Well you might be wondering where I disappeared since last year. I haven’t gone far from Retail, in fact I am now part of the innovative SmackShopping team. If you have not heard of it, please check out SmackShopping which is a unique way to buy products...

ARTS (Association of Retail Technology Standards) is hosting the Retail Technology Summit 2007 in Brussles, Belgium on October 18th 2007. It is a good conference if you want to understand ARTS work in the Retail XML space and also to learn about SOA ...

I know its been a while since my last post. Unfortunately I was suffering with flu for a week. It was a nasty one which knocked me out for a week. Anyway's, lets get back to the topic on hand. During my tour of Indian retailers what I found is they have...

As I said in July, I spent 4 weeks in India. It was a great trip, mainly a personal one however I did take out some time to do some official work as well. I had the pleasure to visit Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai. Across all the metros, two...

There is an excellent interview with Kishore Biyani who is considered to be King of Indian retail. He recently spoke at the Indian Retail Forum. He is the founder of the Indian Retail chain, "big Bazaar", which is really doing well. According to him 2009...

PCI DSS deadlines are looming right around the corner. Retailers in general are rushing to get the compliance just in time to avoid any penalties. This just shows the importance and criticality of PCI in retail. It has become a huge business and security...

I'll be on vacation for next month, so you'll most likely not see much from me. While on vacation I'll be checking out the new phenomenon in India known as "Retail Boom'. From what I read India is going through a massive transition from the unorgnized...

I was at a roundtable discussion with some 20+ retaile VPs and CTOs. It was a very lively and interesting discussion. We were talking about challenges faced by the retailers in the stores. These were the top challenges in the stores, How to improve morale...

With the resurrection of internet bubble once again, which is affectionately called Web 2.0. There has been increasing focus on services. Everyone is talking about services, how they will revolutionalize the software industry, etc. In my humble opinion...

Recently I heard from my Chinese counterparts and they showed strong interest in my blog. They wanted to translate it to Chinese for local architects due to the demand. I'm very happy and honored to hear that and wanted to express my appreciation to you...

Microsoft today announced the availability of Office Business Application (OBA) Reference Architecture Pack (RAP) for Health Plans , also known as Consumer Engagement Reference Architecture (CERA) There is a white paper and two different presentation...

I don't mean to say PCI DSS regulation was on fine, but rather the session I was in, got fired down. As I indicated earlier I was on a panel discussion about PCI DSS at the ERIeChange conference in Boston. There were about 6 panelists and it was moderated...

PCI DSS is a hot topic. Every where you turn there are panel discussions, forums, sessions, surveys and solutions to deal with it. Yet, there seems to be lots of confusion and dilemma by the retailers to comply. I think the key to getting compliant is...

Microsoft today released an Office Business Applicaion (OBA) Reference Architecture Pack (RAP) for Price Management . This is a critical area in the industry and many enterprises struggle with communicating the pricing rules to their sales field. Price...

Earlier this week Association for Retail Technology Standards announced that it has launched the SOA Blueprint for Retail project, a program that will provide retail businesses with specific guidelines and best practices for implementing a service-oriented...

Technorati tags: PCI DSS , Cardholder Data , CSO Summit , credit cards Last week Microsoft hosted its annual CSO Summit here in Redmond. There was a large group of CSOs from global enterprises. I lead a panel discussion on PCI DSS, as it is a major issue...

I was on a panel discussion at the recently concluded Retail Technology COnference in Orlando. Panel had following distingushed leaders of this industry, Rob Garf, V.P Retail Segment, AMR Research Tony Bates, COO & Partner at PSC, Inc James Paul,...

Retail Technology Conference hosted by RIS News is just few days away. This is a great conference for connecting with technology folks and retailers. Paying close attention to the agenda you'll find a panel discussion called, " 3-A: TRACK #1: “CROSS-CHANNEL...

I'll be speaking at the Mobile payments conference in Orlando on March 26th 2007. There are tremendous opportunities and challenges in this space and my focus would be on the opportunities. Here is the link to the conference http://www.shorecliffcommunications...

Otto, the German based largest eCommerce and catalog retailer in Europe released a Vista based shopping client. It provides state of the art shopping experience to the consumers. You can view different products from the catalog and also try them on a...

I'll be at NRF show in New York next week. It is the largest retail show where more 15,000 people expected to attend the show. Highlight of this year's show is Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer will be keynoting the event. I look forward to seeing the latest...

Happy New Year! I was hoping to start my first blog of he year with some great news, but came across this piece of not so good information. I felt it is important enough to share with you without any delay. According to a survey by Brulant, an online...

Holiday season is here. My warm seasons greetings for the holiday season. Talk to you next year!

I live in the Seattle area and this past weekend we experienced a major wind storm. We had winds ranging from 60 MPH to 90 MPH. As you can imagine major power outage in the area and even after 5 days there are still 200,000 homes without power. I personally...

Everywhere I turn these days the talk is about PCI. May be I'm hanging out with the wrong folks:), but seriously I feel there is more talk about PCI than actual work. I would like to think of this whole thing as "risk to business" and how you take care...