Windows Phone 8 is nowhere to be found, making device launches meaningless and developers angry.

Where Art Thou, Windows Phone 8?

Tomorrow morning marks the end of our first week here in Bangalore. To say the least, this week seems more like a year. Perhaps because I don’t have to go to the office, or because we have simply been doing a ton of stuff, but it does seem like a long, long time ago that we landed here. A random set of notes from our first week:

Bangalore is a much nicer city, weather-wise, compared to Bombay. It has remained overcast (bummer) but because of that, and intermittent drizzles, the temperature has stayed in the upper-60s in the cooler times of the day and lower-80s in the warmer times of the day. Besides, pollution is way lower than Bombay, and as a result, knock on wood, the kids have not fallen sick in the first week after coming to India.

However, Bangalore has killed us with the mosquitoes. It is not like there are too many, not where we are currently staying, but that one stupid mosquito in the room is enough to bite us up and down the exposed body. The kids especially have been eaten up very badly. They have been good sports about it and after reminding them over and over, they have stopped scratching too much when they do get bit. We have got better mosquito repellants to try out, and we are applying various creams on their body. We may end up getting the tennis racquet-shaped mosquito-killer (just wave in the air and zap!).

We arrived over the weekend, so we ended up driving around town to get acquainted with the geography/landmarks and since it was the weekend, the traffic was not terrible. But since then, driving across town in peak traffic has introduced us to “crazy Bangalore traffic”. It is not just the volume of vehicles on the roads, it is also the gross indiscipline among the drivers (including ours, of course) which causes the nightmares.

First order of business was locking down the school. We had looked up and started a conversation with one of the many international schools in Bangalore so we decided to visit them first. We liked the school and instantly completed the kids' “interaction”. This was essentially an interview with one of the teachers to ensure the kids meet the standards they portrayed in the application form. Both the kids passed that interaction with flying colors. The next step was to talk with the kindergarten coordinator but she was busy so we could not close the deal that day itself.

Most of the international schools are located in the same area, and that is not close to any residential complexes. “Close” being a few minutes drive. As a result we had to start looking for residences where the kids would have to travel about 30 minutes in the school bus. Not ideal, but that seemed like it was going to be the new normal.

In the past few days we have seen several places in the Koramangala area, Sarjapur Road area and Whitefield. We like one place in Whitefield and another in Koramangala. There is a backup third option in Sarjapur Road. The Whitefield place is fantastic because it is in a tall tower at the top, and the Koramangala place is great because it is minutes away from stores/restaurants/etc. It is not going to be an easy decision to choose between the two. We have a lot of thinking to do.

We have started getting acquainted with some of the major roads, some of the major intersections and landmarks but we are of course not in a position to navigate ourselves from scratch. I believe as we drive more we will get more and more familiar.

Another thought that struck me last night: we have never, ever bought “white goods” (as they call those here), i.e., appliances. Refrigerator, washing machine, dryer. In my 16 years in the US, we moved 4-5 times and all the houses had basic appliances in place when we moved. So we have that decision to make as well, and since there is such a huge disposable income here in India, the choice is amazingly huge. We have to start looking and narrowing down on some models so that we can then shop around for that model.

I have one more week off and then I start work. Hope to lock down the housing situation before then, and especially be ready to move in by mid-October, when our stuff comes. (Meanwhile, we did meet with the coordinator at school and have paid our fees, the kids start on October 1!)

Went for a barbecue at a friend’s house today. It was a routine get together with a bunch of close friends, except as we were leaving we realized that it was probably the last time we would be hanging out together as a group. At least for a long, long time.

Wow. Can say it is feeling real now. It will of course to hit us till we get there, but these meetings and hang outs are what will be sorely missed.

We are hoping to find some families in similar boats as ours in India, so we can form similar ties with them. Fingers crossed.

We did a walk through with our agent and handed over the keys. The house we stayed in for the past 4.5 years, is now going to be “used” by somebody else. :'-(

Meanwhile our tickets are done!

Today at 9.15am, the packers came by. And here we go! Two-day packing exercise.

Two things happened recently which delighted me and I thank cloud-based services (vs. locally installed apps/applications) for that.

When Office Web Apps Preview released recently, I noticed that they were talking about Excel Web App supporting the creation of Forms, but in the preview I did not see that functionality. I was really looking forward to using it because that was one thing I liked with Google Spreadsheets and wanted to see it in Excel Web App. However, last week as I was playing around with Excel Web App, I saw the “Form” entry in the Insert tab! It was greyed out but it was there and I did not even know it. No announcement, no updates to make, just there. Nice.

This morning, when I went to share an article I was reading using the Bitmarklet from bitly, I noticed that they had updated the UI for the same. Whereas earlier there was too much “noise” on the screens within that Bitmarklet window, now it was streamlined and looked much cleaner. Again, I had to do nothing to receive the updated functionality.

Granted, not everyone is comfortable getting stuff updated without their knowing, and granted sometimes functionality could be removed as opposed to added, but still, having a constantly updated “app” in the cloud/on the web is a thing of beauty. I have a feeling the next version of Office is going down that route with the Office 365 subscription and I may be one of the customers willing to pay a small fee for getting seamless updates for my software.

As you may have read, we are planning to relocate to Bangalore very soon. One of the first things we have to do is get admission into a good school for both our kids. Since it is highly competitive there, and since the school year has already started, I wanted to get a head start and do some research and maybe even contact some schools to get the conversation started.

To my unpleasant surprise, search results for schools in Bangalore are full of SEO spam. I mean, the results are from a few popular (by visits?) domains but the content is just not there. It is truly pathetic. Content is scraped from one site to the other, so reviews are also copies of each other. Of course, reviews for the same school range from “I am pulling out my kid” to “This school rocks”, so I have learnt to take them with a massive pinch of salt (aka disregard them).

Not only is the content bad, the layout of these sites is also bad. These sites are built for pageviews and so, there are ads galore. I am always looking at how to avoid clicking on ads.

Finally, the schools themselves seem to have bad design taste in building their own website. Considering how much money they make on tuition and other costs, I would think they have to invest in getting their site updated with a more modern look. Most of them still have scrolling lists and Flash and many of them still don’t supply relevant information (like tuition fees!) thereby making the visit to the site futile.

Microsoft takes a pro-consumer stance despite opposition from advertisers, and will keep Do Not Track turned ON in Windows 8 Express Setup.

Windows 8 Setup Will Set ‘Do Not Track’ to On in Express Settings

Earlier this year, after about 2 years of thinking about it and not acting upon it, we decided to relocate to India. I have been in the US since 1996, and my wife has been since 2000. So for both of us, it has been a long time and we are quite settled here, so this is going to be a tremendous mental move on top of an already big geographical/physical move.

If all goes well, I will be able to move within my company, which has a big R&D center in Bangalore. That would be ideal, because I already work with folks there. It would be ideal if I can avoid the work place “settling down” while we settle down in our personal lives.

We have told the kids (4 and 6) about this and they seem to be excited but I suppose they have no idea what is coming up. Of course, by now they have also formed some close friendships with some of our friends' kids and in their school, but I am assuming for them it won’t be as hard a move as it seems for us.

Excited. Apprehensive. Anxious.

So, why did we decide to move away from what is clearly a thriving Silicon Valley?

The parents

My parents and my wife’s parents are all getting old very fast. From just a few years ago when they visited us and now, we can see they have physically slowed down and that is only going to get worse. We’d like to be closer to them so they have someone to support them if and when needed. They are still able, but as months and years go by, they won’t be.

The kids

We are currently sending both our kids to private school and it is freaking expensive. The second income in the household ha become a must, rather than a nice-to-have. It is either that, or we move to a place where public schools are excellent. The issue there is that we have to shell out more for the real estate and those areas a total sellers' market, making it hard to get a bargain.

Having gone to school in India, and hearing about the newer schools and newer forms of education, it seems clear that the quality of education in India is high, especially primary and secondary school. Despite the tuition being much higher than what we paid decades ago, it is still very, very affordable compared to the Bay Area. The second income is most certainly a nice-to-have rather than a must-have.

The Indian economy

India’s economy has been growing and many reports suggest that it is only the beginning. Bangalore felt like Silicon Valley from the late 90s when I visited last year - many startups with great ideas, many angels willing to invest, venture capital getting organized, etc. Of course, there are also the big multinationals with varying levels of presence there, so in general, the tech scene is booming. Inflation is a worry and so is the weak Rupee, but there is real growth (i.e. revenues and profits), so there is reason to be optimistic about the next 10 years.

Every rose has its thorn

The reason we could not finalize for so long is we kept thinking of the downsides, and there are many. At our age, it is hard to make new friends and we have a bunch of friends now with whom we regularly hang out. We will miss having close friends there. Corruption is rampant and poverty is unavoidable. Pollution and population growth/density creates a disease-spreading melting pot in and around the big cities.

On a macro level, politicians are a joke and because of the Parliamentary form of democracy practised in India, and the fragmentation of the big, national parties into smaller, regional parties invariably creates coaltition governments and as a result very little gets done.

Making the leap

All these factors were making us wary of taking the big step. For now, the benefits have overtaken the possible downsides and with certain assumptions made, we are going to try to make it work there. Not everything will be easy, not everything will be straight-forward, but we could actually benefit big time in the long run.

So here we are, about a month away from starting the next chapter of our lives. We are excited and cannot wait to get it started!

Office 2013′s on demand feature makes it possible to run Office as a service. This is huge, for users and for Microsoft.

Office 2013: Office As A Service

I recently wrote a post about how I was a bit frustrated with the various types of backlogs created by an unexplained need to consume information. This is a follow up to the post. I took immediate action and here’s what I have done so far to make life a bit easier:

• Unsubscribed to all but 4 podcasts. Also, changed podcast subscription settings to keep only 2 episodes. If I don't listen to an old one and it happens to be a good one, I will go find it, rather than let it pile up.
• Unsubscribed from many high-volume RSS feeds. Most of these feeds were from tech blogs where there is much incentive to keep posting "fresh" content for a variety of reasons (well, no, for one reason - pageviews). I have noticed my "pending" stuff has gone down dramatically as a result.
• DVR pain has been eased by the fact that we are in summer and therefore, it is off-peak for most primetime shows. I am sure I will cut down on the shows after seeing what gets cancelled this Fall.

I strongly suggest you take a look at your information consumption habits too, and see where you can trim and enjoy life as it should be enjoyed. :-)

The SkyDrive team has an interesting proposition for you: write about SkyDrive, get perks. Do you qualify?

SkyDrive Ambassador Program: Write About SkyDrive, Get Benefits

Microsoft announces Windows 7 has sold 630 million licenses. Also, wants us to get ready for Windows 8.

Windows 7 Has Sold 630 Million Licenses, Wants Nobody to Be Left off from Windows 8

This morning, as I was looking through my unplayed podcasts list, I realized I am (as I am sure many others are) living in a world where we are consuming so much "stuff". There is always a tendency to catch up on things. Some of my pending items to "catch up on":

• Unplayed podcasts: I subscribe to 8-9 podcasts of which 2-3 are daily and the rest are weekly. In the end, if I don't keep listening to these every day, they pile up and I have to "catch up on".
• Readability: I come across a lot of interesting articles and videos and links in general. I simply add them to Readability to read later. So there is the Readability list to "catch up on".
• RSS Reader: I subscribe to *many* RSS feeds, some of which are extremely high-volume (like some tech blogs). There is always a ton of feeds to "catch up on".
• Personal email: Bills, statements, friends pinging for meetups, etc. Personal inbox to "catch up on".
• Work email: Freaking nightmare. Email flows in faster than I can clean up, despite several filters I have set up on the server. Work inbox to "catch up on".
• DVR: We almost never watch anything on TV live (except sports). Anytime we see something interested to watch on the TV, it gets added to the DVR. So we end up having a DVR list to "catch up on".
• Movies and music: So many new movies and music is being released. A lot of these are worth the watch, but they end up going into a to do list to "catch up on" sometime.
• Books (audio or otherwise): Same as movies and music, so many good books to read. Goes to a list to "catch up on".
• Hobbies: Not really a catch up item, but with all the stuff to catch up on, there is no time left for hobbies. This includes side projects, travel, etc.

There is of course a tendency to declare bankruptcy on one or more of these things. I frequently mark my RSS feeds as read, or my delete my podcast queue, but that's only a temporary solution. Perhaps simplifying our digital lives by cutting out many of the above (newsletters, podcasts, feeds, notifications on the phone, etc.) would help.

I am going to give that a shot as I prepare for a simpler, more "offline" life. :-)

What are the implications of Microsoft’s second reset with mobile in two years? Is Microsoft doomed, or is it ready for its next chapter?

Windows Phone 8: Second Reset in Two Years

Microsoft announced “Windows Phone 7.8” for existing users since existing devices cannot be ugpraded to Windows Phone 8. I am disappointed.

Windows Phone 7.8: There is Reason to Feel Disappointed

The official Twitter app for Windows Phone finally gets notifications. It is finally an app I don’t feel ashamed to recommend!

Twitter for Windows Phone Gets Updated: Notifications, Finally!

Wow, time has flown. It feels like only yesterday that I was rocking my Blackberry Curve 8300 (no WiFi) and actually proud of it. I did not buy into the iPhone hype when it was released and stayed out, mostly because my Curve had video recording capability which the iPhone didn’t. Believe me, I took some videos on that thing that I still cherish, bad quality and all.

Instead of doing a normal retrospective I thought I’d pick up random articles written around the time the iPhone launched, and laugh at the ones that mocked the iPhone and predicted its doom, some even before it was released. Hindsight is so beautiful, innit?

Ad Age: Why the iPhone Will Fail

Prediction No. 1: The iPhone will be a major disappointment. The hype has been enormous. Apple says its iPhone is "literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone." A stock-market analyst says, "The iPhone has the potential to be even bigger than the iPod."

Prediction No. 2: The media will blame the execution, not the concept.

Instead, the iPhone is going to fail because its design is fundamentally flawed.

First, the iPhone ignores the main reasons that the iPod succeeded: simplicity and ease of use.

Second, the iPhone crams too many functions into a single box.

Third, users will detest the touch screen interface due to its lack of tactile feedback.

An iPod with just a cell keypad on the back would have been, may still be, a smash hit product for someone. But the iPhone as currently consituted? Forget it. Because its designers forgot Platt’s First, Last, and Only Law of User Experience Design (“Know Thy User, for He Is Not Thee”), that product is going to crash in flames. Sell your Apple stock now, while the hype’s still hot. You heard it here first.

This one is a great read because all the reasons mentioned in the article are exactly what Apple destroyed with the iPhone. Incredibly, a lot of the same type of chatter is heard now for the TV business, except the bad guys in control are the Hollywood mafia and not the carriers. We shall see how that story unfolds later in 2012.

Commsday: THE LONG VIEW: Why the iPhone will fail

But then – and here’s my prediction part – something strange will happen. In a week or two the fuss will fade and people will start to realise an important point: it’s just a phone, and not a particularly “smart” one at that. And then people will start to find flaws in it, because let’s face it, version 1.0 of anything is going to have flaws, particularly something loaded with sensitive radios and electronics like a mobile phone.

And finally, there’s the competition. The likes of Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG won’t be idle bystanders as Apple tries to do to the mobile phone market what it did to MP3 players with the iPod. Building a mobile phone isn’t rocket science – it’s much more complex than that. And the traditional guys have been doing it for the best part of 20 years.

It’s hardware, it’s proprietary, so I really planned on keeping my mouth shut about it. But there is one point I have decided to make, one related directly to this beat, which is the real reason I believe the iPhone will, at best, disappoint in the market.

Open spectrum. We don’t have much, and we are nowhere near getting more.

The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant.

First, Apple is late to this party.

Next, the mobile-phone industry depends on cooperation with the big networks.

Lastly, the iPhone is a defensive product. It is mainly designed to protect the iPod, which is coming under attack from mobile manufacturers adding music players to their handsets.

There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive. Even in the business where it is a clear pioneer, the personal computer, it had to compete with Microsoft and can only sustain a 5% market share.

What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a “reference design” and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures.

It should do that immediately before it’s too late. Samsung Electronics Ltd. might be a candidate. Otherwise I’d advise you to cover your eyes. You’re not going to like what you’ll see.

Finally, a couple of point-by-point mythbuster pieces by Tom Reestman, which in fact were inspiration for this blog post: Red Ferret’s list of “serious problems” with the iPhone touchscreen, and What a shock. Another BS (Baltimore Sun?) list of reasons to avoid the iPhone.

Oh, how the world has changed. “Late to the party” is now Motorola and Nokia. “Carriers control the whole thing” is now flipped over to carriers like TMobile begging to get the iPhone. “Too complex” is now flipped over to the iPhone being the simplest and the most intuitive user interface.

Let’s all use this 5th anniversary of the iPhone to thank Steve Jobs and everyone at Apple who opened this new world up for us, where it’s not just smartphones but mobile, highly-connected devices that help to get work done more efficiently and in more places than ever before.

Hat tip, iPhone.

Windows Phone 8 promises to add much-needed enterprise-class features which will please coporate IT departments.

Windows Phone Finally Becomes Enterprise-Ready

Microsoft has a “major” announcement to make at an unspecified location in Los Angeles. My hope list for what may be announced.

What I Wish Today’s Microsoft Announcement Will Be

A look at the beautiful app in the Windows 8 Release Preview: Cocktail Flow

Windows 8 Release Preview App Overview: Cocktail Flow

Some quiet updates on Windows Phone related to aspects of Twitter. Sign of things to come?

Windows Phone Native Social Features Keep Getting Updated Quietly

I noticed a visual voicemail configuration pop up on my Lumia 800 today. Could AT&T be enabling the feature for non-LTE Windows Phones? Let’s hope so!

Has AT&T Enabled Visual Voicemail for non-LTE Windows Phones?

Nokia announces partnerships with major brands to bring their apps to Lumia and other Windows Phones. Is Nokia really the “real” Windows Phone maker?

Nokia Provides More Evidence of Being the “real” Windows Phone Maker