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Arvind Sodhani
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Nikesh Arora
Padmasree Warrior
Om Malik
Prabhakar Raghavan
Prith Banerjee
Sanjay K Jha
Satya Nadella
Shantanu Narayen
Sundar Pichai
Thomas Kurian
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Contents
February 15, 2012
Cover Story The 20 who are
Making a Difference Dataquest zeroes in on a list of 20 Indian technology greats who are influencing the technology business globally; who are in position to influence how technology and technology business will shape up in the next few years
The Turnaround Man Abhijit Talwalkar
In Search of Excellence Amit Singhal
The Achiever Aneesh Chopra
Investing in th e Future Arvind Sodhani
The Sole Jnana Yogi Dilip Wagle
On the Hot Seat
14
Nikesh Arora
Full-time Influencer Om Malik
The Social Influencer Padmasree Warrior
Searching for Answers Prabhakar Raghavan
Top Tech Man @ Top Tech Co Prith Banerjee
The Strategist with a Vision Sanjay Jha
First among Equals Satya Nadella
Designer’s Choice Shantanu Narayen
The King in the Making Sundar Pichai
A Strategic Rise Thomas Kurian
Past, Present, and Future Vinod Khosla
Die Indie Vishal Sikka
Megha Doota Vivek Kundra
Power CEO Vivek Ranadive
Changing Perceptions Vyomesh Joshi
| February 15, 2012
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35| Enterprise Mobility Market:
Digital business
Growing Concerns
Though data suggests that the enterprise mobility market is set to witness a revolution, CIOs have some security concerns which need to be taken care of first
36| Pre-budget 2012: Intense Expectations
The industry is hoping for the government’s support through a budget focused on a growth-oriented tax policy framework
40| Indepth/Data Privacy: Designing Privacy
In the age of data creating and sharing, where a user is under constant surveillance, we need more privacy-enabled tools and rules to root out socio-psychological harms
64| Cloud Computing:
52| Entrepreneurship: Education Needs a Face-lift
A look at the actual education scenario in India and some solutions to the real-time challenges posed by the traditional pen-and-paper approach
54| Online Automobile Shopping Car Makers, Are You E-listening?
The recent Capgemini study ‘Cars Online 11-12’ tips off car manufacturers on the increasing impact of online social media in influencing consumers’ carbuying behavior
57| E-planning to Buy a Car?
Key to the Lock
Is vendor lock-in becoming a bigger issue than the solution itself?
Innovative and interactive online social media tools have begun to woo and attract more car buyers through attractive deals and discounts
70| Assembled PCs:
60| Cashback Schemes:
En Passé
Simplifying E-shopping
Branded PCs have clearly overtaken their assembled counterparts in terms of retail sales. The only opportunity assembled PCs have is in the gaming zone
Everyday e-commerce companies are deploying newer tactics to woo and win the customers, cashback seems to be one such program
74| Biometrics:
62| Kaleidoscope:
Identify Yourself!
And the Experiments Continue...
Branded PCs have clearly overtaken their assembled counterparts in terms of retail sales. The only opportunity assembled PCs have is in the gaming zone
80| Oracle Open World:
Leisure
96| Books: Glorifying Invisible Innovation
The Engineered Approach
Authors Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam, in their new book, India Inside, identify how invisible innovation by Indians is powering global businesses today
Oracle is placing major bets on a new breed of systems called ‘engineered systems’
97| IT in Culture:
84| Spotlight:
Will the Twain Meet?
Freedom is not Free
The court decision to prosecute the social media websites has restarted the internet censorship debate
48|cio of the month
While India looks at its soft power to enhance its status in the global stage, at home, there is little patronage for art and literature from technology companies
REGULARS
Ensuring Business Continuity in 2012
Online Content....................................................6
Ketan Shah, CIO, Angel Broking
Edit....................................................................8
The CIO Needs to Assume a Bigger Role
Inbox................................................................10
Rajeev Batra, CIO, MTS India
Ganesha...........................................................12
Leveraging IT for Growth in 2012
News..........................................................86-95
Hitesh K Arora, director and head, IT at Max New York Life Insurance DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Afterthought....................................................98
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EDIT
Why this Kolaveri?
T
Ibrahim Ahmad
ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in
he global IT and communications industry is angry. They do not want SOPA and PIPA, and call it censorship. In India, internet enthusiasts are upset because Google, Facebook, YouTube and similar companies are being questioned by the government and the courts on some of the content they carry. They are calling the Indian government draconian. Without getting into the fine print, I agree with what SOPA and PIPA seek to achieve. It is a law that the US government wants to pass to stop the online piracy of movies, music, books, as well as online sale of fake and stolen watches, shoes, and phones. I don’t think there is anything wrong in that. Similarly, the Indian government does not want content which can disturb the society—pornography that can be accessed by kids, or derogatory, dirty and abusive articles and pictures of prophets, gods and religion that can be used by vested interests to ignite violence and hatred—to be on social networks. And wants to hold these networks responsible for that. So, what’s wrong with that? Where else will the buck stop then? I agree that in its current form SOPA, PIPA in the US, and what the courts are proposing in India can actually be draconian and misused eventually leading to unwanted censorship that can hurt citizens and kill the online industry. That aspect of these proposed laws must be opposed. But I am sure these will go through a lot of amendments, because lawmakers and judges also realize the consequences of blanket and impractical laws. However, what we should not forget is that at a time when internet, web search, and social networks are becoming an inseparable part of everybody’s daily life, these questions become important and relevant. And they will be raised. Therefore Google, Facebook, and all the stakeholders in the industry should gear up to find solutions to these concerns. A lot of us have not liked the views of the chairman of the Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju that there is strong need for self regulation in the Indian media. He was talking more about print and electronic, but I am sure he means internet also. Similarly, the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh has also expressed a similar view. I know that for these websites the need for more eyeballs, footfalls, and visitor traffic is becoming critical, but that does not justify “no censorship, no regulations” in the name of freedom of expression and business interest. While networks like Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, YouTube do have mechanisms for self regulation, I am sure a lot more can be done, and must be done. The challenge of monitoring and control in digital media vis-a-vis the traditional medium of print and TV is very high, but that will have to be worked out, if we want internet and its ecosystem to continue to rise and shine.
Vol XXX No 3
February 15, 2012
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| February 15, 2012
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DATAQUEST
Vol XXX No 2 I �������� ���� 2��2
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The Business of Infotech
Filling the Gaps
FILLING THE GAPS
JANUARY 31, 2012
Leisure / 91
JANUAry 31, 2012
Special Subscription offer on page 72
100 pages including cover
Predictions and Plans
This is with reference to your article ‘Predictions and Plans’ (Dataquest, December 31, 2011). Explosion in mobile malware is a very sensitive topic to discuss. It seems, with a rapid growth in the sales of smartphones, we are becoming more vulnerable. All sensitive data stored in our smartphones can be accessed by cyber criminals. With the arrival of BYOD concept, the level of threat from cyber criminals has increased. The article also discusses the numerous blind spots in the concept of encryption, which is being used by giant institutions such as Google, Facebook, etc, for their websites. This article is an eye-opener! Ranjeeta, Goa
Who Takes the Cake?
This is with reference to your article ‘Who Takes the Cake?’ (Dataquest, December 31, 2011). I agree that regional distributors can cater appropriately to the increasing needs of a region and customize their policies and programs as per the changing dynamics of the states. It’s a well-written article that gives a clear picture of the Indian IT send your feedback FOR US to serve you better... For subscription related issues, contact us at
rsedqindia@cybermedia.co.in You can also write to Reader Service Executive, DATAQUEST, Cyber House, B-35 Sector 32, Gurgaon-122 001, Haryana Fax: 91-124-26380694
10 | February 15, 2012
distribution scenario. Thanks for providing these facts and figures. Pradeep Banerjee, Hyderabad
In Step with the Times
This is with reference to the article ‘In Step with the Times’ (Dataquest, October 31, 2011). As rightly mentioned in the article, RBI needs to enhance its guidelines relating to the governance of IT to ensure security of data and information. Simultaneously, it’s a pleasure to read that the RBI, as a regulator, is serious about maintaining robust cyber security levels in banks and financial institutions. Hence RBI has articulated the need for a uniform model of governance through its reports. Thanks for bringing such informative articles.
What Online Buyers Want...
This is with reference to the article ‘What Online Buyers Want’ (Dataquest, December 15, 2011). It is interesting to know that the digital business is more common among people living in metros, but the consumers and entrepreneurs from rural India are also plugged into e-commerce. Especially for iPhones, people don’t mind waiting for 7-15 days. These days everyone prefers buying online. Could you name a few more sites which we can access? Thanks! Supreet Pannu, Chandigarh
Advertisement Index Adv.
Swati Sinha, Hyderabad
Accenture ADP, www.adp.com
It’s a Mandate!
Cisco
This is with reference to your article ‘It’s a Mandate!’ (Dataquest, November 30, 2011). It’s fascinating to know that the Government of India has finally accepted social media as a platform. After the great success of the Egyptian revolution, where social media and bloggers played a key role, governments across the world have realized the potential of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. This was a revolution that spread like a fire in the forest. Hence Indian government should use these platforms for propagating their policies in a democratic manner.
Exide, www.exide4u.com Fujitsu Galgotia www.galgotiacolleges.edu
99 16,17 3 43 9 27
IBM, www.ibm.com
7
Mro-Tek www.mro-tek.com.
23
NEC www.necindia.com
11
Oracle
2
QuantumLink Communications Pvt Ltd
33
Trend Micro
13
Tulip
Hither K, New Delhi
Page No.
Vodafone
100 31
Corrigendum n This is with reference to the news interview of Tom Fallon, president & chief executive officer, Infinera Corporation (Dataquest, January 31, 2012). Herewith is the correct picture of Tom Fallon.
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DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
ganesha
Could the Arab Spring Lead to an Indian Summer? DR GANESH NATARAJAN
It is the Middle East which could well provide key opportunities for new business creation and growth for the sector and has the potential to provide substantial global revenue in the years to come
DR GANESH NATARAJAN The author is CEO of Zensar Technologies and co-chair of the National Knowledge Council of the CII. He can be reached at maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
T
he new year has started for me with visits to the emerging parts of the business world where most of us in the software exports industry see significant opportunities in the coming year and beyond—UAE, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Australia, and China. The first of these, a whistle-stop tour of Dubai, Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dhamam underlines what one has always believed, that it is the Middle East which could well provide key opportunities for new business creation and growth for the sector and has the potential to provide quite a few billion dollars of global revenue in the years to come. The opportunities in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and to a lesser extent in Bahrain, Qatar and Oman are well known to most companies who have made their initial forays into the Gulf. But the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remains the largest market and the biggest opportunity for building a scale business in the region. I still recall my first visit to Riyadh a dozen years ago where the rudeness encountered at immigration and customs and the scramble for departure forms at the airline check-in had made me resolve never to be back. But three visits later, while one still has to grit one’s teeth for an immigration experience which can range from being a nightmare to surprisingly efficient at times, every other attribute of doing business in the Kingdom is reaching levels of professionalism that mirrors the West and holds out the promise that this could well be a future destination for all global companies. On the business side, the manufacturing and retail industries are thriving—our clients include large multi-format retailers, oil, generic pharma, and even carpet manufacturing firms who have 12 | February 15, 2012
“An Indian summer of business can surely be an outcome of the liberalization that the Arab Spring movement has spurred in many of the countries in this region” successfully built large domestic and export businesses and whose focus on localization with the mandatory need for at least 30% Saudi employees has not diminished their ambitions or capabilities to any extent. And on the personal side, there are enough museums, eateries and a mélange of old world and new shopping experiences to keep one’s free time well occupied. As one English CIO joked, there are some perfect golf courses near the key cities with the only blot being the inability to have a cold pint of beer after a few hours on the green! Dubai, of course, continues to be a visitor’s paradise even if the majestic Burj-al Khalifa will be eclipsed at some point by the kilometer long tower planned in Jeddah and the opportunities to set up development centers in Jordan, Egypt or even in the UAE can ensure a flow of Arabic speaking resources to meet the manpower needs of firms operating in the territory. There is a need, as of course there would be in any new market, to make the right investments but for the medium term strategy of any firm, an Indian summer of business can surely be an outcome of the liberalization that the Arab Spring movement has spurred in many of the countries in this region. Clearly the center of gravity of the business is moving towards the East!
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Cover Story
The 20 Who are Making a Difference Dataquest zeroes in on a list of 20 Indian technology greats who are influencing the technology business globally; who are in position to influence how technology and technology business will shape up in the next few years Dataquest Team
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
A
ren’t there enough lists already? Why another? That was the first question that greeted us, when a few of us excitedly started narrating the idea to some colleagues in our marketing department. And, it was a very spontaneous response. Not a great compliment sure, but it made us think. No matter how excited you are about the uniqueness of your work, you can expect the fair share of this scepticism. And unless you settle that, it is indeed yet another list. A list is a list is a list. That is why this a mechanical part that often goes as a box in small print, in these kind of works, with titles How We Did It or very often simply Methodology, comes right at the top. If you can appreciate it, we are fairly hopeful you will appreciate the entire work. It is yet another list of successful Indians abroad—that you keep seeing everywhere, both Indian and non-Indian magazines, websites and television. A general interest magazine would cover people from all walks of life; a Forbes or Fortune would restrict it to business; and it is but natural that Dataquest would restrict it to technology, which, by the way, accounts for a big chunk of any such list. But beyond that, what? Honestly, it did not start that way. We started from the opposite end. We were trying to compile a list of people who are shaping up the technology business today—beyond the first generation successful entrepreneurs, CEO and visionaries: High profile CEOs from IBM and HP or founders such Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Larry Page. But two things happened. We found that it was an exercise that was a little too big for us to do anything meaningful out of it. But more than that, we discovered that many of those people who occupy the most important positions, where they can influence, where technology heads in the next few years are Indians. It is not just senior positions. You can be the CFO or head the most important geography for your company and can do great things for your company. But influencing technology business globally is a completely different matter. But then, you can be in charge of building the technology roadmap for the most well-known enterprise software company. Such as Vishal Sikka, the first-ever CTO of SAP. Or Thomas Kurian, in charge of product roadmap of Oracle, the company with 14 | February 15, 2012
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broadest range of software—and now hardware— products. And then, there is the low profile president at Microsoft, who is driving Microsoft’s most important future bet—cloud, in the form of Satya Nadella. Someone about whom not too much is known to many in Microsoft India, outside his division. In fact, it is this discovery that aroused the Indianness within us. And the idea of this list was born. So, it is not celebration of Indians that we started with. That was the end result. But once we zeroed in on the influencing part, how could we have ignored a gentleman whose words are followed in Twitter by some of these big executives themselves. Such as Om Malik. And those who are doing the same, but not exactly in public glare—such as Dilip Wagle of McKinsey. So, we tweaked it a bit. And the moment the influencing and Indian parts were juxtaposed, how could you ignore some just because they are already CEOs? Of course, we looked at only those CEOs who are in charge of companies that are uniquely positioned to influence how technology business evolves, such as Adobe or Motorola Mobility. And we have a list of 20 such people.
So, the perspective with which you need to look at the list is this: This is a list of Indians who are in a position to influence how technology and technology business will shape up in the next few years. While that was not a filter for us, it just happens to be the case that most of them are in their 40s and 30s. They are young. So, if many of them happen to take up CEO positions in the next few years, you can think of us, though we are not exactly telling you so. The other way of telling you what this is all about is to use the principle of Neti, Neti (Not This, Not This): What this list is not. This is NOT a list of Indians in top positions in technology companies, though it looks like one. There are Googlers who are not necessarily among the senior most people in their company. There are quite a few SVPs in Cisco. And quite a few of them happen to be Indian. If there is one who stands out, it is because of her responsibility within the company as well as her following in social media, a direct influencing medium. And of course, as outlined earlier, there are a few who are NOT part of any technology company. There are a few important notes to the list.
No Name
Age
Designation
Company
Type
1
Abhijit Talwalkar
47
CEO
LSI
Tech Industry Exec
2
Amit Singhal
43
Google fellow
Tech Industry Exec
3
Aneesh Chopra
39
federal CTO, US
US Govt
Tech Industry Exec
4
Arvind Sodhani
57
EVP & president, Intel Capital
Intel
Tech Industry Exec
5
Dilip Wagle
NA
director
McKinsey & Co
Consultant
6
Nikesh Arora
44
chief business officer
Tech Industry Exec
7
Om Malik
45
blogger, investor
GigaOM
Blogger
8
Padmasree Warrior
51
SVP, engg & CTO
Cisco
Tech Industry Exec
9
Prabhakar Raghavan
51
chief strategy officer, executive vice president
Yahoo! Labs
Tech Industry Exec
10
Prith Banerjee
51
SVP, research, and director, HP Labs
Hewlett-Packard
Tech Industry Exec
11
Sanjay K Jha
48
chairman & CEO
Motorola Mobility
Tech Industry Exec
12
Satya Nadella
43
president, servers & tools business
Microsoft
Tech Industry Exec
13
Shantanu Narayen
48
CEO
Adobe
Tech Industry Exec
14
Sundar Pichai
39
SVP, Chrome
Tech Industry Exec
15
Thomas Kurian
44
EVP, product development
Oracle
Tech Industry Exec
16
Vinod Khosla
56
founder
Khosla Ventures
VC
17
Vishal Sikka
44
CTO & member, exec board
SAP
Tech Industry Exec
18
Vivek Kundra
37
EVP, emerging markets
Salesforce.com
Tech Industry Exec
19
Vivek Ranadive
54
CEO
TIBCO
Tech Industry Exec
20
Vyomesh Joshi
57
EVP, printing & imaging
Hewlett-Packard
Tech Industry Exec
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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February 15, 2012 | 15
Cover Story n Those
Indians who have contributed in the past but are no more active do not feature in the list, because their actions cannot influence the current and future trends. The only two who are veterans but still feature in the list are there because they are still influencing how technology business shapes up. Those two gentlemen are Vyomesh Joshi and Vinod Khosla. n There is no one from the service industry. That is not because we consciously excluded them. But they have a little higher odds against them. While an individual with a senior position in the services industry can still be an influencer, that is not by being virtue of occupying an important strategic role for his company and doing it well (as say in the case of a software company). It has to be going beyond his job role and doing something outside, like say, by being an active technology blogger or bringing about a fundamental change in how business is done. We did not find any such individual. n While we did look at resident Indians, we did not find anyone who is influencing techology business globally— enough to feature in a list of 20. There are quite a few who belong to the first category—they have already done that but are not in a position to do that now. n To summarize, the list is not prepared with the idea of celebrating the success of Indians. Rather, it identifies those Indians whose action we need to keep watching.
The Unity and the Diversity
As pointed above, one thing is strikingly common among those in the list. Many of them are young and have some time to make their influence count. As many as 13 of them are either in their 30s or 40s. And as many as 16 of them are 51 or less. Before you doubt if that is young enough, take this. A lot of them—including Thomas Kurian, Satya Nadella, and Vishal Sikka, the three men who represent the three largest software companies in this list—are all the youngest in their peer group, within their own company. Vinod Khosla may be 56. But even at that age, he is one of the youngest legends in the valley. Three of them are in their 30s. While the age of Sundar Pichai of Google is not too much of a surprise, the other two are actually two gentlemen who have already made a mark in the government domain—the ex federal CIO Vivek Kundra and the federal CTO Aneesh Chopra. While Kundra is getting ready for preaching what he practised, in his second innings as the EVP in charge of emerging markets of Salesforce—the announcement about which inducted him to the list at the last moment—Chopra, the only second generation Indian in the list—born in New Jersey—is still driving the government agenda. And they go from a country where, even today, you cannot be anyone in the government unless 18 | February 15, 2011
you are 55. That is almost a qualification! Not surprisingly, most of them are engineers. And many from IITs. Interestingly, no single IIT dominates. IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, IIT Roorkee and IT BHU all figure in the list of alma maters of these achievers. But there are a good number of people from the other colleges too: MS University, Osmania, and Manipal. The sole non-engineer in the list comes from St Stephens, Delhi. He, in fact, is the odd one out. A journalist turned blogger, he is actually one of the few in the list who have actually worked in India for some time. Then, there are the socially active and the not-soactive. Padmasree Warrior, Cisco CTO, with more than a million followers on Twitter takes the prize here. We must admit that was a factor—though not the only one—which put her on this list, from among the dozen odd SVPs in Cisco, a good number of whom are Indian. The fact that she is in charge of a function that the company is identified with was of course, the other and bigger reason. Om Malik, not so surprisingly, is a close second on that account. Some in the list are fairly less active with less than thousand followers. At least one does not use Twitter.
The Companies That Keep (Them)
There are companies that have significant number of Indians. And then, there are ones with significant number of Indians at senior positions. Microsoft and Google have both. In the flat organization structure that Google has, it is often importance and not seniority that matter. And Google has a number of Indians in important positions. Dataquest actually did a story on that last year. Google also is the only company to have three of its people feature in the list of 20. That is 15%. Microsoft has a few at the next level. But Satya Nadella, who features in this list, is at the absolute top level. Two companies who are less vocal about the number of Indians that they have on top are Cisco and Hewlett-Packard. Oracle follows them. IBM, which probably (it now does not comment on that) has more people in India than in the US, does not have a single top executive who is Indian and is the only significant tech company that is missing from this list.
How to Use The List
As clarified earlier, this list is not a celebration of Indian success but a pointer to who are the people who are influencing the way technology business (and technology itself) is shaping up. These are the people who need to be watched for their action. As many of the are young, they may take up bigger and bigger roles. If you create a list of Indian CEOs in technology in 2017, it would not be a bad idea to check with this list. n
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The Most Influential Global Indians In Technology DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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Cover Story
The Turnaround Man
Talwalkar brought in a ‘strategic cohesiveness’ to the business lines by phasing out non-productive ones with ones that have a good market yield. He is believed to have been a strong contender for AMD CEO’s role.
In Search of Excellence
J Abhijit Talwalkar, president and CEO, LSI
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bhi Talwalkar has a passion for fast cars. He has owned a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S and a Mercedes-Benz AMG CL 55. He is the kind of guy who makes the most out of the rubber meeting the road...and brings the same passion to work as well. LSI, his company, has got a lot of legacy in the semiconductor industry; it dominated the consumer space till 2005. The mid 2000s saw the fortunes of the semiconductor industry sway wildly, as many companies struggled to survive. LSI went deep in the red. The company’s board took a difficult call to replace its founder, Wilfred Corrigan, and placed its bets on the industry (and ex-Intel) veteran Abhijit Talwalkar in 2005. Talwalkar was seen as the turnaround guy, and his actions do speak louder than his words. In just 4 years he steadied the company, bringing back investors’ confidence in a company which was at the ‘brink of disaster’ in 2005. How did Talwalkar achieve this feat? The answer lies in the evolutionary shift in the focus that he brought in. He ended the company’s long-term domination in the consumer market and concentrated on storage and networking, and the chips that went inside. This has clicked really well as the world gets increasingly connected and data grows by leaps and bounds, putting storage devices in the limelight. Talwalkar has indeed played the role of an ‘acceleration officer’ at LSI as he changes the very fabric of the company by leveraging on its competencies and applying them to new and emerging domains. As per analysts, 20 | February 15, 2012
ust imagine the internet without Google. And Google without search. That will give an indication of the importance of being Amit Singhal. He is the man behind the 2001 revamp of Google search algorithm. Before Singhal chiselled Google search, it used to take anywhere from 15 to 45 days to find a newly posted page or news. Now, courtesy Singhal and his team, users have nearly instant access to websites and blog posts. Today, Singhal runs Google’s core search quality department and along with his team, is responsible for the Google search algorithms. His feat is well-recognized by The New York Times, which acknowledged Singhal as the master of what Google calls its “ranking algorithm”. It was in 1990 when Singhal got interested in the problem of search. After getting a PhD in 1996, Amit joined AT&T Labs (previously a part of Bell Labs), where he continued his research in information retrieval, speech retrieval, and other related fields. It was in the year 2000 that he was persuaded by his friend Krishna Bharat to join Google. Google also did not hold back from rewarding their star engineer for rewriting algorithms and bestowed upon him the title of Google Fellow, an honorary title reserved for Google’s most accomplished engineers. The acclaim does not stop there. In 2011, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association
Amit Singhal, Google fellow, Google Inc
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for Computing Machinery. In addition, a volley of titles from various publications like India Abroad magazine, Fortune, and others stand as a testimony to his feat. Born in Jhansi, Singhal received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in computer science from IIT Roorkee in 1989 and later continued education in the US where he received an MS Degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth in 1991.
ence was well recognized when he was named to Government Technology magazine’s Top 25 in their Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers issue in 2008. On December 9, 2009, episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Chopra was featured in a segment and was called the ‘Indian George Clooney’ by the host. Born in 1972 in Trenton, New Jersey, the eldest son of Ram and Neelam Chopra, Aneesh Chopra received his BA from The Johns Hopkins University and his MPP from Harvard Kennedy School.
The Achiever Investing in the Future
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Aneesh Chopra, CTO, United States
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he second Indian to be part of the Obama administration, Aneesh Paul Chopra is the first Federal Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the United States. What brings the 39-year-old geek to our list is his ability and influence in the tech world at such a young age. His ability to facilitate collaboration between technologists for public good is a well-known fact. They say that he even writes his emails in binary code. Undoubtedly, behind him becoming the Federal CTO, there lies a complete background that recommended him to the coveted honor in the Obama administration, where he was to advance the president’s technology agenda by fostering new ideas and encouraging government-wide coordination to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing healthcare costs, to protecting the homeland. Chopra’s track record of handling various government and non-government positions enabled him to become the top CTO in the world. Mainly, his immediate past in which he had the chance to first serve as MD with the Advisory Board Company, a publicly-traded healthcare think tank, and second as secretary of technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia from January 2006 until April 2009, contributed to his candidature. In addition, Chopra was not an unknown name when Obama chose to make him the CTO. His influDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
he unassuming and soft-spoken Arvind Sodhani heads one of the world’s biggest venture funds—Intel Capital—that has invested more than $10 bn in 1,100 companies in 48 countries since its inception in 1991. Sodhani was instrumental in making Intel Capital one of the world’s most successful investor with a focus on start-ups. He has an uncanny ability to identify some of the best innovative start-ups and a good return run rate. While more than half of the funding has happened from outside of the US, the fund, by consolidating 24 VC firms in the US, has pledged close to $3.5 bn for the ‘Invest in America’ program as well. Over the last one year, one of the significant things Intel did was the announcement of 2nd Generation Core family of processors and launch of a new category of ultra-slim form factor Notebook under the Ultrabook brand. To evolve this concept into a form factor, Intel Capital announced a $300 mn Ultrabook fund to establish the platform and to hand hold with PC OEMs.
Arvind Sodhani, executive VP, Intel and president, Intel Capital
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February 15, 2012 | 21
Cover Story Sodhani remarked in a statement: “The Intel Capital Ultrabook fund will focus on investing in companies, which are building technologies that will help revolutionize the computing experience and morph today’s mobile computers into the next ‘must have’ devices.” In fact, with his focus on innovation, Sodhani has played a key role in shaping the Ultrabook market, popularizing Ultrabooks in 2011, and setting the stage for making the platform more mature. Moreover, recently, he made another significant announcement: The AppUp fund via Intel Capital mandates to invest $100 mn in companies in the realm of developing digital content for multiple devices. Clearly, under Sodhani’s shadow, Intel is empowering tech entrepreneurs by giving them the much-needed financial muscle.
technology, but develop a talent identification and management architecture. And apart from Saas, his advices and guidance on cloud, ERP, etc, are most sought after, as they set the tone of the IT budgets for many companies. A known name from the alumnus list of IITB, Wagle switched just once in his entire stint of more than 20 years. He started with Microsoft. Today, he is called the leader in high-tech practice. He has not only been consulting and guiding, but has also played a key role in research initiatives and Mckinsey quarterly reports. He has also written many books and thought-provoking articles on varied topics— opportunities for high-tech industry in downturn and privatization and the world bank.
The Sole
On the Hot Seat
Jnana Yogi
I
n the midst of mostly men and a solitary woman of action, Dilip Wagle, director, McKinsey, who helps technology and media companies formulate strategies and execute them, stands out as a man of knowledge. He is full-time into observing, analyzing, strategizing on technology business, and is a recognized thought leader. His article on software as a service, is one of the earliest authoritative work and was used by companies for a long time. His another popular article is High Tech: Finding Opportunities in the Downturn. Wagle’s clientele varied from large to small, hardware to software, technology providing firms to ISVs. He is an expert in strategy, organization design, enterprise, consumer and operations, etc. He guided many software firms in developing SaaS strategies. He also helped a global firm to not only build
Dilip Wagle, director, McKinsey and Co 22 | February 15, 2012
Nikesh Arora, chiefbusiness officer, Google
W
hat happens when the worlds collide? This was the question Arora posed to the audience at last year’s Monaco Media Forum. As the audience pondered, Arora touched upon a string of trends on how this generation, sitting in the midst of a tech evolution, has seen the blurring of lines between ‘what was’ to ‘what is’. In that progression, he made a startling prediction that ‘internet will collide with TV’ in a pervasive form and moving forward, IPTV would become the new norm. Predicting the future may be a marketing tool for some executives in the industry, but for Nikesh Arora, chief business officer, Google, that is the basic expectation everyone has from him. Who else would know better than Google, where things are moving on the net? And as the person in the hot seat (there is the chairman, there are the founders, and then, there is this
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Cover Story young Indian), his is the first Indian surname that you notice in a company, where almost every second business is headed by an Indian. Nikesh Arora has donned mostly sales and marketing roles; yet he sounds like someone who is in complete control when it comes to technology. And he is one of the few people who know Google inside out and his influence on the company becomes evident from the fact that he is almost on all the earnings calls Google does and is most sought-after by analysts. Arora is also aggressively taking on to and driving the ‘What’s Next’ evolution in search and talks about convergence of media, form factors, and user-relevant on-demand content. He has openly said that Google is not only about search; rather it strives to provide what users want. A frequent visitor to India, Arora, according to grapevine, was a top candidate for the position of Yahoo!’s CEO.
Full-time Influencer
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elhi-born Om Perkash Malik, the only one in our list whose day job is ‘influencing’, is popular among the 2.0 generation without his middle name and also for running GigaOM. As per the Technorati ranking, GigaOM, which recently turned 10, ranks among the top 20 blogs globally and top 10 in IT. GigaOM also runs a research service for paid customers called GigaOM Pro. Malik’s influence is not indirect, unlike many in our list. His Twitter followers number 1.3 mn (For comparison, that is a little less than Amitabh Bachchan’s and
a little more than Shashi Tharoor’s), which includes the who’s who in IT. While his first love is gadgets and broadband, he often writes about all areas in technology. In 2007, he famously said that Facebook was in trouble. Even when he was a student in Delhi, he had started writing for magazines. Before founding GigaOM, he worked in India Abroad, Business 2.0, Forbes.com, and Red Herring. A journalist-turned-investor-turned-fulltime blogger, Malik is a regular podcaster, now mostly as a guest but earlier also as a host. Apart from his blog, he writes for various newspapers and journals. Malik has also penned down a book titled Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist. Also, he is probably the only one in this list who is not from an IIT or an engineering college. Actually, Malik is an alumnus of St Stephen’s (Chemistry Honors, of all things) College in Delhi, who loves clothes and gadgets. Although 4 years back he suffered a heart attack, but recovered smartly to keep influencing the tech world.
The Social Influencer
Padmasree Warrior, CTO, Cisco
I Om Malik, blogger and investor, GigaOM 24 | February 15, 2012
n terms of pure hierarchy, Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s chief technical officer, is not in the same league as many others in the list. She is also one of the half a dozen Indians at that level, within Cisco. In our list, Warrior stands out for her social influence. She has one of the highest number of followers among tech people on Twitter—more than 1.5 mn. That would probably make her the number #1 tech woman on Twitter. visit www.dqindia.com
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And, she happens to handle the most important job in Cisco, a company which according to critics does only technology and PR, leaving everything else to partners. She has been instrumental in identifying 3 key trends for Cisco: Video, collaboration, and virtualization, on which Cisco product innovation revolves. It was rumored that she was a strong contender for the federal CTO’s role. While her role at Cisco is well defined, what makes her different is her effective translation of Cisco’s philosophy ‘creating solutions for the connected world’. Unlike many others, she is a direct influencer of tech trends, through her tweets, while creating a cutting-edge technology for her company. Rising to great heights at Motorola where she started her career in 1984 after graduating with masters in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University, she has been a communication tech evangelist from the beginning. Her concept of ‘seamless mobility’ was way ahead of times. Her uncanny ability to see through the technology haze and create new products and marketing opportunities enabled her to constantly soar in her career. In 2004, she got the US President’s medal of technology. In the male-dominated tech world, Warrior stands out: From the dusty town of Vijayawada in AP to IIT Delhi to the technology epicenter—the Bay Area—Warrior has come a long way. Her ability to seamlessly combine her work and her communication is what would be most essential in the leaders of tomorrow.
Searching for Answers
W
hen Prabhakar Raghavan is not cracking complex algorithms at the coveted Yahoo! Labs, the chances are that one might bump into him in any of his favorite places—the Mena House Hotel in Giza, the ‘son et lumiere’ show in front of the pyramids, or inside the dome at St Peter, where he likes climbing or having Yemeni food in a restaurant in Ben Yehuda street in Jerusalem. The list goes on... It does sound like he is working for Lonely Planet but a closer look at his resume shows his impeccable academics and professional credentials—IIT Chennai, PhD from UC Berkley, and head of Yahoo! Labs. While Yahoo! is in the midst of key transition with top-level attritions, the company is betting big on veterans like Prabhakar to challenge and compete with the folks at Mountain View. Prabhakar took over as head of Yahoo! Labs, created in 2005, with mandate to redefine search in many different ways, to create new opportunities for Yahoo!, and to take competition head on. Under the leadership of Prabhakar, Yahoo! has launched many significant initiatives. The notable one last year was its new search tool called the ‘Search Direct’. In one of the earlier interviews with Dataquest, Prabhakar said, “The rationale behind search direct is that searchers do not usually care about thousands of results out of every search query. They are looking at relevant userspecific queries and not generic ones. Search direct is the next step in offering specific answers to the users search queries.” Prabhakar, by using his rich academic background, has fused those theoretical techniques into new concepts that has redefined Yahoo! search and has given the competitive edge. He is also instrumental in the India R&D initiatives, which has around 2,000 people and is the 2nd largest facility for Yahoo!. He is also involved in some path-breaking projects.
Top Tech Man @ Top Tech Co
A Prabhakar Raghavan, chief strategy officer and head, Yahoo! Labs DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
t the age of 51, leading the research initiative of any technology company can be challenging and doing that for the world’s largest and most diversified technology company is something that few would dare to do. Unlike sales and marketing, few would give in to exuberance over experience. As the SVP of research at HP and director of HP Labs, Prith Banerjee is the eyes and vision of the visit www.dqindia.com
February 15, 2012 | 25
Cover Story
The Strategist with a Vision
W Prith Banerjee SVP, research and director, HP Labs, HP
company. Apart from heading the labs, his core job is to look into the future of technology 5-10 years ahead from now and build products that make HP relevant and remain competitive in a dynamic world. Recipient of several awards and accreditations, writer of around 300 research papers, Banerjee is a big name in the academia—prior to HP, he served as dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. But his entry into the industry not only created ripples in HP but also in the media. When Banerjee joined HP labs, he called for a total restructuring in the division, which is talked about even today. He challenged the concept of research for scientific experiments and learning versus research with a commercially-viable approach. He consolidated the then 150 teams of 1-2 (person) team size in 20 teams (or as they internally call as research themes) with 10-30 members each, each focused on one area such as print and content delivery, mobility and immersive experience, cloud and security, information and analytics, intelligent infrastructure, research on networking communication, services and sustainability, and so on. While the industry is talking about information explosion today, his team is already busy working on big bet projects. He has been working on developing IPs around cloud security, seamless transfer from public to private cloud, maintaining a balance between personal and enterprise device, rich user interface, etc. The latest innovation from HP Labs was project Moonshot, range of the greenest servers, that helped raise the benchmark platform for the industry and take HP’s ISS to a new realm altogether. 26 | February 15, 2012
hen Sanjay Jha took over as the CEO of Motorola Mobility, the company was in a really bad shape. It needed a master technologist and manager like him to steady the sinking ship. He made radical changes in the product portfolio and shifted to the Android platform. This strategy reflected on the products, and Motorola started making Android smartphones like the Milestone and more recently the Android based tablets—RAZR and XOOM. In 2011, under Jha’s stewardship, Motorola was competing on a level playing ground with Apple, HTC, and Samsung. Jha was also instrumental in Google’s acquisition of Motorola’s mobility business in late 2011. One of the significant things Jha did last year was creating a tablet strategy for enterprises and aggressively popularizing the concept of ‘consumerization of the enterprise’. In line with that, Motorola recently launched ET1, the world’s first enterprise-grade tablet, with an application development framework called Motorola RhoElements and a whole lot of vertical-specific features with enhanced security. In 2012, Jha is betting big on Motorola tablets. Another differentiated approach that Jha adopted was not flooding the market with Motorola smartphones too often like its close competitors do. He believes that each phone has its life cycle and its potential needs to be leveraged fully. As a tech influencer, he is redefining Android adoption by co-creating a brand perception that despite Android’s openness and vendors’ freehand in making their own UI, remains the most innovative mobile platform. And with vendors’ efforts they can add a whole lot of enterpriseclass features. That’s what Google is also looking at— transforming Android into a more robust and secure OS .
Sanjay Jha, chairman and CEO, Motorola
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Cover Story
First among Equals
sion—resulting in fellow Indian Amitabh Srivastava’s quitting—many analysts pointed out that Bing needed him. But as Ballmer has shown now, he needed Nadella for something bigger.
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t is not trivia info that Satya Nadella, who is all of 43, is the youngest among Microsoft’s top leadership. Steve Ballmer surely needed someone who has age by his side to lead the business unit that will be instrumental in driving Microsoft to where it wants to be (dominate, right?) in the next few years. Windows and Office may be its 2 top business units by revenue, but that is past. Nadella, as the president of the Servers and Tools Business (STB), is clearly the man incharge of the future. That business is already the company’s fastest growing and most profitable.
Satya Nadella, president, server and tools business, Microsoft
But that is not why he is one of the most influential persons in the IT industry today. What makes him immensely important is that he is the man responsible for making cloud work—not just for Microsoft but for the world at large—beyond server rentals and SaaS; and he seems to be succeeding to some extent. It is difficult to talk about cloud with more certainty than that. He has a track record. He has already done that with the Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS). But there, Microsoft was the challenger and it was a question of taking market share. Here, it is a little more than that. It is about being on top of something evolving and taking charge. His every step is analyzed and scrutinized. But this Hyderabad boy, with an engineering degree from Mangalore and MS and MBA from Universities of Wisconsin and Chicago, respectively, is not new to that either. Before this assignment he was heading online engineering. And when he was moved to this divi28 | February 15, 2012
Designers’ Choice
T
rying to defend your leadership when your top challenger is Microsoft is tough. But having a public spat with the God of small (and not so small) things such as iPod and iPad is unimaginable. Unless you are Shantanu Narayen, the CEO of Adobe. When Jobs accused that Flash crashed on Apple, Narayen famously said, “That has something to do with the Apple operating system.” Many believe that this was one of the reasons that helped Android. Adobe is a company that is one of its kind. Developers and designers swear by its name. Handling customers, who are loyal and demanding at the same time, can be the toughest thing for a CEO. But Narayen has effectively managed to do that. In late 2007, Narayen was promoted from COO to CEO, at a time when Adobe had already attained market leadership. He had to defend that, as Microsoft CEO soon publicly said that Silverlight was their most important product. After 3 years, Adobe is still going strong. In late 2010, there were reports that Microsoft was seriously considering buying the company. But its valuation probably was a little too high. In 2009, Narayen also took a seemingly radical step of acquiring Omniture, arguably the best web based analytics tool, though that looks very logical now.
Shantanu Narayen, CEO, Adobe
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For Narayen, it was the most perfect fit. If Adobe was the most preferred tool for creating the web, Narayen thought it was incomplete without the analytics of an actual user behavior. The combination is a winner. Another mark of Narayen’s influence is that he is part of the US President’s Management Advisory Board. No wonder he is one of the top paid CEOs in corporate America.
The King in the Making
Google Desktop, etc, but the 2 major products, Google Chrome and Chrome OS, are what made him indispensable for Google. While Android came to Google from its acquisition, Pichai was already working on Chrome OS, an operating system for the PC. According to him, Chrome OS was for web-browsing across all form factors (starting with medium form factors like Netbooks called as Chromebooks) and carried its own importance. It is said that if Google was to pay its employees on the basis of revenues generated by an individual product along with an equity attached to it, then at 39, Pichai would have become one of the richest persons out there.
A Strategic Rise
T Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome, Google
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oing by analysts’ predictions, this year will see Google Chrome overtaking Internet Explorer (IE) to become the No #1 browser. And, the credit for this goes to Sundar Pichai, SVP of Chrome at Google. Beating IE is no child’s play, but Pichai and his team made it possible through multiple innovations like making it faster (relatively), sharing the source code (hence engaging more developer community), and staying ahead with innovations (like introducing tabs, auto form fill, web apps), and many more. It’s the philosophy of Google of wowing the customer and the seamless integration with the web that made Chrome take away the share. Even though there are many worthy Indians in Google, which is known for its high density of Indians, Pichai’s achievements make him stand out and join the big boss Nikesh Arora in this exclusive list. It’s believed that Twitter was trying hard to poach him. A Google employee since 2004, Pichai has worked on many products like iGoogle, Google Toolbar, Google Pack, DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
he first among equals among Larry’s boys, Thomas Kurian is among the 10-odd EVPs in Oracle but ask any analyst attending Oracle Open World whose session in Oracle he/she waits for most eagerly after Ellison’s, the answer invariably would be Kurian’s. As the person in charge of its product roadmap, he arguably plays the most ‘strategic’ role within Oracle, which has the broadest range of products in the industry: Enterprise apps, vertical apps, database. middleware, systems software, and now a piece of hardware and the likes of database machines. He got noticed when he rapidly scaled up Oracle’s application server business to make it a serious middleware player, in a very short period, about a decade back. Since then, his rise has been both steady and fast. Today, Kurian is not just responsible for taking the call on the future of all these 3,000 odd existing prod-
Thomas Kurian, EVP, product development, Oracle
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Cover Story ucts, but on what to add—and by extension, Oracle’s future acquisitions—that makes him one of the most influential persons in the industry when it comes to the software side. The fact that he is just 44 means he will continue to do that for some time to come—within or outside Oracle. What is not so well known is that this young, comparatively low-profile executive is one of the highest paid in corporate America, drawing more than many CEOs who feature regularly among the highest paid CEOs’ list. Going by his own assessment, cloud, standardized data centers, and easier manageability are going to be the key aspects in the future, and those are his current priorities.
Past, Present, and Future
40 IT companies, which include companies in services, semiconductor, devices, systems, online/social media, productivity, advertising, and cloud. With his company raising more than a billion dollar recently to fund in the areas of traditional IT, internet, mobile, and cleantech, he is still going strong. One of the oldest among those featuring in this list, Kholsa is the past, present, and future—all rolled into one. In fact, he is, in a way, the connection between the past and the future of technology. An alumnus of IIT Delhi with an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Khosla is a founding board member of the Indian School of Business. Still one of the most respected VCs in the valley, Khosla’s other interests include social entrepreneurship, specifically microfinance as a means of poverty alleviation. He is actively involved in many MFIs in India and Africa.
Die Indie
I
t is more than hundred years back that German scholar Max Muller wrote, India: What Can It Teach Us? Today, the most well-known enterprise software company, headquartered in Germany (probably the only major IT company based outside the US and India), is using some of that knowledge effectively, by putting an Indian in charge of its product and technology roadmap. Vishal Sikka, still in his 40s, is SAP’s first ever Indian CTO. Hasso Plattner, SAP’s co-founder too was in his early 40s, when he launched SAP’s flagship R/3. Vinod Khosla, SVP, Chrome, Google
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his isn’t a list celebrating what Indians have contributed to the world of technology, but identifying those individuals who are influencing the world of technology today—meaning those who can still influence and bring forth changes. Vinod Khosla, already a celebrity in the technology world, is here not because he founded Sun Microsystems or had the guts to challenge 2 monopolies—Intel and Cisco—by creating 2 strong competitors: AMD and Juniper Networks. Unlike many other Indians who have contributed immensely to the world of technology in the past but have faded, Khosla is still immensely influential. His Khosla Ventures has investments in more than 30 | February 15, 2012
Dr Vishal Sikka, member of the executive board and CTO, SAP
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Cover Story Despite SAP’s leadership, Sikka, like a true visionary, thinks that you need to disrupt rather than patch. “The IT industry has focused on too much repackaging and reassembly of existing layers into new bundles, ostensibly to lower the costs of integrated systems. In reality, this rebundling increases the clutter that already exists in enterprise landscapes. It is time for a rethink,” he says boldly. Coming from a leader, and that too a European company, that is radical, to say the least. One of the major contributions in Sikka’s SAP career so far is the launch of SAP HANA—the company’s new in-memory computing appliance that fuses SAP software with a pre-configured hardware cutting across server, storage and networking and is touted as the next big thing for SAP since the launch of its R/3. HANA was Sikka’s brainchild and in the virtualized cloud environment and on-demand delivery, HANA is expected to redefine transactional as well as analytical data processing. Sikka’s efforts have led to the fructification of SAP River—a cloud platform for building light weight simple apps. In short, he is driving a product renaissance. As a leader, beyond his technology planning role, he is also the sponsor of SAP Labs India and is directly involved in leveraging India’s capability more effectively and seamlessly within SAP.
Megha Doota
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s Federal CIO, he brought in efficiency, drove projects with clinical precision and saved millions of dollars. While the world was debating cloud, he went ahead aggressively to embrace cloud for the federal government. He kept championing the cause of cloud whenever he got a chance. While everything was going well, with president Obama publicly lauding his efforts, he left, only to reemerge as an official champion of cloud—in the cloud company, Salesforce.com. As EVP in charge of emerging markets, he would champion cloud and would get the ears of most of the governments as he has literally ‘been there, done that’. To that extent, he would influence how cloud takes off globally. Kundra is now seen as an amazing technology visionary who opened the eyes of millions to the transformational power of cloud computing. Apart from using cloud for building governmental efficiency, Kundra, who was the Federal CIO from March 2009 to August 2011, is credited for strengthening the cyber-security posture in the US and launching an open government movement. As the first CIO of the US, Kundra managed more than 32 | February 15, 2012
Vivek Kundra, EVP, emerging markets, Salesforce.com
$80 bn in technology investments and has also authored the ‘Cloud-First’ policy, which now serves as a model for government IT organizations around the world seeking to increase efficiencies with less resources. In March 2011, the World Economic Forum selected Kundra as a Young Global Leader for his professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world. Before his tenure as the US CIO, Kundra served as chief technology officer for the District of Columbia and as the Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Born in 1974 in New Delhi and brought up in the US, Kundra earned a masters degree in IT from University of Maryland University College. Kundra loves to read, travel, and watch movies. Like most Indians, his favorite movie is Sholay and favorite book is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Power CEO
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t’s the passion to excel and steer ahead that makes an individual like Vivek Ranadivé an inspiration for others. Ranadivé, chairman and CEO, TIBCO Software, is a well-known thought leader and an author whose books—The Power of Now and The Power to Predict—have been widely used in the academia and industry. The Power of Now has been enlisted in The New York Times’ Business Bestseller list. In 2004, Information Age in its August 10 issue described him as ‘a true visionary in a valley full of seers’. Born in 1957 in Mumbai, Ranadivé had a dream of studying at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which he had learned about through a documen-
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Cover Story
Vivek Ranadivé, chairman and CEO, TIBCO
tary. At the age of 17 he left Mumbai to accomplish his cherished dream, with very little money, not enough to survive in the US. In 1975, he entered MIT where he first earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and then a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Also, there is a history behind him setting up TIBCO Software. Ranadivé started Teknekron Software Systems (TSS) where he developed the Information Bus through which he integrated and delivered market data like stock quotes and other financial information for banks and other financial institutions. In 1994, Teknekron got acquired by Reuters Group PLC, which continued to develop TIBCO Software and expanded its use in the financial services markets. In January 1997, he established TIBCO Software as a separate entity to create and market software solutions for use in the integration of business information, processes, and applications outside the financial services sector. Besides, Ranadivé was the president and founder of a UNIX consulting company and has also worked with Ford Motor Company, M/A-Com Linkabit, and Fortune Systems.
Changing Perceptions
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hat surprises and impresses the industry is how, despite the digitalization of content, Vyomesh I Joshi, EVP, imaging and printing group, HP, remained optimistic about the need and demand for paper, and continued 34 | February 15, 2012
evangelizing about it. This is perhaps one of the major reasons why HP retained its leadership position in the IPG domain for many years. VJ, as he is popularly known, found his place on the top tech influencers list. This is because of his acumen that not only took HP’s printing business from $19 bn to $26 bn as of today, but also for bringing home a profitable business. In other words, in today’s scenario, where vanilla hardware is getting commoditized forcing companies to work on wafer-thin margins, he introduced various business models and solutions that maintained the health of the bottom-line. Vyomesh influenced HP to start focusing on software and solutions, including hardware and supplies. As a result, while HP, as a company, was getting attention for wrong reasons, its HP IPG story was gaining accolades. Thanks to VJ. In his capacity, VJ partnered in disrupting the printing business; converting it from vanilla printing to content consumption business. The examples were the acquisition of snapfish that enabled photo-editing, retail photo-printing, evolution of e-printing or web-printing, etc. In fact, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that VJ played a major role in changing the perception that IPG is not only about paper, ink and toner.
Vyomesh Joshi, EVP, printing and imaging, Hewlett-Packard
HP has been the only company he worked for after his engineering from Ohio State. He joined this business unit around the 1980s, when they were just building it from scratch. At 56, he is front-ending newer concepts and business models—Print 2.0, on-demand printing, and HP’s latest 3D printing, which not only paves new ways for inkjet technology but also illustrates his visionary quotient, which is being replicated by rivals to stay in the market. n
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Enterprise Mobility Market
Growing Concerns Though data suggests that the enterprise mobility market is set to witness a revolution, CIOs have some security concerns which need to be taken care of first services provisioning as they extend the perimeter of the enterprise using mobile technologies.
Data Security Issues
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obiles are one of the key elements of today’s businesses. Smartphones and tablets are becoming an inalienable part of enterprise IT architecture and infrastructure. Enterprise Mobility: A Global Market Report, published by Global Industry Analyst Inc (GIA), suggests that the enterprise mobility market will exceed $168.8 bn by the year 2015. The growth is being fueled by increasingly sophisticated devices, lowered access cost, rapid development of mobile enterprise applications, the commoditization of technology, and the groundswell of personal devices used by employees in the workplace.
Embracing the Mobile Culture
Indian enterprise, like the Indian consumers, has embraced the mobile culture. The CIO survey on Enterprise Mobility released in September 2011, by the CIO Association of India (CAI), points at the widespread adoption that is underway. The report shows that 38% of the respondent organizations are DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
already using enterprise mobility solutions. In some organizations, solution deployment is in progress while others plan to deploy it in the next 3-12 months. According to the survey, an overwhelming 95% would have deployed enterprise mobility solutions in the next one year. CIOs from the IT/ITES industry were the leading contributors to the survey, followed by the manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, retail, telecom, media and entertainment, education, infrastructure, government, and hospitality. Mobile technologies are enabling businesses innovate around transaction, order, and bid management. They are using anytime-anywhere access to information, business processes, document management, dashboards, customer queries, email, calendaring, contacts, multi-media video conferencing, and enterprise applications to increase business velocity. CIOs are bullish about this development. Many CIOs are understandably uneasy about data security, compliance, device management, and IT visit www.dqindia.com
The problems are fairly simple; the solutions are not. CIOs want to know what happens if an employee using a mobile device to access corporate mail or applications loses the device, leaving the enterprise systems open to risk. There are issues around data security as employees can store data on their devices, once more exposing the enterprise to risk. Users of mobile devices could easily introduce malware and viruses into the enterprise system, expanding the threat. Or even more complicated to deal with is the fact that the mobile device may contain inappropriate images, videos, messages, etc, that belong to the employee and may reflect poorly on the organization. Fundamentally, CIOs are concerned over the loss of control, lack of adequate monitoring capabilities, and the inability to keep their IT environment sanitized. The answer lies in evaluating the threat vectors and identifying solutions designed to protect the device, the data, and the applications. CIOs must take a holistic approach to endpoint device control, issues around access and authentication. n
SUNIL LALVANI
The author is director, enterprise sales, RIM India maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in February 15, 2011 | 35
Pre-budget 2012
Hard Expectations The industry is hoping for the government’s support through a budget focused on a growth-oriented tax policy framework
T The sectors expectation will be to have clarity and rationalization of the tax regime, which will go a long way in promoting the much needed boost for investments 36 | February 15, 2012
he Indian technology sector has shown remarkable resilience during the downturn and has played an important role in placing India on the worldmap as a major knowledge based economy and outsourcing hub. In addition to fuelling India’s economy, this sector is also positively influencing the lives of its people through an active, direct, and indirect contribution to various socio-economic parameters such as employment, standard of living, and diversity. However the technology and telecom sectors are not without their share of concerns; as regards the sustainability of this growth’s signs of downturn in the US, instability, pricing pressures in the domestic market, inflationary pressures and protectionist policies in the US, and stiff competition from the low-cost South East Asian jurisdictions have all forced the sector to present a conservative outlook. While the concerns on the direct and indirect tax front have not been significantly addressed over the last couple of years, the long-term clarity and stability on the policies intended by the government for these sectors would certainly be welcomed by the players in these sectors. In the backdrop of the challenging economic scenario, the government’s proposals in Budget 2012 are keenly awaited.
Technology Sector
The levy of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) on the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) developers and units as high as 18.5% on the book profits, has significantly diluted the benefits offered under the popular SEZ regime. The industry players are in a dilemma as regards to their future expansion plans. Another point of concern is the carry forward and set off of MAT credit entitlement, which is presently only allowed for a period of 10 years. This is generally not always sufficient and most companies availing the benefits of the SEZ scheme may not be able to utilize MAT credit efficiently and within the prescribed time limits. visit www.dqindia.com
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Abolishing MAT levy on the SEZ developers or units would certainly be a positive measure, which should bring some relief to the sector. Further, the carry forward of MAT credit entitlement for an indefinite period would certainly be a welcome step. The taxability of purchase and licensing of software continue to be another issue plaguing the industry players. Characterization of payments received for use or right to use software products has been a contentious issue in the recent times. While there have been several rulings which have appreciated the distinction between use of a copyright and a copyrighted article in the case of shrink-wrapped software, the present rulings do not seem to accept this distinction. As the stakes are high, the sector would like to get clarification on whether payments made for the use of shrink-wrapped software would be taxable as royalty or not to avoid uncertainty among taxpayers. On the indirect tax front, the issues surrounding the dual levy of VAT and service tax on licensing of software are likely to manifold with the FM’s proposal to shift to a ‘negative list of services’ basis of taxing services possibly this budget. It appears that the software industry is not likely to see respite on this issue until the implementation of GST, which may be a few years away. The pullback of the input tax credits on several key input services made in the last budget has added to the worries of the technology and IT sectors, dealing with the slowdown in the US and European markets. With the negative list the industry is only hoping that credit of taxes paid on all its services used for business operations will be reinstated.
Telecom Sector
The sector players lack clarity on the treatment to be adopted for corporate tax purposes in respect of massive upfront spectrum fee payment. The DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
government should therefore, bring out specific amendments in the income tax law, so as to provide for depreciation claim on the upfront spectrum fee payment (as being in the nature of ‘intangibles’). Considering that telecom is a capital-intensive sector, the exemption of interest on long-term finance and long-term capital gains arising to the investing companies or infrastructure capital funds for investments in the telecom service companies under section 10(23G) of the IT Act should also be restored, so as to provide an impetus to the sector. This sector is also looking forward to the extension of the tax holiday benefits under section 80-IA of the IT Act to operators who have started providing telecom services after March 31, 2005. Such extension would not only provide a level playing field for the new entrants, but would also provide an impetus to the telecom sector, given the long gestation period. On the indirect tax front, as the telecom sector moves into a phase of making significant investments in the infrastructure, both for expanding the reach as also newer technologies such as 3G, today, the sector is facing ambiguities resulting in an adverse impact on investment and operations. One of the areas requiring urgent rationalization is on the availability of input tax credit of duties paid on telecom infrastructure (which is the backbone of the entire network), explicit confirmation that telecom service provided to the foreign telecom operators should qualify as export of service, as well as the restoration of some of the export incentives that are available to other service sectors. The sector continues to grapple with building systems that conform with guidelines set out in the recent point of taxation rules. The sectors expectation will be to have clarity and rationalization of the tax regime, visit www.dqindia.com
which will go a long way in promoting the much needed boost for investments in this sector. Another important expectation of the sectors would be the extension of additional depreciation to service industries as well, which is currently available only to the manufacturing sector. The steady growth in the contribution by various service industries to the country’s GDP should be augmented, by incentivizing the service industry by extending the initial depreciation benefit to them. On the transfer pricing front, the industry is still awaiting the detailed rules to operationalize the safe harbor provisions, which was first announced in Budget 2009. It is expected that taxpayers meeting the safe harbor thresholds laid down in these provisions would not be subject to transfer pricing scrutiny. The industry is hopeful that safe harbor rules are issued in Budget 2012, so as to ensure its expeditious implementation. The government should also consider the implementation of an Advance Pricing Arrangement (APA) framework in this year’s budget. The proposed draft of the direct tax code in any case contains provisions for an APA framework, wherein a taxpayer could enter into an APA with the revenue authorities, as regards his transfer pricing arrangement with group companies. The industry is hoping for the government’s continuing support through a budget focused on a growth-oriented tax policy framework, which in turn would help it emerge unscathed from this challenging economic scenario. (The opinions expressed are those of the author). n
RAVI MAHAJAN The author is tax partner, Ernst and Young maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in (With inputs from Giselle Barboza, senior tax professional, Ernst & Young) February 15, 2012 | 37
Indepth / Data Privacy
Designing Privacy In the age of data creating and sharing, where a user is under constant surveillance, we need more privacyenabled tools and rules to root out socio-psychological harms
P
ersonal Information (PI) is generally defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. It may be referred to as personal data, personal information, non-public personal information, etc. Examples include, but not limited to, name, address, date of birth, telephone number, fax number, email address, government identifier (eg, PAN number, PF account number, UID number, etc), bank account number, credit card number, driving license number, IP address, biometric identifier, photograph, or video identifiable to an individual, and any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code. Privacy is all about protecting one’s PI. Since 1940s privacy has been recognized as a fundamental civil liberty. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) contains a paragraph on privacy. The 1950 European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms includes a similar clause. The Supreme Court of India has upheld the right to privacy as part of ‘Article 21—right to liberty’, under the Constitution of India.
Technology Killed Privacy
Is technology impacting privacy of individuals? If yes, how and what can be done about it? Is it possible to protect privacy through laws that are 40 | February 15, 2012
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technology-neutral; that can anticipate threats from new technologies? It was Samuel Brandeis, who along with Warren, defined privacy in 1890, as a ‘right to be left alone’ when a new technology, namely the printing press was publishing about famous individuals. It was the print media that were invading the privacy of a few individuals at the end of the 19th century; computers in the 1960s, followed by networked computers in the 1980s enabled invasion of privacy of individuals by governments and businesses. In the first wave of information and communication technologies (ICT), there were large databases on central systems—almost a replica of large filing cabinets with paper files—in which individuals could be tracked for their PI in a single database. The second wave enabled an individual to be tracked in multiple databases with cross-referencing leading to what is now known as ‘profiling’. There was a need to develop privacy laws or data protection laws based on a set of privacy principles to ensure privacy protection; privacy laws were created in the 1980s. The European Union Data Protection Directive 95/46 was a far-reaching effort to harmonize privacy protection laws in all the EU countries. It mandated that the EU countries legislate and implement privacy laws based on this Directive. Have these laws helped achieve the objective of privacy protection, or they have been overwhelmed by technological developments?
Principles like ‘Accountability’ and ‘Privacy by design’ are gaining acceptance. Users should be empowered with self-audit tools that can be provided by online providers such as google
like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter help persons become data creators. Alan Westin’s definition of privacy as ‘the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others’ starts becoming more relevant, since the focus has shifted to a person’s choice on what they want to be known about them to others. They want to control what they want to reveal about themselves to others. But can they really control?
Controlling Commercialization of Personal Information
Let’s look at the next ICT wave since the dawn of the present century, which has transformed the individual from being a passive data subject to an active data creator, communicator, and sharer. E-commerce applications, email, chat, blogs, and social networks
PI has become a commodity that has an economic value attached to it. Organizations correlate increasing amounts of data, convert it into forms that are useful to the data subject himself, and to many other businesses. People are driven by data sharing for a number of reasons, but it’s those who are aggregating data from social networks and correlating with that obtained from other sources that have the potential to put privacy at risk. The real cost of trading in privacy is not known.
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The Age of Oversharing
What is a reasonable expectation of privacy, especially with pervasive technologies such as cookies, which are invasive as well? Technologies enable data collection without the knowledge of users in an online environment. But consumers cannot be expected to be activists about their privacy even though they want to control dissemination of their PI. This is true in an offline environment too, when data is collected, especially by the government in surveys, during enrollment in schemes, enumeration, or in electoral rolls for issuing a voter card. Governments have to set an example by eschewing practices that abuse citizens’ data by using it for purposes other than what it was collected for. For example, data collected for a survey, or for assessing low-income groups, cannot be used by law-enforcement agencies. It cannot be sold by collecting agencies to businesses. Banks collecting PI of account holders cannot sell it to telecom call centers. And so on. Nations have to have laws that promote privacy protection.
Living with a Stalker
There is a need to dissociate the availability of data from its use. Digital data generated by all kinds of sources is everywhere. An individual’s primary purpose of going online is to engage in activities that include buying, reading, leisure, social networking, blogging, and chatting. They are burdened with notice, choice, and consent regime, which does not seem to be working anymore. They are asked to worry about how their data is collected, for what purpose, what value does their data have, and so on. They are tracked and linked by several organizations for different purposes. One can know about oneself by doing a Google search, going to Facebook, and various other online communities. But then this data is February 15, 2012 | 41
Indepth / Data Privacy available to others too; and they can use it for any purpose such as denying a job based on their views at a certain site. Worst of all, data is permanent—the internet does not let you forget anything. Does an individual have a right to oblivion? How do you empower an individual to control their data? That should be a key consideration in devising privacy principles for the new age. But let’s first review the existing privacy principles and their limitations.
Privacy Principles and Laws
European Union and the US have different approaches to privacy protection resulting in different international instruments of privacy. Should countries have privacy laws that are consistent? Or should the objective be outcome-driven, based on globally accepted privacy principles and best practices with industry self-regulation under an appropriate law, ie, co-regulation? Most countries are in agreement on the universality of a set of privacy principles, although emergence of several new ICTs have put some of these principles at risk; some new principles are being debated. It was the US that came up with a set of privacy principles, in what is known as the Fair Information Privacy Practices (FIPPs) in 1974 that provided for protection of consumers’ PI . The OECD Privacy Guidelines, on the other hand, released in 1980, were issued to ensure that privacy protection did not end becoming a non-tariff barrier in international trade in which global a data flows were ever increasing. The privacy principles (PPs) are as following: Collection limitation, data quality, purpose specification, use limitation, security safeguards, openness, individual participation, and accountability principles. As can be seen these are similar to FIPPs. n United States: The US has a history of self-regulation, espe42 | February 15, 2012
It was the print media that was invading the privacy of a few individuals at the end of the 19th century, computers in the 1960s, followed by networked computers in the 1980s that enabled invasion of privacy of individuals by governments and businesses
cially in its safe-harbor program with the EU. It has defined 7 PPs: Notice, choice, onward transfer (to third parties), access, security, data integrity, and enforcement. Privacy is largely viewed as a consumer and an economic issue. Americans are comfortable with having businesses handle their information, but skeptical about putting data with the government. There are many laws restricting the government collection and use of information than laws restricting corporate use of collection and information. With so many state and federal laws and various agencies responsible for data protection—SOX, GLBA, HIPAA, California Data Breach Notification Law—privacy protection is a veritable patchwork of laws. In fact, nearly 600 laws for privacy data security exist in the US. Moreover, oversight is decentralized; and data protection is not visit www.dqindia.com
a core mission of any government agency. A partial list of privacy and data protection laws in the US is as follows: Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act – 1998 (COPPA), Gramm—Leach—Bliley Act (1999), Federal Trade Commission Act, Freedom of Information Act - 1966 (FOIA), Privacy Act of 1974, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (1974), Privacy Protection Act of 1980, Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 n OECD Guidelines: In the OECD Guidelines, what to do and how to implement are in the Explanatory Memoranda; with ‘how’ to implement left to countries. It is this ‘how’ that is different between the US and the EU. The EU Directive seeks to standardize the ‘how’ part not only in EU countries but across the world. However because of cultural differences between various countries, the ‘how’ part is and likely will remain different. Hence harmonization or consistency can not mean that every country should follow a certain way of implementation; instead it means the same set of globally acceptable PPs. So, while the aspirational goals are common to all countries, implementations are going to be different because the privacy instruments take into consideration the local cultures and history of country’s legal traditions. n EU Data Protection Directive: The EU Data Protection Directive, as noted above, mandates that the EU member states “shall protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, in particular, their right to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data.” The Directive stipulates the following privacy principles: Processed fairly and lawfully, collection for specific and legitimate purpose, adequate and relevant data
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Indepth / Data Privacy collection, accurate and secure, not kept longer than necessary, data subjects’ rights protected, access and correction, no transfer to third countries with inadequate protection, and restriction on automated decision-making; and mandates that Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) shall be created with wide powers to oversee implementation of privacy protection. Article 25 mandates that transfer of data to third countries can take place only if “…the third country in question ensures an adequate level of protection.” It’s the EU that determines whether a third country has ‘adequate security’— it’s based on an unclear criteria; an important element of assessment is whether privacy law in a third country is similar to that expected by the Directive. The expectation thus is harmonization of laws in accordance with the EU Directive. Derogation are through the routes of Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs) for multinational corporations, and standard contractual clauses for contracts between data controllers and data processors in third countries that are deemed not to have adequate security. n APEC Privacy Framework: This is a grouping of some 21 countries that has come up with the APEC Privacy Framework to promote e-commerce. Self-regulation is part of the APEC Privacy Program, which has taken the approach of accountability under which the data protection obligations flow along with data in trans-border data flows. In order to accommodate different privacy laws in various countries, APEC has placed emphasis on the practical aspects of data flows and on the manner of interface between various players, including companies, regulators, and governments. Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPRs), along with information sharing, investigation, and enforcement across borders among regulators, 44 | February 15, 2012
As long as there are laws that can be used to punish the violators, privacy can be protected
including self-regulatory organizations (SROs) will form an integral part of the APEC Privacy Framework. The CBPRs are akin to BCRs allowed to multinationals under the EU Directive. The privacy principles represent conception of privacy, and there is high degree of agreement among various approaches—US, OECD, EU, APEC—in the world. There is thus a set of globally accepted privacy principles. Transparency, enforcement, and accountability are the cornerstone of privacy protection. Many countries do not have privacy laws; in some countries such as the US, data protection is realized through consumer protection laws. As long as there are laws that can be used to punish the violators, privacy can be protected. The EU Directive, was based on OECD privacy principles, which in turn was inspired by the FIPPs of the US. There is, therefore, a high degree of compatibility between the EU and the US. However similarity is at the privacy principle level, not in the method of implementation. APEC privacy principles are similar too, but they promote working with countries that may not have any privacy laws. APEC Privacy Program recognizes the role of SROs; they can fulfill the role of regulators. The focus is on accountability of data controllers and data processors. visit www.dqindia.com
Privacy Principles and New Technologies
During the last 30 years, since the OECD privacy principles were announced, the context in which these guidelines operate has changed—explosion in the volume and uses of PI triggered by technological advancements that help collect, store, process, aggregate, link, mine, analyze, and transfer large quantities of data. Moreover, the role of PI in the economy and society has expanded largely because of an easy access to fixed and mobile devices connected over the global internet. The 1980 OECD Privacy Guidelines were for free global data flows and not to hinder international free trade. Today, people want data delivered to them on multi-platforms, and they want consumer empowerment too. Yet, innovation and new tools have to be encouraged for an economic growth. For example, Facebook enables people use many applications, which deliver value to them. Many emerging technologies have stretched the limits of applicability of privacy principles—in fact, some of the principles appear to be in trouble. Has ‘consent’ any meaning with advanced cookies? Notice and choice do not have a central role, but they seem to occupy a major part of the global debate on privacy. In practice, the principles seem to cause an endless frustration for consumers, since although in online transactions, such notices are sent to them, there’s precious little in terms of choice available to them. The only choice is not to avail of services if one disagrees. Thus consent is neither informed nor voluntary. This is similar to the case of government asking for information, failing which service may not be delivered to a citizen or consumer. Since much of privacy is to do with ‘fairness’, many of the privacy prin
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Global Privacy Protection Review Efforts
In the decade of the 2010s, people use data to exercise their rights as opposed to 1980s when only government and business organizations had data about people
ciples, which are in trouble because of emerging technologies, social networking, pervasive surveillance online, and in the physical world through cameras, scanners, RFID tokens, mobile phones, GPS, etc, are under review. At the same time, principles like ‘accountability’ and ‘privacy by design’ are gaining acceptance.
Determining the Right
It has to be recognized that individuals have various roles—consumer, citizen, employee—in which their privacy concerns are different. They have different attitudes towards privacy: Privacy intensive, privacy pragmatists, or privacy insensitive. The pragmatists are governed by the following considerations: Benefits, risks, legal protection, trust in others. Many of them view data empowerment as the use of data to achieve fundamental rights—similar to rights of freedom of assembly, association, and speech. The interplay of technologies and individuals has changed over the last 3 decades. In the decade of 2010s, people use data to exercise their rights as opDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
n EU’s Review: The EU launched a consultation on the legal framework
for the fundamental right of personal data in July 2009. In a paper entitled ‘A comprehensive Approach on Personal Data Protection in the European Union’, which the European Commission submitted to the European Parliament in November 2010, the key objective was to ensure that individuals have the right to enjoy effective control over their PI in the new digital age. n Recommendations of DSCI: DSCI submitted its response to the
questionnaire, in so far as it relates to outsourcing and global data flows that was circulated by EU. Prior to that, DSCI had submitted its suggestions on extending BCRs to service providers. n Measures of the US Bodies: In the US, on the other hand, the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Commerce have engaged people on privacy matters, and have come up with separate green papers through which they are seeking comment of people. The FTC report: Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Business and Policy Makers was released on December 1, 2010. Its focus is consumer privacy protection. It has concluded that the existing privacy models based on the ‘Notice-and-Choice’ and ‘harm based’ approach are insufficient to address evolving privacy issues. Consumer consent is missing in the complicated online environment, while the reputational and psychological harms are also not covered. It suggests a new framework with 3 core principles: Privacy by design, simplification of consumer choice, and greater transparency. This report also suggests that ‘do not track’ feature be developed in applications to enable consumers to prevent the tracking of their internet activities. The Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force Privacy Green Paper: Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Policy a Dynamic Policy Framework focuses on reducing barriers to business development and innovation, and recommends minimal regulation using voluntary, enforceable policy codes that would be created by industry. It advocates a privacy framework based on revitalized FIPPs, that would engender consumer trust while maintaining flexibility in business development and innovation. It also discussed the importance of global interoperability among diverse international privacy frameworks, and nationally consistent breach notification rules.
posed to 1980s when only government and business organizations had data about people. The data was used for economic growth and innovation in the 1980s. Now it’s about right versus right—which right is more fundamental? For example, data minimization versus data empowerment. In the 1980s, it was all about human/fundamental right vis-à-vis data controller—data minimization was a privacy guidevisit www.dqindia.com
line. What is the status now, and how will it evolve? What can society do to increase public awareness of privacy? Ethical responsibility is essential, merely sending ‘notice’ is not adequate. How to better implement data minimization? The solution lies in improved practices. Cloud computing adds another dimension to the problem, which is that an individual maybe viewed as a February 15, 2012 | 45
Indepth / Data Privacy Recommendations of DSCI
India is a vast country, where outreach can be through industry associations and other NGOs, and not through a single bureaucratic DPA. DSCI recommends that the proposed privacy law should take care of the following:
Consumer and privacy issues come together. Trust factor can come from regulators that may have a certification role and enforcement function too
n Light Weight Regulations: It should be based on global privacy
principles that value economic benefits of data usage and flow, while guaranteeing privacy to citizens n Bureaucratic Structure: Avoid bureaucratic structure that could
hinder business interest and lose the spirit of the intent in the operational implementation n Self-regulated Businesses: Rely on self-regulation of businesses
that promote practices, making the privacy program relevant to technology advancements n Legal Recognition: Provide legal recognition to the role of self-
regulatory bodies, promoted by industry associations, in enforcing codes for the privacy in the interest of citizens’ rights n Associations: Notify and implement through self-regulatory
organizations like industry associations n Ensuring Privacy of Customers: Allow businesses self declare the
codes of practices that they have implemented to protect the privacy rights of the customers n Public Private Partnership: Establish a mechanism, in the form
of public private partnership, to resolve the disputes and grievances of citizens Self-Regulation with a legal sanction, ie, co-regulation should be the way forward. The self-regulatory organizations will define the process and codes of practices, which are vetted and recognized by the government through the proposed privacy law. Co-regulation should be the guiding spirit.
citizen of a Cloud Database: what rights does one have; cloud will have to share data back with the individual. Regulatory structure will be expected to create right incentives for companies to engage in privacy protection, and create tools that empower people, eg, for privacy impact assessment (PIA). Users should be empowered with self-audit tools that maybe provided by online providers such as Google. Governments need to create more transparency, eg, through PIA of departments, and making them public. Consumer and privacy issues come together. Trust factor can come from regulators that may have 46 | February 15, 2012
a certification role and enforcement function too. SROs in various sectors can do the same. Privacy Seal type certification schemes can be used—these are being considered in the review of the EU Directive. NGOs have a role to watch privacy conformance. Citizens can be assured of privacy protection if the gatekeepers work according to the following rules: Government should do minimum regulation, industry should engage in self-regulation, and a user should be careful to put out their personal information.
ated a series of discussions on the establishment of a legal framework for a privacy law. This was triggered by the launch of UID and NATGRID projects of the government. While the objective of the first project is to provide unique identity of respondents to enable them participate in the benefits of the economic development through financial inclusion; the objective of the other is to target criminals for national security. In both these projects, it is the privacy of individual which is at risk. A privacy law is proposed to be created which balances national security with privacy requirements of individuals. DSCI submitted a consultation paper to the government of the subject, and also made a presentation to the Select Committee drafting the privacy law. The views expressed here are the author’s personal views. n
DR KAMLESH BAJAJ
The author is CEO, Data Security Council of India—a Nasscom initiative. He was the founder director of CERTIn, Government of India maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
Striking a Balance between National Security and Privacy
In India, the government has initivisit www.dqindia.com
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CIO of the Month
BCP, Innovation, RoI... Challenges Continue in 2012 The year 2012 is here and with it comes a new set of hopes and opportunities for the enterprises in business. As enterprises gear up to face the year, there are a few niggling issues that seem to have been carried over from 2011. Issues like uncertain economic environment globally owing to the Euro crisis that occupied headlines in the latter half of 2011; rupee depreciation vis-à-vis the dollar (that seem to have in the short run benefited a few IT services company quarter-wise revenues) and the chances of recession part II coming. All of this has forced the CIOs to rethink and re-draw their set of priorities for 2012. Terms like innovation, business continuity, doing more with less (yes, once again) are doing the rounds in the CIO community. Innovation in business processes irrespective of the channel is becoming imperative; ensuring that the businesses are run with the least hindrance and lastly once again doing more with less (keeping in mind the current economic situation) will occupy the center stage in 2012. Not just this, the CIOs are also apprehensive of the impact that recession will have on their teams; in the coming times CIOs can be seen grappling with letting go of employees and deciding whom to retain. Stuti Das, Shilpa Shanbhag stutid@cybermedia.co.in shilpas@cybermedia.co.in
Ensuring Business Continuity in 2012
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Ketan Shah CIO, Angel Broking 48 | February 15, 2011
tarting off in 1987, Angel Broking is considered to be one of the leading stockbroking and wealth management companies in India. With its unique retail-focused stock trading business model, Angel is committed to providing ‘Real Value for Money’ to all its clients. The Angel Group is a member of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the two leading Commodity Exchanges in the country: NCDEX & MCX. Angel is also registered as a Depository Participant with CDSL. Technologies such as virtualization, disk back-up and cloud have radically changed IT services and operations. Because of this consolidation was making business sense. By consolidating the data center, the risk also got consolidated and dependency on consolidated data center increased and Recover Time Objective & Recovery Point Objective (RTO/RPO) also changed in a big way. Hence there was a need to review existing Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and also create a Disaster Recovery (DR) site. “For year 2012 review of existing BCP Policy and creating DR site will be one of the major focus areas,” says Ketan Shah, CIO, Angel Broking. visit www.dqindia.com
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Apart from reviewing BCP & DR plan, Shah also sees team handling as the next big challenge for year 2012. Looking at the prevailing uncertain market condition, human resource management will also remain one of the important challenges. In such times it is important to focus on enhancing the productivity of the employee and to keep the team members motivated. It is important to keep a performing team engaged as IT being the industry independent function, opportunity always waits for the productive resource and if not addressed, what will remain with the organization will be non-productive resources. While BCP/DR & Team management will keep Shah busy for the year 2012, he also feels that few technologies such as Mobility, Cloud, Unified Communication, will change the way we do business in 2012.
In terms of technological development, Angel Broking has always remained the trend setter for the industry and this time as well has proved by being the first to launch Trading on Mobile last year. “We are again the first to launch the trading application now on multiple mobile/tablet platforms, including Apple IOS & Android,” says Shah. Shah has already gone on Cloud with his mailing applications and is also exploring for more applications to be moved on Cloud. Angel Broking is also exploring the ways and means to adopt Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In a nutshell, in 2012 Shah will have his hands full focusing on BCP/DR and says that Mobility, Cloud and Unified Communication is the technology which looks promising for the year 2012.
The CIO Needs to Assume a Bigger Role
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he commencement of the year 2012 may have brought in opportunities galore but it has also brought to the surface challenges too that will be occupy the center-stage for most CIOs. Obviously challenges are an inseparable part of any CIO’s role, but this year the five major challenges will be—First, the need for innovation across all channels will be essential in order to ensure that the plans of the company are met with. Secondly, CIOs will have to ensure that the company gets the maximum with less. Thirdly, IT is expected to do magic all the time. The management expects the IT department to be in line with the latest developments in the market and deliver on the business requirements. For the CIOs, the answer is to increase their domain expertise and knowledge so as to face such situations better. Fourth, availability of skill sets has always been a challenge and will continue to remain in the limelight this year too. And last but not the least, the CIOs will be faced with the challenge of adoption of new technologies. With passing of each day, there is a new technology that finds its way to the market and ensuring that its implementation is done in an effective manner ensuring that there is proper integration and no security loopholes remains a challenge. “Among these challenges surely the toughest will be the one on process simplification which will require involvement across various levels in the organization. An entirely different way of working will require a lot of people to be convinced to abandon their old way of DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Rajeev Batra CIO, MTS India functioning to adopt a new mode. In other words, it will require you to shake them from the comfort zones which they earlier enjoyed,” says Rajeev Batra, CIO, MTS India. Speaking about a challenge that he will be facing, Batra says, “It is the third challenge that will prove tough for me and after taking this into consideration
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February 15, 2011 | 49
CIO of the Month we have already chalked out plans to deal with in advance. Our aim is to remain focused on revenue generation and analytics and ensure that we leave no stone unturned in that direction.” Talking about challenges like skillsets, Batra says, “Skillset was a challenge owing to attrition and nonavailability of resources. Faced with such a scenario, we decided to tap the services of companies in
the ecosystem at the tier-2, -3 and -4 levels. These companies offered a pool of skillset that could prove useful for the company as and when required and at economical prices.” Offering advice for dealing with these scenarios, Batra adds, “In such a scenario, the CIO needs to assume a bigger role as the partner to the business and also widen his horizon of service providers.”
Leveraging IT for Growth in 2012
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joint venture between Max India, one of India’s leading multi-business corporations and New York Life Enterprises, a business unit of New York Life, a Fortune 100 company, Max New York Life Insurance was incorporated way back in 2000 and started its commercial operations in 2001. Today, the company is a leading private life insurance company and keeping in sync with its mission to become one of India’s most admired life insurance company, it has deployed a strong corporate governance model based on the core values of excellence, honesty, knowledge, caring, integrity and teamwork. While the initial years were spent in playing catchup with the existing players in terms of technologies, network and hardware set-up; the company is now going ahead with elaborate plans in terms of technology in 2012. One of the foremost concerns for Hitesh K Arora, director and head, IT at Max New York Life Insurance is how to ensure that technology is being leveraged for growth. Worldwide it has been a common experience that it is difficult to automate the salesforce simply because of the nature of their real-time operations and the need for it to access information, all in real-time. Arora adds that what further compounds the situation is the fact that there are no fixed tools available. “In 2012, we will see how to put certain tools around salesforce automation and make their work lives simpler and better,” he says. Arora has already undertaken pilot projects over the last few months and he will now see and evaluate their RoI and pick-up. In the last months, he has also been busy with establishing the elusive Serviceto-Sales link; the company has also set-up digital signages at their offices with information being played out pertaining to plans and schemes. The project however that will keep Arora busy in 2012 will be the deployment of Business Intelligence 50 | February 15, 2011
Hitesh K Arora director and head, IT at Max New York Life Insurance (BI) framework. The team has already been working on the project for the past few months, and once rolled out the project will enable Max New York to look at data more holistically and in perspective. “Data always tells a story, it could be on agent performance, the distribution model, company’s performance and even customer expectations and perceptions,” says Arora. In addition the company will also be able to do analytics on data and customer segmentation. Summing up his focus areas in 2012, Arora says, “In 2012, we will be working with the business folks on how to enable and increase their productivity and improve upon the quality of service. From the partnerin-progress model, we are now moving to an enabling model.” n
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entrepreneurship
Education Needs a Face-lift A look at the actual education scenario in India and some solutions to the real-time challenges posed by the traditional pen-and-paper approach
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t’s been intense 4 years at Vriti since its plunge into the Indian education landscape. Back from the US, it was an interesting experience for me as I walked down the narrow lanes of small schools in Delhi, saw the fierce intensity in the eyes of the young students at celebrity coaching houses, witnessed the overlap of businesses, faith, and desire in overcrowded classrooms. One thing was clear; this was not a potato to cut but an onion to peel. Who will be the Google/Facebook of education, is still an open contest.
Who Will Bell the Cat?
Being an entrepreneur is a humble experience, but the sheer enormity and diversity of education can still exceed your wildest expectation. In India, there are over 60 mn students, about 250,000 schools, another 200,000 coaching houses/tutorials. There are about 1,000 important exams in curriculum and competitions in about 8 important languages to be catered. There are about 1 mn experts/teachers who target these. Bulks of classrooms in India suffer from chronic power outages, with paper being the primary medium of knowledge exchange. Any attempt to device a technology driven e-class limits you to a 1-3% penetration due to infrastructure issues and economic viability. What can be devised to unify this and how, is the existential question at Vriti we have been trying to address. Just to add, the solution to this problem will automatically have an international appeal due to the very similar fundamental questions to be answered there.
Career Progression
From the very beginning, I was intrigued how science and technology could impact day-to-day lives. From the early days at IIT Bombay to Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, I got involved in various research projects and was always excited to explore further. In 1999, I was at the technology research division in Motorola. I was working on bluetooth technology, creating location based peer-to-peer network and there, the enchantment grew even further. Having spent enough years in the Silicon Valley and witnessing the internet era from close quarters, I automatically became a fan of the disruptive technology mindset. It turns out, as per latest understanding, the disruptive needs to be a lot adaptive. If technology has to play a unifying role in education, it needs 52 | February 15, 2012
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digital business to penetrate a sizeable percentage of classrooms,where it is imparted. That means that the paper based education needs to be integrated into the magic mass solution and anything requiring hi-tech or highcost will need to go straight out of the classroom window.
The Final Go!
I, along with Pankaj Vermani and Yogesh Seth, got together in 2006 to solve this conundrum. We, together with Saurabh Shrivastav, had been there earlier. An excited set of minds, we had started our first venture in the US—Seeknet Technologies Inc, which had its office in India as well. We had been able to create a patent pending travel meta-search technology, which went through a successful exit in 2005. When we saw how technology can bring value to something like travel in the US, we were sure that we could make an impact in India in a larger vertical.
‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’
The thirst of doing something new was even more evolved. We brought together a mix of brilliant minds from the education and technology sectors. The company forms its core nucleus around the ‘stay hungry, stay foolish’ motto. Over the years, we have built some of the most challenging product lines in the country. Team Vriti, in its pursuit, got assistance with Intel Capital investment as series A and then Intel and JAFCO investments as series B. So, what did we do? Bulk of the business models in India seem to gravitate towards real estate centric deals like opening schools and colleges or content, classroom plays enrolling students at premium pricing. By definition, these models are brand oriented and not platform plays. It took 2 years for Vriti to identify that test analysis data can be the glue that holds this diversity DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Can India find a channel to harness the expertise of a billion people without the limitations of the physical infrastructure?
together and form the cement that holds this platform. As of now, Vriti has about 170 mn questions analyzed on its platform across 1.5 mn students in 121 cities and towns in India. Vriti’s solution approach has been pay-per-use smart education platform, community-driven expert acquisition and rating, assessmentdriven analytics, and transparency of payouts for authors and affiliates. This platform has the capability to offer a smart course and an individual experts knowledge to the whole world (including a remote classroom). Can this be the unifying magical mass solution?
Centralized Approach
As a result, now we have been able to launch a national assessment grid, taking quality education to over 121 cities across the country and leveling the play-field for students from all corners of the country. So, whether it is a student from Cooch Behar or Hauz Khas, Delhi, the same test series for IIT–JEE preparation is available to both of them. Mitigating the barriers of technology, students can take the test on pen and paper, while we upload results on the national grid and give the benefits of the advanced technology system to each student. The level of innovation and R&D required to make this platform operational has been instrumental and Vriti has been fortunate to have some expert product and technology visit www.dqindia.com
contributors to reach to this level. There is a fine balance between revenue pressures and long-term product vision (that seems to evolve only with experience and time). Let’s just say, it is not a path to be tread by the faint hearted. It is also a little bit of a learning experience in India to find that the service revenue models in IT have led to ignominy and indifference towards true product/IP companies while they are at the other end of the hockey stick. India, for anyone just off the airport in Delhi/Mumbai/Bengaluru/ Chennai, definitely appears as intense chaos all the way and so they would invariably highlight chaos in their polite pre-conversations. Couple this with the fact that education ingrained across generations could be the single biggest asset that the Indian civilization has created. Can the two assumptions put together create pools of simmering talent not able to find its way to recognition in the Brownian motion? Without the chaos, maybe China found a way to vent its talent to the world with manufacturing. Can India find a channel to harness the expertise of a billion people without the limitations of the physical infrastructure? Can this personal expertise be captured as a smart course of digital content? Surely, this electronic exchange will smoothly slide past the pothole-ridden roads and government bureaucracy. If there is a smart platform and a marketplace to expose individual talent commercially, it can make a strong case to create this knowledge economy possible. Is there a candidate that I could recommend? I would like to think so. n
SWAPNIL SHRIVASTAV The author is the founder and CEO, Vriti maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in February 15, 2012 | 53
Online Automobile Shopping
Car Makers, Are You E-listening? The recent Capgemini study ‘Cars Online 11/12’ tips off car manufacturers on the increasing impact of online social media in influencing consumers’ carbuying behavior Shobha Sivakumar shobhas@cybermedia.co.in (Based on extracts from Capgemini Study ‘Cars Online 11/12’)
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ars, cars and more cars—people of all ages, sizes and shapes are just talking and dreaming of cars everywhere. The Indian car buying market has just received an exciting push in 2012 in the form of the Auto Expo that was held at New Delhi, and in 2011 as the repute-gaining, successfully held, highly modernized and technology driven Formula (F1) Indian GP. Consequently, there are more buyers in the market evaluating more number of brands and variants suitable to their pockets. While these are ground realities, there are realities existing in the internet world too.
Vast Potential to Tap
The increasing volume of information captured by enterprise, multimedia, social media, location based platforms, and the ‘Internet of Things’ has created an ocean of data on the net and on the car consumer’s behavior too. The ability of manufacturers to analyze this vast information and turn it into actionable ideas will become a serious competitive advantage in the marketplace. In view of this, a study recently released by Capgemini analyzing consumer behavior with respect to online car buying can help car manufacturers get a hold on the online consumers’ buying patterns. Though in the Indian automotive scenario where buying a car is more than an indulgence and usually a family affair, where the buyer is accompanied by several family members, it definitely comes as a pleasant revelation that more and more cars are being bought not just after researching online, but through online channels as well. In fact, as the 9th largest auto industry in the world, India’s auto market now commands almost a stupendous 22% of the country’s online market share. The recently released findings of its 13th annual global automotive ‘Cars Online 11/12’ study by Capgemini ascertains a certain shift in consumers’ behavior in the buying of a car. 54 | February 15, 2012
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digital business For the study, more than 8,000 consumers were surveyed in both the developing and the mature markets in 8 countries—Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. It provides a detailed analysis of consumer vehicle buying behavior around the world including shopping patterns, social media usage, online buying, green vehicles, customer interaction and aftersales and servicing. All the consumers surveyed intended buying a car in the near future.
Global Vs Indian Perceptions
The global part of the study reveals several major aspects to the car buying process with respect to consumer behavior. Of these, a significant one related to the role of the ‘Internet and social media: Putting consumers in the driving seat’ suggests that globally, consumer internet behavior, as well as the rise of tablets and smartphones are increasingly impacting the vehicle decision and buying process, with price, guidance and product information continuing to be the primary features which consumers research via the internet. The study also indicates a growing reliance on social media and usergenerated content as a source for vehicle and dealer information for the latest opinions and reviews from other consumers and automotive experts. In this year’s study, 42% of consumers said they were likely to purchase a vehicle over the internet, up from 37% two years ago. As far as the Indian marketplace is concerned, car-buying is definitely at a stage different from what is happening globally in the passenger car scenario. Firstly, the study reveals that there is an increase in the number of consumers planning to buy a new rather than used vehicle. In India 92% respondents intended to buy a new car. The number of intended new car buyers is the highDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Intention to Acquire New vs Used Vehicle (% saying)
Source: Capgemini.com
est in developing markets like India and China, where many consumers are first-time buyers. The number of Indian consumers researching online reached 95% in 2011 from 86% in 2010, while the likelihood of purchasing a vehicle over the internet has increased from 52% in 2010 to 53% in 2011 in India. 59% of Indian car buyers say they are likely to buy parts over the internet; the same number want to buy accessories online. Thus, the internet is becoming a dominant
The likelihood of purchasing a vehicle over the internet has increased from 52% in 2010 to 53% in 2011 in India
% of Respondents Using the Web to Research
Source: Capgemini.com
tool for research and purchase for consumers in India.
Non-traditional Approaches
There is an increasing demand for new, non-traditional approaches to vehicle buying and ownership. As per the study, visit www.dqindia.com
n Social
media has become more influential. Consumers in India exhibit a higher-than-average use of social media during the vehicle buying process. The study found that 78% would be likely to purchase a vehicle from a particular car manufacturer or dealer if they found February 15, 2012 | 55
Online Automobile Shopping
Anish Sarkar, head, consulting, Capgemini India
“The impact of the internet on consumer demand and buying behavior for passenger cars in India is intensifying at a surprisingly fast pace The ‘digital’ winners in the Auto ecosystem will be those that can successfully adopt a ‘bricks’n’clicks’ strategy for their customers”
positive comments posted about that vehicle make/brand, manufacturer or dealer. Here’s where an active website/social media platform would come in useful for the dealers. n Mobile/smartphone applications are poised to become a key channel for vehicle ownership communication between consumers and manufacturers, consumers and dealers, and consumers and their vehicles. Apps considered most useful by respondents include remote support features such as remote locking and unlocking of vehicle doors, care information like service reminders about when maintenance is due and car care tips. The study also states, “The buying cycle is beginning to shrink, especially dealer visits, leaving dealers with fewer opportunities to interact face-to-face with customers. Fifty-nine percent of Indian consumers start their research within two months of purchase; 49% visit a showroom for the first time within one month.” It is no wonder that the onus is now on car manufacturers and sales/service providers providing more and more services related to customer care online, where the consumer would find these at his/her doorstep and project a more positive influence on future buyers. And this could begin right at the marketing stage. For example, a novel idea at the 56 | February 15, 2012
Auto Expo was that of M&M, for people who could not physically visit the stall, M&M arranged for a live broadcast through a webcast. The company also organized an amusing and excited reality show at its stall, wherein the visitors could interact with a virtual cheetah. M&M also launched India’s first Adventure magazine for iPad that was on display, along with its award winning Mahindra Adventure game. With the help of a special iPad photo application, visitors could get themselves clicked with the Mahindra vehicles displayed at the Expo. Further, as per the study, the following priorities too gain importance. Car manufacturers need to focus on these for influencing prospective customers for the better— n Aftersales servicing is growing as a factor in vehicle decisions. Servicing is taking on a bigger role for many consumers with aftersales service becoming a more important factor in choosing a vehicle and influencing future buying decisions. Also, consumers are becoming more demanding about dealerships. n Another finding shows that car buyers continue to be more demanding about dealerships as only 45% of respondents in India are willing to travel more than 10 miles to purchase a vehicle. 39% respondents said they are willing to travel only 5-10 miles to a dealership to visit www.dqindia.com
purchase a vehicle. The remaining 16% was willing to travel less than 5 miles to purchase a vehicle. For example, sites such as carwale.com, RunPapa.com are beginning to offer the comfort of opting out of dealing with car dealers and help in direct transactions.
The Main Online Woe
A common woe however of consumers not interested in buying online, as revealed by the study, is their inability to test drive the vehicle, to receive full product and price information and to see photos/video of the vehicle. The study suggests that though these perceived barriers have remained consistent over the past few years, yet they are clearly addressable and should be capitalized upon by dealers and manufacturers with a formal social media and channel management strategy to engage with existing and potential customers.
Change Anticipated
“The impact of the internet on consumer demand and buying behavior for passenger cars in India is intensifying at a surprisingly fast pace. The gap between the reality on the ground and the latent demand of consumers is significant at this stage but it also means that traditional operating and technology models will be challenged sooner rather than later. The ‘digital’ winners in the Auto ecosystem will be those that can successfully adopt a ‘bricks’n’clicks’ strategy for their customers,” says Anish Sarkar, head, consulting, Capgemini India. Thus, the traditional approaches need to be dropped in favor of interactive methods of attracting consumers. After all, the first point of contact is now slowly becoming the website, after which decisionmaking takes over. Are car makers e-listening?
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
digital business
E-planning to Buy a Car? Innovative and interactive online social media tools have begun to woo and attract more car buyers through attractive deals and discounts Shobha Sivakumar shobhas@cybermedia.co.in
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Rush Parekh, MD, Team-BHP
ll said and done, the profile of the addictive, compulsive online buyer is becoming vastly different from that of before. He/she is well-entrenched in the world of internet and, now better informed and well aware of the varied options available in the marketplace, and more importantly more used to buying and selling with the comfort of a click. What if such a buyer was to be buying cars? On one hand, there are these car enthusiasts who log on to sites such as Team-BHP.com for updating their research based information. “In the calendar year 2011, Team-BHP.com was visited by 1.42 crore unique visitors (according to Google Analytics). In the year prior, it was 1.08 crore. We do also have full-feature Team-BHP Apps for the Apple and Android platforms,” as Rush Parekh, managing director, Team-BHP says. Team-BHP.com however does not buy and sell cars. It is purely an information resource; in order to keep its content brutally unbiased, it does not accept any advertising from the car industry. On the other, there are the serious buyers for whom car manufacturers in India such as Maruti, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Ford, etc, have already made their moves online with websites, while other service providers such as Runpapa.com, carwale.com, OLX.in, etc, have put up innovative, interactive social media platforms, and none can deny their increasing impact on car buyers. “We got 20 mn unique visitors in 2011 as compared to 10.7 mn in 2010, while we sold 13,000 new cars in 2011 as compared to 8,000 in 2010. There were 143,000 used cars listed for sale on CarWale in 2011 as compared to 106,000 used cars listed in 2010. Though new cars and used cars sale on CarWale are in proportion in general, new cars seem to be outperforming the used cars sale. Most of CarWale services, including personalized new car buying expert consultation, are free to the car consumer. For selling a car on CarWale, you need to pay a very small flat fee of Rs 827. To facilitate the online transaction, we work with two leading payment gateways. Though there are some offline payment modes also provided, the users are more comfortable paying online. 90% of the payments made are online on CarWale,” reveals Banwari Lal Sharma, overseeing marketing and product efforts, CarWale.com. And then there is the category of sellers/buyers predominantly in the used car segment that too are using online media to sell-buy cars more avidly. Manu Jolly, a first-
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February 15, 2012 | 57
Online Automobile Shopping “Within 2 to 3 days of posting an ad a user would start getting calls from the prospective buyers. The platform reduces the need for a car dealer and allows individuals to trade directly with the prospective buyers” Amarjit Batra, country head, OLX.in
time seller on OLX.in says, “None of the dealers nearby my place could offer me a reasonably good resale value for my car. Someone referred to me OLX.in and both the buyer and I closed the deal at respectively satisfying prices. I am a regular email user and had not used the internet for anything else. But after OLX, I have begun to use the internet regularly to buy and sell.” OLX agrees. “Users are finding this platform pretty convenient and relevant for buying and selling of used cars. OLX is India’s first online platform to address the C2C (Consumer to Consumer or Individual to Individual) market in India. We have realized through our user feedback that we are solving a huge problem for those who want to sell the secondhand cars but have not been able to do so in the past because there was no marketplace where they could sell their second-hand cars. Most of the car owners do not want to spend money on posting ads in either online or print media and the very facet that OLX is completely free to post ads and transact becomes a unique selling point for them. There are many buy-
ers looking for offers of OLX and car owners are able to sell their vehicles faster and at better prices that they are getting offline,” says Amarjit Batra, country head, OLX.in, which claims to be India’s first online free local classified site. Buying and selling of cars online is now all the more convenient for the users. “This can be easily done by anybody conversant with basic computers and internet activities like email. Every Indian does not have a computer or knows English. OLX allows users to access the site in ther local language— Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. A user who is on the go can even access OLX through his mobile. A user can instantly post an Ad through his mobile phone by using the OLX mobile apps that are free to use. After capturing a shot of the product with his mobile phone camera, a user can conveniently enter a detailed description of the product and post the ad in less than 2 minutes. OLX Mobile Apps is available for iPhone, Android, Nokia Ovi, Windows mobile and Blackberry operating systems,” adds Amarjit Batra, country head, OLX.in
“New cars seem to be outperforming the used cars sale. Most of CarWale services, including personalized new car buying expert consultation, are free to the car consumer” Banwari Lal Sharma, overseeing marketing and product efforts, CarWale.com 58 | February 15, 2012
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And this can be done at the comfort of a click, without the need to visit any dealership. “Within 2 to 3 days of posting an ad a user would start getting calls from the prospective buyers. The platform reduces the need for a car dealer and allows individuals to trade directly with the prospective buyers. This makes them zeroed on a good deal which they were not expecting while going through a dealer,” agrees Amarjit Batra, country head, OLX.in Some attractive sites for example, in India, new ones with different USPs, such as RunPaPa.com, are offering the consumers looking to purchase a vehicle this year, to opt out of visiting dealer outlets and logging on instead to their website that uses the Group Buy concept to leverage demand dictated discounts. The auto site, which claims to be the world’s first group buy portal for automobiles and ancillary products, has begun this novel way of attracting online car buyers. The Reverse Group Buy feature goes beyond the usual group buy concept of pre-determined discount deals. RunPaPa equips consumers to dictate their own discounts, enabling them to become ‘Power Buyers’(as per their release). The site itself manages the negotiations and when the buyers reach a minimum number in a group, the buying can take place at the discounted prices for that particular group. The site’s no-cost service has also helped attract over 100,000 subscribers registering with Runpapa. com and 180,000 fans on Facebook since its inception in May 2011, although the company did not share the minimum number of buyers required for a group buy. It would indeed be a worthwhile effort if car manufacturers could take note of the potential market available and work on basing their strategies more in sync with such sites for driving robust internet based sales. n
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Cashback Schemes
Simplifying E-shopping Everyday e-commerce companies are deploying newer tactics to woo and win customers, cashback seems to be one such program
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ashback is simply a reward given to a shopper for making a purchase. Everytime shoppers make a valid purchase they earn cashback, which can be in various forms. The main categories of cashback that might be offered are— n Debit and Credit Card Cashback: In the case of debit and credit card cashback, the consumer gets a cash reward from the card company in the form of cashback when they spend at a partner outlet of the bank that issued the card. Similar to the other cashback offers, the credit or debit card cashback rebate is usually a percentage of spend, but may also be a flat amount credited per transaction. n Mobile Phone Cashback: This money is offered as an incentive for potential customers to choose a particular tariff plan for their mobile phones. n Cashback Website/Portal: A site where customers can earn a reward in the form of cash rebates on online purchases that they make at partner stores of that cashback website. There are a few critical elements of any cashback program: n Merchant Partners n Cashback Website n Shoppers/Customers n Eligible Purchase n Coupon Codes n Redemption Options
60 | February 15, 2012
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digital business Merchant Partners
Cashback websites tie up with merchant partners from various industry verticals. Typically, these partners pay the cashback website a commission on sales generated through the website. The commission could either be a flat rate per transaction or a cut of the sale amount. Hence the cashback website acts as a sales channel for the merchant and also an enabler in terms of driving traffic and encouraging loyal behavior. Statistics show that transacting customers referred to the merchant’s website via a cashback website tend to spend more and visit more frequently. This is a perfect win-win for the merchant, the cashback website, and the customer. Primarily, the merchant only pays for the actual sales that are being referred and hence the merchant has nothing to lose in this engagement. The cashback website generates revenue and the end customer gets paid for doing something that they do anyway.
Cashback Website
The design and layout of a cashback website is extremely important for a seamless customer experience for the user. The website is normally designed so that the customers is able to find the cashback offer that they are looking for in the fewest possible clicks. On the other hand, the cashback website also has a comprehensive set of offers and deals from the partner stores. The cashback website serves as a destination website that anyone buying
anything online should start their shopping from. Coupon codes and vouchers are available on these sites as well and cashback is generally paid on top of the discount availed by them.
Shoppers
A customer of a cashback website is any customer of any of the online partner stores. The customers of any age group can avail the benefits of a cashback website. The process to be eligible for cashback is extremely simple, requiring only a few extra clicks on the cashback website.
An Eligible Purchase
For a purchase to be tracked and be eligible for cashback, the shopper must first visit the cashback website and click on the merchant’s link there. This allows the cashback website to track the order and credit the shopper’s account with the reward for that particular transaction. Many cashback websites require cookies to be enabled on the browser for tracking orders. Directly visiting the merchant’s website will also not be eligible for cashback. In certain situations, use of coupon codes obtained outside the cashback website will void the cashback for that order.
Coupon Codes
Another important aspect of a cashback website will be coupon codes or discount vouchers. Coupon codes is a great way for the shopper to buy online. Coupon codes are
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simple codes which will give the consumer a discount from the listed retail price. All that the consumer has to do is to enter the code during checkout. On entering the code, the reduced price is displayed in the shopping cart before the payment is made. Coupon codes are usually an additional discount feature that shoppers can use on top of the cashback that is being offered by the website. Coupon codes are also known as coupons, promotional codes, ecoupons, or discount codes. Most of these coupons are short-term and offer discounts within a given timeframe and are to be used within this time.
Redemption Options
There are several ways in which a cashback website can offer to pay the consumer the cashback he has earned. Payments may be in the form of bank transfers, gift vouchers, online sites such as PayPal or bank cheques. A shopping website, especially a cashback website, should facilitate the shopper in their quest to buy what they are looking for and not flood them with unnecessary promotions and product advertisements. A cashback shopping portal is designed to simplify your shopping experience, maximize your savings, and make sure you have an exciting and comfortable experience everytime you shop online. The whole process is simplified and made enjoyable and it’s quite addictive. n
RAVITEJ YADALAM The author is founder and chief executive officer, Pennyful.com maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in February 15, 2012 | 61
Kaleidoscope
And the Experiments Continue...
RUKHSAR SALEEM rukhsars@cybermedia.co.in AVISHEK RAKSHIT avishekr@cybermedia.co.in
Booked by the Law
Shortly after rolling out Timeline in its profile interface, social networking major Facebook seems to be heading towards another lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a public interest group which asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate possible privacy violations and non-adherence to the ‘November Settlement’ in the newly introduced feature. Although Facebook hasn’t made any mandatory norm for its users to shift over to the new interface, the public interest groups are raising alarms regarding possible violation of ‘privacy norms’, alleging that Timeline is an infringement of the landmark ‘November Settlement’ between Facebook and FTC. Under this settlement, Facebook is forbidden from changing a user’s privacy settings without an expressed consumer consent. With the allegation brought forth by EPIC, the social media behemoth is likely to keep Timeline as an option rather than make it mandatory. Furthermore, Facebook has clarified that Timeline doesn’t change the privacy of any content.
Time to Bounce Back
Groupon is making desperate efforts to retain its losing market share and bounce back positively in the e-commerce business. The launch of ‘Merchant Center’ for the convenience of its merchants is definitely one step in that direction. Now the merchants availing the companyfeatured deals like Groupon Now! and Groupon Rewards, will have a new dashboard and can do a host of activities like track their customer comments, customer acquisition, incremental customer spending, and RoI from Groupon marketing services. To make this feature successful, Groupon has started surveying all its end-users about their Groupon experiences instantly after they redeem their coupons and update this information immediately on this new Merchant Center. With this feature, merchants can understand the dynamics of business and can plan their inventory strategically. Almost 1 mn end-users have given feedback to the Groupon merchants. Hope that this effort (feature) of Groupon helps it to sail through tough times in an increasingly competitive e-commerce market globally. 62 | February 15, 2012
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digital business Roping in the Investors, to Drive Profits
All the e-commerce companies in the industry keep looking for timely fund infusions to keep the momentum of expansion and diversification going on. In 2011, many known yet barely few months old start-ups had been successful in doing so. But in 2012, HealthKart, which is owned by Bright Lifecare, is the one of the first few companies to open the account by procuring `27 crore as second round of funds not only from its previous investor, Sequoia Capital but also from a new investor, Omidyar Network. In April 2011, the company had raised $1 mn as seed fund from Kae Capital and Sequoia Capital. HealthKart had recently expanded its product portfolio with nutrition and lifestyle products, and it further plans to diversify its portfolio and come up with an online magazine with this new funding. Therefore we will continue to watch out for the trends in e-commerce, as funds are minting in these online ventures; also, how many enterpises diversify their product range is another trend to watch!
Hottest Investor Parents (VCs) of Online Ventures of 2011 By Value
By Volume
S. No
Name of the VC
Value of Investment
S. No. Name of the VC
Number of Deals
1.
Sequoia Capital India
$69.5 mn
1.
Intel Capital
11
2.
Nexus Venture Partners
10
3.
Blume Ventures
9
2.
Intel Capital
$66.2 mn
3.
Nexus Venture Partners
$62 mn
4.
Canaan Partners
$56.2 mn
4.
Accel Partners
8
5.
Tiger Global Management
$45.8 mn
5.
IDG Ventures, Tiger Global Management
6 each
Another Stamp of Women Power
Women are not only known as compulsive shoppers, thus a reason for retailers delight, but time and again they have also proved themselves as capable leaders. This time for the online retail space, Anisha Singh, founder and chief executive officer of mydala.com, has been acknowledged with the ‘Leading Woman in Retail’ award. This award, which glorifies women power in this new emerging industry, was conferred at the 3rd Edition Women Leaders in India 2011, Mumbai. Singh’s innovativeness and strategic focus have been instrumental in leveraging the potential of group buying and deploying social media platform for marketing, is the opinion echoed by many industry experts, including names from Bollywood, who used mydala services for promotions and launches. Hail women power! DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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February 15, 2012 | 63
CLOUD COMPUTING
Key to the Lock Is vendor lock-in becoming a bigger issue than the solution itself? SHILPA SHANBHAG shilpas@cybermedia.co.in
I
T vendor lock-in can be said to be, as old as the IT industry itself. Take for instance ERP solutions, laptops, desktops, etc, vendor lockin exists even in these cases but has received acceptance. But cloud computing has assumed greater importance owing to it being a new solution and has received all the attention in relation to vendor lock-in, as it has been witnessing an acceptance drive since the last decade, enabling adoption of a single solution on a common protocol regardless of the vendor.
A Difficult Decision
Most of the times the lock-in scenario is not driven by greed or strategy, but is necessitated by the technology architecture of the chosen solution/vendor. Being tied to one vendor for specific products and services is sometimes unavoidable in the enterprise. This is also true when it comes to the cloud, particularly cloud storage. “Avoiding vendor lock-in can be difficult for 2 reasons. Firstly, cloud infrastructure as a service in general is not as open as it should be. This will require independent standards for data mobility. Secondly, enterprise storage is already very proprietary. Even though cloud vendors talk about open standards and interoperability, their actions and implementation strategy may not confirm what they talk about,” shares Shree Parthasarathy, senior director, enterprise risk services, Deloitte in India. 64 | February 15, 2012
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“When companies bite the bait on such important topics on the basis of discounts offered, they unknowingly walk into a trap called voluntary vendor lock-in” Sharat Airani, chief, IT (systems and security), Forbes Marshall
“Irrespective of open standards, vendor lock-in is something which we will need to accept as part of the technology scenario even if it’s cloud computing” LS Subramanian, founder director, cloud security alliance, Mumbai Chapter
“The vendor and company both need to know the possible pros and cons of unlocking one’s business from the current vendor. This refers to ‘sacrifices’—in terms of time, money, and effort—not mentioning the risks of losing and compromising the security of sensitive data during the process,” says Anna Gong, vice president, solution sales, virtualization, service automation, and cloud, CA Technologies Asia Pacific. Shreekanth Joshi, associate vice president, head, SaaS and cloud practice, Persistent Systems feels, “Vendor lock-in scenario is an avoidable case and was in existence approximately 1.5 years back. In the past, not all the languages were supported and interoperability was missing which is currently also not fully diminished from the scene. Today, there also exists a broker who selects the best cloud service provider for a company. Owing to the presence of the broker, it’s ensured that the company gets the best of services that fits its bill.” DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Mehmood Mansoori, head, information technology, HDFC ERGO General Insurance Co says, “Largely enterprises are locked-in with the platform they are on. It is never so easy to migrate from one application/platform to another. I have seen vendors playing hardball on product AMC once the initial phase of a contract period is over. You end up in a fierce negotiation and compromise on a number. On the other hand, there are vendors who clearly spell out y-o-y increase often linked with inflation index.”
Combating the Scenario
A world with vendor lock-in is like a world with no locks and keys, one needs to deal with this scenario based on the cost benefit for the chosen technology, ease of migration, deployment of solutions, and finally the skill sets available in-house or with the company’s vendors on the technology platform to be chosen. Cloud adoption/migration strategy for IT managers is visit www.dqindia.com
crucial to deal with such issues. Companies need to perform rigorously before jumping into the cloud craze. They need to identify and be aware of all possible pros and cons of taking their business to the cloud. The new cloud solutions are probably beneficial to the business, but IT managers need to be sure that they know the risks of switching from your current cloud vendor to a new one. From the customers’ perspective, the customer needs to work on 2 fronts: Readying the organization for the transition in terms of organizational maturity and technology preparedness, and following the basic principles of risk management and governance before taking the plunge is essential. On the other hand, the vendors need to come out with strong messages that address the interoperability and portability aspects. Vendors need to actively support the adoption of standards through an industry-level collaboration. Customers expect stability, interoperability, and flexibility with respect to the ability to move on to a new technology and vendor without any significant negative impact. The extent to which the definition and adoption of the standards is achieved will be watched closely by the customers. Service management for cloud should address data portability that includes bulk data transfers and transformation, as well as the portability of VM and application systems. “There is no quick-fix solution to this problem. As true portability across vendors is almost impossible to achieve, what can bring little relief to users is all the systems evolving towards common standards which will offer easier and less painful migrations. The most important lesson to be kept in mind during the whole exercise is the age-old adage ‘Prevention is better than cure’. One has to thoroughly February 15, 2012 | 65
CLOUD COMPUTING “The move to cloud has to be a thoughtful move rather than just riding the bandwagon because of the buzz it has created”
Mehmood Mansoori, head, information technology, HDFC ERGO General Insurance Co
“Solving a lock-in is totally dependent on the company’s relationship with the vendor, for example, in relation to cost the scenario can be renegotiated” Muralidharan R, chief operating officer, Dhanlaxmi Bank
study all aspects of the system to be cloud-sourced and compare it itemby-item to match with the vendor’s capabilities. Extreme caution is to be exercised to ensure that some so-called ‘insignificant’ aspect does not choke the whole system. Being transparent and honest about expectations, making selected vendor a partner in the process and taking lessons of a thorough POC seriously can help improve the situations,” feels Shreesh Patwardhan, vice president, IT, Dynamic Logistics. “Cloud federations and standardization on fewer platforms across service providers is going to make it much easier for enterprises to move across service providers. Companies like VMware are actively trying to build such an ecosystem wherein an easy movement is possible from technology perspective across providers,” says Nitin Mishra, VP, product management and solution engineering, Netmagic Solutions. Muralidharan R, chief operating officer, Dhanlaxmi Bank feels, “Vendor lock-in helps in planning the 66 | February 15, 2012
company’s utilization and how well you manage the scenario throws the door open to advantages. We being a small bank it proved more useful to utilize the services of a service provider rather than buying the same. Cloud has helped us exploit new services to our advantage, but it’s marred by lapses in relation to security. Hence banks prefer to keep the important functions like core banking with it. Solving a lock-in
Companies need to perform rigorous due diligence before jumping into the cloud craze. They need to identify and be aware of all possible pros and cons of taking their business to the cloud visit www.dqindia.com
is totally dependent on the company’s relationship with the vendor, for example, in relation to cost the scenario can be renegotiated.”
Preventive Mode
Today, many organizations have already committed themselves to a basket of technologies. Knowing the way forward with respect to these technologies is the key. Many of these vendors offer a cloud variant of the ‘non-cloud’ system. It’s simpler to leverage such existing relationships when on the cloud journey. This could provide an extent of flexibility of moving back in case the cloud system fails. Cloud standards are not just those that pertain directly to new cloud offerings but also those that are used in the cloud environment. These are not directly cloud standards but standards for protocols or services that are also used widely in the cloud environment. These could include XML, SOAP, SAML, etc. It’s important for the CIO to look for compliance to these underlying, yet universal standards. VM-related standards to facilitate VM portability are at a higher level of maturity as compared to data standards. Data is much more complex and standards are less evolved. Data portability and interoperability standards need to relate at how the vendors permit the customers to exercise control over the data. Currently, the stage can be termed as a nascent one when it comes to advanced standards related to data movement from one cloud provider to another. Data sanitization and in a sense ‘right to be forgotten’ once the migration is complete is another area that requires a deeper look when it comes to standards. For CIOs evaluating and selecting vendors that provide richer middleware, support to a wider range of technologies, advanced data management is important. These
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CLOUD COMPUTING parameters not only affect the service levels but also the switching costs for supporting interoperability and portability. “Globally, all product vendors follow some form of lock-in, and 12 months is acceptable industry-wide. We haven’t faced any concerns from the CIOs on the lock-in aspect. CIOs are more concerned about the SLAs and ensuring their requirements are suitable covered as part of the overall offerings,” feels R Sukumar, VP, Ramco OnDemand ERP. From the customer’s perspective, a due diligence and cloud adoption/ migration strategy mentioned earlier will help deal with such scenarios. Whereas from the vendor’s perspective, it’s important to be transparent to the customer and allow adequate clauses in relation to migration while entering into a contract with a customer. “Even though a lock-in situation may seem great for a vendor, in truth, having an open and simple system is going to be the deal-maker for the vendor. To a CIO, a vendor with genuinely good product or service may become less attractive than a competitor with a comparable product or service which is open. Thus a vendor needs to work within standards and provide a seamless basic data and process portability. The differentiators and goodies should be made as add-ins and should be attractive enough from customer-retention point of view. From companies point of view, it’s necessary to study all the available systems and make the right choice, ensure that regular backups and updates happen, and test reverse migration situation thoroughly so that in the worst case the system can be brought back. Also, it’s imperative for organizations to not lose the capacity to manage the cloudsourced system in-house, at least for some reasonable amount of time,” shares Patwardhan. 68 | February 15, 2012
Many organizations today have already committed themselves to a basket of technologies. Knowing the way forward with respect to these technologies is the key
Adoption Hurdles?
The unstable economy has forced many enterprises, small and medium businesses (SMBs), to reduce their IT costs. Because of this economic state, moving part or all of their businesses to cloud computing is inevitable and sometimes unavoidable. Under the enormous pressure to reduce the costs, CIOs and CTOs have to make tough decisions about vendor lock-in. Cloud computing platforms offer compelling cost benefits, but lack standards and data security concerns are not addressed appropriately. The risk of vendor lock-in provides significant challenges for deploying production systems in cloud based environments. Unless a company has an exit strategy that includes the cost of migration or moving to another service provider or moving back on premise, migration or moving applications and services can be quite costly and risky. At the same time, new Independent Software Vendors (ISV) are building smart solutions as services that can be provisioned on cloud platforms, which can be viewed as more flexible, less risky, and cost friendly. “Vendor lock-in scenario does not affect the adoption of cloud computing services in SaaS, but in PaaS and IaaS it needs to be considered, visit www.dqindia.com
especially if you are migrating to a new computing environment,” feels LS Subramanian, founder director, cloud security alliance, Mumbai Chapter. “Vendor lock-in has not affected the adoption of cloud computing services. Today, CIOs understand that any new software investment comes with a minimum time commitment. It’s important that customers study the vendors’ commitment to cloud and R&D efforts are invested in that direction. This will ensure that customers feel confident when entering into an engagement with a cloud provider on a long-term basis,” says Sukumar. While there are others like Vivekanand Venugopal, vice president, general manager, Hitachi Data Systems India who differ from this stand, “Adoption of cloud is definitely impacted by various vendor lock-in scenarios. This happens when a company selects vendors who offer many products and services under the cloud computing offering. The focus should not be on cloud products or cloud services, but rather on getting the data center cloud enabled. Cloud is not a product, but instead a means to deliver IT services on a cost-per-use basis. Through cloud computing, organizations can simplify infrastructure while improving resilience and lowering capex and opex. Cloud delivers value to the enterprise because it facilitates the distribution of IT resources in a cost-effective and agile manner.”
Gone with the Wind?
Healthy competition creates a market favoring the client thereby encouraging innovation and low cost. Depending on the function and classification of the service or the product the consumer decides the cost of the product. Vendor lock-in as per the past is seen to be increasing in nature thereby locking consumers and their budget.
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Inversely a trend of quality versus cost compromise has been seen in price-sensitive markets. Hence the entire current scenario seems to be vendor-centric as there seems to be no regularization on prices when it comes to IT solutions/services or products. In past, almost every system or service was designed to be as different from competitors as possible. Just because the awareness among top management and decision-makers about the system was very rudimentary, this scenario could thrive. But in today’s networked, search engine driven world knowledge is freely available to all and targeted questions are being answered in a jiffy. This demystifying of technology has made more and more people aware about alternatives and their right to choose them. As a result, people are switching their minds too often and ending up in a mess. “Vendor lock-in as a challenge has created such an emphatic presence that it has even gained more importance than security issues. In order to prevent cases in relation to lock-in, the industry is required to have an open platform. But on a strong note, I would like to mention that companies have the tendency to purchase many solutions from a single vendor owing to reasons like discounts offered. When companies bite the bait on such important topics on the basis of discounts offered, they unknowingly have walked into a trap called, ‘voluntary vendor lock-in’. Many companies using cloud computing are in for a rude wake-up shock,” informs Sharat Airani, chief, IT (systems and security), Forbes Marshall. “Vendor lock-in is not a truth of the past as it still exists and today, although morphed by vendor alliances showcased as ‘tightly integrated’, which are in reality, loosely coupled marketing arrangements that prevent customers from bringDATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Calculated Steps
To avoid pitfalls, look for the following characteristics that are key to cloud enablement: The ability to rapidly provision or de-provision a service A consumption model where users pay for what they use The agility to flexibly scale—’flex up’ or ‘flex down’— the service without extensive pre-planning A secure, direct connection to the cloud without having to recode applications Multi-tenancy capabilities that segregate and protect the data
ing in the ‘best of breed’ technologies to transform their data centers’,” says Venugopal. “It’s not a thing of the past. How much one succumbs to it however is determined by how well one plans for it, which in itself defines the control of the organization. Though standards are the key, the needs to determine the extent to which it could be affected. This is the key to successful decision-making. As the cloud gains wider acceptance, I foresee regulatory and legal requirements providing the stimulus for definition of standards. Vendors would be forced to participate in in-
For CIOs evaluating and selecting vendors that provide richer middle ware, support to a wider range of technologies, advanced data management is important. These parameters not only affect the service levels but also the switching costs for supporting interoperability and portability visit www.dqindia.com
dustry-wide standards, particularly those related to data and therefore data portability and interoperability,” shares Sandeep Godbole, CISA, CISM, CISSP, and member of ISACA India Task Force. “Irrespective of open standards, vendor lock-in is something which we will need to accept as part of the technology scenario even if it is cloud computing. Vendor lock-in is not a show-stopper for technology adoption in the cloud, rather vendors who allow tools for migration to other vendors without lock-in will have more users rather than those who offer no solutions or work around for lock-ins in their eco-system,” feels Subramanian. Mansoori feels, “There are a lot of talks about open standard based cloud platform. I think the standards are evolving, it will take a while and at the end may not be effective too, to solve any of the vendor lock-in issues. Cloud adoption has to go little beyond this and thought from the overall need basis. Move to cloud has to be a thoughtful move rather than just riding the bandwagon because of the buzz it has created.” On a final note, Patwardhan adds, “The whole issue of vendor lock-in is giving an interesting spin-off, a whole new breed of service providers who act as buffers between the actual vendors and customers, making technologies transparent to customers and providing solutions instead of services.” n February 15, 2012 | 69
Assembled PCs
En Passé
Branded PCs have clearly overtaken their assembled counterparts in terms of retail sales. The only opportunity assembled PCs have is in the gaming zone AVISHEK RAKSHIT
avishekr@cybermedia.co.in
M
obility devices like laptops, netbooks, and tablets seem to have eaten much into the share of the bulky traditional mode of the Personal Computer (PC) dominating the Indian scenario just a decade ago, though desktops still hold an estimated 6 mn share (in terms of units) in the gigantic 10 mn (units) size of the Indian IT market (source: IDC). Although the total unit in terms of shipment is much higher, estimated at around 14 mn units last calender year, the actual market continues to remain pretty low. The change is quite phenomenal considering the rapid shift of the Indian consumers towards mobility with ‘branded PCs and laptops’ gaining huge market share in a very short time span. Just about 4 years ago, the assembled PC market was estimated to be around 57.5% of the overall desktop market. Considering the replacement market figures, another 18% could be added to the overall figure making assembled PCs feature at 24.5% of the total desktop market share.
Prolog
In the early 2000s, ‘branded desktops’ hardly accounted for much of a share with consumers preferring to opt for building their own PC in accordance to their own preferences and needs. At that time, the market condition was ripe for the retailers and assemblers who did a brisk business. Besides, branded players like LG, decided to quit the desktop business altogether during the era of the assemblers as it could hardly harness any market share or strike major deals. Since then, India seems to have come a long way with the then ‘major assemblers’ themselves now focusing over selling branded PCs. The assembled PC market has taken a steep decline finally giving up to the ‘branding efforts’ put up by the likes of HCL, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and others amidst the backdrop of the rising prices and peripherals. 70 | February 15, 2012
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“PC penetration is still low in upcountry markets, and first-time consumers prefer desktops over laptops because they are more price conscious compared to consumers in urban metros” Amar Babu managing director, Lenovo India
“We feel that both laptops and desktops will continue to co-exist in the Indian market considering the scope of growth here”
Shishir Singh director, product marketing, CSMB, Dell India
“We are not yet operating in the Indian desktop market but will be entering it in February 2012.Our focus will be on the mid and high-end segments where there is still scope for quality performance oriented products” Vinay Shetty country head, component business, ASUS (India)
The growth percentage seems promising and the market share of both desktops and assembled PCs have fallen drastically over the last 3 years, particularly hitting the peripheral makers and retailers hard. Over the years, with the steep decline of the traditional PC, factors like affordability of the consumers, price parity, design, availability of stocks, as well as aggressive branding efforts of the laptops have been cited as the primary culprits by most of the retailers as well as manufacturers. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
“With the trend of mobility picking up and new form factor devices like tablets becoming popular, desktop demand has been affected to some extent. Also, with laptops becoming more affordable, desktops also face a stiff competition,” says Shishir Singh, director, product marketing, CSMB, Dell India.
Hard Drive and the $ Onslaught However in 2011, assembled PCs alongwith branded desktops took the hardest hit with prices of visit www.dqindia.com
components increasing, the hard drive crisis resulting in hoarding by the vendors, and the shift of major peripheral companies like Logitech towards other product lines. Also, OEM tie-ups in the past with Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, WD, Nanya, and others did the trick for the ‘branded PC’ manufacturers in harnessing more market share. “The key factors that had affected desktop sales in 2011 were rupee depreciation and hard drive crisis due to Thailand floods. Desktop sales were normal as projected till the end of Q2 after which there was a sharp decline,” says Vinay Shetty, country head, component business, ASUS India. “After the crisis there is no clear forecast of the pricing and availability of hard drives. I don’t see any major change to take place in the near future about the pricing and all. Major vendors like Lenovo, Acer, and others are buying out the hard disk stocks in bulk, as a result of which consumer market will take time to attain normalcy,” says Bimal Javeri, owner, Hard Track. During the hard drive crisis, dealers in Karnataka revealed that a Seagate 500 GB hard disk cost around `4,800 (excluding tax) whereas in times of normalcy, the same product was priced at `1,675. “The slowdown in demand comes on the back of robust growth in the JAS quarter. While we are seeing some softness in demand for PCs in India with the local currency’s sharp fall, a shortage in the supply of hard disk drives in the wake of the severe floods and rains in Thailand has made matters worse. Recently, the depreciation rate for the rupee has been quite high and with most PC components being imported, the costs have increased over time. “While we will not be able to absorb the full increase, we will minimize the hike that we pass on to the end customers,” February 15, 2012 | 71
Assembled PCs within the desktop category, but by mobility devices as well. Laptops like XPS, Studio, Pavilion, and others have already put into question the need for a specialized gaming device by incorporating high-capacity graphic cards and an improvised cooling system and tablets may soon challenge laptops for a share in the gaming segment as well. says Amar Babu, MD, Lenovo India. Similarly, ASUS too opined of the hard drive market recovery by February-March 2012. “The impact is felt more in the entry-level segment and not so much in the mid- and high-end segment. Also, since last month we’re seeing that buyers who were at the beginning of the impact cycle, postponing their purchases, are now slowly getting accustomed to the price hike and buying,” adds Shetty.
Woes of the Assembled PC
Hard drive market recovery and a miraculous economic u-turn may do the trick for the ailing desktop market, but assembled PC woes are here to stay. Already reeling under aggressive pressures from the rising desktop sales, the assembled PC market has lost its last solace even in the hands of the home users. Already the SMB and enterprise desktop space is captured by the likes of Compaq, HP, Dell, and Lenovo with the government space build up around HCL, Wipro, and their likes, assembled PCs have always been an outcast in these segments. Now with end-users too opting for the Lenovo ThinkCentre, Dell Inspirons, HP Pavilions, and their likes, the good old assembled PCs have now landed up either with a reverse logistics company or routed to the left-out class E cities. As a clear indication, assembled PCs are nearing their end with the golden era of the assemblers already passé. However manufacturers are 72 | February 15, 2012
not quite pessimistic about the trend and the fall of the assembled PC market. Indeed, the loss of assembled PC market share has been replaced by the growth of the branded players. Upcountry opportunity is always a concern for any hardware player or dealer and desktops are no exception. Although laptops have emerged as a preferred choice for upcountry consumers too (like the metros), desktop sale figures remain impressive; but only for the branded players. “Branded PCs have clearly emerged as the preferred choice of the customers in the upcountry area. Laptops in some upcountry areas are recently commanding a higher market share in overall IT sales; however there are consumers who opt for an assembled PC,” says Palash Maitra, owner, Matrix Solutions.
The Gaming Gamble
The gaming segment remains a brighter area for the assemblers as well as for the branded players. While the major assemblers and dealers are specifically offering product assimilation in the ‘graphics rich experience’ thereby creating specialized ‘gaming zones’ for the consumers, branded players too have started their penetration in these areas. Dell, with its Alienware, has significantly performed well along with high-memory and graphic card bundles by other manufacturers, but so far assemblers had the last laugh when it came to gaming. Even this area seems to be targeted not only from players visit www.dqindia.com
Emergence of a ‘Branded’ India
As of now, assembled PCs are surely losing their hold with Gartner stating that this PC segment accounts for 42.5% (excluding replacement market figures) of the desktop market share as of May 2011, as the manufacturers are seemingly having a brighter smile with their market shares eating into the assembled counterparts. India is moving towards branded PCs and this move is poised to continue for the coming years. The overall desktop market has shrunk compared to the growth rates from the mobility devices (taken together), major vendors are quite optimist about the ongoing demand for desktops. “Upgradability, cost of spares, operating times, service support, and pricing are some of the reasons why enterprise and consumer segments would still continue to go for desktops. There is still a large pie for the first-time PC buyers in the country who prefer desktops over laptops,” says Shetty. Lenovo admitted that mobility devices may overtake desktop usages in the long-run. “The Indian market is large enough to accommodate both the demand and growth of traditional PCs as well as tablets.” states Babu. For now, branding efforts by the global players have indeed paid off well with the old-time assemblers gradually taking up sub-distribution and branded retail as the natural evolution of their business. n
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Biometrics
Identify Yourself! India, with its huge market, will be the piece-de-resistance by 2017 STUTI DAS stutid@cybermedia.co.in
I
n a first of its sort in Northern India, Faridabad based Manav Rachna International University issued RFID based smart degree certificates on its first convocation day. In times, when forged degrees and certificates are becoming the norm and making it difficult for institutions to verify the degrees, RFID based smart degree certificates are tamper proof and ensure the integrity of the data written on the chip, which is embedded in the certificate that looks like a conventional degree.
Shifting Contours of the Biometrics Market
According to Acuity Market Intelligence, the global market for biometrics core technology currently is valued at $2.58 bn, and this is expected to swell to $11 bn by 2017. And terrorist attacks like the one on World Trade Center on September 11 and our own Mumbai attacks have only catalyzed governments around the world to review their national needs to improve and raise the standards for civilian identification. And Asia, which is home to more than 2 bn people, has become an increasingly important market for public safety solutions providers. The Asia Pacific region is expected to generate the greatest percent of revenues for the biometrics industry, with more than 32% of global revenues by 2017; shifting the market for such products from Europe and USA to Asia. Echoing similar sentiments Electronics & Security Research, Frost & Sullivan South Asia & Middle East elucidates that due to the rise in terrorist attacks, most notably the Mumbai Train bomb blast and 26/11 attacks, and increasing number of cases of infiltration across the border, there has been a rush to use secure solutions for establishing positive identity among citizens. However this necessarily is not the only reason for the growth in biometric readers market. The growth in the biometric readers market and its successful penetration in the Indian security market, on the other hand, are due to it being technologically advanced and more reliable than other forms of security measures. 74 | February 15, 2012
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Fueling the Growth
According to Rajiv Sodhi, senior corporate VP and chief customer officer (consumer services, manufacturing, public services, enterprise transformation, and strategic sourcing), HCL Technologies, “ Biometrics has now become embedded in all types of security—UID, driving license, or anything for that matter, but the purpose is to identify the right person.” Sodhi goes on to list areas where biometrics is being used in everyday life: Mobile devices (like laptops) come equipped with fingerprint recognition, highend smartphones have facial and iris recognition, luxury cars have keyless entry through fingerprint. As per a report of Frost & Sullivan—Aerospace, Defence & Security Practice Report 2011, India is expected to be a great market for safe city solutions with 7 announced projects to be completed in the next 10 years. From 2011-2012, fostered by the national government, a major safe city project is expected to be implemented in 6 major states across the country. In addition, Rajiv Bhalla, associate vice president & country head, sales & marketing, NEC India says, “The public safety and identity solutions business in India has tremendous potential. Our cities are gold mines of heritage, architecture, culture, and human wealth. Smart safe city initiative by the government is a step in the right direction; and we hope to constantly engage with the central and state governments to drive e-gov projects in India, participate in infrastructure security projects, and take keen interest in national security initiatives.” Experts feel that the growth of biometrics solutions has been at the expense of the traditional security methods like id-cards, tokens, physical frisking, etc. Moreover, with the large-scale migration of rural India to urban DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
cities for jobs has only spurred on the demand for safe and foolproof security that can also establish the person’s identity. On the enterprise front, dealing with confidential data has made them to deploy an authenticated physical access to premises (read biometric solutions).
Understanding the Reasons
Some of the key reasons that are aiding the growth of biometric solutions in India are: n Absence of Person Identification: India’s 70% of rural population is not benefiting from the various government welfare programs owing to lack of transparency, bureaucracy, corruption, distribution losses, and most importantly the absence of any person identification. Therefore governments are implementing biometric projects—UID, driving license, PDS, e-passport, land records, etc. n Ensuring Attendance: Most organizations’s HR face issues like ‘Buddy Punching’ and ‘Overtime’ thanks to proxy logging-in by employees. Therefore biometric attendance solutions (like in the case of Home Ministry) is seeing an increased traction. n Arresting Forgery: Forgery and fraudulent practices have risen especially in areas like driving license, land records, public distribution system, passport, etc. For eradicating it, projects like digitization of land records and biometric identification have been introduced. n Security Concerns: Rising security concerns among private and government organizations to secure data and borders visit www.dqindia.com
Banking Concerns: As branch banking becomes a loss-making proposition in the rural areas and lack of identification prevents villagers to avail micro-financing options from authorized agencies, biometric identification system has worked as a working proposition for all stakeholders involved. n
Appications in Store
According to another report of Frost &Sullivan, the Indian Biometric Market, the market earned revenues of `5.43 bn from the combined sale of biometric readers and cards in 2009 and estimates this to reach `52.55 bn in 2015. However notwithstanding the market’s impressive growth story, there is a general lack of awareness, further compounded by the absence of an unified standard for biometric readers, non-existent experts that are hindering. And, since the country has as yet not started domestic production of these devices, the sensors that are issued have to be imported leading to higher investment costs. As per Frost & Sullivan, time attendance and access control applications dominate the demand for biometric readers market. This is followed by various identity programs run by the government like UID, PDS, land records, e-passport, health cards, etc. Rise in microFebruary 15, 2012 | 75
Biometrics
Biometric Deployments in India
n UID Mission: The UID Mission has taken off in India with 20 lakh Aadhaar numbers having been issued; from October 1, 2011, 10 lakh numbers were to be issued every day. n New Delhi International Airport: Authorities at the New Delhi International Airport are now using biometrics to monitor cabbies; the move comes after a Saudi businessman was abducted and murdered by 2 cab drivers in 2008. n Karnatak University: It has deployed fingerprint attendance systems for keeping a tab on attendance of its irregular staff. n Tracking Government Schemes: Biometrics is helping district authorities in Nagenhalli, Mysore to track the mid-day meal scheme and control pilferage of food grains meant for mid-day meals thanks to the pilot project taken up by Bengaluru based software entrepreneur — Mallikarjun Patil. n Ministries: A biometric attendance control system has been deployed at the Home Ministry’s North Block and Lok Nayak Bhavan offices for ensuring employees report on time.
NEC Safer Cities Concept
According to Tan Boon Chin, managing director, regional competency center for public safety, NEC Asia Pacific: NEC, a leading network, communications, and IT company, is a global leader in biometric technologies and delivers the most advanced and comprehensive suite of integrated security solutions, including multi-biometric identification, access gates, video surveillance, cyber security, and behavior-pattern analysis for governments and authorities worldwide. Over the last 30 years, NEC has installed world’s fastest and most accurate biometric identification systems for more than 480 customers in over 30 countries. NEC’s concept of ‘safer cities’ includes how governments and businesses can use technologies to safeguard lives and property. As per NEC’s concept of ‘safer cities’ governments are empowered by technologies, safeguarded by cyber security, and enhanced by technologies for a clean and green environment. The safer cities concept includes: n Metadata Analysis Technology: NEC is developing a metadata analysis technology that is capable of efficient extraction of specific images or information from the large amount of video collected by surveillance cameras, focusing on the characteristics of vehicles and humans to significantly improve the efficiency of safety and security services. n Fingerprint Identification: NEC’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) is the first AFIS that uses ridge counts and relationships between minutiae in its matching algorithm and delivers an unparalleled accuracy, speed, and flexibility when used against database searches for identification. Law-enforcement agencies can leverage on this for an accurate criminal authentication and conduct an effective post-incident investigation and analysis. n Facial Recognition (NeoFace): Utilizing advanced surveillance cameras, face-recognition technology, and facial image databases to deliver an accurate verification regardless of age differences, race, face angle, or lighting. n Inter-agency Collaboration: With the aim to support prevention, assist in detection, and signal for a response and aid recovery, enabling cross-agency cooperation to bring an order to chaos. n Cyber Security: NEC and its partner’s cyber security solutions offer the world’s first dedicated outbound monitoring solution for cloud and web services, ensuring internet and online security and protects against incoming threats, data leakage, and viral attacks. 76 | February 15, 2012
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financing schemes has seen a large number of readers adoption in the segment. Furthermore as per Sodhi, in the government domain, identification of person for citizen-centric services like passport, UID, driving license, or even for the ration card, adoption of biometric will help save duplication of information.
India Vs the World
The Indian biometric readers market is still in its nascent stage, is highly fragmented, and is just 2% of the global biometric readers market. However the users and the suppliers have a positive outlook on market and most suppliers are keen on indigenously manufacturing the readers by 2013-14. This will bring down the prices of the readers further, thereby leading to growth in the market for readers.
Reasons Fueling Biometrics’ Growth n Demography:
India having the second largest population globally, there is a a much stronger demand for biometrics products and solutions n Benefitting Rural India: Rural India is now wanting to be counted in order to avail government welfare schemes n Giant Project: Currently, India is the home of what is deemed to be the world’s largest biometric project (which combines iris recognition, facial recognition, and fingerprint recognition), hence the UID project and thankfully the much-required infrastructure is getting in place for the rapid advancement of biometrics n Creates Numerous Niche Markets: Because of this huge population, there are a lot of niche markets which can be served, and many biometric applications, which can be created (especially for hybrid/multimodal/single sign on biometric solutions). n
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Oracle Open World
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n i g n T E e h c h T proa Ap Oracle is placing major bets on a new breed of systems called ‘engineered systems’ 80 | February 15, 2012
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oo much should not be read into Oracle’s recent troubles with quarterly performance. The company has a very strong roadmap and the cornerstone of its strategy is engineered systems, a new breed of powerful task-specific machines. Oracle’s capability and opportunity to deliver engineered systems is based on its acquisition of Sun Microsystems combined with its capabilities in databases, data management, OS, middleware, and applications. Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) provided a good insight into how the company plans to orchestrate this strategy in the marketplace in the form of ‘products’—though it
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Pushing the Frontiers of
Oracle in 2010: Completing the Stack
Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems for $7.38 bn. It seemed like another move by Oracle to gain a larger share of the enterprise IT market. To become more like IBM or HP. Sun had some precious pieces of software that Oracle could make use of. Sun’s relationships with many large enterprise accounts would help in its database and applications business. Sun’s hardware business would be run as it is for a while. That’s how the industry analyzed the Sun acquisition. Oracle demonstrates something else. It shows what it called the ‘Oracle stack’, where every layer is integrated together as a single system. The stack is made up of Oracle’s relational database, Oracle 11g, Enterprise Linux, VM, Fusion Middleware, E-business Applications suite, PeopleSoft, JDE, Siebel applications along with Sun server, storage, OS, and virtualization technology. Taking the approach a step further, Oracle launches Exadata, an optimized high performance database machine.
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
John Fowler, executive vice-president of systems, Oracle pushing for 10x performance
is often believed that leadership in the enterprise IT market is possible only with a combination of products and services. Oracle reiterated that it would not enter the mainstream services market like IBM or HP.
The Power of 10
The ‘Power of 10’ was a recurring theme at OOW. It stands for 10x improvement in performance at 10x improvement in value, which is the guiding principle of its design of engineered systems. The product announcements included Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine, Oracle Big Data Appliance, Oracle SPARC SuperCluster, and Oracle’s SPARC T4 servers and SPARC T4 processor. Oracle Exalytics is an engineered system for high-speed analytics. It runs Oracle BI in-memory with 1 TB visit www.dqindia.com
RAM. Oracle Big Data Appliance is equipped to handle big data, a new term in IT that denotes vast amounts of raw data gathered from multiple sources, such data having the potential for useful insights when mined. It includes data from manufacturing sensors, location-based, social media, and such new sources. Previously, such data could not be gathered and organized for effective use. The concept is fast gaining currency in business and IT. “By using our intellectual property to build things differently and better, we can design a microprocessor around an Oracle workload and re-architect things like the interface between storage, servers, OS and microprocessor to generate these kinds of 10x results,” said John Fowler, executive vice-president of systems, Oracle. February 15, 2012 | 81
Oracle Open World and WebLogic as the anchor applications, but has become a general purpose machine. The most important function is network performance, so we leverage InfiniBand technology fully. And because Exalogic and Exadata are designed to work together, the Infiniband paths were optimized together.” Similarly, the Exabus provides high-speed network virtualization resulting in four times throughput and six times lower latency. Brad’s team is working on advanced cloud management features to enable customers to build private clouds. Larry Ellison wants Oracle to be the Apple of the enterprise IT market
Performance
While focusing on the performance of Oracle Solaris 11, Fowler said, “We spend a lot of time talking about big machines. But it is important to have a common software architecture that extends all the way down to a departmental use case. You can do a la carte computing with our servers and storage, but we are building out a family of engineered systems to tackle all of the big business problems.” While Oracle’s Exadata database machine has been around for some time, it is being continuously worked on to include intelligent storage, smart PCI cache, and compression technologies. There were more than 1000 Exadata installations by end-2011, and Oracle boasts of a $2 bn pipeline for this financial year (June 2011-May 2012). Roger Li, senior vice president for technology, APAC, Oracle quoting an earlier remark by Mark Hurd, president, Oracle, revealed this. The Exadata database machine is built for online transaction processing, data warehousing, and consolidation. Exadata is also certified to run SAP. Pushing the performance envelope is a continuous process in 82 | February 15, 2012
Oracle in 2011: Optimizing Engineered Systems It charts the vision of engineered systems, a new breed of systems in which hardware and software are ‘designed together’ to work well with each other. Demonstrates it with new engineered systems like Oracle Database Machine, Oracle Exalytics In-Memory Machine, Oracle Big Data Appliance, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster. These systems are clearly disruptive to the way organizations conceive systems currently. The impact of cloud computing is another vector disrupting big enterprise technology. Oracle straddles both. It should aim to win at both.
engineered systems. In-memory database processing is another advancement. All data is stored on disk, but warm data is cached in flash, and hot data is cached in DRAM. Brad Cameron, senior director of development, Exalogic middleware discussed the development of Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. “Exalogic started with Java visit www.dqindia.com
Fusion Applications
Oracle has managed to maintain focus on its original Fusion line of application software. It encompasses more than 100 modules addressing all functional areas of management, industry-specific functions, and areas like governance, risk, and compliance. These applications are cloud-ready and coexist in mixed environments. The Fusion applications coexist with existing investments in Oracle’s PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD Edwards, and E-business Suite applications. The company is pursuing independent product roadmaps for each of the latter groups of application product families. When asked as to why Oracle would want to feed and nurture a separate family of applications like Fusion, Steve Miranda, senior vice president of applications development, Oracle, said, “What we found is that customers often have the specific need to innovate around inflection points, whether it is enabling mobility, social collaboration, business intelligence, or adopting business applications in the cloud. Oracle Fusion applications are built to address this.” n Ed Nair (The author was hosted by Oracle India to attend Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco) maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
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Spotlight
Freedom is not Free The court decision to prosecute the social media websites has restarted the internet censorship debate Onkar Sharma
T
he issue of censorship on websites in India is once again in the spotlight. But it is not the government which has raked it now. Rather it is the court that has taken the stance and accepted a petition against 21 foreign and Indian websites (including the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo!) for posting objectionable content. The petition has come at a time when the memories of Kapil Sibal’s comments to censor the internet had hardly subsided. So, to many, it might clearly look like the handiwork of the government through indirect involvement. Hence it is obvious to have an influx of mixed opinions. The matter is based on a petition filed by Vinay Rai, an editor of a Hindi tabloid. In his petition, he has drawn the court’s attention towards obscene depictions that he found online of Hindu deities, the Prophet Mohammed and Jesus Christ. The court took a hard stand to have criminal proceedings against the executives of these websites and so sought permission from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to prosecute them who head the companies from their US headquarters. The decision forced the companies to move the High Court challenging the summons issued to their executives.
Going the China Way?
More than anything, the controversy has brought to the fore a discussion around banning social media sites. Earlier this week, the High Court warned various companies that they 84 | February 15, 2012
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could be blocked in India if they fail to check and censor content. It happened when the counsel for Facebook and Google pointed to their global policy of non-interference even if content posted on their services are found to be obscene or objectionable. The court told the Internet firms that this policy won’t work in India. “Like China, we too can block such websites,” warned Justice Suresh Kait. The statement was not easily digested by most experts including Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP and social media enthusiast who did not favor the idea of banning the websites in India. But Tharoor favored the idea of reining these websites. The idea of banning these sites is against the democratic principle of “freedom of expression”. “What’s with all the Internet censorship talks? SOPA act in US, censorship of social sites in India. This is favoring totalitarianism,” tweets Dhanya Venugopal, a blogger. For a democratic country like India, the idea of banning these sites will be a blow to business sentiments as well. “Business sentiment would surely get affected, if the social media sites are banned in India. But I don’t think this will happen. It is important to respect freedom of speech,” says Vinita Ananth, CEO, Social Hues. Since December 2011, the Government of India and online media have been at loggerheads. “Part of the concern seems justified. But you can not simply ban something straightway. There has to be a visit www.dqindia.com
mechanism in place to favor the human rights,” further argues Ananth.
Those in Peril
While Vinay Rai has drawn sword boasting to be a common man whose feelings have been hurt, another petitioner opposing the government’s nod to prosecute Facebook and Google, has filed a plea to be heard in the ongoing dispute. Harsha Gupta, a resident of Bengali Market, who runs a school comprising 3,000 students, has argued that the case affects not just the parties concerned but every internet user in the country. “Google and Facebook enable and facilitate citizens to the fullest to exercise their freedom of speech and expression and the right to form associations,” he argues in his plea. At this juncture, it is necessary to validate the arguments from both sides. While Rai has already expressed his dependence on Google for research purposes in one of his interviews, he is paradoxically seeking prosecution of the executives. Based on the strategic timing of the petition, the speculations are rife that he has a nexus with the government. And if readers have a glance at Rai’s interview in The Telegraph newspaper they will have their doubts catching a sense of realism. In his interview, he had admitted to have met Kapil Sibal a day before he filed the petition in the court. Further, what will strengthen the doubts is MEA’s immediate approval for prosecuting the sites. n
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
news
Asansol: The ‘Next’ IT Destination With reports and rumors doing the rounds that Kolkata is losing its charm in attracting IT companies, the new government as well as the real estate developers are keen on trying out new geographic possibilities within the state
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ven as West Bengal awaits to start reaping the initial fruits of ‘poriborton’ with several new government projects in the loop (especially in the railways and aviation sector) and Ratan Tata visiting the state shortly after the TMC-led Mamata Banerjee came to power, real estate business focused on the IT segment has started to gain momentum. After West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation (WEBEL) ran through the IT parks in Siliguri and Durgapur, the facilities are now awaiting its clients from the IT and BPO sector.
Asansol Headed for ‘Poriborton IT’
Grabbing the opportunity in the prevailing scenario under ‘poriborton’, Bengal Shristi Group is on the verge of completing its township project in New Asansol reserving at least 1 mn sq ft carpet area for IT firms and BPO/KPOs to start operations in the area. As Asansol has clearly emerged as a preferred choice for the next IT destination after Kolkata, software-exporting companies and BPOs are considering of coming up with new facilities in the area. Speaking about the maiden project in Asansol, Sunil Jha, chief operations 86 | February 15, 2012
officer, Bengal Shristi says, “There is an abundance of talent pool available in the Asansol region with lower salary expectations. Asansol has lower establishment and operational cost as compared to Kolkata, which is increasingly becoming saturated.” Adding to it, Abhishek Bhardwaj, senior VP, marketing, Bengal Shristi says, “We have completed a phase of the Central Business District (CBD) in the township and have equipped the area with all the necessary amenities to cater to the employees of the potential IT clients. Also, we are going steady over the marketing and promotional activities of the township and hope to finalize some deals soon.”
Shristinagar to Widen IT Potential in Bengal
The project, christened Shristinagar, is a joint venture between Asansol Durgapur Development Authority and Shristi Infrastructure Development Corporation. Targeting primarily the BPO/ KPO and software-exporting companies for the CBD, Bengal Shristi has also planned to opt for a retail segment in the area with some outlets already operational. The planned airport city, Aerotropolis undertaken by West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC), is an integrated city with air-
port and with contemporary infrastructure for industries, logistics hub, IT, hospitality, healthcare, education, retail, and residential is being developed at Andal near Asansol, which is expected to augment the growth of IT companies in Asansol. In this important landmark project, Changi Airports International, one of the largest airport management companies in the world, has 26% equity stake in Aerotropolis. Changi Airports International is overseeing all aspects of airport construction and would also look after the initial operation of the airport. The project which has received all the necessary clearances and approvals is progressing as per schedule and the airport is expected to be operational in June 2012. According to sources in WBIDC, the proposed Durgapur Aerotropolis is expected to bring about similar socio-economic development of the Durgapur-Asansol region on the lines of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai and create the second metropolitan city in the state after Kolkata. This move, according to both WBIDC as well as WEBEL, will act as the booster for the development of IT in Asansol. “Considering the skyrocketing price of real estate in Kolkata and the saturation
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point fast emerging in the campuses of the software exporters, the upcountry area, namely, the townships having a history of industrialization and falling in the strategic communications line is holding to key to the future of business,” adds Jha. However taking a look at the ongoing WBIDC projects and the performance of WEBEL so far, it seems that besides IT, development of industrial parks in the suburban and rural areas is a top priority for the government hoping to rope in key investments and projects of medium stature.
Still Waiting for...
Although, Infosys explained their aspiration to step inside the state in new town way back in 2010, until now, there hasn’t been any development on this front. Besides, Cognizant is also heard of doing the rounds for setting up a 2nd campus in the state and sources in WEBEL have suggested that the company is considering Siliguri or Asansol as their preferred choice. With the set of parallel developments spreading evenly across the upcountry, Asansol is in the limelight poised to take off from where Kolkata quit. AVISHEK RAKSHIT
avishekr@cybermedia.co.in
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‘There will be meteoric rise in the data recovery industry’ You have recently launched disk sanitation services in India. Where do you see its potential in India? While donating or selling your desktop, deleting your valuable data is not an absolute solution, as it can be recovered by the person who possesses the system. Stellar disk sanitization is a ‘certified’ service to erase all your valuable data in a manner that it cannot be recovered. Disk sanitization services offer a 100% secure professional data wiping and degaussing services for complete data erasure at the end of hard disk lifecycle. Akin to all other nations, it certainly holds a great potential in India, for various organizations here also require a guaranteed protection from data theft, improper media destruction, and poorly erased media is assured. Disk sanitization solutions meet all the regulatory compliances like HIPAA, SOX, and GLBA Acts requirements for device and media control policies and procedures that govern the receipt and removal of hardware and electronic media, including IT asset disposal, media reuse, and accountability. This 88 | February 15, 2012
—Sunil Chandna, CEO, Stellar Systems
guaranteed security service will protect your data ensuring complete peace of mind. How much importance do your products/ services hold with decreasing number of PCs and cloud and virtualization coming into the picture? Please elaborate. In today’s technologydependent businesses, even small data disruptions can render heavy losses. Growing incidents of data loss is what has led to the growth of data recovery companies. There has been a remarkable advancement in data recovery technology. Going by the present trend, one can safely assume that there will be a meteoric rise in the growth of data recovery industry.
Without recovery measures, there isn’t much that an organization can do when data is lost. It’s certain that cloud and virtualization have become prominent factors today, yet our recovery tools and techniques have proved to be of great importance when it comes to data loss. Various organizations, enterprises, and even individuals value their data and we understand the panic during a data loss situation. Another factor which adds up to the demand of our recovery tools is that we maintain data security and adhere to strict measures that ensure privacy and confidentiality each and every time. What is your focus for 2012 for the India market? Formulation of enhanced data recovery schemes will certainly remain the core focus. New technologies which will guarantee efficient, automated data protection and recovery is also our important consideration. Advanced solutions for Mac data recovery is one of our essential offerings which has great significance. We further intend to revolutionize data recovery industry and further organize and enhance its
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existence. In 2012, with a comprehensive approach to data protection management we are expecting to grow over 32%. What is your retail and corporate strategy to penetrate deep into the market? At present, we have 184 data recovery software service companies that use our software and 1 mn product users through the internet all over the world. Stellar will continue to invest in the business to escalate the number of partners who sell our data recovery services, in order to be easily available to the masses other than the online accessibility. Currently, we have our offices and labs in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Noida, Pune, and Vashi, and we intend to further mount our presence by being readily available for the masses. With over 16 years of experience in data recovery, we will be persistent in bringing up advanced yet convenient data recovery solutions to safeguard our customers’ data. RUKHSAR SALEEM
rukhsars@cybermedia.co.in
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
No More Panic Here is an application, primarily launched for army personnel’s families, that can help individuals in emergency situations
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few days ago, Indianeye Security, a security solution company, rolled out a mobile application for the Indian army personnel’s families, veterans, and ex-servicemen. The purpose of the application was to enable them to connect them with their loved ones at the time of distress and emergency. Called eyewatch, the application boasts of security features, which intelligently generate alerts for the near and dear ones. The application was launched by General VK Singh, chief of army staff, on the Army Day on January 15.
Does the application work as eyes and ears?
If the company is to be believed, eyewatch is an emergency alert system on the mobile phone, which at the press of a button sends multiple messages, images, videos, sound bytes, and the location status to the near and dear ones automatically alerting them of one’s emergency situation. “The application can prove of a great help in curbing out issues like assaults on women,
especially when they are returning from work late in the evening, ragging in colleges, medical emergencies, road accidents, any personal security threat, etc,” says Karan Dhaul, director, Indian Security. Though the application has primarily been rolled out for army personnel, it is available for general use on various platforms like Android, BlackBerry, and Nokia. “Eyewatch is customized for army use, whereas it is also available for the mobile users across various mobile platforms. Plus, this application is being offered free under company’s corporate social responsibility initiative, to reassure their safety and enable them to instantly communicate during critical situations,” adds Dhaul.
Salient Features
The features of the application are said to help in investigating the incident as it includes audio-visual stream and other options. “In case any accident or criminal incident occurs with the person, the app installed on a mobile phone can help the investigating agencies or police with audio-visual proofs and other details,” reveals Dhaul. n Emergency Response Contacts (ERCs): Preset 3 priority emergency response contacts to be contacted to assist you at time of any emergency. n SOS Button: One touch eyewatch alert to notify user’s ERCs via SMS and emails. n Location and Live Tracking: Instantly notifies user’s ERCs with his current location and allow them to track the user until he reaches a safe destination. n Audio Visual Stream: Eyewatch automatically records a 30 second pre-alert audio stream and a post-alert 20 second video stream or 5 photographs (dependent on phone model) to be viewed by ERCs on a secure web page. n Auto Call Connect: Instantly emergency dials user’s priority ERCs. n Alert View: Tracks and displays user’s location on a map, displays audio and visual feeds, network signal strength and battery details, and other relevant details on a secure web page. n Safety Confirm: Informs user’s preset contacts with user’s location to confirm he is safe. According to the company, the objective of the system is to simplify communication when the user is in distress and allow individuals to communicate with their family, employers, doctors, security personnel, and agencies in an easy and decisive manner during a crisis. You can download the application from www.eye-watch.in ONKAR SHARMA
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news
‘We expect to witness a lot of traction from SMB segment’ How would you describe the importance of this center of excellence? TCS key delivery labs across the world are interconnected with this center of excellence in Mumbai. This partnership will benefit customers as they will get multitude of things from the 2 world-class companies. TCS chose us for this partnership as we are the leaders in the space of virtualization. Our abilities in the virtualization space, storage space, etc, have enabled us to grow much faster than even the market rate. Though a non-threatening vendor, we are high-growth partners for TCS.
partnership with TCS and ensure that the customers are able to leverage on their existing infrastructure. This center enables a customer to mix-and-match and bundle various offerings before deciding on the right offering that suits his office needs.
—Kevin Eggleston, senior vice president and general manager, APAC, Hitachi Data Systems
This center of excellence is focused on transformation around buzzwords like virtualization, cloud computing, etc. We intend to leverage on our
adoption as they have a very focused approach.
How would you describe IT in today’s scenario? IT has become a strategic differentiator and has a revenue aspect attached with it for a company—it is now a revenue engine. It helps a company to What is the traction that portray itself better as a you are expecting for this market differentiator. So, it’s no longer a backcenter of excellence? office function but its We expect to witness a lot differentiator attributes of traction across all the adds a lot of value. segments. We expect to Today, it’s not the effort witness a lot of traction to be green, but even from SMB segment, as it the financial benefit that is making rapid moves results in a green strategy. towards cloud adoption. Whereas, on the other hand, enterprises are not making active movements SHILPA SHANBHAG shilpas@cybermedia.co.in towards public cloud
People Sameer Sandhir Joins NCR Corporation as Head, Sales
NCR Corporation has named Sameer Sandhir as its head of NCR Services Sales for the Emerging Markets Group. This Emerging Markets Group includes India, China, Middle East, and Africa (ICMEA). Prior to this new role, Sandhir handled various business development roles in Fujitsu, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Alcatel-Lucent. He will be based in Mumbai (India) and will handle development and execution of the sales strategy.
Samsung Appoints BD Park
Samsung has announced the appointment of BD Park as the regional president and CEO of Samsung South West Asia Operations. Park will also handle the responsibilities as the managing director, Samsung India Electronics. Prior to these new roles, Park was the head of mobile and IT division at Samsung India as director. 90 | February 15, 2012
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‘We are not religious about open source’ You have joined Microsoft after a long tenure in Novell. What has been your major responsibility here? A portion of interoperability with respect to Linux has been the major area. I have been a very active contributor to the Linux kernel over the last 12 months, ensuring HyperV support is properly integrated with upstream Linux kernel. This has significantly elevated our profile in the Linux community—I was the top contributor to the Linux 3.0 kernel with some 340+ patches submitted and this made Microsoft one of the top contributors to Linux
—Dr KY Srinivasan, principal architect, windows server and cloud division, Microsoft
3.0. My team and I are working to ensure that Linux support is kept current on Hyper-V. Also, I have been involved in ensuring the upstream Linux kernel has the necessary modifications and drivers to be deployable.
Have you made Linux the first-class citizen? Yes, today, I can claim that Linux is our first-class citizen. We understand that the workloads are running on different environment and the management stacks are unique to each vendor, which includes open and proprietary platforms. We are doing it for the customers; we are not religious about Linux. We are working on leveraging our platform and enhancing management infrastructure to manage mix-floor environments. So, what are the major areas you are concentrating upon for making Linux a first-
class environment on Hyper-V? For a while, there has been a mistaken perception that Hyper-V was just a ‘windows’ hypervisor designed to host virtualized windows. This is just not the case; Hyper-V is a stateof-the-art general-purpose hypervisor, capable of supporting all X86 operating systems. So, we say Linux is a first-class environment on the Microsoft platform. As a part of interoperability, we have been addressing issues on data portability, open document formats, interoperable protocols, and ability to host diverse workloads (based on Linux). AKANKSHA PRASAD
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People Neil Ashe Joins Wal-Mart’s Global E-commerce Arm
Wal-Mart has announced the appointment of Neil Ashe as the president and chief executive officer of its global e-commerce business to be in effect immediately. Ashe succeeds Eduardo Castro-Wright, who will retire in September 2012, and will ensure smooth transition of the responsibilities. Prior to this, he served CBS Interactive as its president.
Diane Greene Joins Google Inc’s Board of Directors
Google Inc has announced the appointment of Diane Greene as its board of directors. Way back in 1998, Greene has been one of the co-founders of VMware Inc, and led the company from the front as its chief executive officer from 1998 to 2008. She has also served Google board’s audit committee earlier. Greene joins as the tenth member on Google’s board. She is also on the panel of Intuit as board of directors. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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‘India is the hub of the Saarc business’ What are your company’s plans for the Indian market? We started our operations in India in 2007 and in the last three-and-a-half years we have approximately 600 employees. We have been increasingly concentrating on R&D activities at our Noida facility. In the last one year, employee headcount at engineering and R&D facilities has doubled. The company plans to make significant investments in the government and public sector. This is important as a significant amount of revenue is generated from the public sector. India is a market where the company is in talks for various projects like UID, national highways, e-governance, etc. This is
—Manish Choudhary, VP and MD, Pitney Bowes Business Insights India
because the government is trying to bring in a lot of changes, thus infusing a lot of transparency and making it a good level playing field. We intend to sustain our growth drive over the long-term. We would like to increase our footprint to become the face of the company. India is the hub of the Saarc business.
What are your growth strategies? The company will concentrate on its core strengths to fortify its stand in the long run. Approximately, 50% of R&D activity related to product development takes place in India. We intend to double our partner network and increase our focus on 3 sectors: Telecom, BFSI, and public sector. The company will appoint its partners both at the national and vertical level. Currently, we have 18-19 partners and have also integrated with system integrators. Any particular trends that you would like to highlight? Customers are becoming
more demanding and to cater to this trend the company is releasing new products. We are concentrating on innovations to cater to these expectations. The company has also initiated a program called ‘Voice a Customer’, where customer recommendation is sought. The company also has a global team that taps customer trends so that it can leverage on it. In relation to our cloud based offerings, we have not faced any challenges as they have not been released in the Indian market. Soon in India the company intends to release these products. SHILPA SHANBHAG
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People Former Sony and Microsoft Guy Plans to Taste Entrepreneurial Waters
Sukesh Madaan has announced the launch of Envent Worldwide, a consumer digital brand. This entrepreneurial venture of Madaan will make and handle distribution of IT peripherals, telecom accessories, and end-user digital product range. Madaan has gained expertise in IT and telecom products after serving Intel, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson, and Hip Street at senior-level positions.
Salesforce.com Appoints Vivek Kundra as Executive VP
Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing provider, has appointed Vivek Kundra as the executive vice president of its emerging markets. Kundra is known for his leadership and expertise in technology innovation. He has served at various honorable profiles to the likes of first United States chief information officer and the chief technology officer for the District of Columbia and as the assistant secretary of commerce and technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. 92 | February 15, 2012
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People Jerry Yang Exits Yahoo! to Pursue his ‘Other Interests Outside Yahoo!’
Yahoo! has made an announcement about the resignation of Jerry Yang from the board of directors and all other positions in the company. Yang, one of Yahoo’s co-founders, is also no more on the boards of Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba Group Holding. He told Roy Boystock, chairman of the Yahoo! Board in a letter that he has intentions to pursue his other interests outside the company.
Deals & Partnerships Wipro Joins Hands with VendorNet
Wipro Technologies has entered into a collaboration with VendorNet, a web based omni-retailing and supply chain solutions provider. As per this partnership, VendorNet will address retailers’ challenges in synchronizing channels and will provide a cross-channel view of the stock. This association will include the resale and integration of VendorNet Commerce Suite with Wipro’s ENCORE e-commerce platform.
Bankbazaar.com Partners with Drishti for a Technology Solution
Drishti, a contact center software and enterprise communication apps company, has made an announcement that it is now a technology partner for Bankbazaar.com, which is an online loans processing platform and will provide Ameyo, a customized support solution. Ameyo has helped Bankbazaar.com in handling the customer calls and unresponsive legacy solutions, through effective customer support operations to manage the business interactions.
Siemens PLM and Frontal Software Join Hands
Siemens PLM Software, which is a SBU of Siemens Industry Automation Division and product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services provider, has announced that it has entered into a partnership agreement with Frontal Software, an enterprise IT solutions provider. As per this agreement, Siemens will guide Frontal Software clients to adopt PLM solutions.
Industry Freephoo Launches Free Mobile Calling Application in India
Freephoo has announced the launch of its free mobile VoIP application in India. With this app, end-users can make calls from their iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Android phones without any cost with the help of Wi-Fi or 3G network. After downloading this mobile app, the user can use its current mobile number and phonebook to make free calls to other Freephoo customers. Freephoo also has premium services with which users can make low-priced calls to fixed as well as to mobile phones. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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Industry Trend Micro Launches Titanium 2012
Banglalink Launches Mobile Based Insurance Service in South Asia
Trend Micro Inc has announced the launch of Titanium 2012 version. The company claims that this new version will bring a revolution in ensuring maximum security, will provide optimal performance, and is extremely convenient to use. This latest edition Titanium 2012 has an intuitive interface, data security tools (file shredder and vault), and can protect the smartphones and tablets including Android devices, Symbian, iOS (iPhone and iPad), and Windows.
Tech Mahindra Inaugurates ‘Performance Engineering Lab’
Tech Mahindra, IT consulting services firm, has announced the opening of its ‘Performance Engineering Lab’ in Pune. The company has used a performance engineering framework for telecom service providers and enterprises, which provides proactive approach to ensure the application response time, availability, and end-user experience are improved. It has 4 parts including performance testing, monitoring, tuning, and diagnosis (analytical capabilities) in the area of enterprise and telecom applications.
Sify Announces the Opening of Undersea Cable Landing Station
Round One Launches Interview Service for 120 Firms
Sify Technologies has announced the opening of its Undersea Cable Landing Station in Mumbai. With this new station in addition to submarine cable systems, this connectivity will give Sify a greater access to bigger markets for its managed enterprise and data center services in the Middle Eastern market. Simultaneously, the company has also signed a Landing Party Agreement (LPA) with MENA Submarine Cable System SAE, a licensed telecommunications operator in Egypt.
Samsung Launches Galaxy Tab 620
Samsung has announced the launch of Galaxy Tab 620 in the India, which the company claims to be its next-generation tablet. This next-gen tablet is enabled with a 1.2 GHz dual core processor and Android Honeycomb 3.2 operating system, and uses internet at high data speed up to 21 Mbps. It weighs 345 gms, has 9.96 mm thickness, and is priced at `30,250.
94 | February 15, 2012
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Comviva has announced the launch of ‘Mobile Cash Insurance Pay’, which is a mobile insurance collection service by the Banglalink, a Bangladeshi cellular service provider over its mobiquity, which is Comviva’s mobile financial services platform. This service has been launched in collaboration with Jiban Bima Corporation.
Round One Network, www. roundone.in, an internet based platform, has announced the launch of services after due completion of its beta phase. This service helps job seekers to register for unofficial phone interviews with employees in a company, and therefore a job referral from Round One. Few among 120+ companies are Accenture, American Express, BNYM, Capital IQ, Deloitte, Google, Evalueserve, HP, InfiBeam, JM Financial, McKinsey, Nielsen, Samsung, Tata Motors, and ZS Associates.
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
Industry Cyber Attack on Zappos Affects its 24 mn Customers’ Database
Zappos, an online shoe retail company owned by Amazon. com, announced that it has witnessed a cyber attack. This attack has hacked more than 24 mn customer accounts in the database, including customers’ names, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers, and the last 4 digits of credit cards numbers and scrambled passwords. But customers’ critical credit card and other payment details are safe as the hackers were not able to get through servers.
GlobalOutlook Introduces Microsoft Exchange 2010
GlobalOutlook, business communication and hosted Microsoft Exchange service provider, has made an announcement of the launch of Microsoft Exchange 2010 as its latest service offering. This hosted service is accessible to direct customers as well as to white label partners, and it will facilitate free migration from legacy versions of exchange to both current and new customers. This Microsoft’s Exchange 2010 server technology has a multi-tenant architecture to enable hosting providers to offer enterprise-class messaging to multiple organizations on a shared server.
Polycom Announces Enterprise-Grade Video Collaboration Solutions
Polycom Inc has announced the launch of latest Enterprise-Grade Video Collaboration solutions integrated with social business applications. This announcement at the IBM Lotusphere 2012 will enable companies utilize transformational power of social and web platforms, make video calls from within the email and social business interfaces users are familiar with, to connect to standards based devices.
Wipro Introduces ‘FLoW’ for Retail Sector
Wipro Technologies, has launched ‘FLoW’, which is an Oracle based pricing, supply chain, and finance management solution. This solution has specifically been designed for the retail sector, therefore it will provide retailers and wholesalers increased data visibility required for quick and more precise business transactions. Technology used for this is a composite solution to the Oracle Retail Merchandizing System (RMS), developed in sync with the outcome of the customer response.
Koovs.com, ZipDial Launch Transaction Authorization Service Koovs.com claims to have launched transaction authorization service, an innovative order verification service. This service has been developed and launched in collaboration with a ZipDial Mobile Solutions, a start-up company. After initially testing an automated system in pilot phase for the customers to validate cash-on-delivery orders, this service is now available for all. DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
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Sage Software Moves into its New Facility
Sage Software, the software solutions provider has moved into a new facility in Gurgaon, which is its India headquarters. The shift is one of the company’s global initiative to expand its presence and grow its customer base by 40% in the upcoming two years. This move will further aid Sage Software to increase business among various industry verticals in India. February 15, 2012 | 95
Books
Leisure
Glorifying Invisible Innovation
Authors Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam, in their new book, India Inside, identify how invisible innovation by Indians is powering global businesses today
W
e Indians somehow believe that we are not good at innovation. Our success in IT—increasingly replicated in other areas—is because of our intelligence, hard work, our education (maths), process orientation, even our culture of collaboration and just about everything under the sun but innovation! We would even argue that innovation is not everything but rarely would we, with a straight face, claim that we do do some innovation! The outsiders cannot be faulted if they hold the same opinion about India. In fact, no one can be faulted, for that matter. Because, innovation has so far been synonymous with what is visible, and usually, what is directly used by a large set of people, ie, consumers. So, the iPod is a great innovation; so is Viagra (though you would like to flaunt the former but would not admit to using the latter). But not something as complex sounding as global delivery model. Well, Tata Nano comes close but again, it is not really something new, you know. It is just tight control over cost. No one can take it from us when it comes to finding a reason for justifying our belief/prejudice! “While recognizing their own achievements, many Indian managers we met in the course of our research for this book repeatedly expressed their opinion that providing services on demand was one thing, but coming up with truly innovative 96 | February 15, 2012
India Inside Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam Harvard University Press Price: `795
products and services was quite another,” write authors Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam, in their new book, India Inside. The book identifies how, invisible innovation by Indians in many ways, is powering global businesses today. For example, global delivery model, something that most of us have taken for granted today, is one of the greatest innovations to have helped global businesses becoming efficient. Process innovation, happening here day in and day out, is making businesses better and better. These are not visible but have created immense business value for global economy. The authors identify five such distinct “innovations” and through multiple examples and case studies establish how India is contributing to global value creation through these innovations. They say, while through Globally Segmented Innovation, multinationals are using Indian visit www.dqindia.com
talent to build products and services that often are completely imagined, designed, and engineered in India—whether it is a portable ECG machine by GE or a small (now home) tractor by John Deere. And that is not all. Today, companies are not just having their R&D centers in India but outsourcing the R&D itself to Indian companies. This is something which rarely happens onshore, unlike IT services outsourcing. The authors call it Outsourcing Innovation. They also go into Process Innovation, Management Innovation (global delivery), and Frugal Engineering—something that comes closest to visible innovation. Carlos Ghosn would vouch for that. But that does not mean that we do not need to innovate the traditional way. The Indian market is picking up. To be able to serve our own consumers, we need products and services that are designed for them and not downsized for them to make them cheaper. That requires a different kind of innovation, that is more visible and more in line with what the world calls innovation. The authors end the book with identifying what exactly are the challenges for innovation in India and how to overcome the institutional constraints. A very relevant and timely work, a little punch in writing could have made it a bestseller, especially as it is not too voluminous. But it is worth being in the shelf of every marketing manager of a global Indian company. More so, in the IT industry. n
DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
IT in Culture
Leisure
Will the Twain Meet?
While India looks at its soft power to enhance its status in the global stage, at home, there is little patronage for art and literature from technology companies
A
t the time of writing this, the Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 is just a couple of days away. The program is ready; the list of visiting authors has been finalized. And, there is both rejoicing and disappointment over Salman Rushdie not attending, after the organizers formally announced that he would not be there. Some still believe that he might actually appear on the last day. With Rushdie in/out and Oprah Winfrey in, the Jaipur Literature Festival is suddenly on the radar of everyone. It’s even trending on Twitter at the time of writing. Today, the Jaipur Literature Festival is the largest literary festival in Asia/Pacific. And, has been appreciated by many authors, publishers, readers, and part-time book lovers alike! Unlike many other events, the entry to the festival is free. So, people from all walks of life as well as a number of school students visit the festival. It goes a long way in helping them inculcate a taste of books and literature. To keep it free for general visitors, the organizers turn to sponsorship from various commercial and noncommercial entities. Apart from DSC, the title sponsor, this year’s DATAQUEST | A CyberMedia Publication
SHYAMANUJA DAS shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in
sponsors include IDFC, Bank of America, RPG, Tata Steel, Rio Tinto, DNA, The Times of India, Ministry of External Affairs, The Hindu, Shree Cement, The Hindustan Times, and Google. Right from cement to financial services to steel to government departments, everyone has been supportive. That is everyone—other than IT companies. Yes, Google is there but Google has a direct interest in books because of its Google Books. The big Indian IT companies, which these days put the message in television to cricket stadiums to metro stations are nowhere there. They do not have ‘any direct interest’ in a festival celebrating literature. In any case, ‘their kind of people’ do not go there—and it is a big assumption. One has an anecdotal evidence to oppose the assumption, but since no one has done an analysis of the profile of the visitors, there is no clear way to tell if this assumption is true. But one thing is for sure: The assumption that literature does not interest the techies is clearly not true. It cannot be because these are some of the best people in the country, who have entered IT because it’s highly rewarding. It’s stupid to believe that they are not interested in visit www.dqindia.com
anything other than coding, money, and fast food. The IT companies do not care because the number is not large enough to make an impact. And there is nothing called pure CSR. What else would explain this complete lack of interest in the country’s culture? Whether it is a literature festival or Indian classical music festival or dance festival, one never notices an IT company name in the list of sponsors. Is that true? Didn’t TED happen in Infosys campus? Yes, TED/INK has a higher appeal because it has come from their market—the West. And there is the big T there. And, while it does bring in a few authors and musicians, it’s surely not about classical Indian culture ever. More importantly, with a `1 lakh entry fee, it is a purely commercial venture. The Jaipur Literature Festival, on the other hand, is for everyone. It’s aimed at popularizing literature and was started by 2 authors whose prime objective was not to build a profit-making business. The IT industry can look at this and other such initiatives. The world will be a much better place with literature, music, art and their sensitivity being imbibed by one and all. n February 15, 2012 | 97
Afterthought
Shyamanuja Das The author is Editor of Dataquest shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in
I
Regulating Social Media Content ...it is a debate. And let us be very clear about that
t is interesting that I am writing this minutes after attending a session on the Argumentative Indians and culture of argumentation in India at the Jaipur Literature Festival. One of the questions that the panel raised and discussed in some depth was if intellectual tolerance, of which India has been a torch bearer, essentially leads to social, or rather societal tolerance. The challenge before those in charge of governance is to ensure that the societal stability is not violently affected by the idea of protecting intellectual tolerance. This is an age-old debate. The recent court case involving social media sites wherein they are asked to remove content or face prosecution is just the most recent instance. No matter how big or newsy it seems to us today. Let us be clear about what this debate is about. Is it about regulating media—new media, in this case? We have seen efforts to regulate media in the past and by and large, it has not succeeded, except in the time of emergency. That debate actually is more of can the government or courts do it? Can they fight technology? We know the answer. And I hope I am not being guilty of contempt of anyone if I am writing this. But that is a smaller debate. By comparing India to China, a section of media has willingly or unwillingly sent that message. We know where media stands in China and in India. There is no basis for comparison. My definite—and strong—opinion about this is that anyone who is even remotely suggesting that is doing a great disservice to what otherwise could be a very healthy, and enlightning debate. So, is it about freedom of speech? That is a big, big debate. We are a democracy and any attempt to supress individual opinion that is made in private is a no-no. Facebook, Google Plus (with right privacy 98 | February 15, 2012
settings) are communications between a group of individuals. If these companies can ensure that what is private remains private, then the government has no business to get into our conversation. The problem is, none of us have a clear answer to this. We do not know what the government wants. And we do not know what is media, what is private, what is public and so on, thanks to the developments in technology. The panelists—Sanskrit scholars, one from Harvard and another from Spain—in the discussion referred to by me above said, there is a moral angle in any debate. We seem to forget that. That does not come from being dogmatic about anything either “what hurts religious sentiments” or “the idea of freedom of speech”. The government and courts are also new to this. This debate will show them the path. So will it to us. None of us knows how to deal with this. How many of us, in private conversations, discuss about the negative impact that some of these are having on our children? But most of them also are not in favor of “bans” on anything. Unlike in China, a vast majority in India are against blanket bans on anything. But unlike us, the government or courts cannot be indecisive about it. It may hurt some of my friends, my saying so, but I have seen a strong attitude of “you are with us or opposed to us” among the so-called liberals. They call the other side obstinate and irrational (which they may well be) but do not realize that they themselves have become so. I think this whole debate is healthy. At any given point of time, one side may seem to be winning but we all are winning in the process. And please, stop comparing India with China.
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