It has been proved that the recession is the best time to start a business due to myriad reasons. The main advantage is that it won’t get worse than the prevailing situation and the expenses to start up a new venture is low compared to boom. For starting a new business or improving an existing one, the entrepreneur should have a good business plan. So, what makes a business plan that stays near to perfect and attracts equity? Here are the important ingredients which makes a perfect business plan.

The Executive Summary

Write this summary last, and make sure it contains the highlights of your plan. Assume your most important readers will read only this section.

The Company

A plan for a startup describes your strategy for creating the legal entity and how the initial ownership will be divided among the founders. It should also include a table that lists startup costs and initial funding. A plan for an ongoing or already existing company should describe the legal form of the business, the company history and the business’s past performance.

What You Sell

Describe the products or services you offer. Emphasize why buyers purchase those things, what benefits they get, and what pain points they have before they buy. Show how much it costs to deliver what you’re selling.

Your Market

Describe your target market, including market demographics, market growth and trends. Include a table that shows a market forecast. Describe the nature of your industry and the competition you have.

Strategy and Implementation

Strategy is all about focus. So focus on certain target market segments, certain products or services, and specific distribution avenues. Forecast your sales and the cost of sales. Define your milestones with dates, budgets and specific responsibilities.

Management Team

Name and describe the key members on your team. Include a table that shows personnel costs. List the gaps in the management team–if any–and show how they’re being addressed.

Financial Projections

Describe your financial strategy and how it supports your projected growth. Include a break-even analysis that shows risk as a matter of fixed vs. variable costs. Include projected profit or loss, cash flow and balance sheets.

A variety of netbooks have been invading the market for quite a few months now. There have also been reports that consumers who bought a netbook later realized that they had actually wanted a notebook. Majority of the consumers cannot tell the difference between the two, which may be attributed partly to the similar suffixes of the two words.

So, what is the difference between the two?

A simple answer is that, compared to notebooks, netbooks are simply smaller, lighter and cheaper – approximately the size and weight of a hardback novel or diary, weighing around 1 kilogram. Screen sizes (the diagonal measurement across the screen) vary from 7-10 inches for a netbook to 12+ inches for a notebook, typically around 15.4 inches. Netbooks, powered by Intel’s Atom processor are not as powerful as notebooks, and lack the facility to play CDs or DVDs.

Connectivity is the central focus for netbooks and their primary use is to surf the net. Built-in Ethernet and wi-fi is used for connecting to the internet. It is intended to be used mainly by people who want to keep connected while on the go. With its prices below $300, it is an excellent solution during the credit crunch!

Statistics prove that netbooks have succeeded in creating a new market above handheld computers, smart phones and personal digital assistants. Analysts are torn whether or not netbooks will eat into the notebook market share. Since the recession is still underway, people will be looking for cheaper products, which suggest that netbooks will be in demand.

However, netbooks are presently limited by battery size, processing power and storage space, which gives notebooks a clear edge of it.

No matter what, I do believe that there is certainly space in the world for both to function and live together in peace.

Check out the netbooks available in the market

Articles on Google waves is flooding the web, trying to bring out a deeper understanding on this wave renaissance. There is so much of expectation generated now as people are anxiously looking forward to get their hands on it. With the little information revealed by Google, let us try to figure out something more on how this is going to work. In Google wave 1 we discussed about Google waves as a product. This time let us view Google waves in the perspective of a developer, that is, Google waves as a platform.

What is a platform?

Platform in software realms can be understood as an entity on which software can be made to function. A platform provider will provide APIs (Application Programming Interface) for software to be developed in his platform. Let’s take a few examples: Java, the product of Sun Microsystems serves as a platform and it comes with APIs like AWT, JDBC, JMF and so on. These APIs are also provided by Sun Microsystems. Apple Inc, owner of iphone had APIs confidential until October 2008 when the company open sourced and made it license free to develop software applications to be run on iphone. Lately, there is facebook API which is both powerful and popular.

What about Google API?

Google has promised to come up with a public API which can be used by any developer to create applications that run on the wave platform. There are 2 ways by which a developer can make his presence felt in Google waves. The first method is by building robots or creating gadgets. The other method is by embedding waves on third party websites. Let’s try to get some insight on these new terminologies.

Robots, Gadgets and Embed API

Robots are automated participants in a wave. Remember the robot in ‘Lost in Space’. It is a similar kind of simulation except that these robots will function inside the computer. A robot created inside a wave will be able to read, modify and delete blips and wavelets. A wavelet is a smaller wave that is resident inside a wave and a blip resides inside a wavelet. The diagram below will give you better picture.

The developer can create robots and perform interactive operations within a wave. What are the interactive operations? Well, that is left to the creativity of the developer. Learn more about robots here. Wave Gadgets are similar to the ordinary gadgets in its mechanism to get embedded as third party development applications. But there is more offered. A wave gadget can function within a live wave. An example Google gives to explain this is one which lets participants of a wave to vote on where to go for lunch. Learn more about gadgets here.

The second method using Embed API enables to bring waves into third party websites. There will be simultaneous updates in websites as and when an update is made inside a wave. Google has already come up with a few embeds. ‘You tube playlist discuss’ is one among them and is sure to gain so much popularity.  Learn more about embed APIs here.

As Facebook is dominating now with so much integration, it is certain that we can expect even more from Google waves. So if you are a developer, be informed about what is going on in Google waves and get ready to play with the tools as soon as you get them.

Links for further study:

http://code.google.com/apis/wave/

http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/

For most of us finding information on the Internet is synonymous with going to Google.com, typing in a word or phrase and clicking search. In fact Google does account for a major share of the search engine market and with good reason too. check this out if you are still in doubt.

Thus despite new players coming up, Google still remains the leader in information search on the web. That is exactly why it makes sense to understand and develop efficient googling techniques. Mentioned below are few tips which, when practiced while searching the web using Google, will save time and improve search results. (more…)

In response to Google Chrome OS, Microsoft has announced that the new version of MS Office, which is expected to hit markets by 2010, will feature online collaboration. This dramatic announcement was made at the partner conference in New Orleans.

The new generation office suite will enable users to access their documents online with co-authoring capabilities. PowerPoint will be streamlined with video and picture capabilities which will revolutionize presentations.

Though Microsoft is coming up with online capabilities for Office, they don’t have the intention to provide comprehensive online access, which they think can scale down their business. This won’t be a great concern for Google Docs, as they are providing comprehensive access to users. Google considers it as a weaker reply for the Google Chrome OS, which is the core of Microsoft’s business.

In its endeavor to be the leader on the software space, Google Inc has announced its foray into the manufacture of Operating System, with its maiden project named ‘Google Chrome OS‘. Google has already locked its horns with Microsoft on numerous projects and the present one will intensify the competition. Being the 90% market shareholder of the OS market, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft reacts to this concern. Since Google believes on Open Source concept, if the Chrome OS project is rolled out successfully, then it will revolutionize the entire PC, Laptop and OS markets.

In its official blog, Google explains more about Chrome OS, which aims the Netbook market initially. Google Chrome OS is expected to hit the market by the second half of 2010.

Pocket-sized Dell Mini 10V

The Arrival of Netbooks has turned the PC market upside down as diverse models and players are coming in short span of time. This segment triggered the competition when Acer introduced its first Netbook model Acer Aspire One in to the market. Dell took further long time for foraying in to Netbooks market. They started with Dell Inspiron Mini 9 then followed by Mini 10,12 and now the advanced Mini 10V.

The hapless performance of Mini 9,10 and 12 forced Dell to come up with a robust model, which can capture some market share in this segment. The drawbacks of the former models were the lack of good memory and hard drive space. Mini 12 was expected to become a leader however; its limited memory slot and hard drive pushed them out of the competition. (Dell Inspiron Mini 12 has 1GB DDR2 memory slot and 80 GB Hard Disk)

Mini 10V Tech specifications

Processor – Intel^® Atom^TM N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K L2Cache)

Operating System – Microsoft Windows XP

Memory – 1GB,DDR2,533MHZ

Hard Drives – 160GB SATA HDD 2.5 inch 5400RPM

Display – 10.1″ Widescreen 1024 x 600 WSVGA (WLED)

Apart from these, Mini10V comes up with 1.3 MP webcam, Blue tooth module and for power there are 3 cell & 6 cell Li-lon batteries.

Battery Performance

With the 3-Cell battery , it gives a max of 3 hours and 6-cell battery exhaust after 6.5 hours.

Price – $375