The Blog of Puleen Patel

Drop everything in one Box!

I’ve been using DropBox for quite a while on Windows, Linux, Mac and on all three of my Android devices (Nexus One, Captivate and Galaxy Tab) and loving it!

Sign-up for your own DropBox account and get 2GB of free storage and in the process help me expand my storage by me referring you! Referrals are free, but the value DropBox adds to your and my life is immense. So do the right thing and spread the wealth!

http://db.tt/ShiCVKK

Want to be SaaSy?

Software as a Service (SaaS) is nothing but taking something as simple as a business process ( or relatively complex business capability ) that one or more organizations carry out and wrapping it up in a nice little package that can be implemented once and used by many.

While SaaS implementations work great if implemented correctly, they are not the easiest of implementations. If you are starting from scratch, it becomes a little easier. But if you find yourself to be in a position where you have a product and you want to revamp it into a SaaS based offering, you’ve got some work cut out for you.

The good news is that, either ways SaaS based products / capabilities are here to stay and provide a very attractive approach to those companies / businesses who eventually want to share their core competencies with others in the market.

I remember back in 2006, I worked on a SaaS implementation for one of the major credit card companies in the US and we implemented, what used to be called an ASP (Application Service Provider) model, which is essentially what we now know as SaaS. While the development of the solution was not the hard part, it took quite the effort in convincing the business stakeholders to see the value in it and also be able to understand the benefit and cost savings they get when the solution was implemented in a modular fashion.

SaaS is definitely an exciting area and it would be absolutely awesome to dive into building such solutions again.

Toronto needs more Android

Since October 21st, 2010 when AndroidTO first took place, it became abundantly clear that there was some hunger out there in Toronto for Android.

Now, almost a month after AndroidTO it is evident that there is a lot more people in Toronto who are hungry for more Android.

It seems to me that something has to be done about this hunger. I shall investigate into what we can do to fulfill this hunger in the hopes that more people in Toronto can get their gingerbread cookies and eat them too!

Google vs. Google

There’s nothing more that one can say about my appreciation, dedication and passion for Android and all things Google. It should come to no surprise to anyone that I rely very heavily on the products and services that Google offers. From GMail to GTalk to Google DNS.

In coming months Google will be taking their first foray into the Operating System space. Although Google runs a very customized version of Linux for the servers that power their Search infrastructure (and possibly all other services), the one area that Google is now betting heavily on is the netbook / tablet market.

On one side Google has Android that can power tablets (Samsung Galaxy Tab, Notion Ink’s Adam, and several others). On the other hand we have the upcoming Chrome OS which is aimed at Netbooks and devices that require the instant-on capability. Google is changing the desktop paradigm with Chrome OS, where everything runs within the browser. And I get it and it makes sense to me.

What doesn’t make sense is Google already has Android, could they not have developed Android further into a operating system that can provide the same (if not more) flexibility which they are hoping Chrome OS will provide? Could Google not have created an Android OS meant for netbooks and/or tablets which can work in the same instant-on fashion, be more robust and provide the same (if not better) security that they are/will be providing in Chrome OS? These are some of the questions that I have been trying to ask to see what Google has in mind.

On the other hand, I can imagine that Google wants to keep things separate. Keep the Netbook/Tablet/PC OS separate from the Mobile OS, which also makes sense. But at some point both these operating systems will have to converge into one. And in my opinion this is where the most impact will be.

Only time will tell what the Search giant has in store for the future, but I can definitely tell you that the future will be full of fun and exciting new opportunities for us developers and I am anxiously looking forward to living in this future.