On WiMAX

WiMAX has two variants- fixed/nomadic and mobile. They are two 'completely' incompatible technologies. They could have as well given them two different names. Don’t expect your devices to ‘smoothly’ upgrade to one or the other. Don’t expect your network service providers to offer both technologies ‘seamlessly’. No matter what they tell you, they are not compatible. At the most, they can make them work the way they have made GSM and CDMA work together- and you know how that works.

Fixed/nomadic WiMAX is interesting to emerging nations. Lack of copper and lack of long 'last mile' allows wireless deployments, and fixed/nomadic WiMAX is ideally suited to be the best alternative- to both broadband internet and voice telephony. Again, if you have DSL and it is working fine, then you don't need WiMAX no matter what they tell you.

Mobile WiMAX is interesting to developed nations. It comes as the best possible alternate to 3G cellular. I don't think it will come as a replacement of 3G. It will come more as a complementary technology. Mobile WiMAX will allow some operators to offload the bandwidth, allow dual technologies to efficiently manage their traffic and spectrum, depending on location, application and mobility (as three governing factors). 

“How many people report into you?”

This is what a Project Leader asks another when they meet up at a general body meeting. It could be happening in any big software services company in Bangalore. You are measured by how many people report into you. If you have 12 people ‘under’ you, then you feel superior to another project leader who has 10 people ‘under’ him. ‘Growth’ is the increase in the number of people who report into you. A Division Head with 60 people under him feels more powerful, successful, and accomplished compared to another Division Head with 30 people under him. The number of people reporting into you is the direct indicator of your success. Soon, every Project Leader wants to ensure his team size increases. Every Project Manager wants to increase his team size. So on.

What you end up with is a mechanism which is continuously increasing the ranks of the company. Every Project Leader, Project Manager and the Division Head wants to project that he needs more people. When the mindset is to increase the team size, reasons come out plenty why you need them. Soon, you have an inflated industry, bloated companies, all perpetuating the notion that it needs more people.

A task that can be done by two people in reality is done by eight people. That’s because if you make it work with two people, there’s no reward for it. A services organization does not earn enough. However, if you make it work with eight people, then you are doing something good, because now you earn more for the company. So, in effect, you weed out those leaders who are capable of delivering the same task with less people, and promote and reward those leaders who do the same task with more people.

So, what do you end up with? Leaders, managers and heads who are adept and proficient in projecting more engineers for a task than what is actually needed.

And when this phenomenon happens in every team, every division, every company, what do you get? You get Bangalore! A city filled with thousands of software engineers who get jobs because someone up there wants to feel he/she has succeeded.