AIMK Zoooooooming Ahead>>> Pt. 2

Every year, Army Institute of Management Kolkata, celebrates it’s annual B-School Meet in the form of an event called Inferno. It comprises of not one, not two, but a whole lot of exhilarating, spine-tingling, nail-biting episodes, games and contests. To win prizes there is not an easy task. One needs to display his creative instincts, his vigor, his liveliness, his passion for participating and winning a fortune at INFERNO! In a thriller of a quest, one locks horns with the best students from around the region for conquest of the booty – bags full of exciting prizes.

This absolute event took place this year on 23^rd February at Volleyball ground of AIMK. The various events that were organized include:

• LaunchPad: The team has to launch a new product. The launch must cover all the aspects of a real life launch. Basically, sell your idea.

• Counter Strike: Just Win by defeating your opponents in the world-famous PC game.

• HR Arthashastra: Case Studies.

• Quiz Wiz: Show your knowledge.

• Dress Your Thoughts: Advertisement Special.

• Wealth Guru: How well can you solve your financial issues?

• Trade Master: The virtual(on line) stock trading game.

• Fashion Furore: How fashion-forward are you? (This is the first time such an event has been organized @ Inferno)

Following are some of the colleges which had participated in this Mega Event:

• IIM Calcutta

• NIT Durgapur

• Calcutta University

• IISWBM

• Heritage

• Globsyn Business School

• Techno India

• Indian School of Business

• Bhawanipur College

• IIFT

• IAM

• EIILM

• EIM

Also, this year has seen a whole lot of sponsors, pitching in to have a chance at providing support to the 3^rd Best B-School of Eastern India. The Times of India had been given exclusive coverage rights.

Following are some of the sponsors for the event:

• The Times of India

• Aditya Birla Nuvo

• Red FM

• Lakme

• Loreal

• Amway

• INOX

• Veeyu

• C3

• Kaya Skin Clinic

• ADA

• Trendz

I personally congratulate all the participants, prize winners, and, of course, the brains and the brawns behind this Mega Successful Event.

 

HCL – Transforming SAP

HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL) recently announced an expanded global services partnership with SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) that underscores SAP’s focus on extending its industry lead in ecosystem innovation, and HCL’s focus on delivering value to its customers through collaboration.

Transformation was one concept that was induced in the journey of HCL for some time now. The success that it has brought and the position that it has earned in the Global IT Industry, is now for all to see and learn. HCL’s new global services partnership with SAP is aimed at enabling companies of all sizes to access the business benefits of enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA ) and draws upon HCL’s strengths in emerging geographies, strong domain experience, risk taking and service innovation capabilities.

This announcement is a milestone in a rapidly growing relationship between the two organizations, which further evidences their close links. As a part of the agreement, SAP and HCL will now partner to enhance value and accelerate growth for customers in a manner that will reduce implementation costs while providing strong domain-centric solutions to transform their business processes.

“Spansion is investing heavily in SAP applications and enterprise SOA, with HCL Technologies as one of our key partners,” said Hannelore Stoebbe, CIO of Spansion, Inc. “HCL’s innovative business model focused on value, combined with SAP’s industry-leading business applications, was the natural choice for us to address our business needs. The expanded relationship between the two companies will help us go beyond just extracting maximum value from our investments and creates new benefits for us as a customer.” “We have been working closely with HCL in one of the early implementations of the SAP Waste and Recycling application and an interfacing custom-designed dispatch software and mobile system,” said Richard Berry, executive director, Veolia Environmental Services. “These have been leading-edge projects and the commitment of HCL has been vital in addressing a program which is so important to our future. These complex and mission-critical processes are being delivered using HCL’s skills in SAP, software design and development, hardware design and development, and all the required supporting technologies for an end-to-end process.” HCL is now a Thought Leader in the Global IT landscape.

HCL Technologies – A New SAP Global Services Partner
HCL Technologies joins a select group of the market’s leading consultancies to join the ‘SAP Global Partner – Services’ program. As a new global services partner, HCL Technologies will invest in significantly enhancing its SAP consulting practice and will create dedicated SAP sales resources and supporting marketing activities across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. HCL and SAP will create teams for solution definition, long-term engagement and will co-develop new and extended functionalities to implement enterprise SOA-based services in specific segments and verticals globally. “Building a vibrant customer-centric ecosystem is key to supporting our customers’ adoption and realization of the benefits of enterprise SOA,” said Zia Yusuf, executive vice president, Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, SAP AG. “Having HCL on board as our newest SAP global services partner is testimony to the outstanding performance they have delivered in support of our business imperatives. Through this partnership, we see them bringing their business model innovation of value-over-volume and customer centricity to our ecosystem of global partners and joint customers.” “HCL’s global partnership with SAP is a step towards delivering on the promise of a services-based IT approach,” said Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies. “By combining SAP’s global market leadership in inter-enterprise solutions with HCL’s domain expertise and focus of creating new markets and solutions through a Blue Ocean strategy, we plan to create and deliver new innovative solutions that deliver unique customer value.”

Five Stages of Drunkenness

Stage #1 — Smart

This is when you suddenly become an expert on every subject. You know all and greatly wish to express this knowledge to anyone who will listen. At this stage you are also always right. And of course the person you are talking with is very wrong. You will talk for hours trying to convince someone that you are right. This makes for an interesting argument when both parties are “smart”.

Stage #2 — Handsome/Pretty

This is when you are convinced that you are the best looking person in the entire room and everyone is looking at you. You begin to wink at perfect strangers and ask them to dance because of course they had been admiring you the whole evening. You are the center of attention, and all eyes are directed at you because you are the most beautiful thing on the face of the earth.

Stage #3 — Rich

This is when you suddenly become the richest person in the world. You can buy drinks for the entire bar and put it on your bill because you surely have an armored truck full of your money parked behind the bar. You can also make bets in this stage. Now of course you still know all, so you will always win all your bets.

Stage #4 — Bulletproof

You can now pick fights with the people you have been betting money with because you cannot be hurt by anything. At this point you would go up to the boyfriend of the woman who had been admiring your beautiful self all evening and challenge him to a battle of wits for money.

Stage #5 — Invisible

This is the final stage of drunkenness. At this point you can do absolutely anything because no one can see you. You can get up and dance on a table; you can strip down to your underwear, to impress the people who have been admiring you all evening, because the rest of the people in the room cannot see you. All your social inhibitions are gone. You can do anything, because no one will know. And you certainly won’t remember!

Go, Fall in Love…

Look into my eyes
You’ll see your face
Smiling, at you
Coz you still don’t see
Someone, looking at thee

Listen to me when I sing
You’ll hear your heartbeats
Dancing to the very tune
And you still don’t hear
You haven’t given up fear

Think of me crying
Can you stop your tears?
They’ll not listen to you
But you still put it strong
This love, it will never go wrong

And now
Look into the mirror
Are you alone, for sure?
Isn’t there someone looking at you?
Someone…
Listening to you?
Smiling at you?
Crying for you?
Dreaming of you?
Thinking, loving, waiting for you?

Take a look into the mirror
And you’ll see him
Inside your heart

He has nothing
Nothing but this hope
And you have him, completely.

Don’t let him die
Die within you
Coz he’s lived once
And loved only once
And will never again.

Go, fall in love with him
Trust him this once
It’s not that difficult, dear
Let life be, what it wants to be
Go, go, go
Go, fall in love with him.

The latest passion on the road : Corvette ZR1

So, what does this big machine have what the previous Corvettes didn’t have? Let’s go through some of the details of the new Chevrolet Corvette ZR1:

Performance:

• A stunning new benchmark in Corvette performance
• With its 600+ horsepower LS9 supercharged V8, ZR1 is capable of 200+ mph on the test track
• 6.2 Liter V8 with Eaton TVS Supercharger and intercooler
• Massive Brembo Carbon Ceramic Brakes

Exterior:

• Visible carbon-fiber roof, roof bow, rocker extensions and front air splitter
• Carbon-fiber domed hood with a window to the supercharger
• Unique carbon fiber dual cove front fenders
• 19-inch front/20-inch rear, 20-spoke wheels on Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 tires.

Interior:

• Boost gauge in cluster and Head-Up Display
• Custom leather-wrapped interior included in 4LZ package

Area 51 : Fact or Myth?

Area 51, located at the corner of a Nevada nuclear test site, has long been rumored to be the home of some of the United States most highly classified national security projects. Hundreds of people have seen and photographed odd objects such as flying triangles, saucer shaped craft, and flying objects that maneuver in ways conventional aircraft could not possibly move.

It has also been rumored that the technologies developed here are not of earthly origins but rather reversed engineered from studies of crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. The location was chosen in 1954 by a Lockheed test pilot, Tony LeVier, who was given the task of finding a suitable location for the testing of a new Lockheed contract – the U2 spy plane. After scouring the desert for a remote spot, he decided that the Groom Lake area was ideal.

It was located near existing facilities, the mountainous location offered a unique hidden view, and it contained a large, dry lake bed that would be perfect for aircraft landings. Since you can be shot if you try to trespass on the military base where Area 51 is located, UFO tourists must view the sacred ground from a distant vantage point. Many do this, hoping for a glimpse of a UFO landing. Apparently, the government has a treaty with the aliens that allows them to fly into this area at will, as long as we can experiment on them and try to duplicate their aircraft.

 

You don’t really think that any human could have come up with the idea of the Stealth Bomber, do you?

 

Skeptics don’t doubt that something secret is going on in Area 51. And what is going on may be more sinister than building secret aircraft or developing new weapons. “Sixty Minutes” did a segment where Leslie Stahl suggested that Area 51 might be an illegal dumping ground for toxic substances. If so, Area 51 might turn out to be hazardous to your health in more ways than one. Several former workers at Area 51 and widows of former workers have filed lawsuits against the government for injuries or death resulting from illegal hazardous waste practices. In 1997, the existence of Area 51 was declassified, but the area is still off-limits both to civilians and normal military air traffic. Surprisingly, Area 51 is not surround by fences, guard houses, or other high-security devices – or so it seems.

 

Road sensors, hidden cameras, and other strange devices are believed to alert the government to possible intruders. Some think that the base is surrounded by technologically advanced ’smell sensors’ that can distinguish between a human being or a less dangerous desert animal. In one incident in March 1993, a TV crew from Dallas, Texas were on location filming the hush-hush complex for a special news report. The sheriff arrived and witnessed their filming in progress. The sheriff asked for the video tape and the film crew promptly refused. A argument ensued, lawyers were called on the spot, and the feds were contacted. Rather than making a big fuss over the incident, the government simply let it drop and the crew was allowed to maintain possession of their film and equipment.

 

Little less than a year later, on March 23, 1994, the government’s attitude abruptly changed.

The New York Times Magazine was on the site taking shots for an upcoming article. While viewing Area 51 through their telephoto lenses, they spotted camouflaged guards peering at them from behind a ‘green net’ type barricade. In addition to the development and testing of advanced aircraft designs, other peculiar sights have been reported in the area around the base. F15’s, F16’s and B52 bombers make frequent practice bombing runs.

 

Some have even sighted Russian Sukhoi Su-22 and MiG-23 planes scrambling about – how they were obtained is not known. And of course, there are the numerous reports of circular, disk shaped objects, sharp pulses of light (lasers), and transparent aircraft flying in ways no conventional aircraft is capable of. Whether the Area-51 is an Aliens’ Spot or a Super-classified stealth air-base, needs to be discovered. Looks like it’s kind of a National Treasure, huh!!!

 

 

 

 

 

iPhone v/s iPhone Killers

One clear indicator of the fact the iPhone is going to do very well is the fact that Apple’s rivals are already starting to push ‘iPhone killers.’ Much like in the case of the iPod, which five years later and countless devices down the line has not been bested, these iPhone killers are nothing of the sort. The LG Prada is considered an iPhone killer, mainly because it also features a full side touch sensitive display, but the similarities are only skin deep.

 

There have been many reviews comparing the two products, such as the recent one written by Brian Lam for Gizmodo, finds the iPhone competitor sub par. Not only is the touch screen interface not used to its full potential, but the menu system is not made to take advantage of it, being very similar to those on the other high end LG phones. That’s not all, the Prada’s sync is rudimentary, only allowing you to transfer contacts and calendar appointments, and it lacks many of the useful features of the iPhone such as coverflow, weather and stocks widgets, as well as iTunes integration. Even in terms of internal memory and screen size, the iPhone is the clear winner, although it is slightly larger.

Like the iPod, when it first came out, the price of the iPhone is the most common complaint about it, and the main reason people are not adding it to their shopping lists. Amusingly enough, the LG Prada actually costs more than the iPhone, and significantly so. But even if the Prada shaved off nearly a quarter of its price to cost as much as the 8GB iPhone, it wouldn’t matter, because the iPhone is simply a better device. If the old iPod killers were any indication, the new iPhone killers will crash and burn, simply because they cannot compete with the iPhone as a whole, not only in terms of features, but also in terms of user experience. This will create nothing but a monopoly.

For the time being, let’s wait & watch, to see which is the ultimate winner: the iPhone, or the iPhone Killer!!!