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D. Murali

Many breakthrough ideas just don't reach the marketplace, and of those that reach, many fail too quickly. The solution could lie in a `six-stage process.' Read on...

CONGRATS! You've got a new technology!

"Sorry! You still have a long way to go," says Roger E. Levien in Taking Technology to Market, published by Viva Management Library (www.vivagroupindia.net) . While the stock of technology is expanding at a good rate, "the capacity to translate technological potential into products and services that can both satisfy customers and reward investors is not expanding correspondingly." Many breakthrough ideas just don't reach the marketplace, and of those that reach, many fail too quickly. Levien observes that the main reason for such dismal performance is "the failure to recognise that creating a successful business to market is as challenging and demanding of creative effort as the invention of the technology itself." The panacea could lie in a `six-stage process' that the author discusses: "Validate technology, create business proposition, create business model, develop business plan, start business, and enter market."

To validate, for example, an electronic technology, it may be necessary to show that it operates "in a computer simulation, a broadband mock-up, a prototype, or a full-scale working model." A temptation to resist at this stage is `to move forward as quickly as possible' because of getting optimistic as a result of readiness experiments. Protectability is to be ensured: "At a minimum, the principal features of the technology idea should be patented and copyrighted... Apply for patents in those countries where a reasonable chance exists that a large enough market will develop." The oft-ignored aspect, `the business plan,' includes inputs on some harsh realities: "Investors will want to see five years of income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements... Are the ratios `reasonable' compared to similar companies? How good is the return on sales?" A big shot at the future, and that would need an accountant who can read the tea leaves.

Launch is a big occasion. However, there could be negative reactions, so your preparation would have to include `counter arguments' and plans for `future upgrades to overcome identified shortcomings.' Thus, `marketing' is not a bad word after all, and in importance may well equal `technology'.

Media unfolding

Sunil Saxena worked as a print journalist for about 15 years before moving to new media. "As Vice-President (Content & Services) of the New Indian Express Group's Internet company he is responsible for generating and sustaining Internet-based revenue streams," states the back cover of his book, Breaking News published by Tata McGraw-Hill (www.tatamcgrawhill.com) .

But `online journalism' is `still evolving' as Saxena would state in his preface. "The most that one can do is to share the excitement, the heartburn and the pitfalls of working online." So, that must be good fun for readers, as with newspapers.

Section 1 is on `the tools' of the trade, the craft; it includes basics of reporting, editing and headline writing, plus inputs on site design, Net style and so on. After about 100 pages of the essentials, Saxena discusses `the issues' in the next section. Just the things one would like to brush under the carpet - Net privacy, defamation, accuracy of opinion poll, intellectual property rights, and the merciless `economics of Web publishing'. In section 3, the author ventures `into the danger zone' - the future - where revenue streams grow beyond syndication and subscription, to encompass `paid microsites, e-books and mobile content'. Job profiles are changing; for example, `knowledge manager' would be researching stories and suggesting hyperlinks `to related stories and backgrounders' even as you push an old pencil stooping over a dot-matrix printout.

Gradually, old revenue triggers are turning ineffective: exam results are published by the boards on their own sites, and film listings have been hijacked by mobile phone operators. Tender notices too are more visible in cyberspace though they are yet to vanish from newspapers because of "an archaic government rule that makes it mandatory for every government department to publish a tender notice in at least two newspapers". An instructive and entertaining read, not only for journalists but also for readers.

Path of forms

BILL Gates knows what all you need. Which is why his suite offers the facility to design and customise electronic forms that can talk to different applications. To know more, you'd have to read How to do Everything with Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003: A Beginner's Guide by David McAmis, published by Dreamtech Press (www.wileydreamtech.com) . "Millions of dollars are spent each year scanning and storing documents, when it is only the data contained in the document that is important," notes the author in the intro. "That is where InfoPath really shines." Good, so what is InfoPath? It is "a desktop application that is installed locally and can be used to design or fill out electronic forms." And it is `the newest member' of the Office suite. A developer can use this to create forms that are `tied into back-end systems or processes'.

When users fill in the form, the info flows in through one of three methods: XML file, database and Web service. Using the software, you can `consolidate XML files' and `create summary documents', which I'm worried would axe the jobs of a few number-crunchers. These forms are no dumb bunch of boxes; you can add `validation'. For example, in an expense report, the form can talk back to the user by showing an error message or highlighting the field if an amount more than what is permissible is entered. Auditors may have to rewrite their vouching checklists, please note.

Well, you don't trust forms, but you can create a `Trusted Form' using the RegForm utility, which is as easy as giving a simple command at the dos prompt.

This process creates an installation script (written in JScript). You can export your form, not to Timbuktu, but on to the Web, using, not HTML format, but MHT.

That is, an abbreviation for MHTML, which is MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate HTML Documents, "an Internet standard that was originally defined as a method of sending complete web pages in the body of an e-mail message."

Now, how do you convert a large number of forms to HTML? Use `downlevel' - a tool to access which "you need to pass a number of command-line switches, including the name of the form template, as well as a destination for the transformed files".

If that's something you want your developer to do, you can get busy with filling the forms on the screen. This may well become the path most travelled.

Books2Byte@thehindu.co.in

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