for extended periods of time, despite the fact that it's being widely used and does not qualify in the traditional definition of beta software(...software tested through a limited roll-out to a production environment using live data and real users).

Now Google has always been known to make the rules when it comes to Web, rather than follow it. So even though it has been accused for doing this because it is a way out for the company against offering full support or take responsibility for remaining issues, I believe that's a rather skewed view.

The definitions of beta software when it comes to the web are changing. Companies would continue to keep their web software in beta for longer periods of time, not for the reasons mentioned above, but because this allows the users of those software to better absorb the existing features, before the next set is rolled out.

To better explain my point lets take Google's example. They released Gmail first around two years back. Sure it had bugs then and getting a gmail account was invite only. They added lots of cool features hence including the infinity+1 storage. So when you got used to using all the basic features and could absorb how they function and what they mean you were ready for the next set of functionality. Gtalk was released separately and integrated with Gmail (what an awesome job there..really love it!!). So Google made sure it's users were not overwhelmed by the immense set of features they had put into the site. Imagine if you would have got a gmail account only after the Google devs complete the development of Gmail+GTalk and the integration of the same as well. A lot of the non-geek users would have been confused.

Another example it Ourmedia.org, with 80,000 + registered users, it's still in alpha.

Web software is distinctly different from desktop software. I would think twice before installing the Beta 2 version of IE7 on my desktop, but I signed up for Windows-Live Mail, the very instant it was released. So it's necessary to break the stereotype and redefine strategies for product development when it comes to web software.

It could very well start with redefinition of Greek letters "alpha" and "beta" software for the web.

T-Commerce set to enter Indian Market with IPTV

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 18:16:54 GMT

Airtel recently launched it's foray into IPTV last week. They are still in the trial run and identified 50 households in Gurgaon to test out these IPTV services. My house was one of them and yesterday we had the technician come over and install the IPTV set top box in our residence.

First impressions are "awesome" specially features related to time shifting and video on demand. It feels good to be a part of this testing phase as Airtel upgrades it's DSLAMS to get ready for what is called "Triple Play Boom", Data (Internet), Video on Demand and Voice Services all over the same wire .

Nagarajan in his study of the IPTV and the Indian Market brings out some interesting observations on T-Commerce. He says

"Just like you send data through Internet, the broadcasters will use the Internet as a medium to send you the data. Internet can be any other network as well. So each and every TV system in the network will have an IP address. Thus the possibility of higher interaction between broadcaster and your TV. Thus igniting the possibility of a new Jargon called T-Commerce (in the lines of E-commerce). T-Commerce is nothing but TV based commerce. So now there is a possibility of buying the things right through your TV Set. Interesting right? Though it seems interesting the initial researches show in US by some Research institute show that only very few people( around 15%) will buy products through their Television. lets see how it goes...

...I have a strong feeling that Google may venture into this. Plans of Free Wi-fi access can bring up the customer base. Google video becomes a medium of a source as a kick off. The database system (Google Base) of course will help them in this. of course the Adwords makes some sense when seen through an angle of T-Commerce. Is really something brewing like this. Time has to say."

So probably a few months from now, we would really be in a global village with IPTV providers worldover providing broadcasts of your favorite shows as they happen. So if you are in India, you would not have to wait 2-3 months to see the latest season of your favorite shows, or download pirated copies from the net. Probably that's another angle to T-Commerce which would open up to the broadcasters.

Exciting times for media and media content companies with IPTV all set to capitalise on the "Triple Play Boom".

The two Ps in the "Business of Software"

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 18:06:43 GMT

Tarun Anand talks about these distinctions between the two P's which we most grapple with in the Business of Software, Projects (essentially services) and Products. To quote from his blog an analogy which is very interesting

"In the phrases below you can safely replace the word "book" by "product" and "newspaper" by "project".

A book is something that takes a long time to create. It has a deadline to be done, but that deadline is not very hard and fast, and can be move around a little. A bookwriter spends a lot of time in thinking upfront about how the book will be written. All the elements of the book must come together as a unified whole, rather than a juxtaposition of various elements. A book is used by many people across organizations, over long periods of time.

Contrast this with a newspaper article: A newspaper article has a very hard deadline. Either you ship it tomorrow morning, or else its stale food and no one wants it. The pressure in a newspaper is to get the job done and a lot of time cannot be spent on upfront planning. Sometimes newspaper articles look like a random collection. A newspaper is used once and thrown away. Very soon a new newspaper will be created, and used.

This is the difference: A Product has a long term in mind and has to be carefully designed and relevant to a lot of people across organizations. A project typically has a shorter term, hard business requirements, and needs to be done quickly else business will pass it on for some other (maybe newer) approach. "

Adding to that, a release of a book is huge. It comes with it's share of marketing and once the author is out with one book which is a hit, the market or the publishers expect you to continue and come out with the next one which is even better.

A newspaper reporter on the other hand is an unknown entity. In terms of literary skills it is possible that both the book writer and the newspaper report writer may be equal, but you never care to find out who the news report writer is.

So now being fair to newspapers, newspaper publishers will never go out of business, you will always need a newspaper to read early morning when sipping a cup of tea or while cleaning your bowel, it puts you in touch with what happened in the world, however a book, if it doesn't appeal to the masses, that's it, no second chances (coming back is going to be hard actually). It will be difficult to image a life without newspapers as I have mentioned in my earlier post too [Read Here], but books, if you are a voracious reader or someone who doesn't get sleep until they read something, you can do without books (frankly how long back did you read your last book).

Is there a way to make the two Ps converge, as someone commented "Every project is a product to someone, how do we see this coming true??"

To which Tarun replied, "...Projects are about enabling a business process, something very specific. You may not be able to use it across many customers. However, if you can extract the essence away and make something relevant to more than 1 customer, then you have a product at hand."

Notice I have bolded the last line, which in one line can be summarized as "Knowledge Management" or "Managing Intellectual Capital". That's one of the key things I am going to be working in the next few weeks, a KM strategy for Tekriti. Thanks to my previous work experience, I seem to have the key elements for this figured out. Let's see how soon I can roll this into the system.

Saying all of the above with regard to newspapers and books, I would still love to get my hands a book titled "The Business of Software" by Michael Cusumano and read it from cover to cover, even if that means I don't read the newspaper for days.

Are we nearing a dooms day for traditional media

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 18:54:45 GMT

The past one year has been a really interesting one in the Internet landscape. Not only has someone who has been following the developments real closely realised how much of a platform the Web is turning into but the growing battle for leadership in this platform by the big 3 Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Blogs, Podcasting and RSS have taken the realms of information exchange to highly simplistic levels not only to publish but also to track. It's the information pull model we so often talk and take pride in implementing.

However another thought comes to mind. Is this the near end of traditional media sources, in effect Print Media, Radio and the Television? Will those individuals who earn their bread from journalism succumb to citizen journalists who would be publishing their content on their blogs or as I call it their "content aggregators".

When the internet came around in the mid and late 1990's, all news papers and TV channels went online, publishing their entire contents on their website. So people naturally raised questions over whether this would cause a decrease in the readership or the viewership of the media sources. However those were the days when bandwidth was a concern in cost and baud as also computer penetration was low. So the newspapers survived.

Bandwidth costs and baud are still inversely proportional, but now costs are getting lower. So now do the traditional media houses stand a chance? By the looks of it..they stand where they are, not looking at embracing the changing times.

Robin Sloan showcases this really gripping movie on what could happen to the traditional media sources in the next few years.

Personally I don't feel that the traditional media sources are going anywhere, even if they stay put where they are, because there is a different feeling in reading a newspaper early in the morning, while sipping on hot tea and reading the same news on the website or through an aggregated service.

As Sloan puts it, it may be EPICurean times in the future, Evolving Personalized Information Construct (EPIC) may be Google's invention in 2014, it won't replace traditional media.Thats my take..what do you say?

A P2P Wireless and the original business model.

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:41:24 GMT

[Boing Boing] reports about how a Spanish company "Fon" is offering to build a service which would allow people to share their Wi-Fi connection. They propose to use a P2P model to build on on their wireless networks.

The service would provide for two kinds of users, those who would re-sell their connection and those who will share their connection free in exchange for free roaming Wi-Fi. Sounds like a plan..doesn't it.

When I Wi-Fi enabled my residence, my dad came up with an entire business model around sharing this connection with other people of the community [Read Here] . Besides this he also talked about WLAN enabling all cities and small towns of India. I even had a lengthy discussion with my Dad then and told him that even though his idea was great , I guess it would be illegal to re-sell the connection. I apologize Dad, I still have to develop the vision and ability to see a evolving business in every sphere of life.I understand what you were talking about the other day ..now..A P2P WiFi makes so much sense.

Year 2006 will see the rollout of a new standard in Wi-Fi from IEEE, 802.11n. Besides offering blazing fast connectivity and speed, it would also offer a higher operative distance. So probably we are nearing the time where wireless sharing will be a all so common thing to do. Besides opening up several business models, this would also take Web 2.0 and community aggregation concepts/companies to dizzy valuations.

While on Wireless, can GPRS and GSM be far behind. So what's next.. convergence of all these technologies for a totally connected you!!

What could have been the world's first Web 2.0 city

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 14:26:20 GMT

[via Om Malik's Blog] "Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform. This is good and the right path. I hope others realize that the PC-centric approach is myopic and very US centric. The wireless broadband is upon us…. it changes the game quite a bit, and the champions of Web 2.0 should prepare for that change"

Google is all set to take over as the leading provider of wireless internet access in the USA. They have already responded to a RFI from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. So the dust over Google's foray into Web 2.0 applications is becoming clearer. The google maps, google earth and google talk all make so much more sense now.

So now how do the first two paragraphs have any relation to the title. It is becoming more and more apparent that wireless broadband is going to take over cities very soon. Early last year I read a report on how Pune was headed towards becoming the world's first Wi-Fi city [Read Here]. Unfortunately I believe the government did not will for that to happen. Forget Wi-Fi, it takes days to even get a broadband connection for your home.

This initiative was a year after the world's five largest carriers in Asia, gave a hefty boost to WLAN [Read Here]. So clearly another case of "bright idea, no execution" on something which could have had path breaking effects.

Who knows , had Pune become the world's first Wi-Fi city, we could have witnessed the transformation to Web 2.0 sooner. Ah well..better late then never.. they say.

Even though Wi-Fi isn’t that Hi-Fi…

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 21:02:04 GMT

...It’s still a joy to have. Yes I can’t tell you how happy I was to Wireless enable my home yesterday. Thanks to Ashish who bought me a Wireless router from his last US trip and the idiosyncrasies of the Airtel folks providing me broad band access to home.

The Wi-Fi phenomenon isn’t that common in India yet, however it seems to be catching on real fast. Besides allowing me to share my internet connection with my net-savvy dad and blogging addicted brother, it would allow me to get a lot of work done even when I am at home. In fact I just can’t wait for winter time in Delhi now when I would sit cozily in my room under a comforter and complete my work.

During my tenure at Microsoft, I was amazed at how efficiently Microsoft had enabled it’s corporate campus for Wi-Fi. People used to be catching up on e-mail, working on presentations, the works et al while shuttling from one building to another, or waiting for a meeting room to empty out.

Then when I met Jawad Khaki in Bangalore, India in July 2004, he narrated an interesting story about how BillG as far back as 1999 issued an executive challenge to the ITG (later called the OTG), to WLAN enable the entire corporate campus at Redmond. The spread included 70 buildings and 35,000 employees. Without going into the gory details of the implementation, Microsoft spent $9.1 million in capital investments to WLAN enable it’s campus. The technology was embraced by its techies so whole heartedly that the pay back period on this investment was realized in less then 18 months, mostly on the productivity gains which this brought to the corporation. In fact some even asserted that WLAN was the “greatest thing invented since sliced bread”.

Many a times I found people sitting in cafeterias, or waiting outside meeting rooms punching away those keys on their laptop. It all put idle time to good use. But we still have to get that sort of penetration at the corporate level in India, where entire campuses are Wi-Fi enabled. Besides adding a “ah..so cool” factor, it certainly would enhance productivity by leaps and bounds.

So anyways now that I have these improved productivity practices implemented in my home, I hope I can keep my blog updated regularly...no excuses there anymore.

India Rising : Spidered on it's 58th Independence

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:37:42 GMT

It's really fascinating how spidering and search engines reveal so much about a country, people and technology than a lot of other sources. Google certainly leads the other search engines by miles when it comes to throwing search results and a little bit of analysis on these results reveals so much.

Google search today in India has the Ashok Chakra nicely adorning one of the O's in it's name. However whats more interesting is this:

Search India on Google. The results throw up an interesting revelation. The Government of India web is a lowly 6th in the results which come up. The Times Of India and tourindia.com rank higher on the search which means that there are more people visiting these links and linking to these links than the Government of India Site.
Search Pakistan on Google. The Pakistan govenment link is right on top. Of course I won't draw any conclusions here, it's quite obvious.

If you thought that wasn't interesing enough look at the Google Press center Zeitgeist. India ranks number 1 in the Popular Countries on the Google News Queries. So really, some pretty interesting observations there and interesting how a simple search tells you so much about the changing scenarios in today's times. Happy Independence Day to all fellow countrymen.

Windows Vista, Kai Fu Lee and Google

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 02:56:19 GMT

Longhorn blogs has this great article on how it’s time for the Windows Marketing team to ensure that they under promise and over deliver with Windows Vista. In previous years it’s been quite the opposite and that’s why a lot of people refer to marketing-speak as Bull Sh** (Now that’s true will all kinds of marketing-speak right!)

A few other interesting observations:

“Regular people get excited about the name”, it’s a cooler name than something like Windows 2006, which when 2007 arrives sounds dated. That makes a lot of sense.(Ask the WINSE team, when they test Windows 2000, feels like they are testing something which was built in their previous life)
This observation I have noticed myself too, “Most Geeks hate it…..at least at first. They like date names and stuff”. That was how I felt too, but then the name started growing on me as it did to Steven Bink.

All this seems to be happening at the same time when Microsoft is engaged in a legal battle to protect their intellectual property which goes by the name of Kai-Fu Lee heading out to join Google.(Read here)

While most people see this as another window where Microsoft is trying to assert its muscle and cripple competition, to me it makes perfect sense because Kai-Fu Lee who created Microsoft’s research center in China and was at the forefront of Microsoft search, would have signed a non-compete agreement from working at a rival outfit.

Whether it’s perfectly justified that Microsoft is using this as a charade to deter other employees from switching to Google (they opened their office in Kirkland, WA just for this reason), I don't think so. NDA's and Non-compete agreements are harsh documents so as to say, because they curb your intellectual freedom, but then there is a larger business angle to that, because what are the assets of the premier IT and Software companies of today, purely intellectual. Who doesn't protect their assets?

Lessons in Marketing from Microsoft

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 05:33:15 GMT

Microsoft recently announced its latest version of Windows (which was codenamed Longhorn). Now while it may not seem that raunchy and exciting a name (read here), for a product which has been so long awaited and promises to completely redefine the Windows OS, with it's snazzy UI's and a completely new framework, it will be a good case study to watch how Microsoft goes about marketing this product.

It's just been a few days since this new name was announced and already the name seems to be growing on you. It's interesting to note how Microsoft codenames it's products and when they do release the final name, there is so much hype and hoopla around it that giving a codename to a future product itself is a sound marketing strategy.

If you are a marketing student, this period of time is an interesting period in yet another way. Having spent almost an year at Microsoft, Redmond, I know how each group in Microsoft is like a separate product company. Each group goes all out to research and develop their products. Each group has it's own budgets, it's own SLAs. So in this period we have not just Windows but other products like VS.Net 2005 , XBOX 360 and SQL Server 2005 (Yukon) being released. All of them fall in different spheres of the computing paradigm, however how Microsoft as an entity markets all these products in the same breath will be interesting. I cannot recall another period when Microsoft released products in such numbers at the same time.

So what's next, circa 2011 and the world is awaiting Blackcomb, who knows what that will be called. Ah..the excitement is already rising.

The age of Augmenting reality

Tue, 24 May 2005 14:57:28 GMT

Last week at a technical forum presentation in my company, my colleague presented a very thought provoking and interesting topic, Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality extends from Virtual Reality, and combines the imaging devices for virtual reality (basically a snazzy headset) with GPS (global positioning system) or any other positioning system , a communication back bone and a backend data content provider on the particular object you are viewing.

Now if none of the above made any sense, let’s simplify it a bit. Let’s say you go visiting the Taj Mahal tomorrow and are witnessing Shah Jahan’s tomb stone. At that time you wish to get all historical information related to the Taj Mahal. You put your AR headset on and immediately the GPS system detects your co-ordinates and maps it to the Taj Mahal. The position is then conveyed to a content provider who starts beaming all historical information to your headset through a wireless service provider (could be your cell phone operator). So what have you done, you have augmented the data in its real form, and this is precisely what augmented reality is all about.

The above is just one of the scenarios. But the scope of this technology is much more. It can extend itself to provide sensory perceptions through specialized devices, sounds and so much more data. The medical profession can use this technology to compare the internal X-Ray or MRI scan images of the affected patients with that of healthy patients thus helping in quick diagnosis of the ailments. Soldiers in the battle field can get positions of their fellow soldiers and also enemies on a headset they are wearing (in fact I think the American soldiers used the concept in the war against Iraq)

From the feasibility angle all of that said above to me seems really possible. Let’s consider the devices and technologies of today and try to build a prototype. Consider you have a laptop or a pda, which is connect to the internet while you are on the move via GPRS. Now you reach the Taj Mahal Agra, India and key in Taj Mahal into google.com on your laptop. You have so much more education on the Taj Mahal then a guide can provide you.

That was a simple example, now if we enhance the way we see the world , by making the view even more data rich, combining a virtual realm with an actual object, we have augmented reality. I'm sure the above seems like a concept straight out of a sci-fi movie but believe me the day will come soon when all this information will flash in front of your eyes and you wouldn't even realize it. The age is here, the age is now...

Oh sweet.. I have a Google PageRank now!!

Sun, 24 Apr 2005 06:24:21 GMT

It started with Google recognizing the fact that this space deserved to be the first to show up in it's search results on searching Manish Dhingra (Read here).Now they have honored me with a PageRank. Currently this space has a PageRank of 2/10.

PageRank in Google's lingo is a system for ranking web pages in it's order of importance.(Read here).

How do you see a PageRank, well it appears in the Google browser toolbar somewhere in the middle. Try to find it. Now 2/10 is no mean achievement and this space still has a long way to go if I have to match the likes of msn or Indiatimes.

My bro's blogging too!!!

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 10:55:57 GMT

I don't know if it was me or the desire to make his real intellectual presence felt in the blogosphere, or maybe something to impress his girlfriends, but yes my brother has taken the plunge into blogging too.

This sure is catching on, so brother, welcoming you to the world of blogging.

You can catch his blog at Encephalic matter at work (What a punchline!!)

Of course this goes into my bloglist too.It bears an uncanny resemblance to my theme on my blog.

Ofcourse I'll get him to change that, I'm the elder one after all.

A Google gift on Gmail's B'day

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 09:30:45 GMT

Gmail is celebrating it's 1st B'day today and guess what they have totally slaughtered all competition. Gmail is giving 2GB of storage to all its users. They have a neat way of showing it too, check it here. At this time the storage is being upgraded and had reached 1175 GB.

OOPS..did I say GB there , actually it's 1175 MB and growing, but with their infinity+1 plan I'm sure the above figure is a certainty. So what are you waiting for go check it out..and this ain't a "All fools day" prank.

Saying that I have 50 invites to gmail with me, so incase you need a 2GB mailbox, mail me.

And yeah Happy April Fools Day to you all, so did anyone play a prank on you, or did you play a prank on someone. Share it with us aswell.

Ideas (& Microsoft) rule the world

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:48:58 GMT

"A bright idea is worth a million bucks"- I dunno who said that, but coming from an industry which derives it's revenues from just knowledge it's certainly true. New ideas, ideation or as the new buzz word in corporate circles for this "Thought Leadership", is what brings a change and heralds the knowledge economy, knowledge currency or as the motto of my school stood "Knowledge is Power". No wonder people are raving about the next five years being the years of KPO-Knowledge process outsourcing (Read here).

So now what is the relation between an idea and knowledge? Obviously ideas and knowledge go hand in hand. If you are knowledgeable about any particular domain, you certainly get innovative ideas on how to harness opportunities in that domain. There would be times when you would be the first to get such ideas, than what is crucial there is to harness the first mover advantage and make a name for yourself.

I have always admired Microsoft as a company for the very reason above. Be it Windows, Office or Xbox Microtransactions, these guys certainly know how to convert knowledge into ideas which evolve into products and revenue generation streams. As the quote from J Allard -Corp VP Xbox on the new features for Xbox 2005(man does this guy have a job)

"Other features include a custom music player and a "store" where players could make small purchases, for pennies or a few dollars, of new characters, parts for virtual racing cars and the like"

Who would have thought one could generate revenue from Xbox this way.

"It's all in the idea son it's all in the idea".

Now on Google-This very blog

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:14:19 GMT

It took it's time coming folks , but it has finally happened. A chanced google search for my name used to, in the past bring up various news sites about people who share the same name as me.With a first name like what I have, a google search can get very confusing.

However today it has finally happened, a google search for my name brings up this very blog as the first link which appears in the search results. Way to go google!!

Next target: A search for my first name should show my site as the first one in the results. This one won't be easy though, because currently it doesn't even figure in the top 100 results.

Lets see how long this target takes to accomplish.

China China all around

Thu, 09 Dec 2004 14:47:36 GMT

It seems that China is raking in the wave of a growing economy. A day after Lenovo bought the IBM PC business, there is another report of Chinese companies outgunning Microsoft for a contract of Operating System , Office and Antivirus applications.

On closer analysis, the Lenovo deal might be very tough act to follow for Legend Computers, because their profit margins for last year stood at 3.5%. This is a lot better than IBM's margins in the US of 0.5%. As a IBM official said "A low cost grocery chain in the US has better margins".

All in all it remains to be seen how Legend computers can capitialise on the huge consumer base in China (PC Penetration is only 4% in small towns and 10-20% in big cities) to break even on this deal. But considering how China's reputation is as a low cost manufacturing haven, Legend computers experience in the Chinese markets (which are a lot different from other global english speaking markets), and IBMs sales experience in other parts of the world will give Legend the global footprint which they desire. So don't be surprised if you soon find Legend (Lenovo) locking horns with the Dells,HPs and the Acers in the PC market, with their low cost PCs and other computer appliances like printers, scanners etc.Move over Digital US, Digital China(check Hang Seng index where this is listed) is here.