As explained to several of you, the Newsletter was in hiatus for a time, due to a variety of reasons, that kept ye Editor **** **** in **** (in the words of the Preposterous Punkster). Despite the continuing existence of those conditions, an attempt is being made to continue the Newsletter rather than delay it too much further.
So, without further ado, permit me to present:
Our dramatis personae:
* Balwant Jain, Count of Coonoor
* The Punkster, an escapee from the dreaded prison of JC.
* The heroic Amarender Kumar Singh (which may be translated as
"He-who-perseveres-valiantly-in-the-face-of-utter-lunacy-and-
bewilderment".
* Amarjit the cheerful
* and of course, your humble narrator
* Adrian Chong, Baron of Asia-Pacific
* Weird and phenomenally un-intelligent ladies
'Twas in the legendary days of the Merchant Princes, when fortunes were being carved out of the islands, that a brave group of adventurers walked into the Dark Tower. In the shadow of the Treasury Building was the home of the Oracle, and it was here that our heroes ventured. The Guildsmen had been assured by the House of Oracle that a demonstration of their new product was all that was planned, with possibly five minutes at the end for a crude discussion of business details, so with that guarantee of safe-conduct, the NIIT Guildsmen entered the Tower.
Patrick Chouinard, a man who had crossed paths several times before with the Redoubtable Rajeev, welcomed the group in. He escorted them to a conference room, where several chunks of machinery had been set up for the demo. Amarender's eyes gleamed at the thought.
A woman of the House of Oracle walked in to demonstrate their latest product, CDE 2000, a graphic tool. Several false starts and GPF's later, she explained that the system would perform as she said it would, but she could not demonstrate it as it would crash the system. The Passionate Punkster asked her how it would work in a Production environment, to which she replied that there would be no problem there; the system would not cause a problem in a normal situation, it was simply that she could not demonstrate it here !
Having stunned the group by that mephistophelian twist of logic, she cheerfully left the room, in time for Patrick to bring Adrian into the room.
The demo was over (after just about an hour !), and Patrick explained that the rest of the time would be spent discussing a proposed partnership between the NIIT Guild and the House of Oracle. In the absence of the GuildMaster, St. Pat, the venerable Guild would be represented by the Guildsmen currently present. Consternation swept the hall. None of the non-Marketing Guildsmen had expected to be cut off after such a short demo, and none of them had expected such a long meeting ! Especially not one with the formidable Baron Adrian, one of the great powers of the House of Oracle in the Pacific !
The sole one among the non-marketers who was undisturbed by this was the Philosophic Punkster: any time spent here was time spent away from the terrible doom of JC. Amarender cringed against the wall, as the marketers took center-stage!
"So," grinned Adrian, "Patrick has mentioned you to me. What sort of partnership would you like ?"
"Eh-h-h," riposted Rajeev, "what sort of partnerships do you have ?"
"Well, there's the closely linked Business Partner plan, which requires some investment on the Partner's part. There's the distributor plan, which would involve your distribution and support of our products ! And of course, there's the loosely tied VAR plan, which involves no investment on our partner's side ..."
"Yes, yes, yes, that sounds about right !" pounced Rajeev, wagging his head. "That should go best with our own loosely-linked internal structure !" (Not to mention reluctance to part with money, but then again, surely there was no point in mentioning such minor matters ...)
"So how many people would you wish to spare to exclusively handle Oracle ?", asked Adrian.
"Well, that would vary depending upon the requirement, Adrian. You see, NIIT has almost bagged the NUS contract, and we are very prominent players in this market. We have executed the NSTB contract" (your narrator winced at this point) and have several projects in hand in Singapore. NIIT is also known in India for its skills in Information Technology, and we have a huge supply of manpower available to us over there."
"Yes, but how many people ?" pressed Adrian
Crudely disdaining this unskilled attack, Rajeev pressed on, undaunted. "We also have a wide training network in India which is capable of presenting us with thousands of skilled employees, and we are widely known as the people to come to in India if you have a IT problem. In our Delhi branch alone ..."
Recognizing his master, Adrian gave up on this pattern of attack.
"Yeh kya ho raha hai ?" "What's going on ?!!" moaned a visibly disturbed Amarender, totally unable to fathom the sword-strokes of the duel between Rajeev and Adrian. To the poor soul, it appeared as if nothing was being done, and the two seemed to be taking quite a long time to achieve that self-same nothing ! Little did he know that this was part of the quick-footed Rajeev's master-plan, to wear down his enemy, with his superior long-windedness !
Amarjit, who was standing at the sidelines, merrily enjoying the combat, quickly whispered to him, "Hush !" This was no moment to distract the warriors !
Dismayed by the failure of his attempts to pin down the quicksilver-like Rajeev to any point of commitment, Adrian valiantly made a sideways attack !
"Perhaps you could explain to us your Guild's long-term business plans for the Asia-Pacific region.", he thrust.
<Gleeps> ! This was a full-scale assault ! As every loyal Guildsman knew, no such concept as long-term plans had ever been allowed to enter the Guild ! Yet, this was a internal secret of the highest magnitude, and could not possibly be revealed to opponents, notably such as the House of Oracle ! And while the others grabbed on to the table to keep them on the ground, Rajeev grinned a fiendish grin and launched himself headlong into the attack !
"Well, you see, Adrian, NIIT is committed to being the best Information Solutions Provider in Singapore. That is why we are approaching Oracle. You see, in India, we represent Sybase, and the names NIIT and Sybase are almost synonymous. But here, we use Oracle, and as Patrick will tell you, we have decided to go with Oracle."
"In fact, in India, NIIT uses Sybase almost exclusively. We are the distributors for Sybase in India, but here in Singapore, we have used Oracle, and as Patrick will tell you, we have offered it in several tenders."
"We work here in the Asia-Pacific region in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, and here we use Oracle. This is despite the fact that we distribute Sybase in India, and as Patrick will tell you, we use Oracle here."
"But your long-term ..." stuttered Adrian, caught off-guard by this whirl-wind attack. To no avail. Rajeev pressed on, undaunted.
"In fact, Adrian, NIIT has long been identified with the Sybase name in India. But we have been determined to provide our customers with the best possible solution, and we believe that to be Oracle in Singapore, and as Patrick can tell you, we have decided to go with Oracle here."
"We have proposed using Oracle in the NUS tender. This is despite the fact that we promote Sybase in India, and as Patrick will tell you, we have committed ourself to using Oracle in Singapore. We believe that we can partner with Oracle in Singapore, and we already have several highly-skilled people in Oracle in NIIT-Singapore."
A dull thud interrupted Rajeev's discourse. The amiable Amarjeet bent over in an effort to resuscitate the agitated Amarender from the floor where he had fainted. The Polite Punkster made no move; he was fully occupied in utilizing those skills he had learnt at great cost at IIM-A to keep himself from bursting out into hysterics in front of Adrian.
Adrian acted swiftly, and made a hasty retreat once he had been given an opening in which he could do so.
"Uh, Rajeev, if you could just fill up these forms and send them in, that would be quite enough to set up our agreement. Thanks. Bye !"
Rajeev gracefully accepted; in any case, Adrian was too far out of the room by then to make any further reply. Broadly grinning, he shook Patrick's hand as he left the room. Alas, no reaction beyond the usual grin was seen from the Perpetually Perplexed Patrick.
The rest of us scooped up the Astounded Amarender from the floor and followed suit.
Cascading explosions of laughter were heard from the joyous party as they left the Dark Tower and entered the sunshine again.
"Was the demo that funny ? Eh ? Huh ?" smiled Rajeev.
"Never again, yaar ! Yeh marketing log kaise karte hai ... ?"
staggered Amarender.
"* how do these marketing
people do it ?! "
And Amarjeet simply broke down into a billowing gale of laughter.
And the triumphant team returned home to Cecil Court.
That's enough travel ... now let's head back home