Latest Upgrade?

I saw my son upgrading his blackberry with the latest updates from their website and it set me thinking about why do people upgrade all the time?

The latest gizmo's and gadgets are seen in the hands of the jet setters. They seem to just want the latest, the fastest and the priciest one to themselves.

Does it define success of just craving to be noticed by others?

Take the case of the most successful people around us and then you may be surprised to note that they run around in one very old and handy automobile. They may sport the best phone but they really have no clue about its latest functions or the number of software's available to play around with it. They have no idea how to juice it to the last drop. For them it is just another stuff to take them to their ultimate destination called success in their own field. Be it finance, retail or software.

When in retail the retailer who has the largest number of outlets run their business on the best back end software and gizmo's are grossing just a little above the average stores and it does not pay to have such a big back end.

I know the Gujarati's, Marvadi's and Sindhi's are very good at finger calculations and they do not depend on the latest machines at all. Yes, their younger generation do want to have the latest but they are not so good as their parents. They run around in the latest planes, latest iPads, iPhone and what not's but still they cannot achieve the level of success which their finger number cruncher fathers could!

We in India may be far ahead in the race for technology but take a look around you in the wholesale markets, sabjiwalas, dudhwalas,stock brokers and so on and you will realize that their success is not dependent on the latest technology but on pure business acumen and knowledge about their own businesses. They have some old phones, do not surf the Internet, have an Ambassador or Maruti as a house car, travel by bus or other public transport, have long working hours, work with huge ledgers with the old "partha" system of accounting, they go home to home food, take their dabbas to work, tell the helper to still send letters by post and so on.

So success in their own field is not at all by means of the latest tech.

I know you may think otherwise but let me tell you all the high and mighty who are in the high tech make money on their share holdings and not on what they sell in business. You sell your tech company for millions to another sucker and make your own millions. Got it?