Intel has been digitising India for two decades, and has much to contribute to the country’s Digital Programme. Sandeep Aurora, director of Marketing and Market Development at Intel South Asia, talks to Hita Gupta about the California-based chip maker’s plans for India and its big marketing strategies for digital and social mediaHow do you plan to position Intel’s products in the Indian market? Intel Inside has over the years built a brand value for computing devices that assure high performance, trust and quality. Our vision is simple and direct. If it computes, it does its best with Intel. Our processors are inside a wide range of devices: servers, PCs, tablets, phones, wearables, even in the Internet of Things. Intel provides a complete solution, with both hardware and software solutions for our users. Our goal is to continue growing in each segment and ensure that Intel technology remains the best choice and experience for each segment.Tell us about your key marketing channels across all media?In today’s connected world, consumers are beginning to consume content from a variety of media with digital and social becoming the go-to channel. In keeping with this evolution, Intel has also been focussing on digital and social. Our peer-to-peer and influencer campaigns have been the key to creating a community of Intel users. We will continue to strengthen this channel. Besides this, we continue to engage with consumers across other media including print, television and out-of-home. One of our strengths has been delivering unparalleled experiences to consumers at retail and trying to replicate those on our online properties as well.What kind of opportunities do you see emerging from the government’s Digital India Programme and how are you, as a technology company, contributing to it?Intel has been digitising India for almost two decades and reinforced its commitment to the government’s Digital India vision. Intel has always been committed to digitally transforming India into an empowered society and knowledge economy with a focus on education, skill development and innovation. It has been working with the Indian ecosystem to enable easy access to information for citizens through multiple government services that help Indians harness the benefits of a Digital India. Intel’s commitment to Digital India can be broadly categorised in three key areas: building skills for Digital India, innovating for and in Digital India, and building solution and ecosystem leadership to deliver E2E solutions.What are your key projects for 2015 and how would you define the way forward?We have had an action packed start to 2015 with the government putting its digitisation agenda in high gear. As the year progresses, we are only making big strides in helping transform India into a connected nation envisaged by the government. With a focus on creating highly relevant products and solutions to increase technology adoption in the country, Intel India announced the Innovate for Digital India Challenge.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 05-10-2015)
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Hewlett-Packard Co, which is splitting into two listed companies later this year, said on Tuesday it expects to cut another 25,000 to 30,000 jobs in its enterprise business as the tech pioneer adjusts to falling demand. The latest cuts, on top of layoffs of 55,000 workers previously announced under Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman, notably will be in the company's faster-growing corporate hardware and services operations, to be spun off as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, or HPE, on Nov. 1. The latest job cuts indicate a reduction of the company's total workforce by at least 10 percent, based on the company's most recent number of more than 300,000 employees as of Oct. 31, 2014, and reflecting the previously announced reduction of 55,000. The company indicated the cuts will be global, but provided no specifics. Under the split into two companies, the other company, HP Inc, will comprise the computer and printer businesses, which have been hit hard by a relentless decline in sales of personal computers. "We've done a significant amount of work over the past few years to take costs out and simplify processes and these final actions will eliminate the need for any future corporate restructuring," Whitman said in a statement. The job cuts, aimed at saving $2.7 billion a year, will result in a charge of about $2.7 billion, beginning in the fourth quarter, HP said. Job cuts have become a way of life at the company in recent years as it has digested a series of acquisitions that failed to revive its fortunes. "The number is sadly larger than some people might have expected, but I think it's a reflection of how much trouble HP has been having with its services," said Charles King, president and principal analyst of Pund-IT, a Silicon Valley IT consulting firm. Hewlett-Packard's chief financial officer, Cathie Lesjak, said last month that HP expected the previously announced job cuts of 55,000 under Whitman to increase by up to 5 percent by the end of October. "I'm frankly not sure if HP is finished with the layoffs," King said, saying he expects the job cuts and the shuffling of people and positions to continue well into 2016. HP said it is moving more of its workers to lower-cost locations as part of its efforts to cut costs. In its 2013 fiscal year, the company said 36 percent of the employees in the unit of HPE called enterprise services worked in what it called low-cost locations. This year 42 percent do, and executives said they plan to increase that percentage to 60 percent by 2018. In its fiscal third quarter ended July 31, HP's revenue from personal computer and printer businesses, its largest, fell 11.5 percent. Of the units to be housed in HPE, which will be run by Whitman, sales in enterprise services dropped 11 percent, while revenue at the enterprise group rose 2 percent. HPE will have revenue of more than $50 billion, and is expected to report adjusted profit of $1.85 to $1.95 per share in 2016, HP said on Tuesday. The business is expected to report free cash flow of $2.0 billion to $2.2 billion in 2016, at least half of which is expected to be returned through dividends and share buybacks. HP shares fell 1.4 percent to $26.73 in extended trading on Tuesday after the news. Maxim Group analyst Nehal Chokshi blamed the market reaction on the cash flow target, which he said looked short of the contribution needed from the enterprise unit to meet analysts' forecasts. Late Tuesday, the company also released financial projections for HP Inc, the PC and printer businesses. Saying it expects the market for those products to remain tough for the "next several quarters," it forecast 2016 earnings for HP Inc to be between $1.67 to $1.77 per share, excluding items. The business is expected to report free cash flow of $3 billion to $3.3 billion in 2016, at least half of which is expected to be returned through dividends and share buybacks. (Reuters)
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Throughout the ages, communication has been a necessary driving force in the evolution of mankind as a species. We created language when we needed to interact with each other. We further created letters, telephone and then television to interact with each other bypassing the restrictions imposed by distance. The response lag started diminishing and soon with the advent of internet and emails we completely eliminated the factor of response lag from communication.However, so far we had only conquered the aural or textual forms of conversation. Admittedly the visual medium was well represented with the invention of television but not a lot had been done to cut down the response lag from the visual mediums of communication. This would prove to be a major roadblock in the path of true connectivity and would continue to puzzle a lot of great minds until the late 80s when the computer systems became powerful enough to stream media and we had enough bandwidth to transmit media across the channels.Enter live streaming, the earliest widespread example of live streaming is from 1993 when 'Severe Tire Damage' became the first band to perform live on the internet. Nearly two years later a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners became the first game to be live streamed on the internet. Ever since then, continuous breakthroughs were made in the field and soon the entire world became completely comfortable with the concept of streaming media on their home systems.Entering the new millennium, when streaming media was busy trying to become a mainstay at our homes and offices, another technology was busy making a lot of buzz. Mobile phones, while existing since the 80s had suddenly burst into the public conscience due to slashed prices and advent of new technology. Nearly everything was going mobile. Our gadgets started growing smaller in size and becoming more portable starting with laptops, moving on mobiles and most recently tablets. Every technology that had been created up until that point had to be altered to these platforms. Live streaming suddenly took a back seat for some time while the world rushed to capture everything mobile.It was around 2002 that live streaming started picking up in earnest again. Flash player had just become mainstream making it easier for people by having a common architecture for streaming content. Soon companies like Livestream and Ustream sprung up within a few years offering dedicated live streaming solutions on PC and laptops. Mobile live streaming on the other hand, was a market still left untouched mostly due to hardware restrictions.Mobile live streaming was a market which picked up in the current decade thanks to players like Meerkat, Periscope, YouNow, and InstaLively. A lot of other players like Livenow, Twitch and others are entering the market from different verticals as well. Mobile live streaming is based on a simple concept. You see something shareable, instead of clicking picture or taking videos, which would be asynchronous method of transfer, you just livestream it to your audience. All the above mentioned apps are doing a great job of it.With just a click of a button now, you can go live anywhere in the world. Just as simply, you can find anything you want to watch on these apps or online. The performances at the iTunes festival are streamed live from London every year for everyone to watch. Features like Live Chat make livestreams even more interesting because not only can the world watch these events together but talk about it over chat which brings a sense of community.Meerkat made a big impact at the SXSW Music Festival in Texas, as people from around the world had the ability to watch what was happening through the lens of onsite attendees. This is what makes streaming events unique, rather than posting your feelings and experience as you would do on Twitter or Facebook, you can provide a window into what you are truly experiencing in real time. InstaLively is the first app to allow inline sharing of streams on Twitter and Facebook which means you gather a wider audience for your stream. Those who miss out can watch is later, most live streaming apps like Periscope and InstaLively have such a feature.The author, Prakhar Khanduja, is Co Founder, InstaLively
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Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation, on Tuesday (15 Septemeber) announced that it has been recognised as the leading global financial technology provider in the 2015 IDC Financial Insights FinTech Rankings Top 100.TCS moved into the top position after being ranked second since 2012, and maintaining a top-ten ranking for the past eight years.K Krithivasan, President, Banking and Financial Services, TCS, said, “This is a result of our sustained investment and innovation focused on our customers’ business goals. We would like to thank our customers, who have continued to place their trust in TCS for all these years.”TCS’ banking, financial services and insurance services (BFSI) business represented 40 percent of the company’s overall FY15 revenue. The BFSI space continues to be an area of extensive growth for TCS as companies look to develop new operating models with a focus on rebuilding profitability, optimizing costs and improving efficiency. Emerging technology trends such as digital, channel, integration, big data, analytics, and social media continue to play a large part in the success of these new operating models.Jerry Silva, Research Director for global retail banking research at IDC. “Their continued presence in the top 10 on our rankings demonstrates their success and positive impact on financial services technologies globally.”TCS’ flagship product, TCS BaNCS, is a globally acclaimed software brand that enables transformation in financial services through a superior and holistic suite of solutions for banks, capital market firms, insurance companies, and other diversified financial institutions. Each solution in the TCS BaNCS family has been designed to fully integrate with existing business models, enterprise infrastructures and technology architectures. Adopted as a platform of choice by financial institutions around the world of all sizes, TCS BaNCS addresses critical industry needs and enables business transformation by providing customers with scalable, customizable, market-ready solutions.Now in its 12th year, the IDC Financial Insights FinTech Rankings is the industry standard to categorize and evaluate the top global providers of financial technology based on calendar year revenues from financial institutions for hardware, software and/or services. (BW Online Bureau)
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Tech startup Zippr announced that it has partnered with CommonFloor.com to allow quick and seamless listing of properties. With this partnership, a user having Zippr code can list a property on CommonFloor via the Zippr app in less than a minute.All user has to do is select the Zippr code and provide basic information of the property he/she would like to list.Sumit Jain, Co-Founder & CEO, CommonFloor said, “The integration of Zippr with CommonFloor will provide customers a much faster and easier means to list properties. Our aim is to map every property in the country on our portal and such partnerships help us to offer customers to view wide variety of properties on our platform, and take an informed decision before buying or renting.”Zippr code is equivalent to house number and anyone with this code will see an option to quick-list their properties for rent or sale on the Zippr mobile app. With Zippr code, users will be able to list their properties on CommonFloor platform in lesser time, as all the details related to their property will already be available with Zippr. The move will accelerate CommonFloor listing process which already has 5 lakh active property listings from over 200 cities and has over 1 lakh residential projects listed with it.Aditya Vuchi, Founder & CEO, Zippr said “This service will augment many other services that we now offer within our mobile app. This is in addition to the rapid efforts to integrate with different municipalities and smart cities across India to replace the archaic house number with a smarter, shorter Zippr code.”(BW Online Bureau)
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The demand to stay connected while driving is steadily growing and car manufacturers are keen to provide better, more exciting connected services to differentiate their brands and stay ahead of the competition. This is a global phenomenon and India is no exception, especially with Gen-Y car buyers who are used to a digitally connected lifestyle. In fact, some studies indicate that 90% of cars will be connected to the internet by 2020.This connectivity could be in terms of enabling features like cloud connected services, downloadable apps, integration with personal devices of consumers, vehicle data analytics, driving pattern analytics, Internet enabled entertainment, vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, etc. However, increased connectivity has a downside as well. The downside is mainly to do with increasing system and SW complexity. In terms of SW complexity alone, the code base is expected to increase many folds from a few hundreds of thousands of lines of code in the not so distant past to a few tens of millions of lines in the near future.Connected Cars are becoming exponentially complexThis increased codebase leads to an increase in the Trusted Computing Base (TCB) resulting in higher security vulnerability and multiple security threats. The figures below shows a sample set of potential security threats and attack vectors that may be used to mount a cyber attack on a connected car.Here are some of the broad goals of cyber attackers and how they can be prevented.System Availability - Denial of Service attackDenial of Service attacks can be mounted by blocking the system's resources (CPU, Memory, I/O) and directly or indirectly disabling certain functionality through remote software modification or through heavy unauthorized network traffic on system network interfaces (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, etc). To protect against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, all network communications with external entities need to be secure in terms of mutual authentication and authorization of communicating parties, encryption of communication messages, verification of compliance to network protocols and white listed firewalls to ensure that only authenticated and authorized communications take place with the system. System Integrity - Malfunctioning related attackIn these types of attacks, the attackers try to make the system behave in a way which is different from the way the system is expected to behave. This can happen if unauthorized entities get control over the system and are able to modify the software and / or data in the system or inject software (malware) into the system.Protection mechanisms similar to the ones against DoS attacks can be effective here as well. Basically, it needs to be ensured that only legitimate software can be installed and executed in the system using authentication and a mechanism called "Chain of Trust" where all stages of the software is authenticated before execution starting from the Bootloader.The systems should also have mechanisms to detect an attack of this nature and if possible, partially, shut down affected parts safely rather than allowing the malfunction to continue which can have a much bigger and more adverse impact. Creating different system partitions, where a particular partition can be shut down when affected while others continue to run, can be an effective way to achieve this. Theft of assets / sensitive dataAssets / sensitive data could include patented SW code running in the system, personal data of the user including PINs and passwords, program output reflecting functioning of a unique feature, log data capturing system behavior and performance, system configuration data, communication messages / data exchanged between the system and external entities, etc.To protect against this type of theft, the system should provide secure storage, secure deletion, strict access control mechanisms for memory, files, database, peripherals, communication stacks, etc through HW /SW mechanisms.Unauthorized usage of the systemIn this type of an attack, the attacker can gain unauthorized access into the system, remove certain restrictions to get access to new features or functionalities or could masquerade as a valid user and use paid Connected Services free of cost. To mount this sort of an attack would require knowledge of an "insider specialist".Therefore, to protect against these types of attacks, the system should not only support the protections mechanisms described above, but also, HW based tamper proofed secure storage and encryption for PINs, passwords, authentication data, certificates, configuration data, etc to prevent an unauthorized entity to access the system.In summary, ensuring effective protection requires a multi-layer security framework architecture that can make the work of violating the system increasingly difficult at every stage for the hacker thereby making these attacks technically difficult and economically unviable.The author, Debashis Mukherjee, is director - corporate technology group, Harman
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M-commerce platform Paytm on Tuesday (15 September) announced that it has introduced cashless payments in educational institutions. Users can now pay school fees & dues, cafeteria bills as well as buy uniforms, books and merchandise through the Paytm Wallet. Paytm has tied up with several premium educational institutions in the country from pre-schools to colleges, including prestigious names such as IIT Mandi, Universal Education Trust, KN Modi University, Vidyamandir Classes, Made Easy, Career Launcher, Jamboree, Primus Public School, Bangalore, Swaminarayan Gurukul Vidyalaya and a few DPS to name some.Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder & CEO, Paytm said, “Since this segment involves children, the advent of cashless purchases and payments obviates chances of theft and misplacement that often come with carrying cash. In line with our vision of a cashless economy & to serve the users well, we have enabled cashless payments in some of the most prominent educational institutions. Our aim is to grow this platform multifold in the next 6months. Going forward, we will also aggregate and offer various online courses on Paytm.”Paytm is in advanced stage discussions with all leading IIT’s, IIM’s, central and state universities and will be completing the formal tie-ups soon. Institutes from metros as well as smaller towns are welcoming the idea.According to the Paytm, there is immense potential in the education space. As per a Fitch report, the Indian education sector’s market size is estimated at $109.84 billion in FY15 which makes India the world’s third largest market for education by size.(BW Online Bureau)
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Mobile advertising platform InMobi, on Monday (14 September) announced that it will further strengthen its partnership with by developing and customizing Dell hardware and software specific to the requirements of InMobi.This engineering partnership for a technology collaboration between InMobi and Dell will help expand the global alliance to improve enterprise efficiency. As part of the partnership, Dell will offer InMobi select Dell products for beta testing and customization.Alok Ohrie, President and Managing Director, Dell India said, “This relationship will provide InMobi with access to tailor-made solutions to help them engage global customers and drive better decision making. We look forward to a long-term relationship that will leverage the strengths and learnings of both organizations to provide improved enterprise efficiency and enhanced business value.”Through this agreement, InMobi will gain exclusive rights to select Dell products made available for beta testing and customization through the InMobi—Dell datacentre scalable solutions. Dell will leverage the partnership to draw insights into the customer needs of server, networking and storage for high computing needs and big data requirements. These insights are expected to become key inputs to design the Dell product roadmap and help build deeper level technology solutions for next-generation devices.The partnership will be an ongoing engagement to run InMobi’s enterprise IT with Dell’s server, storage, and networking solutions. There will be scope to further broaden this engagement in areas such as analytics, cloud infrastructure, security etc., where the entire Dell portfolio can be applicable to InMobi.(BW Online Bureau)
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Mobile technology brand Nimbuzz, a New Call Telecom Group Company, on Monday (14 September) has launched all new version of announced that it has adopted refreshed branding and a new look to better reflect its consumers’ needs and its own ambitions for growth.Vikas Saxena, CEO, Nimbuzz India said, “Our refreshed branding goes much deeper than just a makeover. It combines our consumer centric mindset with our commitment to technical excellence and innovation. Nimbuzz, a pioneer of mobile communication, evolves once more.”The list of Chats, Contacts & chatrooms now sport a trendy circular avatar with cleanly laid out items, which are really pleasant to look at & interact with. The new navigation tab buttons are fast, sleek and intuitive with a swipe action to move between tabs.In new Nimbuzz, each screen now has a cool blue floating button which makes the most commonly used functions available on a single tapNigel Eastwood, Group CEO, New Call Telecom, said, “I believe that the rebranding coupled with a refreshed business strategy will help in strengthening the relationship between Nimbuzz and its customers. This new brand reflects our enthusiasm and focus on connecting our customers' information silos and automating their processes.”(BW Online Bureau)
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Collaboration, coordination and connectivity are among the most important parameters of success in enterprise operations. The system of work and operations within business enterprises evolved as a network of connected fragments contributing to the whole process. Automated pipelining of operations throughout different segments of a process has made intensive communication a necessity at any workplace. Apart from its intrinsic requirement for success in process operations, exchange of information plays the crucial role to lubricate the frictions in corporate relationships both vertically and horizontally across echelons of an enterprise. Against the backdrop of a delicate requisite of communication and sharing information, technology emerged as the panacea to every shortcoming within enterprises that arises due to communication gaps or lack of coordination.Online collaboration, aided by Cloud Technology transformed communication within an enterprise by offering the functional platform for Collaboration, Coordination and Connectivity. Report by a UK based collaboration startup indicated that 75 per cent of businesses belief that online collaboration tools will be "important" or "somewhat important" to their business during the next 12 months. The edge over the lacunae of complexities offered by online collaboration applications have made these applications the most favorite tools used within enterprises. The reason of its efficacy is the array of features that these tools offer corresponding to contemporary needs of enterprise process dynamics. Mobility, instant sharing of documents, Emails and Sharing of Information are the best amenities provided by online collaborating applications.An insight report on Social Media around the World-2012 indicated that 7 out of 10 users use social connect, share content and stay informed. Collaborative platform materialized as such a critical utility for enterprises that without it, enterprises trend to become less productive than their counterparts loose an edge over the competitive market. As suggested on a report by McKinsey Global Institute, failing to implement social technology within enterprises makes high skilled employees and management 20 per cent to 25 per cent less productive. Hence, online collaboration can unlock the plethora of opportunities for an enterprise.Mobile working is among the most effective traits propelled by cloud based collaboration tools. As long as team members are connected to the internet, they can contribute by working remotely from anywhere. This allows the team to accomplish a task in an organized manner even if they are completed dispersed physically. Mobility within organizations has enabled coordination even beyond international boundaries and facilitated productivity. Moreover, cloud collaboration enabled members to work on a task while being away from the office on a business trip. Hence, using the technology, employees can do multi tasking increasing productivity by many folds.The telecom company O2, held a "leave your staff at home day" with an objective to have a closer look at benefits of remote working. The outcome of the study was surprising; shedding light on a number of intriguing facts and figures. Money saved by employees on commutation cost amounted to 9000 pounds. An extra 1000 hours was spent by employees on work, which was used normally on commuting and 36% of workers confessed that they were more productive than normal. Moreover, use of electricity was down by 12% and water usage reduced by 53%. Carbon emission too, was reduced by 12.2 tons. Mobile work force is on a rise globally. It is projected that by the end of 2015, there will be around 2.5 million mobile workforces amounting to 37.2 per cent of total workers worldwide.More than 50 per cent of organizations see knowledge sharing as the top purpose of using social collaboration tools. Employees spend hours searching for information both within the database of an enterprise as well as from open internet sources. Enterprise social collaboration contributes significantly to saving time of employees, which is otherwise utilized in searching for information. Facilitating unrestricted and real time communication, information can be shared among employees or any member of the team can seek for specific data in the network. On an average, an employee spends 9 hours searching information. This can be eradicated through intuitive use of enterprise social collaboration networks and the time can be utilized in a more productive manner.A report by Accenture indicated that 59 per cent of middle managers miss valuable information due to communication gaps or simply because they are not able to find it. Online collaboration helps to eradicate the chasm in communication throughout the hierarchy and actualize massive productivity by turning any process agile. Quick chat and Emails facilitated by these platforms provides the most effective avenue to inform and update.Online collaboration tools can offer a structured platform to employees to express their viewpoints and ideas. Collaborative work can attain magical solutions to the most pertinent issues within an organization. The power of group thinking can be utilized through these platforms, which can be the driving engine to create leaderships. New talents can be discovered via enterprise social networks who can be future leaders of the company. The fact that teamwork and unity can create wonders even in corporate verticals can be best realized through online collaborations.The author, Saif Ahmad, is founding CEO of Hallwaze Inc
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