Sales Super Saturday (SSS) @ Aug 6, 2011

This time, Sales Super Saturday was conducted at InfoStretch office, due to some rain and festive occasion. The sessions picked for this time were more focused on Sales (as the current quarter stands more important than the next one).  

Agenda for Sales Super Saturday on Aug 6, 2011

10:00 AM: Keynote Topic

11:00 AM: Sales for Emerging Companies

12:00 PM: European QA Strategy of ISPL

12:30 PM: Lead Generation Best Practices

 1:00 PM: Lunch

 3:00 PM: Recent Sales Closures - Experiences - Open Discussion

 4:00 PM: Sales Superstar Biography

 4:30 PM: Sales Movie / Videos

My viewpoints to this SSS:

I personally liked the “Sales SuperStar Biography” session that speaks about Mr. Phaneesh Murthy – Sales Super Star & Unsung Hero of InfoSys. The session touches upon his contribution to InfoSys and not on other sides of his story. It was this champion so called “The Other Murthy” (of course, the one that we all know Mr. Narayana Murthy) that pushed InfoSys’s revenues to $700M USD in over next 10 yrs of his working. Indeed, A BIG number, before he left InfoSys in 2002. 

Mr. Phaneesh Murthy’s working principles are quite simple - Always look to build the sales organization – No unlimited clauses – agree on targets – no loss of integrity – initial watch, then full autonomy. With strong sales numbers, he is very sharp with his memory, persistent, patient and open for extensive travelling. He likes reading mystery books, fond of Golf (“If you don’t golf for business, you just won’t get it,” – Phaneesh Murthy often says), pure vegetarian & teetotaler. Currently, he is MD & CEO of iGate Patni.

Rests of the other sessions were quite informative too! Due to lack of time, we skipped the Sales Movie which is always inspiring!

Idea b/h covering SSS on blog

• Cover those learning from the session(s) that might be informative for others
• Try to collect thoughts from other viewers   
• Spread the word of this event (as something similar always helps to any organization)

About Sales Super Saturday

At InfoStretch, at third week of every month, there is an event called “Sales Super Saturday”. It was initiated about 1 year back from Business Strategy Head @ InfoStretch. And motto behind this event is to come, participate, brainstorm, learn and enjoy. It’s more likely to be a team building exercise with a right to express their ideas/thoughts/learning in their own way, irrespective of any person’s designation, job profile, his/her influence at management level etc.

No Laptops!  No Work! No Late Coming!

Content Delivery Mode:

Powerpoint Presentation, Games, Whiteboard learning, mimicry/drama, plain vanilla speech

Participants:
Mostly India BD/Sales Team.

Venue:

It varies. Sometimes at office or organize the same at some resorts/camps, hundred kms away from office.

Sales Super Saturday is “Learn with Fun”…  Sales Super Saturday ROCKS!!! … I don’t like to miss any SSS.

Simple Comparison on Android Latest Versions

HTML5 for Mobiles

With gaining popularity and traction for using HTML5, it raises obvious Qs to get answers

• What’s GREAT about HTML5?
  
• Is HTML5, future of Mobile Apps? Will it replace native Apps?
• Will it endanger other browser based technologies like Flex/Flash, Silverlight etc?
• Is this most preferred and cost effective approach for cross-platform mobile apps development and distribution?

What’s HTML5 in layman’s terms?

• Latest version of HTML (Known technology for years) that promises to offer new set of features with better UX
• HTML5 = HTML5+CSS3+JS
• Easy to learn, develop & update, portable, cheap and faster time to market
• No download required to access content. Runs on Mobile browsers over Internet
• Good tool for Rapid, Cross Platform Application Development – an evolving platform that enable to create Rich, Interactive Mobile Web Apps
• Has in-build APIs to access core mobile device capabilities, remote/local DB synchronization, extended audio/video support etc
• Has Better UI presentation capabilities – web forms, validations, user editable content, canvas drawing etc  
• Offers easy integration with third party libraries/scripts
• Has great potential to develop any consumer or enterprise apps 
• Can build Games too 

HTML5 Limitations as of Today

• Cross browser compatibility issues - while implementing HTML5 features
• Difficult to rely on this technology because of rapidly changing mobile demographics & futuristic technologies like NFC, 3D content rendering, push notification, facial recognition etc
• Limited scope for Offline capabilities
• Performance issues when it comes to executing complex DB queries, audio/video processing, high end games, developing mapping apps etc
• Data Security, Local DB manipulation & privacy related concerns

Overall, HTML5 is still a promising technology and does wonders within its given strengths. In coming months, we might see some of the above limitations to be addressed and more innovations around this technology. Stay Tuned for more!!!

{HAML & SASS} Against {HTML & CSS}

Most of us know about HTML and CSS, but HAML and SASS might be new for many. HAML & SASS are meta-languages for HTML and CSS respectively.

HAML

• Stands for HTML Abstraction Markup Language
• It’s a lightweight markup language that is used to cleanly & describe the XHTML of any web document without the use of traditional inline coding.
• File Extension: “.haml” or “.html.haml”
  
• Key Principles of HAML

• Markup should be beautiful
• Markup should be indented
• Markup should be DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)

SASS 

• Stands for Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets
• It is a scripting language that is interpreted into CSS, that helps to describe clean, structured CSS of a document. 
• File Extension: “.sass”
• Key Principle of SASS
• To make CSS more powerful, DRY and manageable

Both HAML & SASS are best designed for Ruby Language, but it does support PHP, .Net, Java, Python, Scala etc as well.

References:
http://haml-lang.com/
http://sass-lang.com/

Are our mobile apps SECURE?

Mobile Industry is on “Top Gears”. Everything is moving from Web to Mobile, giving mobile user to access almost EVERYTHING on the GO.

Most of us today would believe with advancing mobile technologies, our mobile apps are far more intelligent and secure against possible data theft, viruses, protect privacy etc. But it might SURPRISE you, when a reputed digital forensics and security company viaForensics reports to say “Smartphone apps handle usernames, passwords and private app data, all of which should be stored securely or not at all. In the event of a lost device or malware infection, data stored insecurely can be compromised”

viaForensics tested  “100 financial, social networking, productivity and retail apps to see how well they were protecting user data. Three-quarters of them FAILED to adequately secure user account names”

Additionally, in the survey, it was found “76 % of the apps tested stored user names in clear text on the devices, and 10 % were doing the same with passwords, which in itself is very Shocking & Alarming!!!

Apart from above, there are many surprising facts, which can be referred at this below link:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Mobile-Apps-Fail-to-Secure-Usernames-Passwords-User-Data-Survey-295289/

So,

Questions that gets raised here is

• How do mobile users ensure that apps they are using are safe?
• Are mobile apps pushed to market without proper security testing? 
• Is that developers’ community neglecting OR failing to implement security features, encryption mechanism for critical data may be for any reasons? Are they not educated or guided enough to understand on future implications and consequences?
• Is minimum level of mobile security awareness still not penetrated among mobile users?
• Shouldn't be Security to be kept as Top Priority over Innovation?

Hoping in coming years, we might have a better, secure mobile ecosystem evolving from our learning and this fast, growing mobile channel continues to SURPRISE many in large numbers.