The Hindu Business Line : <I>The sleek shall rule the earth </I>

Apple news, at the time of writing this, is about Multi-Pass, which lets users buy downloads of television shows on a monthly basis, as a Reuters story on www.dailytimes.com.pk informs. Meanwhile, the Indian media is agog with the company's plans to open a technical support centre in Bangalore, with 3,000 people housed in 1,50,000 sq ft; the proposed investment is $20 million.

"Apple's IPod Hi-Fi Too Close To Bose," alerts Peter Kang on www.forbes.com. Sales of iPod more than tripled, to 22.4 million units in 2005, from 7.1 million in 2004, informs www.tulsaworld.com.

And www.macnn.com cites `TheStreet.com' for a forecast that Apple's growth curve will be more from the international market (270 per cent) compared to the domestic market (170 per cent).

What are the secrets of Apple's success? Jeffrey L. Cruikshank captures a dozen management lessons from `the world's most innovative company' in The Apple Way, from Tata McGraw-Hill (www.tatamcgrawhill.com) .

The book opens with Lisa, which stood for `local integrated software architecture' or the name of Steve Jobs's daughter. Inspiration for Lisa, launched in 1983, had come from Alto of Xerox's PARC (Palo Alto Research Center).

Despite a stiff price tag of $9,995, Lisa charmed users by being intuitive, and versatile. It had fatal flaws too, such as incompatibility and unreliability. After selling 80,000 units in a year and half, Apple yanked Lisa off the market, in April 1985. By then Compaq had entered the market with its portable computer, priced at $3,590. "The bland-but-functional IBM 5150 PC (introduced in September 1981, and listing for $3,000) sold almost 2,50,000 units in its first month on the market."

The book speaks of how Apple swallowed its pride, and buried the past. A bulldozer buried "the last 2,700 unsold Lisas at a landfill in Logan, Utah, in 1989".

Fast-forward to October 2001 when Apple sent out a mysterious invitation for `the unveiling of a breakthrough digital device'. That was to be iPod, a new hand-held digital music player. Some called it `impressive piece of design', while others said, `idiots price our devices'. By the end of 2001, Apple had sold 1,25,000 iPods.

In April 2003, with iTMS (iTunes Music Store), the company reinvented the music business, because "for 99 cents one could download a legal copy of a track, rather than illegally downloading it form a file-sharing network".

It only took a month to sell the millionth song, and by June 2003, the millionth iPod had been sold. The 100 millionth song download happened in July 2004. The `nano' came in September 2005; also in was iTunes phone!

Cruikshank's book may not be for computer buffs, but managers "who want to learn both from Apple's mistakes (which at times were life-threatening) as well as Apple's triumphs (which were dizzying, and served to confound the company's many critics)."

Thus, the chapter on `marvels and margins' notes that Macs are great because Apple controls every relevant aspect of the Mac experience.

"What are the equivalent levers in your business?" asks the author. "Who is using your product, and how? And what things about their experience need to be controlled internally? How does `control' relate to `profit'?"

Though the field is high-tech, Apple could find ways to ensure consistency of user experience across multiple programs, and also "allow for continuity from one generation of OS to the next."

Normally, when revenues fall, companies cut on R&D. But Apple did the opposite. Between 2000 and 2002, Apple increased R&D spend from $380 million to $446 million, even when revenues fell from $8 billion to $5.7 billion.

"If you believe in the future, and your future lies in R&D, don't starve R&D," advises Cruikshank. "The future isn't always welcome, and - without nurturing - it may not stick around."

A chapter on design dictates, `Take their breath away', because: "Finding the future isn't enough. You also have to deliver it." Another advice reads, "Don't go halfway with your aesthetic. Go all the way." For, the new commandment is, "The sleek shall inherit the earth."

Gripping read.

Digital signatures cannot be repudiated?

The three goals of computer security are integrity, confidentiality and availability

Dr Surinder Mohan Bhaskar is a PhD in `computer science, security and evidence' from IIT, Delhi, and works as a scientist in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. He has teamed up with P. Ramachandran to write Handbook of Security, Cryptography and Digital Signature, from Viva (www.vivagroupindia.com) .

According to the authors, the three goals of computer security are integrity, confidentiality and availability.

"Integrity means preventing unauthorised modification," explains the book. Contrary to common thinking, "It is possible to have data integrity without data accuracy."

Preventing unauthorised access to data ensures confidentiality. And the third goal, viz. availability, is about enabling access to authorised users, because "there is no point in making the computer system so secure that no users can access the data they need to perform their jobs effectively."

E is equal to emcee squared, you know, but what is E(M) = C? "Plaintext is denoted by M, E is encryption function, D is decryption function, and C is ciphertext. The encryption function operates on M to produce C," explain the authors. At the other end, you'd need, D(C), that is, applying the decryption function D on C, to produce M.

What is quantum cryptography? "A mechanism to allow two users of a common communication channel to create a set of shared and secret information... The roots of quantum cryptography are in a proposal by Stephen Weisner called `conjugate coding' in the seventies."

Digital signature is not a file created by scanning your signature. It is "an unforgeable piece of information that uses mathematical functions and cryptographic techniques."

Digital signature is an encrypted hash of an electronic document, explains the book, with the help of neat diagrams. "Digital signatures cannot be repudiated, i.e. the signer of a document cannot later deny it by claiming the signature was forged."

Disturbingly, however, www.financialcryptography.com (`Where the crypto rubber meets the Road of Finance...') has a posting dated February 10, 2005, titled, `First case of a digital signature repudiation?' It is about `a Sarbanes-Oxley filing and certification', reported in CFO.com.

The question raised is: Why did the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) think it was okay for Penthouse founder Guccione "to file a digitally signed document, and then claim his secretary did it"?

Essential inputs.

Tailpiece

"I prefer a digital secretary."

"One who is fast with gizmos?"

"With the fingers, rather."

Books2Byte@TheHindu.co.in