coffee break

seriously, the person that said that you can’t buy happiness haven’t had the time to toy with the new x1. yep, finally it’s available in manila for a cool php42,500.00, cash or card (straight payment or 6 months deferred). there’s no difference in price if you opt for the cash so i suggest you get the 6 months deferred deal. it’s running on the uber slick windows mobile 6.1 operating system; 101% guaranteed to work with your vista or xp. for those who can’t differentiate operating systems from a tea cup (i’m having tea, sue me!), it’s the ‘thing’ that makes devices (including your washing machine) work. it talks to the chips, speaker, screen, key pads and what not and makes sure that they are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. the touch screen display is not only responsive but boasts of a clear and crisp resolution that will give the iphone a run for its money. it has a full qwerty keyboard that comes in handy when replying to long and annoying emails from work. email? work? uhuh! it has a built in microsoft outlook mobile that syncs your contacts, email, calendar and tasks straight from your exchange server. no need for those screwed up usb cables and software installations. another neat feature of the phone is that it comes with onenote. if you’re a organize-freak like me, you’ll learn to appreciate onenote, and you can sync your desktop onenote to your  phone and sync it back of course. i can’t stop gushing over this wonderful phone. if not all those features i’ve told you, get the x1 because of the facebook panel. you see after you login, it displays your profile picture and when you click on it, you can update your status! and not only that, it displays your friends as well and when you click on them, it displays their status. genius!

happiness can be bought. buy yours now. hehe. hello endless nights of configuration.

listening to:
I Am… Sasha Fierce – Beyonce: Single Ladies [Put A Ring On It]

it’s november, officially i am now part of this global team called center of expertise (coe) that will consolidate and facilitate technology expertise in my company translating to lower operating cost and higher revenue.

to give you a crash course in the outsourcing business that the global economy is so much into, i will attempt to explain to you in not so much words. put your businessman hat on. in a world of technology surplus and free enterprise, a business tends to do what it knows best, its business. so a big manufacturing firm will continue to manufacture tubes of toothpaste and bars of soap and what not, as it tries all its might to keep-up with the technology that enables its business. most of the time there’s a big lag, afterall they made billions making soap, not elegant technology solutions. in comes the outsourcing companies, with a promise to deliver all their i.t. needs in a fraction of what they are spending on. to make it even more attractive, they put in s.l.a.s (service level agreement) that fines these outsourcing vendors once they fail their promise of good service. if you’re going to ask how come it would cost less to deliver the same service and still make a profit out of it, outsourcing companies has a clever little model.

the outsourcing model has 2 business groups, the consulting group that generates business (clients) and promises to make their lives much easier and the delivery centers who breaks their backs to make it happen. these consulting groups are what we call the profit center, their bottomline is profit; profit, profit, profit. they might even throw in a bone, or their first born just to get the deal as they are measured in how much revenue they generate for the business. the muscles to this engine are the delivery centers, the one that get things done. they operate in a cost center model. they don’t care about the profit, all they want is to past all costs to someone, a project, an account, to anyone and they’re happy. as long as its people is doing something for someone, it’s all good. idle hands, or people, are not the devil’s playground,  they’re unwanted. a delivery center is measured  in many ways like utilization rate, productivity rate and all those hoopla, but the bottomline is the rate card; how much will it cost for a business (profit center guys) to engage folks from the delivery center. so a consulting office will get businesses for a price, then get people from the delivery centers to do it, do a complex math (bid price – delivery cost) and he gets his margin (profit). although it’s not as easy as that, but you get the picture. delivery centers are low cost like the philippines, india and china that allows these deals to turn out a profit.

starting monday, i’ll be part of this big mechanism to centralize technology expertise for the global office. it’s like a gear that churns the engine of global netizenship to full throttle. this is the/my culminating step to become the ultimate corporate drone; a global master that feeds on people’s happiness, life essences and hope. what little i have left of it anyway.

listening to:
Stardust… The Great American Songbook, Volume III – Rod Stewart: Baby, It’s Cold Outside