My fortnightly column, A Dose of IT discusses on the adoption of iPads in Indian healthcare Kapil Khandelwal QuoteUnquote with KK www.kapilkhandelwal.com

1. c m y k c m y k
DDCC 13Bengaluru ●● Monday ●● 30 May 2011
Microsoft
readying
next tablet
OS for 2012
release. Technomics
Xerox in talks
to move ‘few
hundred jobs’
to HCL
Technologies.
Google,
Facebook
lose social
network
patent ruling.
New York, May 29: Had
Sony stuck with the Airboard
portable computer it
launched in 2000, Satoru
Maeda rather than Apple’s
Steve Jobs might have been
feted as the creator of tablet
PCs.
“I was the inventor of the
Airboard,” says Maeda
between mouthfuls of fried
prawn and dumplings at a
Chinese restaurant in down-
town Tokyo. He was refer-
ring to a flat panel device that
predated the iPad by a decade
yet boasted video, touch
screen typing and Internet
access.
A hefty price tag and
patchy picture quality were
among the reasons the prod-
uct, which in hindsight looks
like it was ahead of its time,
didn’t initially take off. Inter-
nal politics and a series of
disruptive divisional reorgan-
isations ensured the product
never got the management
focus it needed to succeed,
Maeda says.
Morphing it into Location
Free TV -- a device through
which you can watch local
TV channels anywhere --
wasn’t enough to convince
Sony or the marketplace that
it was going to work. The
project once touted as being
as revolutionary as the Walk-
man was dropped entirely in
2008.
Maeda said he knew a year
earlier that Sony under
Howard Stringer, who
became CEO in 2005, was
going to kill his invention.
His boss sent him an e-mail
saying he was taking it over.
“Sony old boys liked Air-
board and Location Free TV
because it was doing some-
thing new, which is what they
did at Sony,” said Maeda.
“The current Sony people
have no experience with such
things because they haven’t
introduced any new products
for about 10 years.”
Still beset by turf wars,
secrecy, complacency and a
bloated innovation-killing
corporate bureaucracy,
Maeda and other Sony
refugees insist their former
employer is in dire straits and
Stringer, who is 69, is run-
ning out of time to deliver on
his promise of reinventing the
company.
Certainly Stringer can boast
of his role in developing 3D
film-making and the victory
of the Sony-backed Blu-ray
technology in the next gener-
ation format wars. But Sony,
despite its iconic brand,
remains out of step with the
rest of the global technology
world and its talent for
crowd-pleasing innovation
has largely evaporated. A
hacking scandal in April that
exposed more than 100 mil-
lion accounts on its online
gaming network to possible
data theft not only hurt its
image but threatens an online
strategy meant to unite a dis-
parate corporation and could
upset a carefully crafted suc-
cession plan for when
Stringer steps down.
It wasn’t so much the secu-
rity breach itself but the
delays in informing cus-
tomers of the problem and
Sony’s subsequent inability
to quickly close other weak
spots vulnerable to hackers
that has left a stain.
“Too big to succeed comes
to mind,” a former senior
manager involved until
recently with Sony’s PlaySta-
tion game console said,
declining to be identified
because of the sensitivity of
the comments. “I was at
PlayStation, considered the
most flexible of the Sony
units, but ironically that was
crippled by over-secretive IT
security, a lack of a coherent
management structure and a
lot of deadwood at the top. It
was harder to work across
Sony units than to work with
outside partners,” he said.
It isn’t only former insiders
who see the magnitude of the
problems. A procession of
top executives at U.S. tech-
nology companies who spoke
at a Global Technology Sum-
mit last week didn’t mince
their words when asked about
Sony. Robert Glaser, chair-
man of Internet media soft-
ware company RealNetworks
Inc, likened Stringer’s task of
rehabilitating Sony to “intro-
ducing capitalism to a Soviet-
bloc country after 50 years of
communism.”
Sony watchers speculate
that Sony may have been
loath to admit it had been hit
by hackers and wanted to
play down the attack. It took
Stringer another two weeks
before breaking his silence
on the issue and then he
unapologetically defended
the delays, saying they
weren’t bad by corporate
standards. The defiance did-
n’t go down so well with
some PlayStation customers.
To make matters worse, there
were disclosures about three
other problems with the secu-
rity of Sony websites last
week. The company was
forced to shut down a site it
set up to help users affected
by April’s breach after it
found what it called a “secu-
rity hole”. Sony’s stumbling
is happening in a world
where companies like Apple
and Google are moving at an
astonishing speed. “Sony has
to change if it’s to compete in
that race,” says Geoff Blaber,
an analyst with UK-based
technology research firm
CCS Insight. “Sony is seek-
ing to deliver content and
services across multiple
devices and platforms, but
product groups and corporate
structure is very, very frag-
mented compared to Apple.”
Whoever follows Stringer to
the top of Sony, pressure will
be on the new boss to quickly
exit from thin-margin or loss-
making operations such as
phones, televisions, and
peripheral businesses,
including financial services,
analysts predict. Another of
Sony’s options may be to
seek closer cooperation with
U.S. Internet giant Google.
Sony is already warming to
Google’s Android operating
system, notably partnering
with the Internet search
leader on Google TV. The US
company could help tie
together the Japanese compa-
ny’s treasure trove of content
and products with Google’s
software and innovation —
if that were to happen, indus-
try watchers argue, Sony
could then hope to take on
Apple.
For Stringer, the legacy he
leaves may be that of the
cost-cutter rather than the
renaissance man he promised
to be when he became the
first foreigner to lead the
Japanese company.
“Stringer cut fixed costs
especially for production
sites, making Sony more
resilient to stagnant revenue
growth,” said Yasuo Nakane,
an analyst at Deutsche Secu-
rities in Tokyo. It has allowed
him to keep pace with pro-
ductivity improvements at
rivals such as LG and Sam-
sung.
Prudent management, how-
ever, isn’t enough to lift the
despair that has descended
not just on Sony but on some
other major companies in
deflation-ravaged Japan since
the bubble burst two decades
ago. Pondering Sony’s future
again over his dumplings in
Tokyo, Airboard creator
Maeda is equally as glum. “I
don’t think Sony can
change,” he says. Not unless,
he adds, “Sony has a leader
like Steve Jobs.” — Reuters
Lockheed
hit with a
cyber attack
L
ockheed Martin
Corp, the US govern-
ment’s top informa-
tion technology provider,
said on Saturday that it
detected and thwarted “a
significant and tenacious
attack” on its information
systems network one week
ago.
“As a result of the swift
and deliberate actions taken
to protect the network and
increase IT security, our
systems remain secure,”
Jennifer Whitlow, a Lock-
heed spokeswoman, said in
an e-mailed statement. “No
customer, program or
employee personal data has
been compromised.”
Lockheed’s information
security personnel are
working around the clock
to restore employee access
to the “information systems
network” targeted in the
May 21 attack, the state-
ment said.
Bethesda, Maryland-
based Lockheed, the Penta-
gon’s number one supplier
by sales and the world’s
largest aerospace company,
has kept the “appropriate
US government agencies”
informed of its actions, it
added. — Reuters
Zuck only
eats meat
that he kills
M
ark Zuckerberg
has certainly
been called cut-
throat before, but nobody
meant it lit-
erally. Yet
Mr Zucker-
berg, the
founder of
Facebook,
has told
Fortune that he is only eat-
ing meat he kills himself.
This news apparently
came to light when he told
his Facebook friends on
May 4, “I just killed a pig
and a goat.”
“He cut the throat of the
goat with a knife, which is
the most kind way to do
it,” said the Silicon Valley
chef Jesse Cool, who’s
been working with Mr
Zuckerberg on his new
endeavor. “I’m eating a lot
healthier foods,” Mr
Zuckerberg told Fortune.
“And I’ve learned a lot
about sustainable farming
and raising of animals,” he
says. “It’s easy to take the
food we eat for granted
when we can eat good
things every day.”
Last year Mr Zuckerberg
committed himself to
learning Chinese. — NYT
I’m not real, but neither are you, so just fake it!
May 29: There’s a scene in
the 1988 blaxploitation par-
ody “I’m Gonna Git You
Sucka” where, as the hero
enters the boudoir of a
woman he’s just met, he
confesses he’s not as well
endowed as he may have
indicated at the bar.
The woman, relieved, says
she has confessions of her
own, then proceeds to
remove her colored con-
tacts, wig, fake derrière and
breasts and, finally, her
prosthetic leg.
It’s funny partly because
anyone who’s dated knows
that appearances can be
deceiving.
But now a new Web site,
Cloud Girlfriend (cloudgirl-
friend.com), proposes that
completely faking it can be
the start (or the entire basis)
of a relationship.
The concept is simple, if
unorthodox: Users build
fantasy profiles by selecting
a photo from a bevy of
attractive people and creat-
ing a fictitious biography
and name. A series of sim-
plistic either-or questions
(books or movies) shapes a
personality and matches it
with other fantasy profiles.
If the match agrees to
“date,” they can start send-
ing messages to each other.
From there, the relationship
can remain a fantasy; or, if
the users decide to reveal
their true selves, it can
progress or die.
The original idea for
Cloud Girlfriend was a little
different, and more devious.
It would have created fake
Facebook accounts of ideal
girlfriends or boyfriends
(say, a model who saves
endangered species) to post
messages to one’s Facebook
wall.
Users would receive the
emotional benefit of sweet
talk without actually being
in a relationship, said David
Fuhriman, a founder of the
site. And these fake mates
would also make the real,
live target of their affection
look more desirable, pro-
voking the jealousy of Face-
book-stalking exes.
There was immediate
interest: In the month pre-
ceding the site’s start in late
April, 85,000 people signed
up, Mr Fuhriman said. But
in the meantime, Cloud
Girlfriend received a letter
from Facebook’s lawyers,
warning that fake profiles
are forbidden on the site.
The new incarnation of the
company raises interesting
questions: Can two con-
sciously misrepresented
people flirt privately and
rewardingly? And can that
experience blossom into a
relationship?
The online gaming world
indicates there’s potential.
Mr Fuhriman has described
the site’s current iteration as
a combination of
Match.com and Second
Life, an online role-playing
game wherein users create
avatars — idealised selves
— to navigate virtual
worlds.
Players in such games
have fallen in love and even
married.
Sarah Smith-Robbins, a
professor at Indiana Univer-
sity specialising in social
media, said that because
avatars are highly customis-
able forms of self-expres-
sion, other players can infer
things about the player’s
true personality from them.
Relationships starting with
total fabrication could suc-
ceed, she guessed, but per-
haps not often in meaning-
ful ways.
“It’s going to be the equiv-
alent of a nightclub,” she
said, adding, “Maybe you
hit it off, and you go home
together, but the next day
it’s a completely different
world.”
— NYT
‘CLOUDY’ AFFAIR
KAPIL KHANDELWAL
A
midst much hype,
Apple launched its
iPhone 4 in India.
Incidentally, full page ads
in newspapers in the past
didn’t help increase the
penetration of Apple iPad,
which was launched a few
months ago. Apple though
followed the same
‘mantra’ for marketing its
iPhone 4.
Today, iPad penetration
in India remains a miserly
two percent amongst the
doctors, leaving aside the
‘diehard fans’ of Apple
products.
As an inquisitive cus-
tomer, I purchased a Mac
in 2008. I feel that their
after sales services and
change management is a
far cry to lure me to buy
Apple’s products over
Microsoft’s.
So much of Apple-bash-
ing, but the fact is the doc-
tor-medical rep relation-
ship in India is a bit com-
plex and change manage-
ment is a far cry to bring
in iPad revolution into
healthcare.
Let me first talk about
the key issues about the
iPad and the incidental
services to bring in the
impending tablet revolu-
tion in healthcare in India
from the doctor’s point of
view.
First and foremost, the
size of an iPad is both a
boon and a bane. For a
doctor, it is difficult to
carry an iPad around. For
the medical rep though, it
is good enough for mak-
ing an impactful presenta-
tion. Seven-inch screens
of Blackberry, Samsung
and Dell are 45 percent
smaller than an iPad’s 10
inches.
Secondly, value-added
applications are still not
available. Although Apple
leads with over 5000
healthcare applications as
compared to 500 each on
Android and Microsoft
Mobile operating sys-
tems.
Thirdly, the last mile
connectivity to the iPad in
India is a suspect. The pan
India 3G coverage is still
flaky. This may mean
changing ‘location-
aware’ and location 3G
service enabled SIM
cards to ensure that you
get the service wherever
you are.
Fourthly, the iPads are
missing the pen and paper
ability to write that other
tablets offer. These fea-
tures enable annotation of
images or scribble com-
ments on the go.
Lastly and the most
importantly is the price
factor in India. On a pur-
chasing power parity
(PPP), looking at what a
Dollar can buy in the
Apple homeland versus in
India. The iPad prices
here should be half of
what its price is in the US.
This may increase the
device’s penetration to
about 20 percent, espe-
cially among doctors.
I believe that reducing
the size to seven inches
may also reduce the
prices by around 45 per-
cent — size reduction is
proportionate to price
reduction.
From the pharma com-
panies point of view, there
are rumours of stock pil-
ing Appleware to pilot
their demos and flash in
front of the doctors. The
key issues are still out
there for the jury to judge
the success so far.
Firstly, medical reps
(MRs) are waking up to
the iPad’s tracking abili-
ties. In addition to its abil-
ity to constantly record its
location, MRs are finding
that their company soft-
ware also records their
activity while the iPad is
switched on. This comes
in the wake of global
pharma companies reduc-
ing their MR force drasti-
cally. However the reduc-
tion in MRs is not due to
iPads’ introduction.
Secondly, Pharma com-
panies should consider
many factors such as doc-
tor’s preference, average
age of the specialist doc-
tors, sophistication
level/format of the infor-
mation in the detail, and a
host of other considera-
tions — to determine if
iPad is right for their own
MRs as a tool for detail-
ing their products.
We are still a long way
from a perfect iPad revo-
lution in Doctor-Medical
Reps Relationships. How-
ever, satisfaction with
iPads by both the doctors
and medical reps is still a
distant reality. I hope
Apple’s top executives in
India are listening and not
dumping their wares on
high-pitched full page
advertisements through
service providers.
A dose of IT
Kapil Khandelwal is Director, EquNev
Capital, and a leading healthcare and ICT expert.
Kapil@KapilKhandelwal.com
iPads — a distant
reality in healthcare
eBay and PayPal sue GoogleYINKA ADEGOKE
NEWYORK
May 29: EBay and its online
payment unit, PayPal Inc,
sued Google Inc and two
executives for stealing trade
secrets related to mobile pay-
ment systems.
The two executives, Osama
Bedier and Stephanie Tile-
nius, were formerly with Pay-
Pal and led the launch of
Google’s own mobile pay-
ment system in partnership
with MasterCard, Citigroup
and phone company Sprint.
The suit highlights the
growing battle by a wide
range of companies from tra-
ditional finance to Silicon
Valley trying to take a major
stake in what has been
described as a $1 trillion
opportunity in mobile pay-
ments. The mobile phone is
seen as the digital personal
wallet of the future.
The eBay suit said Bedier
worked for nine years at Pay-
Pal, most recently serving as
vice president of platform,
mobile and new ventures. He
joined Google on January 24
this year.
Tilenius was at eBay from
2001 to October 2009 and
served as a consultant to the
company until March 2010.
The suit says Tilenius joined
Google in February 2010 as
vice president of e-com-
merce.
Bedier is accused in the suit
of having “misappropriated
PayPal trade secrets by dis-
closing them within Google
and to major retailers.”
The suit accused Tilenius of
recruiting Bedier, thereby
breaking a contractual agree-
ment with eBay. It also
claims Bedier attempted to
recruit former colleagues still
at PayPal.
Ebay said PayPal and
Google worked closely
together for three years until
this year on developing a
commercial deal where Pay-
Pal would serve as a payment
option for mobile application
purchases on Google’s
Android phones.
It said Bedier was the senior
PayPal executive leading and
finalising negotiations with
Google on Android during
this period.
It also claimed Bedier trans-
ferred up-to-date versions of
documents outlining Pay-
Pal’s mobile payment strate-
gies to his non-PayPal com-
puter just days before leaving
PayPal for Google.
“By hiring Bedier, with his
trade secret knowledge of
PayPal’s plans and under-
standing of Google’s weak-
nesses as viewed by the
industry leader (PayPal),
Google bought the most
comprehensive and sophisti-
cated critique of its own
problems available,” the suit
said.
Google spokesman Aaron
Zamost said the company had
not yet received a copy of the
complaint would not be able
to comment until it has had a
chance to review it. Google
and PayPal have done battle
in the recent past in online
payments via computers with
the launch of Google Check-
out in 2006, but Checkout has
had a minimal impact on
PayPal’s market dominance.
The suit was filed at Superi-
or Court of the State of Cali-
fornia, county of Santa Clara,
Case No: CV20l863.
— Reuters
Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corporation, addressing a function recently
A screenshot of cloudgirlfriend.com, which proposes that completely faking it, can be a start of a relationship.
bITs
Sony: Did Stringer’s makover fail?