Anoop John

It has been quite some time since our request to start a seller account was approved on ebay. However we had not gotten around to setting up items to be sold on ebay. Today I sat down and configured one item on ebay. It is a Ubuntu 8.04 DVD. You can also access the complete listings of products by Zyxware Technologies on Ebay

Zyxware has been carving for itself a niche in the local market as a trusted promoter and supporter of Free Software and related technologies. As the company has been growing we have been trying to figure out methods to capitalize on this brand value and in generating revenues and at the same time give back to the community.

Recently a friend of mine asked me if everything was right with me and my company. I had confirmed in the affirmative. The reason why he asked was that my recent posts have tended towards negative. I felt that an explanation was due regarding this issue. Starting a new company and running it on my own was not and is not and will not be a simple task.

"If you think you can make it out on your own you should at least give it a shot.", "If you think you can, You should", "It is your life, you live only once" - These are some of the sentences that would summarize my opinion about entrepreneurship. I am an entrepreneur and am enjoying every second of being one. I know how difficult it has been to be in a system that does not, in any way, promote entrepreneurial spirit and does what ever it can to stifle the spirit. I have survived this long and I know I shall prevail. Because of what I have faced I have made it a point to do whatever I can to help get other entrepreneurs going.

I have always wanted to run a business where I get a chance to interact with people and it is one of the reasons why I started the PC Sales and Services division of Zyxware. It is very interesting to watch human behavior and very challenging to interact with people through a commercial transaction. I see different kinds of people and different kinds of behaviors. Yesterday I came across a gentleman who was working in a government organization and who wanted me to help him bend a rule to get some extra cash.

I am a confessed and professed night bird. I sit late and I am comfortable doing it. People have been warning me of the possible health risks I might run into as I grow older. However I seem to not be able to help it. Take for an example today.

One of the most important things that a professional education gives a person is the network of alumni. Surprisingly this is one of the least utilized aspects of most professional courses in India. I am an alumni of the College of Engineering Trivandrum or more fondly known as CET (Cee Eee Tee). As with other alumni associations of other professional colleges, except perhaps the IITs and the elite management schools, CET Alumni Association too has not really fulfilled its true potential.

My pricing strategy at Zyxware is to price products as cheap as possible with the hope of building volumes and of building market penetration. We offer one of the cheapest prices for laptops in India and as a result we get queries from all over India. Additionally I don't believe in gimmicks like marking up the prices and giving discounts or giving free gifts as I feel that they amount to deception. In spite of all this people still surprise me with their mindsets about seller behaviors.

Recently we had tried out Mandriva (at Zyxware), one of the many GNU/Linux distributions out there in the market. Like Redhat, Mandriva is also promoted by a company. However the userbase had been primarily European and the acceptance by the Indian community has been meager. I was shocked to see that there was no option 'India' in the list of countries in the Mandriva Live CD.

I woke up early on saturday to go pick up my sister and her husband who were dropping by for two days. It had been some time since I had spent any time with her. I had been to bangalore and visited her place a couple of months back but then I barely stayed home as I had to visit my friends there. This was an opportunity to compensate for that and I think I did that well.