Petrobras Explained

My take on Petrobras is this - the stock is fundamentally undervalued. Presently oil prices are falling, the Brazilian government is sending mixed signals about ownership of oil and the large investors are selling and selling fast - partially because of the end of year effect.

Bottom line for me is that Petrobras is a great buy, and $40 is an insane price from a valuation perspective. However, it is now all a matter of timing, and we all know what happens when you try to time the market. Nevertheless, I'll buy, but not now - November/December sounds like ideal for me.

Nostalgic About Bangladesh

I was just thinking about all the different food I used to eat. Like the long palm-tree like tree that you cut into and got to juice of - don't know what its called in English. And the green coconut juice with the soft white middle. The jackfruit and later you could cook the seeds inside them. And all of this from our home in Shantinagar. Also, let me not forget the guava trees which is the best possible wood to make sling-shots out of!

PBR Being sold off by major institutional investors

I believe that the sell off will continue for for the next few months and only a major turn around after christmas. I think this period, particularly november - december might be a good time to buy in.

New Direction for My Blog

I have been neglecting my blog for sometime but want to come back to it now albeit changing directions. I am not doing a lot of IT stuff anymore, rather, working as a Financial Analyst in commercial real estate. I spend the little spare time I have thinking about cars. However, I do plan to keep at least the entrepreneurship component to me. As such, I plan to look at sectors I can invest in, local businesses I find interesting and anything else that comes up in my random searches.

How Useful is Methodology?

I often wonder how useful methodology is. Often there you have companies that spend a great deal of resources in a methodology and then find that their staff barely implement it. Then suddenly they run to a light methodology worked around Agile (some latest fashion) and it seems that this takes away the whole systems engineering approach out of it.

For me, all this conflict over methodology is decadent. I agree with Ivar Jacobson and feel that the source of the problem stems from the so-called conflict between software engineering approaches as one approach, compared with Agile methods. Jacobson writes in his blog that this conflict is unnecessary and that the ideas are in fact complementary. I wish him good luck to explaining that to all the consulting gurus and book writing gurus.

Definitely, his blog is one that I have been reading for sometime now and it brings out whole hosts of perspective and insight about the issues. Have UML and RUP really lost their momentum? In the East Coast financial domain it certainly has not! But we are laggards so perhaps the trend will be thus here as well over the next 2 years or so. But we definitely need far more documentation than the lightweight Agile!

I must confess I don't instinctively grasp it as well as I grasp RUP, or didn't and am only beginning to understand it. The aspect I was having trouble with is understanding what Jacobson calls the social engineering part of Agile. For me this takes us into management theory and away from the systems engineering core methodology. But then, maybe they are complements. Maybe like Scientific Management was replaced by Fordism, an increasingly social aspect is coming into software development methodologies. Which brings us to the question of whether this development is a pendulum swing and essentially circular, or if its linear. I personally feel that the essence of RUP will always remain, as will the essence of Agile. If we see the development of management theory over the years, the beginnings of Scientific Management were very "systems engineering" and the evolution over time moved towards increasingly behavioral methodologies.

Can this be the fate of our paradigm? I believe it is possible, and I give as proof the profusion of gurus in both fields!

Bloomberg Terminal Design

I personally think that the Bloomberg terminal would be better with a light background and dark text, but that's just me.

From Portfolio.com

In the unglamorous world of financial data and business news, Bloomberg is the closest thing to an Apple or a Google—an eccentric innovator that plays by its own rules, bringing imaginative and useful products to market.

But with those products can come features that exasperate even the most devoted customers. For owners of the sleek and addictive iPod, for example, that means having to use a proprietary cable to download music or charge the device. If you lose that cable, you’re stuck—at least until you can make it to an Apple store or order one from Apple’s website. Users of Google’s fast and functional email service had to wait almost two years for the search-engine giant to add a Delete button. And people who rely on Bloomberg’s data terminals have to deal with an interface that’s a throwback to MS-DOS.

Dreamed up by the current mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg, after he got booted from Salomon Brothers in 1981, the Bloomberg terminal is used by traders, analysts, government officials—even the Vatican—to get real-time information on everything from plain old stocks and bonds to currencies and derivative products. The system also allows users to chart historical prices, read news, and communicate with other Bloomberg users around the world. More than 300,000 people use the terminals, which are so distinctive that the 2004 model, created by Antenna Design, even made it into the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. That souped-up black box—available only to customers who subscribe to the Bloomberg Professional Service, which costs up to $1,800 per month—has adjustable monitors, a fingerprint scanner, and a microphone for speaking to other users.

But, oh, those screens.

“It’s a great machine, in that it has information you can’t get elsewhere, but it hasn’t improved its interface in the past five years,” says a private equity associate in Chicago who regularly uses a terminal to check interest rates and historical prices. “It’s hideous.”

The main problem is its use of color, says Elliott Malkin, an information architect in the design group at NYTimes.com. The Bloomberg system is customizable, so no setup is the same. But a typical screen teems with charts and tables drawn in blue, yellow, and orange on a black background, creating a certain nightmarish quality. “The color should be used to make the screens easy to parse,” Malkin says, “to help the user break the screen up into digestible compartments of information.”

What’s a little beauty when millions of dollars are at stake? A well-designed interface can improve productivity, says Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group, a research firm in Fremont, California. A 2003 study he conducted found that when websites were redesigned to make them easier to use, their companies’ sales increased by 100 percent and productivity went up by 161 percent. While website and terminal design are not perfectly analogous, the results hint that Bloomberg has everything to gain from revamping its terminal’s look and feel.

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Interview with Alex Kosik of Gravitonus

Gravitonus is a small Russian technology startup that is now seeking to expand into the US. It has developed a proprietary technology called the “Alternative Computer Control System” (ACCS). This is a computer control peripheral that gives hands free access in operating computers. Gravitonus has a strong team that includes 2 medical doctors and 2 PhDs. They have won the Russian BIT Business Plan competition and the “Humanitarian Project of the Year 2006” award at the Intel Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge (IBTEC).

Company president and founder Alex Kosik is a spinal cord surgeon in Russia. Alex has spent much of his career treating people with spinal cord injuries. Being troubled by how invasive depression was for his patients, he invented this most user-friendly and hands-free mouse.

I have met Alex Kosik and worked with him for a short period of time. Alex recently also participated at the Grubstake forum. I had the opportunity to conduct an online interview with Alex. Below is the Q&A session.

Q1. How did you come about becoming an Entrepreneur? Where you always one?

For more than 5 years, I was a spinal surgeon in the Central Scientific Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics – the leading Russian institution in the field of Spinal Cord Injury research and orthopedic treatment where I helped handicapped people to eliminate the distinction between disability and active life. Then we created some excellent hardware and software technologies for handicapped, I started the company and become entrepreneur.

Q2. If you could choose again on whether to pursue Gravitonus as a business, would you?

There is just one answer - unambiguously yes. It's fun after all.

Q3. What made you decide to bring your technology to the US?

The US market is "ready" for assistive technologies. Direct contact with customers is a primary source of information about customer satisfaction and quality of the product, essential for further development and sales. In addition, the best way to reach this target audience is to market ACCS devices to medical professionals and institutions evolved in treatment and rehabilitation of severely disabled. They can be reached through different associations (American Spinal Injury Association, National Spinal Cord Injury Association, American Paraplegia Society, to name a few), and are located in the USA.

Q4. Has the CRDF and George Mason University been supportive? In what ways?

http://www.crdf.org/newsroom/newsroom_show.htm?doc_id=579486 Please have a look.

Excerpt from the link:

“CRDF and the Mason Enterprise Center also provided Gravitonus with market validation research, business consultation and assistance with creating a strong business plan and presentation...”

And also:

“Gravitonus is receiving additional help in establishing a presence in the United States from George Mason University’s Mason Enterprise Center, which is dedicated to assisting non-U.S. companies establish a market for their products and services in the United States. Through the International Business Development Program, the Center is providing Gravitonus with temporary office space, assistance in tackling the diverse American market with a help of an onsite advisor and helpful seminars, and easy accessibility to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan resources...”

Q5. What made you choose the DC Metro region? What made you choose Virginia?

Significant share of our marketplace is projected to be through government sales, reimbursement and grants, D.C. is the right place to be in the vicinity. In addition, I like friendly atmosphere, I used to live in capital, and there is a direct flights to Moscow.

Q6. How has your experience been of applying for funding? Do VCs work in a similar manner in Russia?

It's a tough question. Look over here http://www.news.com/2100-11398_3-6217705.html I'd avoid sharing my own experience yet.

Q7. How did you come to know of the Grubstake?

From CRDF

Q8. What was your experience of the process?

I was there twice myself - good event, good presentations, always something new to learn.

Q9. Do you think you would apply again?

Quite possible - for Series B

Q10. Personally, how does the US compare with Russia? If given a choice, would you like to settle here? Why or why not?

Personally, it's pretty much the same with one exception - We are talking about Moscow, not Russia. Moscow is a big country itself, with 16 Millions people (incl. nearby areas). This country is very rich, it is second to London, with the most expensive real estates and cars. I would not settle yet, At least - not now.

Q11. If things do not work out, is there a possibility that Gravitonus might go back to Russia? (Particularly given the improving economic conditions there).

Failure is not an option.

Q12. What was personally your single biggest achievement?

http://gravitonus.com/2007/04/imaginecup.html

I made this presentation, but people were applauding to Eugene, and I figured out that at this moment something changed in my perception of the world as I managed to show this little girl (who was born without hands), that she could be the queen. And the biggest achievement - there was no one objecting...