Grammar maketh the man

Not quite, but if one is serious about doing an MBA from an institute like the IIM I hope the level of written and spoken English is better than the example below...

I got this in my in inbox a few days back. Read and judge for yourself:

"
i got ur email id from PGSEM yahoo group,i think ur writing PGSEM this time. ur working in a partner company,so company will sponcer for u?

please give me the information,becoz to complete PGSEM fees will be 3.75 lacks.i want to know what is partner company means,how they help us to complete PGSEM.
"

Should have tried this in the finance and quant courses

Some of the faculty actually have a pretty evolved sense of humour. Who knows it may even have got me a better grade in some of the finance and quantitative courses...

The Indispensable MBA Companion Site

This is a site titled as a "Web Economy Bullshit Generator" - http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html

Try it out and you are likely to find it indispensable when you need to sound smart. Some phrases the generator spewed out:

• architect granular e-services
• transition back-end interfaces
• recontextualize granular vortals
• implement robust niches
• monetize best-of-breed users
• reintermediate web-enabled e-services
• And many, many more....

The Google PC and Positioning and all that

News sites are starting to hot up with rumours that Google may launch a low cost PC as early as this week.

Mary Jo Foley's 'Microsoft Watch' column titles the story ' Microsoft's Worst Nightmare Poised to Debut?' and has this to say about the news:
Google is rumored to be planning to roll out some sort of Google PC on Friday. It's not clear what will power the low-cost machine, but it won't be Windows. We're betting the long-rumored Google OS and/or Gbrowser could be part of the package. Others have tried the low-cost approach to knock the Redmondians off their desktop-OS-monopoly pedestal, but no one's succeeded so far.

If true, this is going to be very interesting to watch it unfold. Look at it this way - there is a whole body of management research and literature that has been used to explain Microsoft's dominance and sustained stranglehold over the PC market. Theories as network effects, barriers to entry, complementarity of goods, dominant design, economic benefits of bundling, and more. What if Google does succeed? It may not, and chances are less than even that it will, but who knows? After all, who would have predicted that a relatively commoditized item like an MP3 player could drive a billion dollars of sales at Apple through the iPod?

Second set of photos

Second set of photos - this photo was taken on Feb 7 2004, almost two years back. We, i.e. the class of 2003, were in Q3. And I think this was the end term(?) for marketing. Marketing, as taught to us by Prof Thiru. The fact that this is the marketing test (and I am making a leap of faith by building on the assumption that this is indeed the marketing test) also means why so many people are looking so relaxed!

Srinivas captured here, sitting under a tree. Maybe to gain enlightenment. Maybe not.

Another day, another end term exam. This photo dates back to Feb 8, at approx 11AM. People can correct me, but I suspect this was the day of the QMM end term. QMM as in Quantitative Methods in Management. Aka Statistics.

And another end term photo from the AY2003 Q3 end term. This looks like the QMM end term, though I can't be sure. Jagan's hand over his head, Ramaswamy's smile, Ramya's bemused look, all send conflicting signals. And I am not in the picture here, since I was taking the picture. That would be a sure signal whether this was a quant oriented paper or not, going by how lost I looked :-) Till the next photo post.
Photos (c) 2005, Abhinav Agarwal, unless otherwise specified.