Monthly Archives: May 2008

1-By Laksh, Books

The Appeal:John Grisham

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“The Appeal” is the latest from John Grisham’s stable and his 20th novel.

Unlike his other books “The Appeal” doesn’t jam onto one character so
much as its characters run a relay race of a plot, passing the baton
as the story progresses.And, for a change it is not about racism,
even though it is set in the South.Instead it is about a giant chemical
company which is making money at the cost of human lives.

The novel though starts off like a David win againt Goliath, for unknown
reasons traces the reversal of fortune. Rich guy makes more money
at the last, while the crusading lawyers find themselves bankrupt.
You are likely to remember movies like ‘The Civil Action’ and
‘Erin Brockovich’.

Though slow paced at times, the novel is a good read, specially
if you areinterested in how Supreme Court judges are elected.
Infact, it offers a great primer on campaign management:)

Business Ideas/Plans, Internet

e-Localization Knows No Borders

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The move makes perfect sense. Certainly India as a whole is exploding
with retail opportunity right now, but its cross-channel opportunities
are even more out-of-hand. Current projections call for e-commerce
sales to rise 300% nation-wide over the next three years.

Pantaloon expects 60% of those sales to come from Indians
between 19-30 years old, and is banking on studies that show
the ubiquity of broadband internet access (up 40% from two years ago)
as the key to hyper-driving online sales.

The company believes that Indians with broadband access spend
significantly more in the online channel, and envisions 75% of
Indians having that access by year’s end.

More here

Internet, Management

Where does google go next

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A basic tenet of Google’s way of doing business is that it is not like other
businesses. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin celebrated this quality in
their famous letter to prospective shareholders before the company’s
2004 IPO, and they promised to keep things that way. For example,
Google’s operations themselves are unconventional. One of the most
fundamental precepts of modern management has to do with how to
allocate resources: deciding which projects to pursue, where to spend
money, when to take a pass. In fact, MBAs learn in their first classes at
business school that resource allocation is a manager’s most important
task. Yet it’s a concept that, while not exactly alien to Google’s
top dogs, isn’t their highest priority.

After all, why focus on allocating scarce
resources when the resources aren’t all that scarce?
At the end of the first quarter Google had cash and
other liquid assets of $12 billion; it generates almost
$2 billion of cash per quarter.

More at Fortune.com