Michael Dell's company is investing in Pakistan

Dell has been pretty active in Pakistan of late. They’ve got a decent reseller network, with companies like Gerry’s and DWP Group reselling their wares. Heck, Michael Dell’s even had his business cards printed in Arabic script!

Moving on from the conventional box-pushing business and standard PCs (yawn!), they’re now growing in to more of a solutions focused sale. There’s additional components, like storage, servers, thin clients and virtualization infrastructure that are increasingly becoming part of a standard desktop replacement deal. To highlight some of these new solutions for their customers, Dell has invested in a brand spanking new solution center in Karachi that they refer to as a “Center of Excellence”. They want to make sure you – as their customer – get a good view of all the components that go into a modern IT infrastructure.

Not only is this good for customers, it also speaks to the continued confidence Fortune 500 companies are demonstrating in the Pakistani market and economy. In fact, Dell’s GM for South Asia was quoted as saying that Pakistan was one of the most important developing country markets for Dell… Good news all around.

Here’s more from Ye Ole’ Biz:

Dell’s first Centre of Excellence in Karachi

KARACHI (March 04 2010): Dell inaugurated its first state of art showroom (Centre Of Excellence) in Karachi. Managing Director South Asian Growing Economies Ali Jaleel and Managing Director South Asian Developing Markets Varinderjit Singh were also present on the occasion. They shared their experiences with the media in term of Dell’s foot print in Pakistan and future prospects

[Full story available here] (c) Business Recorder

White Rabbit concocts a brew of Frenzied Felines and Rampaging Robots!

Hassan Baig of White Rabbit has been a regular guest contributor on TechLahore, so we’re especially pleased to announce today that his company, White Rabbit, just came out with their first Facebook game. It’s called “Feline Frenzy: Robot Wars” and it promises to amuse and entertain. Be sure to check it out! Here are some more details about the title:

Feline Frenzy: Robot Wars is an arcade-shooter style flash-game with a cute theme and mischievous gameplay. The objective of the game is to cannonball shoes at an invading army of cybernetic cats and their evil elephant henchmen. Users start off with underpowered shoes and can progress through the game to unlock more powerful weapons with ricochet and rapidfire abilities. There’s also an assortment of minigames to keep the experience fresh for a long time to come.

White Rabbit is currently tinkering around with some social features of the game to streamline them better for our audience alongside cranking up the social volume of the game.

Feline Frenzy has three modes of play, plus several weapons to unlock. “Easy mode” is for those who want to get a feel of what the game is about, “Normal mode” is how one progresses along the leaderboard and “Minigames” are small achievement-oriented games for users wanting to amass bronze, silver and gold medals.

The weapons to unlock are essentially an assortment of various shoes with different powers and abilities. More weapons and achievements will be released as the game’s user base grows.

Here’s how to get to the game: http://apps.facebook.com/feline-frenzy/

]]> http://www.techlahore.com/2010/03/08/white-rabbit-launches-its-first-facebook-game-feline-frenzy/feed/ 3 http://www.techlahore.com/2010/03/05/pakistans-aysha-saeed-makes-it-big-on-7th-ave-and-the-global-fashion-scene/ http://www.techlahore.com/2010/03/05/pakistans-aysha-saeed-makes-it-big-on-7th-ave-and-the-global-fashion-scene/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:57:48 +0000 TechLahore http://www.techlahore.com/?p=1150

Aysha Saeed: the up and coming Pakistani fashion maven

This is a great follow-up to my long, painful diatribe on the solitary trials that entrepreneurship subjects you to, and the HR woes you often have to deal with.

Pakistan’s Aysha Saeed, now based in New York, has clearly grappled with the challenges of a small business head on and made it work too! She’s basically a one-woman shop, surrounded by a few advisors, a couple of interns and some contractors, but her business is taking off and she’s turning heads. In more ways than one!

It’s great to see a Pakistani entrepreneur build and scale a world-class business in such a short period of time. Here’s hoping that Aysha and other Pakistani trailblazers like her continue to succeed and grow.

Here’s an MSNBC feature on Aysha and her amazing fashion business:

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/lifestyle/video/american-business-no-experience-no-problem

Bad employees are those heavy boxes weighing you down, and you are the ASS.

The software industry in Pakistan is still nascent. We started off with grandiose visions, poor execution and bureaucratic nonsense but, to be fair, we’re since covered considerable ground. You may recall that it was Benazir Bhutto, when she was PM, who loudly proclaimed that we would quickly – and magically – build a double digit billion dollar industry. No surprise that coming from a politician, those dreams were not backed by anything meaningful. And so what usually happens to empty slogans ended up happening to this one too… the jackass beauracrats probably stole the funds allocated for initial “research” and that was that.

But today things are different. The multi-billion dollar software industry that has developed in Pakistan since, growing at 50% YoY, is a testament to the entrepreneurs and private industry. Not the Government. And that is not to say the Government hasn’t done anything at all – the 18 year tax holiday is a good thing! But the biggest thing the Government can do is just get the hell out of the way. No Government can really take on the charter for building an industry. This is a function best performed by private enterprise, to whom success and failure are the difference between getting a pay cheque/getting rich on the one hand and failing/having a hard time paying the monthly bills on the other. You need that sort of Darwinian motivation sometimes.

Now that we’ve taken the first few steps and have built the industry, essentially with services businesses, we need to keep moving. The next step has to be a transition to the product model. I’ll pull this out of my hat, but I would say that one of the goals for Pakistan’s software industry should be to earn more than 50% of aggregate revenue from product sales within the next 5 years. With many countries jumping into the services fray and everyone trying to beat the other’s per-hour prices, there is very little money to be made in pure services plays. There are companies that have gotten lucky, or have long established relationships which yield decent margin. But for new comers, getting into services is like getting a root canal with no anesthesia.

So, if we want to make the move to products what are some of the impediments along the way? What do we need to do to make sure we – as entrepreneurs, engineers, business leaders – are well poised to make this mental and physical shift. Well, there are obviously several factors. But I just want to tackle one important one today. And that’s human capital.

The lifeblood of any young technology startup is not money, infrastructure or even an idea. It is people. Human Capital. Where there are good, motivated, hard working, smart people you pretty much have all the ingredients for success. If you don’t have and can’t get the right kind of DNA in your organization, you might as well shutter the darn thing up and head home. You’re sunk anyway. That’s how important people are to a technology startup. They are, simple put, EVERYTHING.

So the first challenge in building compelling product focused companies is to get the right people together. People that are opinionated, dedicated, brimming with ideas and most importantly, ready to embrace risk. What you do NOT want is a bunch of whiny, scared, 100%-motivated-by-salary job hoppers who think stability, constant back-patting and financial incentives not associated in any way with corporate and personal performance are their God-given rights.

Unfortunately, for those of you who have managed employees in a local software company or are entrepreneurs yourself, I am sure specific faces and names went through your head as you read that last sentence. There are too many of these safe-haven seeking, tool-focused, salary driven careerists around. If an entrepreneur is Luke Skywalker, they collectively represent the dark powers of Emperor Palpatine. They are the anti-matter that will collide with whatever you create and destroy it in a spectacular display of FAIL. They are bad news. Pure and simple.

And yet, as dangerous as these “I’m-leaving-this-job-because-I’m-always-job-shopping-and-found-another-one-where-I-get-five-thousand-rupees-more” types are, they seem to be comin’ out the woodwork. Because our universities and colleges are not producing enough graduates, entrepreneurs are being forced to hire these bombs of negativity. And inevitably, as bombs are given to do, they explode. Leaving behind a big ol’ mess of crap and unpleasantness behind them.

And then you realise… I really shouldn’t have hired this ass! You start interviewing again and find that most of the people coming your way are Negativity Bomb 2.0. What do you do?

I don’t have a definitive answer to this, unfortunately. Slapping people silly and otherwise assaulting them is illegal. So don’t do that. Short of those more satisfying resolutions, there are perhaps a couple of other things to consider. Especially for entrepreneurs who have the luxury of starting from scratch. For example:

1) Keep the team SMALL. If you keep it small, you can hope to fill positions with very, very rare genuinely good talent. If your model requires a lot of employees, you WILL end up with nefarious asses on your team. And then good luck to ya!

2) As a corollary to #1, make sure your idea/product is one that can be built and supported with a small team. And most importantly, one that has a low-friction sales model. You don’t want to get into something that requires armies of Account Executives peddling your wares.

3) Identify the core group of team members that are really A-players and make sure they succeed if the company succeeds. Whether you set-up some kind of subsidiary ownership, or profit sharing or whatever… just make sure that if you collectively hit it out of the park, that they are in on the action too.

4) If you absolutely must get some work done and can’t find an A-player, instead of settling for a B or C player, think about contracting the work out. That way, you can get the work done without polluting your organization. Because once you go down the slippery slope of inducting selfish non-team players into your organization, the virus will only spread. The next guy you hire will be a C or D player and then cleansing the illness will become super expensive.

5) Don’t set expectations you can’t keep and don’t become party to the industry’s poor-as-hell HR policies when it comes to incentives and general HR management. Part of working in a startup is having a heightened appreciation of the fact that there are consequences for your actions. For example: If your product sucks, then it won’t sell. And if you can’t convince anyone to pay money for your code, then you won’t have money to pay salaries. Drop the pretense. Everyone in the organization needs to understand that when something doesn’t work, the team bears a collective responsibility. It’s not just the management, or sales, or engineering. It’s all of you. So if you expect a raise that the company can’t afford (assuming the company is reasonably well managed), then too bad. Tough it out and instead of looking for another 5K/month somewhere else, how about working twice as hard improving the product so it WILL sell?

You have to ram this concept in to your employees heads… and when I say “you”, I am really talking to all software and technology business owners in Pakistan. Because if you don’t, we’re all screwed. It’s fine and well to irrationally incent someone  when work comes your way, but then recognize what you’re getting yourself into. If you don’t first lay the guy off realizing that your strategy is basically unsustainable, he’ll eventually leave anyway. Probably at the worst possible time for your project and company. And that’s no surprise. After all, you lured away a person who was willing to bail from a previous position for a few extra thousand. He was probably interviewing elsewhere every single day while he worked for you. The moment he found a better deal, the job hopper bailed on you. What do you expect?

And think about what your larger contribution here was… you added to industry turn over and instability for a short term activity you could have sub contracted.  You reinforced the wrong sort of behaviour that will come and bite you in the backside. Guaranteed.

Truth be told, Pakistani software companies share blame for the negative behaviour we see these Lethargians exhibit. If you’re going to get two raises a year when the going is good with no regard for your personal performance, sure you’re going to develop ludicrous and unsustainable expectations! If you’re naturally prone to focusing on the short-term benefits of a slightly higher salary, Pavlovian programming such as this will only ruin you further.

I think it’s time the industry as a whole acknowledged that we’re tolerating lots of C and D players because not nearly enough A players are being produced. And once we acknowledge this, we really need to arrive at some sort of collective agreement that we can’t keep playing the “incent, use and lose” game any longer. It’s ruining the pool of human resources we all have to make do with. Until we do this, it’s each man for himself and victory can only belong to the dark forces of Palpatine.

Visitors from western countries that visit Pakistan are often surprised at the developed infrastructure, friendly people and safe environment. Fox News notwithstanding!

Putting the blithering idiots in the western media in their place, William Dalrymple, celebrated scholar on South Asia and author of numerous best sellers, such as The Last Moghul and White Moghuls, talked about the differences between Pakistan and India as part of a recently held IQ2 discussion forum.

Dalrymple has been living in India for 20 years and has visited Pakistan on numerous occasions. I was unfortunate to have missed his last series of talks in Lahore, connected with the launch of his most recent book. Suffice to say, his first-hand knowledge of the sub continent is uncontested.

He goes on to talk about the infrastructure in India and Pakistan and says that he finds Pakistan far more developed in this area. He praises Pakistani roads and airports, calling them “infinitely better” than those in India. Talking on security, Mr. Dalrymple says that he felt completely safe in Pakistan and other than FATA and some areas in the Frontier, “you can go anywhere… drive anywhere” and be completely safe.

Dalrymple explains how the insurgency currently going on in India (Maoists and Naxalites), is just as “dangerous” as the Taliban violence connected to the border areas of Afghanistan/Pakistan. That the area under control of the Maoists is actually 3 times larger than what the Taliban influence in Pakistan. Yet, the media has lost complete perspective of this truth.

More people in the west, unfortunately misled by the macabre mixture of pseudo-news and entertainment, courtesy Fox and CNN, need to hear from Dalrymple; someone who actually knows Pakistan and India. For those of you who run software and IT companies with foreign customers, consider sending a link to the below if the subject of security in Pakistan comes up. In my own personal experience, having hosted dozens of Americans and Europeans, once they’ve visited the country they absolutely love it. For those of my guests and business associates that have also been to India, I get the exact same feedback every single time. That Pakistan is far more developed, cleaner, less crowded and equipped with better infrastructure than India.

So, without further ado, here’s William Dalrymple:

Apps for social platforms like Facebook are booming!

This is another guest post from White Rabbit’s Hassan Baig. I hope you’ll enjoy Hassan’s writing as much as I do! More about the author at the end of this piece.

“Walls are only built to keep out people who don’t want it bad enough” – Randy Pausch, Last Lecture Series

Some drab definitions first

Drab definition 1: First you’ll need to understand what a ‘network effect’ is in the social media context. A ‘network effect’ is the ability of the social graph to exert influence. So the higher the network effect, the more important the role of the social graph becomes.

Drab definition 2: There are two kinds of network effects: positive and negative. A positive network effect is where the size of the social graph positively correlates with the utility of the underlying system. A negative network effect has a negative such correlation.

Drab example 1: So for instance, the telephone service has positive network effects – the more people have the telephone, the greater its utility becomes. If you were the only person on the planet with a phone, it would be a useless device.

Drab example 2: Roads have a negative network effect associated to them – the more traffic on a road, the less utility it has.

What is social gaming?

Social games are games where the user experience is positively correlated to their social graph.

Or in simpler terms, a social game is some computer game which is more fun to play with your friends. And what separates it from a multiplayer game is that not all your friends need to be online for you to benefit from their presence.

The most popular social games are found on Facebook, however several other social networks – hi5, Orkut, Myspace, Qzone, 51.com have been long associated with social gaming too.

Examples of famous Facebook social games are Farmville, Pet Society, Happy Aquarium, Mafia Wars, Texas Hold’em Poker etc.

You’ve probably seen at least one of these games right?

Why should you become a social-game developer?

Face it, we as a country are not going to break into the AAA gaming market. And by great, I mean World of Warcraft great, not ‘I-know-you’re-not-the-best-but-I’ll-praise-you-out-of-congeniality’ great. If you’ve ever read Adam Smith, you’ll know that market forces are blind to fake congeniality. In short, we’re not going to compete with the big boys of AAA.

Ever.

Social gaming, on the other hand, is a different story. The production values are not tremendous, the development cycles are not capital intensive, the development timeline is not measured in years (but weeks).

Also social games are instantly monetizable (through virtual goods), i.e. the business model is not a slave to acquisitions or IPOs.

Plus you monetize in dollars. Unless you want to shoot yourself in the foot and build a game for the local market; overlooking the fact that Facebook lets you be truly global.

Yes, you monetize in dollars.

That looks very promising for a place like Pakistan – you gotta love that exchange rate.

You don’t have much time

Now the bad news: the next 12 months are pretty much the last days for a small-fry, unfunded studio to get into the fray. Production values are being pushed up – it’ll be costly to get in later. Save yourself a bucket load of cash – get in now.

Research resources

The following are going to be your best friends. You have to read updates from these everyday. Forever. Not doing your homework will be your dream’s tragic death.

• appdata.com
• insidesocialgames.com
• and to an extent, gamasutra.com

In a growing industry, there’s plenty of room for clones

If chuffed about what kind of games to develop, or don’t have your creative juices flowing, remember that even the worst-cast scenario is not that bad. Read the sub-heading again: in a growing industry, there’s plenty of room for clones. That’s right. The following are happily co-existing clones in famous Facebook genres. Each has more than a million monthly active users.

• Happy Aquarium, Fishville, Happy Fish, Fish Isle, Fish Life…..
• Pet Society, PetVille, Happy Pets, My (Lil) Pets….
• Farmville, Farm Life, Barn Buddy, My (Lil) Farm, Island paradise, Tiki Farm….

Even cloning can get you success. The worst-case scenario isn’t that bad.

Development technologies

Though not an exhaustive list, you’ll at least be getting your hands dirty with: Adobe Flash, AS3, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop/GIMP, amfPHP, Facebook API.

Game mechanics

• This doesn’t work

1) Synchronous, multi-player games don’t work (exceptions: Poker, Wild Ones). Chances are your friends and you log in at different times to check their Facebook. Thus games contingent upon finding a friend to partner with aren’t successful. The few successful synchronous games that do exist have game-play which doesn’t need your social graph.

2) Games requiring time and intellectual attention in large chunks don’t work. Remember, Facebook is not a gaming portal, it’s a social portal. So users are not looking for hardcore game mechanics.

• This works

1) Asynchronous games are a hit. Most turn-based games fall in this genre.

2) The stickiness of a social game is primarily driven by an ‘appointment gaming’ mechanic. Google this term to understand what it means (it’s pretty basic).

3) Monetization is driven by stickiness. I.e. the aforementioned point can translate to big Benjamins.

Monetization strategies

Don’t take it from me, hear it from the horse’s mouth here, here and here. You’ll need a combination of all of these strategies. It’s all very intuitive.

The hurdles and how to overcome them

Anticipate the following problems before-hand and take amelioration measures:

• Frequent power outages. Can easily gnaw away up to 4 hours of productive time if back-up power not available.
• Thin devscape in Pakistan. I.e. not much in terms of development talent available locally. But finding good people is not impossible. Remember, these aren’t AAA titles you’d be developing. The production values need not be stellar; the back-end code need not be super-optimized. Pakistanis do have a chance.
• Lack of research. If you don’t research the industry, you’re toast. If you dislike reading and analyzing, fuggedaboutit. Read up everyday. Play Facebook games – as many as you can - everyday. Know your competition!
• Dwindling motivation. This can happen since you’d be doing something no one else in your country is doing. No one will understand what you’re doing. No one will support you. To keep spirits high, keep reminding yourself and your team in those late night work shifts and gloomy hours why you were doing it in the first place. Keep your vision close to your heart.
• Outsourcing. Outsource artwork if extremely necessary. Do not outsource coding modules – you’ll need this expertise in-house after the game goes live. Besides, going back and forth with your outsourcer to get the asset or the code right wastes time. If your game’s production is taking more than 12 weeks, you’re late.
• Scope creep. You have 12 weeks to release your first iteration to the public. Keep scope minimal – once the game is built, iterate out from there. Do not run after perfection.
• Lack of pre-production. Take at least 3 weeks to plan out production. Do not plan on the fly.
• Failure to take analytics seriously. Once your game goes live, read those user numbers all the time. Chase the under-performing metrics like crazy.
• Facebook’s dwindling social window. I.e. Facebook became too spammy with social gaming newsfeed in late ‘08 and mid ‘09. Mark Zuckerberg then decided to filter out much of the social gaming related news. Beginning in winter ‘09, Facebook announced a roadmap of changes to the Open Platform which may make getting viral traction trickier. So move now rather than later. Ensure you’re app’s already up and has a user-base before Zuckerberg’s roadmap dilutes virality.
• Experimenting with game mechanics too much. If it ain’t broken, why fix it? I’ve had master developers pitch Augmented Reality (AR) apps at me where the user can control avatars on-screen with hand movements in front of their cams. I call it the Minority Report syndrome.  AR may be the next wave, but I keep telling them that monetize the current wave first, we’ll make money with the next one later. Whoever built social games before the advent of the Open Platform never made it big. Why? It just wasn’t the right time. Monetize now, establish yourself, and then have a $20 million R&D department dedicated to all the AR you ever want in life.
• Failure to filter out pseudo-gurus. I’ve talked to a gazillion people in Pakistan about social gaming. And not a single person knew about the industry. This is not an exaggeration. If you’ve done your research, do not be swayed by ill-formed opinions, no matter who’s saying it. People will not only feed you wrong information, they will also up-sell that information to increase your bill. No you do not need 3D work, no you do not need a pricey licensed server, you do not need a massive advertising budget, and you do not need to hire consultants.
• Hiring a team which hinders the creative process. In normal game development, you can be as creative as you want and experiment around. In social gaming though, there’s a set formula. Of course there is room for trend-setting, as with any niche. But your creative wiggle-room here is limited. Your job is to ensure your team understands this. Otherwise, you’ll be getting into frequent planning tiffs with them as they’ll fantasize about ‘never-done-before’ themes. Such tug-of-war can kill your time-scales.
• Hiring an opportunist. This one time, I gave a guy a job offer and his next reply was “Cool to work with you. I’d like a laptop for work. A mac preferably”. Another time a guy said “I want profit sharing in your products for me and my wife”. Another guy asked for Rs. 150K per month for writing game code. Needless to say, none of these guys were excited about the job. They were there for the pay day. Why would anyone head towards a start-up for a healthy pay day? This reflects poorly on their decision making. You do not want, nor can afford, such opportunists.

That’s a long to-do list. And it wouldn’t work if it were anything less. I guess it’s a good time to re-read the quote at the beginning of this article. Good luck with your venture if you end up taking this up.

Hassan Baig is a LUMS and Duke University grad with substantial experience on Wallstreet as an investment banker. Currently, he’s running a Facebook Development start-up out of Islamabad called White Rabbit, Inc. You can contact him at baig.hassan-at-gmail.com in case you want to ask a question, help out, condemn, fund, apply, laugh at, advise, get advice, interview, pester, make an example of etc.

South Asia's most modern city, Islamabad, Pakistan.

It’s been a while since I wrote about how I see Pakistan’s macro situation developing. Even though the noise in the media about Pakistan has died down considerably over the past year or so, you still come across oddities now and then that make you wonder how mainstream publications can put across nonsense that couldn’t be further removed from ground realities. Well, I suppose they count on the fact that their readers won’t take the flight over to confirm things for themselves, and selling the image of conspiracies unfolding in a mysterious and ornery land is so much easier than dealing with reality!

But ignoring the actors playing to the audience, what really is the nature of the Pakistan that is emerging early in the 21st Century? What trends and developments are shaping our future and what do we have to look forward to? These are obviously vast topics, but I’ll try to give you a glimpse of how I see things and will try to convey as much cold, hard fact as I possibly can so as to point out the underlying reasons that cause me to believe what I believe.

To start off with, in this segment I will survey part of our national and immediately relevant regional situation in broad contours. In a subsequent part, I will talk about some of the projects unfolding now in Pakistan which have the potential to change things in a phenomenal way.

The Afghan Situation: If at first you fail, enable the Pakistanis and let them handle it

After almost a decade of highly destablising US presence in Afghanistan, the Afghan situation is rapidly heading to a favourable conclusion for us. From what appears fairly obvious now, the Americans will be starting a withdrawl as soon as 2011, NATO will be spending $500M to bribe the very forces they have fought for 9 years and Pakistan’s role will be pivotal in ensuring a safe exit for ISAF/NATO from Afghanistan. Our justification for why we have an interest in Afghanistan and why we seek to defend it has been made plain and public by none other than our Foreign Minister and our Chief of Army Staff.

Gone are the days of dancing around the issue and deft diplomatic maneuvering. It is all out in the open now and unfolding before our eyes. It is almost impossible to imagine how Pakistan will not wield greater influence in Afghanistan than any other single country after the saga of this drawdown/withdrawl concludes.

Now that there is a near-term end in sight for the destabilizing presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan must use its influence to support and ensure the emergence of a more inclusive government in that country. The advent of such an inclusive government, in particular, will itself address many of the underlying factors that have allowed a band of rag tag fanatics to develop broad based support for their insurgency. Provide for a fair and level playing field in Kabul where all groups feel that they are part of the solution and not being unfairly excluded, and you will rob support from the fanatic fringe. Pakistan is being tasked by its allies to accomplish such an outcome and this bodes well for Afghanistan, Pakistan and the region.

Dealing with India: Undoing the overdo

Indian Occupied Kashmir's Chief Minister acknowledges Pakistan's role in peace in IoK

There is such a thing as being too nice. And I think Pakistan has been guilty of this error over the past 4-5 years with respect to relations with our eastern neighbour. In this period, Pakistan has used its resources and influence to help calm the situation down in Indian occupied Kashmir, has publicly condemned and offered help with multiple acts of terrorism within India, has tried suspects of the Mumbai incident, has downplayed and not vociferously raised in international fora the presence of terrorists and extremists within the Indian Army – such as Col. Purohit – who have blown up trains and killed dozens of Pakistani citizens on Indian soil, and has even attempted to address key issues such as India’s violation of the Indus Water Treaty in an understated and diplomatic way.

All of this was done, presumably, under the misdirected belief that being nice, or indulging in “CBMs” as they are referred to in diplomatic parlance, would bring a more amiable India to the negotiating table and the two of us would be able to sit together decently and work out our problems.

No such luck. What is that old expression about giving an inch and being taken for a mile? There is, like I said, such a thing as being too nice. I think the Pakistani establishment has received this message loud and clear and is now working to address the excess we have been guilty of. “Undo the overdo”, should be the mantra in effect on this front and it seems to be, if you listen to Gen. Kiyani’s recent speech about our posture viz India.

I think this evolving realism will do far better for us in addressing issues from a position of strength or equality than the “Aman ki Asha” sing-along affection marathon. In the context of this recent clarification of our India policy by Gen. Kiyani, we stand at a much better place than at any time during the past five years of confusion and diplomatic excess.

China: Partnering with a Dragon that is beginning to soar

Chinese tourist in Islamabd enjoying a view of the city

Chart the data and graph the trends. There is no second opinion about China’s emergence as an economic and military superpower. And armed with leverage of a dozen kinds, such as the $800B in US debt that it holds, the $2.2T in foreign reserves it commands, the world’s largest and most rapidly modernizing army, the world’s largest manufacturing base, the world’s largest population of middle class consumers and the list goes on. Having embraced the sense of arrival as a dominant player on the world scene, China has become far more aggressive in its position on a number of regional and international issues.

Take its stance on India, for instance. Suddenly, we see Chinese troops cross the line of control in Southern China and deposit “we were here” souvenirs for the Indians to clean up. We see Chinese diplomats raise the issue of disputed territory aka “Arunachal Pradesh”. We see the Chinese moving in international fora to block aid to India. We see a much stronger position on Tibet and a sanctioning of companies supplying Taiwan. And finally, in the Indian Ocean we see a Chinese Navy undergoing massive modernization and growth beginning to project its force in numerous ways.

It is important for Pakistan to support the Chinese to the hilt as they emerge as the premier super power. They have been a true friend and ally to us over five decades, through thick and thin. Pakistan not only has a lot to learn from China, but also finds itself in the unique position as the most allied ally of what will be the world’s greatest power in just a little more than a decade.

Energy: Capitalizing on location

Pakistan is THE conduit for energy in the region

Most of success is hard work, but some of it is also luck. Clearly, with our strategic geographical location, that second element is at work. We couldn’t possibly have been positioned in a more crucial place on the globe. For if India needs access to Central Asian oil, it must route those pipelines through us. If that Central Asian oil needs to find a close by warm water port, it must send its black gold to Gwadar. If Iran is to supply India with gas, then that gas must cross Pakistani territory. If the West/NATO is to supply Afghanistan overland and, then that too must happen through Pakistani territory.

While the Government of Pakistan has commited the folly of getting distracted with many other issues of almost no importance and could have used this energy to fast track these initatives, the emergence of Pakistan as a leading global energy conduit has happened anyway.

One recent example is India’s role as spoiler in the erstwhile IPI pipeline. For a couple of years, India delayed signatures on this Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline which would have provided India with much needed gas at an internationally competitive price. Finally, it became clear that these delays would be unending and Pakistan requested Iran to proceed without India. Not only did Iran oblige, it is now becoming increasingly probable that China will join this effort, changing the IPI to an IPC pipeline.

As a side note, much has been said about Iran-Pakistan relations. While these have been historically very friendly, lately many external players have invested their time and energy to attempt to derail these ties. What is particularly reassuring about massive project such as the IPC pipeline, or the Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul rail initiative is the fact that Iran and Pakistan’s relations continue to remain in excellent standing.

Not only will the IPC pipeline address Pakistan’s energy needs, it will also create a regional framework of cooperation between China, Iran, Pakistan and perhaps Central Asian countries in future. This framework is one which India has self-selected itself out of on account of intransigence. If you aren’t part of something, you don’t maintain leverage.

Turkey: A trusted ally and an emerging European power

Amongst a long list of defence projects, Turkey is also offering Pakistan T-129 ATAK gunships

Pakistan and Turkey have an excellent relationship going back decades. In trying times, Pakistan has always supported Turkey (Kurdistan issue, disputes with Greece etc.) and Turkey has reciprocated by supporting Pakistan’s Kashmir stand and participating in dozens of joint ventures and development projects in Pakistan. With a GDP now approaching $1T and the largest Armed forces in Europe, Turkey will be a major regional and international player.

Thanks to a variety of factors, cooperation between Turkey, Iran and Pakistan has continued to increase. Just recently we covered President Abdullah Gul’s announcement about the initation of a $20B Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul rail link.

It bodes well for Pakistan that along with our own development, two of our most allied allies, Turkey and China, are in very strong positions. From a foreign policy perspective, if both these countries have supported us unquestioningly even when they were relatively weaker, what do we have to look forward to when their position is so much stronger?

In a nutshell, I think the emerging regional situation is generally looking quite favourable for Pakistan. Having endured 10 years of the Great Game unfolding in our region with a mixture of grit, might and wit, we are now in a position to reap the rewards of fortitude. Much else is happening within Pakistan which I will cover in an upcoming post. We’ll continue the discussion in part II of this series.

CBR's NTN verification service is full of security holes

Electronic government initiatives are excellent, in general. They increase efficiency, make information more accessible to the public, prevent people from standing in long lines and wasting their entire day with the most mundane of things, and generally lead to a happier populace. But when they aren’t thought through properly, they can also result in some really disastrous outcomes.

This case in point was brought to our attention by a watchful reader, Shehzad A. Shehzad came across the online NTN verification service deployed by the CBR (Central Board of Revenue) and immediately pointed it out as a not-so-well thought out initiative. And we agree!

What the service does is that it allows you to enter any Pakistani national’s name or National identity card number (NIC) and get back the individual’s Tax ID, full address and some other information. This in of itself wouldn’t have been all that bad… after all, the NIC is not quite like the US SSN because you can’t exactly use it to apply for a credit card online and then rip someone off. And even in places like the US where privacy watchdogs have been on the prowl for a long time, Tax records are public information and can be searched online. In fact, as long as you know the country of residence of any individual, you can easily get their full address information on a variety of county websites.

So, it’s not just the information that’s the issue… it’s the fact that too much of it is being revealed, and it is not being protected from automated attacks/database replication attempts. For example, why give out the NIC information when the service is expressly an tax number verification service? Is full address information necessary to verify someone’s NTN? What about just giving the city, or how about even the street without the house number?

Since there is no use of Captcha or other robot avoidance mechanisms, a simple scripted robot could easily pull information from this database by using random NIC numbers or names. What’s more, since the service doesn’t prevent a single IP from accessing it over and over, you could have a robot do this for weeks or months and pull down hundreds of thousands or millions of records. Whoever does this would essentially be replicating NADRA’s database, minus the biometrics. Not good.

I think the Central Board of Revenue really needs to look at this immediately and add security features like Captcha, prevention of unlimited queries from a single address and paring down the information returned. The government is entrusted with citizen’s private information under a contract of trust. It should go to lengths to uphold its responsibilities.

Run Razzle Run is one of TkXel's gaming titles developed in partnership with Sunstorm Interactive

I’m pretty bullish on this move towards product development in the Pakistani software industry. We’ve recently covered a number of up and coming startups that are working on exciting technology, going direct to the end customer and trying to  move beyond the sometimes-boring “software thaykaydaari”…

Just recently, we had Hassan Baig from Islamabad based Facebook app developer, White Rabbit, tell us how he’s building teams and motivating key contributors. We also looked at Lahore based Pepper.pk’s work in mobile app development and their recent appearance in the Handango Top 10 Blackberry Apps list. And of course, we’ve talked about TkXel too, but today we’re going to get to know this company a lot better.

I had the opportunity to chat with their CEO, Umair Javed, about his thoughts on mobile app development, TkXel’s achievements and plans for the future. Interesting stuff. Here goes…

Tell us a little about TkXel. When was the  company founded and what were the founder’s backgrounds?

TkXel is a software development company that is working in Mobile and Web 2.0 domains. TkXel provides software development services to companies across the globe. It also develops its own products and sells these through various channels.

TkXel was founded in 2008 in a small lab of LUMS. I was an adjunct faculty member at the CS department and started working with an initial engineering team comprised of a few highly enthusiastic and skilled graduating students. These remarkable engineers took up some challenging work and helped the company get on its feet.

From this humble beginning, the team started to expand and soon it was clear that LUMS’ small lab would not be able to accommodate the entire team. So in September 2008, the team shifted to its office outside LUMS. TkXel is now a fast growing company and has more than 30 full time engineers, graphic designers and QA resources on its team. While most of TkXel’s engineering team comes from the leading universities like LUMS and FAST-NU, TkXel also picks up raw talent from other places and polish them to be at par with others.

Is the company privately funded or Venture backed? Are you profitable?

The initial funding for the company was privately sourced. TkXel achieved positive cash flow in its first quarter and is currently a profitable entity.

Why did you choose mobile application development? There seem to be a large number of companies in Pakistan these days that are focused on mobile apps. We recently covered another Lahore based startup, Pepper.pk. Are you following a trend or do you bring something unique to this space?

We chose mobile application development for two reasons; technology convergence to mobile platforms, and opportunities available for entrepreneurs.

About two years back the introduction of the iPhone turned the smartphone market on its head and at that moment we thought it was an ideal time to get into the mobile app development market. It gave us direct reach to end users across the globe. At the same time, it helped us offer our services in a spectrum which was not yet saturated like traditional web development.

Over the last year and half we earned decently from our products and services, and now that we have a better understanding of development and marketing in this area we are working on various concepts that have the potential of going big.

From the perspective of a Pakistani company, we offer services and products that are not offered by many Pakistani companies. These services include end to end game development, which is still a very rare skill in the local landscape.

Our readers would be interested to learn more about your distribution strategy. How do you take your apps to market and what approaches have worked for you? Which ones haven’t?

We are primarily distributing our apps through the appstores and marketplaces of handset manufacturers. These appstores have given us direct access to international customers. To enhance our sales we rely on social media channels. Right now we are in the process of establishing a dedicated social media team that can help us in creating visibility about our products and services.

Mobile apps on the consumer side are all about volume. Tell us a little about your pricing strategy to optimize volume – how do you think consumer focued mobile apps should be priced? And also, how do you drive volume? Do you run SEO/SEM activities, or employ other approaches?

There are two distinct categories when it comes to pricing. We feel that games and entertainment apps are about volume as the target market segment is very large. So, low pricing along with decent quality brings a lot of customers to your apps. The key in this category is how successful are you in terms of creating a marketing buzz about your app. Your marketing gives you an initial surge and if the app is of decent quality it will then lift itself up.

The second category includes applications developed for niche areas. Here the market size is small but they are willing to pay high if your app has a utility for them, so price could be high.

We have worked with the above mentioned two strategies and are getting reasonable rewards. We have not yet applied SEO or SEM techniques to our products but we think that right now Social Medial Marketing brought much more benefits than SEO or SEM. The reason is simple; customers are searching your apps on the appstores and not on Google or other search engines. The social media strategies work because customers come to dedicated forums or places where they can find peer reviews and recommendations for apps and games.

What do you believe are the hottest categories within mobile app development? There seems to be a lot of focus on location based apps and augmented reality. Your thoughts on these and other compelling areas?

To answer your first question, the hottest categories within mobile app development are definitely entertainment and games. That is where the largest customer base is.

Though occasionally one hears about applications from other categories, making it big, they are quite few and far between. Talking about location based apps and services, they have been around for some time now but none of them have really made a breakthrough. We believe as  time passes and more location data becomes available, these apps will get more popular. Augmented reality is a relatively new but exciting area. However, there are many technical issues that need to be solved before we will see some really compelling stuff coming out.

Do you principally promote your products in international markets or are you also focused on Pakistan?

We primarily promote our products in the international market. Even our suite of Islamic apps is more popular in the West rather than the Middle East or Asian markets! We believe that this is due to the online buying culture and greater handset penetration in the West.

However, we are now working on some specialized products for local and non US/European markets. We will share more with you when we come close to launch.

What prospects do you see for local software companies wanting to push mobile device software or value added services in Pakistan? Is the market large enough?

We believe that prospects for VAS, local content and Mobile apps are bright in the medium to long run. As smartphone penetration increases, the possibilities become endless. However concerns remain about the customer’s buying power and willingness to buy through Telco channels. One of the key problems that still need to be solved is an easy payment method. Right now there is no universal payment procedure locally that users can use to pay for the service they buy. The result is a mandatory tie up with telecom carriers if one needs to offer VAS. We believe once these kinks are worked out, data plans become cheaper and data rates get faster, mobile apps and the local content market will take off.

Any parting thoughts before we conclude the interview?

We strongly believe that the IT industry in this region can grow at a lightening pace if the gap between the academia and the industry is bridged. This can be done by promoting entrepreneurial incubators in our universities or institutions. All around the world, it’s a common phenomenon that university driven research gives birth to high-tech startups and that contributes to their economy. Despite the recession in the West, startups have not only braved the trying times but are thriving. So it’s a unique time to position our own youth to capture the next big wave and encourage them to create something new through their own initiatives.

The Sirius Handheld Computer (Prototype shown) was designed and built from scratch... in Lahore, Pakistan

I often get emails from readers that I try to respond to as quickly as possible. A couple of weeks ago, my Inbox binged with an interesting question from an un-named Pakistani hardware engineer (aka Batman). Batman is originally from Lahore but is presently working in Austin, Texas. I thanked Batman for his email and told him that since I had received several similar queries, I would respond via a blog post rather than via email. But that was two weeks ago. With so much else happening, I wasn’t able to get to it as quickly as I’d thought… so, apologies for the delay, Batman!

Without further ado, here’s  Batman’s question, followed by my answer:

Assalamo Alaikum:

My name is [[Batman]] and I am originally from Lahore. Currently, I am working as a Hardware Verification Engineer at a chip-design company in Austin, Texas. I came across your blog in my search for tech job opportunities in Pakistan. I was wondering if you could give me an idea of what sort of opportunities exist in Pakistan. Is it mostly software jobs? Are you aware of companies that have sites in both Pakistan and America ?

Thanks for your time,
[[Batman]]

Well, Batman, there are actually a significant number of companies engaged in hardware design in Pakistan. There are also excellent teams at universities, working on some pretty cutting edge stuff. I’ll try to summarize some of these for you below.

1. Mentor Graphics is a multi-billion dollar US based company with locations in both Pakistan and the US. They have an R&D center in the Cavalry Grounds commercial area in Lahore. The work they do includes various system level board design activities, FPGA and ASIC design and verification tools.

2. Palm Chip is a US based company with multiple locations in the US and R&D facilities in both Islamabad and Lahore. They do embedded systems work, DVD SoC design, WiMAX chip design and more.

3. FiveRivers is a local Pakistani outfit working on handheld computers and related operating system development. They have designed a handheld computer called Sirius.

4. Enmac is a Hong Kong based company. They have almost their entire R&D done in Pakistan. They have a contract manufacturing business, embedded software development and systems design (board level) capabilities. They have produced various mobile telephones, digital Qurans and other products.

5. MicroElectronics International is a Lahore based designer and manufacturer or digital wireless equipment, electronics warfare devices and anti jamming technology.

6. Pak Elektron Ltd. is a Saigol Group company manufacturing electrical appliances, switchgear and providing electrical engineering consulting services.

7. DWP Group has a consumer electronics division that is manufacturing LCDs and more at a factory they have setup in Lahore as a joint venture with Samsung. They also contract with the military and develop custom solutions such as video walls and similar systems. They have pick and place and full manufacturing capabilities in their impressive Lahore factory and maintain an R&D/design group.

These are just a few of the companies with opportunities for electrical engineers and hardware design professionals. I haven’t expanded the scope to Islamabad and Karachi, but there are many opportunities in those cities too. Pakistan’s emerging UAV industry encompasses close to a half dozen private and government organizations. Take a look at our piece on UAVs built in Pakistan to find out more. Each of these companies employs several electrical engineers. It might be a good idea to start asking around with the companies above and you’ll soon get pointers to many other opportunities in the market. If you are open to opportunities in Academia/Research, then the University of Engineering and Technology has a very large Huawei funded research lab, LUMS has a great computer engineering research team focused on FPGAs, hardware based compression technology and more. In the Government sector, you’ve got Telephone Industries of Pakistan (TIP), NUST (National University of Science and Technology) and its associated mechatronics/robotics groups, NDC (National Defence Complex), PAC Kamra and many more.

From the days of Lahore-based Micro’s fully locally manufactured (Motherboard included!) Mango PC, the hardware industry in Pakistan has come a long way!

If you know of additional opportunities Batman and friends can benefit from, please do share!