Politics and IT Governance

In these days, Politics and regulations on Information Technology are increasingly seen crossing paths.
A few days ago there was the news of Google been summoned to a committee to explain the incidents of its mobile software tracking the geographical location of the cellphone user and keeping a history of where they have been. More recently there was the news of regulators in several states trying to find the solution to what is the effect of imposing sales tax on e-commerce. Many online retailers have threatened to move their business to other states if the sales tax were imposed which could mean the state loses valuable economic employment and state exchequer stands to lose money one way or the other. Besides antitrust lawsuits against monopolistic businesses are not uncommon.
So no matter what the actual circumstance, its not infrequent that Politics and Technology Businesses often rub against each other.
In this the essential element is that Tech businesses are after all another Business which affect peoples livelihood and economic activity for the  administration. As such to protect the interests of the economy in general is an important Political duty of the elected representatives. On the other hand, providing services to the people thereby creating an economic activity is the very essence of any Business. Now there is no surprise in the fact that there is a lots of lobbying in most businesses to 'buy' the legislation in their favor. So there is a need for a moral ground on part of both sides to balance need and greed. Every business exists for some economic activity. The ones involved in for-profit  model are more so. So if their greed overtakes the need for a law abiding activity, the role of the government is clearly to step in. On the other hand if the government is turning a blinds eye to illegal activity, then events like 'occupy wall street' are a natural consequence...

Dennis Ritchie (1944 - 2011)

Another one of the important figures in the world of Computing has passed away. Dennis Ritchie was the creator of C programing language and along with Ken Thompson, was instrumental in rewriting the Unix OS in C in 1973. They were at Bell labs and were one of the pioneers in Multitasking, Multiuser, Multiplatform Computing. The trio of Brian Kernighan, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie is permanently linked to the world of computing as we know today. All the major OSes of today - Linux, OSX, Solaris, AIX, even Windows have their origins in the design and architecture in Unix and C. Unix provided the fundamental concepts of ACLs, Filesystem hierarchy, Process scheduling, Memory management and Threads that all of these OS'es borrow. And C of course is the language that these concepts are brought to reality in the form of programs that these OSes use as the foundation. True that in the world of IT today dominated by Business Tycoons and CEOs, its very difficult to notice and recognize the importance of REAL computer scientists who were instrumental in making the Technology a thing of everyday life. Their contribution to the Human Evolution and Knowledge sharing is immense and permanent. They are the real visionaries who actually changed the world and the world as we know today would be very different if it was not for them to come and change the landscape with their vision, hardwork and inventions...

Steven Paul Jobs

Todays writing is about Steven Paul Jobs, fondly known as Steve Jobs, Apple cofounder and a visionary who changed the world in several ways.
It was two days ago that I was walking out of the office around 5pm to go home that someone broke the news to me. It was an immediate piercing feeling. As I climbed down the stairwell to go out of the building and to the car, I started fiddling with my phone and see if there was any updates on google news. Until that time, there was none about Jobs. News was only about Amanda Knox or Rick Perry or Presidential elections. So I figured, it was a breaking news. As I drove home, the radio announcer on NPR said "Coming up we have some big news". And what followed was the news of Jobs's passing away and the sheer deluge of news about the man.
For myself, I wish he lived longer. People like him are rare. It is a sad news that he is no more. He recreated the computer industry from an elite geek only place to a more appealing, simple and useful place. He was one Visionary, Business leader, Creative person, Thinker, Artist and Poet in one. People like him are rare and this is a big loss. The world needs another Jobs. He showed the way and lived it too.
I think after a few days when the sheer volume of news about his demise becomes less, it will be a more reasonable time for reflection. Right now its just plain shock and emotions. Yet as difficult and heavy as it may seems, Time moves on. The memories live on. And its for us to ensure that the pioneering work does not stop. That we raise the bar higher and higher like Steve Jobs did.  May he find peace..