Who makes the iPod – True Globalisation

If you want to study the Globalization effect of iPod, NYT has a very interesting article.

Who makes the Apple iPod? Here’s a hint: It is not Apple. The company outsources the entire manufacture of the device to a number of Asian enterprises, among them Asustek, Inventec Appliances and Foxconn.

But this list of companies isn’t a satisfactory answer either: They only do final assembly. What about the 451 parts that go into the iPod? Where are they made and by whom?

Three researchers at the University of California, Irvine — Greg Linden, Kenneth L. Kraemer and Jason Dedrick — applied some investigative cost accounting to this question, using a report from Portelligent Inc. that examined all the parts that went into the iPod.

Their study, sponsored by the Sloan Foundation, offers a fascinating illustration of the complexity of the global economy, and how difficult it is to understand that complexity by using only conventional trade statistics.

The retail value of the 30-gigabyte video iPod that the authors examined was $299. The most expensive component in it was the hard drive, which was manufactured by Toshiba and costs about $73. The next most costly components were the display module (about $20), the video/multimedia processor chip ($8) and the controller chip ($5). They estimated that the final assembly, done in China, cost only about $4 a unit.

But this method hides some of the most important details. Toshiba may be a Japanese company, but it makes most of its hard drives in the Philippines and China. So perhaps we should also allocate part of the cost of that hard drive to one of those countries. The same problem arises regarding the Broadcom chips, with most of them manufactured in Taiwan. So how can one distribute the costs of the iPod components across the countries where they are manufactured in a meaningful way?

Those clever folks at Apple figured out how to combine 451 mostly generic parts into a valuable product. They may not make the iPod, but they created it. In the end, that’s what really matters.

Favorite Ad

Like most of the Indians, my favorite sport is cricket. I just couldn’t relate myself to American Football. But I couldn’t resist the hoophallah around Superbowl ads. I saw few Superbowl ads and they were very crisp and nicely done, especially Godaddy and Coke. You can watch all Superbowl ads here .

After all this, I decided to lay down some of my favorite ads from India. These are the ads which made me nostalgic for good old days. I am sure that any Indian would concur with me on this.

To start with my favorite Ad of all time is Asian Pointsthat of Cadbury Dairy Milk

 

Other Ads I really fell close to are below

And finally, the evergreen Mile Sur Mera Tumhara. Not an ad but nonetheless nicely done.

Recycling Tips in GMail Trash Folder

I was checking my GMail account over weekend and realized that it’s been a while since I cleaned up my Trash Folder.

Now, Google is all about advertising. Advertising is what got Google to have more than 145 Billion Dollar Market Cap. It misses no chance to monetize on this feature.
So here I was deleting my junk mails and finally went to Trash folder to get rid of everything. On the top, I saw a recycling tip
“Recycled cans can be made into airplanes, appliances, furniture and more.”

Hmm, this deviates from usual Google page. I went to Inbox and then back to Trash. This time the tip was
“Recycled glass bottles can be made into roads, tiles, even surfboards.”

My collection of tips are
* Recycled glass bottles can be made into roads, tiles, even surfboards.
* Recycled plastic bottles can be made into rugs, jackets, fences and more.
* There is no limit to the number of times an aluminum can can be recycled.
* Film canisters can be reused to store nails, screws, buttons and pins.
* Recycling a 3-foot-high stack of newspapers can save one whole tree.
* Recycled paper takes about 60% less energy and water to make than new paper.
* Rubber shoe soles can be recycled to make basketball courts and soccer fields.
* Newspapers can be reused as wrapping paper for gifts.
* Recycled cans can be made into airplanes, appliances, furniture and more.
* Unneeded printouts can be cut and stapled to make notepads.
* Junk mail and newspaper can be reused as package stuffing.
* You can make a lovely hat out of previously-used aluminum foil.
* Empty tissue boxes can provide easy and handy storage for plastic grocery bags.
* Plastic bags can be reused as bin liners or package stuffing.

Look for more tips when you go to Trash for cleanup.

R.I.P (So long Sir Sidney)

Sidney Sheldon died yesterday at age 89. It was Sidney Sheldon among others who got me started reading fiction books. I remember ‘Tell me your dreams’, ‘The Other Side of Midnight’, ‘Bloodline’ etc.

When I initially graduated from comics and Hardy boys novel, next stop for me was Sheldon books. He wrote enough to satiate the thrill appetite of a teenager. With time, I found his books to be very predictable and lost interest in his books. I didn’t read his last novel “The Other Side Of Me”.

Nevertheless, anyone who can write and write well has a true gift. We lost an artist that left behind a beautiful legacy in print.

He was also the creator of the Emmy-winning “I Dream of Jeannie” TV series and started writing at age of 50.

Goodbye, Mr. Sheldon and rest in peace.

“YOU” — Times Person of the year

The wait is finally over. I am Person of the year and so are you.

Since the deal of Youtube, user generated content is the new buzzword in Internet industry. So it didn’t come as a suprise when Wikia announced OpenServing, which I guess is nothing but based on Youtube’s business model i.e. maintain user content’s and wait for some big daddy (Google in case of Youtube) to step in with a big cheque.

Whatever it is, Wikipedia, Flikr or Myspace, at the end it is YOU who is gaining and are being welcomed to the world of freebies. Internet has become a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. So whether it is movie reviews, online videos, encyclopedia, Operating System, blogs, YOU, the end users, are everywhere and big daddys are noticing.

I am proud to be part of collective mass known as YOU and I am proud to be Person of the year. This line from Time article says it all

“For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.”

Congratulations and welcome to Web2.0, welcome to 2007.

Hello World

With this post, I am trying to make a foray into the world of blogging. Although I have been an avid reader of blogs since a while now, I never thought of owning one. The reason was that I was never sure whether I would be able to provide much time to pour my thoughts on web pages.

So what made me change my mind?

No, I didn’t suddenly go broke and bored.

The real reason is that firstly, the best part of having a blog is that you don’t have to be diligent in writing a post daily. It doesn’t demand any commitment.

As rightly said “It beats yelling at the television” – Glenn ‘Instapundit’ Reynolds (Taken from desipundit)

Secondly, I don’t need to give a heck with what I have to write. Unlike weekly/monthly status reports, mails to clients, I don’t have to worry about language or grammar for that matter.

Thirdly, blog is more like an online diary where I can put my thoughts and I can ponder over them in future. Sometime down the line, it would be nice to read what I wrote long before.

This reminds me of Pensieve, which Albus Dumbledore is known to use.

OK now so I have decided to start a blog. The next big question facing me now is what to call my web baby. As should be true for everybody else, I started looking for a fresh, catchy, trendy, witty, original name. But boy this is really a challenging task. I always want to be in charge of the situation, so struggling so much for a name didn’t go well with my personality. I am not suffering from OCD but looking for a good blog name made me obsessive.

One thing about blog names is that people tend to relate it to your personality. Reading a blog name gives you a fair idea about what you can expect in posts.

Considering above assumption as my criteria and my real intention of blogging, I came up with name “Waste of Space”

So guys I will take a leave now and will post as soon as I find something to write about.