COURSE NUMBER: MBA294.7

COURSE TITLE:Topics In Technology: The Dynamics of the High Tech World

UNITS OF CREDIT: 1

INSTRUCTOR: Drew Isaacs

STUDENT ORGANIZERS: Chitra Laxmanan, Hrishika Vuppala

EMAIL ADDRESSES:

chitra_laxmanan@mba.berkeley.edu; hrishika_vuppala@mba.berkeley.edu

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Mondays 4:00-6:00PM (Fall-A)

PREREQUISITE(S): None.

LAPTOP POLICY: No laptops allowed, and this is strictly enforced.

CLASS FORMAT: Interactive speakers presentations followed by Q&A, and dinner with speakers

COURSE OVERVIEW: This course will provide students with an overview of the developments happening across various platforms in the industry today. As the product and service offerings of both established and young companies start to blur, the ability to understand a company’s objective and perspective becomes valuable to the business school student looking to enter into the industry.

REQUIRED READINGS: There will be a set of readings that each student is highly encouraged to go through before each class. The readings have been screened and preselected by the organizers and are aimed at giving an overview of the speaker, company and industry dynamics affecting the company. Intelligent questions around the strategies that companies took are highly encouraged. In each class, a group of students will have the opportunity to present a 5-min pitch about the company and speaker. This is your opportunity to make a great impression on the speakers, who're typically actively involved with the intern recruiting process later in the year. The presentations must be emailed to organizers no later than the Friday prior to the class.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Questions for speakers, class participation, and attendance.This is a 1 credit pass/not pass course. To pass, you must not miss more than one class (attendance will be taken). In addition you will be required to submit questions and comments for each speaker, as well as participate actively in class.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: Sponsored by the Haas Technology Club, this course will provide first-hand information on trends that are shaping the technology industry. This includes the players, competitive forces, technological evolution, business models, and future growth prospects in the enterprise, mobile and consumer segments. The speakers will share both their professional and personal perspectives while presenting a topic of their expertise. Students who are not intimately familiar with these industries will gain enough exposure to intelligently engage in conversation, as well as a framework to direct additional research. To the business school students looking to enter into the industry and the opportunity to learn and network with a company representative will be a valuable experience.

We believe that each company in the high-tech industry is unique, and faces different challenges based on their lifestage and market position. How then, can we as leaders interpret these business conditions and strive to make the best decisions for our companies. The topics will be highly strategic and will encourage critical thinking provoke challenging questions. This is also intended to be a great starting point for students who're looking to pursue a career with these companies or their competitors.

After every class, a group of students will have the opportunity to have dinner with our speaker, if they are available. The organizers will try their best to ensure that every students attends at least 1 dinner.

SPEAKERS (subject to change):

Mickey Kim, Business Development Manager, Google TV

· What is Google TV? What is the concept behind Google TV as a product?

· Business Development at Google and the business/partnership/ecosystem development behind Google TV

· Q&A about Google TV, Google and getting an offer from Google

Arvind Krishnamoorthy, Product Marketing Manager, Consumer Application, Apple

· The process of innovation in the high-tech world.

· Various schools of thoughts around innovations and how products are built.

· The role of a product marketer in bringing innovation to life and the tradeoff between innovation, features and cost

Manu Singh, Hawro Mustafa and Chris Quek - Product Management and Product Marketing, Abobe

· Emerging Trends in Software (as per Adobe)

· Adobe products/services to capitalize on those trends

· Description of our roles in Product Development/Marketing

· Open Q&A about Technology, Roles/Culture at Adobe

Alex Dunlap - Sr. Product Manager, Amazon Web Services

· Overivew of the product management role at Amazon.com

· Discussion of cloud and how Amazon expanded from e-commerce into the hi-tech industry

· How Amazon's attack from below with it's disruptive Infrastructure as a Service business model is changing the industry

· The future of the cloud - where AWS is investing in the next few years

· How do we expect organizations to change as a result of cloud computing over the next decade

Inder Singh, Vice President, Corporate Portfolio Management, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Long-Range Planning, Cisco

· Cisco's acquisition strategy - how Cisco continues to expand manage its business portfolio through acquisitions.

· How have these continued to make Cisco a dominant player through through the acquisitions of talent, technology, products and new business models.

Chris Rimer, Director - Strategic Alliances, VMware

· Overview of changing applications for the cloud

· Where is VMware is headed, and what would be natural.

· Showcase of VMware's late-breaking collateral to support the future vision.

EXPECTATIONS:

· This is a 1 credit pass/not pass course. To pass, you must not miss more than one classes (attendance will be taken). There will be no exam.

· You are required to familiarize yourself with the speaker's bio and the company the speaker works for before class.

· Each student must read the 5-6 course readings that organizers have preselected for their benefit.