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Showing posts from March, 2013

Will Social Media kill the Rating Agencies

Rating agencies definition in Wikipedia A  credit rating agency  ( CRA ) is a company that assigns  credit ratings  for  issuers  of certain types of  debt  obligations as well as the debt instruments themselves. In some cases, the  services  of the underlying debt are also given ratings.Source :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agency With the advent of social media and a digitally connected world at almost real time credit rating agencies are under pressure to change they work . Will there come a time when rating agencies will have  a twitter feed on companies as events impact the instruments that they rate, With the convergence of Big Data and the Financial World this seems to be the reality.  But it appears that these real time rating of financial instruments will emanate from new innovative and agile startups and not from the old established rating agencies. The rating agencies have not been efficient in the past decade in helping investors in managing their risk  s

Cloud Computing and Business School Academics

Cloud Computing has been changing the global business landscape and the Academics in Business Schools find it a challenge to keep pace. Today most of the successful businesses are in the cloud, be it Amazon, Facebook, Twitter , Google, blogs, Rackspace,  the list is endless. These companies have created more wealth in less then a decade compared to the stalwarts in the old economy. Mobility strategy changes every quarter and yesterday's icons have to jump-start all over with a leap of   faith that their solutions will be adopted by the consumer. Social media has flattened the world and the distances have just shrunk, solutions like YouTube has changed the way we can learn, Wikipedia has become the world's largest and best knowledge portal. The challenge for Business School academia is how to prepare their students in this fast changing world . The students have access to knowledge in their finger tips which challenges their professor  and yesterdays business paradigms are

SME in India may not be ready for the Cloud

The SME sector in India has been identified as the sector that is ready to adopt cloud computing and also benefit the most because its IT Deployment is limited today. But as one engages with the SME sector we find its leaders are ignorant about IT Management other then using a financial software on a PC the trust factor is abysmally low. The SME is mostly owner run in India and privately held and has been mainly built by entrepreners with an healthy knowledge and specific niche skills. It is a long road for Indian SME to adopt Cloud Computing. Photo Credit : Amitav Thamba The bankers, lenders and government have been spending years to list these SME companies with limited success, I recollect trying to list SME companies in 1991 which was disastrous in the OTC Exchange of India, it is the same fate of the two new SME exchanges started by NSE and BSE the leading stock exchanges of India. To get the SME sector to speed it is important to allow them to deploy traditional onsite c

The Next Gold Rush in Financial Markets will be driven by Big Data

The next gold rush in Financial Markets will be driven by Big Data, the key driver for this is the low cost to create, manage, mine and deploy big data using the pay as you use  solutions in the cloud. Cloud computing has democratized Big Data usage and analytics, the differentiator for the winners will be the traders who use Big Data Analytics and Algorithmic trading engines to churn profits from the markets. All markets work on information whether it is from government, corporate, industry, social media, economical trends, sales figures, people, historical statistics and future projections and more. All this data both structured and unstructured will have to be brought together under one umbrella and made to work in tandem to provide analytics which can be piped into an algorithmic  engine which in turn will create the upside in the markets for the bold investors who get this technology usage right. Big Data will allow traders to harness the energy in information to

The Papal Office and Social Media

His Holiness the  Pope issued his first tweet: "HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM," which translates to: "We have Pope Francis.". This was immediately retweeted by the followers all over the world into multiple languages with the same meaning, more then 25,000 retweets in 10 minutes. The twitter handle "pontifex" not only means pope in Latin, but traces its roots back to Roman times and also means bridge builder. His holiness has to reach 1.2 billion Catholics across the world and most of them do not speak or understand Latin.  Source:  http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/new-popes-first-tweet-habemus-papam-franciscum-1C885235 The Vatican needs to tap the social media vehicle for getting His Holiness message across to Catholics across the world. As the believers look for answers and solutions from the Vatican City as the religion stands on its crossroads and needs a new impetus and direction. It is a momentous occasion a first Latin American Po

Oracle CloudWorld 2013

Oracle CloudWorld is coming to your city soon, here is the schedule Sydney, Australia March 13 Register Now Mumbai, India April 2 Register Now New York City, United States April 2 Register Now Singapore, Singapore April 4 Register Now Tokyo, Japan April 9 詳しくはこちら Frankfurt, Germany Coming Soon Notify me when registration opens London, England Coming Soon Notify me when registration opens Mexico City, Mexico May 7 http://www.oracle.com/events/global/en/cloudworld/register/index.html I wonder if it is too late for Oracle to get into the cloud computing bandwagon ? Oracle suffers from its database centered marketing, which is under threat with Big Data solutions. Oracle has to play catch up on Big Data now though it still retains its grip on its citadels in the Banking and Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI) sector Oracle has some of the best business applications in the world either their own or acquired, Oracle has  done a fair job of integrating the var

Shiva & Nandi and Cloud Computing & CIO

In Hindu mythology Shiva is the destroyer and Nandi the Bull is Shiva's mount and is the gate keeper to Shiva and his consort Parvathi. Every Shiva temple has a Nandi at its entrance which prevents direct view of the idol at the Sanctum of the temple. More on Wikpedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandi_(bull) If the CIO is the Nandi then cloud computing is  Shiva the destroyer of traditional computing. Unless the Nandi moves the business cannot reap the benefits of the cloud and attain salvation. Hence it is important that the CIO transforms himself as the mount for the organization to benefit from cloud computing rather then being the gatekeeper who will not allow the business to adopt cloud computing. Is the CIO - Nandi ready for the transformation from a gatekeeper to the mount for the business to ride into cloud computing for agile and innovative computing ? The  monolithic  stone Nandi Lepakshi, Andhra Pradesh  (length 27 feet, height 15 feet)