MSBuild Source

I’ve been trying to develop an application and trying to prepare a setup with the MS build project. I’ve found many obstacles in achieving that. One of which is finding the runtime on the client system and executing the runtime redistributable on the client’s system. But the problem here is installing the runtime without connecting to internet. So, I’ve downloaded the full version of runtime redistributable package, but the setup project is not accepting the package.

While am searching for some Caching information that is upgraded in .NET framework, I have encountered this link. This blog has references to many SETUP related blogs and folks who work on this field on a daily basis. Before I close that window, am writing this blog post, such that I don’t forget these links and these links would be useful for the future reference.

We never know who would help us in the future.

Meeting with our Partner

Today, we had a meeting with one of our senior person in the hierarchy of our organization. His designation is, “Partner – Global Consulting”. There were about 20 participants in that meeting. Few of them are just new to our organization and others are as old as 4 years in this organization. This meeting started with a short introduction of current organization strategy and the purpose of the meeting.

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The purpose of the meeting is to meet all the leads and get to know them. Secondly, answer any queries / issues / concerns / questions / blah .. blah ..

At the beginning of his introduction, he mentioned that if the current organization is considered as black triangle as shown in the picture. The brown lines are the separation between different levels within the organization. As we are currently growing, the outer triangle which is in blue color is the expected growth and there is a wide space on the top part when compared to other parts of the scope.

Now it is in the hands of the middle tire work force who wants to grow to the next level of the ladder, to decide and act accordingly, as there is a wide area to prove the ability as well as ample space to fit-in themselves.  It is good to know from his words about increasing the current head count to a newer horizons. According to the figures, LiquidHub is around 800 employees now. In the recent times, there added 200 resources at USA and about 100 resources at India office. The expected growth is about to become 500 resources at India office by the end of this year and about 1000 by 2012.

Offlate, LiquidHub has acquired a company by name E Brilliance, which as a rich head count of 50 employees. Few other acquisitions are under pipeline, which only about 4 folks in the organization are aware about the deals. As these are very sensitive details and the deals at very early stages, it is not wise to disclose the information, but am sure that these deals would be at very high standards.

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As the discussion is happening, there raised a concept of the revenue that is being generated from US office as well as India office. He had drawn a graph comparing the revenue details as mentioned in this picture. The historical figures show that the US revenues have taken a dip during the recession time. Where as the revenue generated from India office is study and continued with the same pace as that it is during the previous years.

There are many reasons for this continuous revenue generation, as the competitors are loosing their business, LH kept their business intact with the clients. The services that are rendered with the existing clients are at very satisfactory level and they never thrown LH from their business. At this junction, he also quoted about a big client. This client used to do business with few other software vendors including Wipro. During the recession time, they have decided to shut down their outsourcing to all other vendors except Wipro, but they never thought of LiquidHub. They continued to signup every other year, and we are currently in the 5th year with that client. Which is a good news from the point of happy customers as well as the strength of the resources that LiquidHub India is possessing. He recollected few of the happy moments that are related to couple of projects that are running successfully for more than 4years. At few instances, the business people are asking the developers that are working with the respective projects about the business functionality rather than the application functionality. When the business sees a change in their workforce, it is obvious that the new workforce would not be aware of the spirit of the business. Our developers are in better position than that of the current business work force. Our developers know more than the client’s workforce.

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While the discussion is taking into a shape of the potential markets and the areas where the opportunities that can be tapped, he took a small example of pie diagram as shown here. If any vertical is outsourcing their work to services industry, the top four / five / n companies compete and grab the major share. Then there lies an untapped potential for all the small and medium business entities. But again this small portion it self is a huge amount when seen in USDs. Ofcourse, LiquidHub is not in a position to venture out to such large scale, but it is inevitable for us to tap. Otherwise, we would not be growing.

A project worth of 5M is really huge from the LiquidHub’s point of view, but again, if we work steadily and grow slowly, it is not a major task. To prove these statement, in the recent times, LiquidHub had signed a 5 year contract & support deal with one of the client outsourcing the working from about 4 years. This is a huge contract, beyond much LiquidHub can eat, but as the time span is over the period of 5 years, it is not a problem to support this client. And again, this is a good news for a long term commitment from client’s stand point of view.

During his speech, he also quoted that he wanted to see LiquidHub as the credible alternative for every other large outsourcing players in the IT market, whether they are from US or from outside US. There are many things that can be scribed here. If I’ve to take few notes and high light the points, they cumulate as mentioned below.

  • How we react in every situation is a message that we are communicating to our team
  • Make yourself irrelevant in your role to move to the next level
  • Educate others to resolve and adapt what you are capable and see them in your position, only then you can look forward for other positions
  • Your are a trust worthy and your managers looks at you whenever he has something to get done. Just think that do you have any other resource that you can look at when you have something to be get done, so that your manager is happy to see that resource in your absence
  • Culture is more important when you work in any organization, and the technology comes later

The discussion has also seen a Q&A session.


Question) Involvement of Architect in the early phase of project makes sense for the better delivery of the project, so we expect such intervention. What are your comments on this.

Reply) You mean of an Architect from US or India? If your interest is about Architect from US, may be yes, we are currently looking into that. But again, if your idea about the Architect from India office, then rather depending on any other Architect, if you take that steps making the project more reliable and stable, that would be more meaningful.

Question) Are we focusing in anything at Education sector?

Reply) Our first goal is to be good in services industry. To answer your question, it is No, we are currently focusing on Financial Services / Health Care / Commercial Market


In the end, I’ve made couple of recommendations / suggestions to let the LiquidHub India workforce be informed about the latest happenings.

 

Recommendation 1) Management should make steps towards conveying the non sensitive information (or) hurdles that they have faced during any acquisition / huge deal with client / major milestone

Response) As there many details involved during any acquisition, it might not be practically possible to communicate. But he can do that on a video call with the leads, so that the required information can be conveyed.

 

Recommendation 2) Management should make steps towards communicating everyone about the hard work done by the respective people who are involved in cracking a deal / completing the acquisition / blah .. blah.. So that everyone get to know who took extra hard work and whose extra efforts made that happen

Response) There would be lot of people who would be involved in such situations / transition period / etc., anyhow, let me think of what I can do

 

Recommendation 3) Pitfalls (or) lessons learned during any unfinished business /  unsuccessful deals / failed projects / etc.,

Response) These are very sensitive and may not be possible. But you can always reach me over my mobile phone to talk and am open.

Career History – How it happened

I’ve started my first job way back in 1987. But that is not my career, but an off break jobs to fill the gap between the leisure intervals that got while am studying. My student career spanned until 1996. Well, ofcourse, I’ve been working as and when I get some vacation break or any other kind of time off from my studies. Between 87 and 96, I’ve worked in various industries including, Hotel Industry, Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing, Advertising, News, Training, blah .. blah..

But my actual career started from April 4h 1996, just 2 days after my final exams of B.Sc., completed, ie., April 2nd 1996. I started my career as Faculty for training institute which is far away from my place. Anyhow, I thought that it is a great opportunity for me to explore the different worlds and get used to be away from home. It worked well and later my career took a twist with CMC.

CMC has wing for corporate training. I’ve joined this wing as freelancer and that gave me an opportunity to explore different parts of Andhra Pradesh. While working with CMC, I’ve not only trained various folks but also involved in projects that are developed by their clients. For example I’ve worked with RSTPS, Ramagundam Super Thermal Power Station, one of the coal based power plants of APGENCO. I’ve been there to train the Visual FoxPro, but also involved with them in developing some applications.

Apart of training and developing application, I’ve also involved in project implementation phase too. Hence I could say that my actual career in technology started from 1996 onwards. By April in 2011, I’ve completed 15 Years of my career. During my tenure, I’ve worked at different roles and played with different technologies. As my career started from the days where the technology have seen only the console based application, and specially no GUI (Graphical User Interface) application, most of the early days applications are developed using either COBOL or dBase III+ onwards to Visual Foxpro 2.6.

Later that, my career took a plunge and then started the Visual Basic 3 coding. During that time, the Windows OS has introduced and GUI version of Windows 3 came into picture. I’ve even worked with Windows 3.11, the work group version followed by Windows NT. This is the phase when Microsoft has released the GUI based windows operating system with a title as “Windows 95” which later worked out as “Windows 98”, the longest stable version from Microsoft. It really took long time for Microsoft to introduce Windows XP to eliminate Windows 98 from market’s usage.

While am working with Visual Basic 3, VB 3, the different vendors started using the later versions of Visual Basic, hence I too have to upgrade from VB 3 to 4 and finally landed in VB5. During this period there has come some opportunities for me as ASP developer. As necessity is the mother of invention, to survive in the field of competition, I’ve to live up to the expectations of my bosses. Thus, my career took a turn from Desktop application developer to Web Application developer. I’ve worked with Oracle Forms 2000 and Power Builder 4. Apart of these I’ve also developed application from Classic ASP to ASP 2.0, but not any in ASP 3.0. The only reason is by the time, .NET alpha version released.

As being the member of CMC, I’ve got the full access to all the latest information that is provided by Microsoft to CMC. Apart of that, there evolved a need for .NET training for Board of Intermediate of Andhra Pradesh. When the lead is generated and is given to us, we can never say NO to our bosses. We have to learn and teach the batch. Thus, my first introduction to .NET and currently working in .NET 4

To cut a long story short, the technologies that I have worked includes

  • dBase III +
  • dBase IV
  • FoxPro 2.6
  • Visual FoxPro
  • COBOL
  • Visual Basic 3 / 4 / 5
  • Oracle Forms 2000
  • Power Builder 4
  • Access Forms 97
  • Oracle Database
  • ASP 2
  • VB.NET
  • C#
  • ASP.NET
  • Windows Workflow 3.5
  • WPF applications