Alaa El Nawawy

Real 20 rules for working in a Corporation

September 27, 2014

Some random thoughts after more than 10 years of working in large corporations , these are my 20 golden rules

1.Do not join loss making corporations
2.Build your network and make sure you know “who is who”
3.Choose your battles
4.Large corporations no matter how big or profit making are NOT charity organisations , so do not expect things for free
5.You do not need to be in a leadership role to lead , if you have it in you show them what you got
6.The longer your emails the more likely they will not be read , so get to the damn point
7.Choose your battles
8.The more people you put in copy of your emails the more likely decision making will be difficult
9.For god’s sake think before you hit the “Reply to All” button
10.For every part of the organisation there is a boss and there is a “real boss” so make sure you find who the real boss is
11.You must find “The” something that you will be remembered for and get on with doing it
12.If you expect to make mark in the corporation , do not expect the job to be a 9 to 5 job
13.Choose your battles
14.Nobody is going to give you interesting stuff to do or new responsibilities you need to ask for it
15.Attachements are generally not opened , if you have something important to say make sure you put it in the body of the email
16.Make sure you know what your next 2 or 3 steps are from your current job
17.General announcement mails contain valuable information so read them
18.No man is an island , so do not think that you will become more valuable than the corporation
19.Every organisation has “some” internal politics so make sure you understand it
20.Choose your battles

Google Glass…a 3rd World Product or What ?

July 18, 2014

Alaa el Nawawy

Education

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Been very interested in keeping up with the different reviews that are circulating from users of Google glass and analysing the different usages the people put the product through. If you look a little closer you could actually see how this product is better placed for being used in 3rd world countries more than anywhere else.

If you are from a 3rd world country like myself , and been watching what’s happening specially if pay a close look at the arab world you would have figured by now that education and access to basic services is actually our main problem. Demand for education and basic human services is at its peak yet supply and most importantly method and quality of supply is the main issue. This is fuelled by years of low spend on basic services and the centralised manner in which most 3rd world countries operate.

Now looking at the Google glass and how it can be put to action in solving many of our major problems here is a now where close to a comprehensive list :

1. Imagine if medical operations and procedures can be broadcasted all around education facilities spread across the country where usually the most advanced medical procedures are happening in the capital city

2. Imagine engineering students being able to see real machinery at work instead of studying them theoretically in text books .

3. Imagine patients living in a remote area where local medical facilities do not have the needed skilled personnel , but those personnel have google glass to broadcast the patient status live to a more experienced doctor in another city or even country

4.Imagine border security scanning images of people coming in , and quickly matching them to a central database instead of manual phone call or broadcast

5.Imagine crime scene investigators streaming evidence to central labs in capital cities

…imagine…imagine & imagine…

Prospects are just enormous , and looking at the price of the Google glass and how mass production might help driving its costs down , it would become and a minor investment that is just worth making.

Inflated or What !!

June 2, 2014

Alaa el Nawawy

Social Media

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Since Facebook went on an bought Whats App for $19bn , i have been wanting to write on how such actions are over inflating the IT market and might be a cause for future disasters. What brought this back to my head was recent announcement by Apple that it has purchased Beats for $3bn !!

So figure this out , Beats a company with a product , sales and profits is worth $3bn , while a company that does not make any profits , no sales is worth $19bn !!

This just made me realise how important we “The users” of apps such as Whats app , are becoming and having access to us and having access to our contacts, picture etc , is becoming invaluable that companies are ready to pay a high premium to get to us. I think i read some where in an article where someone has done the math Facebook paid $42/user !!

Although months have passed and we are yet to see how Facebook is going to leverage the power within its hands and how it is going to tap to the 400Million+ users on Whats app to turn this into a revenue generating machine,that is going to be certainly a scene worth waiting for .

Cloud “In a box”

August 9, 2013

Alaa el Nawawy

Cloud Computing

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The push for the cloud continues to be on the highest priority for all vendors that are focusing on enabling customers to the cloud. Yet all the big sharks in the market are after the big bites be that banks, telcos and large enterprises . SME markets seem to be seen as only target consumers of cloud services that those big bites are going to offer.

While eventually the biggest cloud market will remain in those sectors , but yet I think that there is an untapped sector which is an IT SME providing cloud services to the SME market.

Hence comes the idea of making a “cloud in a box” . IT vendors should start looking at enabling small startups kick start their clouds , by creating a product that has everything in a plug and play mode , meaning the server,storage,connectivity and most importantly the application . That application can be a CRM , ERP or any kind of application that SME’s would want to buy . The problem with the current market scene , is that large enterprises are thinking too big on how they want to launch these services, and the cost of integrating those applications with infrastructure etc, is costing a fortune and taking too much time, and also preventing small companies from starting up their own cloud service provider companies.

Giving those small companies, specially in undeveloped markets a ready made cloud in a single box, means they can start selling software as service immediately.

Strongly believe this can create a new market area that remains untapped.

P.S: have heard that CSC have started doing this already , but yet to read more about it.

Cloud Computing….what’s the end game ??

October 28, 2012

Alaa el Nawawy

Cloud Computing

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No doubt the next 4 to 5 years will witness a huge change in the IT scene , with cloud computing being pushed by practically everybody who is anybody ( even those who didn’t think so !!) the scene is set for major shuffle .

Looking at how IT companies are shaping themselves in the current time either through product restructuring, acquisitions or even mergers, I tend to see the whole scene going into a 3 tiered one , in which all those companies will blend into one of those tiers . Here is how I think it will look like :

Here is my take on the roles of each tier in this cloud computing era.

Tier 1: Those are the companies that will be making the most of this era , they will be the face to majority of the customers specially they SME and mid-market business . Companies in this tier are Salesforce.com , Amazon and many others that are in the making or will boom in the next couple of years. This tier will be probably the tier making the most profits .

Tier 2: The management layer is currently picking up rapidly in the market these are companies that will be in charge of hosting, managing and operating the data centre infrastructure either for the Tier 1 companies or for Enterprise customers that will have to maintain private clouds , samples of those companies are Rack Space , Accenture , HCL ,Wipro and many others .

Tier 3 : The supplier layer is where the big “War” is going to happen in the coming years, companies will seek to broaden their product range to provide all what data centers are going to need . Tier 2 companies are the customers for the Tier 3 , in addition to some enterprise customers which are too big to be managed and are on the manage it yourself mode. This is the area where we see the unthinkable happen from my perspective. Even these days we have started hearing some of this “War” happen , rumors Juniper going on sale and EMC being a potential buyer , I would go even further and say that we might see bigger mergers happening ,how about an HP –Cisco Merge ?? or an IBM acquisition of Netapp?? I think this tier will not have room for plenty of players I would say 4 to 5 major players and the rest will get crushed by time.

Surrounding all this will be the service layer of companies , which are basically 2 groups of companies :

Group 1 : Software houses , whether they are giants like SAP , Microsoft or Oracle , or even small unknown ones, they will be more or less neutral to what is happening (although we have Microsoft poking its nose into virtualization with Hyper V) but I tend to think that Microsoft will spin off this Hyper-V business at some point. This groups of companies will buy services/product from all 3 Tiers , and will sell services to all 3 as well .

Group 2 : Consumer hardware companies , those are the likes of Lenovo , the Dell and HP side of consumer electronics , which will remain a must have for the years and years to come even those divisions are not exactly well performing in the current time. One major game changer in this sector is if Apple decides to pull the trigger at some point and launch a business line targeting enterprises and that will be a totally different story.

While I do not want to be seen as if I am doing some crystal ball future telling , it is just my take on how things look to be evolving . The trick about all this is that you get the buzz these days ,But it seems like nobody is willing to take the first move , I think its going to be a snowball effect from there. So who will be first to unleash the race to the final and toughest stretch of the journey to the cloud !!