Nucleus Software expands its board of directors

Nucleus Software Exports appointed Mrs. Elaine Mathias as an Additional Director (Independent Director) on the Board of Directors of the Company with effect from September 20, 2014.

Elaine Mathias is a highly reputed professional with thirty four years experience in Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore, a Navratna Company under the Ministry of Defence, Government of India, where she was the Executive Director (Finance). She brings along immense practical knowledge and operational excellence to Nucleus Software Exports Limited. She holds vast experience in various facets of Corporate Finance like Accounts, Taxation, Treasury, Budgeting, Pricing and introduced continuous improvements in systems and procedures in these areas. She also has proficiency in development of various financial systems, operations, risk management, regulatory compliances, strategy implementation, talent management, best practices of corporate governance etc.

Andhra Pradesh becomes second state to have a startup village

Moving beyond the Kerala shores, Startup Village made a triumphal march into Andhra Pradesh by bringing the unique technology incubator to the state and validating its mandate to foster entrepreneurship and the culture of innovation in the country.

The Andhra Pradesh government inked an MoU with Startup Village at Visakhapatnam yesterday to create 1000 startups over the next five years in the state.

The MoU, initialled by Startup Village Chairman Sanjay Vijayakumar and Mr. Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Information Technology and Communication, Andhra Pradesh government, makes Andhra Pradesh the second state in the country to have a startup village for creating a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem and a world class incubation facility at Visakhapatnam.

Study: Consumers will do anything for free Wi-Fi

A new F-Secure wi-fi investigation conducted on the streets of London shows that consumers carelessly use public wi-fi without regard for their personal privacy. In the experiment, which involved setting up a ‘poisoned’ wi-fi hotspot, unsuspecting users exposed their Internet traffic, their personal data, the contents of their email, and even agreed to an outrageous clause obligating them to give up their firstborn child in exchange for wi-fi use.

The independent investigation supported by Europol, was carried out on behalf of F-Secure by the UK’s Cyber Security Research Institute and SySS, a German penetration testing company. For the exercise, SySS built a portable wi-fi access point from components costing around 200 euros and requiring little technical know-how. Researchers set the device up in prominent business and political districts of London. They then watched as people connected, unaware their Internet activity was being spied on.

Palo Alto Networks addresses Shellshock vulnerability?

Last week on September 24, the details of a vulnerability in the widely used Bourne Again Shell (Bash) were disclosed by multiple Linux vendors. The vulnerability, assigned CVE-2014-6271 by Mitre, was originally discovered by Stephane Chazelas, a Unix and Linux network and telecom administrator and IT manager at UK robotics company SeeByte, Ltd.

While this vulnerability didn’t come with quite the fanfare or a catchy name like Heartbleed, the security community quickly dubbed it “Shellshock.” Bash is present in most Linux and Unix distributions as well as Apple’s Mac OS X, and there’s a good chance anyone reading this has a system they need to patch.

Microsoft announces Windows 10

Microsoft Corp has unveiled its next Windows operating system, Windows 10, and gave a first look at an early technical preview for the PC available Oct. 1. The announcement highlighted advancements designed for business, including an updated user experience and enhanced security and management capabilities. The company also introduced the Windows Insider Program, kicking off its largest-ever open collaborative development effort to change the way Windows is built and delivered to best meet the needs of customers. Program participants will receive the technical preview of Windows 10 and a steady stream of builds through the development cycle to use and give feedback on.

“Windows 10 represents the first step of a whole new generation of Windows, unlocking new experiences to give customers new ways to work, play and connect,” said Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Operating Systems group at Microsoft. “This will be our most comprehensive operating system and the best release Microsoft has ever done for our business customers, and we look forward to working together with our broader Windows community to bring Windows 10 to life in the months ahead.”

HCL Tech showcases latest digitalization solutions at Oracle OpenWorld 2014

The global IT services company HCL Technologies will serve as a Grande sponsor of Oracle OpenWorld and showcase a number of Oracle capabilities and solutions, including its Digital Systems Integration solutions, at the conference Sept. 28 through Oct. 2 in San Francisco. Company executives will also participate in multiple presentations during the flagship event for Oracle business and technology users. HCL is a global leader in delivering end-to-end Oracle transformation services and innovative solutions to clients across all industry verticals.

"The transition of the Oracle E-Business Suite implementation and application support to HCL was very successful and exceeded our expectations. With professionalism, total commitment from the team and close collaboration, we jointly succeeded to complete: the hand-over of the application support; data migration; deployment of the solution to two new business units in The Netherlands and the UK, and HCL stabilized and enhanced Masternaut’s business critical solutions provided by the Oracle E-Business Suite,” said David Warburton-Broadhurst, CIO of Masternaut. “Based on the success of our co-operation, Masternaut has awarded HCL with an AMS contract for the support of the Oracle E-Business Suite and related custom elements.”

Huawei completes 15 years presence in India

Huawei announced that the Indian operations of Huawei comprising the software R&D center and the telecom solutions business have completed 15 years. The 15 years journey of Huawei in India has been a dynamic period of collaboration and cooperation with Indian partners to contribute to the growth of the Indian and global telecom industry, transformation of the telecom industry with Huawei’s innovative and customized solutions and services, and localization of business operations.

Connecting India with Localization: Huawei established its first overseas R&D center in 1999 in Bangalore to develop cutting-edge products and solutions for the fast evolving global telecom industry by combining India’s strengths in software processes and quality management with that of China’s expertise in system design and product architecture. Today, the Indian R&D center has evolved as a key platform development center, global delivery center for international markets and a competent center for software quality and delivery.

Huawei & Flipkart announced exclusive partnership for Honor series

Huawei announced an exclusive tie-up with India’s largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart, for the Honor range of devices. This new range will be sold exclusively through Flipkart with the Honor 6 smartphone going on sale starting 6th October, 2014.

Both the players announced this tie-up, at the onset of the festive season to make the new Honor devices including- 2 smartphones - Honor 6 and Honor Holly and 2 tablets - Honor X1  and Honor T1-available to the 26 million regular visitors of Flipkart. Honor series will be Huawei’s online brand.

At the unveiling of the products, Mr. Cai Liqun, India CEO, Huawei Telecommunications (India) commented, “India is a strategic market for Huawei and a big focus for Huawei Consumer Business Group. The company has performed extremely well in the market in the last two years demonstrating a firm commitment for India. The overwhelming response from our customers and strong business relationships have further inspired us to grow bigger and faster in India. Our product line up for the next quarter is exciting and promising and we are confident that our tie-up with Flipkart will further fuel our growth and success in India.”

Eight out of ten Indian Internet users admit to ‘Fear of Missing Out’

Tata Communications released the findings of its global report, titled ‘Connected World II,’ which reveals that 82% of surveyed Indians admit to a ‘Fear of Missing Out’ (FOMO) when not connected to the Internet, the highest percentage globally. Despite the nation’s dependence on all things digital, 60% of Indians surveyed equate the Internet with the World Wide Web; showcasing a gap in the actual understanding of the Internet. The report captures responses from 9,417 internet users across six emerging and developed countries - France, Germany, India (2,117), Singapore, the US, and the UK  - to better understand how users engage and connect with the Internet today.

Business Trust in Data Security in the Cloud at an all-time low

Data security and trust in cloud-based services are a rapidly growing concern for IT decision makers within large organisations, according to a new global study from BT.  While 70 per cent of those surveyed are adopting cloud storage and web applications within their business, their confidence around cloud security is at an all-time low. Yet despite this, 50 per cent say they have adopted mass market ‘consumer’ cloud services, rather than those designed specifically for the enterprise. The new study explores the attitudes to, and use of, cloud-based services of IT decision makers from enterprise organisations in 11 countries and regions around the world

Symphony Teleca ranked top R&D; service provider by Zinnov

Symphony Teleca has been ranked as the top service provider in the Consumer Software segment by notable globalization advisory firm, Zinnov Management Consulting, in its annual industry report. Symphony Teleca has been recognized as an ‘Established and Expansive Player’ in overall ranking with leadership positions in the enterprise software, automotive and telecommunications spaces.

The Zinnov Global R&D Service Provider Ratings is an exhaustive exercise that covers over 50 companies in the R&D space. The participants were analyzed across multiple parameters including human capital, product development capabilities, financials, ecosystem linkages, infrastructure and innovation, IP creation, non-linear strategies, lab infrastructures and customer relationships. The analysis process involved data collection from participating companies, interviews with end customers, and inputs from domain experts.

Oracle FS1 Series boasts to outperform EMC XtremIO

Transcending the limitations of existing all-flash storage arrays, the new Oracle FS1 Series flash storage system, as claims the company, scales to petabytes of all-flash capacity while delivering a multitude of innovations designed to take flash technology to new extremes. Users of Oracle Applications including Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle's PeopleSoft, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, and Siebel applications can now benefit from one-click application storage provisioning that simplifies deployment and automates complex manual tuning and administration.

Users also benefit from the new system's QoS Plus software, the most intelligent management framework in the industry, delivering adaptive and anticipatory storage resources with rapid learning and highly granular data tiering. QoS Plus combines business priorities with data usage to determine data placement across four tiers of storage media, delivering performance optimization at the lowest cost metric.

Komli Media launches CRM remarketing platform - RevX

Komli Media, a media technology company, launched RevX, what it claims as a new integrated cross-channel CRM remarketing platform. RevX moves beyond first generation remarketing solutions by enabling marketers to leverage the full spectrum of consumer insights across web, mobile and CRM to reach users across devices. Marketers have complete transparency and control to integrate their customer data with RevX and run highly personalized campaigns across multiple channels including display, mobile and Facebook.

Telemedicine now through mobiles, thanks to UST Global

UST Global, an information technology solutions and services company for Global 1000 enterprises, unveiled what it claims an advanced Telemedicine application, conceptualized by Dr. Pavan Kumar, Head of Dept. of Cardiovascular Surgery and Telemedicine centre, Nanavati Super Specialty Hospital, in collaboration with BlackBerry India.

Telemedicine for mobile devices, developed by UST Global, is a BlackBerry10 based mobile application that uses telecommunication in order to enable staff to provide clinical health care at remote locations. The application helps to eliminate distance barriers and to improve access to medical specialists that would often not be consistently available in distant rural communities.

Dr. Pavan Kumar said, “This app development is going to replace Desktop Telemedicine solutions to Mobile Devices, giving people power to get health care in their hands through Mobile Smart phones. This collaboration reinforces our continued focus towards improving the health and well being of India by providing an innovative solution with high quality and secure BlackBerry platform services.”

National Competitiveness Forum witnesses 100+ CXOs

India’s National Competitiveness Forum, a flagship event of India Council on Competitiveness held on September 26, 2014 at Radisson Blu Plaza in New Delhi witnessed the participation of several CXOs.

Wilfried Aulbur, Chairman, India Council on Competitiveness & Managing Partner & CEO, Roland Berger gave the opening address by saying, “This forum facilitates coming together of industry to discuss how to better the competitiveness of the nation and I welcome you all on board.

The session on the theme of “Technology and Competitiveness” focused on the idea of technology adoption and its ability to foster inclusion, innovation and competitiveness. Panelists discussed about the ways in which technology can change the ways of doing business and can give them an edge in comparison to their peers.

CIO Klub becomes association partner for CeBIT 2014

CeBIT India has signed CIO Klub of India as the Association Partner for CeBIT India 2014, its premier edition in the country. CIO Klub is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to the development of the CIO community and to building business benefits for enterprises through IT adoption. It is also the largest CIO association in India, boasting 1000+ CIOs from across the country as its members.

CIO Klub, along with CeBIT India, will host a series of roadshows across six locations- Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Coimbatore between September and October as a pert of the agreement. The roadshows will enable pre registration for members of CIO Klub and create greater awareness about the potential and opportunities for business development at CeBIT India 2014.  As apart of this activity, the first roadshow kickoff took place on 27thSeptember, 2014 at ITC Windsor, which also happened to be CIOKlub, Bengaluru chapter’s 3rdanniversary celebration.

Avnish Anand becomes MyRefers' co-founder and Chief Product Officer

My Refers, one of the leading ‘friend-help-friend’ referral networks across the world appoints Avnish Anand as a Co-founder and Chief Product Officer. In this role, Avnish will lead the product management, marketing and business intelligence functions.

Lalit Bhagia, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, MyRefers explains, “MyRefers is a young organisation and we seem to be shaping up quite well. We are one of the leading and most exciting players in talent crowd sourcing with 35+ clients already on board, some 667 + jobs with over INR 1.37 crores of referral rewards to give out. Our core consumer product and its extended SAAS based offerings are in its beta version have shown successful runs of testing with our clients and end users. The response so far has been extremely constructive. We see the current set of client partnerships growing phenomenally over the next three years. It is not just logical but also a crucial phase for me to bring on board an expert like Avnish. As a co-founder he will take on a broad set of responsibilities to help achieve necessary business results for MyRefers. Our product will need continuous enhancements to provide world class service offerings. I am only too happy to see him as my CPO, he should take away at least 50% load off my shoulders.”

OnMobile is the exclusive Caller Ring Back Tone partner for Tata Tele

OnMobile Global Limited announced that it has signed an agreement with Tata Teleservices, making it the exclusive Caller Ring Back Tone partner (CRBT) for the company.

OnMobile will centrally manage Tata’s Content Management Systems across the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). This deal will enable Tata Teleservices to improve operational efficiency, reduce turnaround time and provide a superior user experience to all its subscribers.

Sanjay Bhambri, Chief Commercial Officer, OnMobile Global said, “This win is a significant milestone and strengthens our long standing relationship with Tata Teleservices, dating back to 2004. We are now their exclusive Caller Ring Back Tone partner. Our proven proficiency in large-scale global deployments and world class IT standards for proactive monitoring through our Global Network Operations Center (GNOC) are key differentiators that helped us win this deal.”

India IT Infra Spend to reach $2 bn in 2015

The Indian data center infrastructure market, comprising of server, storage and networking equipment, will total $2.03 billion in 2015, a 5.4 percent increase from 2014 revenue of $1.92 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. India will be the second largest market for data center infrastructure within the Asia/Pacific region, and it will also be the second fastest growing market in Asia/Pacific in 2015.

Gartner analysts will provide the latest outlook on the Indian data center market and related issues at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, scheduled 14-_17 of October, 2014 at the Grand Hyatt Goa. The theme for this year’s conference is driving digital business, and the 2014 agenda will provide full coverage of the game-changing forces at work in enterprise IT.

“A strong return to growth is expected next year in the Indian data center infrastructure market, and the market will be buoyed by an overall increase in sentiments and a strong resurgence of growth-related projects across verticals such as banking, insurance, telecom and the government segment,” said Aman Munglani, research director at Gartner. ”While much of the SMB segment is likely to focus on infrastructure build up, large enterprises within the segments mentioned above will look at infrastructure replacement and growth related projects covering mobility, cloud and big data.”

Indian enterprises will be focusing on building intelligent data centers that focus on optimizing existing hardware assets by using additional software capabilities. This will drive increased attention on newer trends such as public cloud, and integrated systems.

Canon launched its 5th edition of Photomarathon in India

Canon launched its fifth edition of Photomarathon in India. The event took place at Good Shepherd's auditorium, Museum Road, Bengaluru on September 27, 2014 and attracted large number of photo enthusiasts, primarily DSLR users, hobbyist photographers as well as professionals. The Photomarathon is a uniquely designed event organised by Canon to promote photography culture through theme based healthy competition.

The Canon Photomarathon is a daylong event that brings together photographic talents from across India. This event is also organized by Canon in countries like Indonesia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand & Vietnam.

Riverbed adds new web application firewall capabilities to Riverbed SteelApp

Riverbed Technology announced new features for Riverbed SteelApp Traffic Manager, claimed to be the #1 virtual application delivery controller (ADC). As companies evolve toward the hybrid enterprise model with private assets on-premises and public services in the cloud, they face new performance challenges -- including greater architectural complexity and blind spots for support, management and security. Riverbed SteelApp Traffic Manager 9.7 addresses these challenges, enabling the hybrid enterprise to access and deliver applications quickly, securely and cost effectively.

Opinion: Has the Operating System Become a Modern Day Utility?

By: Mark Coggin

(Senior Director, Product Marketing Platform, Red Hat)

As we make the shift to the cloud era, computing’s traditional building blocks are increasingly abstracted away. This is fueled by the advent of hypervisors, virtual machines, public clouds, and application containers. Despite being roughly sixty years old and existing in an industry that sees tectonic shifts at least once a decade, the operating system remains a rock solid foundation and the underpinning of modern information technology. Why is it that this core building block will not quietly go away?

The functions that the operating system provides are critical to computing - as long as there are systems with memory to manage, I/O to arbitrate, processes to schedule, and storage or networks with which to interface, the operating system remains vital.

eScan Internet Security 14 bags award

eScan has bagged the prestigious VB100 Award by Virus Bulletin Comparatives review for its eScan Internet Security 14 version. The test was conducted on Windows Server 2012 during June 2014 wherein eScan showcased a very strong detection rate and the product proved stable with its heuristic scan engine.

The VB100 award is bestowed on the products that meet the basic standards required to be recognized as legitimate and properly functioning anti-malware solution. During the recent test, eScan Internet Security 14 successfully blocked 100% of the malware samples that are listed as 'In the Wild' by the WildList Organization and generated no false positives when scanning. The scanning speed of the product was quoted 'impressive' by the reputed testing body during the test and thus, eScan comfortably earned another VB100 award.

L&T; Tech and Cisco to transform transport in India

L&T Technology Services announced that it is entering into a strategic collaboration with Cisco to explore potential IoE opportunities for Transportation and other industry verticals and joint go-to-market opportunities globally.

Cisco and L&T will make joint contributions to a Global Solution Centre to showcase innovative and breakthrough connectivity and convergence based solutions. If the company is to be believed, the Solution Centre which will be housed within the L&T Technology Services facility in Bangalore will focus on both technical and business considerations of connected transportation as well as ways to make Rails and mass transit more productive, intelligent and safe.

'Bash' puts Unix systems at risk

While hackers are always on the look out for security flaws in systems, nother security flaw has surfaced, for which the global cyber experts are issuing warnings. The new bug called 'Bash' is being seen as a serious threat to computers or systems which are Unix-based. Since Linux and Mac OS X are both Unix-based, they are at a potential risk, warn cyber experts.

Macro 4 rolls out new BI framework

Macro 4, a division of UNICOM Global, is introducing a new business intelligence (BI) framework that will help users of its Columbus software to achieve cost savings and continuous service improvements in enterprise printing and digital information delivery.

Columbus Accounting, the latest addition to Macro 4’s Columbus suite of information delivery software, provides a comprehensive reporting facility. The new product enables Columbus customers to generate detailed statistics on every aspect of their printing and electronic document delivery environment to support service level reporting, capacity planning and usage-based billing.

Miami and SITA cover the Airport with Beacons

Miami International Airport is the first airport in the world to have a complete and open deployment of beacons, claims a statement. SITA, the IT provider to the air transport industry, announced that there are now beacons registered and available to users via the SITA Common-Use Beacon Registry which cover entrances, check-in, gate, baggage claim and valet parking zones throughout Miami International Airport. Each beacon broadcasts its identifier in the zone and this can be used by airlines, retailers and other partners’ apps to trigger useful content to passengers or staff.

Maurice Jenkins, Division Director, Information Systems, Miami International Airport, said: “The passenger experience at Miami Airport is our number one concern and iBeacon technology allows us make it even better. We have installed beacons throughout the airport and made them available to all our stakeholders. Now we invite airlines and our other partners to invent new ways to make the passenger experience at Miami even better. With our beacons, they can now give passengers relevant information on their phones at every point of their journey through our airport.

InMobi and NDTV bring Native Advertising on Mobile

InMobi and NDTV Convergence (NDTV) are jointly bringing the first fully native ad experience to mobile users in India. NDTV has been at the forefront of creating best-in-class content experiences across all screens. The NDTV App across platforms is known for credible content, superlative user experience and ensures relevant content is always available on the go. Together with InMobi, NDTV will now be able to offer a bouquet of innovative ad units native to its news content, thereby further re-inventing the user experience.

“NDTV has always believed in providing users with the most credible content across all platforms and ensuring the best user experience while consuming this content. This is another step towards further enhancing the experience by ensuring native in-stream ad formats, which will provide great value to our advertisers in a non-intrusive environment. We are excited to partner with InMobi, the world’s leading independent mobile advertising network to launch this offering,” said Vikram Chandra, CEO, NDTV.

Cherrypick launches Cherrypick Box

Cherrypick technologies, a Chennai based start-up, released CHERRYPICKBOX V1.0, which it claims as a 360 degree Enterprise Digital Platform. If the company is to be believed, Cherrypick development took 18 months and enables complete digital transformation of an enterprise.

Businesses can integrate messaging, emails, documents, task management, forms and workflow and integrate their existing web apps and mobility into a single seamless platform. This will improve efficiency in leaps and bounds. Businesses can also save significant costs.

Cherrypick has also pioneered a technology that "Creates a loosely coupled virtual collaboration space" between two enterprises without having to share a server located in a common location. What this technology means to businesses is that they can collaborate with each other without having to share sensitive data on the cloud. The technology will also let large companies create collaborative environments across the globe by having multiple nodes. In certain industries, this will help them comply with local regulation with regard to location of sensitive data and yet create a collaborative mechanism for sharing. Cherrypick has filed a patent for this unique technology.

Gartner debunks five of the Biggest Data Myths

With so much hype about big data, it's hard for IT leaders to know how to exploit its potential. Gartner, Inc. dispels five myths to help IT leaders evolve their information infrastructure strategies.

"Big data offers big opportunities, but poses even bigger challenges. Its sheer volume doesn't solve the problems inherent in all data," said Alexander Linden, research director at Gartner. "IT leaders need to cut through the hype and confusion, and base their actions on known facts and business-driven outcomes."

Annik Ramps up Offerings with Senior Hire

Annik Technology Services claims to have significantly ramped up its investment in its growing business. The newly formed Team is now headed by Dr. Lata Iyer in the new role of Senior Vice President, Research and .

Prior to joining Annik, she served as Executive Director in Strategy & for IBM India and brings more than 20 years of experience in High End Consulting and Service Delivery. Dr. Iyer has been instrumental in setting up capabilities and governance across companies like Cognizant, TCS & HCL. She holds a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics from the University of California San Diego as well as a Masters in Physics from University of Bombay, India.

She brings a vast variety of Advanced expertise across domains such as Telecommunication, Natural Resources, Smarter Cities, Life Sciences, Retail & CPG, High Tech and Finance.

Research shows Indian companies unprepared for Future of Work

Indian businesses are facing the most diverse work environment that they have ever seen. By 2020, there will be five different generations working together - each with different skills, experiences, work habits, and motivations.More of these workers will be freelancers and long-term contractors. All of this is unprecedented - and represents a major opportunity for productivity, talent development and employee engagement. But according to new research from Oxford Economics, most companies are unprepared to capitalize on it, including those surveyed in India.

As revealed in “Workforce 2020,” an independent, global study by Oxford Economics with support from SAP SE, most companies recognize the importance of managing an increasingly international, diverse and mobile workforce. But the vast majority lacks the strategy, culture, and solutions to do so.

Compensation Matters Most: The most important benefits and incentives to Indian employees are: competitive compensation (66%), bonuses and merit-based rewards (61%), and vacation time (46%). And 49% of employees say higher compensation would increase loyalty and engagement with their current job.

Innovation and entrepreneurship would take India forward: Gadkari

“Innovation and entrepreneurship coupled with digital revolution can help India move forward and grow”, said Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways speaking on India Aspire: Reinventing India story through infrastructure revolution at AIMA’s 41st National Management Convention here today.

Innovation and entrepreneurship is the biggest power that can help India grow, he said while adding social entrepreneurship would have greater social impact and help in alleviating poverty in India.

“We need development with maximum job creation and right vision, technology and strong political will can help in achieving the desired growth”, the Minister said. He also advised management professionals to take inspiration and ideas from people and their problems in order to propel the economy.

“txtBrowser” introduces its latest “Chat room” feature

Vavia Technologies introduced “Chat room” on “txtBrowser” amongst its huge list of existing features. The feature is available on telecom service providers like Airtel and Idea in association with Spice Digital. This app functions PAN India and enables compatible people to connect with each other and share their thoughts and interests. This platform also rekindles the yesteryears chat room experience that does not exist anymore. Another important innovation from txtBrowser is the “Auto fare app” that helps users in calculating auto fares across India.  

IMImobile to streamline BBC's multi-channel audience engagement

IMImobile announced that they have been awarded the contract under the BBC’s framework agreement for the provisioning of Mobile and Social Messaging services to help the BBC streamline the audience engagement process across mobile and social channels. The partnership commenced in July 2014, after an official supplier selection process. 

The BBC will be using IMImobile’s DaVinci Social platform across radio, TV and live events, enabling production teams to seamlessly manage inbound and outbound audience interactions across SMS, MMS, email, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. DaVinci Social is a single tool specifically developed to enable broadcasters to manage and respond to audience interaction across multiple channels, monitor citizen journalism and integrate contextual audience feedback into live programming. In addition, the platform will be used to manage interactive services such as social and mobile voting.

Robosoft strengthens enterprise mobility team

Robosoft Technologies is going through a business transformation. The company, which was in the news recently for securing over $3.7 million funding from Kalaari Capital, is now strengthening its Enterprise Mobility team, which works with several leading companies in the banking, enterprise and finance sectors.

 

Robosoft added veteran enterprise professionals to its Mumbai office and will create effective enterprise-friendly mobile applications, improve cloud-based services, and enhance security mechanisms. 

 

Rakesh B Tiwari will head the Business Development - Enterprise Mobility team as VP, from Mumbai. He is a seasoned business development professional with over two decades of experience working for BFSI, Telecom, Retail, and Healthcare verticals. He specializes in driving large teams and managing sales of enterprise products, solutions, and services.

Cisco unveils smart city model for Digital India

Cisco announced the ‘Cisco Smart City’ as a blueprint for the future of smart and connected communities in India. The Cisco Smart City, unveiled along with the announcement of the next phase of the company’s India site, symbolizes what the digitization of a country means for the future of work, education, healthcare and the electronic delivery of citizen services. Mr. R Chandrashekhar, President, The National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM); Shri. Srivatsa Krishna, Secretary to the Government Dept. of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka; Cisco's Executive Vice President for Industry Solutions and Chief Globalisation Officer, Wim Elfrink and President, Cisco India & SAARC, Dinesh Malkani inaugurated the Cisco Smart City.

As part of the inauguration, Cisco demonstrated the possibilities of the government’s Digital India program where infrastructure would be offered as a utility to every citizen, governance and services would be on demand and citizens would be digitally empowered. Using the Internet of Everything, Cisco showcased how connected education, connected healthcare, smart buildings, connected transport and smart parking can transform the way cities and communities are designed, built and renewed to ensure economic, social and environmental sustainability.

India should aspire for inclusive growth: P Chiadambaram

P Chidambaram, Former Finance Minister, said that “given current stage of development in India, we should not aim for double digit growth but should aspire for inclusive growth that uses resources efficiently”.

Speaking on Remaking Indian Economy: A fresh Approach for a Changed World at the AIMA’s 41st National Management Convention, Mr. Chidambaram said that the world today is far more complex and it is realistic to aim for 8 % growth for next 7-8 years. He further advised financing the growth from own resources.

80 % companies see lack of new data centre skills by 2016

In a statement Gartner said that capacity planning and performance management skills within IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) teams are no longer sufficient to meet business needs in the digital economy era.

By 2016, the availability of capacity and performance management skills for horizontally scaled architectures will be a major constraint or risk to growth for 80 percent of major businesses.

"While major organizations continue to maintain and sustain their conventional capacity-planning skills and tools, they need to regularly re-evaluate the tools available and develop the capacity and performance management skills present in the Web-scale IT community," said Ian Head, research director at Gartner. "Web-scale IT organizations do things differently — they learn from one another. Conventional IT organizations can use some of the Web-scale techniques heading for mainstream adoption in the next three years."

Brocade Vyatta Controller brags Path to User-Centric Networking

Brocade introduced the Brocade Vyatta Controller as a keystone product in its Software-Defined Networking (SDN) portfolio and the next step toward delivering on the customer benefits of its open networking platform strategy. Commercially supported by Brocade, this SDN controller is built continuously from the OpenDaylight Project, a community-led open source initiative aimed at accelerating the adoption of SDN and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) in order to provide levels of agility and efficiency not possible in traditional IP networking.

The increasing adoption of cloud, mobile and social technologies by consumers and businesses has brought user-centrism to the strategic front for both IT organizations and service providers. Along with required changes in how network services are deployed, such as NFV, this trend has also added significant management and operational complexity for network engineers and architects to solve. These challenges also include adding significant new capabilities for network control and programmability. Addressing the issues collectively, the industry is starting to describe this as the migration toward the New IP.

Red Hat to acquire FeedHenry, adds enterprise mobile platform

Red Hat announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire FeedHenry, a leading enterprise mobile application platform provider. FeedHenry expands Red Hat’s broad portfolio of application development, integration, and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions, enabling Red Hat to support mobile application development in public and private environments.

Enterprises continue to embrace mobile devices as the preferred way to engage and interact with customers, employees, and partners, and new enterprise application software development is increasingly focused on supporting mobile apps and devices. Industry analyst firm IDC expects 1.2 billion smart phones to ship in 2014, representing 19.3 percent growth over 2013. With this significant shift, mobile application platforms have become a critical requirement for efficient development and deployment of backend services for enterprise mobile applications. Cloud-based mobile application platforms such as FeedHenry enable enterprises to support enterprise mobile applications at scale - with centralized security, notification and integration services. IDC predicts the mobile application platform market will grow 38.7 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from $1.4 billion in 2013 to $4.8 billion by 2017.

Quikr appoints Vineet Sehgal as Chief Marketing Officer

Quikr appointed Vineet Sehgal as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. Vineet will be responsible for marketing strategy and plans across all areas including brand building, performance marketing, partnership and alliances at Quikr.

Vineet brings to the company more than 18 years of experience in marketing and business strategy across diverse industries such as telecommunication, FMCG, banking and management consulting. He has helped scale several operations from start up to maturity in some of the world’s leading organisations such as Nokia, Nestle, Accenture, Cadburys and HSBC.

Commenting on his appointment, Pranay Chulet, Founder & CEO of Quikr said, “We are delighted to welcome Vineet to Quikr. Quikr is made in India and for India, and Vineet has built his career scaling consumer businesses in the country so there was natural chemistry here. Vineet knows the Indian consumer and he knows the Indian consumer on mobile. His arrival was particularly well timed with our own plans, as the fun is just beginning."

Training course for prevention of sexual harassment at work in India

Skillsoft introduced its portfolio of elearning courseware focused on sexual harassment sensitization and prevention, customized for India. The new specialized elearning courseware will help organizations to sensitize employees about sexual harassment and its prevention, thus creating a more responsible and safer work environment.

The online course, suitable for employees across levels, introduces learners to sexual harassment prevention guidelines. It helps to identify and prevent sexual harassment at the workplace through scenario building and outlining of both corporate and employee personal liabilities arising from any such transgressions. The training helps employees recognize all actions and acts amounting to sexual harassment through real life situations and examples.

Infor launches CloudSuite for Business management

Infor announced Infor CloudSuite Business which it claims is an easy to use, ready-to-run ERP cloud platform. If the company is to be believed, it provides streamlined back-office management and deep visibility into business facets, from financials, reporting, and human resources to supply chain, project, sales, and customer relationship management. Built on Infor’s cloud offering, available on Amazon Web Services (AWS), this new application is said to deliver a complete, scalable, global enterprise-wide management suite for midsize companies.

“Strategic decision-making is essential for any business. Next-generation companies thrive when agility and visibility combine with global operations capabilities and that maximize all portions of the balance sheet,” said Stephan Scholl, president of Infor.

D-Link extends it focus on Network Storage business

In recent times D-Link’s focused segment-wise business approach has lead the company to astounding success. Since last couple of years, D-Link - the end-to-end networking solutions provider for consumers and businesses has strategically targeted product segments & business verticals that have brought compounded annual growth. Following suit, D-Link (India) Ltd. shall now extend its focus on Network Storage business.

As part of company strategy to extend its Network Storage Business line, D-Link at its recently concluded channel/ System Integrator meet in Mumbai presented its business & distribution model for network storage. Additionally D-Link also introduced a range of Network Storage devices for businesses and Enterprises, that are engineered for performance, flexibility, improved productivity, mitigate risk, simplify management and lower overall cost of ownership.

Retail banks to increase ICT investments: survey

The recent survey highlights that retail banks have been increasing their ICT budgets significantly and are enthusiastic about making substantial investments in newer ICT solutions. The survey of 136 retail banks also finds that 39% plan to increase their overall ICT budgets in 2014, which is an increase of 20% compared to 2013. Only 28% are planning to decrease their overall ICT budget in 2014, compared to 46% in 2013. The survey also highlights that retail banks are focusing on increasing investments in their core ICT systems in 2014, and are keen to allocate 66% of their total ICT budgets to hardware, software, and IT services combined. 

CIOs deliberate on definitive security bulwark

With the rise in complexity due to more and more connected devices and definitive influence of Cloud Computing, Big Data, Mobility and Social Media on the business outcome of the organizations, the role of the CIOs are becoming very different. They have become more business outcome influencers than only decision makers of technology implementations. So there was a requirement of concerted effort to bring together the CIOs under one roof to exchange learning and best practices with their peer group apart from discoursing about the threat landscape and evaluation of futuristic technology.

Keeping this in perspective, Cyberoam, a leading global provider of network security solutions, organized an Elite Circle CIOs’ forum known as “Inner Circle” to deliberate on security challenges and mitigation, industry best practices and more at the plush Ambay Valley in Lonavala, Maharashtra.

Industry's First Global Security as a Service Solution With FireEye as a Service launched

FireEye announced two new solutions designed to equip organizations to scale their defense strategies. The new FireEye as a Service offering is an on-demand security management offering that allows organizations to apply FireEye’s technology, intelligence and expertise to find and stop cyber attacks. The second new offering announced today, FireEye® Advanced Threat Intelligence™, provides access to threat data and analytical tools that help identify attacks and provide context about the tactics and motives of specific threat actors. Together, these new offerings enable organizations to implement an Adaptive Defense™ security model, so that organizations can rapidly detect and respond to security incidents as they occur.

“The ongoing acceleration of technology innovation continues to outpace today’s security capabilities, leading more and more organizations to align with a strategic defense partner that can protect them over the long haul,” said David DeWalt, chairman of the board and CEO, FireEye. “To meet this need, FireEye is taking a new approach with the introduction of FireEye as a Service and FireEye Advanced Threat Intelligence. FireEye is now able to serve as an extension of our customers’ security teams so they can more quickly implement an Adaptive Defense security model. By blending FireEye’s technology, intelligence and expertise into a single on-demand offering, FireEye as a Service simplifies and consolidates the disparate patchwork of products and services organizations must piece together to defend themselves.”

Dassault Systèmes Introduces Solidworks 2015

Dassault Systèmes announced SOLIDWORKS 2015, the latest release of the company’s successful portfolio of 3D design software applications. With SOLIDWORKS 2015, users gain access to cloud-based capabilities and a wider range of choices for improving productivity, work processes, operating costs.

SOLIDWORKS 2015 covers all comprehensive aspects of the product development process with an intuitive, integrated 3D development environment that includes 3D design, simulation, electrical design, product data management and technical communication.  In addition, starting with the new Collaborative Sharing feature, SOLIDWORKS 2015 enables access to Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform and its cloud-based capabilities. Designers and engineers can span multiple disciplines with ease, shortening the design cycle, increasing productivity and collaborating to deliver innovative products to market faster. 

Pearson invests in affordable learning tech startup

Pearson announced a seed investment of 1.6 Crore INR in Experifun, a Bangalore-based company that allows teachers and students to conduct innovative science experiments and activities via affordable science kits in the classroom.

The investment was made through the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund (PALF), a fund established in 2012 to support early-stage education enterprises and entrepreneurs creating innovative affordable learning solutions.

The investment builds upon PALF’s commitment to Experifun as one of the two winners of the PALF’s 2013 Edupreneurs programme. Edupreneurs is business incubator programme that invests in entrepreneurs focused on innovative products and services, which improve outcomes and access to education for learners from economically weaker sections.

Deepak Mehrotra, Managing Director, Pearson India said, “Pearson is committed to make education affordable, inclusive and accessible to all. We are glad to invest in an innovative learning set-up like Experifun, which has taken up the responsible task of making science learning fun, easy, and outcome driven.”

Gartner: CIOs must influence IT Decisions in Business Budgets

IT is more and more a key component of all business initiatives and is becoming an important part of those budgets, according to Gartner. CIOs must work with business executives and the CFO to ensure that the critical contribution of IT is incorporated early in the strategic planning and budget planning processes.

"In the past, the use of IT to support the business came almost as an afterthought, long after the business strategy and strategic initiatives for the coming period had been designed and sanctioned by top management," said Cassio Dreyfuss, research vice president at Gartner. "Over time, IT has graduated from being a support tool to being a business enabling and a business creation tool. Under that much broader and inclusive perspective, it makes more sense to talk about IT-related expenditures in each and every business initiative and respective budget. In this way, the CIO is challenged to adopt a higher profile and actively engage in opportunities to influence IT decisions in business budgets."

Indian Consumers predict Digital Revolution in 2025

McAfee released the findings of its Safeguarding the Future of Digital India  in 2025 which examines India’s thoughts and attitudes towards lifestyle and technology trends a decade from now. The study provides insight into how Indians believe technology will impact their homes, workplace, cars, wearables, mobile devices and the intersection of these technologies with online security and privacy.

One of the key revelations of the study was how truly high-tech Indians believe their environment will be in 2025. 92% envision artificial intelligence and robotics helping them in their jobs. 87% believe the refrigerator will automatically add to the grocery list when items are running low and 90% are keen on a wearable device that let you scan the barcode of a particular product (grocery or otherwise) and automatically add it to the shopping cart. 77% Indians also believe that by 2025, they would have been to a house that speaks/ reads to them and 93% are convinced their home security systems will be connected to their mobile device.

ICICI introduces four new mobile banking apps

ICICI Bank have come up with a bevy of applications for its customers to boost mobile banking as the bank tries to offer customers an enhanced banking experience. This includes a facility for NRI customers who can now connect with bank executives over the video conference facility.

The ICICI Store app will enable customers to easily view all Mobile apps introduced by ICICI group in one place. Using the other apps launched today, the customers can initiate a transaction before visiting a branch, connect with a service executive over video call and view their transactions over the last 30 days on their mobile phones. The new apps are available for download on Google Play store and shall shortly be available on the Apple app store.

Jivi launches India’s lowest priced Android smartphone at Rs 1999

Jivi, one of the players in feature phones, claims to break the price barrier and has announced the launch and availability of Jivi JSP 20, India’s lowest-priced Android smartphone, slimmest in 3.5” segment as well, at Rs 1999 only. It is probably the lowest priced Android smartphone in the world as well.  

According to Pankaj Anand, CEO, Jivi Mobiles, “Prime Minister’s Digital India program envisages citizens accessing e-services on highly affordable mobile devices. We are supporting his vision of a smartphone in every Indian’s hand by 2019 by shattering the price barrier. However, a sub US$ 33 Android smartphone does not mean any compromise on functionality whatsoever. This launch is bound to trigger the largest conversion of feature-phone users to smartphone users in the country. This is just a beginning. We intend to introduce lowest-priced 3G, dual-core, quad-core and octa-core phones as well in the days to come. In accordance with Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Made in India’, we are considering setting up a manufacturing facility as well in future. The economics are being worked out. The intention is to reduce the electronics import bill of the country in whatever little way we possibly can.”

Cisco claims Industry's First Threat-Focused Firewall

Cisco has introduced what it claims to be the industry’s first threat-focused next-generation Firewall (NGFW). If the company is to believed, Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services provides the full contextual awareness and dynamic controls needed to automatically assess threats, correlate intelligence, and optimize defenses to protect all networks.

The company further states in a release that Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services is an adaptive, threat-focused NGFW that delivers superior, multi-layered protection, extending its capabilities far beyond legacy NGFW solutions. Until now, NGFWs have focused on policy and application control and have been unable to address advanced and zero-day attacks.

Happiest Minds & XchangeLabs develop SiteMed

Happiest Minds Technologies announced its partnership with XchangeLabs, a company in pharmacy automation solutions. Together, Happiest Minds and XchangeLabs have developed SiteMed®, an automated, one-of-its kind remote dispensing system for the Long Term Care Pharmacies. Pharmacies are getting increasingly busy as a result of shortage of pharmacists as well as a significant rise in prescription volume, attributed to baby boomers leading to higher risk of errors. SiteMed®, can help avoid slip ups in dispensation of drugs to the elderly, eliminating risk to their health & safety. Further the automated solution can also help in decreasing wastage of medicines as it accurately controls dispensation of drugs as per prescriptions.

The solution empowers the medical staff at long term care facilities to dispense requisite doses in the packets that contain patient details with just a simple click. While the system is extremely helpful in dispensing the routine medication, it also helps the medical staff at the facility to issue ‘special’ orders such PRN or ‘as needed’ prescriptions, Emergency Kits [E-kit] and ‘Leave of Absence’ prescriptions effortlessly and accurately.

Dell showers offers for the festive season

Dell India announced its “Celebrate Dell Se” festive offers for consumers. This festive season, Dell plans to add excitement to consumers’ shopping experience by offering compelling gifts on its Inspiron notebooks, Inspiron Desktops, XPS laptops, Alienware as well as Dell Venue tablets. These offers are valid on purchases made between September 20th and October 26th, 2014.

Ritu Gupta, Director, Marketing, Dell India said, “This is an initiative to add value and further empower our customers while celebrating the spirit and sentiment of festivity that so enraptures Indians, nationwide. Through the gift of technology, we want our consumers to stay connected with their loved ones during the festivals, regardless of whether they are close or far.”

3i Infotech launches ORION 11j ERP

3i Infotech launches its latest ORION 11j- Enterprise Resource Planning Solution. Orion 11j is said to be an integrated, cross-industry solution that is functionally rich, integrated, advanced solution with tools that maximize ROI and minimize turnaround time.

According to the company, ORION 11j empowers a seamless interaction between modules, enables sharper decision-making and facilitates greater control over business processes. Orion 11j ERP Framework offers a latest technology solution that allows capitalizing on latest trends in technology with its comprehensive features. The Cloud Ready Architecture provides the applications with all the architectural benefits. The product Orion 11j is fabricated with a true Cloud Based architecture adhering to web 2.0 standards.

IntelliGrape and MongoDB to offer Big Data solutions

IntelliGrape partnered with MongoDB, one of the leading NoSQL datastores. The partnership is expected to help both the companies collaborate on their synergies and bring in cutting-edge Big Data to enterprises across Asia.

Global spending on Big Data hardware, software, and services will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% through 2018, reaching a total market size of $114 billion as per a recent report from A.T. Kearney. Big Data Analysis is helping companies gain deeper insights into customer behaviour and industry trends, thus letting them make informed strategic decisions to improve their operational and marketing ROI.

Case: Prestige Group Marches into Future with Adobe

Prestige is a long-time Adobe customer, using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator as key business software in various stages of project execution. In the initial stage of idea creation and project conceptualization, the design team makes a presentation of project concept. "It's a collage of various photos and ideas to depict the overall project," says Aditya Muley, business development and design manager at Morph Design Co., part of the Prestige Group. "In this stage, we use Photoshop extensively to edit multiple photos from the inventory and also from the Internet." The team also uses Illustrator if there is a need to create ideas from scratch. "Illustrator is useful when there is a requirement to create wall paper and other designs of interior items," says Muley.

Once the concept is approved, the property floor plan and the layout is developed using AutoCAD or 3ds Max software. In this stage of concept development, the Prestige design team once again uses Photoshop extensively. "We use Photoshop to import or edit photos, provide multiple textures to the layout, add special effects, and finally to design different views, such as a top view or side view," says Muley.

 

MapR added Apache Drill to SQL-on-Hadoop

MapR Technologies announced the addition of Apache Drill 0.5 to the MapR Distribution including Hadoop. Bringing next-generation ANSI SQL to Hadoop, Apache Drill provides instant, self-service data exploration across multiple data sources including modern applications.

“Organizations want to provide access to data stored in Hadoop and NoSQL databases to a broader set of users with existing SQL analysis skills,” said Matt Aslett, research director, data platforms and , 451 Research. "Apache Drill's ability to provide access to data in Hadoop without the need for centralized schemas and also to NoSQL datasets with complex data structures including nested and repeated fields differentiates it from traditional approaches to SQL-on-Hadoop."

NIIT and EC-Council to train Ethical Hackers

NIIT and EC-Council (International Council of E-Commerce Consultants) entered into a strategic partnership to jointly address the cyber security concerns of a fast digitalising India. To this end, NIIT and EC-Council aim to introduce first-of-its-kind training program in ethical hacking to create a manpower pool of trained InfoSec professionals in the country.

According to the recent McKinsey Digital Consumer survey, India’s internet users are expected to go up to 370M in 2015. Seeking a deeper engagement in the 'Digital India' initiative, the Union Government of India has also approved the ambitious 'Digital India' programme, which aims to connect all gram panchayats through broadband Internet, promote e-governance and transform India into a connected knowledge economy. As consumption of IT grows in the space of e-governance and related areas, there is bound to be a corresponding increase in challenges to secure confidential data from hacks. Taking into account the requirement emerging for protection of information technology infrastructure in the country as well as to serve the export market, a demand for 4.7 lakh cyber security professionals has been estimated by the year 2015 by the Ministry of Communications and IT in the year 2012. This strategic partnership between NIIT and EC-Council aims to address this need.