The Twenty Largest Countries in the World

Feb 8 2006The Twenty Largest Countries in Area in the World by area, in both square kilometers and square miles.1. Russia: 17,075,200 km2 (6,591,027 mi2)2. Canada: 9,984,670 km2 (3,854,082 mi2)3. United States: 9,631,418 km2 (3,717,727 mi2)4. China: 9,596,960 km2 (3,704,426 mi2)5. Brazil: 8,511,965 km2 (3,285,618 mi2)6. Australia: 7,686,850 km2 (2,967,124 mi2)7. India: 3,287,590 km2 (1,269,009 mi2)8. Argentina: 2,766,890 km2 (1,068,019 mi2)9. Kazakhstan: 2,717,300 km2 (1,048,877 mi2)10. Sudan: 2,505,810 km2 (967,243 mi2)11. Algeria: 2,381,740 km2 (919,352 mi2)12. Congo, Democratic Republic of the: 2,345,410 km2 (905,328 mi2)13. Mexico: 1,972,550 km2 (761,404 mi2)14. Saudi Arabia: 1,960,582 km2 (756,785 mi2)15. Indonesia: 1,919,440 km2 (740,904 mi2)16. Libya: 1,759,540 km2 (679,182 mi2)17. Iran: 1,648,000 km2 (636,128 mi2)18. Mongolia: 1,564,116 km2 (603,749 mi2)19. Peru: 1,285,220 km2 (496,095 mi2)20. Chad: 1,284,000 km2 (495,624 mi2)

Dec 7 2005
Countries with the Largest Population
This is a listing of the 23 most populous countries in the world (those having a population over fifty million). Data are estimates from mid-2005.

1. China - 1,306,313,812


2. India - 1,080,264,388


3. United States - 295,734,134


4. Indonesia - 241,973,879


5. Brazil - 186,112,794


6. Pakistan - 162,419,946


7. Bangladesh - 144,319,628


8. Russia - 143,420,309


9. Nigeria - 128,765,768


10. Japan - 127,417,244


11. Mexico - 106,202,903


12. Philippines - 87,857,473


13. Vietnam - 83,535,576


14. Germany - 82,431,390


15. Egypt - 77,505,756


16. Ethiopia - 73,053,286


17. Turkey - 69,660,559


18. Iran - 68,017,860


19. Thailand - 64,185,502


20. Democratic Republic of the Congo - 60,764,490


21. France - 60,656,178


22. United Kingdom - 60,441,457


23. Italy - 58,103,033

Source: U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base

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The twenty largest countries in the world

Feb 8 2006
The Twenty Largest Countries in Area in the World by area, in both square kilometers and square miles.

1. Russia: 17,075,200 km2 (6,591,027 mi2)
2. Canada: 9,984,670 km2 (3,854,082 mi2)
3. United States: 9,631,418 km2 (3,717,727 mi2)
4. China: 9,596,960 km2 (3,704,426 mi2)
5. Brazil: 8,511,965 km2 (3,285,618 mi2)
6. Australia: 7,686,850 km2 (2,967,124 mi2)
7. India: 3,287,590 km2 (1,269,009 mi2)
8. Argentina: 2,766,890 km2 (1,068,019 mi2)
9. Kazakhstan: 2,717,300 km2 (1,048,877 mi2)
10. Sudan: 2,505,810 km2 (967,243 mi2)
11. Algeria: 2,381,740 km2 (919,352 mi2)
12. Congo, Democratic Republic of the: 2,345,410 km2 (905,328 mi2)
13. Mexico: 1,972,550 km2 (761,404 mi2)
14. Saudi Arabia: 1,960,582 km2 (756,785 mi2)
15. Indonesia: 1,919,440 km2 (740,904 mi2)
16. Libya: 1,759,540 km2 (679,182 mi2)
17. Iran: 1,648,000 km2 (636,128 mi2)
18. Mongolia: 1,564,116 km2 (603,749 mi2)
19. Peru: 1,285,220 km2 (496,095 mi2)
20. Chad: 1,284,000 km2 (495,624 mi2)

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New Microsoft Browser Raises Google's Hackles

Source: The New York Times

May 1, 2006
New Microsoft Browser Raises Google's Hackles
By STEVE LOHR
With a $10 billion advertising market at stake, Google, the fast-rising Internet star, is raising objections to the way that it says Microsoft, the incumbent powerhouse of computing, is wielding control over Internet searching in its new Web browser.
Google, which only recently began beefing up its lobbying efforts in Washington, says it expressed concerns about competition in the Web search business in recent talks with the Justice Department and the European Commission, both of which have brought previous antitrust actions against Microsoft.
The new browser includes a search box in the upper-right corner that is typically set up to send users to Microsoft's MSN search service. Google contends that this puts Microsoft in a position to unfairly grab Web traffic and advertising dollars from its competitors.
The move, Google claims, limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990's.
"The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services," said Marissa Mayer, the vice president for search products at Google. "We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose."
Microsoft replies that Google is misreading its intentions and actions. It says the default settings in the browser, Internet Explorer 7, are easy to change. And it says the product was designed with consumers and many partners in mind — even though it might not be to the liking of Google, the leading search engine.
"Whatever behavior happened in the past, the guiding principle we had is that the user is in control," said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer group.
Companies often talk with antitrust officials, and the talks do not imply that an investigation is imminent. But they do indicate that Google is pursuing every option in its escalating rivalry with Microsoft, which has already led to some public battles.
Last December, Google outbid Microsoft to remain the primary search service on America Online, paying $1 billion and taking a 5 percent stake in AOL. Last year, Microsoft sued Google to stop a star computer scientist and manager at Microsoft, Kai-Fu Lee, from working on search technology at Google. The suit was settled, and Mr. Lee runs Google's operations in China.
The browser that set off the latest dispute has been in development for some time, but Microsoft first made it available to the public for downloading last week in a test version. It is the first new release of Microsoft's browser in five years. A final version is expected to be released this summer and will be included in Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista, which is scheduled for release next January.
The focus of Google's concern is a slender box in the corner of the browser window that allows users to start a search directly instead of first going to the Web site of a search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN. Typing a query and hitting "Enter" immediately brings up a page of results from a designated search engine.
That slice of on-screen real estate has the potential to be enormously valuable, and Microsoft is the landlord. Internet Explorer 7 is the first Microsoft browser to have a built-in search box, while other browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari have had them for some time. Google estimates that the boxes, when available, are the starting point for 30 to 50 percent of a user's searches, making them a crucial gateway to the lucrative and fast-growing market for advertisements that appear next to search results.
Microsoft has lost some ground in the browser market in the last year, mainly to Firefox, which is a Google ally. But Microsoft still holds more than 80 percent of the market. And Internet Explorer 7 is expected to be extremely popular because it is an improvement over Microsoft's previous browser, and because Microsoft will promote downloads of it and include it in Windows Vista.
That gives Microsoft the potential to use the browser to steer substantial traffic, and business, to MSN and away from rivals. MSN handled 11 percent of searches in the United States in March, down slightly from a year earlier, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings, a market research firm. That put it well behind Google, which had a 49 percent share, and Yahoo, with 22 percent.
Microsoft insists it has no intention of deploying its browser as a weapon in the search wars. But Google suspects otherwise.
In meetings beginning last year, Google told Microsoft of its objections to the company's plans to set MSN as the default search engine in Internet Explorer 7, according to Ms. Mayer of Google. Yahoo raised similar objections in a meeting with Microsoft last year, according to a Yahoo employee who was briefed on the conversation. Yahoo declined to comment last week beyond a statement: "We would be concerned about any company's attempts to limit user choice or change user preferences without their knowledge, and believe others would share that concern."
With its objections unresolved, Google took the matter to antitrust authorities in Europe and the United States during the last month. It is not clear what, if anything, will come of the talks or how far Google is willing to push the issue.
In Europe, where Microsoft is challenging an antitrust decision against the company for its past behavior, the European Commission has already made inquiries about Microsoft's plans for Vista. Though it is now distributing Internet Explorer 7 separately, Microsoft has long maintained that its browser is part of its Windows operating system.
Google has informed the European antitrust authorities of its worry that "Microsoft's approach to setting search defaults in Internet Explorer 7 benefits Microsoft while taking away choice from users," said Steve Langdon, a spokesman for Google.
Google would not say specifically what it has discussed with American antitrust officials. "We have spoken to the Justice Department generally about our business and the importance of preserving competition in the search market," Mr. Langdon said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
The best way to handle the search box, Google asserts, would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7. It says that could be done by asking the user to either type in the name of their favorite search engine or choose from a handful of the most popular services, using a simple drop-down menu next to the search box.
The Firefox and Opera browsers come with Google set as the default, but Ms. Mayer said Google would support unfettered choice on those as well.
Microsoft replies that giving users an open-ended choice could add complexity and confusion to the browser set-up process, while offering a few options would be arbitrarily limiting.
Instead, those wanting to pick a new search-box option in the new browser need to click through a menu with options like "Get Search Providers," which links to a Web page with six search engines including Google and 16 "topic search" sites, from Amazon to MTV to Wal-Mart.
Mr. Hachamovitch, who led Microsoft's browser team, said MSN was not always the default search in Internet Explorer 7. When downloaded, the new browser inherits the settings from the old Microsoft browser, version 6. But the search default in that program was based on a feature called AutoSearch that Google says was not widely used.
Mr. Hachamovitch said Microsoft's user research and early reviews indicate that it is easy to change the default setting. "People seem to be O.K. with what we're doing," he said.
Google counters that claim with a study it sponsored that was conducted by Tec-Ed, a research firm. It found that only a third of users could master the four-click process to change the default.
Whether Microsoft's treatment of the search box will have an impact on the search market is uncertain. From an antitrust perspective, harm to competition is the litmus test, not just swinging a sharp elbow or two. There are many ways people get to search engines other than through a search box — for example, by typing google.com in the browser or making it their home page.
"Assume that everything Google says is true; the question then is whether Microsoft's conduct is really going to have a serious effect on Google," said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. "Obviously, Google thinks that it will."
Google is now a rich, powerful company in its own right, far larger than the browser pioneer Netscape Communications was when Microsoft set out to dominate the market it had created in the 1990's. In 2001, after a lengthy trial, a federal appeals court held that Microsoft had repeatedly violated antitrust laws as it tried to stifle the challenge from Netscape. Later, Microsoft reached a settlement with the Justice Department that freed personal computer makers from some restrictions Microsoft had placed on their use of software and services that compete with its own products.
When Internet Explorer 7 begins to be loaded on new machines next year, computer makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard will be free to determine what search engines and other sites they feature in the browser's Web guide and search box.
That promises to be valuable screen real estate indeed, especially the coveted spot as the preferred search engine, which the computer makers are likely to sell to the highest bidder. Google and Yahoo have deep pockets, but no one can match Microsoft's spending power. "People will be bidding aggressively to get in that space," said Mr. Hachamovitch of Microsoft. "And that's a good thing."
John Markoff contributed reporting for this article.

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New Microsoft Browser Raises Google's Hackles

Source: The New York Times

May 1, 2006
New Microsoft Browser Raises Google's Hackles
By STEVE LOHR
With a $10 billion advertising market at stake, Google, the fast-rising Internet star, is raising objections to the way that it says Microsoft, the incumbent powerhouse of computing, is wielding control over Internet searching in its new Web browser.
Google, which only recently began beefing up its lobbying efforts in Washington, says it expressed concerns about competition in the Web search business in recent talks with the Justice Department and the European Commission, both of which have brought previous antitrust actions against Microsoft.
The new browser includes a search box in the upper-right corner that is typically set up to send users to Microsoft's MSN search service. Google contends that this puts Microsoft in a position to unfairly grab Web traffic and advertising dollars from its competitors.
The move, Google claims, limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990's.
"The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services," said Marissa Mayer, the vice president for search products at Google. "We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose."
Microsoft replies that Google is misreading its intentions and actions. It says the default settings in the browser, Internet Explorer 7, are easy to change. And it says the product was designed with consumers and many partners in mind — even though it might not be to the liking of Google, the leading search engine.
"Whatever behavior happened in the past, the guiding principle we had is that the user is in control," said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer group.
Companies often talk with antitrust officials, and the talks do not imply that an investigation is imminent. But they do indicate that Google is pursuing every option in its escalating rivalry with Microsoft, which has already led to some public battles.
Last December, Google outbid Microsoft to remain the primary search service on America Online, paying $1 billion and taking a 5 percent stake in AOL. Last year, Microsoft sued Google to stop a star computer scientist and manager at Microsoft, Kai-Fu Lee, from working on search technology at Google. The suit was settled, and Mr. Lee runs Google's operations in China.
The browser that set off the latest dispute has been in development for some time, but Microsoft first made it available to the public for downloading last week in a test version. It is the first new release of Microsoft's browser in five years. A final version is expected to be released this summer and will be included in Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista, which is scheduled for release next January.
The focus of Google's concern is a slender box in the corner of the browser window that allows users to start a search directly instead of first going to the Web site of a search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN. Typing a query and hitting "Enter" immediately brings up a page of results from a designated search engine.
That slice of on-screen real estate has the potential to be enormously valuable, and Microsoft is the landlord. Internet Explorer 7 is the first Microsoft browser to have a built-in search box, while other browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari have had them for some time. Google estimates that the boxes, when available, are the starting point for 30 to 50 percent of a user's searches, making them a crucial gateway to the lucrative and fast-growing market for advertisements that appear next to search results.
Microsoft has lost some ground in the browser market in the last year, mainly to Firefox, which is a Google ally. But Microsoft still holds more than 80 percent of the market. And Internet Explorer 7 is expected to be extremely popular because it is an improvement over Microsoft's previous browser, and because Microsoft will promote downloads of it and include it in Windows Vista.
That gives Microsoft the potential to use the browser to steer substantial traffic, and business, to MSN and away from rivals. MSN handled 11 percent of searches in the United States in March, down slightly from a year earlier, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings, a market research firm. That put it well behind Google, which had a 49 percent share, and Yahoo, with 22 percent.
Microsoft insists it has no intention of deploying its browser as a weapon in the search wars. But Google suspects otherwise.
In meetings beginning last year, Google told Microsoft of its objections to the company's plans to set MSN as the default search engine in Internet Explorer 7, according to Ms. Mayer of Google. Yahoo raised similar objections in a meeting with Microsoft last year, according to a Yahoo employee who was briefed on the conversation. Yahoo declined to comment last week beyond a statement: "We would be concerned about any company's attempts to limit user choice or change user preferences without their knowledge, and believe others would share that concern."
With its objections unresolved, Google took the matter to antitrust authorities in Europe and the United States during the last month. It is not clear what, if anything, will come of the talks or how far Google is willing to push the issue.
In Europe, where Microsoft is challenging an antitrust decision against the company for its past behavior, the European Commission has already made inquiries about Microsoft's plans for Vista. Though it is now distributing Internet Explorer 7 separately, Microsoft has long maintained that its browser is part of its Windows operating system.
Google has informed the European antitrust authorities of its worry that "Microsoft's approach to setting search defaults in Internet Explorer 7 benefits Microsoft while taking away choice from users," said Steve Langdon, a spokesman for Google.
Google would not say specifically what it has discussed with American antitrust officials. "We have spoken to the Justice Department generally about our business and the importance of preserving competition in the search market," Mr. Langdon said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
The best way to handle the search box, Google asserts, would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7. It says that could be done by asking the user to either type in the name of their favorite search engine or choose from a handful of the most popular services, using a simple drop-down menu next to the search box.
The Firefox and Opera browsers come with Google set as the default, but Ms. Mayer said Google would support unfettered choice on those as well.
Microsoft replies that giving users an open-ended choice could add complexity and confusion to the browser set-up process, while offering a few options would be arbitrarily limiting.
Instead, those wanting to pick a new search-box option in the new browser need to click through a menu with options like "Get Search Providers," which links to a Web page with six search engines including Google and 16 "topic search" sites, from Amazon to MTV to Wal-Mart.
Mr. Hachamovitch, who led Microsoft's browser team, said MSN was not always the default search in Internet Explorer 7. When downloaded, the new browser inherits the settings from the old Microsoft browser, version 6. But the search default in that program was based on a feature called AutoSearch that Google says was not widely used.
Mr. Hachamovitch said Microsoft's user research and early reviews indicate that it is easy to change the default setting. "People seem to be O.K. with what we're doing," he said.
Google counters that claim with a study it sponsored that was conducted by Tec-Ed, a research firm. It found that only a third of users could master the four-click process to change the default.
Whether Microsoft's treatment of the search box will have an impact on the search market is uncertain. From an antitrust perspective, harm to competition is the litmus test, not just swinging a sharp elbow or two. There are many ways people get to search engines other than through a search box — for example, by typing google.com in the browser or making it their home page.
"Assume that everything Google says is true; the question then is whether Microsoft's conduct is really going to have a serious effect on Google," said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. "Obviously, Google thinks that it will."
Google is now a rich, powerful company in its own right, far larger than the browser pioneer Netscape Communications was when Microsoft set out to dominate the market it had created in the 1990's. In 2001, after a lengthy trial, a federal appeals court held that Microsoft had repeatedly violated antitrust laws as it tried to stifle the challenge from Netscape. Later, Microsoft reached a settlement with the Justice Department that freed personal computer makers from some restrictions Microsoft had placed on their use of software and services that compete with its own products.
When Internet Explorer 7 begins to be loaded on new machines next year, computer makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard will be free to determine what search engines and other sites they feature in the browser's Web guide and search box.
That promises to be valuable screen real estate indeed, especially the coveted spot as the preferred search engine, which the computer makers are likely to sell to the highest bidder. Google and Yahoo have deep pockets, but no one can match Microsoft's spending power. "People will be bidding aggressively to get in that space," said Mr. Hachamovitch of Microsoft. "And that's a good thing."
John Markoff contributed reporting for this article.

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Microsoft and Google Arms Race

Source: The New York Times

May 1, 2006
New Microsoft Browser Raises Google's Hackles
By STEVE LOHR
With a $10 billion advertising market at stake, Google, the fast-rising Internet star, is raising objections to the way that it says Microsoft, the incumbent powerhouse of computing, is wielding control over Internet searching in its new Web browser.
Google, which only recently began beefing up its lobbying efforts in Washington, says it expressed concerns about competition in the Web search business in recent talks with the Justice Department and the European Commission, both of which have brought previous antitrust actions against Microsoft.
The new browser includes a search box in the upper-right corner that is typically set up to send users to Microsoft's MSN search service. Google contends that this puts Microsoft in a position to unfairly grab Web traffic and advertising dollars from its competitors.
The move, Google claims, limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990's.
"The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services," said Marissa Mayer, the vice president for search products at Google. "We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose."
Microsoft replies that Google is misreading its intentions and actions. It says the default settings in the browser, Internet Explorer 7, are easy to change. And it says the product was designed with consumers and many partners in mind — even though it might not be to the liking of Google, the leading search engine.
"Whatever behavior happened in the past, the guiding principle we had is that the user is in control," said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer group.
Companies often talk with antitrust officials, and the talks do not imply that an investigation is imminent. But they do indicate that Google is pursuing every option in its escalating rivalry with Microsoft, which has already led to some public battles.
Last December, Google outbid Microsoft to remain the primary search service on America Online, paying $1 billion and taking a 5 percent stake in AOL. Last year, Microsoft sued Google to stop a star computer scientist and manager at Microsoft, Kai-Fu Lee, from working on search technology at Google. The suit was settled, and Mr. Lee runs Google's operations in China.
The browser that set off the latest dispute has been in development for some time, but Microsoft first made it available to the public for downloading last week in a test version. It is the first new release of Microsoft's browser in five years. A final version is expected to be released this summer and will be included in Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista, which is scheduled for release next January.
The focus of Google's concern is a slender box in the corner of the browser window that allows users to start a search directly instead of first going to the Web site of a search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN. Typing a query and hitting "Enter" immediately brings up a page of results from a designated search engine.
That slice of on-screen real estate has the potential to be enormously valuable, and Microsoft is the landlord. Internet Explorer 7 is the first Microsoft browser to have a built-in search box, while other browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari have had them for some time. Google estimates that the boxes, when available, are the starting point for 30 to 50 percent of a user's searches, making them a crucial gateway to the lucrative and fast-growing market for advertisements that appear next to search results.
Microsoft has lost some ground in the browser market in the last year, mainly to Firefox, which is a Google ally. But Microsoft still holds more than 80 percent of the market. And Internet Explorer 7 is expected to be extremely popular because it is an improvement over Microsoft's previous browser, and because Microsoft will promote downloads of it and include it in Windows Vista.
That gives Microsoft the potential to use the browser to steer substantial traffic, and business, to MSN and away from rivals. MSN handled 11 percent of searches in the United States in March, down slightly from a year earlier, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings, a market research firm. That put it well behind Google, which had a 49 percent share, and Yahoo, with 22 percent.
Microsoft insists it has no intention of deploying its browser as a weapon in the search wars. But Google suspects otherwise.
In meetings beginning last year, Google told Microsoft of its objections to the company's plans to set MSN as the default search engine in Internet Explorer 7, according to Ms. Mayer of Google. Yahoo raised similar objections in a meeting with Microsoft last year, according to a Yahoo employee who was briefed on the conversation. Yahoo declined to comment last week beyond a statement: "We would be concerned about any company's attempts to limit user choice or change user preferences without their knowledge, and believe others would share that concern."
With its objections unresolved, Google took the matter to antitrust authorities in Europe and the United States during the last month. It is not clear what, if anything, will come of the talks or how far Google is willing to push the issue.
In Europe, where Microsoft is challenging an antitrust decision against the company for its past behavior, the European Commission has already made inquiries about Microsoft's plans for Vista. Though it is now distributing Internet Explorer 7 separately, Microsoft has long maintained that its browser is part of its Windows operating system.
Google has informed the European antitrust authorities of its worry that "Microsoft's approach to setting search defaults in Internet Explorer 7 benefits Microsoft while taking away choice from users," said Steve Langdon, a spokesman for Google.
Google would not say specifically what it has discussed with American antitrust officials. "We have spoken to the Justice Department generally about our business and the importance of preserving competition in the search market," Mr. Langdon said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
The best way to handle the search box, Google asserts, would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7. It says that could be done by asking the user to either type in the name of their favorite search engine or choose from a handful of the most popular services, using a simple drop-down menu next to the search box.
The Firefox and Opera browsers come with Google set as the default, but Ms. Mayer said Google would support unfettered choice on those as well.
Microsoft replies that giving users an open-ended choice could add complexity and confusion to the browser set-up process, while offering a few options would be arbitrarily limiting.
Instead, those wanting to pick a new search-box option in the new browser need to click through a menu with options like "Get Search Providers," which links to a Web page with six search engines including Google and 16 "topic search" sites, from Amazon to MTV to Wal-Mart.
Mr. Hachamovitch, who led Microsoft's browser team, said MSN was not always the default search in Internet Explorer 7. When downloaded, the new browser inherits the settings from the old Microsoft browser, version 6. But the search default in that program was based on a feature called AutoSearch that Google says was not widely used.
Mr. Hachamovitch said Microsoft's user research and early reviews indicate that it is easy to change the default setting. "People seem to be O.K. with what we're doing," he said.
Google counters that claim with a study it sponsored that was conducted by Tec-Ed, a research firm. It found that only a third of users could master the four-click process to change the default.
Whether Microsoft's treatment of the search box will have an impact on the search market is uncertain. From an antitrust perspective, harm to competition is the litmus test, not just swinging a sharp elbow or two. There are many ways people get to search engines other than through a search box — for example, by typing google.com in the browser or making it their home page.
"Assume that everything Google says is true; the question then is whether Microsoft's conduct is really going to have a serious effect on Google," said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. "Obviously, Google thinks that it will."
Google is now a rich, powerful company in its own right, far larger than the browser pioneer Netscape Communications was when Microsoft set out to dominate the market it had created in the 1990's. In 2001, after a lengthy trial, a federal appeals court held that Microsoft had repeatedly violated antitrust laws as it tried to stifle the challenge from Netscape. Later, Microsoft reached a settlement with the Justice Department that freed personal computer makers from some restrictions Microsoft had placed on their use of software and services that compete with its own products.
When Internet Explorer 7 begins to be loaded on new machines next year, computer makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard will be free to determine what search engines and other sites they feature in the browser's Web guide and search box.
That promises to be valuable screen real estate indeed, especially the coveted spot as the preferred search engine, which the computer makers are likely to sell to the highest bidder. Google and Yahoo have deep pockets, but no one can match Microsoft's spending power. "People will be bidding aggressively to get in that space," said Mr. Hachamovitch of Microsoft. "And that's a good thing."
John Markoff contributed reporting for this article.

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Three Languages For Java Programmers

THURSDAY APRIL 27, 2006
Three Languages For Java Programmers
Dave Thomas, among others, has been saying for years that you can become a better Java programmer by getting out there and learning some other programming languages. The idea is that by knowing something about what the other guys are thinking you can think a little clearer yourself. I'd like to suggest three languages that I think every Java programmer should spend some time thinking about. Just to make it interesting, I'm going to describe each language first, before I tell you what it is. Here goes.
Behind Door Number One
Language number one is one of those dynamically typed, semicolon-less languages that have been all the rage lately. Programs written in this fully object oriented language tend to be much shorter than the equivalent Java. And you don't compile programs in this language, you just run the things. Like a lot of these dynamic languages, this one supports first class methods: You can pass a method, still bound to its original object, around as an object itself.
Language one also boasts some of those little features that are missing from Java. Operator overloading. A hash map object that is built right into the language. Default values for arguments.
My first language also has excellent XML support, a GUI that runs on all major platforms, as well as complete support for web services. It has all of these things because it is fully integrated into the Java VM. Anything Java can call, Jython, the language behind door number one, can call. Jython is so useful for building tests, for pulling quick Swing GUIs together, for trying out new Java API's interactively, that I am clueless as to why so few people use it or even know about it.
Behind Door Number Two
My second language is another one of those very high level things. Compared to language two, Jython is sort of a mainstream language. You can build objected oriented code with this language, but with a twist. Language two has a prototype based object model, which means you don't define a class, you define a prototype for your objects, a sort of master object to which all others of that 'class' link back to.
If anything, language two is more of a functional programming language than Jython. With the first class functions available in this language you can write whole programs that consist of nothing but functions which take functions as arguments and generate new functions as return values.
On the more pedestrian side, language two has a good regular expression library, networking support and is the subject of any number of easily available books. Give up? It's JavaScript. JavaScript is a real language! Yes there are umpteen million versions of it in the different browsers. Yes, it is easy to find layer upon layer of hacked up JavaScript out there. But it is a real language, and with the popularity of AJAX, we should probably spend some time figuring out what it is all about.
Behind Door Number Three
Behind our last door is a language what is emphatically not very high level. It is statically typed, object oriented, and very low level. There are objects and the objects have methods, but the methods are bizarre. Methods in this language lack both parameters and local variables in the usual sense. Instead, each method has a single, fixed sized array of values. When the method gets called, the parameter values are pushed into the first few slots of the array. The method can use the remaining slots to store local variables.
Along with the fixed size array, there is a stack. To do any kind of calculation on a parameter or a local variable, you need to push the value from the array onto the stack, operate on it, and pop it back onto the array.
Now here is the punch line: language number three is also totally integrated into the Java platform. In fact, it is the Java platform. Behind the third door we have Java bytecodes, the assembly language of the JVM. Back in the days of C and C++ there always seemed to be someone on every development team who knew the assembly language for the target machine. This person usually stood out as the engineer who had a unique perspective on the system. Well the JVM is our platform now and Java bytecodes are our assembly language. But most Java development teams have approximately zero developers who understand bytecodes. Perhaps you could be that person on your team.
Dave Thomas is right, we should go out and learn other programming languages. But we also need to have a better understanding of our own technical ecosystem, of languages like Jython which can extend the reach of Java, of JavaScript which, like it or not, we use all the time, and of Java bytecodes, the basis of every Java program.
Russ Olsen
Posted by rolsen ( Apr 27 2006, 07:38:31 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [12]
     
Source: http://www.jroller.com/page/rolsen?entry=three_languages_for_java_programmers"

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Capability Maturity Model (CMM)

Capability Maturity Model
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To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup.Please discuss this issue on the talk page, or replace this tag with a more specific message. Editing help is available.This article has been tagged since January 2006.
Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is a collection of instructions an organization can follow with the purpose to gain better control over its Software development process.
The CMM ranks software development organizations in a hierarchy of five levels, each with a progressively greater capability of producing quality software. Each level is described as a level of maturity. Those 5 levels are equipped with different number of instructions to follow. If an organization is on level 1 (currently an estimated 75% of software development organizations exist at this level, which can be best described as chaotic [source as of May 10, 1998]), it only follows few of the instructions in CMM, if on level 5 it follows everything from CMM.
The CMM was developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It has been used extensively for avionics software and for government projects since it was created in the mid-1980s.

hide

• 1 Maturity model


• 2 History


• 2.1 Context


• 2.2 Origins


• 2.3 Current state


• 2.4 Future direction


• 3 Levels of the CMM


• 3.1 Level 1 - Initial


• 3.2 Level 2 - Repeatable


• 3.3 Level 3 - Defined


• 3.4 Level 4 - Managed


• 3.5 Level 5 - Optimizing


• 3.6 Extensions


• 4 Process areas


• 5 Controversial aspects


• 5.1 Praise


• 5.2 Criticism


• 6 The most beneficial elements of CMM Level 2 and 3


• 7 See also


• 8 References


• 9 External links

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Maturity model
A maturity model is a structured collection of elements that describe characteristics of effective processes. A maturity model provides:

1. a place to start


2. the benefit of a community’s prior experiences


3. a common language and a shared vision


4. a framework for prioritizing actions


5. a way to define what improvement means for your organization

A maturity model can be used as a benchmark for assessing different organizations for equivalent comparison.
The SEI has subsequently released a revised version known as the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).
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History
Like best practices, the Capability Maturity Model was initially funded by military research, but its method of process improvement could not be more different. Where the best practices approach is "bottom up" and quite informal, the Capability Maturity Model is rigid, "top down", and prescriptive.
The United States Air Force funded a study at the Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute to create a model for the military to use as an objective evaluation of software subcontractors. The result was the Capability Maturity Model, published as Managing the Software Process in 1989. The CMM has since been revised and updated; version 1.1 is now in print and the entire text is available on-line at the SEI's Web site.
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Context
The term software originates from the idea that software is easy to change ("soft") in comparison to hardware, which was more difficult to change ("hard"). Another theory: software is soft in the sense that it is not tangible, unlike hardware, which we can replace and touch. In the 1970s, the field of software development saw significant growth as more organizations began to move to computerized information systems. With this significant growth, two events began unfolding.
The first event was that computerized information systems became commonplace and improved computer hardware allowed for more ambitious information system projects. Along with the improved computer hardware, new technologies and manufacturing processes resulted in cheaper, more reliable, and more flexible computer platforms and peripherials which in turn encouraged the use of information systems in more diverse applications.
The second event was the need for many more people to develop the software needed for the computers created by the explosion in the number of computer information systems due to the increased application of computers to organizational problems. This in turn meant that people with little experience in the art of developing computer software moved into that area of work. Not only was there increased demand for people to design and write computer software, there was also increased demand for people to manage these projects.
Many software projects failed due to inadequate processes and project management. This was primarily due to two causes. The first was software development, both the design and writing of computer software as well as the management of software development projects, did not have a large body of published work discussing software development and what work existed was not used by industry to any great extent.
The second cause was that as information systems became more commonplace and people became more ambitious in the application of computer systems to organizational problems. Projects attempted moved from well known areas such as accounting systems or inventory systems which involved primarily numbers and the embedding of an abstract model into a computing platform with software to applications which involved the movement of physical objects in the real world. In addition, software development teams ran into the problem of attempting to model complex systems, such as the complete information flows of an enterprise, within information systems. The sheer complexity of the problem led to project failure.
During the 1970s there were a number of proponents for a more scientific and professional practice. People such as Edward Yourdon, Larry Constantine, Gerald Weinberg, Tom DeMarco, and David Parnas published articles and books with research results in an attempt to professionalize the software development community.
Watts Humphrey's Capability Maturity Model (CMM) was described in the book Managing the Software Process (1989). The CMM as conceived by Watts Humphrey was based on the earlier work of Phil Crosby. Active development of the model by the SEI (US Dept. of Defence Software Engineering Institute) began in 1986.
The CMM was originally intended as a tool to evaluate the ability of government contractors to perform a contracted software project. Though it comes from the area of software development, it can be, has been and continues to be widely applied as a general model of the maturity of processes (e.g., ITIL service management processes) in IS/IT (and other) organisations.
The model identifies five levels of process maturity for an organisation: 1. Initial (chaotic, ad hoc, heroic) the starting point for use of a new process. 2. Repeatable (project management, process discipline) the process is used repeatedly. 3. Defined (institutionalised) the process is defined/confirmed as a standard business process. 4. Managed (quantified) process management and measurement takes place. 5. Optimising (process improvement) process management includes deliberate process optimisation/improvement.
Within each of these maturity levels are KPAs (Key Process Areas) which characterise that level, and for each KPA there are five definitions identified: 1. Goals 2. Commitment 3. Ability 4. Measurement 5. Verification
The KPAs are not necessarily unique to CMM, representing - as they do - the stages that organisations must go through on the way to becoming mature.
The SEI has defined a rigorous process assessment method to appraise how well a software development organisation meets the criteria for each level.
The assessment is supposed to be led by an authorised lead assessor. One way in which companies are supposed to use the model is first to assess their maturity level and then form a specific plan to get to the next level. Skipping levels is not allowed.
NB: The CMM was originally intended as a tool to evaluate the ability of government contractors to perform a contracted software project. It may be suited for that purpose. When it became a general model for software process improvement, there were many critics.
Shrinkwrap companies, which have also been called commercial offtheshelf firms or software package firms, included Borland, Claris, Apple, Symantec, Microsoft, and Lotus, amongst others. Many such companies rarely if ever managed their requirements documents as formally as the CMM described. This is a requirement to achieve level 2, and so all of these companies would probably fall into level 1 of the model.
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Origins
The United States Air Force funded a study at the SEI to create a model for the military to use as an objective evaluation of software subcontractors. In 1989, the Capability Maturity Model was published as Managing the Software Process.
Timeline

1. 1987: SEI-87-TR-24 (SW-CMM questionnaire), released.


2. 1989: Managing the Software Process, published.


3. 1991: SW-CMM v1.0, released.


4. 1993: SW-CMM v1.1, released.


5. 1997: SW-CMM revisions halted in support for CMMI.


6. 2000: CMMI v1.02, released.


7. 2002: CMMI v1.1, released .

[edit]
Current state
Although these models have proved useful to many organizations, the use of multiple models has been problematic. Further, applying multiple models that are not integrated within and across an organization is costly in terms of training, appraisals, and improvement activities. The CMM Integration project was formed to sort out the problem of using multiple CMMs. The CMMI Product Team's mission was to combine three source models:

1. The Capability Maturity Model for Software (SW-CMM) v2.0 draft C


2. The Systems Engineering Capability Model (SECM)


3. The Integrated Product Development Capability Maturity Model (IPD-CMM) v0.98


4. Supplier sourcing

CMMI is the designated successor of the three source models. The SEI has released a policy to sunset the Software CMM. The same can be said for the SECM and the IPD-CMM. These models are expected to be succeeded by CMMI.
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Future direction
Suggestions for improving CMMI are welcomed by the SEI. For information on how to provide feedback, see the CMMI Web site.
[edit]
Levels of the CMM
(See chapter 2 of (March 2002 edition of CMMISM from SEI), page 11.)
There are five levels of the CMM. According to the SEI,
"Predictability, effectiveness, and control of an organization's software processes are believed to improve as the organization moves up these five levels. While not rigorous, the empirical evidence to date supports this belief."
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Level 1 - Initial
At maturity level 1, processes are usually ad hoc and the organization usually does not provide a stable environment. Success in these organizations depends on the competence and heroics of the people in the organization and not on the use of proven processes. In spite of this ad hoc, chaotic environment, maturity level 1 organizations often produce products and services that work; however, they frequently exceed the budget and schedule of their projects.
Maturity level 1 organizations are characterized by a tendency to over commit, abandon processes in the time of crisis, and not be able to repeat their past successes again.
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Level 2 - Repeatable
At maturity level 2, software development successes are repeatable. The organization may use some basic project management to track cost and schedule.
Process discipline helps ensure that existing practices are retained during times of stress. When these practices are in place, projects are performed and managed according to their documented plans.
Project status and the delivery of services are visible to management at defined points (for example, at major milestones and at the completion of major tasks).
Basic project management processes are established to track cost, schedule, and functionality. The necessary process discipline is in place to repeat earlier successes on projects with similar applications.
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Level 3 - Defined
At maturity level 3, processes are well characterized and understood, and are described in standards, procedures, tools, and methods.
The organization’s set of standard processes, which is the basis for level 3, is established and improved over time. These standard processes are used to establish consistency across the organization. Projects establish their defined processes by the organization’s set of standard processes according to tailoring guidelines.
The organization’s management establishes process objectives based on the organization’s set of standard processes and ensures that these objectives are appropriately addressed.
A critical distinction between level 2 and level 3 is the scope of standards, process descriptions, and procedures. At level 2, the standards, process descriptions, and procedures may be quite different in each specific instance of the process (for example, on a particular project). At level 3, the standards, process descriptions, and procedures for a project are tailored from the organization’s set of standard processes to suit a particular project or organizational unit.
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Level 4 - Managed
Using precise measurements, management can effectively control the software development effort. In particular, management can identify ways to adjust and adapt the process to particular projects without measurable losses of quality or deviations from specifications.
Subprocesses are selected that significantly contribute to overall process performance. These selected subprocesses are controlled using statistical and other quantitative techniques.
A critical distinction between maturity level 3 and maturity level 4 is the predictability of process performance. At maturity level 4, the performance of processes is controlled using statistical and other quantitative techniques, and is quantitatively predictable. At maturity level 3, processes are only qualitatively predictable.
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Level 5 - Optimizing
Maturity level 5 focuses on continually improving process performance through both incremental and innovative technological improvements. Quantitative process-improvement objectives for the organization are established, continually revised to reflect changing business objectives, and used as criteria in managing process improvement. The effects of deployed process improvements are measured and evaluated against the quantitative process-improvement objectives. Both the defined processes and the organization’s set of standard processes are targets of measurable improvement activities.
Process improvements to address common causes of process variation and measurably improve the organization’s processes are identified, evaluated, and deployed.
Optimizing processes that are nimble, adaptable and innovative depends on the participation of an empowered workforce aligned with the business values and objectives of the organization. The organization’s ability to rapidly respond to changes and opportunities is enhanced by finding ways to accelerate and share learning.
A critical distinction between maturity level 4 and maturity level 5 is the type of process variation addressed. At maturity level 4, processes are concerned with addressing special causes of process variation and providing statistical predictability of the results. Though processes may produce predictable results, the results may be insufficient to achieve the established objectives. At maturity level 5, processes are concerned with addressing common causes of process variation and changing the process (that is, shifting the mean of the process performance) to improve process performance (while maintaining statistical probability) to achieve the established quantitative process-improvement objectives.
[edit]
Extensions
Recent versions of CMMI from SEI indicate a "level 0", characterized as "Incomplete". Many observers leave this level out as redundant or unimportant, but Pressman and others make note of it. See page 18 of the August 2002 edition of CMMI from SEI (Note: PDF file).
Anthony Finkelstein[1] extrapolated that negative levels are necessary to represent environments that are not only indifferent, but actively counterproductive, and this was refined by Tom Schorsch[2] as the Capability Immaturity Model:
[edit]
Process areas
For more details on this topic, see Process area (CMMI).
The CMMI contains several key process areas indicating the aspects of product development that are to be covered by company processes.




































































































































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Controversial aspects
The software industry is diverse and volatile. All methodologies for creating software have supporters and critics, and the CMM is no exception.
[edit]
Praise

1. The CMM was developed to give Defense organizations a yardstick to assess and describe the capability of software contractors to provide software on time, within budget, and to acceptable standards. It has arguably been successful in this role, even reputedly causing some software sales people to clamour for their organizations' software engineers/developers to "implement CMM."


2. The CMM is intended to enable an assessment of an organization's maturity for software development. It is an important tool for outsourcing and exporting software development work. Economic development agencies in India, Ireland, Egypt, and elsewhere have praised the CMM for enabling them to be able to compete for US outsourcing contracts on an even footing.


3. The CMM provides a good framework for organizational improvement. It allows companies to prioritize their process improvement initiatives.

[edit]
Criticism

1. CMM has failed to take over the world. It's hard to tell exactly how wide spread it is as the SEI only publishes the names and achieved levels of compliance of companies that have requested this information to be listed[3]. The most current Maturity Profile for CMMI is available online[4].


2. CMM is well suited for bureaucratic organizations such as government agencies, large corporations and regulated monopolies. If the organizations deploying CMM are large enough, they may employ a team of CMM auditors reporting their results directly to the executive level. (A practice encouraged by SEI.) The use of auditors and executive reports may influence the entire IT organization to focus on perfectly completed forms rather than application development, client needs or the marketplace. If the project is driven by a due date, CMMs intensive reliance on process and forms may become a hindrance to meeting the due date in cases where time to market with some kind of product is more important than achieving high quality and functionality of the product.


3. Suggestions of scientifically managing the software process with metrics only occur beyond the Fourth level. There is little validation of the processes cost savings to business other than a vague reference to empirical evidence. It is expected that a large body of evidence would show that adding all the business overhead demanded by CMM somehow reduces IT headcount, business cost, and time to market without sacrificing client needs.


4. No external body actually certifies a software development center as being CMM compliant. It is supposed to be an honest self-assessment ([5] and [6]).


5. The CMM does not describe how to create an effective software development organization. The CMM contains behaviors or best practices that successful projects have demonstrated. Being CMM compliant is not a guarantee that a project will be successful, however being compliant can increase a project's chances of being successful.


6. The CMM can seem to be overly bureaucratic, promoting process over substance. For example, for emphasizing predictability over service provided to end users. More commercially successful methodologies (for example, the Rational Unified Process) have focused not on the capability of the organization to produce software to satisfy some other organization or a collectively-produced specification, but on the capability of organizations to satisfy specific end user "use cases" as per the Object Management Group's UML (Unified Modeling Language) approach[7].

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The most beneficial elements of CMM Level 2 and 3

1. Creation of Software Specifications, stating what it is that is going to be developed, combined with formal sign off, an executive sponsor and approval mechanism. This is NOT a living document, but additions are placed in a deferred or out of scope section for later incorporation into the next cycle of software development.


2. A Technical Specification, stating how precisely the thing specified in the Software Specifications is to be developed will be used. This is a living document.


3. Peer Review of Code (Code Review) with metrics that allow developers to walk through an implementation, and to suggest improvements or changes. Note - This is problematic because the code has already been developed and a bad design can not be fixed by "tweaking", the Code Review gives complete code a formal approval mechanism.


4. Version Control - a very large number of organizations have no formal revision control mechanism or release mechanism in place.


5. The idea that there is a "right way" to build software, that it is a scientific process involving engineering design and that groups of developers are not there to simply work on the problem du jour.

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See also

1. Personal Software Process (PSP) and Team Software Process (TSP), two other process models also developed by the Software Engineering Institute to address individual and team software development respectively

[edit]
References

1. Mary Beth Chrissis, Mike Konrad, and Sandy Shrum. CMMI: Guidelines for Process Integration and Product Improvement, Pearson Education, ISBN 0321154967


2. Watts Humphrey. Managing the Software Process, Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN 0201180952


3. History of Process Models


4. Process Improvement: The Capability Maturity Model


5. ITNOW - September 2005: Capability model mature - or is it?

[edit]
External links

1. CMMI Official Web Site


2. Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI®) Overview [PDF]


3. A critical look at implementing CMM Level 2

Read More

Brain Cells Fused with Computer Chip

By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer posted: 27 March 2006 11:36 am ET

Source: http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060327_neuro_chips.html

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.

They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive.

"They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

It could still be decades before the technology is advanced enough to treat neurological disorders or create living computers, the researchers say, but in the nearer term, the chips could provide an advanced method of screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry.

"Pharmaceutical companies could use the chip to test the effect of drugs on neurons, to quickly discover promising avenues of research," Vassanelli said.

The researchers are now working on ways to avoid damaging the neurons during stimulation. The team is also exploring the possibility of using a neuron's genetic instructions to control the neuro-chip.

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US developers to put in over $1 bn in India

Gayatri Ramanathan in Mumbai | March 21, 2006 04:06 IST

A fresh investment of $1 billion is heading the India way — this time from US developers. The investment expected to come in three tranches of $350 million, $750 million and $50 million — all this year. The first tranche is likely to be closed by April.

Mark J Reidy, a Washington-based attorney of the US law firm Andrews & Kurth, who is putting the funds together, said large American corporations, construction companies and real estate developers are investing in the fund.

Sources close to the development indicated that a major San Francisco-based developer is coming into the country through the fund with plans for developing tech parks on its own.

The parks will be constructed as per US specifications, they said.

The sources added that the fund managers have begun talking to construction majors such as L&T, and the initial round of negotiations with L&T is over.

So far foreign funds have invested in existing projects in the country that are being developed by local developers. It is for the first time that a foreign fund is considering buying land and developing its own parks.

Reidy said given the volume of outsourcing to India, American companies are keen on developing their own properties.

The tech parks are proposed to be set up in the southern cities of Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. As for the northern destinations, the fund managers are looking at Rajasthan and Punjab, besides Gurgaon and Noida in Delhi.

These will include biotech parks, IT parks and research and development (R&D) centres for top US pharma companies.

He, however, declined to name the companies that are looking to set up R&D facilities in India. The fund is also considering commercial properties in Mumbai, Reidy said.

Source: Rediff news.

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Mining for Gold

by Evan Goldberg

Data mining lets you use historical information to make better business decisions.

Whether you know it or not you're managing a lot of databases in your business. Tons of mission-critical information resides in a huge variety of applications on your company's computers. From the customer list in the accounting system to the email in people's inboxes, these bits of information are nuggets of gold if they can make it to the right person at the right time. Through a process called "data mining," you can actually look at historical information and use it to make better business decisions. But data locked in silos can be difficult or impossible to mine. Let me give you an example.

Customer Joe emails his salesperson, irate that the shipment he ordered has not arrived. The salesperson has no access to the shipping system and must offer to call back when he digs up the information. He calls the shipping department, they figure out where the shipment is, and he emails Joe back, reassuring him that the delivery will arrive tomorrow.

There are two things wrong with this scenario. The first is a practical problem: Sales couldn't help Joe right away because the information about the shipment was locked up in an inaccessible system. The second is what blocks any chance of data mining: The fact that Joe complained at all is information that is now locked up in the salesperson's email account, doubtless headed for the delete folder.

Wouldn't it be better if Joe had been able to access the shipping information himself, reassure the customer in the first call, and then log the fact that Joe had a complaint about shipping so that anyone dealing with this customer in the future can be aware of the history? And here's the kicker: Later, the customer-service department can track how many complaints were about shipping and identify if there is a more global problem to be solved. They can even correlate shipping complaints with likelihood of repurchase to put a dollar amount on the problem and help give an ROI on fixing it.

New tools are emerging to make it much easier for smaller companies to mine the data in their systems, like larger organizations have been doing for years. Doing so can provide a long term competitive advantage over organizations that make their decisions based on little or no historical data.

The most important infrastructure to get in place to allow data mining is, of course, databases. A customer relationship management application for your sales people and service people will capture information that otherwise ends up getting lost in sticky notes or emails. Many questions can be answered just by running reports in these applications, and with today's Web-based versions of CRM the applications can be easy to get up and running without being hard on the budget.

The next step will be answering more global questions about the business like the ones I have alluded to above. How does activity in one department affect the bottom line? To answer these questions will typically involve information from multiple business applications, such as the CRM system and the accounting system. There are a few approaches to solving this dilemma.

The first is to synchronize the data between the systems. This can be challenging and the technical expertise required generally beyond what small organizations have access to. But if the application vendors themselves have developed tools to synchronize the information in their databases, such as allowing purchase history to be stored in the sales system, this may be an option.

The second approach is to develop what is called a "data warehouse". This is an external database that combines information from multiple "operational" databases such as the CRM system and the accounting system. Technically savvy users in your organization may be able to do home-grown versions of this approach that work fine for you -- even if it means the data is just summary data in a big spreadsheet. More advanced data warehouses can require third-party tools and consulting and can get expensive.

Finally you can choose business applications that actually offer cross-departmental functionality and are "pre-integrated"; you can therefore do your data mining straight from the operational system. Some sales force automation tools also offer customer support functionality. Totally integrated systems cover everything from accounting to your web site activity to sales and service.

Whatever approach you choose, there's gold in them thar hills. A better understanding of who your customers are, how and when they purchase, and how your interactions with them affect future activity is another contribution IT systems can make to the bottom line.

Ref:http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/technology/articles/122605.html

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Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn

Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn

by Marcia Conner

The secret to learning new things is to be willing to unlearn--even if your behaviors previously brought success.

One summer in college I canvassed for a local non-profit. We went door to door telling people about the organization and asking them to sign various petitions. I recited my spiel a hundred times. "Hi, my name is Marcia and I'd like five minutes to tell you a little about..."

Halfway through the season my boss asked me to insert a slice of bologna in one shoe. I followed his request, but only after considering telling him where to stick the lunch meat.

At the first house we visited, I physically couldn't say my opening the same way. The bologna distracted me enough so that I needed to reflect on e-v-e-r-y word. The next day, without the bologna, my approach was still fresh, engaging, and more successful than it had been two days before. I had unlearned, and I had relearned.

Unlearning can be a one-shot (one-shoe?) deal or a daily practice. It can help you become open to new skills, experiences, behaviors, and knowledge. Although you can't physiologically unlearn anything--literally erase existing neural pathways--you can create the equivalent of a mental attic and put a sign on the door that reads, "Things I know no longer so." Then you can shift your focus to the edge of what you knew and transition from managing your knowledge to participating in the flow. Here's how.

Begin at the beginning. In order to pick up a new skill, even if it's similar to something you already can do, learn what makes it different. All of us repeat things that worked in the past, even when they don't apply to the now. Repeating isn't always a bad strategy, but when there is a significant difference, the old approach holds you back.

I'll never forget a husband-and-wife team who came to me to learn how to kayak. The guy was a canoeist and he just wouldn't set aside what he knew about canoeing in order to learn about kayaking. He spent his early lessons trying to compare the two types of boats and tried repeating canoe strokes he was certain would work. As a result, he continually found himself facing the bottom of the swimming pool where our class took place. What he knew already wasn't as useful as what he needed to learn fresh. Meanwhile, his wife, a complete novice, made significant progress from the first day.

Stay open. Unlearning doesn't require you to toss out all your accumulated experiences or presume previous know-how will keep you from success. Rather, it asks that you stay open to different ways of getting things done.

What happens when you begin a new job? You learn about the new organization and the department where you'll work while you unpeel the mindset and procedures of the groups you just left. Your refusal to unlearn old rules (for instance, comparing everything to the way it worked at the old company) leaves you out of the corporate culture and keeps you from getting a clear sense of the job. By thinking, "This is how we did it where I used to work," you miss learning opportunities and you avoid moving in. If you go in looking at how the new organization works, thereby replacing your old activities with new ones, you systematically begin to forget what's no longer useful and you begin to prepare for what's next.

Look for mirrors. Make it easy for your boss, coworkers, employees, family, and friends to give you guidance by asking for it. The more people you have in your life who help you reflect on your behaviors, the greater your chance to gain an accurate sense of how other people perceive you and which actions to unlearn.

During Friday lunch meetings with his team members, John Seely Brown (when he was still working at Xerox PARC) focused on what they did well, what they did wrong, and what they learned from it all. A primary objective was to help the team learn and unlearn. One day, team members remarked that whenever they saw John make a certain face in response to someone's idea, it was obvious that the idea didn't stand a chance. John had the next meeting videotaped. Sure enough, he saw for himself that he did sometimes wear a disapproving expression. From then on, whenever that feeling washed over him, he worked to change his facial expression and to listen more attentively to the other person's views.

Examine your beliefs. Your beliefs determine your behavior and it's difficult to act inconsistently with your beliefs for very long. When you believe you already know the right way to do things, everything else can seem wrong. Why then would you want to unlearn what you're currently doing, let alone replace it with something else?

A company I work with needed a way to ready the industry for their offerings and increase the firm's name recognition. Their research and publications team seemed suited for the task. Although widening the market and strengthening brand was far more lucrative than the sales the team brought in by selling papers, the group refused to give anything away. They believed what they were doing was right; that people wouldn't value the research as much if it was freely available, and that clients preferred paper copies to online versions. No matter how many times the CEO told them to blanket the marketplace with information, they continued to do what they'd always done. Then we sent them all to an industry event where they spent time asking questions and challenging their beliefs. Something almost magical happened. The people they met expressed their appreciation for the company's reports, asking if they could have the rights to reproduce and then distribute the research to their customers, too. Within a few days the team developed a new set of beliefs around their value to the industry. They began behaving like a team of market researchers and industry evangelists rather than a product group generating sales for one company.

So what are you going to unlearn first? Create a list of several approaches. Write it your journal or on a sticky note to post on the computer, the television, the dashboard, or your desk--then buy yourself a few slices of bologna.

Ref: http://www.fastcompany.com/resources/learning/conner/022706.html

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