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Downsizing Technology

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DQC Bureau
New Update

I was just about to write the obituary for the Internet in particular and

technology in general when suddenly a front-page headline in The Economic Times

that was lying on the table, grabbed my attention. "Smart Cards could have

stopped terrorists". The Parliament House in New Delhi was attacked by

terrorists the previous day and there had been a gunfight in the Parliament

House compound, killing at least 12 people. It seems the terrorists had managed

to enter the Parliament House compound under false identity using deceptive

uniforms and a white Ambassador car that looked like an official car. To the

guards on duty, it must have looked like just another official car entering the

compound.

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So why didn’t we have the smart cards? Who needs technology anyway?–we

thought. We had smart guards instead! Of course the smart guards fought with the

terrorists and killed them all –but some of them lost their own precious lives

in the process. The news item said that a contact-less radio frequency smart

card is a possible solution.

A static approach



Our approach towards technology has been typically bureaucratic. We look at

anything ‘wireless’ with suspicion. We are worried that the bad guys will

misuse every new technology that is opened up. We opened up some technologies a

few years ago with great fanfare and we were so happy with our liberal policies

that we stopped at that point in time to appreciate our own decisions and never

looked forward to the new technologies that kept developing. We have been ‘protecting’

our national interests by keeping the consumers away from new technologies like

wireless networking and voice over IP. By the time we make up our mind about

something, the world develops ten more products with new emerging technologies.

The Internet has succumbed to the same attitude. When the Internet and IT was

hot in 1998, we thought it would change the whole world. We talked about

connecting the whole country, Jhumri-tallaiya to New Delhi and all, with the

Internet link. We made e-governance the buzz-word. We thought the Indian IT

industry would rule the whole world one day! Then came the fall as stocks

tumbled on the Nasdaq. Corporate IT budgets shrank, plans for software parks

remained on paper. Pipes, which were supposed to be filled up with optical

fiber, were left alone in the ditches, which were so enthusiastically dug up.

Who needs technology any way? - we said.

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The going gets tough



Some clients postponed the decisions to build great portals. Some of the

clients downsized my contracts. Ah! It feels so nice to be downsized; you feel

you are making a positive contribution to the economy by getting downsized.

People who were in the process of assigning big web development contracts to

high-flying web design companies rather than engaging a one man team like me,

came back with decisions to build small websites for the time being.

There is a worldwide slow-down, everyone said. Some made it an excuse to

withdraw into the shell. Internet is useless; technology has no future –became

the new topics of discussion. No one can profit from the Internet, and anyone

who thought otherwise is a fool, they proclaimed. Time and again I have stressed

the importance of Internet as a powerful medium of communication through this

column. Clients who had realized this importance stuck to their policies and

kept using the Internet and Intranets to their benefit. If you were running a

company or managing a group of people who needed reliable technology to do their

work, the Internet hype was nothing more than a distraction. Charlie Feld, who

has served as CIO at Frito-Lay, Burlington Northern, Delta Airlines, and now

First Data Resources, says - "When everybody was running at the Internet

like a moth to a flame, they were wrong, and when everybody’s running away

from it now, they’re wrong too."

Changing scenarios



Then came the terrorist attack on America–the WTC tragedy, and the Anthrax

attacks. Internet is now all the more important than it ever was. The importance

of distributed data back up and data security must now be reconsidered. The

importance of teleworking rather than concentrating all your key manpower in one

vulnerable tower must now be studied. There was a lot of hype about the Internet

technology but also a huge amount of innovation came out during that period.

Whether you like it or not, the Internet and the new technologies which

developed out of the feverish activity of that period are transforming the way

your company deals with customers, employees, and suppliers. In fact, now is the

time to be thinking positively about harnessing the Internet and other new

technologies to keep your business competitive and ride over the demons of

global slow-down. Companies with the right strategies can do that with the help

of these technologies.

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Another technology that developed fast during the high tech boom is

Biometrics. Biometrics has finally arrived as a viable identification technology

for various applications. Over the past few years, the price of the computers

and chip technology has decreased dramatically. This has brought us to the point

where biometrics systems are a cost-effective solution for many identification

applications. Biometric Identification Systems are based on many types of inputs

like Face geometry, Fingerprint, Palm and Finger geometry, Iris/Retina etc. With

globalization of business and parallel globalization of terror, Identification

Technologies have acquired prime importance.

That headline in The Economic Times is still staring at me. Smart cards could

have certainly saved precious lives.

Ashok Dongre

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