Du Telecom- Convergence is here

Du (short for Dubai) Telecom[link], which received its license approval from the Ministry of Telecommunications in the UAE to become the second ever telco operator has been in the news quite a bit.While most papers carry tidbits on potential rivalry with Etisalat, what sparked interest to me is the media convergence environment that they plan to offer. Video, Voice & Data as is know in the States and other parts of the world is a tried and successfuly tested formula. This opens up a whole new market to consumers who will get to see a single bill -less hassle system put in place.

Du's IPO has also been well talked about.UAE banks will start returning more than $100 billion to investors who subscribed to the record-breaking initial public offering.The Dh2.4 billion du IPO, which was 167 times oversubscribed, and a simultaneous offering by mortgage lender Tamweel sucked the equivalent of 1-1/2 times the UAE's annual gross domestic product out of investors' wallets.

Nokia meanwhile has won a $190 mn managed service contract from Du.

Its not surprising that deregulation has started happening in this zone.Its just the question of how late this is considering the peripheral developments happening here.

Du is ambitious about taking over 30% of the market over the next 3 years.

DDT: Dubai Diamond Trade

USD$3.74 billion is the value put forth by the diamond trade consortium in Dubai - a record increase by roughly 47%.At present, the diamond jewellery available in Dubai offers quality, creative designs, wide range of choice and exchangeability options which has also boosted the demand of rough diamonds as more and more jewellers are venturing into diamond jewellery business which is in huge demand in the UAE and region.

Dubai holds one of the three international exchanges for diamonds under the patronage of Dubai Diamond Exchange (DDE).Dubai Diamond Exchange's greatest contribution to the industry however, has been in its effort to implement international best practice in the local diamond industry by creating transparent policies, a well established legal framework and a strong regulatory environment.

Lucent+ Alcatel = Lucatel ?

So its finally happening..the merger of equals (yea right!!) . of two telecom giants.Its been reported that the merger would involve a USD $13.4bn stock-swap.Although touted as a merger of equals, Alcatel shareholders will have 60% of the combined firm.The new company's HQ will however be out of Lucents current HQ in New Jersey.

The company hasn't settled on a new name as yet, but could perhaps call in former HP CEO Carly Fiorina for help. While working at AT&T, Fiorina brought Lucent to life, picking out the company's monicker and logo and selling it to Wall Street. Lucent's $3bn April 1996 IPO was the biggest one in history to that point.

So far so good..they have a plan to bring in two lagging companies to form a single effective leading mammoth.Lucent has been having a real bad time since 2001 (ever-famous layoffs!), while Alcatel hasnt done that great in the past year.If cost savings are acheived as they claim and if they strike out a great working relationship (keep in mind its across the atlantic-plus this is a yankee-french deal), Juniper, Cisco all might just wanna watch out..

The two companies have penciled in quite the cushion to close the deal, expecting it to take anywhere between six months to a year to finalize.

UAE to allow unions

And so it seems the power of the People is finally coming to accepatance in the emirates.Ofcourse its probably going to be a year or so until it becomes a law, but construction workers can heave a sigh of relief . And rightly so; were it not for these men, would there be a Dubai as we know it? I think not! (and so should you).

The UAE is probably the first GCC state to atleast come up with something to the extent of allowing controlled unions (strikes will not be allowed). While human rights activists may heavily criticize the Emirates for abusing the rights of underpaid laborers , it should be noted that part of this is truly the instrument of the economic/construction boom in the area. In other words, the labor exploitation that happens on in the rest of the middle east hardly goes noticed.

The emirates has been a precursor of change in the region no doubt. Qatar , Bahrain and now Kuwait have started new city developments based on the stellar success of the UAE. Maybe these countries can also take a lesson from their Law Books as well.

Project Management

I recently completed a coursework in Project Management .So here are few funnies from the powers that be of PM:

Good estimators aren't modest: if it's huge they say so.

The sooner you begin coding the later you finish.

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

What is not on paper has not been said.If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.If you don't attack the risks, the risks will attack you.

A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.

The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.

A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well-planned project only twice as long as expected.

If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you haven't understood the plan.When all's said and done a lot more is said than done.

If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.

Feather and down are padding - changes and contingencies will be real events.

There are no good project managers - only lucky ones.

The more you plan the luckier you get.

A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.

Good project management is not so much knowing what to do and when, as knowing what excuses to give and when.

If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong.