Linux package managers

This comes under Package Management System
Fedora uses RPM (RPM Package Manager)
yum (Yellow dog Updater, Modified) on Fedora Core installs rpm
example:
yum install vsftpd
installs the ftp server daemon

Debian uses apt (Advanced Packaging Tool) against .deb packages.
Example
apt-get install mozilla

License Browse/Edit/Selector

We got lots of Licenses in open and closed source projects. We now have version numbers and also multiple licenses...
Example
Clickwrap License
Licence-free software
Shrink Wrap EULA
Creative Commons
Open Source
Apache
Mozilla
BSD

I want to know what is different - so that I can adopt. Basically I want to slice and dices these License words and categorize them You can also view this as a stock market where you want to slice and dice the information you receive and make a determination on what you want to do with your money against the companies you are interested in.

Open source LiveCD generator

Linux Distributions and LiveCDs are very powerful useful way to reach the end users/consumers.

Major Players in Distros
Fedora Core
Debian

LiveCD
Knoppix based on Debian

It would be nice if we can have a kiosk where you can go and ask for an assortment of open source programs and they cut a cd for free or minimal charge.

For example here are the combinations I would be interested
1. Have a really really light system - just kernel
2. Have a system for developer (tool chains, IDE)
3. Server config
4. Video Editing
5. Music editing (lilyPond)
6. Engineering application
7. Games
8. Routers

Basically, as a customer, I want to walk up to the booth, click (touch screen would be cool) select all (while the size bar shows me where I am - say burn... Go over to the counter - pay and get the CD/DVD with what ever professional label/disk jacket.
Give a mechanism to select from different tree type categories.
Give option to select individual components by name
Give option to select a specific older version - if that's what the user wants
Give option to read about the package as needed
Can we compare this with today's Wallgreen's print your photos from memory chip?
Give option to get some contents like Images, Music, Movie, Text, Docs...
Provide not just GPL - allow other licenses
May be we can loop commercial non-open software to giving their software like this as well - what the heck - they want money - don't they?

LilyPond - for Music notation

GNU LilyPond is a free software program for engraving sheet music. It uses a simple ASCII notation for music, which is then compiled into PDF (via PostScript) or into SVG. LilyPond can also automatically generate MIDI files from music specified in the LilyPond format.

https://github.com/0xfe/vexflow is another open source - on Javascript

My WikiPedia watch list

• ‎9-1-1


• ‎Adolescence


• ‎Aragalur



• ‎Attur


• ‎Bharatanatyam


• ‎Data center


• ‎Dindigul


• ‎Good Technology


• ‎Google's hoaxes



• ‎Harness


• ‎Hotmail


• ‎IP Unity


• ‎Internationalization and localization


• ‎Kai-Fu Lee


• ‎Kino (software)



• ‎Magic square


• ‎Mereon


• ‎Navio


• ‎Research In Motion


• ‎Salem, Tamil Nadu


• ‎Software bug



• ‎Software quality


• ‎Software testing


• ‎Static code analysis


• ‎Synthesys


• ‎Tamil Nadu


• ‎Telephone User Interface



• ‎Temple Car


• ‎Test case


• ‎Test harness


• ‎Thalaivasal


• ‎Tui


• ‎User agent



• ‎User interface


• ‎Vasishta Nadi


• ‎Wet grinder

php CMS open source links

xoops - XOOPS is an extensible, OO (Object Oriented), easy to use dynamic web content management system written in PHP. XOOPS is the ideal tool for developing small to large dynamic community websites, intra company portals, corporate portals, weblogs and much more.

PHP-Nuke 7.9 Final version. This version includes a new variables validation and filtering system more effective and more secure, potential security vulnerabilities generated from the wysiwyg editor has been fixed, BBtoNuke 2.0.17, added banned IP edit function, improved search module internals, quotes and double quotes are now supported on all parts of the system, wysiwyg editor can be totaly deactivated from config.php file, users groups fixes to properly load the members modules, several fixes in the advertising system and many more. Additionaly PHP-Nuke version 7.8 has been released for free to the public on the downloads section.

more.groupware WebCalendar is a PHP application used to maintain a calendar for a single user or an intranet group of users. It can also be configured as an event calendar.

PHPeclipse - PHP Eclipse-Plugin PHP - Support for the Eclipse IDE Framework (www.eclipse.org); Some Features are PHP parser, debugger, code formatter, outline view, templates...(Programming Language: Java)

WebCalendar WebCalendar is a PHP-based calendar application that can be configured as a single-user calendar, a multi-user calendar for groups of users, or as an event calendar viewable by visitors. MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2, Interbase, MS SQL Server, or ODBC is required.

Tiki CMS/Groupware Powerful multilingual Wiki/CMS/Groupware: File/Image gallery,Article,Blog,Tracker/Forms,Forum,Poll/Survey & Quiz,Newsletter,Calendar,Drawing,Bookmarks,FAQ,Banner ads,Categories,Spreadsheet,Maps,Workflow,Search,Theme control,WAP,VoiceXML,RSS,LDAP,Stats...

TUTOS is _T_he _U_ltimate _T_eam _O_rganization _S_oftware, a webbased groupware or ERP/CRM/PLM system to manage your and your teams appointments,addresses,projects,tasks,bugs,mailboxes,documents,notes and your time spent with these things

phpgroupware phpGroupWare - formerly known as webdistro - is a multi-user groupware suite written in PHP.

It provides about 50 web-based applications, as there are the Calendar, Addressbook, an advanced Projects manager, Todo List, Notes, Email, Newsgroup- and Headlines Reader, a Filemanager and many more Applications. The calendar supports repeating events and includes alarm functions. The email system supports inline graphics and file attachments.

The system as a whole supports user preferences, themes, user permissions, multi-language support and unser groups. It includes modules to setup and administrate the working environment. The groupware suite is based on an advanced Application Programming Interface (API).

dotProject HP web-based project management framework that includes modules for companies, projects, tasks (with Gantt charts), forums, files, calendar, contacts, tickets/helpdesk, multi-language support, user/module permissions and themes

Linux on Palm Z22 - not much luck so far

I bought a Palm Z22 device from Fry's for 2 primary reasons.

1. Use it as low cost PIM
2. Try out Embedded Linux, if possible

Reason why Palm Z22
1. It is inexpensive - $99 (+tax)
2. It is light weight
3. I had Plam IIIx for more than 4 years and it generally serves the PIM part well
4. Size fits into my pant pocket

I realized couple of new things while investigating to install Linux and was wondering if you want to help me in completing this part.
1. Palm Z22 is new device (Oct 15, 2005) - not much details in open source community yet
2. Pure Open Source Linux is not commonly/widely available - in a easily canned form (like what you get for PC)
3. Many sites Linux point me to Palm III series, Tungsten or Palm Live not to any of the Zire

This makes me to venture into giving it a shot my self - instead of having to wait for it to be already available in binary format. Would you be interested in helping in your spare time (as hobby)?

Embedded Linux

JTAG is normally used to flash the ROM in embedded systems. Jtag tools are dongle like stuff connected to parallel port of PC that basically serially sends the bios. The first thing to be loaded is the bios. One example is blob. Blob, the boot loader. Bios inturn loads the Kernel. Example Kernal Image is 'zImage'.
jFalsh (alt) is a software that uses PC Parallel port for jtag communication with embedded systems.

Blob - one of the version from UK site is ftp://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/pub/armlinux/people/xscale/lubbock/blob/
busybox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single small executable.

skyeye http://gro.clinux.org/projects/skyeye/ project seems to emulate/simulate ARM. Also give a way to use uClinux. Cygwin version requires TCL & X Windows to run.

ARM Tool Chain - cross compiler for Cygwin: http://www.gnuarm.com/

Eclipse IDE

Eclipse IDE seems to have taken the same or simillar approch the Turbo C and Microsoft Visual Studio has taken. Like make the IDE and rig up the compiles and other tools behind it (Reuse code and user experiance - hence user loyalty).

Eclipse comes with integrated Java development in it. Tried C/C++ Development Tools download - yet to get it to work on my Cygwin (gcc) version. I would like to get my arm cross comiler on it so that I get a ARM IDE through open source.

resume tip

I notice that you have higher marks in 12th & MS as compared to 10th & BCA. One suggestion might be to remove the mark from every where - or - just keep 12th and MS degree in your resume with their marks - remove 10th & BCA.

Do you want to move Java from Internet Applications to Languages line? If you really meant the java used in web pages, may be you might want to put JavaScript instead.

Consider expanding your projects - reducing or realigning in single line the items like: address on top, hallmarks, hobbies.

I am afraid you are giving too much of personal information. If possible remove every thing - except the languages known - that you an move it up.

Try to keep it just one page resume.

You normally don't have to declare and sign at the bottom - in the IT industry.

Consider rearranging the top name and address some thing like a letter head.

Comparison shopping

Taking On The Comparison Shopping Gorillas
Tom Taulli, 09.28.05, 12:00 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - Online comparison shopping has undergone several waves of consolidation. The first wave was from 1998 to 2001, when such companies as Junglee, C2B, Liquid Market, Cadabra and MySimon sold out.

In the past year, we've seen another wave, with targets such as PriceRunner, LowerMyBills.com, Kelkoo, Shopzilla, Shopping.com. Because of this, big gorillas--like Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people )--are now in the shopping comparison game.

Too late for new entrants? Definitely not. Actually, there are next-gen comparison shopping sites hitting the Net.

One example is MyRatePlan.com, which focuses primarily on comparison shopping for cell phones. Before starting the business, Allan Keiter did pricing work for UPS (nyse: UPS - news - people ), Continental Airlines (nyse: CAL - news - people ), and BellSouth Cellular (which is now part of Cingular). "During my time at Continental," said Keiter, "the Web came into vogue as a way to compare airfares, purchase travel and, from the airline's perspective, take distribution costs out of the system. Then, while at BellSouth, it dawned on me that buying wireless wasn't really fundamentally different from buying an airfare, because it would eventually become a commodity mostly shopped on price, and therefore the industry would follow the same general distribution path."

He tried to convince BellSouth Cellular to go online--but was rebuffed. Getting weary of big company bureaucracy, Keiter developed his own system, using more than 100 calculations on cellular rate plans.

No doubt, Keiter realizes the competition in comparison shopping is fierce and that, to thrive, he needs a compelling value proposition. What sets him apart? "Our site attempts to build comparisons around the way people shop for a service. This is different from other shopping comparison sites, which uses a set shopping platform that is applied across everything from can openers to laptops to women's dresses," he says.

With wireless, there are two components: a product (the phone) and service (the rate plan). Simply put, this just does not really fit the model of most shopping comparison sites. "Our site is set up so that people can start with either of these components and create a customized solution unique to their usage or needs," said Keiter. "As a result, we have a fairly unique niche that the other shopping sites really don't compete directly with."

Another online comparison shopping site, FatLens, also believes it has its own unique edge. Basically, the company initially targeted a category that was not part of shopping comparison; that is, event tickets. "This is a very difficult category," said Siva Kumar, the co-founder of FatLens. "For instance, inventory and prices change frequently. We thought that if we could build something that would be effective for event tickets, we could use our technology for other complex categories."

Unlike a typical shopping comparison site--which gets its content from merchants-- FatLens has another approach: it uses technology to crawl and spider the Web to index e-tailers. Think of it as Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) meets comparison shopping.

Example: Suppose you search for "Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) Bluetooth Headset." Well, you will not get listings from other manufacturers. What's more, the results are ordered by the Consumer Merchant Preference (CMP) ranking, which prioritizes results using consumers' aggregate purchasing and search preferences (this is similar to how PageRank works with the Google search engine). This means that the first results shown are exactly what all other consumers found as the most important for that specific search in that category.

The FatLens search engine interface is optimized for shopping search. The site's Wish List feature enables shoppers to save product search results. Users can then come back at a later time to look at items of interest, or easily compare multiple items from different searches. And, just like other search engines, FatLens does not include extraneous capabilities such as merchant grading systems, user reviews or feature comparisons.

Another interesting player in the space is Smarter.com. Some of the cool features include: online coupons and cash-back rewards. In fact, there is an SMS (Short Messaging Service) service that will automatically send you alerts on your cell phone.

Keep in mind that Smarter.com raised no outside capital. To build its operations, the company set up operations--with 120 employees--in China. "We get more scale for our dollar by going overseas," said Harry Tsao, the co-founder of Smarter.com. "It also means we have more money to put into marketing."

Tsao estimates that the U.S. market for comparison shopping is roughly $500 million, which is only about 10% of the paid search marketplace. Furthermore, he thinks global markets are highly underserved. "We believe there is a lot of room for growth internationally and here in the U.S.," said Tsao. "I also believe innovation will continue, but will be driven by newer players. Years ago, when C/Net bought MySimon.com, what innovation did we see come after that?"

webaddressbook project

Try to write small programs to access database (MySQL) and display. Your
first program can be online contact list management - multi user
environment. To begin you can use the Microsoft Outlook's schema - so that
folks can import their address books.

For examples of working programs - check out Hotmail's addressbook, Yahoo
addressbook, www.plaxo.com or some thing like that.

Use:
Apache
MySQL
Tomcat
Windows/Linux

open source web design

http://www.oswd.org/
Recently we registered a domain and posted 'under construction' page. Shopped around for some one who can quickly create few web pages to spread the word. I got quote from 2 sources and they were much more than $250 with couple of hours investment from me. I have basic understanding of HTML and I was wondering why we got to invest more that kind of money for the web design that is a living document - meaning will change multiple times in a year.

On a weekend we typed "web design open source" on a search engine. Clicked the first result. Picked up a design and we were able to quickly make a imageless set of web pages. All in less than 3 ours of my time. Now, I wonder if my >$250 would have to me better web site. Images take long time to load any way and I got many folks who would load the web page from lower bandwidth locations.

Wondering if open source has taken away $250 of my business from some company/individual. What would happen if this proliferation grows where every thing is open source - no one nothing gets paid. How would any one make money - would we get back to community funding as it used to happen many thousands of years.

meeting 8/20

Meeting with Vijay, Murugesh, Hari and Senthil Kumar.

What’s a typical salary for CEG fresh graduate. The range I heard was 2 lakhs-4 lakhs. Hari mentioned that there was a news stating some one in 3rd sem CEG being picked up by Microsoft for 6 lakhs. This has come in news with photos.

Why is the large amount of money earned by s/w professional not going to the poor people - including farmer? What does people do with large ‘discretionary income’ by software professionals. They invest in expensive cars, cinemas, change cell phones often, make travel/vacation.

The top 5 s/w companies in India: TCS, Wipro, InfoSys, Satyam & HCL. These companies employ roughly 80% of the total s/w professionals in India. Assume each at 40K employees – we have less than 250K employees in S/w.

Big names are going for low tech work. Like ensure the cannon printer is printing fine.

When the attrition is far less – say 6%, the company has to pay the annual increments with no extra cost to client. This puts the pressure on companies to get creative and move folks around so that they can still survive. Upper management folks are tracking charts like how many people are in the team, what’s the average salary, average time in the project – and are being constantly challenged to improve these numbers – to meet the profitability needs.

TCS lay off 1000 people and this seems to have triggered issue. They were let go on performance basis. It is too difficult to explain performance in 6 months.

The reliving order is still present in India.

The normal time taken to hire a new person is 4-6 weeks. 12 weeks is not unheard off. It is normal to give 4 weeks notice to current employer in India.

ISO9000 is not too important differentiating factor – as smaller companies don’t demand such restrictions on smaller vendors. Usually the jobs are done through smart people and the process don’t add significant value.

Linux is used heavily in the org. We wish to contribute to open source. However the open source network is highly intimidating. We fear that we might make a mistake in our check in and this could bite us back. The open source code in most cases is very well written – so we got to make equally strict coding to be accepted in the inner circle. Also, the folks in open source are having long memory – so any mistake might be difficult to recover soon. The idea might be to pick up a not so popular software or a narrow market software and make contributions – instead of say, Linux core.

Our parents were more harsh on us than we are with our kids. One potential reason – our parents 40 years back were mostly trying to make the ends meet in basic form. Today the basic needs of food and shelter are all met very easily and the problem/drive are for esteem needs.
How about the idea of releasing a whole bunch of code that’s written and is laying in a corner – not being used. This has to be tested, commented and documented before offering to open source.
BPO translators are paid 2-4K a month. This raises to 10K if you can talk over the phone like an US person.
Now we are 100+.

web site creation

Saravanan:
Car Registration Service
Brookside Solutions

tipping point

Online (Free) Translation resources

Google Language Tools
Yahoo! Search Language Tools
World Lingo Free Online Translator
AT&T Natural Voices - Demos (Interactive)
AltaVista - Babel Fish Translation
Free Translation and Professional Translation Services from SDL International
FREE Text Online Translator :: PROMT Company
alphaWorks : About alphaWorks

Company Todo

To Do List
Web Site company web site compliance
products/solutions
services
training
jobs
solutions
careers
contact us
partners
customers
Case Studies
News
Articles
Legal
Privacy Statement
Terms of Use
trademark
research
Press releases
Multiple language enable the site
corp collatral
Brocure
white paper

File to store docs

Bank Account Business Checking
Busines Credit Card
Bank of America
American Express


Grand Opening
Partners
Board of Directors
Marketting
Candidates
Template Resume
Contract with end customer
Contract with supplier
Purchase order
Invoice
expense reimbursement
Time Card



Legal Contact (H1B processing)
Things to buy Computer
iPod
Car
Camera
Video Camcorder

Web Site Hosting
Cell Phone reimbursement
Company phone
Company email accounts
Business Plan

Resources links

comapny name search

consultancy
head hunt
mentor
tutor
training
quality
test
virtualengine
automation
factory
process improvement
large numbers
info - information
Sys - system
banyansys
banyansoft
panaitech
panaisoft
guru
namaste

inno
sys
info
tech
soft
quality
works
guru

Banyan systems

reliance
reliability


window2info
stellalight
infouniverso
qapark
qapax
qualitypax
win2info
door2tech
infoskool.com
large scale
macromini
distributed

mosaictek
tarkasys

India & China potential NextGen world leaders

BusinessWeek Online
A New World Economy
Friday August 12, 4:00 pm ET
By Pete Engardio

Slide Show

It may not top the must-see list of many tourists. But to appreciate Shanghai's ambitious view of its future, there is no better place than the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, a glass-and-metal structure across from People's Square. The highlight is a scale model bigger than a basketball court of the entire metropolis -- every skyscraper, house, lane, factory, dock, and patch of green space -- in the year 2020.

There are white plastic showpiece towers designed by architects such as I.M. Pei and Sir Norman Foster. There are immense new industrial parks for autos and petrochemicals, along with new subway lines, airport runways, ribbons of expressway, and an elaborate riverfront development, site of the 2010 World Expo. Nine futuristic planned communities for 800,000 residents each, with generous parks, retail districts, man-made lakes, and nearby college campuses, rise in the suburbs. The message is clear. Shanghai already is looking well past its industrial age to its expected emergence as a global mecca of knowledge workers. "In an information economy, it is very important to have urban space with a better natural and social environment," explains Architectural Society of Shanghai President Zheng Shiling, a key city adviser.

It is easy to dismiss such dreams as bubble-economy hubris -- until you take into account the audacious goals Shanghai already has achieved. Since 1990, when the city still seemed caught in a socialist time warp, Shanghai has erected enough high-rises to fill Manhattan. The once-rundown Pudong district boasts a space-age skyline, some of the world's biggest industrial zones, dozens of research centers, and a bullet train. This is the story of China, where an extraordinary ability to mobilize workers and capital has tripled per capita income in a generation, and has eased 300 million out of poverty. Leaders now are frenetically laying the groundwork for decades of new growth.

Invaluable Role
Now hop a plane to India. It is hard to tell this is the world's other emerging superpower. Jolting sights of extreme poverty abound even in the business capitals. A lack of subways and a dearth of expressways result in nightmarish traffic.

But visit the office towers and research and development centers sprouting everywhere, and you see the miracle. Here, Indians are playing invaluable roles in the global innovation chain. Motorola, (NYSE:MOT - News) Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ - News), Cisco Systems (NasdaqNM:CSCO - News), and other tech giants now rely on their Indian teams to devise software platforms and dazzling multimedia features for next-generation devices. Google (NasdaqNM:GOOG - News) principal scientist Krishna Bharat is setting up a Bangalore lab complete with colorful furniture, exercise balls, and a Yamaha organ -- like Google's Mountain View (Calif.) headquarters -- to work on core search-engine technology. Indian engineering houses use 3-D computer simulations to tweak designs of everything from car engines and forklifts to aircraft wings for such clients as General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - News) and Boeing Co (NYSE:BA - News). Financial and market-research experts at outfits like B2K, OfficeTiger, and Iris crunch the latest disclosures of blue-chip companies for Wall Street. By 2010 such outsourcing work is expected to quadruple, to $56 billion a year.

Even more exhilarating is the pace of innovation, as tech hubs like Bangalore spawn companies producing their own chip designs, software, and pharmaceuticals. "I find Bangalore to be one of the most exciting places in the world," says Dan Scheinman, Cisco Systems Inc.'s senior vice-president for corporate development. "It is Silicon Valley in 1999." Beyond Bangalore, Indian companies are showing a flair for producing high-quality goods and services at ridiculously low prices, from $50 air flights and crystal-clear 2 cents-a-minute cell-phone service to $2,200 cars and cardiac operations by top surgeons at a fraction of U.S. costs. Some analysts see the beginnings of hypercompetitive multinationals. "Once they learn to sell at Indian prices with world quality, they can compete anywhere," predicts University of Michigan management guru C.K. Prahalad. Adds A. T. Kearney high-tech consultant John Ciacchella: "I don't think U.S. companies realize India is building next-generation service companies."

Simultaneous Takeoffs
China and India. Rarely has the economic ascent of two still relatively poor nations been watched with such a mixture of awe, opportunism, and trepidation. The postwar era witnessed economic miracles in Japan and South Korea. But neither was populous enough to power worldwide growth or change the game in a complete spectrum of industries. China and India, by contrast, possess the weight and dynamism to transform the 21st-century global economy. The closest parallel to their emergence is the saga of 19th-century America, a huge continental economy with a young, driven workforce that grabbed the lead in agriculture, apparel, and the high technologies of the era, such as steam engines, the telegraph, and electric lights.

But in a way, even America's rise falls short in comparison to what's happening now. Never has the world seen the simultaneous, sustained takeoffs of two nations that together account for one-third of the planet's population. For the past two decades, China has been growing at an astounding 9.5% a year, and India by 6%. Given their young populations, high savings, and the sheer amount of catching up they still have to do, most economists figure China and India possess the fundamentals to keep growing in the 7%-to-8% range for decades.

Barring cataclysm, within three decades India should have vaulted over Germany as the world's third-biggest economy. By mid-century, China should have overtaken the U.S. as No. 1. By then, China and India could account for half of global output. Indeed, the troika of China, India, and the U.S. -- the only industrialized nation with significant population growth -- by most projections will dwarf every other economy.

What makes the two giants especially powerful is that they complement each other's strengths. An accelerating trend is that technical and managerial skills in both China and India are becoming more important than cheap assembly labor. China will stay dominant in mass manufacturing, and is one of the few nations building multibillion-dollar electronics and heavy industrial plants. India is a rising power in software, design, services, and precision industry. This raises a provocative question: What if the two nations merge into one giant "Chindia?" Rival political and economic ambitions make that unlikely. But if their industries truly collaborate, "they would take over the world tech industry," predicts Forrester Research Inc (NasdaqNM:FORR - News). analyst Navi Radjou.

In a practical sense, the yin and yang of these immense workforces already are converging. True, annual trade between the two economies is just $14 billion. But thanks to the Internet and plunging telecom costs, multinationals are having their goods built in China with software and circuitry designed in India. As interactive design technology makes it easier to perfect virtual 3-D prototypes of everything from telecom routers to turbine generators on PCs, the distance between India's low-cost laboratories and China's low-cost factories shrinks by the month. Managers in the vanguard of globalization's new wave say the impact will be nothing less than explosive. "In a few years you'll see most companies unleashing this massive productivity surge," predicts Infosys Technologies (NasdaqNM:INFY - News) CEO Nandan M. Nilekani.

To globalization's skeptics, however, what's good for Corporate America translates into layoffs and lower pay for workers. Little wonder the West is suffering from future shock. Each new Chinese corporate takeover bid or revelation of a major Indian outsourcing deal elicits howls of protest by U.S. politicians. Washington think tanks are publishing thick white papers charting China's rapid progress in microelectronics, nanotech, and aerospace -- and painting dark scenarios about what it means for America's global leadership.

Such alarmism is understandable. But the U.S. and other established powers will have to learn to make room for China and India. For in almost every dimension -- as consumer markets, investors, producers, and users of energy and commodities -- they will be 21st-century heavyweights. The growing economic might will carry into geopolitics as well. China and India are more assertively pressing their interests in the Middle East and Africa, and China's military will likely challenge U.S. dominance in the Pacific.

One implication is that the balance of power in many technologies will likely move from West to East. An obvious reason is that China and India graduate a combined half a million engineers and scientists a year, vs. 60,000 in the U.S. In life sciences, projects the McKinsey Global Institute, the total number of young researchers in both nations will rise by 35%, to 1.6 million by 2008. The U.S. supply will drop by 11%, to 760,000. As most Western scientists will tell you, China and India already are making important contributions in medicine and materials that will help everyone. Because these nations can throw more brains at technical problems at a fraction of the cost, their contributions to innovation will grow.

Consumers Rising
American business isn't just shifting research work because Indian and Chinese brains are young, cheap, and plentiful. In many cases, these engineers combine skills -- mastery of the latest software tools, a knack for complex mathematical algorithms, and fluency in new multimedia technologies -- that often surpass those of their American counterparts. As Cisco's Scheinman puts it: "We came to India for the costs, we stayed for the quality, and we're now investing for the innovation."

A rising consumer class also will drive innovation. This year, China's passenger car market is expected to reach 3 million, No. 3 in the world. China already has the world's biggest base of cell-phone subscribers -- 350 million -- and that is expected to near 600 million by 2009. In two years, China should overtake the U.S. in homes connected to broadband. Less noticed is that India's consumer market is on the same explosive trajectory as China five years ago. Since 2000, the number of cellular subscribers has rocketed from 5.6 million to 55 million.

What's more, Chinese and Indian consumers and companies now demand the latest technologies and features. Studies show the attitudes and aspirations of today's young Chinese and Indians resemble those of Americans a few decades ago. Surveys of thousands of young adults in both nations by marketing firm Grey Global Group found they are overwhelmingly optimistic about the future, believe success is in their hands, and view products as status symbols. In China, it's fashionable for the upwardly mobile to switch high-end cell phones every three months, says Josh Li, managing director of Grey's Beijing office, because an old model suggests "you are not getting ahead and updated." That means these nations will be huge proving grounds for next-generation multimedia gizmos, networking equipment, and wireless Web services, and will play a greater role in setting global standards. In consumer electronics, "we will see China in a few years going from being a follower to a leader in defining consumer-electronics trends," predicts Philips Semiconductors (NYSE:PHG - News) Executive Vice-President Leon Husson.

For all the huge advantages they now enjoy, India and China cannot assume their role as new superpowers is assured. Today, China and India account for a mere 6% of global gross domestic product -- half that of Japan. They must keep growing rapidly just to provide jobs for tens of millions entering the workforce annually, and to keep many millions more from crashing back into poverty. Both nations must confront ecological degradation that's as obvious as the smog shrouding Shanghai and Bombay, and face real risks of social strife, war, and financial crisis.

Increasingly, such problems will be the world's problems. Also, with wages rising fast, especially in many skilled areas, the cheap labor edge won't last forever. Both nations will go through many boom and harrowing bust cycles. And neither country is yet producing companies like Samsung, Nokia (NYSE:NOK - News), or Toyota (NYSE:TM - News) that put it all together, developing, making, and marketing world-beating products.

Both countries, however, have survived earlier crises and possess immense untapped potential. In China, serious development only now is reaching the 800 million people in rural areas, where per capita annual income is just $354. In areas outside major cities, wages are as little as 45 cents an hour. "This is why China can have another 20 years of high-speed growth," contends Beijing University economist Hai Wen.

Very impressive. But India's long-term potential may be even higher. Due to its one-child policy, China's working-age population will peak at 1 billion in 2015 and then shrink steadily. China then will have to provide for a graying population that has limited retirement benefits. India has nearly 500 million people under age 19 and higher fertility rates. By mid-century, India is expected to have 1.6 billion people -- and 220 million more workers than China. That could be a source for instability, but a great advantage for growth if the government can provide education and opportunity for India's masses. New Delhi just now is pushing to open its power, telecom, commercial real estate and retail sectors to foreigners. These industries could lure big capital inflows. "The pace of institutional changes and industries being liberalized is phenomenal," says Chief Economist William T. Wilson of consultancy Keystone Business Intelligence India. "I believe India has a better model than China, and over time will surpass it in growth."

For its part, China has yet to prove it can go beyond forced-march industrialization. China directs massive investment into public works and factories, a wildly successful formula for rapid growth and job creation. But considering its massive manufacturing output, China is surprisingly weak in innovation. A full 57% of exports are from foreign-invested factories, and China underachieves in software, even with 35 software colleges and plans to graduate 200,000 software engineers a year. It's not for lack of genius. Microsoft Corp.'s (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) 180-engineer R&D lab in Beijing, for example, is one of the world's most productive sources of innovation in computer graphics and language simulation.

While China's big state-run R&D institutes are close to the cutting edge at the theoretical level, they have yet to yield many commercial breakthroughs. "China has a lot of capability," says Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Craig Mundie. "But when you look under the covers, there is not a lot of collaboration with industry." The lack of intellectual property protection, and Beijing's heavy role in building up its own tech companies, make many other multinationals leery of doing serious R&D in China.

China also is hugely wasteful. Its 9.5% growth rate in 2004 is less impressive when you consider that $850 billion -- half of GDP -- was plowed into already-glutted sectors like crude steel, vehicles, and office buildings. Its factories burn fuel five times less efficiently than in the West, and more than 20% of bank loans are bad. Two-thirds of China's 13,000 listed companies don't earn back their true cost of capital, estimates Beijing National Accounting Institute President Chen Xiaoyue. "We build the roads and industrial parks, but we sacrifice a lot," Chen says.

India, by contrast, has had to develop with scarcity. It gets scant foreign investment, and has no room to waste fuel and materials like China. India also has Western legal institutions, a modern stock market, and private banks and corporations. As a result, it is far more capital-efficient. A BusinessWeek analysis of Standard & Poor's (NYSE:MHP - News) Compustat data on 346 top listed companies in both nations shows Indian corporations have achieved higher returns on equity and invested capital in the past five years in industries from autos to food products. The average Indian company posted a 16.7% return on capital in 2004, vs. 12.8% in China.

Small-Batch Expertise
The burning question is whether India can replicate China's mass manufacturing achievement. India's info-tech services industry, successful as it is, employs fewer than 1 million people. But 200 million Indians subsist on $1 a day or less. Export manufacturing is one of India's best hopes of generating millions of new jobs.

India has sophisticated manufacturing knowhow. Tata Steel is among the world's most-efficient producers. The country boasts several top precision auto parts companies, such as Bharat Forge Ltd. The world's biggest supplier of chassis parts to major auto makers, it employs 1,200 engineers at its heavily automated Pune plant. India's forte is small-batch production of high-value goods requiring lots of engineering, such as power generators for Cummins Inc. (NYSE:CMI - News) and core components for General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE - News) CAT scanners.

What holds India back are bureaucratic red tape, rigid labor laws, and its inability to build infrastructure fast enough. There are hopeful signs. Nokia Corp. is building a major campus to make cell phones in Madras, and South Korea's Pohang Iron & Steel Co. plans a $12 billion complex by 2016 in Orissa state. But it will take India many years to build the highways, power plants, and airports needed to rival China in mass manufacturing. With Beijing now pushing software and pledging intellectual property rights protection, some Indians fret design work will shift to China to be closer to factories. "The question is whether China can move from manufacturing to services faster than we can solve our infrastructure bottlenecks," says President Aravind Melligeri of Bangalore-based QuEST, whose 700 engineers design gas turbines, aircraft engines, and medical gear for GE and other clients.

However the race plays out, Corporate America has little choice but to be engaged -- heavily. Motorola illustrates the value of leveraging both nations to lower costs and speed up development. Most of its hardware is assembled and partly designed in China. Its R&D center in Bangalore devises about 40% of the software in its new phones. The Bangalore team developed the multimedia software and user interfaces in the hot Razr cell phone. Now, they are working on phones that display and send live video, stream movies from the Web, or route incoming calls to voicemail when you are shifting gears in a car. "This is a very, very critical, state-of-the-art resource for Motorola," says Motorola South Asia President Amit Sharma.

Companies like Motorola realize they must succeed in China and India at many levels simultaneously to stay competitive. That requires strategies for winning consumers, recruiting and managing R&D and professional talent, and skillfully sourcing from factories. "Over the next few years, you will see a dramatic gap opening between companies," predicts Jim Hemerling, who runs Boston Consulting Group's Shanghai practice. "It will be between those who get it and are fully mobilized in China and India, and those that are still pondering."

In the coming decades, China and India will disrupt workforces, industries, companies, and markets in ways that we can barely begin to imagine. The upheaval will test America's commitment to the global trade system, and shake its confidence. In the 19th century, Europe went through a similar trauma when it realized a new giant -- the U.S. -- had arrived. "It is up to America to manage its own expectation of China and India as either a threat or opportunity," says corporate strategist Kenichi Ohmae. "America should be as open-minded as Europe was 100 years ago." How these Asian giants integrate with the rest of the world will largely shape the 21st-century global economy.

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