E Magazine Dec 2017

Trend Micro acquires Immunio

Zyxel announces 802.11ac Wave access points

Good news for VARs & Resellers, hardware business to grow - Canalys pg 30

VOLUME XIX

ISSUE 04 DECEMBER 2017

PRICE Rs. 50

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December 2017

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September 2017

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HPE expands its ProLiant Gen10 Portfolio

Logitech G unveils sensor-enabled gaming mouse

38pg VOLUME XIX

ISSUE 04 December 2017

PRICE Rs. 50

SUBSCRIPTION COPY NOT FOR SALE

Lenovo sees an overwhelming success in consumer business with hep of channel Inter-state Electronicway system to be made compulsory from February 1st, 2018

44pg

T

he GST Council has decided to make the electronic-way system compulsory from February 1. If implemented, the bill will come two months ahead of the earlier plan and will thus make ferrying of goods quicker across states.

Under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rules, ferrying goods worth more than Rs 50,000 within or outside a state will require securing an electronic-way or e-way bill by prior online registration of the consignment.

Global investigation agencies helping CBI crack major cyber crimes

T

he increased sharing of information and inputs by International Investigation agencies related to various global crimes in recent times is helping India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) crack major cyber, money laundering, terror funding and tax evasion cases at faster pace.

“The frequent actionable vital inputs being provided by global investigation agencies like Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI), the US probe agency and other investigation agencies from China, UK, Ireland, Germany and host of other countries are helping CBI act against cyber criminals, money launderers, Ponzi scheme runners, terror funding organisations and tax evaders,” said Shri Amit Kumar, DIG, Economic Offence Unit, CBI.

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December 2017

5

HELLO INDIA

Digital transformation driving the nation towards an interconnected future

Digital technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing at an exponential rate. Today, AI is all around us.

If you own a smartphone, tablet, PC or even a car, it’s very likely that it runs in some form of AI (Siri, Cortana, Google Now, etc.).

The ever-growing connection of people with technology is enabling a more open and transparent look into every person’s life. By knowing what we like, what we post online, buy or where we go, our smartphones, tablets and computers through complex algorithms know us emphatically better than we do ourselves. This information is mainly used by companies to better market their products at us, but it can also be used to benefit humanity.

The access to people’s information combined with an AI tool, could present great possibilities to architects.

By already knowing everything about us, our hobbies, likes, dislikes, activities, friends, our yearly income, etc., AI software can calculate population growth, prioritize projects, categorize streets according to usage and so on, and thus predict a virtual future and automatically draft urban plans that best represent and suit everyone. With this reason, experts say, one has to take the hard call on to exit from the social media. Quitting Facebook and other online accounts can help block much of this social comparison, and you will end up feeling much happier and more confident.

The Internet is a double-edged sword that corporates cannot avoid. Protecting users from malware, preventing data loss, and controlling employee behaviour on the Internet requires advanced and innovative Corporate Web Security solutions. Opportunity seems promising for the companies into cloud business as businesses and organizations are putting more and more data in the cloud. In response to this trend, a new breed of cloud security companies are offering services such as novel encryption schemes and technologies for continuously monitoring what goes on in a company’s cloud server. At the same time many of the new start-ups are focused on trying to detect hackers in real time as they enter and move subtly through a corporate network.

To support and influence the digital economy, the Government reimbursing the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) to the traders on digital transactions of up to Rs. 2000 is a welcome move. This step will encourage a very large population of merchants, who deal with petty cash for smaller transactions on a daily basis, to move to digital payments. It’s a promising growth opportunity for the payment bank companies in India as well.

A big question arises about the Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin that is hovering between $16k and $17k and is luring customers into a volatile market.

Our suggestion to the industry is, Digital currency is just a piece of code out there on the Internet and there is no country or company you can ask to honor it.

I wish all the readers Merry Christmas and a Very Happy and Prosperous News Year!

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December 2017

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Bigger things start here Successful small businesses start with hard work and dedication.

But bigger things start with a strong technology foundation that will never limit your potential. Introducing Cisco Start - enterprise - class WHFKQRORJ\ WDLORUHG WR ÍŠW \RXU VPDOO DQG PHGLXP VL]HG EXVLQHss.

Visit us at: www.cisco.com/in/ciscostart Cisco India General Enquiries Email: csg-in@cisco.com Tel: 000 800 100 1364

Product Pre Sales Email: in_assistant@cisco.com Tel: 1800 103 7723 2ÍŤHU &RGH

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December 2017

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CONTENTS Publisher: Deepak Kumar Sahu Editor: S Mohini Ratna Executive Editor: Dr. Vijay Anand Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta Deputy Editor: Samrita Baruah Sub - Editor: Aparna Mullick Art Director: Rakesh Kumar Network Administrator: Ashok Kumar Singh Manager-IT: Subhash Mohanta Manager-SEO: Bidyadhar Behera

Budget Friendly

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E Wallets Good battery life

Feature phones competing neck to neck with Smartphones INDUSTRY EVENT

Lead Story

35|

Good news for VARs & Resellers, hardware business to grow Canalys

42|

33|

Growth opportunities immense for PC partners who are moving into print

VAR SECURITY

34|

© All rights are reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. (1999-2016) * All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi only.

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MAIT organizes national conference on IT Procurement

35|

SIP helps in bridging multiple technologies

36|

For Orange, India offers myriad growth opportunities

44|

Lenovo sees an overwhelming success in consumer business with help of channel

45|

Netmagic emphasises importance of digital marketing analytics

46|

Xerox changing workstyle in a new way

47|

Feature phones competing neck to neck with Smartphone

Security concerns are taking surveillance a step ahead in India

50|

BlackBerry treading the Partner Route to tap the cyber security and application space

51|

CP PLUS shines at SECUTECH, bags Asia’s Prestigious Brand Award 2017

VAR MOBILITY 52|

Transsion Holdings focuses on multi brand strategy to tap on India market

on and

Cloud Integrated Video-IOT and Video surveillance in a unified framework

Cover story 38|

42pg

48|

FACE TO FACE

All payments favouring: KALINGA DIGITAL MEDIA PVT LTD

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December 2017

9

CEO SPEAK

Partner First has been the strategy of HPE Phil Davis, Global Sales Officer- Hewlett Packard Enterprise speaks about the relationship it shares with its partners and the strategies it has employed to grow its channel As digital transformation continues to disrupt every industry, customers have turned to Hewlett Packard Enterprise as a partners literally with a company that was founded with the strategy ‘Partner First’ and it runs through its DNA. “We are very proud of that and committed to continuing,” said Phil Davis, Global Sales Officer- Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

He further continued, “Look at digital transformation; it's not always the first mover company that wins. So we are going to see pressure on organisations. Channel partners who are able to have that discussion with customers and help them innovate quickly are going to be differentiated.

Our strategy is very simple and it's been very consistent – # One, we make hybrid IT simple. # Two, we power the intelligent edge. # and three, we drive that through our services expertise.”

To make hybrid IT simple, to power the Intelligent Edge and to provide the services to make it all happen, Phil added, “As I talk to customers, a lot of them have moved very aggressively into the public cloud, and that will continue. The challenge with that is as they have moved into the public cloud and have found it to be more expensive than they expected, they have also found it's not just about where does the application live, but more importantly where does the data live. Because moving a bunch of data into the cloud and pulling it out can be very expensive, and there's a lot of lock-in with different cloud vendors once you get all of your data into that cloud.”

However the key challenges that needs to be addressed are # How to help customers be more thoughtful in terms of where they want to run a workload? # How to help them be more thoughtful in terms of where they reside? and that's going to get worse.

Talking about the enterprise of the future, Hewlett Packard Enterprise believes that to understand as channel partners of what customers are thinking about, the whole concept of hyper connected at the edge is very important. Pointnext is core to Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s strategy; the incredible Hewlett Packard Enterprise team work with three guiding principles driving the program Pointnext. First, the customer is a priority as everything it does has to help benefit the company and partners.

Second, Hewlett Packard Enterprise needs to be

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Phil Davis Global Sales Officer Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Things like the universal IoT platform that can sit on - premise or in the cloud that allows you to do analytics and make better decisions, will power the intelligent edge. If we look about security, security doesn't just exist in your data centre. focused in terms of the markets and the portfolio it develops. And third, it is all about simplicity.

“We believe by simplifying everything - from business processes to organizational layers, we will become closer to our customers and partners, easier to do business with and better to work for.

We also need partnerships from various angles, not just with the partnerships in this room, the distributors, but also SIs, software partners like SAP and Microsoft, and investing heavily to bring that entire ecosystem to bear,” said Phil.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise seeks the help of customers on the journey to the multicloud environment. The next area where the company is investing very heavily is in flexible consumption and Hewlett Packard Enterprise had major announcements at Discover.

“We have branded all those products under Green Lake, and the ability to consume technology as you want to, to be able to scale up or scale down depending on how your business changes.

One of the feedbacks from our partners is that

it should be easier to sell consumption- oriented services. One of the things we announced last week serve as build building blocks by which partners can resell without the need for custom configuration from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and then the next is advice and expertise,” said Phil.

The recent announcement at Discover enabled Hewlett Packard Enterprise to move beyond infrastructure as a service. The company is now making available back-up as a service. “As we go forward, we see the opportunity to extend beyond our leadership to business outcome as a service. In all of these, investments continue to be aligned with our three core values – Partnership; Innovation at heart, which goes back to Bill and Dave, the founders of the company and then Act. Having great intentions doesn't enable you to solve the problem, but it comes down to the actions you choose to take. So we are pretty much on track,” recalls Phil.

In the last 30 days, Hewlett Packard Enterprise has taken two layers out of the organization. With Meg stepping down and Antonio stepping up, that has sped up and pushed more decision-making. Speaking on acquisition, the area of innovation is something Hewlett Packard Enterprise calls path finder. “If you look through HP's history, it's done some bad acquisitions. We have, but I think we have got better under Antonio,” observed Phil.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is acquiring a lot of new technologies to enable the Channel to sell technologies. So there are opportunities to continue to partner closely and innovate around how to work together.

“Lastly, when we win, the customer wins. We will continue to focus on the growth parts of the portfolio that are important to us,” concluded Phil. n

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“Our channel business is $43 billion, growing four times the market” Cheryl Cook, Sr. V.P. and Global Channel marketing DELL EMC speaks on how Dell has positioned itself globally after becoming the largest IT company worldwide and the investments it has made to retain that position Through the Dell EMC partner program, partners are seeing exponential growth and unprecedented profit, fuelling their business so that they can invest in the future. “ It's not just technology, it's not just business, it’s the intersection of business and the industry's best technology and remarkable partners that is helping customers realise extraordinary results,” said Cheryl Cook, Sr. VP and Global Channel marketing - DELL EMC. She further continued, “We at Dell EMC think it's a differentiated opportunity with the depth of our product portfolio and we want to be the essential infrastructure solutions provider, providing solutions from the edge to the core to the cloud.”

Dell Technologies, which is now the largest IT company in the industry, with strategically aligned businesses from Dell core client technologies, with edge capabilities and edge computing to Dell EMC with the core datacenter capabilities and infrastructure, virtue stream for mission-critical workloads and applications, and certainly with VMware, the industry's largest capability from a software perspective and with RSA or even to Secure Works which offers a cloud-based monitoring capability have created an unbelievable strong financial position for the company.

“We are investing over $4.5 billion in R&D annually to ensure we are driving and marching to deliver the next set of technologies and invasions to help the growth. We want to make sure that you feel confident that Dell EMC is really the market leader in many essential categories that your customers are looking to modernize their infrastructure and datacenters.

We are number 1 in the world in storage, and then certainly here in this market, with over 19%, we are number 1 in storage in APJ as well.

We are number 1 in the server business too. With our new leadership announcement, John Burn has now been asked to lead on North America sales, and as a result, Joyce Mullen has been our new president of global sales. This announcement was made last week,” Cheryl added.

India is moving fast into smart city environments, and it will generate tonnes of data. To address the opportunity, Dell has a team globally tacking for smart cities with different specialisations. Smart cities are

Cheryl Cook Sr. V.P. and Global Channel marketing DELL EMC

“We have delivered $19.3 billion in revenue in Q2; we have paid down $9.5 billion schedule in debt, ahead of schedule, and a savings of over $200 million in interest annually.” interesting and there are close to 1,000 technology projects that are going on. So the idea of working together to address the opportunity from traffic to security issues and management of population will be of great interest.

“We did have a 14G server launch this year. Dell EMC’s new PowerEdge Servers, the fourteenth generation, came with an aim to tackle a lot of jobs including embedded in-storage arrays, data protection, hyper-converged appliances and racks, ready nodes, bundles and other industry-leading Dell EMC solutions that will enable our customers to unleash their business potential,” Cheryl said.

She then concluded saying, “A year ago, we told you that our channel business was $35 billion. As I stand here today, our channel business is $43 billion, growing four times the market at an unbelievable scale. So we thank you and we ask you to continue to work with us because we think the opportunity is amazing for you as well.” n

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December 2017

13

Channel Chief

Commitment to bring the best technology helps Lenovo’s channel to grow It's different now for Lenovo, different for being able to make a difference in terms of improving what can work, how its customers use technology, and it hopes that Lenovo can work with them so that the latter can provide an end-to-end solution to their customers. The trust point that re invented control has been built by an engineering and design team doing the impossible for the last 25 years.

“We acquired the brand from IBM about 12 years ago, and we are really proud of what we have been able to do to this iconic product and brand, continuing the innovation, continuing to deliver what the brand stood for and improving on it as we went. The second wave is we would like to challenge new businesses - the data center business and mobile business we acquired from Motorola,” says Amar Babu, COO – Asia Pacific & Chairman – Lenovo India.

He further continues, “Today, in fact we sell more phones than we sell PCs. We have been doing that now for a couple of years. We have strong belief in investment into new devices coming up - AR/VR, ART, artificial intelligence, and being able to build that not just from a device standpoint but also being able to put that into the cloud and build a solution around these new technologies. Secondly, IoT device moving to the computer, laptops and desktops, new form factors moving to the datacenter are driving the right level of analytics and artificial intelligence, and are able to leverage cloud technologies. Lenovo is building on this ability to bring this whole gamut of digital solutions to you, for you to be able to integrate to the partner.”

Lenovo is also looking forward to transforming not just the technology but transforming the business together, in how it provides business to its customers leveraging or building on these technologies.

Amar Babu COO – Asia Pacific & Chairman Lenovo India “I think the key is you are going to be the partners, the providers who are going to bring these solutions to our customers. Translate the technology, translate the host of opportunities available for you and build it into a solution and that's where we come in. For Lenovo, it's been a channel strategy for us always.

For us, channels are our partners.”

“As you have seen, the old consumerization of you will bring your own device concept. Our Yoga convertibles will bring in the choice for the new millennials in the workplace who value and will also bring best solutions, best technology to the market. I think the form factor or how it will look is going to be very different. The ability to use technology to solve day-today issues is going to change. In India, for example, remote healthcare and education is a big challenge, and I just love that space and there seems to be huge opportunities to solve real problems. I believe that's an exciting space,” asserts Amar Babu.

Going forward, in the era of fourth industrial revolution, driven by technology, there's a whole host of opportunities. To complement the efforts, Lenovo has the Star Wars Jedi challenge in partnership with Disney.

“It's a game, but you can experience the technology there. But imagine what technology can do in a commercial environment. We have the responsibility to build and deliver those innovative products to you consistently. It's been a long journey that we have made together, and you have heard that we are different,” Amar concluded.

Lenovo does not look at customers just as a road to market but they see them as an extension of Lenovo. 95 % of its business in Asia Pacific goes to business partners. n

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ROUND ABOUT

Digital Festival – Next-Generation Marketing Gimmick I had seen an unconventional headline, which could have merited only a mention or even a detailed treatment in inside pages. It was about a literary festival spearheaded by one of the leading dailies in the country.

My first reaction was how that had merited the slot of the lead story of the newspaper of the day. Reading trough the first few paragraphs of the story written more like a feature and less like a news item, I suddenly realized that it was about the literary festival being organized by the newspaper, where stories, which could have been otherwise ignored and given a silent burial, are prominently displayed.

While reading and assimilating the quintessential of varying stories – from geopolitics to culinary to magic – one question that remained with me and is still seeking an answer is why they are giving slots for a variety of subjects in a leadership summit. Can a platform where world leaders speak on contemporary political and strategic issues be shared by a comedian, or a muscled cine actor or a world beauty whose face can launch thousand ships or a magician, whose expertise lies in creating make-believe situations by a sleight of hand? What is there in common among them apart from the fact that they are “who’s who” in their own domains? Can there be any other reason while staging them in a platform, though at different sessions and sub-sessions?

My thoughts wandered to seek an answer philosophical or otherwise.

I had a thought related to my domains – Information Technology.

Can we have a festival, where IT-related subjects are talked about?

You may question me as to such things are happening across the world at seminars, workshops, conventions, fairs, etc. That is true. But such events lack its appeal since they are more couched in scientific talks, display of gadgets and gizmos, newer generations of equipment and applications and what have you and less in fun and frolic. The natural question is how in such a cerebral congregation of people, mundane subjects like dance, drama, cinematic dances, magic and such trivial things can fit in. My only answer is that advent of literary festivals, leadership summits and similar events are of recent origin.

For those who will get enticed by this, I have a few suggestions.

First on the format of the event: Can it be called Digital festival, which can be quite comprehensive. The pertinent issue is what should be the composition of the event: the theme, sessions and sub-sessions and what not. I have a few suggestions to offer. First of all, sessions and sub-sessions should have not only depth and appeal but also laced with fun and frolic. If you have a session on artificial intelligence and the next level of digital revolution, IT guys will get hooked and will trigger a debate on the broad contours of future tectonic changes that may take place. It will be more cerebral and exclusive. What I have in mind is something different. The debate and other proceedings of the meeting should engage both smart and dull, whiz-kids and ordinary mortals, serious and non-serious people, old and young, educated and less educated, men and women. It should be class neutral, content rich, widely appealing, experimental and the list goes on.

One may raise a question as to what purpose would it serve. They may even go further to tell that how people of all ages and hues will understand the complex algorithms used in the digital frame. Friends, you have gone totally wrong. You give mobile apps to a child of 10 and pit him against him a well-educated man of 45 or 50. Give both the same set of applications to be operated in the mobile. I can vouch that the kid, whatever his age and intelligence level, can outsmart the older man. Look at the basic instinct of a child when he is in possession of a mobile phone or a laptop or any other gizmos. He or she will try all types of trial and error to arrive at the right type of application. That is a very innate attribute among average kids.

Now the point is how we induct fun and frolic into the digital festival. It is very simple. You include a session on gaming and ensure display of gaming equipment. People of all ages will throng to have a

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look at a robot playing hockey or diligently answering the questions posed to it using complex programs and artificial intelligence. While it can excite the children about the power of the digital space, people who are in the older age group get mired in the developments of the modern age. There is also a takeaway for the whiz-kids and experts. That will help them to understand the nuances of the breakthroughs and gain firsthand information. Many of them will try, using their experiences and knowledge to disrupt the technology and arrive at newer paradigms and concepts. At least, they will make an attempt to do so.

Now about the speakers: There should be sprinklings of all innovators, users, marketing people, corporate world, farmers, traders, kids and old. Each should relate their experiences and vision of what they want the digital world to look like. Their imagination can galore.

A student can ask for a device that can bypass the classroom teaching.

A farmer can ask for a device where he can get the weather forecast for the next one year or so. A fisherman can ask for a device where he can spot locations fishes of certain variety congregate. A scientist, in turn, can market his or her latest disruption to help the housewife to get over the drudgery. A scientist also can share his future research plans and the patents that he/she has to the credit. A corporate can give a challenge to the scientific community to come out with a solution for a problem that it faces and can give an open offer of compensation for the right discovery or innovation.

What about having a session on culinary: how to cook a particular Briyani of a certain flavour by giving tips to the contestants through whatsApp. The winner should be adjudged by a robot who picks up the best briyani having right composition of ingredients, flavour and taste. I should be happy if any of the festival organizers and that too newspapers take note of my suggestion. It can be both a money-spinner and a marketing gimmick. Rest assured I will not claim the patent on the idea. n

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December 2017

17

HOT BYTES

Cloudera signs Tech Data as its first Indian Distributor

T

ech Data with Cloudera will deliver new integrated advanced analytics and machine learning solutions to the Indian market.

Based on their unique shared data experience (SDX) technologies, Cloudera’s analytics solutions help enterprises simplify management of complex data lakes, thereby

reducing the time and risk to derive valuable insights from their data. The new solution suite integrates enterprise hardware, compute, storage, hyperconverged systems and software designed for data center, cloud and mobility service provider use-cases. Together, Tech Data and Cloudera will help enterprises leverage data to secure their business, serve customers better and operate their business more efficiently.

Cisco and INTERPOL team up to jointly fight Cybercrime

C

isco and INTERPOL have signed an agreement to share threat intelligence as the first step in jointly fighting cybercrime.

As per the company, headed by INTERPOL's global cybercrime centre, the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore, the alliance will see the two organizations develop a coordinated and focussed approach to data sharing.

This not only will allow for quick threat detection

around the world, but also pave the way for potential future collaboration on training and knowledge sharing.

Cisco's security offerings and its architectural approach help customers secure their organizations more effectively from the network to the endpoint to the cloud. Cisco's comprehensive security portfolio is designed to work together to see a threat once, and stop it everywhere, changing the security equation.

Spice Digital becomes technology partner of UMANG Initiative

S

pice Digital has been chosen as the technology partner on the UMANG project to design, develop and deliver apps. In order to reinforce the Digital India initiative and increase penetration of e-governance in the country, a series of steps have been taken at the local and national level.

UMANG or Unified Mobile Application for New-Age Governance brings forth a cohesive system making e-governance measures, schemes, policies and services accessible to

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December 2017

the citizens on a single platform bringing down the complexity of the whole process.

As a part of the Digital India initiative, myriad e-governance measures are being implemented and many government departments have found their way to a strong online presence.

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McAfee to buy Skyhigh Networks

M

cAfee and S k y h i g h Networks have inked a definitive agreement to combine businesses, with McAfee acquiring Skyhigh Networks for an undisclosed amount.

Skyhigh Networks and McAfee will complement each other’s portfolio and mission, allowing customers to modernize their cybersecurity environments and protect their most valuable asset – data – as it moves to the cloud. The combination will establish the company to provide the cybersecurity architecture of the future, with endpoint and cloud as the critical control points, linked by the security operations centre with actionable threat intelligence, analytics and orchestration, and enabled by an open ecosystem.

HCL Infosystems rolls out P3 for its Channel Partners

H

CL Infosystems has kicked off its P3 or Premier Partner Programme for its channel partners across India.

HCLI P3 will empower the Channel Partners to grow their business through a suite of exclusive benefits, including Subject Matter Expert (SME) support, Demand Generation Campaigns, Priority Response, Financial and Operational Support Services.

According to Bimal Das, Joint President, Enterprise Distribution, HCL Infosystems, “While crafting this programme we brainstormed on various aspects including how to grow business for our channel partners and enable the channel partner to address customer expectations by leveraging new technologies and solutions."

Atos eyes to be a leader in cybersecurity by acquiring Gemalto

A

tos has made a formal proposal to acquire Gemalto by way of a public offer for all of Gemalto issued and outstanding shares.

Atos invited Gemalto’s Board of Directors to engage discussions and review collaboratively this potential transaction. On November 28, 2017, Atos has delivered an offer to the Board of Directors of Gemalto which is friendly, compelling, and which addresses the interests of all stakeholders.

Thierry Breton,

Chairman & CEO, Atos, said, “Atos has been following closely the evolution of Gemalto as a player in digital cybersecurity, IoT and payment and has long admired its global presence and strong customer and technology portfolios. We believe that a combination of Atos and Gemalto would result in enhanced global leadership in cybersecurity, digital technologies and services and in the strengthening of our positioning as a leading European payment services provider."

Teradata to empower Rajasthan Government improve Citizen Architecture, Teradata Services & India, said, “We are pleased to collaborate with the Engagement Government of Rajasthan

T

o improve citizen services and engagement as well as increase efficiency of departmental crossfunctional operations, the Government of Rajasthan is working to provide a big data analytics environment to analyze state-level data.

For this project, they have chosen to collaborate with Teradata, the leading data and Analytics Company.

Rajesh Shewani, Head of Technology and Solution

in its journey to help drive digital transformation as well as inclusion across the state, providing data insights that will improve the delivery of citizen services.

By leveraging leading Big Data analytics solutions, the state government will be able to utilize technology to improve service delivery and drive greater citizen satisfaction, which is critical for its vision of enabling citizens’ growth and empowerment."

Trend Micro acquires Immunio

A

s companies build and deploy applications faster across everything from cloud to containers, any drag on the DevOps lifecycle can create drag on an entire business.

In response to this, Trend Micro Incorporated has announced expansion of its Hybrid Cloud Security solution scope.

New capabilities, attained through a combination of acquiring Montréal, Canada-based Immunio and in-house development, increase the automated protection that Trend Micro can provide throughout the DevOps lifecycle.

Trend Micro is also enhancing its containerspecific security capabilities,by supporting container image scanning, which allows security issues to be identified and resolved prior to production release.

Customers will be able to scan images in the container registry so that development teams can fix issues prior to deployment and apply runtime protection capabilities based on findings from the imaging.

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December 2017

19

HOT BYTES

Fortinet adds 11 technology Barracuda to partners to its Security Fabric be acquired by simplifying multi-vendor Ecosystem security deployments for Thoma Bravo

F

ortinet has announced the addition of 11 industry-

enterprises.

The new Fabric-Ready Program Partners include

leading information technology providers to its Fabric-Ready Partner Program.

These new partners further extend the Fortinet Security Fabric across traditional, cloud, virtual and softwaredefined environments while

ADVA Optical Networking, Bradford Networks, Cyber Observer, CSPi, FireMon, ForeScout Technologies, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Azure, Ribbon Communications (formerly Sonus Networks) and SentinelOne.

Microsoft joins hands with SAP

M

icrosoft Corp. and SAP SE have announced integrated offerings to provide enterprise customers with a clear road map to confidently drive more business innovation in the cloud. In a bold show of commitment, the two companies also announced they will be deploying each other’s cloud solutions internally. Through their unique partnership, the companies will co-engineer, go to market together with premier solutions and provide joint support services to ensure the best cloud experience for customers.

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud – SAP’s private managed cloud service – on Microsoft Azure will allow customers to run SAP S/4HANA in a secure, managed cloud.

Microsoft will deploy SAP S/4HANA on Azure to help run its own internal finance processes, and SAP will move its key internal business critical systems to Azure. Finally, SAP Ariba is currently utilizing Azure and is exploring further use within its procurement applications.

SAP and Microsoft will help companies make the most of running SAP applications in the cloud.

Hikvision strengthens security of VIBGYOR Group’s 25 Schools

H

ikvision had provided a comprehensive security solution for VIBGYOR Group to safeguard their students and schools in 25 locations spread in seven cities, including Mumbai, P u n e , Kolhapur, Vadodara, Surat, Bengaluru and Lucknow. Cosmos Group executed this gigantic project as a Master System Integrator.

“The VIBGYOR

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December 2017

Group project is a shining example of Hikvision’s collaborative success with partners. We are glad that Hikvision’s surveillance and security solutions w e r e deployed at 25 locations of the VIBGYOR Group of Schools. We are thankful to VIBGYOR for the trust,” said Ashish P. Dhakan, MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd.

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B

arracuda Networks has entered into an agreement to be acquired by an investment firm Thoma Bravo, LLC. in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.6 billion.

This price exceeds Barracuda’s 52-week high and represents a premium of 22.5 per cent to the company’s 10-day average stock price prior to November 27, 2017, of $22.49. Barracuda’s Board of Directors unanimously approved the agreement, and believes the transaction maximizes shareholder value. Upon the close of the transaction, Barracuda will operate as a privately-held company with a continued focus on email security and management, network and application security, and data protection solutions.

Orange to empower Government of Bihar with WAN

O

range Business Services has been selected to support the communications requirements of the Bihar State Wide Area Network (NextGen B-SWAN 2.0) project.

“A strong State network will help India to provide effective e-governance with applications and collaborative services.

Connectivity is an essential component of the ‘Digital India’ campaign. Orange Business Services has the expertise and unmatched technical capabilities to help Governments to deliver seamless data, voice and video. We are honoured to support the Government of Bihar and the ‘Digital India’ initiative through this project,” said Bala Mahadevan, CEO, Orange Business Services, India.

Reliance Games to enter into the AR and VR Space

R

eliance Games, a part of Reliance Entertainment – Digital, the digital entertainmentfocussed business of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), has announced its foray into the fast-growing Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality space by announcing its alliance with GoPhygital, a Mumbai-based venture focussed on creating immersive AR, VR and MR experiences.

Speaking about the association and their foray

into AR and VR, Amit Khanduja, CEO, Reliance Entertainment – Digital, says, “We are delivering a console experience to our mobile consumers and we will continue to push the boundaries for apps and games with AR and VR. As we continue to invest heavily in the new technology, we are at the threshold of a big revolution in how digital content will be consumed, and consumer experiences and behaviour will change, in the days to come."

Genpact introduces New Partner Plus Program

G

enpact has launched its new partner program, “Genpact Partner Plus”, to leverage a strong partner ecosystem to accelerate digital-led innovation and digitally-enabled intelligent operations for its clients.

Through the Partner Plus program, Genpact is working with partners to leverage combined expertise to solve clients’ toughest business problems to build new managed services offerings that provide flexible outcomebased pricing models for clients and to provide

best-in-breed digital technologies to accelerate digital transformation and competitive differentiation for its clients.

Chris Webber, Research Director for IDC Strategic Alliances, says, “As the market is in transition and companies in all industries are plotting digital transformation strategies, alliances and partner ecosystems has never been more critical. Genpact is committed as a company to building strong partnerships and collaborating with leading software and services firms ."

Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch Business taken over by ARRIS

A

RRIS International plc has finalised the completion of acquisition of the Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business from Broadcom Limited. Dan Rabinovitsj will lead Ruckus Networks at ARRIS. The deal strategically positions ARRIS for a new phase of growth by leveraging the companies' combined technology assets to enable next-generation wireless and wired networks.

The Ruckus target vertical

markets span hospitality, education, government, service providers, multidwelling/tenant units, sports/entertainment venues, and transportation

centres. Ruckus' trailblazing leadership in the smallcell CBRS LTE market represents an opportunity to deploy converged Wi-Fi and LTE using common cloud-based control.

www.varindia.com

December 2017

21

ON THE RAMP

CA Technologies unveils Expanded Portfolio supporting DevSecOps

C

A Technologies has announced a portfolio that allows companies to integrate security in the earliest stages of development and assure security in deployment – an emerging practice known as DevSecOps. CA is uniquely positioned to deliver industry- leading capabilities to our customers with new capabilities in the CA Automic, CA Veracode, and Continuous Delivery portfolios.

“Companies embracing DevSecOps deliver better and more secure software because of the focus on collaboration and alignment across disciplines,” said Ayman Sayed, President & Chief Product Officer, CA Technologies.

“In today’s s e c u r i t y environment, it is critically important for security to be integrated seamlessly throughout the whole software development lifecycle."

HPE expands its ProLiant Gen10 Portfolio

H

ewlett Packard Enterprise, in partnership with AMD, has announced the HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen10 server offering up to 50-

percent lower cost per virtual machine (VM) than traditional server solutions.

Server virtualization continues to be an essential tool in improving agility in modern IT environments.

In fact, 41 percent of new server shipments will be virtualized in 2020, up from 33 percent in 2015.

Additionally, enterprises report savings of almost 20 percent from virtualizing their servers and are constantly striving to lower the cost of virtualization.

The new HPE ProLiant DL385 leverages the AMD EPYC System on a Chip (SoC) to enable customers to achieve greater utilization and RoI while delivering unmatched security for virtualized workloads.

Logitech G unveils sensorenabled gaming mouse

L

ogitech G has launched two new products that have advanced high-performance wireless gaming features.

The Logitech G603 LIGHTSPEED W i r e l e s s Gaming Mouse is a nextgeneration gaming mouse that uses Logitech G’s new advanced HERO optical sensor and advanced LIGHTSPEED wireless technology, whereas the Logitech G613 LIGHTSPEED

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December 2017

Wireless Mechanical Gaming Keyboard is a high-performance wireless keyboard designed, especially for gamers.

Ashok Jangra, Cluster Category Head – India & SWA, Logitech, said, “The latest product from the Logitech G portfolio is an elegantly designed feature-packed product that is especially shaped for an audience who wants impeccable gaming performance."

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Finance Minister HP Inc. unveils new gaming launches Paytm notebooks Range – OMEN by HP Inc. has Payments Bank HPintroduced an

T

o support digital payment, Hon’ble Union Finance Minster Arun Jaitley formally inaugurated Paytm Payments Bank recently.

Paytm Payments Bank is mobilefirst bank with zero charges on all online transactions and no minimum balance requirement. The bank has been designed to help achieve financial inclusion in the country and is in line with Paytm’s mission of bringing half a billion Indians on to the mainstream economy.

The company has planned an investment of $500 million in KYC (Know Your Customer) operations. It is also setting up KYC centres across India to complete KYC for customers and make them eligible for a Payments Bank account.

AWS announces DeepLens powered by Intel

A

mazon Web Services has announced DeepLens, its first fully programmable, deep learning-enabled wireless video camera designed for developers.

AWS and Intel collaborated on the DeepLens camera to provide builders of all skill levels with the optimal tools needed to design and create artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning products.

AI and machine learning are poised to power a new generation of smart industries, including smart homes, smart retail, smart industrial and many others, making lives easier through intelligent interactions with devices.

This collaboration reinforces Intel’s commitment to providing developers with tools to create AI and machine learning products, and follows the recent introduction of the Intel.

entirely new, cuttingedge and comprehensive portfolio of OMEN by HP gaming notebooks.

Redesigned and reengineered from the ground up, the new notebooks give eSports athletes and competitive gamers the edge and confidence needed to perform at the highest level. Every inch inside and out of the new OMEN PCs are packed with features designed to target the needs of gamers around the world.

With the new OMEN PC line-up, HP is bringing gamers OMEN 15 and OMEN 17 laptops, with the latest high-performance 10 Series GTX graphics from NVIDIA, high-resolution displays with optional G-Sync technology for fast refresh rates and a singleaccess service panel to upgrade RAM and Storage.

Indus Net Technologies brings BreezeERP

I

ndus Net Technologies has launched its new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System – BreezeERP. It is 100% web based, universally accessible, self-configurable, secure and scalable and aimed at providing consolidated, comprehensive, as well as intelligent information to the users by a single login.

The system is even capable of delivering relevant information to the users based on their job role and corporate position.

To maintain a usual functioning of an ERP ,

well-integrated BreezeERP breaks the practice of this cumbersome, labour-intensive and fallible method and saves a significant amount of time and money through its automated facilities.

Aiming at providing consolidated, comprehensive and userfriendly information just through a single simple login, BreezeERP is also capable of delivering relevant services to the users in accordance with their varied job role and designation in the industry.

Zyxel announces 802.11ac Wave access points

Z

y x e l Communications has launched three new 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless access points – NWA1123ACHD, NWA5123-ACHD and WAC6303D-S - to take

Wave 1 standard, these new products deliver on the full potential of Wave 2 wireless networking.

Designed to address wi-fi challenges, Zyxel’s Wave 2 access points are

on the challenges facing today’s 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi networks. While early Wave 2 entries fell short of the performance advances seen with the jump from 802.11n to the 802.11ac

equipped with next-gen beam forming technology that allows data rates to increase not only for MUMIMO-compatible clients, but for all existing ones.

www.varindia.com

November 2017

13

ON THE RAMP

Array enhances its ADC Series

A

rray Networks has announced immediate availability of its ArrayOS version update for the APV Series application delivery controllers.

"Array's APV Series application d e l i v e r y controllers already provide the availability, scalability, performance and security essential to keeping applications and servers running efficiently," said Paul Andersen, VP of Sales and Marketing, Array Networks. "That said, with this latest update, we

continue to simplify our support for Oracle Tuxedo with tighter integration and paying close attention to user experience and productivity."

Array also adds Layer 2 bridging to its APV series.

This implementation of IEEE 802.1D transparent bridging allows the APV appliance to be added to the network without requiring any network segment changes.

Dell EMC HCI solutions now available on PowerEdge Servers

D

ell EMC’s hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) portfolio has received a substantial boost with the availability of Dell EMC HCI appliances on the newly-designed, award-winning Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th-generation servers. “ C u s t o m e r s transforming their IT are increasingly turning to hyperconverged infrastructure as an ideal foundation for simplifying IT today and for the future,” said Anshuman Rai, Director – Sales,

Converged Platform & Solutions Division, Dell EMC. “With HCI designed as a software-defined infrastructure, achieving ultimate performance and reliability relies on tightly engineering software with optimal hardware and its configurations. Dell EMC’s turnkey, pre-integrated, tested and validated HCI appliances enable customers to simply stand-up and scale IT infrastructure, backed by trusted dependability and performance, to help IT organizations more easily meet the growing demands of their businesses.”

Vertiv expands its cloud portfolio

V

ertiv has announced a significant cloud-based addition to the Vertiv portfolio that will empower customers with deeper insights across the data

center. The Vertiv cloud offering will leverage the collective knowledge gleaned from decades of data center projects to deliver real-time analysis.

The portfolio is a new Internet of Things (IoT) gateway that

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December 2017

provides added security with simple installation and commissioning to streamline data center connectivity. The Vertiv RDU300 gateway is a new entry in the Vertiv RDU family of monitoring and control products, integrates with building management systems and ensures that any data passed to the Vertiv cloud from the customer site is done securely and using minimum bandwidth.

Together, the Vertiv cloud offering and Vertiv RDU300 gateway enable remote visibility, collection, and analysis of critical infrastructure data across all Vertiv products.

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Juniper Networks presents new Juniper Bots

J

uniper Networks has announced the new Juniper Bots, a series of new applications that simplify network operations by translating intent into automated workflows, as well as updates to the Juniper Extension Toolkit.

Juniper Bots comprise a growing ecosystem that automate workflows and break the cycle of complex machine-focused automation tools. The bots, which leverage both the Contrail and AppFormix platforms, incorporate real-time analytics that are designed to translate higherlevel business requirements (the “what”) into automatic configuration changes across the network (the “how”).

LG to unveil Gram laptops with enhanced performance

A

t CES 2018, LG Electronics (LG) will unveil its latest LG gram laptops that deliver superior portability, enhanced powerful performance and convenience features. The impressive successor to its previous line-up, the LG 2018 gram laptops push the boundaries of portable computing with improved mobility and durability, as well as upgraded processors and more versatile functionality.

The new models continue to be the most easyto-carry laptops available in the market today. Their ultra-thin bodies feature a highly efficient 72Wh battery which allows longer work time without plugging in, lasting up to almost a full day on a single charge.

The compact design allows the LG gram’s smaller form factor to feature wider screens.

Google announces Files Go!

G

oogle has launched Files Go app that takes a mobilefirst approach to freeing up space, finding files faster and easily sharing them with others, even when offline. Files Go will be globally available on the Google Play Store for all phones running Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and higher.

Caesar Sengupta, Vice-President, Next Billion Users, Google, said, “Every day, millions of smartphones run out of space. While phones with 16GB or 32GB of storage are becoming more popular, many phones around the world have

much less storage, often as low as 4GB. Users often struggle to keep on top of the storage space on their phones and are constantly having to choose between what to keep or delete.

We have been testing Files Go for a month, and the average user is saving 1GB of space.

Verizon introduces Virtual Network Services – One

V

erizon Enterprise Solutions has announced that enterprises of any size embracing network virtualization have a new option for achieving simpler, more centralized billing; better cost control; and lower capital expenses.

Virtual Network Services – One offers single line-item, “pay-as-you-go” pricing and billing for hardware, software and management services, as well as an option for centralized contracting and billing.

“With Virtual Network

Services – One, enterprises can now wrap all of their virtualized network into an operating expense software licensing model without needing to pay for hardware separately,” said Vickie Lonker, VicePresident of Network and Virtual Solutions, Verizon.

“Incorporating universal customer premise equipment (uCPE) into a commercial pricing and billing model is another of the many bottom line business benefits that come from network virtualization.”

IBM presents POWER9equipped Servers

I

BM has unveiled its next-generation Power Systems Servers incorporating its newlydesigned POWER9 processor. Built specifically for compute-intensive AI workloads, the new POWER9 systems are capable of improving the training times of deep learning frameworks by nearly 4x, allowing enterprises to build more accurate AI applications, faster.

The new POWER9based AC922 Power Systems are the first to embed PCI-Express 4.0, next-generation NVIDIA

NVLink and OpenCAPI, which combined can accelerate data movement, calculated at 9.5x faster than PCI-E 3.0 based x86 systems.

The system was

designed to drive demonstrable performance improvements across popular AI frameworks such as Chainer, TensorFlow and Caffe, as well as accelerated databases such as Kinetica.

CORPORATE OFFICE: E Square System & Technologies Pvt. Ltd #507, 2nd Floor, Saheed Nagar, Bhubaneswar - 751007, Odisha, India Phone - 0674-2548481 Office No -7, 8, 9. 7th Floor, DLF Cyber City, Bhubaneswar - 751024

REGISTERED OFFICE: E Square System & Technologies Pvt. Ltd Plot No - #S - 3/82, Mancheswar Industrial Estate, Bhubaneswar - 751010, Khordha, Odisha, India Phone - 06782-260557 Email: info@estpl.in

BRANCH OFFICE: E Square System & Technologies Pvt. Ltd Flat No. 42, 4th Floor, Deepak Building 13, Nehru Place, New Delhi - 110019, India Phone - 011 41097810 Visit: www.estpl.in

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December 2017

25

VOICE-N-DATA

astTECS introduces Cloud-based Voice Logging Solution astTECS has announced the launch of cloud-based voice logging solution. astTECS cloud-based voice logger is an ideal callrecording solution for stock brokers and broking firms that ensure to improve compliance and better customer services. The voice logger harnesses the power of cloud and enables all stock broking firms execute trades of clients, by keeping evidence in the form of voice recording and further strengthen regulatory provisions.

Stock brokers can download and install

P

astTECS voice logger application from the play store. Once installed on the mobile, all incoming and outgoing calls are recorded and pushed to the cloud server via mobile data or Wi-Fi and saved for future reference.

India ranks 109th in mobile internet speed and 76th for Broadband

A

ccording to data from Ookla’s November Speed test Global Index, India is ranked 109th in the mobile internet speed and 76th for fixed broadband speed, globally.

At the start of 2017, the average mobile download speed in India was 7.65 Mbps. heading into the end of the year; the average mobile download speed is 8.80 Mbps as of November.

That’s a 15% increase.

While mobile speeds increased modestly, fixed broadband speeds increased

dramatically. Average fixed broadband download speed in January was 12.12 Mbps.

As of November, it’s at 18.82 Mbps, a close-to 50% jump.

Doug Suttles, CoFounder & General Manager, Ookla, said, “Both mobile and fixed broadband internet in India are getting faster, that’s good news for all Indian consumers no matter which operator or plan they use to access the internet. India still has a long way to go to catch up with countries that have top speeds around the world.”

Nokia focussing on Next-Gen technologies opens R&D Centre

N

okia’s new R&D Centre in Manyata Embassy Park was inaugurated today

by Priyank Kharge, Minister of State, IT, BT and Tourism, on the centre’s I n n ova t i o n Day in Bengaluru.

The new facility will carry out research in areas including the cloud, “big data” analytics, development of Voice over LTE (VoLTE)

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December 2017

Parallel Wireless Telecom tower industry expected expands 2G to undergo structural changes he telecom telecom tower tenancies capabilities to T tower industry have grown at CAGR of expected to undergo 5.5%, while the growth in its SDR Solution isstructural changes in the rentals has been nominal.

and applications, as well as next-generation core and 5G. The centre, one of Nokia’s four global R&D

sites, currently employs more than 6,000 engineers, with that number to rise in 2018.

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arallel Wireless has announced the addition of 2G capabilities to their end-to-end cellular network technology. This solution will bring network virtualization principles (NFV) to 2G/GSM to reduce cost and complexity of rolling out or expanding 2G networks while enabling cost-effective migration to 3G/4G. Rajesh Mishra, Founder & CTO, Parallel Wireless, said, “As part of our mission to connect the unconnected and improve people’s lives, providing reliable, cost-effective 2G coverage is essential. We can now offer cost savings and network simplification for any G cellular network to make it economically viable for operators."

Vodafone introduces end-to-end IoT Solution for enterprises

W

ith the growing recognition of Internet of Things (IoT) To enable enterprises’ IoT adoption, Vodafone has launched SuperIoT – comprising IoT solutions like Vehicle Tracking, Asset Tracking (Fixed and Mobile) and People Tracking (School Students and Employees).It is an industry-first solution that enables end-to-end management of device, application, connectivity, service platform, support and security.

With SuperIoT, enterprises do not have to face the challenges of managing multiple suppliers and service providers. They can benefit from rapid application development, device management and analytics with the Application Enablement platform.

medium term. Currently, the industry, with around 4 lakh towers and around 8 lakh tenancies, is a sizeable one in the world. It has 10 organized players wherein 74% of the portfolio is held either by tower companies promoted by telecom operators, or by telecom operators themselves. Over the next 1-2 years, there is likely to be a material change in the industry structure with number of players expected to reduce to 4-5.

As per ICRA estimates, over the last four years, the

However, the current valuations of tower companies indicate expectations of stronger business growth, fuelled by the expanding data usage and the rollout of nextgeneration networks.

Airtel invests in Juggernaut to offer its customers digital content

B

harti Airtel has announced that it has acquired a strategic stake in Juggernaut Books (“Juggernaut”), a popular digital platform to discover and read high-quality, affordable books and to submit amateur writing.

The investment is in line with Airtel’s endeavour to build an open content ecosystem and bring world-class digital content to its customers. The investment from Airtel will

enable Juggernaut to ramp up content acquisition, digital marketing and prepare for a subscription offering launch in the next few months.

Speaking on the same, Badal Bagri, Chief Financial Officer, Bharti Airtel, said, “Juggernaut is an exciting digital platform and complements our content vision. We look forward to working with them and supporting the next phase of their growth journey.”

Eurotech Technologies launches High-Speed HDMI Cables

E

u r o t e c h Te c h n o l o g i e s has launched BestNet high-speed HDMI cables.

BestNet HDMI x HDMI Cable – V2.0 supports resolution of 4K2K (2160P) which offers two times the clarity of 1080P/60 video resolution, while offering transfer rate up to 6GB per channel, delivering superior consumer video and audio experience. BestNet HDMI cables are designed with the latest version of HDMI 2.0, which allows broad compatibility and maximum performance.

The sleek, flexible,

and user-friendly HDMI cables supports resolution of 1080P/60, 4K/30 and 4K/60 and are currently available in sizes ranging 1.5, 3, 5, 10 and 15 metres and serves upto 32 audio channels for a multidimensional immersive audio experience and intense viewing.

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December 2017

27

CHANNEL BUZZ

PNY Technologies hosts “Be the Pro in You” in four cities

P

NY Technologies has announced the successful completion of 4-city event ‘Be the Pro in You’.

"It is our pleasure to host such special meets to connect with newer partner community. We kick-started our operations in India with a focus on actively engaging

with customers as that is essential to our mutual business success. We look forward to reaching out to more customers in other cities in future partner meets," said Manges Karhaadkar, Country Manager, PNY India. "I am glad that PNY and its partner base share the same vision of providing our customers with the leading technology and

product enhancements to satisfy their every need."

Conducted in association with Nvidia, this series mainly focussed on deriving the right configuration of the visual computing devices such as graphic cards. Often, it is seen that a mismatch in the right product/solution to computing requirement results in lacuna of performance.

Critical business insights as well as valuable experience about the graphic card market were shared during this meet and PNY Te c h n o l o g i e s ' effort to reach out to them was also well appreciated.

With channel engagement at the core of PNY's business strategy “Be the Pro in You” meet successfully reached out channel partners in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. This event provided a platform for partners to share their ideas, discuss strategies and explore new growth opportunities.

DIGISOL delights its Channel Partners at Thailand

D

IGISOL has recently rewarded its partners with a trip to Thailand. The trip was organized for all the partners to celebrate their achievements in active networking business. The DIGISOL “Chalo Bangkok” was organized from 2nd to 5th December, 2017.

The 3 Nights/ 4 Days luxury trip to Thailand was packed with lots of exciting activities that included a visit to Coral Island that offers a plethora of water sports such as undersea walking, parasailing, etc. But the highlight of the trip was spectacular “Alcazar Show”. The entire excursion included accommodation at posh resort, apart from an exclusive sightseeing tour and shopping at Pattya and Bangkok malls.

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December 2017

Mandar Joshi, Head – Channel Business, DIGISOL Systems Ltd, says, “Our channel partners and distributors are an imperative force behind the success of DIGISOL and we consider them as an integral part of our team. In appreciation

of partner’s stupendous support in making DIGISOL a huge success in India, this year we took our partners to Thailand.”

Last year, DIGISOL took its partner to Europe, which was packed with lots of exciting activities that included a visit to Prague – Czech Republic, Vienna – Austria, Budapest – Hungary.

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Sound Solution organizes Sound Premier League 2017

S

ound Solution, a distributor of Acer, Samsung, Dell and a Service Partner for Epson, has organized the Sound Premier League 2017, a cricket tournament on 2nd December, 2017 at Kurla, Mumbai. Four matches took

Dell won the match with a low margin. After considering the run rate of all the four teams, Acer directly entered into the finals.

The semi-final match was held between Dell Champions and Epson Warriors. The match was

place during the event, where the first match was played between Acer Achievers and Samsung Challengers and it was won by team Acer with a good margin.

The second match was held between Dell Champions and Epson Warriors, where team

won by Team Epson with a good difference.

After the match, the best batsman was awarded to Ritesh Talewar from the team of Acer Achievers and the best bowler was awarded to Akshay from Epson Warrior’s team.

Rashi Peripherals and ECS organize Channel Meet in Kolkata

I

n a bid to tap unexplored IT market in West Bengal, Rashi Peripherals and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) have conducted its flagship “ECS Channel Connect” event in Kolkata.

The objective of the event was to create ECS brand awareness among channel partners and showcase the latest series of motherboards and Liva Mini PCs. West Bengal is the fastestgrowing IT market in the Eastern region. Infrastructure development, industrialization, and connectivity have triggered the demand for IT in the State. The State Government’s proactive steps to build a comprehensive IT ecosystem have positively impacted the industry.

According to the Confederation of Indian Industry, the IT sector is growing at 16% with employment growth rate of 8% annually in West Bengal. The rising electronic clusters, IT education institutions, IT parks and Start-up Warehouses have triggered tremendous demand for IT and hence, many worldrenowned IT companies are looking at this region as their next big business hub.

ECS is very bullish over market opportunities and the company along with its distribution partner Rashi Peripherals is building a robust channel ecosystem in the region. In

his presentation, Rajshekhar Bhatt, Country Manager, ECS India, explained partners, the company’s vision to grow business in the eastern region. He also explained to partners the market positioning of ECS cutting-edge and innovative product line.

Bhatt said, “As a company, we believe in offering the latest product at an affordable price. ECS is a three-decade old company with various manufacturing facilities and strong OEM business. East India is always a technology-friendly region with good demand for all range of products.”

The leading motherboard, Mini-PC, Notebooks and mobile device manufacturer, recently launched the smallest Mini PC in its kind LIVA Q. The pocket-sized mini-PC (measured at 70 x 70 x 31.4mm in size and weights 260g) features Intel Apollo Lake SOC processors, along with 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC storage and HDMI 2.0.

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INDUSTRY EVENT

Good news for VARs & Resellers, hardware business to grow - Canalys Perth, Australia: The Annual edition of Canalys Channels Forum APAC region was held in Perth last week. Partners from across APAC, the majority of who were from India, headed to Perth, the vibrant capital of Western Australia. About 900 delegates from across the APAC region attended the event.

Steve Brazier, CEO & President- Canalys in his keynote address on the tech trends said that the death of IT hardware channel has been greatly exaggerated. “Technology is transforming every industry, and the channel is lucky to be at the heart of this new industrial revolution. Good and bad tech news stories have frequently hit the headlines in 2017.

Artificial intelligence, deep learning, IoT, robotics, chatbots, cloud and edge computing are driving the channel forward, while issues around regulation, ethics, tax, security and monopolistic behaviour cause complications.

Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR & VR) offers exciting opportunities for human computer interaction, the enhancement of places and new business cases. Many use cases in US, China, Japan and Singapore came to the limelight where AR/VR technology has been adopted as part of training programs across certain industries such as manufacturing and healthcare. With the potential to spread even further, it brings immense opportunity for the channel partners across the world for worldwide growth. Tech truly offers partners a ‘Limitless Landscape’.”

According to Canalys, APAC distributors grew 8 percent and partners grew 10 percent in the first half of 2017. The organisation expects channel partners in APAC to grow at least 10 percent per annum over the next three years. Resellers have been told for years that they need to expand into services to bolster profitability. However, Brazier predicted that hardware would still contribute more than 50 percent of revenue for 90 percent of partners in 2020.

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Steve spoke about PC selling going up.

“Whoever said the PC was dead two or three years ago was wrong. Commercial PCs are growing, and price points are going up not because there has been a shortage of memory and component, but also because some people are willing to pay more for well-designed notebooks that are thin, light and sexy. Prices are going up, that means margins are going up. Better segmentation of the market is helping, better marketing is helping and this is providing growth,” said Brazier.

The world's top seven hyperscale cloud providers (Super Seven) are reshaping the IT channel, with industry trends increasingly guided by partnership decisions of the "super seven, according to Canalys. The Super Seven includes Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu are rewriting the rules for the IT supply industry. Tencent and Alibaba are planning very aggressive and expect them to appear in

most APAC countries in next 12-18 months.

The super seven face a massive capital expenditure challenge.

AWS is working closely with VMware which allows people to move applications quickly from one environment to another.

Microsoft and AWS are spending US$2-3 billion a quarter each on building datacenters, whereas Salesforce is responding to Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn and the threat that might crop up. The super 7 are thus changing the structure of the industry and the priorities of component vendors and the focus of their sales forces and their design," Brazier said.

“The big three power providers – AWS, Microsoft and Google – are now buying more servers per quarter than HPE or Dell EMC selling worldwide in the same quarter.

The scale of capital investment is simply enormous and the component suppliers are responding to this. Google was first at Intel Sky Lake. You cannot get Sky Lake inside AWS. Well, think about it. Today, they have spent something like $20 billion on their data centres,” he added.

India and Singapore too is encouraging a cashless system. Singapore government is working with seven local banks to allow consumers to transfer money to each other just by phone numbers.

Lastly, with solid growth in PC sales in Asia-Pacific, opportunity for the channel business seems promising for the next 3 to 4 years. It is also expected that there is boom in edge computing, as local processing power increases at the fringes of the network to support the computing firepower in the cloud.

With this the ability to process multiple data sources at high speed close to the source of the data will go up and up.

Candefero Channel Partner of the Year Awards -APAC (2017) The Candefero Channel Partner of the Year Awards recognize outstanding performance in specific areas - Revenue Growth, Innovation and Transformation, Cloud: Software, Cloud: Managed Services and Infrastructure Growth, together with an overall Channel Partner of the Year award.

The winners in the categories are as follows • Fujisoft Incorporated as the Candefero Channel Partner of the Year • Kawloon Networks System for Revenue Growth • ACPL Systems for Innovation and Transformation • Embee Software for Cloud: Software • ASI Solutions for Cloud: Managed Services • SMS Global Technologies for Infrastructure Growth.

Cheryl Cook Sr. V.P. and Global Channel marketing-DELL EMC “Through the Dell EMC partner program, partners are seeing exponential growth and unprecedented profit that is fuelling their business and encouraging them to invest in the future.

It's not just technology. It's not just business. It is the intersection of business and the industry's best technology and remarkable partners focused on helping customers realise the extraordinary.

Dell Technologies is now the largest IT company in the industry, with strategically aligned businesses from Dell core client technologies - with edge capabilities and edge computing, Dell EMC with its core data centre capabilities and infrastructure, virtue stream for mission-critical workloads and applications, with VMware as the industry's largest capability from a software perspective, and with RSA or even Secure Works which offers a cloudbased monitoring capability. And these capabilities in the company have really created an unbelievable strong financial position for the company.

We are investing over $4.5 billion in R&D annually to ensure driving and marching to deliver the next set of technologies and invasions to help the growth where the customers are looking to modernize their infrastructure and their data centres. We are the number 1 in the world in storage, and then certainly here in this market, with over 19 %, we are number 1 in storage in APJ as well. We are number 1 in the server business. With our new leadership announcement, John Burn has now been asked to lead North America sales, and as a result, Joyce Mullen has been our new president of global sales.

This announcement was made last week.

Lastly, a year ago, we told you that our channel business was $35 billion. As I stand here today, our channel business is $43 billion, growing four times the market at an unbelievable scale. So we thank you and we ask you to continue to work with us because we think the opportunity is amazing for you as well.”

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INDUSTRY EVENT Richard Bailey President, Asia Pacific & Japan –HP Inc. “Digitisation or digital transformation, or servitization where everything is a service to drive our future are creating new opportunities for all of us. This is how we will drive mutually profitable growth together. As the world becomes digital and we become increasingly interconnected, security threats will grow and take on new forms. A little software update will allow me to create a back door directly into someone else’s network.

The launch of 3D printing is going to become mainstream for manufacturing, a world within which goods no longer will only move by air, sea, rail and road, but would move as a digital file and that is an enormous opportunity for everybody in this room.

With the acquisition of Samsung, it took HP into the A3 or copier business. Copiers have always lived as a service model or a cost-per-copy or a click model. So the benefit for all of you is we have opened up an addressable market of $54 billion globally, exactly equal to the size of our A4 printer market that you all participate in today. But, of course, we must continue to pride in best-in-class devices and security. So across PC and print, we are focused on three things - Protecting the device; identity and data. HP is soon becoming the leader in end-point security as per IDC. Lastly, let's continue to partner together to create shared value, enable our customers to digitally transform and move to more flexible service models. So this is a journey for HP, both here in the region and globally, and it will continue to add value to your businesses. My team and I are committed to working with your business every day.”

Amar Babu Vice President & COO (Asia Pacific)- Lenovo “It's different now for Lenovo. Different for being able to make a difference in terms of improving what can work, how our customers use technology, and we hope that we can work with you so that you can provide an end-to-end solution to your customers. The company is built by an engineering and design team doing the impossible for the last 25 years. The second wave is that we would like to challenge new businesses, the data centre business and mobile business we acquired from Motorola.

Today, in fact we sell more phones than we sell PCs. We have been doing that now for a couple of years. We have a strong investment coming up into new devices like AR/VR, artificial intelligence, and we are being able to build that not just from a device standpoint but also able to put that into the cloud and build a solution around these new technologies. We sense that a lot of IoT devices are moving to the computer, laptops and desktops & other new form factors and to the datacenter, driving the right level of analytics and artificial intelligence. The ability to leverage cloud technologies and the ability to bring this whole gamut of digital solutions to you, for you to be able to integrate in your eco-system is what we are counted for.

I think the key is you are going to be the partner, the provider who is going to bring these solutions to our customers. Translate the technology, translate the host of opportunities available for you and build it into a solution and that's where we come in. For Lenovo, it's been a channel strategy for us always. For us, channel is our partners. We have the responsibility to build and deliver those innovative products to you consistently. It's been a long journey that we have made together, and you have heard that we are different.

Lastly, we don't look at you just as a road to market; you are an extension of Lenovo. 95 % of our business in Asia Pacific goes to business partners.”

Phil Davis Global sales officer for Hewlett Packard Enterprise “As digital transformation continues to disrupt every industry, customers have turned to HPE as a trusted partner to help them navigate to this new world. Partnering with HPE, you are partnering literally with a company that was founded with the strategy - Partner first and it runs through our DNA, and we are very proud of that and committed to continuing.

Our strategy, is very simple and it's been very consistent # One, we make hybrid IT simple. # Two, we power the intelligent edge. # and three, we drive that through our services expertise.

As I talk to customers, a lot of them have moved very aggressively into the public cloud, and that will continue.

Moving a bunch of data into the cloud and pulling it out can be very expensive, as there's a lot of lock-in with different cloud vendors once you get all of your data into that cloud. We need partnerships from various angles, not just with the partnerships in this room - the distributors, but it also includes SIs, software partners like SAP and Microsoft, and investing heavily to bring that entire ecosystem to bear. The recent announcement at Discover stated that we will move beyond infrastructure as a service to outcome as a service. We are now making HANA as a service, we are now making available, back-up as a service, and as we go forward, we see the opportunity to extend beyond our leadership and flexible capacity all the way to business outcome as a service. In all of these, investments continue to be aligned with our three core values.

HPE is acquiring a lot of new technologies to enable the Channel to sell these technologies. So I think there are opportunities where HPE will continue to partner closely and innovate around how we work together.”

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INDUSTRY EVENT

Growth opportunities immense for PC partners who are moving into print Richard Bailey, President, Asia Pacific & Japan â&#x20AC;&#x201C;HP Inc. talks about the different growth opportunities and what partners can gain out of it I personally am so proud of what we at HP and what our partners have achieved over the past couple of years. We want to continue growing, and we want to continue to innovate.

For that we have to listen to you and have to earn your business and the business of our customers every day.

Digitisation or digital transformation, or servitization, is where everything is a service to drive our future. They are creating new opportunities for all of us, and this is how we will drive mutually profitable growth together.

As the world becomes more digital and we become increasingly interconnected, security threats will grow and take on new forms. A little software update allows me to create a back door directly into someone elseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s network.

With 3D printing becoming mainstream for manufacturing, a world within which goods no longer only move by air, sea, rail and road, but move as a digital file, that is an enormous opportunity for everybody in this room.

We know, as a service, it's a phenomenon.

Customers want to live in a consumptionbased, flexible model. Search shows if you take 15-20 computational growth rates, it's the range of 38 %.

With the acquisition of Samsung, it took HP into the A3 or copier business. Copiers have always lived as a service model or a costper-copy or a click model. So the benefit for all of you is we have opened up an addressable market of $ 54 billion globally, exactly equal to the size of our A4 printer market that you all participate in today. But of course, we must continue to pride best-in-class devices and security.

Across PC and print, we are focused on three things - protecting the device, identity and data. We want to make HP the leader in end-point security as per IDC. Today, HP leads in end-point device security, and that is a significant differentiator and competitive advantage for our partners.

In India, where high school drop-out rate is 68 %, HP offers help. Through our program, we have launched 48 mobile learning labs across rural India. Technology brought inside the villages opens opportunities beyond. In the next six years, HP will serve up to 6400 villages and impact 15 million people. Every point of contact with technology becomes a path to a better life for them, for us, for humanity.

In the coming years, not in size, but growth will be the highest in both China and India. In fact they are going to be drivers. Japan is very strong whose economy is great and then in South-East Asia and mature markets, Australia is doing well.

We have recruited a specific channel for 3D printing. It's also true when I speak to a customer or a government, they want to talk about 3D printing because it's truly transformational and the opportunities are promising.

There are growth opportunities for partners who just do PC or infrastructure today but would eventually move into print. Secondly, there is an existing demand for partners to serve A3 business. There is also a strong momentum into managed print services or partner-managed print services and the third is back to digital transformation.

Let's continue to partner together to create shared value, enable our customers to digitally transform and move to more flexible service models. So this is a journey for HP, both here in the region and globally, to continue to add value to your businesses and my team and I are committed to working with your business every day.

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INDUSTRY EVENT

MAIT organizes national conference on IT Procurement MAIT has recently organized “National Conference on Government Procurement in Information Age” in New Delhi. The conference highlighted the importance of IT procurement practices, Model RFPs 2.0, e-Marketplace for government and semigovernment organizations.

The sessions addressed the needs of Public Sector Heads, Government Relation Heads and CFOs of companies working in Government IT business. It provided participants an opportunity to be on the same platform as key Government decision-makers in procurement practices in the country.

The event was inaugurated by Shri Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY. Neeta Verma, Director General, NIC, and Radha Chauhan, CEO, GeM, were the guests of honour. The event saw a number of panel discussions on a wide variety of issues pertaining to IT Procurement & Innovation in Procurement.

The speakers emphasized on the need to overhaul legacy ICT procurement practices, identify susceptibilities and review processes to make them more impactful and efficient.

Welcoming the delegates, Harish Krishnan, Vice-President, MAIT, said, “Government procurement accounts for 10% to 15% of GDP of most countries and this is specifically true for India.

MAIT has been working on IT procurement since 2012 and we have been involved with over 14 state governments. MAIT and its members have contributed in preparation of both Model RFP 1.0 and Model RFP 2.0.” Complementing the government on GeM, he added, “The GeM will bring efficiency in procurement and most importantly transparency and predictability to

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Government IT procurement.”

Shri Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY said, “RFP 2.0 is a great initiative and this is just a beginning. As we move forward the terms of engagement will become clearer.

We are in the listening mode and are open to suggestions. The idea is to be able to get the best of goods and services at competitive rates.”

Neeta Verma, Director General, NIC said, “Lot of Government program and schemes depend on the efficiency and effectiveness of this procurement process. Information Technology in the public procurement is not something new as we have seen that AP

Government started the e-procurement in 2000 and in 2007, under the guidance of Ministry of Finance Dept. of Expenditure, we built central public procurement platform. It provides the comprehensive domain for procurement.”

Radha Chauhan, Additional Secretary, DGS&D and CEO, GeM said, “The transparency, openness, fairness, equity – all are those of the spirit which was embedded at the point in time when the technology did not

enable us by what we understand as a tender system. But today we find the same tender system in government’s e market places with technology embedded with the same spirit and we no more need not go through the tender processes in files and saves our time.”

Shri Sanjay Jaju, Director of Finance and Administration, National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited said, “Along with the other various sectors, Information Technology also plays an important role in the development of the infrastructure sector. Information Technology helps tremendously in ease of doing infrastructure and business by removing various road blocks that we found in traditional way of doing businesses.”

Commenting on the same, Shri Sanjay Aggarwal, Director, Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, said, “In the procurement system, capacity building is the main issue that includes documentations and training of the officials. I still do not feel adequate procurement training is happening for the government officials as well as the private officials and that initiative should come from government side as well as industry players.”

A panel discussion deep-dived into the contours of the important procurement initiatives where industry and government came together to share ideas to make the ongoing transition in government IT procurement truly transformational – weeding out delays, inefficiencies, and making available the best technology solutions to the government departments and agencies at the most competitive price. n

FACE TO FACE

SIP helps in bridging multiple technologies O

racle Communications is focussed on three areas, digitization & monetization, networks and core and enterprise business. Oracle is addressing the problem of connecting multiple technologies in an organization through transforming networks from TDM (Time-Divison Multiplexing) to SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). SIP is an open and standards-based protocol that empowers organizations to avoid vendor lock-in and choose from a broad selection of communications solutions and suppliers.

“Oracle Communications as an organization is split into three areas – digitization & monetization, networks and the core for service providers and Enterprise business where we talk about transforming networks from TDM to SIP environment and the technology that goes behind that. The problem that we are addressing is around connecting multiple technologies in an organization. You bought multiple PBXs, multiple communication systems and are struggling around the fact that how to top one on the other. There is a huge amount of investment involved if you reap and replace a technology,” says Amit Bishnoii, Senior Director APAC, Communications Global Business Unit Oracle.

Explaining about the technology Amit adds, “So we have technologies which enable you to actually get a legacy PBX interacts to another PBX. It is actually protecting your investment, infrastructure and gives you the ability to scale the network. This is possible because of SIP technology, session border controllers, communication brokers, etc.”

By replacing legacy TDM-based telephony infrastructure with SIP-based solutions and converging real-time voice, video, and unified communications (UC) onto a common Internet Protocol (IP) backbone, enterprises can consolidate equipment and trunks, streamline operations, and improve collaboration and worker productivity.

Further discussing the technology, he mentions, “If you look at technology, it changes from TDM to SIP. It is a protocol like you have voice over IP which you are using on the right side of the PBX. On the telco side, most of the organizations are working on the TDM circuit. Worldwide, this TDM is shifting to SIP which means all IP environment. The moment you introduce an IP network, there is a need for security, ensuring that you are able to transcode.

The biggest problem that we are solving for a customer is how to leverage the existing infrastructure. Leveraging our technology we enable new technology work on the existing one. So just imagine the amount of infrastructure that you are able to correlate and use together and transform your network from multivendor to a unified environment where though you are using multi equipments or multi-vendor equipments but still you are still able to cohesively talk to each other or communicate better within your network.”

Indian Market as an Opportunity Oracle is in talks with large contact centers, banking and financial institutions and educating them about SIP technology. Contact centers are fast adopting this technology and over time banking and financial institutions will also start using this technology.

“We are talking to large contact center players, banking and financial institutions, educating them about SIP technology. We have already started seeing a significant amount of adoption by the contact centers. As the domestic market opens up, we would start seeing banking and finance domestic industry picking up on the SIP technology,” foresees Amit.

Focused Verticals It is noticeable that banking and finance organizations are the fast adopters of SIP technology. The reason behind this adoption is high return on investment at a global level. It is also expected that as SIP will open up domestically with this enterprises will be also transitioning from TDM network to SIP. “As organizations transform from TDI to SIP, we are observing the banking and finance institutions are getting into these technology

In a chat with VARINDIA, Amit Bishnoii, Senior Director APAC, Communications Global Business Unit Oracle, discusses about its SIP technology, how it helps organizations to connect multiple technologies, the scope in the Indian market and the targeted verticals at a much faster pace because the return on investment globally is very high. The second thing that we are observing is around the contact center space. These are the two big markets that we are seeing from an overall enterprise perspective. But as SIP opens up domestically in India as it is in the process of being opened up, there is a huge demand from enterprise perspective as well as from a service provider to get this going. Once this opens up, most enterprises will be transitioning their TDM networks to SIP. We have started seeing this happen across the Asia-Pacific region,” views Amit.

He also adds, “Depending on the network, environment and infrastructure, we have seen the customers to reach a significant RoI which ranges between 50% and 90%. But there is definitely a transformational RoI which all customers achieve around this.”

SIP – Beneficial to Contact Center

Highlighting the benefits of SIP for Contact Center, Amit explains, “The key for the contact center is, first they want an environment which makes the network simpler, to scale up and down, the flexibility to route the call across their network whichever way they want to, a device which will interoperate between multiple technologies which they have either bought or acquired and leverage their existing infrastructure. So a combination of technologies which are SIP, the Session Border Controller, the Communications Broker and the Operation Monitor which monitor the MOS of the voice on their network will enable them to deliver faster to their end-customer.” n Aparna Mullick aparna@varindia.com

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FACE TO FACE

For Orange, India offers myriad growth opportunities India is at the cusp of a major digital revolution and provides an interesting scope for companies to invest in the country through its different growth initiatives. Leveraging these opportunities, Orange Business Services has set a roadmap of continued investment in the market and support to different enterprises.

Thierry Bonhomme, CEO - Orange Business Services in an interview throws more light on this -

Please tell us about Orange Business Services operations in India?

Orange Business Services, the B2B branch of the Orange Group is an infrastructure operator, technology integrator and a value-added service provider. Focused on supporting the digital transformation of multinational enterprises and French SMEs across five continents, our ambition is to offer companies digital solutions that help foster collaboration, better serve their end-customers and support their projects.

In India, we support more than 600 customers who rely on our domestic experience and robust network. Orange counts over 2,300 staff in India across 32 sites and has 14 self-owned Points-ofPresence (PoPs) in the country.

The key priorities for us in India for 2017 include supporting our customers with their digital transformation, focusing on cybersecurity, connectivity and smart cities solutions.

What has been your experience so far in the Indian market?

Orange has been providing data communications services in India for close to 50 years. It has been a progressive and interesting market to be in, especially with the ‘Digital India’ and ‘Smart Cities’ initiatives that the government of India has introduced. The country is quickly adopting innovative technologies, and we are happy to be associated with the government and multiple enterprises to support them in their vision of digital transformation.

What distinguishes Orange from any other brand in the same industry?

Orange Business Services is a global IT and communications services provider, with services in 220 countries. As businesses worldwide are experiencing a greater urgency to undergo digital transformation, Orange has a unique position.

We are the only provider in India with a full range of network and integration services in key cities.

We have one of our five global Major Service Centers located in India. In addition, we have a CyberSOC in Gurgaon, a dedicated security operations centre for cyber security, a Center of Excellence in Mumbai with highly skilled specialists focused on private branch exchange

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management, remote infrastructure monitoring and application management, and we provide our customers with managed integration services through Global Services India.

How is India benefitting from your global expertise in various solutions?

Orange works closely with various State governments, such as the State of Gujarat, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Jharkhand, to help them on various IT projects. This includes State Data Centers and network connectivity through which we also contribute to the Government’s Digital India initiative.

The State Data Center that Orange deployed

for the Himachal Pradesh government has been designed using ‘green’ data center concepts, minimizing power requirements and increasing power utilization efficiency. We also installed solutions like surveillance systems and vehicle tracking fleet management in the country. For smart city projects, we are focusing on areas such as smart parking, smart lights, public Wi-Fi and digital signage.

What are the hurdles you face in India? How do you plan to overcome this barrier?

The journey to digital transformation is extremely fast paced. It is not merely about deploying cloud services or other IT technologies available today, but using digital technologies to change the way you operate, innovate and interact with your stakeholders. We see organizations struggling with the “change“or the readiness to move away from legacy systems.

On the Government side, the‘Digital India’ initiative is a step in the right direction. But it involves vast roll-out with multiple stakeholders, which can end up with delays in processes. We hope that the government identifies the right partners to deploy the right solutions to meet the project’s goals.

“India is one of the fastest growing economies and is well established as a high growth market not just for Orange but for various multinational corporations across the world. India is at an exciting growth phase with the Government encouraging Any future strategy and growth the use of technology for plans for the Indian network? overall development through Orange plans to continue to support the Digital India and Smart enterprises and government in the region. We will Cities initiatives. These two continue to focus on the digital transformation programs are the foundation journey of enterprises, rolling out innovative and flexible solutions for them to keep pace with of the current thrust to change. We will also keep working closely with drive India toward decades the Government of India, contributing in the of superior growth that its Digital India & SmartCities initiative through our offerings. n population needs.”

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

COMIO C2 - a feature-rich phone designed to deliver Launched in October, the new COMIO C2 handset comes loaded with a powerful battery, security features, scratch free back cover and exceptional music quality. With special focus given to design, the C2 comes in a 12.7 cm (5) HD IPS Display and is available in Royal Blue and Royal Black. It comes with a scratch free back cover. The side keys and power button come in golden decorative colour. It has an Auto-focus 8MP Rear Camera with flash and an 8 MP selfie camera with flash. Some of the features of the phone that can lure a customer are the camera’s beauty function and the highquality music player, COMIO UI based on Stock Android and Android 7.0 Nougat.

Priced at INR 7,199 /-, the smartphone runs on a Quad-core 64 bit Mediatek chipset, with 32GB internal memory and is 4G VoLTE enabled. Designed to deliver, our COMIO smartphones is a perfect balance of powerful performance, fast connectivity and better battery life.

The device is also embedded with the Freezer and Clone Application. The Freezer app allows you to have as many applications as you

wish without the worry of space constraints whereas the Clone app makes sure that all that data from your device is backed up at all times. The Clone app also allows for ease of transfer of data from one handset to another.

Another beauty of the Comio C2 is that it comes with the valuable anti-theft feature. In case of any suspicious activity, SIM based alerts are shared with the registered mobile number.

One of the interesting features of Anti-theft is the image click seek, wherein when someone tries to unlock the device by trying to break the pattern or PIN, the device will automatically take the image of the unauthorized person. Other options include the lock and unlock feature, shutdown blocker, data back up, and SIM related functions.

ShopClues’ Reach Allure Secure – a pocketfriendly device supporting multitasking Keeping the value-conscious customers in mind, ShopClues has launched the Reach Allure Secure smartphone on its platform.

The new pocket-friendly device is available at just INR 4,499.

The Reach Allure Secure smartphone comes with the latest fingerprint sensor technology which enables only its user to access its data. The 4G VoLTE smartphone has a 5” display, and supports Android 7.0.

With a 1GB RAM and a 16 GB internal storage, the device has a Quad-Core Processor that supports hi-end games and multitasking.

The Reach Allure Secure produces highquality pictures through its 8 MP primary and 8MP secondary camera. It is also the most affordable 5” 4G smartphone, which supports a finger-print sensor.

This smartphone provides an uninterrupted dose of entertainment with its 2500mAh battery and has a significantly high stand-by time and Talktime.

Reach Allure Secure key features • Fingerprint Sensor • 4G VoLTE • 1GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage • 2500 mAh battery • Quad-Core Processor • Android 7.0 • 5” display • 8 MP Primary & Secondary cameras • FM Price: Rs. 4,499/www.varindia.com

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COVER STORY

After-sales service = A brand building strategy In the current scenario, positive word of mouth plays an important role in promoting brands and products. And this is where a good and effective after-sales service strategy will come into play that will eventually lead to either the brand building a good rapport with the customer or the brand’s fall-out with the customer -

Around the mid to late 80's, after-sales service or customer service was a little-known concept and was still at a nascent stage. After sales service was still insignificant three decades ago, given customer expectations were not as varied and evolved as they are today. But evolving customer expectations and preferences have catapulted vendors to actively formulate strategic ways to offer after-sales services.

So why is it so necessary?

After sales service plays an important role in customer satisfaction and customer retention.

It generates loyal customers. Good after-sales service means that customers will return to the brand while making fresh purchases, as they start believing in the brand and get associated with the organization for a longer duration. A satisfied and happy customer will also bring more individuals and eventually more revenues for the organization. It thus plays a pivotal role in strengthening the bond between the organization and customers.

Customer engagement is a long term commitment and after sales plays a crucial role in building a brand’s credibility,” reiterates Balgond Chougula, VP – Customer support & RMA at D-Link (India). “With increasing demand for our networking products & growing market penetration, ensuring complete customer satisfaction is the key.

Agrees Bhaskar Vadlamani, Chief Customer

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Officer, at Pi DATACENTERS, “The success of any organization is highly dependent on the services it provides to its customers after the sale is done. In fact, I would go a step ahead and say that getting more revenue from an existing customer is much more in our control than winning a new customer. Traditionally if you look at the data, many successful enterprises claim that their repeat business is more than 90%. And adding new customers is predominantly in single digits. It’s not easy to sell given the tough competition in every domain and usually cycles are long.”

He also puts forth some statistics from the industry research that reveals interesting facts • 7 per cent of Indian consumers assert that they will not make a repeat purchase or continue with a company's services in case of a bad experience.

• 76 per cent of Indian consumers are ready to shell out 11 per cent more for excellent customer service.

• Moreover, 86 per cent of the consumers are ready to give a second chance to companies with a good track record even after a poor experience.

Amrish Mahajan, Director – Customer Support, Acer India also subscribes to the idea that services are playing a significant role in customer satisfaction and retention. It is helping brands to generate loyal customers and strengthening the bond with them. “A

satisfied customer refers your business to other individuals and eventually leads to more loyal base and sales. Our proactive initiatives to engage more intensely with customers, gaining better customer insights, and leveraging service propositions is helping us grow. After sales services are as important as product quality since, both equally helps to meet customer’s expectations.”

Customer retention is key for Lenovo’s business. At Lenovo, it is dedicated to the satisfaction and success of every customer.

“We believe that customer retention is achieved through meeting set expectations and this can be achieved through the flawless process of timely communication ultimately resulting in customer satisfaction as well as retention. We have a thorough structure of checks and balances at Lenovo wherein we ensure constant monitoring and address grievances even through social media platforms. Through this we also ensure that we are connected to our customers at every level,” says Sudipto Ghosh- Executive Director, AP Services – Lenovo.

He further says, “Additionally, through timely customer satisfaction surveys we measure customer experiences to comprehend their feedback and ensure Lenovo has a top of mind recall with each of its customer. In any high transaction business, the first interaction with a customer is a key determinant of whether the customer will be a repeat customer so we don’t

Amrish Mahajan Director – Customer Support Acer India "Our customer service initiatives includes - 24/7 support through online technical portal, diagnostic call centers, providing standby unit to customers in case of delay, on-site PAN India support, Priority channel Queue for Key customers at Call Center for quick access and resolution."

Anurag Gupta Director - Customer Service Operations, Xerox India "The fact that more than 50% of our customers are repeat customer further validates our strong customer service operations. Customer loyalty has always been the strongest pillar of growth for Xerox."

Balgond Chougula VP – Customer support & RMA, D-Link (India) "D-Link has made huge investments in developing a state-of-the art service support infrastructure in India. It has set-up a company owned Direct Service Centers (DSC) across the country, which are supported by D-Link Service Partners (DSP), and Partner Courier Pickup (PCP)."

underestimate the importance of timeliness and thoroughness.”

network infrastructure, for uninterrupted & smooth functioning of business. At the same time they are looking for solution that minimizes their operational expenditure. With D-Link being the leader in networking segment, we understand our customer need and are always working towards developing solutions that effectively meets customer requirements. ARNBD by D-Link is a step in that direction.”

Advance Replacement Next Business Day Warranty (AR-NBD) by D-Link is a premium support program designed exclusively for enterprise customers, wherein it offers hassle free quick resolution through a dedicated tech support team, along with advance replacement facility to customer location at zero additional cost. With AR-NBD, D-Link aims to offer prompt assistance & support to enterprise customers in the event of any technical failure, and boosts business efficiency by helping them keep their network up & running.

With an aim to further enhance the overall service value proposition, Xerox Service Operations has always been a benchmark for the industry and continues to evolve with the changing customer requirements. In the process of ensuring best-in-class service, Xerox keeps raising the bar for itself through continuous innovation, technology prowess and operational excellence. “For office automation in India, Xerox has been the pioneer in launching the “After Sale Service Concept”, asserts Anurag Gupta, Director - Customer Service Operations, ‎Xerox India.

In its endeavour to deliver better value to its customers, Xerox has a unique EUREKA Knowledge base, which has multiple solutions for the same problem faced by engineers across the globe. It also has a platform called “Service Modernization” which connects the customer’s machine to the Xerox server, allowing it to be monitored remotely. This revolutionary innovation brings in a conceptual change in the services space, making service management proactive from reactive.

“The fact that more than 50% of our

customers are repeat customer further validates our strong customer service operations.

Customer loyalty has always been the strongest pillar of growth for Xerox,” says Anurag.

As a part of its constant endeavor to deliver service excellence, Xerox always strives to be ahead of the market and hence ensures that it is always equipped with solutions to address the need of evolving services space. “We believe that any job requires pre-press, processing, printing, addition of finishing elements and higher uptime through superior service support. Hence, it is essential for the underlying technology to function error-free, with robust ripping systems for better color handling and option availability of inline finishing. This has to be supported by experienced and trained on field service support,” supports Anurag.

In the Technology & Channels business, Xerox GTM is primarily through partners.

With a strong 150+ partner network, it ensures that its partners are well equipped and strongly supported to win deals in the marketplace.

Xerox has two types of partners – the Salesonly partners and the Sales & Service Partners (SSPs). All these partners are managed by Xerox Partner Business Managers who help partners expand their business through business planning, sales planning, sales support and partner training. “Our 12 Channel Levers provide massive support for Xerox partners to realize and deliver their true potential. It not only offers better and faster returns to our channel partners but also helps them maximize effort and increases their productivity. Overall, Xerox is a very partner friendly organization and we constantly engage with our partners to alleviate their challenges,” says Anurag.

As a brand, OPPO has received a lot of appreciation from the Indian consumer, especially when it comes to its product and customer experience. While it always strives to build better and stronger customer relations, perfecting its product is the centre of its focus to meet the changing consumer demand. “We pay constant attention to both online and offline

Brand strategy around support...

D-Link has always laid high prominence on customer engagement & service support.

As a result it continues to invest in developing infrastructure & support system that enhances customer experience with D-Link. “D-Link has made huge investments in developing a state-ofthe art service support infrastructure in India.

It has set-up a company owned Direct Service Centers (DSC) across the country, which are supported by D-Link Service Partners (DSP), and Partner Courier Pickup (PCP). With this D-Link now reaches out to its customers in 140+ cities with 261+ service points. So customers can now interact with the technical experts present at the centers & have hands-on product experience with live demos,” explains Balgond.

The D-Link Service Centre (DSC) is an attempt at readily supporting its customers and ensuring total customer satisfaction. With D-Link Service Partners (DSP) & Partner Courier Pickup (PCP), D-Link attempts to reach-out to its customers present in tier 2 & tier 3 cities as well. Further D-Link also offers unique service premium program that is ‘Service at your door-step’ for Broadband, Wireless and 3G Lifestyle products with D-Link Direct Service (DDS) which is also available through WhatsApp. “It is our most expensive service support model that has enabled us to sustain our customer base & also retain our leadership position in networking technology domain,” says Balgond. “For our recently launched CCTV product range we shall soon be rolling out D-Link CCTV Express Service. Express Service is aimed to support all CCTV Partners with dedicated technical support, free pickup and delivery of faulty cameras and advance replacement for critical projects.”

He further continues, “Enterprises today are making huge investments in setting-up a reliable

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COVER STORY

Will Yang Brand Director, OPPO India

Bhaskar Vadlamani Chief Customer Officer, at Pi DATACENTERS

Sudipto Ghosh Executive Director, AP Services, Lenovo

"OPPO’s strategy and guidelines for the brand is “Focus and Simplicity”, investing in constructing premium products and focusing company resources on creating the best experience for our consumers."

"The success of any organization is highly dependent on the services it provides to its customers after the sale is done. In fact, I would go a step ahead and say that getting more revenue from an existing customer is much more in our control than winning a new customer."

"We believe that customer retention is achieved through meeting set expectations and this can be achieved through the flawless process of timely communication ultimately resulting in customer satisfaction as well as retention."

platforms which translates in to positive user experience and after service to local customers,” says Will Yang, Brand Director, OPPO India.

He further continues, “OPPO’s strategy and guidelines for the brand is “Focus and Simplicity”, investing in constructing premium products and focusing company resources on creating the best experience for our consumers.

Currently we will pursue to focus on both offline and online market and further strengthen and build our connect with consumers all over India.

Now we have more than 500 after sales service centers across the nation for better services for markets across India. We will continue build our services quality and expand service centers for better interaction with local users.”

Acer is using after-sales service strategies to consolidate sales and build customer relationships. It has undertaken multiple initiatives in order to provide best services to customers. “Our customer service initiatives includes - 24/7 support through online technical portal, diagnostic call centers, providing standby unit to customers in case of delay, on-site PAN India support, Priority channel Queue for Key customers at Call Center for quick access and resolution. For easy access to services, Acer brought in Acer Care Centre (ACC) App through Google Play, which offers quicker and efficient service to the customers,” points out Amrish.

Acer India has also incorporated the SMS concept which triggers at every level of status change for the case logged by the customer.

SMS also provide a url, which once clicked will take the customer directly to the page giving the detailed status. Acer also provides customized service support to enterprise clients, where they can avail support at a time convenient to them and their business model. This practice has helped Acer amongst their ITES clients who work on different time zones. Apart from this, Acer has many another initiatives in line which will further enhance Acer’s strong customerservice philosophy and will lead a step closer to improve the quality of services for customers.

One of such initiative is E-support, which allows key customers with multi-location branch offices, to centrally log, track & view the progress of incidence and can spool periodic performance reports on call TAT, AFR etc.

As social media has become a modern day business tool, Acer is using it to address service queries and grievances. “A brand like Acer which has millions of customers not only has over 1400+ locations support across India but also introduced a dedicated service app to log complaints, track and interact. Technology and connectivity is helping business evolve and service support is a key segment of business, which decides how the brand is perceived,” observes Amrish.

Lenovo on its part has 29000 pin codes mapped across India for onsite service delivery from Monday through Saturday (except public holidays). It extends carry-in services through 150 centers from 9AM to 6PM. Its 24x7 availability on social media ensures that it has an engaged communication with all its customers and also provides premium care value added services to its premier customers.

“The Customer is at the center of our overall product & service strategy. Customer experience and service is the key differentiator between market leader and challenger. At Phonup, Customer will have the better price and service benefit. In our concept customer service is pivotal and we are addressing this by ensuring assuring 12 months warranty on Phonup Phones, 3 months warranty on Phonup accessories and one month warranty on repair.

As an added advantage, devices will be repaired in front of customer to ensure credibility, reliability and device repair shall be conducted thru trained technicians certified by Phonup Academy only,” says Amit, COO - Phonup.

In case of Phonup, the Area Franchise will service regions and will also have L3 set up and supply products to Retail Unit, Kiosk & Star. Each Retail Store has Phonup Trained technician who are experts in repairs and world class equipment is required for repairs. An Audit

team of engineers regularly visit stores to audit and periodically refresher trainings are done.

Close to 17000 + pin codes are serviced across India by giving customer service of pickup and delivery at customer door steps in case of service issue.

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Use of Technology in Aftersales...

The brands operating today understand that as a responsible organization they cannot ignore the various touch points to connect with consumers and understand their needs and demands. And so they continue focus to reach out to the users through both offline and online channel services and by using different technological prowess.

Xerox firmly believes that technological upgradation is one major step to ensure customer satisfaction. It has unique platforms such as EUREKA Knowledge base, Remote Diagnostic Tools, Service Modernization and Xerox “WE CARE”, which helps it to further enhance its overall value proposition and customer services. The technology prowess and operational excellence of Xerox gives the brand with a great advantage to deliver better support, service and eventually better value for its customers.

Xerox has an in-house application ‘Log me in’ that allows it to remotely and securely connect to a customer’s system and provided solutions.

‘Xerox Service Manager’ is another in-house application that monitors the customer device remotely, manages the supplies replenishment and proactively fixes breaks. This is particularly popular when dealing with large fleets.

Xerox has also come up with an application ‘Fleet Management Portal’, which not only gives the customer the flexibility to log the call directly using FMP but also allows them to monitor the status of any device out of the entire fleet w.r.t functioning of device, consumable status, meter reading etc.

Today Technology is used more than ever to enhance the customer experience and the brand.

At Pi, it is no different. “We are an organization driven by technology and powered by intellect,” says Bhaskar. “As a Cloud and Datacenter company, we want to ensure that we give a very simple and seamless experience for our customers while they handle their infrastructure at our DC either directly or through Cloud. In this regard, following are some of the examples of initiatives that are in place intended to enhance customer experience 1. Harbour1 - Pi’s enterprise cloud platform that is developed keeping three things in mind -1. Simplicity 2. Flexibility and 3. Selfservice. Through Harbour1, one can easily manage the compute, Storage and Network by themselves and in desired configurations without any restrictions or limitations on certain groupings.

2. Mobile App (Pi Store) - This is one of the unique offerings we have leveraging mobile technology to address the continuously growing Mobile segment. Through this, our customers can place the order and spin off a VM in our Harbour1 on their fingertips.

3. Ticketing Tools - Our advanced ticketing tool is very easy to connect and operate. This has a nuanced level of detail, for our customers to choose the issue, they want to be addressed.

4. By leveraging the different technologies and tools available in the market, Pi is able to automate the monitoring at Server level, Networking level and operations level.

Many tools and frameworks are implemented at both Network and Cloud layer level to ensure security concerns and virus threats that are shaking the enterprises that are predominantly on-premise and not leveraging the advanced practices available with DC and Cloud players.

5. Besides these, we are also considering Omnichannel customer support, Big Data, AI etc technologies in future as these are some of them.”

Lenovo has the Lencare App that offers host of functions to all customers. Lenovo services believe in making a difference in everyone’s life through innovation. “We use App based services like Lencare/Resolve/Speed of Light, Big Data voice analytics through NICE IA, Gamification tool for contact center agent training simulation, QR code for real time service assistance,” says Sudipto.

Technology is evolving day by day, thus is the customers’ expectations and demands.

Today every customer is expecting faster response, unlike traditional services. Here, Chatbots assist and apps are playing a key role.

Bots can be leveraged as a mean to enhance the customer experience and this could help to manage customer expectations and ensure stronger customer relationships.

“However, I believe this bots cannot solve complex customer problems; therefore, there is a need for customer service representatives too. Chatbots and apps work brilliantly when it comes to solving simple queries, quickresponse needs but at the same time companies also need customer service representatives to focus on complex customer demands and hightouch interactions. The idea of bot technology is undoubtedly a step in the right direction

Amit COO, Phonup "The Customer is at the center of our overall product & service strategy.

Customer experience and service is the key differentiator between market leader and challenger." and it has a lot of potentials going forward, I believe that this route will be a boon to many businesses,” Amrish puts it.

And so...

For modern day businesses, customer service is no longer looked at as a support function, but it has a direct impact on several key organizational KPIs and is often the difference between an average company and an industry leader. But how do you really know if your service standards are up to your customers’ expectations? Almost 80% of companies believe they provide “exceptional service” to their customers. Unfortunately, only 3% of customer reciprocates that feeling.

“The only dependable way of knowing your actual service standard, and making any informed decisions about it, is by calculating the right customer service metrics. Customer service metrics are not just some fancy numbers that fill up your monthly performance dashboards.

They are key performance factors that give you a clear idea of the contribution your services department is making to the overall progress of your company,” points out Anurag.

Quick response time is however an integral part of delivering good customer services – something that adds great value for the customer. However there are instances when a brand is unable to reach the customer for assistance due to several reasons. It may be because the customer has included the number of the service center in the “Do Not Disturb” list. Also with the ever changing government regulation like road permits (inter-state), GST documentation, etc. the delivery of spares can get delayed.

In many a case, response time is in minutes or hours or days based on the priority of the request as agreed through SLA Framework.

Resolution time will be in hours, days or weeks, depending on the complexity. “Well thought through and designed SLA framework is our guide for the support system,” says Bhaskar.

However, he too observes that despite an agreed SLA framework, certain challenges are encountered at times 1. Replication of the issue in nonproduction environment 2. Communication issues where the issue is not understood properly 3. Multiple stakeholder’s involvement where the brand may not have full control in complete resolution Nevertheless, it is now clear that depending on the quality of after sales service, the image of a brand can either get tarnished or enhanced.

A good customer service from a brand will leave a customer with the following perspectives trust which will lead to future opportunities; credibility of the brand and lastly the customer can focus on innovation as his other things are taken care of smoothly.

Samrita Baruah samrita@varindia.com

After Sales Service Techniques Sales Professionals need to stay in touch with the customers even after the deal and not ignore their calls. They are even expected to call them once in a while to exchange pleasantries, though this rarely happens.

• Give customers necessary support. Help them install, maintain or operate a particular product. Sales professionals selling laptops must ensure windows are configured in the system and customers are able to use net without any difficulty. Similarly organizations selling mobile sim cards must ensure the number is activated immediately once the customer submits his necessary documents.

• Any product found broken or in a damaged condition must be exchanged immediately by the sales professional. Listen to their grievances and make them feel comfortable.

• Create a section in your organization’s website where the customers can register their complaints. Every organization should have a toll free number where the customers can call and discuss their queries.

• Take feedback of the products and services sold from the customers. Feedback helps the organization to know the customers better.

• Ask the customers to sign Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) with your organization.

AMC is an agreement signed between the organization and the customer where the organization promises to provide after sales services to the second party for a certain duration at nominal costs.

• The exchange policies must be transparent and in favour of the customer. The customer who comes for an exchange should be given the same treatment as was given to him when he came for the first time.

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LEAD STORY

SMARTPHONE

FEATURE PHONE Budget Friendly

Multiple App Access

Easy to use for Everyone

Entertainment

Low Repair Cost

E Wallets Good battery life

Feature phones competing neck to neck with Smartphones There is a whole conversation going on about who aces the competition - the old feature mobiles devices that comes with durability and a good battery life or the new advanced feature packed smartphones. But while the two have a lot in common, they also lead users to different experiences.

While the feature phone is famous among the users who prefer durability and convenience more over the style and complexity, on other hand smartphones are most acclaimed among the users who prefer style, looks, apps, specification and more.

Thereby, the two masters well in their field.

When we talk about the usage, many people still opt to use devices which they can easily afford and fulfill their basic requirements such as internet, call and other uses. However, since their introduction, the smartphones have garnered all the mainstream attention where it appeared like the feature phone is losing its impression.

But one cannot deny the fact that Feature phones have continued to make its impact in

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the Indian Market.

Before talking about the two in detail letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s have a brief about the two. Talking about the definition in simple laymanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s terms - Smartphones are mobile devices that carry variety of features like specification and comes with multiple app features, while on other hand feature phone devices come with basic limited features and specifications. In comparison to the minimal specifications of feature phone, the smartphone often carries more advance tech specifications. Also, while the smartphones run on third party operating system, the feature phones do not support any third party software. However, with the constant evolution in technology, the arena of feature phone is also expanding.

Though it lacks the advanced and innovative functionality like in smartphones, there are multiple characteristics of feature phones which will never end its craze among the users. The easier to use characteristic of Feature phone makes it popular among a certain segment of people like elderly

persons and people who prefer easy to use device, as they couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand the complexities of smartphones. Hence, less complexity and easier to use features make these type of devices popular among the users. Also unlike smartphones they do not need regular software updates.

Feature phone vs Smartphone

On the contrary, though smartphone is not user-friendly like Feature phone but it serves as a mini computer. It gives the pleasure equivalent to working on a computer.

LEAD STORY Smartphone users can easily download, view, edit word document, excel sheets, .pdfs etc.

Whereas, though Feature phone cannot be a mini computer but it serves the purpose to some extent.

In today’s world, people are connected to each other for almost every day, every minute and every second through various means like social media, chatting apps, voice calls, messages, video calls and even mails. It has become imperative for an individual to remain connected 24/7. Communication is now the biggest tool for people to be ahead in life’s race. A Smartphone offers its users all the bliss when it comes to communication.

This device satiates the user’s appetite of connecting with the rest of the world. In this regard Feature phones are no less than Smart phones but the quality and the user experience of these applications might differ.

As life is moving ahead on a fast pace, people are also looking for faster devices, handsets, cars etc. for their daily requirements.

To run various applications on a handset all it requires is a high-speed internet connection.

The new age smartphones are equipped with latest technology that supports 3G and 4G network for better internet experience.

On the other hand Feature phones are unable to provide lightening speed internet connectivity but few telecom players has taken up the initiative to upgrade the feature phones keeping the demand in mind that still exists in the market. The companies are providing Feature phones with 4G VoLTE to keep this segment of phone users at par with the latest range of smartphones at a fraction of cost.

While talking about internet connection, another feature that requires attention is battery life as people face some major issues around it. A good battery keeps the phone alive throughout a busy day with a single charge. The Smart phone users have always been complaining about the inefficient battery which needs to be charged often.

Though the Smartphone companies have introduced features like fast charging to get the batteries charged within no time but still the users are not satisfied with the battery performance. In turn they needs to always carry a batter backup for emergency.

Whereas, it is a very satisfying experience for Feature phone users as these handsets offers a robust battery life and with a single charge can remain alive for a day or more depending on the usage.

Today, data is important for every individual. It can be of any kind, be it document, pictures, video etc. Humongous amount of data is being generated everyday and people always want their data to be at fingertip. And for this a good storage memory is required. Here, the Smartphones have an upper hand on Feature phones as many handset companies are focusing on huge storage space to meet the customer demand. But Feature phone are not lagging behind much. Though it does not offer huge internal memory but the option of extending the storage space is always there with the help of external memory card.

With the wave of digitization and also triggered by demonetization, India has rapidly started using E – wallets and transforming the country into a cashless economy. In this regard Smartphones users are the fast adopters of this technology with the use of different E- Wallet applications.

It will not take much time when the Feature phone users will be empowered with it as many telecom players and handset makers together are coming up with low cost handsets where E – wallet are embedded in it. So then not only the Smartphone but also

Feature phone users will contribute to make India a cashless economy.

It is a feel good factor when a user uses a high-end Smartphone as the user experience of these devices is very satisfying. But the smarter the device is, the more it burns the pocket of its owners when it comes to servicing of a smart device. Users feel the heat when these smartphones need to get repaired at the service stations. Whereas, feature phones are not expensive in terms of servicing, it can be easily afforded by the users.

Last but not the least and the major differentiator among the Smartphone and Feature phone is the price. It is the game of price and features. The more money one can spend the advanced and cutting-edge technology features one will get while buying a handset. This does not mean Feature phones do not offer better specifications, it too offers updated features. Feature phones are value for money devices. It provides latest features at pocket-friendly price.

It is true that Smartphones are technologically superior and provides good user experience but Feature phones are no less than these smart handsets. It may not be as smart as a Smartphone but it fulfills the requirements of the users.

As per Cyber Media Research, in 201516, till November, the sales of Feature phones were higher than smartphones with 25 million as against 19 million respectively.

Furthermore, the roll out of feature phones by telecom players like Reliance Jio with 4G capability and mobile banking proves that the era of feature phones still exist.

Features phones have not lost their grounds in front of Smartphones.

Apart from this, the other reasons behind the strong presence of Feature phones in the market being demand of low cost handsets that are easy to operate and the trend of keeping a second handset, generally a Feature phone is encouraging the Feature phone market to remain floating.

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FACE TO FACE

Lenovo sees an overwhelming success in consumer business with help of channel The biggest strength for Lenovo today is its channel and this differentiates it from the rest of the brand. In an interview with VARINDIA,Rajesh ThadaniExecutive Director- Consumer Business & E-commerce, Lenovo India attributes the great show that Lenovo has put up in the consumer space in the last 2 quarters to the channel -

The business that Lenovo does today – whether it is commercial or consumer is completely channel oriented. Guided by a channel first philosophy, Lenovo wants to grow with its channel and continue to build on its core channel philosophy.

“Enterprise is the only space in which we involve our direct sales people, but if I look overall as an organization our business is completely done through channel. As compared to some of the other brands, we look at channel a little more differently. For us we have this core channel philosophy, where we work with a few partners but work in a much deeper way. Today if I do business for the consumer division, I have a sub-distribution channel network in which around 50-59 partners work with Lenovo. Similarly, for exclusive stores of Lenovo, we do business with close to 600+ of them.

And we also have a large number of multi-brand stores that we work with,” explains Rajesh Thadani- Executive Director- Consumer Business & E-commerce – Lenovo India.

The idea of the core channel philosophy is that both Lenovo and the partners invest together. So that ways each of them have equal stake on the ground, and the commitment level becomes higher. “For instance, Gujarat is a state where we are doing extremely well and are the #1 brand there. We have a partner who handles the entire Gujarat state and if you look at the volumes that we do with him, we do almost 10,000 – 12,000 boxes per quarter. If I go back in time, 4-5 years back the volume was far low. So we have grown eventually and at the same time our partners have grown in that market,” explains Rajesh.

Under distribution, Lenovo has created the Express Channel (the exclusive stores). The idea is to create more profitability for the brand and the distribution partner. Out of the 600 stores, 400 are exclusive. While 170 of the stores do business with Lenovo directly by buying through its tier 1 partners, Express Channel is driving around 30-35% of business for its distribution channel. Lenovo has also invested in these stores in terms of branding, putting people on the floor and in-store promotions that have eventually helped Lenovo grow its business.

At the same time, Lenovo also tries to empower its channel in the best possible way. For instance, in exclusive stores, Lenovo has invested in close to 500+ in-shop demonstrators inside the stores, and has invested in people, training, and consumer experience tools like Planogram.

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“We also ensure that the partners make more money from this. We are the only brand that has helped them with the GST impact, since partner profitability has been impacted. We did not want to wait and see how other brands react to such a challenge and so decided to invest in it and support them from a profitability perspective,” says Rajesh.

He further continues, “When we talk about the distribution partners, we have enabled them from a sell-out perspective. We have a huge field force - Area Sales officers who work with our RD partners, to help them drive sell-out and work with many more partners. We deal with more than 6000+ partners under the distribution partners,” he says.

Opportunities for Lenovo...

Lenovo is seeing a couple of things that stand as an opportunity for the brand. “If we see the overall market, we know that the PC market has flattened, but if we see the trend the traditional clamshell laptops are going down but new emerging technologies like gaming laptops, convertibles and thin & light laptops are on the rise. We see this segment growing at more than 100%. If you look at the current investment, in terms of product and channel we make sure that we have the great products right now and keep on refreshing the complete product line from entry to mainstream,” Rajesh assures.

There is a huge trader community who would need an infrastructure if they get into the GST regime. They will need a PC, printer, and Lenovo clearly sees that as an opportunity growing. “My desktop business, my AiO business in which Lenovo leads is clearly seeing a growth of 15-20% post GST. So these are the 2 trends that we see – emerging technologies on the form factor and GST driving the next level of growth,” he reiterates.

The recent IDC report states that Lenovo has hit an all time high on the consumer market segment. If both the quarters are combined together, Lenovo has emerged as the #2 brand. “So clearly we have grown around 30% YoY. This business is all about doing the basics right; we made sure that the basic 4P elements are in place. We make sure the products that are the heart of the 4P are in the best possible range across price bands. This has helped us to get consumer acceptance,” sums up Rajesh. n

Samrita Baruah samrita@varindia.com

FACE TO FACE

Netmagic emphasises on importance of digital and marketing analytics customers, and increasing revenue through nextgeneration connected data monetization—all of which CMOs are well positioned to do.

In a chat with VARINDIA, Prasenjit Roy, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer – Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company) discusses about the success mantra on major achievements, transformation of organizations by gaining market share and acquisition of new geographies -

Digital transformation is a complicated process for many enterprises. What is your take on it?

Please share the success mantra on the major achievements in the year 2016-17.

With the growing number of tools available to aid marketers in understanding consumer behaviour at a faster rate and a deeper granularity, the digital space is constantly evolving. Due to this evolution, marketers across multiple industries are still not in the same wavelength when it comes to understanding the potency of digital technology and the changes it can engender.

Marketing’s immersive understanding of these changing dynamics has led the marketing function to be the primary driver for aligning the organization’s thinking, policies, strategy and efforts. With technology becoming so pervasive and with customers becoming more globally connected, marketers today wear multiple hats: supporting employee engagement, advocating for the customer experience and driving the growth.

We place significant emphasis on the importance of digital and marketing analytics that will help us to shape, execute and support the growth agenda while delivering on our customer promise. Our digital marketing strategy drives a successful lead-generation tactic that is targeted to meet several criteria. Our actionable leads are primarily generated through – search engine marketing (SEM), Social media advertising, email marketing, direct email, events or trade shows, and so on. Few of the key ones are – • Reaching a specific audience of our target customers; • Generating and tracking a large numbers of marketing qualified leads for the company; • Creating funnel of sales qualified leads • Measuring the costs and ROI. Moreover, companies are increasingly deepening their customer relationship by leveraging what they know about a given customer to personalize offerings. We engage them vide customer round tables, surveys, and promotion through media and analyst reports.

We organize our customized customer forums or events to learn more about their requirement and accordingly feedback to our Sales and the Product Development team. They consistently refine and modify their efforts to increase their capabilities and improve the overall customer experience. Also, we believe that it is critical to align with business partners across the company to better understand their product and service strategies and evolve marketing efforts to support changing business needs.

How have you transformed

your organisation, by gaining market share and sustaining the leadership in the market?

We are at the tipping point of leveraging the mobility and disruptive technologies to enable clients to implement truly Digital IT. And the industry witnesses the upsurge of adaptive, scalable and responsive IT infrastructure solutions leading to the steady demand of data centers along with the Cloud technology. And, in this competitive market, there is the need of creating your unique space in a market cluttered by hyperscalers and Indian players.

We have our unique identity, position play and specialization in Hybrid IT – the management of complex IT environments including multi-cloud scenarios by a single solution provider. Through our Hybrid IT offering, businesses can – • Protect their legacy IT investment in captive data centers and core applications through Colocation • Run business applications on our Simplicloud or 3rd party Public Cloud • Maintain compliance and reduce CAPEX spend through our Private Cloud based on customer specifications • Monitor workloads across multiple cloud service providers through a single window pane • Migrate workloads across infrastructures • Outsource the management of their entire IT infrastructure through our Managed Services offering We are the only end-to-end infrastructure Solution Provider who can act as a one-stop shop for needs pertaining to Multi- Clouds, Dedicated Hosting and Managed Services.

CMOs take a greater role by actively driving the disruptive growth agenda and generating new value for the business. Such initiatives include developing ecosystems with non-traditional players, launching platforms that elevate current products into expanded service models for

India is at the cusp of a huge transition enabled by digitization, and we have been quick to spot the opportunity. We have been growing at a CAGR of over 35 percent for the last 5 years. We are confident to sustain this momentum going forward. We embarked on digital transformation of its business with an aim to remove / reduce multiple manual data entry efforts, ensure a seamless interaction between multiple business tools and give users — customers and internal employees - a selfservice functionality, which is unmatched by our competitors. This has boosted our internal productivity and enhanced customer experience by few notches.

Keeping these objective in mind Sugar CRM was introduced as the front end Customer Management system, a whole new instance of ERP was deployed, this time albeit using PeopleSoft instead of SAP to bring the systems at par with the NTT Communications ERP worldwide and a full functional ITSM tool was developed from the grounds up which also included a fulfilment tool.

From an Enterprise Architect’s point of view a seamless integration of processes and data was the given objective and applied to the Digital Transformation project. The overall transformation included the upgrade / introduction of the following applications / tools • a fully self-service enabled portal for customers • Centralized view of all the customers, their contacts, services availed, assets, tickets for the operations team • Centralized view of customers services and contacts to the Account Managers, Solutions Engineers, Order management Team, Customer Relationship Teams • HRMS Systems for all employees at all locations • System for seamless control over assets during its lifecycle within Netmagic • Visitor Management System for controlled entry and access of visitors into Netmagic’s various offices • Ensuring all authentication of employees for login to various systems is centralized thru AD server, which in turn is updated thru a seamless connect with the HRMS system, thus avoiding security / stale ID issues.

• Integration of Netmagic’s Sugar CRM with Sales Force of (parent company-NTT Communications) for single point reference of customers, leads and opportunities.

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FACE TO FACE

Xerox changing workstyle in a new way Xerox is helping organizations work in

• Xerox ConnectKey MFPs are protected with an innovative whitelisting defence against viruses. ePolicy Orchestrator is integrated for an enterprise wide security point of view.

• Xerox system software is Digitally Signed – Any attempts to install infected, nonsigned versions result in the file being automatically rejected. Print files also get deleted if any part is not recognized as legitimate.

• Xerox document security solutions such as Xerox Glossmark, Check 21-, MicroText, Correlation, Fluorescent and Infrared are built to meet the document security needs of any business easily and simply

an effective way and enabling its employees to be more productive though its offerings. It is encouraging organizations to stay relevant in terms of technology and revolutionizing the workplace ecosystem. In a chat with VARINDIA, Ritesh Gandotra, Director, GDO Sales, Xerox India, explains the transition in the workplace ecosystem, security concerns and how Xerox is empowering organizations to navigate from physical to digital world.

How do see the workplace ecosystem transitioning in India? What kind of future of workplace you are looking up to?

In order to be relevant and true to your employees and customers in today’s day and age, digital strategy is the key to an organization’s success. Internally, from a productivity and employee well-being perspective, and externally, from a customer-engagement point of view, the transformation is shepherded by adoption of technologies like Cloud, Mobility, Analytics and Collaboration tools -- to stay relevant.

Research by a renowned global analyst firm to understand CIO’s top priorities highlighted that adoption of digital technologies, security and mobility invariably made it to the top ten priorities.

Over the course of time, Indian organizations have evolved from siloed workforce to a globally connected workforce.

Today, people want to work and contribute as part of the growing mobile workforce. In the coming years, workplaces will evolve with greater magnitude and more technologically driven. With the help of digital workplaces, an organization will be able to utilize new tools that help deliver goals by implementing a stronger sense of culture and community.

Our goal is to make sure we provide technology – both hardware and software – and the way they both can work together to enable employees to work from anywhere, anytime.

What are the challenges that the organizations face while transitioning? How Xerox is enabling the modern workplace?

In 2017, many businesses shifted their focus to adopting new digital technologies to not only to serve customers better but also to streamline internal processes. While most businesses recognize the need, few know how and what is required to get the initiative started and made it a reality. If a business wants to stay relevant and grow, it is no longer enough to just deliver great products. People are looking

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for experiences from their personal lives to cross over in the workplace.

For this reason, organizations must move beyond the digital transformation buzzword and explore “transformational experiences”, reimagining how companies and people connect and work.

We see our customers navigating the intersection of physical and digital worlds, and they are looking to us for solutions that are simple, secure and mobile. We responded with our industry- leading and innovative Managed Document Services (MDS) and ConnectKey technology. Our solutions help customers save money, automate steps, boost productivity, and improve document security and environmental sustainability.

Given the recent cyber-attacks, how secure are these modern Automation WorkFlows?

How far Xerox's offerings are secured in this regard?

At Xerox, product security issues are front and centre. As a leader in the development of digital technology, Xerox has demonstrated a commitment to keeping digital information safe and secure by identifying potential vulnerabilities and proactively addressing them to limit risk. Customers have responded by looking to Xerox as a trusted provider of secure printing solutions with many standard and optional product security features.

Xerox Security Partnerships: • Xerox and McAfee teamed up to design a security system to help companies protect against threats to this confidential data.

• Cisco TrustSec integration provides comprehensive visibility of all ConnectKeyenabled multifunction printers' endpoints to enforce IT-centric security policies and compliance.

What are the areas Xerox is considering to strengthen next-generation services?

Xerox is currently investing in new business solutions and applications that help improve productivity and simplify the work process for a number of sectors, focussing mainly on the banking, health, hospitality, telecommunications, and government sectors.

Managed Document Services (MDS) continues to be one of our main offerings. With the help of next-generation services, we aim to increase maximum effectiveness, security and mobility as well as achieve overall cost reduction.

What are Xerox's future plans and focus in this segment?

Xerox is helping change the way the world works. By applying its expertise in imaging, business process, analytics, automation and user-centric insights, we are the leaders in engineering the flow of work to provide greater productivity, efficiency and personalization.

Moreover, we create meaningful innovations and provide business process services, printing equipment, software and solutions that make a real difference for our clientele in 180 countries.

In the coming year, Xerox will: • Accelerate and scale MPS revenue from the SMB segment by strengthening our MPS Solutions portfolio to support expansion of our channels network • Recruit channel partners by touting the broadest portfolio and most robust tools in the industry • Expand our share of managing non-Xerox (NX) devices and increasing Same Account Revenue Growth in Enterprise accounts • We also see a further shift from traditional to digital, with our investments also moving to the latter due to an effective and selective targeting and measurement system.

• We also aim to drive our customers into the modern business landscape through innovations in workflow automation that brings value to multiple areas of their business n

FACE TO FACE

Cloud Integrated Video-IOT and Video surveillance in a unified framework

By Tuhin Bose, CTO & VP, Videonetics Technology

I

n a stride to enhance the security of residential or commercial premises, IP Camera based video surveillance has garnered much attention over the past few years. Right from home and small premises (clubbed as SOHO - Small Office/Home Office) to big enterprises, everyone is trying to include it as a safety parameter.

The true potential of Video Surveillance, however lies with Video Analytics applications.

With such an application at hand, one can further use the video footage grabbed by IP cameras to extract useful and actionable information.

Intrusion detection, facial recognition, crowd formation detection, traffic congestion and vehicle over-speeding detection have been made easier using this technology. It is perfectly feasible to host both video surveillance systems and video analytics applications in private data centers, private or public cloud under different architectures like IaaS, PaaS and giving away several myriad services to users like standalone VMS plus VA services or providing Video as a Service (VaaS).

With new advancements, you can now stream live videos, store the data in a cloud hosted storage and even replay the recorded videos from any given timestamp. In a nutshell, all the cameras that may be installed in geographically sparse locations feed the data into the cloud hosted servers through LAN or firmware-upgraded cameras.

Internet of Things (acronymed as IoT) is the new rage due to the possibilities it offers in the domain of security, surveillance and situational awareness. Such devices are paired with several types of sensors (temperature, humidity, air pollution etc.) to detect and feed the relevant data. IoT has shown excellent operation in waste management, energy management, etc. as well. Notably, they also prove to be better and cost effective compared to their counterparts in the video analytics domain in certain scenarios, especially if situational awareness is the primary objective.

One should, however keep in mind that any event triggered by a sensor reflects just the textual data, which is why; people tend to store and manage the sensor-triggered events separately along with the video feed of the surveillance systems.

V-IoT Box: Videonetics made a breakthrough when they successfully coupled IoT devices with video management systems along with video analytics applications under the same framework. Talking in a simpler language, Videonetics enabled users to deploy standalone VMS, VMS over Cloud, Camera edge analytics, on-premise server based Video analytics, cloud hosted VMS and Video analytics offerings in a single framework.

The framework has many other merits as well. Fore mostly, it empowers you with camera-to-cloud services either using VNenabled Cameras or embedding the Software in any edge devices like a router, STB, or in the absence of that, in a dedicated small foot-print hardware box for any standard IP cameras. The hardware box may be small, but if ample of computing power and memory is available, the same box is also proficient enough to generate video analytics events after analyzing the video.

All the video data is fed into the ‘Media Handler’ while the sensor trigger receives data from the IoT devices to send that further to ‘Event Composer’. ‘The Media Handler’ makes the data available for streaming (video and audio) while also sending it to ‘Video analytics Apps’. ‘Media Handler’ generates a video clip along with the time stamp.

This data is sent to V-Iot box that can be remotely accessed by a user for streaming live video or watching archived videos. It should be noted that the archived video stream can be configured to be sent to cloud hosted storage automatically.

All the data received in ‘Sensor Trigger Handler’ and Video Analytics Apps is consumed by the ‘Event Composer’ that correlate and aggregate the data, and send that to a cloud hosted or data center hosted server for indexing and storing. From there, it is then available to users as a combined data (unified events) in the E-IoT box.

SDK: With the help of a web service based API, the existing IoT boxes can be integrated with Videonetics V-IoT solution in both Linux and Windows OS. VN-enabled Cameras: For a Videonetics software component to work in a streamlined fashion, one needs an IP camera that supports it. The process henceforth is simple. A user just need to install the software and the camera becomes cloud enabled. This combined system can then be used to: • View live feed of the camera through the web

• Record the stream in cloud storage and replay if and as required.

• Configure video analytics app for the camera. One can receive instant alerts on web or portable devices as the cloud-hosted system generate and store them.

The entire process is quite simple. The camera generates events and they are sent to the Videonetics Cloud Agent to be further transferred to Videonetics Cloud hosted (datacenter hosted) server in an Event container. It is stored there and indexed in the database. One may opt to add sensors to the camera in/out ports and receive the sensortriggered events as well. Remember that the Event container in that case will also contain pictures or video fetched from the camera.

Cloud Gateway: This software component, when installed in any standard hardware (Router, STB or dedicated hardware meant for this purpose only), allows an ordinary IP camera to be cloud enabled and receive video feed. If one has the computing power, they can connect any number of IP cameras with the hardware.

One can use the system to • Stream the camera view live through the web • Record the stream in cloud storage and replay if and as required.

• Configure video analytics app for the camera to run in the hardware itself. The events thus generated by the system will be transferred to the cloud.

• Configure video analytics app for the camera. One can receive instant alerts on web or portable devices as the cloud-hosted system generate and store them.

Video Management System: Any enterprise may be spread to multiple establishments located at geographically diverse locations. The Videonetics Video Management System can be installed at all the establishments to offer the services on a local level. It is preintegrated with Video analytics framework enabling a user to receive alerts on detection of events locally. Now, the Cloud Framework

by Videonetics allows a user to integrate all those locally installed VMS systems and view the systems over the web.

It can be fairly concluded that the Videonetics Cloud Framework is deep rooted as far as security and surveillance is concerned.

Right from a single camera application to connecting thousands and providing for small home to corporate giants, the Cloud Framework is the one stop solution with a higher degree of flexibility and cost-effectiveness, all thanks to the several combination possibilities of Videonetics VMS, V-IoT, Gateway box and VN-enabled cameras. n

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Security concerns are taking surveillance a step ahead in India In a chat with VARINDIA, CM Menon, Regional Sales Director - Analog Devices India (ADI) highlights the growth of video analytics in the surveillance industry in India and how is ADI placed to serve its customers with the latest surveillance technologies -

T

he market for security and surveillance equipment has been a growing market in India from over two decades. CCTVs and cameras have been in use in offices, banks and other establishments that need surveillance.

With crime rates in India on the rise, security and surveillance needs have also been increasing in an effort to counter theft and crime.

Smart city requirements necessitate the use of cameras and sensors to monitor traffic conditions across the city and take appropriate measures like controlling traffic signals accordingly. Smart houses, shopping malls and commercial establishments deploy surveillance cameras to not only safeguard against theft and crime but also for applications like people counting, motion and occupancy sensing, vehicle parking assistance and HVAC/lighting control.

When it comes to the security of students and common people for schools, colleges and ATMs, security and surveillance cameras are very useful as they aid security personnel monitor areas within a complex and take action when suspicious activities are detected or observed.

Observes C M Menon, Regional Sales Director - Analog Devices India, “Nowadays people are requesting for more features to ensure the security of the loved once like higher resolution video, video analytics and smart cameras. At ADI, we have an innovative solution called the BLIP (Blackfin Low Power Imaging Platform), which is an effective low cost, low power embedded computer vision platform targeting a vast array of real-time sensing applications.”

The BLIP leverages the latest entry within the industry-leading, low power Blackfin processor family as well as Analog Devices’ optimized software library deliverables.

ADI is a technology provider where Systems are developed, deployed and serviced by end equipment manufacturers, OEMs or system integration companies who deploy complete systems and offer service support. ADI provides technology globally, Indian customers will also have access to all technologies that ADI develops in future to serve the security and surveillance market. As a leading security company, ADI sees opportunities in surveillance of ATMs, banks,

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schools, colleges, commercial establishments and homes. “Additionally we are also seeing opportunities in traffic management and asset management in India,” says Menon.

Demand for Digital Technology…

The latest developments in digital technology use cameras with sensors and chips that perform ‘video analytics on the edge’, where analyzing the video is done in the camera itself with the use of sensors and intelligent embedded software running on a MCU or a DSP. The change from analog to digital has had an impact on critical parameters in terms of storage of video feeds, bandwidth requirements, video analytics and overall system cost. Wireless IP cameras that communicate wirelessly either through Wi-Fi or short range RF without the need for any sort of wiring lower overall system cost by a fair degree. Wireless communication over IP networks also has fewer problems with interference and encryption security is built into the technology.

“Concepts like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning are applied in video analytic algorithms making the camera smart. This reduces down the need to transmit a lot of video to the Cloud or to Network Video recorders thus making the system much more efficient through lowering bandwidth requirements and cost,” says Menon.

Future opportunities for ADI… Speaking on the future opportunities, Menon believes that if the industry wants to grow together the channel needs to work closely with end equipment manufacturers or system integration companies by sourcing components required for the overall systems.

“We have 3 channel partners in India who would be able to provide ADI products and reference designs like the BLIP to system integrators and other customers in the security and surveillance domain. We believe that we need to work in conjunction with our channel partners in order to grow the security industry,” he sums up. n

CM Menon Regional Sales Director Analog Devices India (ADI)

“Many times, crimes are committed after working hours or at odd hours when security personnel are not available a smart surveillance camera that can analyze video using video analytic algorithms would be capable of raising an alarm or alerting security personnel during such situations”.

Megha megha@varindia.com

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VAR SECURITY

BlackBerry treading the Partner Route to tap the cyber security and application space BlackBerry had recently announced the addition of six new partners in India, furthering their commitment to establishing and growing their global ecosystem of enterprise software partners and developers. Richard McLeod, Vice President of Global Channels – BlackBerry speaking more on this tells VARINDIA of why he sees in a complete channel strategy for BlackBerry In its recent Q2 results a couple of weeks ago, BlackBerry made a bold statement of its transformation and of its aims to become a 100% software and services company. It is also keenly focused on the cyber security market.

“We are keenly focused on Asia Pacific and India in particular as high growth markets. As we leverage our over 30 years of experience in secure mobile application delivery, we are truly finding the market moving towards us.

As companies are aggressively moving towards mobile first applications, there is a massive shift towards software as a service. We are seeing an explosion of connections to the wireless network at the rate of nearly 10 million per day. This is a massive growth that we are seeing and it is playing to our strength,” says Richard McLeod, Vice President - Global Channels – BlackBerry.

The Asia Pacific and the global market in general and India in particular represent one of the largest mobile aware marketplaces and one of the strongest growth areas for mobile applications. And so, it is a big focus area for BlackBerry. BlackBerry is equally focused on the cyber security space that is in itself a huge growth market and is expected to be a 137.85 Billion in 2017 and a USD 231.94 Billion market by 2022. In India, it is expected to be about $350 billion market by 2025.

“BlackBerry has invested very heavily in the marketplace. We made a number of acquisitions over the last several years, to the tune of about $1.3 billion for software company acquisitions to become what analysts across the board rate as the strongest platform for mobile native cyber security applications. As we look at the Indian market, we see it as one of the top growth market. Clearly, India represents one of the largest concentrations for high tech in terms of the cyber security capabilities and so we are currently investing in India,” asserts Richard.

A pre-dominantly channel company....

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BlackBerry is very much a partner centric company; though it does have a sales team that is directly working with customers and partners to drive a BlackBerry platform. In Asia Pacific, it does 90 % of the volume through partners.

Its goal in the marketplace is Partner First and it only goes direct when there are absolute customer requirement in some cases, like in government requirements.

“We see the growth scale for BlackBerry is with the partners. Especially in enterprise software space, that market is driven by the channel. The channel also provides the local deployment and support, which is completely a channel model. We are growing our channel around the world and India. We are still in early days but we look for more announcements which will be completely channel oriented,” says Richard.

BlackBerry has specifically built a while new channel program globally and has signed six partners in India. The program is three tiers in nature that comprises of an Authorized Tier, Gold Tier and Platinum Tier. The program was launched almost a year ago in India and has almost 50 partners. “Six of them are already reaching the Gold status level. They are achieving the capabilities and are not only architecting, designing and selling the solution but likewise deploying and supporting the solution and going through very rigorous training from BlackBerry,” he says.

The channel program has been designed to re-enable the partners to capitalize in this market place. The authorized partners are provided the basics of how to sell the portfolio and a partner moves to the gold level only when we have partners that complete BlackBerry’s advance technical selling skills

capabilities, get themselves online, and practise training capability. After that BlackBerry gets to augment those capabilities with the ability for them to take advantage of its software development in its APIs for doing advance integrations with work flow applications.

BlackBerry has a global presence with about 1800 partners covering the globe. In Asia Pacific, it has about 250 partners. “We ensure that we engage our partners in monthly meetings and reviews, where we share best practises and success stories. There is an active network of partners, in terms of facilitating deployments and encouraging to one another,” says Richard.

BlackBerry has an extensive online training capability through BlackBerry universe that its partners are authorised for. It has a series of courses relative to sales and technical solution and consultation. Then it has its classroom training around systematic integration and deployment. Likewise, there are a number of specialisation capabilities beyond its Authorised, Gold and Platinum, the work spaces specialisation which is around enterprise and content collaboration solution.

“We have an in depth specialisation training program around that. We recently announced a specialisation program to enable the capability for our partners that want to privately host our solution. We also have a very expensive market place for our ISP solution. We have over 100 ISP solutions that are specifically designed around BlackBerry unified endpoint management platform. The solutions take advantage of BlackBerry’s secure capabilities and integrate with them and add to the portfolio for our partners in driving secure solution for our customers,” sums up Richard. n

VAR SECURITY

CP PLUS shines at SECUTECH, bags Asia’s Prestigious Brand Award 2017 CP PLUS pulled off a successful SECUTECH show this year with its elaborate display of state-of-the-art security products and solution. SECUTECH 2017 was hosted at BITEC, Thailand from the 16-18th November 2017.

“It was a great show. Months of hard work have gone into making this show a success, and to see the footfall volume gives us immense content and pleasure. We had some of our best solutions on display, such as our Edge analytics, advanced WDR solutions, mobile DVR solutions, HD solutions, among others,” mentioned Aditya Khemka, MD - CP PLUS. Up on showcase at the show were some of the best products and technologies from CP PLUS - Edge analytics that offer capabilities such as facial recognition, people counting, missing/ abandoned object detection, area protect, and more; HD and Ultra HD surveillance that offers unmatched clarity and details; CP PLUS EzyKam, which offers the convenience of viewing your home on your phone from anywhere in the world; advanced WDR offering incredible visibility in varying light conditions; and cutting-edge mobile DVR solutions that are 100% Tamper Proof, 100% shock resistant, 100%

vibration resistant and come with GPS Tracking, Wi-Fi to transfer Data, and Super Capacitor for power protection.

CP PLUS also recently bagged the coveted Asia’s Prestigious Brand 2017. The award was aimed at recognizing the most prestigious brands in Asia.

Hosted in Thailand, Bangkok, at the Arnoma Grand on the 23rd of November, 2017, the event was graced by some of the most coveted names -leaders from brands that have established their mettle in their respective industries and have impacted and transformed the Asian economy with their stateof-the-art products and services.

CP PLUS stands as the youngest and fastest to enter the global Top 4 and Asia Top 2 players

list of security & surveillance brands. A customer oriented brand at its core, today CP PLUS products and solutions are monitoring numerous locations globally across diverse geographies, ranging from government buildings, highly sensitive defense locations, transportation, vital infrastructures, educational institutes, hotels to homes with one of the largest satisfied customer base.

CP PLUS launches new campaign featuring Salman Khan CP PLUS has unveiled its new campaign to reaffirm its indubitable position in the security domain. The TVCs feature Salman Khan as the CCTV ambassador of the brand.

Taking ahead the tagline of ‘UparWala Sab Dekh Raha Hai’, the ad throws focus on the importance of intelligent security and surveillance. It also showcases the intelligent range of cameras offered by CP PLUS which are built smart with features such as - night vision, cloud monitoring, face recognition, mobile surveillance, remote monitoring, auto tracking etc. to outsmart the potential offender. The TVCs establish the intelligence of the brand’s security solutions, and having Salman talk about the key features in his typical witty manner helps people across categories understand it better and makes it more relatable.

Today, we are living in a hyper-connected world, yet the society is more anxious about untoward incidents than ever before. In these uncertain times, CP PLUS offers products and solutions that allow you to monitor and act on situations, thereby securing and reducing the anxiety. CP PLUS believes that the world would be a better place if we use

Aditya Khemka Managing Director CP PLUS

our moral compass to decide our conduct and behaviour. The TVCs created by Ogilvy India brings this fact to the forefront by establishing that if a problem is detected in its infancy, then it can be prevented from turning into something disastrous. The wide range of security solutions that the brand offers in the realm of video surveillance suits versatile purposes and various environments.

Aditya Khemka, Managing Director, CP PLUS said, “There has been a lot of consciousness and awareness generated on the effective deployment of surveillance solutions.

Being the market leader, we have realized the urgent need for intelligent security systems.

We aim to amplify the intelligence of our security solutions through the optimum use of a host of intelligent features available.”

Yogesh Dutta, COO, CP PLUS, remarked, “Our range of products can seamlessly integrate with businesses and can offer great value with intelligence when deployed in defense locations, government projects, corporate undertakings, and in some cases, even in homes. CP PLUS intelligent solutions will go a long way in taking preventive steps towards a safe and secure world.”

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VAR MOBILITY

Transsion Holdings focuses on multi brand strategy to tap on India market In chat with VARINDIA, Sudhir Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, itel & Spice Devices speaks about the present Smartphone market landscape, its different strategies, its position in the market, strategy around service support, retail and much more….

Transsion Holdings has entered the India market with a long-term vision to contribute towards the growing mobile phone ecosystem in the country. With Smartphone users growing rapidly in India market, a lot of reports second this growth. For instance, as per the latest Canalys report, India has surpassed USA to become the world's second-largest Smartphone market after China, with over 40 million units shipped in the third quarter of 2017.

“In fact, there is a new brand of smartphone launched every single day which clearly showcases the opportunity bundled with challenge of serving new things to the customers to attract them and also to grab market share,” says Sudhir Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, itel & Spice Devices.

Consumer behaviour helping expansion...

Observing the consumer behaviour and their requirements, Sudhir says that in line with the brand’s Go-To-Market strategy, the company has launched Spice Devices in a phased manner. “The initial response from phase 1 markets has been overwhelming and has further given us impetus to launch the brand pan India,” he says.

In the first quarter of its operation itself, Spice Devices has garnered remarkable traction from the phase 1 markets, with major contribution to sales volume coming in from UP, Rajasthan, MP, Bihar, Gujarat and Kerala. “Our aim is to give our consumers a captivating experience of their first Smartphone something that is stylish with vibrant colours, super battery, great music experience and easy to use features that help the youth to stand out,” he asserts.

Talking about the new innovations to attract the customers Sudhir says that they have included some innovative features to their new portfolio such as, 3D immersive sound (proprietary audio codec) which provides better gaming & entertainment experience which can be delivered via dual speakers or headsets as well, innovative camera features such as age/gender detection that helps the users to take better selfies and added to that the new intelligent fingerprint sensor which supports multiple features allows the users to be more creative.

Also, its unique service proposition of 1-year replacement warranty across its product portfolio including both feature phones and Smartphone’s has seen huge traction from Tier II/III market and helped the brand build momentum.

Strategy for growth...

Speaking about the market strategy, Sudhir shares with VARINDIA that to understand the market and needs of the consumers they have a team that is exclusively dedicated to research and analyze the consumer trends in the Indian market. “Our product portfolio creates a new segment in the Indian market with the robust range of products and services catering and fulfilling the requirements of the Indian Youth,” he says.

He also mentions that with its multi-brand strategy targeted at different consumer segment, Transsion is creating an end-to-end experience for its customers. The group has four mobile brands - TECNO, itel, Spice and Infinix catering to different target markets.

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Sudhir Kumar Chief Executive Officer itel & Spice Devices “We have planned our Go-To-Market in a phased manner and have successfully concluded our first phase where we launched the product portfolio across 10 states. So far, we have launched the Spice Devices product portfolio comprising of 9 mobile devices including 5 feature phones and 4 Smartphone’s,” Sudhir explains.

Opportunities and challenges…

In the current scenario, the Indian smartphone market is cluttered with handset manufacturers, both home grown and global players. In line with this, the brand has planned a phased approach to launch its product portfolio in India as it wants to provide its consumers with the wide range of products and cater to them with best-in-class after sales services. The recently launched Carlcare store in India is the first after sale service brand from Transsion Holdings in India. The store services all brands under Transsion Holdings including TECNO, Infinix, itel, Spice Devices and Oraimo. Carlcare store caters to consumers’ needs and requirements by resolving the queries and problems on a real time basis. It offers another unique service proposition of 72-hour turn-around time across its brand portfolios thus, bringing in faster and superlative repair efficiencies.

Going forward, Transsion wants to ensure that all sections of society can contribute and benefit from the digital revolution. With its unique offerings, it is confident that it will be able to help people live their dreams and enable them digital lives. n Megha Megha@varindia.com

VAR MOBILITY

Micromax launches Bharat 5 bundled with Vodafone free data

M

i c r o m a x Informatics has launched Bharat 5 smartphone. The new Bharat 5 packs a 5,000 mAh battery, 5MP front and rear cameras, 5.2-inch HD IPS display, Android Nougat at a competitive price

point.

The new launch is set to accelerate the next phase of smartphone adoption in the country and helping consumers upgrade to quality entrylevel smartphones.

The device comes with a 1.3 GHz Quad-core Processor with 1GB DDR3 RAM and a 16GB ROM.

Micromax has also partnered with Vodafone to provide its Bharat 5 consumers with 50 GB of free data. The announcement comes on the back of success of the Bharat series with Micromax aiming to sell more than 6 million Bharat series smartphones by March 2018. Bharat 5 will also succeed with Bharat 5 Plus and Bharat 5 Pro in the next two months.

T h e company has recently launched a powerpacked phone for the first-time internet users – Bharat1 – a 4G feature phone that helps bridge the digital divide and provides users with unlimited calling and data offer from BSNL at an affordable cost of Rs.97 every month.

OnePlus launches OnePlus 5T Star Wars Limited Edition

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nePlus has announced the OnePlus 5T Star Wars Limited Edition, a special edition premium flagship device ahead of release of the new chapter of the popular space saga, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

The Star Wars edition’s phone design has been inspired by the planet Crait from Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The metal back of the device is painted in Crait white with a precise Star Wars logo in Red printed on the back. Crait is a mineral planet with red sediment under the surface, which is the inspiration behind the red alert slider on the device. Red is, after all, the color of Star Wars traditionally, similar to the alert slider, which has been the long standing feature of OnePlus devices. On the software front, there is a customized red, white and black theme with a set of 10 exclusive Star Wars wallpapers adapted to the

new AMOLED immersive screen and a special Kylo Ren phone case along with a special surprise for Star Wars fans packed in an exquisitely designed gift box as a part of the complete offering.

Kyle Kiang, Head of Global marketing, OnePlus, said, “Our community has inspired us in more ways than one. Their passion and involvement in the brand and the products since the very beginning has inspired us to come up with product that is superior in every way, from design to the overall experience. We are excited to join the force and dedicate the exquisitely designed Star Wars Limited Edition to the OnePlus and Star Wars fans in India as a part of the 3-year anniversary celebration.”

Gionee introduces an array of Smartphones

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ionee has unveiled its eight exciting new smartphones for China and global markets, each featuring a dazzling FullView display, making Gionee the first mobile phone manufacturer to offer this breakthrough technology on every product in its portfolio.

New models are S11S, S11, S11 lite, M7 Plus, M7, M7 Power, M7 mini, and F205.

During the event, Chairman Liu shared his insights about the smartphone industry, and affirmed that Gionee’s strategic use of FullView display on all of its models, not just its high-end models, puts the brand at the forefront of the technological breakthrough driving market growth.

“Gionee’s strategy of producing a complete line of FullView display smartphones is also a strategy of product innovation and product differentiation,” said Gionee Chairman Liu Lirong during his speech. “In addition to features like long battery life, security, and quadcamera photography, we will also be carrying forward other hallmarks of Gionee products.

These include innovative functions, materials, and interactive experiences.

Gionee will continue to make breakthroughs. This is how our products embody Gionee’s brand philosophy of ‘technology for a better life.”

To equip its latest models with FullView display, Gionee leveraged its vast R&D and manufacturing resources, extensive sales network, and strong supply chain integration. This required close cooperation with Samsung to implement its AMOLED screen technology, which has become the benchmark for smartphone screens in the industry.

Intex unveils a range of affordable 4G smartphones with Airtel

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ontinuing to build on the success of its “Mera Pehla Smartphone” initiative, Bharti Airtel has partnered with Intex Technologies to launch a range of affordable 4G smartphones with advanced features.

The Intex Aqua LIONS N1, a brand-new 4G smartphone from the Intex stable, will be available to Airtel customers at an effective price of just Rs.1, 649 (compared to market price of Rs.3,799). The all-new Dual-SIM 4G smartphone is powered

by MTK chipset with a 4” full touch WVGA screen, 2MP Rear & Front VGA camera, 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage which

is expandable up to 128GB along with a host of other exciting features.

In addition to the Intex Aqua LIONS N1, two more affordable 4G smartphones have been introduced under the “Mera Pehla Smartphone” initiative.

OPPO unveils “F5 Youth” Smartphone priced at Rs.16, 990

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PPO has unveiled the “OPPO F5 Youth” smartphone, especially targeted towards the next generation, the youth.

The F5 Youth smartphone sports the FHD+ full screen display

is also sponsoring the most famous music festival, Sunburn.

“Our focus has always been on bringing the best photography and Selfie experience to the Indian consumers, especially the youth. We believe that the

model and features the groundbreaking A.I. Beauty technology – a technology designed to personalize beautification for subjects on a selfie image, has been designed to meet the demands of the youth of India.

OPPO F5 Youth edition was launched in the presence of Sonakshi Sinha, at a specially designed Selfie Experience Zone – OPPO Selfie Cafe in Mumbai. As per the company, keeping the youth in mind, OPPO

youth demands a device that represents them and syncs well with their youthful and fashionable personality,” said Sky Li, Global VP, OPPO & President, OPPO India.

The device sports a 16MP Selfie camera (f/2.0), a 13MB rear camera and a 6-inch fullscreen of 2160x1080 resolution (FHD+), it has also upgraded the built-in Beautification technology with the smart AI and optimizations.

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Movers & Shakers

Infosys ropes in exCapgemini executive Salil S Parekh as its CEO

IDC ropes in Amit Malhotra as Managing Director for South Asia region

Infosys has roped in Salil S Parekh as its chief executive officer thus picking an outsider for the job for a second time and handing him the twin challenges of reviving growth and forging peace between its founders and board following a public spat.

Parekh, who was earlier with Capgemini where he was a member of its group executive team, has been given a 5-year term effective Jan. 2.

"He (Parekh) has nearly three decades of global experience in the IT services industry," said Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani. "He has a strong track record of executing business turnarounds and managing very successful acquisitions."

International Data Corporation (IDC) has appointed Amit Malhotra as Managing Director for IDC India and South Asia, effective immediately. He will be based out of the IDC India HQ at New Delhi with full responsibility for leading and developing IDC India and South Asia's growth journey.

Amit brings with him, over 20 years of rich experience and knowledge of the ICT industry and has held various senior leadership roles over the course of his career across Asia-Pacific, Japan and the Middle East markets. Amit was responsible for establishing and expanding the nascent EDRM market for India and Middle East.

Meg Whitman quits HPE as its CEO

Hitachi Vantara strengthens its Global Leadership Team

Meg Whitman the Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise has quit the company after serving it for close to six years. She is succeeded by the company president Antonio Neri who will take over from her from February 1 next year.

Under the leadership of Whitman, the company saw itself restructuring into HP Enterprise unit and HP Inc. Whitman had taken charge as the CEO of the company in 2011. Prior to this, she was the CEO of eBay. She is also an investor Uber. Speculations were rife that after the resignation of Uber’s CEO, Whitman would take over as the CEO. She has however not discussed about what and where her next stint would be.

Hitachi Vantara has strengthened its global leadership team with Mark Ablett named as Senior Vice-President of Global go-to-market (GTM) Strategy. He will report to the company’s Chief Revenue Officer Hans-Peter Klaey.

Ablett previously served as Hitachi Vantara’s Senior Vice-President (SVP) of APAC, where he helped Hitachi Vantara’s APAC theatre to achieve record growth. In his new role, Ablett will be responsible for developing the company’s global GTM strategy, partnering with Hitachi Vantara’s customers to help them successfully navigate and execute complex digital transformation journeys. Prior to joining Hitachi, Ablett held executive positions with Juniper Networks and SpectraLink, among others.

Adobe appoints Scott Belsky as Chief Product Officer and EVP, Creative Cloud

Tata Communications announces new chief to oversee Asia region growth

Adobe has announced the appointment of Scott Belsky as Chief Product Officer & Executive Vice-President, Creative Cloud.

In this new role, Belsky will lead product management and engineering for Adobe Creative Cloud products and services, Adobe Spark and Behance. In addition, he will oversee the Adobe Design team which focusses on experience design across Adobe products.

Belsky’s responsibilities will include driving product delivery and longterm innovation strategy across Adobe’s key design, photography and video segments. He will report to Adobe President and CEO Shantanu Narayen and partner closely with Bryan Lamkin, Executive Vice-President and General Manager, Digital Media.

Tata Communications has appointed Andrew Yeong as its head of sales for the Asia region. In his new role, Andrew will be responsible for the growth of Tata Communications’ business across all industry verticals, focussing on providing transformation services to large corporations in the region. He will also support the company’s strategic efforts in growing and maintaining its leadership position in the network infrastructure market, as well as build deeper penetration with its cloud enablement and cybersecurity solutions.

He has over 20 years of experience of working with blue-chip technology companies, including Lexmark, IBM and Oracle.

Gary Lee takes over as new CFO and VP at Canon India

Cloud4C names Steven Granat as its new Senior VP, Americas

Canon India has appointed Gary Lee as Chief Financial Officer and Vice-President. Under his new role, Lee would be overseeing the Finance & Taxation, Legal and Corporate Communication divisions at Canon India. He takes over the roles and responsibilities from Anuj Aggarwal who has been elevated to Canon Marketing Philippines as a Vice-President.

This transition is a significant move by the organisation to elevate its leadership across geographies and cultivate globally competent human resources. The objective is to build a global management system, targeting optimal use of human resources in operations worldwide. The criteria involve examining and identifying professionals for senior management positions and develop the skills of these future leaders by rotating them through key positions overseas.

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Cloud4C has appointed Steven Granat as Senior Vice-President, Americas. Steven is responsible for operations, delivery, sales and partnerships for the Americas region. He brings over two and half decades of sales and marketing experience including sixteen years in information technology and deep information technology knowledge and a wealth of experience in sales and marketing experience, including global alliance management, business development, and partnerships.

Steven joins Cloud4C from Commvault – a publicly traded data protection and information management Software Company headquartered in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. Earlier, Steven spent fourteen years at EMC in varied roles encompassing business development, channel and global alliance management.

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RNI - NO 72399/1999 Printing Date 18 & 19

Reg. No: DL-SW-1/4030/15-17

Date of Posting 20 & 21 every month

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Forged from carbon fiber ® the ThinkPad X1 Carbon is incredibly thin and immensely powerful.

Call us at 1800 3000 9990 or e-mail us at corpsales@lenovo.com

© Lenovo 2017. All rights reserved. Lenovo, the Lenovo logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo.

Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries or both.

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56 pages including cover