E-Magazine January issue

Canon Installs sixth DreamLabo 5000 in India

Tally introduces “Tally Xcelerator for SMEs”

iValue has embarked on a journey of Innovation since 2008

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DIGISOL releases 16 Port Gigabit Ethernet Desktop Version Switch

NETGEAR expands its networking portfolio

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Technological Innovations to Rock 2018

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Reliance Jio to develop its own cryptocurrency, JioCoin

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oining the cryptocurrency revolution that is taking the world by storm, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd is planning to create its own version, JioCoin.

Mukesh Ambani’s elder son Akash Ambani will be leading the JioCoin project. Reliance Jio is said to be building a 50member team of young professionals to work on blockchain technology.

The team would work on various blockchain products and applications such as smart contracts and supply chain management logistics.

This is however in the proposal stage.

Reliance Jio is also aspiring to get into Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology would come handy there too. Experts have also pointed out that blockchain could potentially address security risks to IoT as it provides a shield against data tampering by labelling each block of data.

Global debt touches $233 trillion in Q3 2017

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s per a news report, in the third quarter of 2017, the global debt has reached $233 trillion. It is $16 trillion higher from end-2016. This analysis has been done by the Institute of International Finance.

Private non-financial sector debt hit all-time highs in Canada, France, Hong Kong, South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey.

With the increase of economic growth, the ratio of debt-to-gross domestic product fell for the fourth consecutive quarter.

The ratio is now around 318 per cent, 3 percentage points below a high set in the third quarter of 2016, according to the IIF. The United Nations calculates the global population is 7.6 billion, suggesting the world’s per capita debt is more than $30,000.

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January 2018

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HELLO INDIA

Year 2018 to bring newer opportunities in AI and IoT

The Internet has no single owner and is a simple connecting infrastructure. It's not the technology that makes something good or bad but with 7 billion people living together, there will be a lot of good as well bad uses for everything. But it is all about how people are using it.

Every innovation is a double-edged sword. It enables millions of new opportunities, some good and some bad. Lots of basic preparedness has to be done before getting into the attempt to rope in cutting edge technology.

Technology transformation and disruption is a regular process - like Google has acquired Redux, Salesforce has bought Attic Labs, Accenture now owns Mackevision, Verizon has got its hands on threat detection start-up Niddel, iam+ has purchased Earin, Ring has snapped up Beams, and Cyxtera has splashed out for Immunity Inc. GoPro is getting out of the drone business and may be up for sale and the list goes on and on.

There was a recent rumour about security breach wherein login ID and password was given away after a gateway was created and anyone can access the UIDAI database. It is an absolute necessity to implement a robust information security protocol and also to penalize offenders. The Government is also exploring how artificial intelligence can be used to integrate bots with Aadhaar. However, UIDAI has announced the introduction of Virtual ID (VID) to safeguard Aadhar card holders’ data. VID will be a 16-digit, randomly generated number that can be used for authentication instead of the original Aadhaar number.

The most recent news is that UIDAI will enable facial recognition as an additional means of Aadhaar authentication. It is to be used only in combination with existing options of biometric authentication such as fingerprint or iris scan. The facial recognition will be made available on registered devices from 1 July.

Technology is improving public services. In 2018, IoT will be seen as a driver of improvements across businesses and applications. However, consumer devices have drawn the most attention so far — organizations are already using IoT to reduce risk, cut costs, create new revenue streams, improve employee productivity and enhance customer experience. We can see investments going into the IoT security already.

Another technology that will emerge is IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things). The application of the IoT to the manufacturing industry is called the IIoT (Industrial Internet or Industry 4.0). The IIoT can greatly improve connectivity, efficiency, scalability, time saving, and cost saving for industrial organizations. Business leaders are using IIoT data to get a full and accurate view of how their enterprise is doing, which will help them make better decisions.

Lastly, the year 2018 will be a promising year with IoT and smart cities that are going to transform modern life and smart cities with the ongoing structural reforms in India that will begin to deliver efficiency and scale economies. India is at the forefront of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship, where the consumer spending has also been on the rise over the years. A rise in tech adoption has given rise to the analytics industry in India. It is creating lot of buzz, in the drive towards less pollution, safer streets and better quality of life for residents.

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CONTENTS Website: www.varindia.com

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

BUSINESS: Commercial Manager: Amit Kumar Jha Sr. Marketing Manager: Ashok Ranjan Dash Circulation Executive: Manish Kumar Marketing Manager: Dipendra Kumar CORPORATE OFFICE: VAR House, A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, Ignou Road, New Delhi - 110030 Tel: 011-41656383, 46061809 Email: edit@varindia.com Bangalore: Bureau office Marketing Manager: S. Kamala kar Correspondent: L. G. Swami D-103 G.F., Ashish JK Apartments Thubarahalli Extended Road Bangaluru- 560066 Tel: 080-49530399 | Mobile:09886280836 E-mail: kamlakar@varindia.com Mumbai: Bureau office Regional Manager (West): Anil Kumar Sr. Correspondent: Mamta S. Anurag Residency, 203 - “B” Wing, Plot No-5, Sector-9, Kamothe, Navi Mumbai-410 209 Tel: 022-65561292, Mobile: 08108017479 E-mail: anil@varindia.com, mamta@varindia.com Chennai: Bureau office Branch Manager: Parthiban K A2, R.C.Residency, Cholambedu Road, Thiruvenkada nagar, Ambathur, Chennai - 600 053 Mobile: 098400 55626 E-mail: barani@varindia.com Hyderabad: Bureau office Branch Manager: Sunil Kumar Sahu 32-161/3, 202 Neha Paradise, Nr. Maissamma Temple, Venketeswara colony Ramakrishna Puram, Hyderabad - 500056 Telangana, Tel: 040-32989844/ Cell No. 08100298033 E-mail: sunil@varindia.com Kolkata: Bureau office Marketing Officer: Sunil Kumar Correspondent: Kiran Kumar 67 Sarada Park, Garia, Kolkata - 700084 Mobile: 08100298033, E-mail: sunil@varindia.com Mobile: 09903088480, E-mail: kiran@varindia.com Printed and Published by Deepak Kumar Sahu on behalf of M/s. Kalinga Digital Media Pvt. Ltd. and Printed at Pushpak Press Pvt. Ltd. Shed No. 203 - 204, DSIDC Complex, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi-110020 and Published at A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, Ignou Road, New Delhi - 110030, Editor - S Mohini Ratna.

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30pg FACE TO FACE

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Artificial Intelligence to have a big impact on the industry in 2018

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'APAC business owners are as aware of new technologies as their Western counterparts’

GST Voice of VARs – Mumbai

COVER STORY 44|

Rise of the Indian Gaming era

VAR SECURITY

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‘Channel is architecture customers’

security McAfee

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Data will be a big enabler for advanced security solutions to come up

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‘Hunger to Learn’ - the mantra for Sterlite to match its competition

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‘Wi-Fi is very important for doing any kind of business today’

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An all new Avaya charts out its channel growth plans for 2018

VAR MOBILITY

the for

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CEO SPEAK 10|

iVOOMi wants to keep prices as a ‘value proposition’ for the brand

iValue has embarked on a journey of Innovation since 2008

TECH TRENDS 2018 30|

Technological Rock 2018

Innovations

to

VAR ANALYSIS 37|

Refurbished smartphone market has a big scope to grow in India

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All eyes on Budget 2018

REGULARS Round About

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Hot Bytes

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On the Ramp

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Channel Buzz

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* All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi only.

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Movers & Shakers

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CEO SPEAK

iValue has embarked on a journey of Innovation since 2008 Please brief us about the idea and motto behind iValue InfoSolutions, and the company's journey till now? iValue incorporated with a mission to empower organizations to effectively manage their “Digital Assets,” which are critical & differentiators of business, to ensure profitable growth.

The goal from 1st year onward was to identify areas of opportunities for growth to both our OEM’s and partners by adding value at customers. Customer lead Mission and Vision with a focus on adding value to EVERY stake holders helped iValue grow consistently at 5+ times market growth rates over the last 9 years.

How have you fared in the market? What is the present valuation of the company not only in monetary terms but on various parameters of qualitative success? iValue is the ONLY VAD with a consultative approach to understand and address customer business and IT needs and offer customized and optimized offerings in line with their budget. We are the 1st VAD to launch vertical centric GTM, for Government and BFSI, with consultant engagements including the BIG 4, few years back. We have also invested in people, both in quality and quantity, consistently over the years without worrying on the market issues, growing from 40 in 2008 to 125+ in 2017. All the above investments and initiatives have helped us grow at 55% CAGR which is 5+ times market growth rate.

We grew 3 times in last 3 years on good wicket to close Fy18 also on a grand note maintaining our growth track record. We have come a long way during the last 9 years with 6000+ Customers, 600+ Partners, 10+ Consultants, 30+ OEM’s and 125+ team.

What were the various challenges and milestones of these 10 years?

World and Indian economy going through one of its worst meltdown in 2008 was not a great time to start a new venture. After a quarter we quickly understood the ground reality and started focusing at customers along with focused partner team with a business centric approach to grow the business for our OEM’s and partners. There was no looking back post this pivoting. We continued to identify relevant offerings in the DNA protection and management space and introduced them at

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Sriram S Co-Founder and Ex-CEO iValue InfoSolutions the appropriate time when Indian market was ready for adoption. This helped our partners garner more business from their existing customers and more importantly in attracting new customers. The next evolution to the above model was to form a vertical centric GTM for BFSI and Government markets along with consultant engagements to maximize opportunity for both our OEM’s and Partners. iValue was Red Herring Asia Top 100 company for two years and also bagged Deloitte Fastest growing Technology companies in Asia for two years which is the 1st time a VAD has ever won these titles.

How you would like to see the new change in guard and what are your expectations from the new CEO Mr Krishna Raj Sharma?

KRS has been part of the core management team for last 13+ years. He has excelled in most critical roles within iValue over the last 9 years.

In the last few years he has single handedly built the BFSI vertical practice and made it the largest contributing pie to iValue consistently

over the last 3-4 years. The company hence is in great hands to take iValue to next level as we intent to triple our fy18 revenues in the next 3 years.

What are your future plans?

We have come a long way in the last 9 years.

The foundation is solid and growth in the last 5 years has been great thanks to our outstanding team – the team unstoppable!

Market around DNA protection and management is expected to grow geometrically with both Government driving Digital programs and Corporates focusing on Digital transformation initiatives to enhance relevance and growth. iValue through its DX initiatives internally has come up with analytics dashboard for a focused cross and up sale program at 70%+ of our customer base for 15+ solutions of ours. We are empowering our front ends with this intelligence along with engagement tool to maximize growth opportunities at minimal timelines through a focused approach.

Our intent is to triple our Fy18 revenues over the next 3 years.

It’s a big shoe to fill. What are your thoughts on this?

Undoubtedly, it’s a big responsibility, a great leap. I am grateful to have partnered with everyone who has contributed to all the immense milestones iValue has been able to achieve in the last decade and I am confident about achieving our goals with the backing of an impeccable “Team Unstoppable”.

You have been part of the company since inception, what will be your top most priority after being appointed as CEO? When I consider where iValue began, I am humbled by how far we have come. We are proud to have delivered on our mission in many important ways. We have the strong foundation in place to take a leap jump over next 3 years. Growing team, adding relevant offerings, refined go to market and grater team alignment towards the stretched goal will be the immediate focus.

As a leader in the market, how do you see the VAD market and where is it heading in the times ahead?

The team at iValue have been focused in DNA management area for 17 years. This focused approach has helped in building expertize across technology, vertical, compliance and geography needs, developing industry contacts & relationship across OEM, Customer, Partner and Consultants. Having deep insights to 6000+ Customer adoption trends across size and vertical will be a tremendous advantage for us to target right set of customers for the right set of offerings at the most appropriate time. Also with Government driving DIGITAL agenda and Corporates focusing on Digital Transformation initiative to enhance relevance, the next few years will be golden era for all players who can understand customer business and add value in this crucial journey.

Please tell us more about iValue's digital transformation journey and how do you see the future opportunities? iValue focus area of Data, Network and Application management (DNA of most business) is becoming increasingly relevant

Krishna Raj Sharma CEO iValue InfoSolutions

I am grateful to have partnered with everyone who has contributed to all the immense milestones iValue has been able to achieve in the last decade and I am confident about achieving our goals with the backing of an impeccable “Team Unstoppable”

in the Digital transformation journey of any Customer across SMAC & IoT areas. Having engaged closely 2000+ CXO’s in addressing their business and IT challenge, the team has built tremendous expertise, engagement and equity across customer, partner and OEM eco system. Digital drive of Government and DX initiative of most corporate hence has most relevance to iValue business which should help us accelerate our growth further in the next 5 years.

What will change and what will remain same in iValue in KRS era?

We are at an imperative juncture in our industry and I am extremely excited about working with a great team. There will be few changes in roles to bring in better alignment towards our Go To Market strategies, new initiatives around our vertical focused approach.

With a strong foundation and great growth track record, we will push for faster, higher and stronger momentum moving forward.

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Iris Computers makes its comeback as a Responsive Partner Iris Computers not only wants to become a responsive distributor but also wants to help partners in closing deals and execute orders seamlessly -

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fter regaining his position in Iris Computers, Sanjiv Krishen, Chairman of the company is all set to position the company with an extra edge among the partners and customers by fulfilling their demands. He is aiming to make Iris a more responsive distributor when it comes to business and walk an extra mile to fulfill the wishes of the customers so that they keep coming back to Iris Computers for their IT requirements.

Importance of Channel for Iris Computers…

Channel community is always important for any distributor and the same goes with Iris Computers as well. Iris wants to be a responsive distributor by not just offering box but also wants to help partners to close deals and execute orders too.

“We want our partners to place their orders on us and we will help them procure the material and supply to them. We will fund it also. For example, a big order had come from Jharkhand, so we actually took a warehouse for one month just to execute the order. 41,000 tablets were ordered for the project. No other distributor will take a warehouse to fulfill a single order, but we did that. The dealer asked for help to store the delivery as he cannot take this delivery at one go and we appreciated that because no dealer has a warehouse to store 41000 tablets. It’s a massive number,” asserts Sanjiv Krishen, Chairman – Iris Computers.

Channel enablement…

When it comes to channel enablement programs which are conducted by the vendors, Iris plays a role to encourage its partners to attend the trainings. It has however become difficult to make partners attend these training sessions.

“The function of educating and training is always left to the OEM vendor. Training programs are organized by principal vendors like HP, Dell.

They have training programs for all the partners across the country. Now a lot of training programs are becoming web based. It’s a challenge to get them attend these. So we encourage the partners to attend these programs and we try and get them learn more about the products. Whenever we meet them we also try to educate them about the product range which is available,” says Sanjiv.

Iris also enables its channel by providing financial support and round the clock help.

“We have partner programs that will encourage them to sell in small cities. Suppose we have some stock and we want to liquidate it and the dealer will ask for a better price to sell it, we will support them with that additional price. That is how we encourage our partners to promote our products. However, the ability for us to give out discounts is very little.

It has to be supported by the vendors but we can help them provide the material on credit. We try to help our partners round the clock. So that is how we can help the partners to become more profitable and help them to grow their business,” explains Sanjiv.

Opportunities in the market…

Iris finds huge opportunities in India market especially in two key areas – education and government. The company has bagged a few prestigious

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Sanjiv Krishen Chairman Iris Computers

Message to Partners: We are back, we want to be of help and we can do business jointly, profitably and painlessly. orders like Kendriya Vidayalaya, Naraina etc. The company also took efforts to provide customized products which will help it to retain its customers and also differentiate it from its competitors.

“A lot of opportunities are coming up in India. Specifically the two areas which are growing are education and government. These are the two big opportunities and we are gearing up to supply. For example, we have bagged an order of Kendriya Vidayalaya in the education system, for which we are delivering HP desktops. They are setting up language labs and each lab has 25 computers.

We have also bagged an order from Naraina, an educational institution popular in South India. They train students to appear for competitive examinations. They have offices in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and many other places. So they wanted to provide tailor made tablets to their students with different educational software, student’s name and roll number. We fulfilled their wishes.

This is how we want to do little extra so that a partner comes to us.

Today a partner has a choice to go to any distributor but we want them to come to us,” discuses Sanjiv.

Sanjiv also sees huge potential in the newly emerging start-up and SME segment. He adds, “Another opportunity is the emergence of the startups and the mid market, which is helping channel to grow. Today high growth is coming from SME. So anyone who gears up for SME, the future is bright.

It is a huge potential segment. We are promoting and explaining products to them. We are also encouraging dealers to explore the mid segment.” n Aparna Mullick aparna@varindia.com

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January 2018

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Channel Chief

The newly carved Hitachi Vantara to drive industry transformations While speaking to VARINDIA, Raghuram Krishnan, Director of Partners and Alliances, Hitachi Vantara India reflects on how the new and enhanced portfolio is boosting up the confidence of its partners while also emphasizing on why channel involvement in doing business in today’s marketplace is so important When Hitachi Vantara was launched in September 2017, the aim was to leverage the broad portfolio it offers as a company, which includes innovation, experience and development from across Hitachi Group companies. By unifying the operations of Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group, and Pentaho into a single entity, Hitachi Vantara today capitalises on a century worth of OT expertise combined with more than 50 years of IT experience.

“We strongly believe that we can bring value to our customers through our partner network. In return, market opportunities and transitions can be successfully executed by expanding channels that reach customers. By bringing our data-driven solutions and services to the market, Hitachi Vantara has continued to help customers achieve tangible outcomes that positively drive business and society forward,” says Raghuram Krishnan, Director of Partners and Alliances, Hitachi Vantara India.

Channel plans for Hitachi Vantara…

Hitachi Vantara in India is largely an indirect sales organization, and this reflects its confidence and trust in its partner ecosystem and the value that they bring to their customers. It also strongly believes that valueaddition is most successful when it is bi-directional. With its new and current portfolio, the company brings value to its partners by helping them scale up the value chain with their customers, by addressing their core business issues. Recently, it has also made variations to its go-to market and channel strategies for its India partners.

As an important extension of its team, Hitachi Vantara’s partners help its customers meet IT demands and achieve business objectives with its innovative solutions. Hitachi Vantara’s partners are now grouped into 3 pillars - transformational partners, strategic partners and growth partners. This helps to focus its efforts on enabling its digital integrators to create innovative solutions and services that cater to existing as well as new markets.

With an aim to collaborate with highly focussed partners and provide integrated solutions to customers, Hitachi Vantara has launched a new collaborative channel program with a select few partners. They would be managed directly by Hitachi Vantara, giving them access and benefits, comparable and in most cases better than industry standards. “We are working on a reverse engineering model where we will be exploring to do more with less, thereby giving enough market opportunities to our partners to address and grow their business. The key differentiator would be Hitachi Vantara’s innovative models of selling to customers via these focussed partners. This is extremely disruptive, and we are confident we will transform the way customers buy from our partners. We want to collaborate with our partners to penetrate newer markets and improve our reach,” explains Raghu.

Hitachi Vantara is also actively investing in building a capacity and capability matrix which will help the company in achieving its vision of a self-reliant, value selling profitable ecosystem of partners capable of addressing the requirements of every segment of the market. Its new and enhanced channel framework will now help partners collaborate and help create more value for their customers.

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“We are all aware that disruptive technologies are resulting into industries undergoing massive transformation. Customers are no longer interested in buying products, and they are willing to put the money in technologies that define and enable business outcomes. This transformation at the customer end is forcing the OEMs and Partners to transform the way they sell in the marketplace. Anyone who does not make this shift soon will become a dinosaur.”

“With the pace at which digital technologies are disrupting the industry, business leaders are investing in different business models to meet the current requirements of the industry. One of our unique propositions is the adoption of value co-creation approach with our partners with a single objective of helping our customers in their journey of Digital Transformation. As a company, we have a comprehensive portfolio of co-creation capabilities and proven methodologies with our established collaboration processes,” says Raghu.

Finally…

The marketplace opportunities for data management and infrastructure are massive. This includes customers from banking, telecom, manufacturing, ITeS, healthcare and government sectors. Given the recent impacts that advancements in technologies like IoT, cloud computing, data analytics, connected intelligence and storage are undergoing, it will become increasingly important for companies to expand their channel to reach target customers and create a partner ecosystem that is relevant.

In addition, Hitachi Vantara believes that the channel must adapt their ways to leverage market gaps and address these opportunities to enhance customer experience, become more cost-efficient, and decrease the go-to market time. Skilling up and Skilling out is the new mantra for channel success. n

www.varindia.com

January 2018

15

ROUND ABOUT

Are Japanese and Chinese Companies riding roughshod over US IT Behemoths in India?

One thought has been coming to me time and time again concerning American investments to India. I believe that the relationship between the two countries should incrementally go up with every passing year.

I still remember that in the initial stages of liberalization, hardly a day went by without a mention about some new investments coming into India from the US – be it in IT, telecom, biotech, aerospace, or defense.

The US was the largest trading and investment partner of India and it continued for quite some time.

I want to dwell on lacklustre economic engagement between India and the US. First, I believe the current trend is not in the interest of both countries, which have a long history of working together in the economic fields, even when the political and diplomatic affinity was not very conducive. Yet, it did not deter both countries to work together in strategically important avenues to further the economic interests of both countries. Why there is a blip now?

The other argument is that since the US is the only country that has come out of financial meltdown blues, there is a groundswell of opportunities awaiting investors there. American companies are now looking more inwards to reap the opportunities. Investing abroad, they feel, is a bit risky – and not that rewarding. The recent significant tax cuts announced by the Trump Administration, particularly corporate tax cuts, are aimed at attracting more investments. Coupled with Trump’s America First or Buy America, the tax cuts can and will make a difference and are attracting more investments into the US. The other reason for the US developing cold feet on India is seemingly a reaction to some of the unsavoury decisions India had taken recently. This includes a cap on the prices of some of the lifesaving medical devices like stents and various stands taken by India, particularly relating to compulsory licensing of patents of certain highpriced medicines, which did not go well with the US companies.

India’s trade with the US is miniscule compared with China, Japan and even Russia. Even with China, despite acrimonious relations at times, the US maintains a good trading relation. The only explanation which can be offered is that India still has to emerge as an equal partner in our commercial relations with the US. In the latest security perceptions and tasks ahead published by the US, China and Russia are categorized as competing nations and India as a global ally in the making. It may be a charitable reference to India, but clearly indicates that India is not treated with the same seriousness and awe as they treat China or Russia.

A few countries have gained access to India in the midst of cold feet developed by the US. On top of this list are Japan and China. Look at the footprints these countries have made in the recent times. We see that Softbank and Alibaba are making inroads into Indian economic landscape. The Japan-based Softbank is picking up stakes in Indian companies, particularly in the e-commerce, digital payment, and taxi aggregating segments. Flipkart, Paytm and Ola are some of the entities which received handsome investments from Softbank. In the same way, the Chinese digital companies such as Alibaba and Tencents are gobbling up stakes in many Indian companies operating in sectors like logistics, manufacturing and even e-commerce.

Softbank and Alibaba are not limiting their operations to India alone. The recent buyout of stakes in Uber, the taxi aggregator based in the US, by Softbank has made big news. Now the taxi aggregator space in India is exclusively with Softbank, having bought the stakes in India’s own taxi aggregator, Ola. Softbank has also invested heavily in the Chinese digital platform, Alibaba, another entity investing heavily in India. Softbank’s controlling shares in the Flipkart, Paytm and Snapdeal are well known. Now, the fight in the India’s e-commerce space is between Softbank and the American behemoth, Amazon.

The interest of the Japanese and Chinese in the e-commerce space is rather intriguing. Only Amazon India is reported to be making profits and the rest are in deep red. Also, e-commerce space is not growing in

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India, as was expected. Still Softbank and Alibaba are gung-ho about India’s e-commerce space.

One possible reason for the larger exposure of the Japanese and Chinese companies in the e-commerce and internet platforms is India’s growing mobile penetration. The internet penetration will catch up phenomenally in the coming years, thanks to India’s digital push. Also, they expect that the restrictive policies on e-commerce and digital payment platforms will eventually end.

So why is the sudden interest of the Japanese and Chinese in the Indian landscape? I have a few explanations.

The first is the importance of India as the reservoir of soft skills like proficiency in English, flexibility in adapting to cross-country mannerisms and cultural mores. Internet makes distance neutral. For e-commerce and taxi aggregators, artificial intelligence can help in automating a lot of things. But there are certain critical services which people with good mix of soft skill, can only undertake. In India, one can find a pool of such talented people. Not very long ago, India had the maximum number of call centres catering to the customer relations in most of the English-speaking countries.

Secondly, India’s potential in IT is much more than that of Japan and China. Japan has the technical manpower, but the domestic e-commerce market is limited due to its small population and that too is ageing.

China has a large population but is more focussed on manufacturing.

Thirdly, India has a better rapport with the West than China or, for that matter Japan, partly due to English advantage. It has never been seen as a competitor to the West and that way, the people in the West may feel more comfortable in dealing with the Indians. Last but not the least, India’s young population is an important catchment for the e-commerce and internet companies. The future potential of the internet is also a deciding factor. In India, a host of sectors which are are going to be digitally connected in the coming years generate a lot of business opportunities. The Japanese and Chinese companies are there to take advantage of the groundswell of business opportunities that are evolving.

I only wish the US takes cognizance of these emerging opportunities riding back on the unprecedented political and economic affinity between the two countries nurtured over the years. n

www.varindia.com

January 2018

17

HOT BYTES

HPE to display smart city solutions at its Gurugram CEC

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ewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) India has announced the launch of a Customer Experience Center (CEC) in Gurugram to showcase and demonstrate IoT-based smart city solutions.

The facility will feature a wide-range of innovative offerings for smart city projects from HPE, and powered by Intel architecture.

By launching this CEC, HPE will enable partners and customers to

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experience cutting-edge technologies first hand that can help in the seamless development of smart city projects across the country.

Transsion Holdings unveils smart accessory brand in India

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ranssion Group has recently launched Oraimo, its smart accessory brand in India. In line with its brand philosophy “Keep Exploring”, the launch is aimed to help young Indians explore through a large variety of cool, trendy, and smart accessories to add more excitement to their lives.

Guoli Liu, GM of Oraimo, Transsion Holdings, said, “The growing mobile/ smartphone adoption and digital penetration in India

is led largely by younger consumers across multiple geographies.

These consumers are always on the lookout for more, evolved offerings, which is why we have decided to further enhance their mobile phone ownership experience with Oraimo, our mobile accessory brand.

Oraimo products are already extremely popular in several international markets, thanks to their creative and trendy style, functionality, user-friendliness and convenience."

Reliance Jio may acquire wireless infrastructure assets from RCOM

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eliance Jio Infocomm Limited (“RJIL”) has signed a definitive agreement for the acquisition of specified assets of Reliance Communications L i m i t e d (“RCOM”) and its affiliates.

T h e acquisition is subject to receipt of requisite approvals from the Governmental and regulatory authorities, consents from all lenders, release of all encumbrances on the said assets and other conditions precedent. The consideration is payable on completion and is subject

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January 2018

Infosys SKAVA unites with Cloud28+ programme

to adjustments as specified in the agreement.

Consequent on the agreement, RJIL or its nominees will acquire assets under four categories – Towers, OpticFiber Cable Network (“OFC”), Spectrum and Media Converg ence Nodes (“MCN”) from RCOM and its affiliates. These assets are strategic in nature and are expected to contribute significantly to the largescale rollout of wireless and Fiber to Home and Enterprise services by RJIL.

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nfosys has announced its membership as a technology partner in the HPE-driven Cloud28+ community and digital platform. By leveraging the Cloud28+ community’s vast network of service providers, Skava aims to expand its market presence in countries where business and regulatory considerations call for private and hybrid cloud deployments working with local partners.

Cloud28+ helps cloud service providers and independent software vendors form new alliances with each other and enduser customers, and offers services via a vast catalog of thousands of IaaS, Software-as-a-Service, and PaaS.

Kaira Global ventures into IT distribution in India

K

aira Global has entered the Indian IT distribution market.

With more than 13 years of expertise in IT supply chain, spread across six countries, "Regular availability of stocks across a broad range of consumer and corporate products, efficiency in logistics, and value-added services for our channel and retail partners, has given us a unique position in IT supply chains of the countries we operate in.

The IT distribution market in India has consolidated and GST implementation has opened up tremendous opportunities for us to scale up operations. We will start with a focus on retail products, adapting, learning and improvising as we expand our teams as well as our reach," said Manoj Attal, Director, Kaira Global.

IIIT-Hyderabad joins forces with Honeywell

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IIT-Hyderabad has signed an MOU with Honeywell Technology Solutions Lab (HTS), the technology development and engineering arm of Honeywell, to work on a series of joint collaborative projects.

This is part of IIIT-H’s initiative to productivize research that’s relevant and useful to society at large.

The project will be in the field of computer vision, image processing and analytics, helping industrial customers drive higher productivity,

P.J. Narayanan, Director, IIIT-Hyderabad, said, “IIIT-Hyderabad is looking forward to collaborating with Honeywell, a Fortune 100 company with strong expertise in multiple engineering areas. IIITHyderabad believes strongly in applied research and this is a great opportunity for us to take our research from lab to land.”

Ramco Systems wins order from Jet East Corporate Aviation

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amco Systems has won an order from Jet East Corporate Aviation to implement Ramco Aviation Suite V5.8.

In addition to the Aviation modules, Jet East will also implement Ramco’s complete Finance, HR & Payroll offering to get an integrated view of its business operations.

Jet East was looking for a solution to move its paper-based manual operations to a completely automated, mobile-ready platform which can capture all processes in real time. Built from the

ground up for the aviation industry, Ramco Aviation Suite fit the needs perfectly by offering an integrated suite that will bring Jet East’s Engineering & CAMO, Maintenance, Materials Management, Quality & Safety, and MRO Sales, including HCM, Payroll and Finance under a single platform.

Bundled with innovative features like Mobility and HUBs, Ramco’s offering aims at automating manual processes, thereby increasing productivity and optimizing aircraft turnaround time (TAT).

Avaya concludes Edge World Tour partner event in Mumbai

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vaya has concluded its premier channel partner event – Avaya Edge World Tour in December,

and discuss strategy moving forward.

The company executives explored how Avaya and

2017 in Mumbai. The event which saw participation from more than 180 channel partners across the country was organized to reward the top-performing regional ecosystem partners, training

its industry partners can design enhanced customer experience solutions that go beyond the digital experience, namely through the application of AI, Blockchain and IoT.

www.varindia.com

January 2018

19

HOT BYTES

PayTren inks contract with Alcatel-Lucent

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T Veritra Sentosa Internasional has signed a contract with ALE, which is operating under the

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise brand, to implement the cloud-based Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow communication and collaboration platform.

This partnership will enable

PayTren to create more positive interactions for its 1.7 million customers using digital tools.

Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow is a hybrid cloud solution which provides highly functional communication and collaboration services including instant messaging, rich presence voice and video services, and document sharing applications, as well as multi-party, multimedia conferencing capabilities.

Rainbow is also an open Communications Platformas-a-Service (CPaaS) based on industry standards.

BlackBerry and Baidu to deploy autonomous vehicle technology

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lackBerry and Baidu` have announced that the two companies will collaborate to accelerate the deployment of connected and autonomous vehicle technology for automotive OEMs and suppliers worldwide.

The companies have signed a statement of intent to make BlackBerry QNX’s industry-leading ISO26262 ASIL-D certified safety

operating system (OS) the foundation for Baidu’s Apollo autonomous driving open platform.

Also, BlackBerry and Baidu will work together to integrate Baidu’s CarLife, the leading smartphone integration software for connected cars in China, as well as its conversational AI system DuerOS, and highdefinition maps to run on the BlackBerry QNX Car (Infotainment) Platform.

HP Inc. selects Imaginarium and Adroitec as resellers

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P Inc. has announced the commercial availability of its award-winning Multi Jet Fusion 3D Printing solution in India.

It has also announced Imaginarium and Adroitec as resellers of its 3D printing solution in the country.

HP Inc.’s Multi Jet Fusion 3D Printing solution is a productionready commercial 3D printing system that delivers superior-quality physical parts up to 10 times faster and at half the

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January 2018

cost of current 3D printing systems.

“We believe that digital transformation of manufacturing will be a key enabler of the next Industrial Revolution,” said Sumeer Chandra, Managing Director, HP Inc. India.

He further added, “3D Printing will contribute to democratizing manufacturing and transforming industries, including the $6 trillion Asia-Pacific and Japan manufacturing segment.

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VIVOTEK forges alliance with Trend Micro

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IVOTEK and Trend Micro have entered into a strategic partnership to offer cyberdefense solutions.

Dr Steve Ma, VP VIVOTEK Brand Business Research & Development Division, commented, “Our approach requires a tight integration between hardware-based security features and software applications.

Joining Trend Micro is a vital step and together, we are proud to roll out the first cybersecurity-enhanced network cameras in the IP surveillance industry.

Thanks to Trend Micro IoT Security for Surveillance Cameras (TMIS-CAM) solution, these cameras are able to automatically detect and prevent credential attack and block suspicious events."

Barracuda takes over PhishLine

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arracuda Networks has acquired PhishLine, combining Barracuda’s AI-driven protection against phishing and spear phishing with PhishLine’s platform gives customers comprehensive defense against email-borne targeted attacks and social engineering.

“Security awareness training is an important and quickly evolving area, particularly with increasingly targeted attacks making the human element a critical link in the security value chain,” said BJ Jenkins, President & CEO, Barracuda. “PhishLine has a culture of developing innovative email protection solutions, including social engineering and data analysis offerings. Combining the power of the Barracuda security technologies with PhishLine’s capabilities gives us the opportunity to deliver integrated, adaptive security training aimed at preventing email security threats.”

ISODA TechSummit 8 to be held from 1st – 4th Feb 2018 ‘TIPPING POINT – Breaching the Finance barrier’that’s the theme for the marquee Infotech Software Dealers Association (ISODA) event called TechSummit to be held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia between the1st and 4thof February, 2018.

In the build up to the exciting event, the ISODA community has been working tirelessly to onboard technology sponsors, create an interesting agenda, maximize participation and create a buzz around the event.

Atul Modi – Chairman of ISODA TechSummit 8 says, “This year’s TechSummit promises

to be a mega networking opportunity for the many new sponsors and returning sponsors. We have arrived at the theme after long deliberations amongst partners and vendors. Financial planning, execution and profitability are in the thoughts of all members and how to work towards minimizing losses and maximizing finance is a very interesting topic.

Added to that, a lot of the new ISODA members will be joining us at Kuala Lumpur."

Capgemini, along with PTC, opens CoE in Mumbai

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apgemini and PTC have opened a Center of Excellence (CoE) located at Capgemini’s office in Mumbai. According to the company, the facility is designed as a working CoE where Capgemini will build and showcase cuttingedge industrial solutions to help customers around the world improve the way they design, manufacture, sell, operate, and service smart connected products.

“This Center of

Excellence, along with PTC, is a part of our commitment to build solutions for our customers’ needs driven by connected devices. It will also serve as a center that consolidates our global best practices and will showcase the transformations we are enabling with the ThingWorx Industrial Innovation Platform,” said Sanjay Salunkhe, Global Head – Product and Engineering Services, Capgemini.

IL&FS Technologies bags surveillance project worth Rs.200 crore

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L&FS Technologies Ltd (ITL) has been recently awarded the rate contract for Surveillance Project of Rs.200 crore from a large state government. ITL will conduct survey, design and establish the live feed from the various field devices installed in the cities across the state and integrate with the environment in the CCC (Command Control Center) to enable the various State Agencies to carry out the coordinated response plans

effectively.

Durga Prasad, CEO, IL&FS Technologies Limited, said, “We are privileged to be a partner with the State Government to be part of their ongoing smart city initiatives with the objective to enhance the safety and security of the residents."

HPE ProLiant Gen 10 Servers

The New Generation Compute Experience From HPE

1U 2P Rack/ HPE DL360 Gen10 4110 1P 16G 8SFF Svr/ 1 x HPE DL 360 Gen10 Intel® Xeon-Silver 4110 (2.1GHz/8-core/85W)/ HPE 16 GB (1x16GB) Dual Rank x8 DDR4-2666 CAS-19-19-19 Registered Memory Kit / 8 Open Bay/ HPE Smart Array P408i-a SR Gen 10/ No Optical Drive/ 1 x HPE 500W Flex Slot Platinum Hot Plug Low Halogen Power Supply Kit/ HPE iLO Standard with Intelligent Provisioning/ 3 Yrs. NBD Support

2U 2P Rack / HPE DL380 Gen10 4110 1P 32G 12LFF Svr/ 1 x HPE DL 380 Gen10 Intel® Xeon -Silver 4110 (2.1GHz/ 8-core/85W)/ HPE 32GB (2x16GB) Dual Rank x8 DDR4 - 2666 CAS 19-19-19 Registered Memory Kit 12 LFF Open Bay/ HPE Smart Array P816i-a SR Gen10 No Optical Drive / 2x 800W HPE FlexSlot power supply HPE iiLO Standard with IP / 3 Yrs. NBD Support

2U 2P Rack/ HPE DL380 Gen10 3106 1P 16G 8SFF Svr/ 1 x HPE DL380 Gen10 Intel® Xeon - Bronze 3106 (1.7GHz /8-core/85W)/ HPE 16GB (1x16GB) Dual Rank x8 DDR4-2666 CAS-19-19-19 Registered Memory Kit/ 8 SFF Open Bay / HPE Smart Array S100i SR Gen10 SW RAID No Optical Drive / 1 x HPE 500W Flex Slot Platinum Hot Plug Low Halogen Power Supply Kit / HPE iLO Standard with Intelligent Provisioning/ 3 Yrs. NBD Support *Taxes Extra

Awarded Best LSD Partner For North in Financial Year 17-18

www.varindia.com

January 2018

21

ON THE RAMP

BenQ brings Dustproof Projectors to combat air pollution

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enQ has announced two new dustproof projectors – DX808ST and MW864UST in India.

According to the company, the air pollution level in Indian metropolises has reached an alarming rate.

More than 1,800 municipal schools in Delhi have suspended classes in the last six months, with the level of PM 10 particle density in New Delhi reaching 844 microgram, far higher than the standard air quality.

“With the receding air quality in India, schools have been increasingly starting to implement smart

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solutions when it comes to imparting education. BenQ has been at the forefront by providing interactive learning solutions with proper dustproof mechanisms which protect the health of faculty and students while creating a new learning experience for the students,” said Rajeev Singh, Managing Director, BenQ India.

Businesses to have direct access to IBM Cloud via BT Network

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T has announced the launch of a new service to provide global businesses with direct access to IBM Cloud via the BT network. BT Cloud Connect Direct for IBM offers businesses the benefits of highly predictable, securityrich and reliable network performance when building and deploying critical business applications and data on the IBM Cloud.

Cloud Connect Direct for IBM is being delivered

into IBM Cloud data centers in the UK via IBM Cloud Direct Link, a network service designed to secure and accelerate data transfer between private infrastructure and the public cloud. This will be followed in the coming months with direct connectivity into IBM Cloud data centers in mainland Europe, the US, Australia and Asia, optimizing performance and compliance for customers in those regions.

Quantum launches Xcellis Scale-out NAS

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uantum has announced Xcellis Scale-out NAS, the workflow storage appliance to provide the management capabilities and robust features of

an end-to-end solution can cost as little as 1/10 that of alternative enterprise NAS solutions with the same capacity and performance.

Data in high-value workload environments is

enterprise scale-out NAS with the cost-effective scaling organizations need to address modern data growth. It delivers greater than 3X the performance of competitive enterprise NAS offerings and, with integrated storage tiering,

constantly growing on every axis – ingest, processing, analysis, distribution, archive. These environments require storage solutions with the features of enterprise NAS, but which can cost-effectively scale performance and capacity.

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January 2018

Facebook Matrix rolls out COSEC Facial launches tools to Recognition technology atrix has unveiled prevent online M its indigenously designed COSEC Facial harassment Recognition – a Biometric

www.varindia.com

acebook has introduced new tools to prevent harassment on its platform and in chat app Messenger as a part of its ongoing efforts to build a safe community.

Facebook has already prohibited bullying and harassment on Facebook, and people can let them know when they see something concerning or have a bad experience. It also review reports and take actions on abuse, like removing content, disabling accounts, and limiting certain features like commenting for people who have violated their Community Standards.

These new features give people additional ways to manage their experience on Facebook.

L&T 3 LTTS solutions to boost Digital Industrial Transformation

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&T Technology Services has announced worldwide general availability (G.A), launch and goto-market of 3 LTTS flagship solutions that will focus on driving Digital Industrial Transformation on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The two companies will further consolidate their existing global alliance by setting up a joint Digital Industrial Transformation Applied Innovation Centre for shared enterprise customers.

The proposed Applied Innovation Centre will include live Digital Industrial Use-Cases from their Enterprise customers and academia partners, in addition to LTTS and Microsoft.

User Identification based on innovative, deep learning technology, which evolves as per regular user interaction in different conditions. It identifies a user quickly and accurately with 1:1 or 1:N identification method. The technology checks liveness of a face with 99.53% accuracy.

With contactless authentication, Matrix COSEC Facial Recognition technology reads the user’s

face through COSEC APTA application. It ensures contactless authentication and identifies user’s face in <1 Sec. It eradicates the issues of identifying varying height of user(s) as the user needs to capture the image of their face in a smartphone for authentication process.

Tally introduces “Tally Xcelerator for SMEs”

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ally Solutions has launched a new program called Tally Xcelerator (TX) to offer consultancy services to small and medium businesses, with an aim to empower SMEs and facilitate their growth.

Under this program, Tally appointed partners called Tally Xcelerators will extend business advisory services playing the role of a coach, mentor and trainer to all of Tally’s partners and small businesses across the country. The program aims to help SMEs realize their trade and investment

opportunities and become competitive in both the domestic and global market.

Joyce Ray, India Business Head, Tally Solutions, said, “We have been working very closely with more than one million SMEs for over three decades and understand their growth opportunities and challenge areas. Over a period of time, we have figured that there is a considerable dearth of initiatives taken to support the small businesses in our country in terms of their growth and development."

Bitdefender unveils “Family Pack Total Security 2018” solution

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itdefender has launched its Family Pack Total Security 2018’– Complete S e c u r i t y Solutions to keep users family safe across platforms and devices in today’s digital world. The Family pack secures all Windows, MAC, OS, Android, IOS, etc and can be used on up to 25 devices.

The solution keeps users’ digital safety as the priority across the devices.

The software with its Multi-Layer Ransomware protection uses behavioural threat detection to prevent infections, and protects the most important documents from ransomware encryption. The software enables continuous updates and accelerates the introduction of new features and simplify updating, upgrading and installing Bitdefender security.

www.varindia.com

January 2018

23

ON THE RAMP

Gemalto rolls out biometric sensor payment card

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emalto has been selected by Bank of Cyprus to supply the world's first EMV biometric dual interface payment card for both chip and contactless payments. Using fingerprint recognition instead of a PIN code to authenticate the cardholder, the card is compatible with existing payment terminals already installed in the country. When customers place their fingerprint on the sensor, a comparison is performed between the scanned fingerprint and the reference biometric data

securely stored in the card.

"Bank of Cyprus customers will be first in the world to enjoy biometric convenience on a contactless payment card.

Gemalto's biometric sensor payment card is designed to provide maximum security and data privacy,” said Bertrand Knopf, Gemalto's Executive Vice- President, Banking and Payment.

DBS brings Ultra LOLA and SLA on Wireline Voice for SMEs

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ata Docomo Business Services (TDBS) has launched two offering – Ultra Low Latency (LOLA) solution for institutional stock trading firms, and Service Level Agreement on Wireline Voice Services for SMEs. TDBS will provide these innovative offerings, designed to deliver seamless network access, better operational efficiency, enhanced customer experience, and effective management of assets and workforce.

Prateek Pashine, President – Enterprise Business, TDBS, said, “Telecom services are becoming core to businesses today for them to connect more effectively with their customers, manage their operations and manage assets and workforce.

Superior ways to connect with customers, better response times to market triggers and availability of connectivity often distinguishes the winners from the also-ran in various industries today.”

Canon adds new ink tank printers to PIXMA G Series

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anon India has launched six new models, namely G 1010, G 2010, G 2012, G 3010, G 3012, and G 4010, under its popular PIXMA G series. The new G Series printers will be available in the price range of Rs.8,195/- to Rs.17,425/-.

P I X M A G-series printers feature a frontfacing, built-in refillable ink tank system, by making it convenient to monitor ink levels and refill when required. Paired with the ink bottle's spill-

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January 2018

resistant tops, the system is designed to provide seamless and clean usability at home and office.

The new printers are engineered to achieve

high-resolution images with incredible photoquality resulting in vibrant photographs and sharp text documents.

www.varindia.com

KaiOS announces Axis introduces cost-effective its presence in thermal cameras i s Indian market AxCommunications

Kai Technologies has announced its successful launch and growing presence in the Indian market. The KaiOS mobile operating system (KaiOS) powers the JioPhone, a revolutionary smartphone offered by Reliance Retail Limited, which is now available for purchase.

This launch makes KaiOS accessible to millions of new users in India, after successful launches in the U.S. and Canada through partnerships with Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile.

KaiOS combines the powerful capabilities of a smartphone with the affordability of a basic handset. KaiOS originates from the Firefox OS opensource project started in 2011, and has continued independently from Mozilla since 2016.

Mphasis announces Blockchainenabled digital solutions

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phasis has recently announced Blockchain-enabled digital solutions, wealthchain and chainsure for the BFSI vertical. These solutions enhance security, efficiency and governance through which these firms and their partners jointly create and deliver value to their customers.

Dinesh Venugopal, President, Mphasis Direct and Digital, said, “Financial services and insurance industries deal with enormous quantities of sensitive data. Adopting Blockchain solutions that will address privacy concerns, improve security measures and deliver valuable experiences to customers is vital. Blockchain is a critical technology that all enterprises should strategically leverage."

has launched thermal cameras to bring the benefits of thermal imaging to a broader range of customers and environments than ever before. The cost-effective cameras deliver thermal imaging capabilities to small and mid-size systems with budget limitations – such as schools, care environments and independent retailers– allowing for intrusion detection and incident identification, without compromising individuals’ identities.

The new AXIS P1280-E Thermal Network Camera is an indoor/outdoor camera with a flexible form factor that allows the thermal sensor unit to be placed in locations with limited space. AXIS P1290 Thermal Network Camera is an indoor camera protected in a dome casing for discretion.

Belkin introduces an array of wireless charging devices

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elkin has announced its 2018 portfolio of mobile power products, including wireless charging solutions for various use-case scenarios, USB-C power banks and fast-charging power delivery wall chargers.

Steve Malony, GM & VP, Belkin, said, “This year, we are taking our extensive knowledge of consumer trends, expected changes in charging behaviour, and experience building the best wireless charging and mobile power products to the next level. We expect to see a race to deliver wireless

charging products. Our focus remains on delivering a cohesive, seamless, convenient and optimal mobile power experience for the consumer – whether they are at home, at work, or on the go. We are confident that our continued focus on people-inspired design, user testing and prototyping processes, strict adherence to compliance and safety, manufacturing, and warranty programs will keep us in the number one position to provide the highest quality products to consumers around the world.”

DIGISOL releases 16 Port Gigabit Ethernet Desktop Version Switch DIGISOL Systems has launched the new Gigabit Ethernet unmanaged desktop version switch.

The DG-GS1016D-A offers 16 x 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet ports.

The switch uses store and forward packet switching technology which ensures reliable data transfer.

The switch also supports automatic MDI/MDI-X detection which eliminates the need of a cross over cables or dedicated uplink ports.

The DG-GS1016D-A Switch offers

16x10/100/1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet ports. This Switch also allows for autosensing and auto negotiation of highest available speed (10/100/1000 Mbps) and duplex mode, providing an automatic and flexible solution for the network. The devices connected to switch can be easily identified by LED indicators.

FACE TO FACE

Artificial Intelligence to have a big impact on the industry in 2018 Sunil Bhatia, CEO – Infogain in a chat with VARINDIA gives an account of what the company is into and the technologies that 2018 will ring in and the resultant effect it will have in times to come Infogain is an IT solutions and services company, established in 1990

by Kapil Nanda. The company has nearly 4,000 employees and 9 delivery centers globally. Its industry focus includes the native digital companies, traditional high-tech, retail, insurance, healthcare, and travel & hospitality verticals. Its vision is to be an integral partner in its client’s digital journey, helping them achieve their desired business results.

“Infogain acquired Blue Star Infotech in 2016, to expand its digital offerings, help provide a strong foothold in the T&H industry and enhance Infogain’s already-strong expertise in product engineering space.

In addition, the combined senior leadership team strengthened our consulting, enabling us to conduct new types of engagement such as our Zinnov-Infogain-led digital transformation workshops,” says Sunil Bhatia, CEO – Infogain.

He further says, “Infogain is aggressively investing in innovation around intelligent and automation technologies and we will partner with companies to acquire skill-sets in the niche digital technology space.”

Disruption is common in every business today and enterprises accordingly need to look to ways to keep pace with the changes.

The first step, according to Sunil is to develop approaches to increase an organization’s ability to sense changes in the marketplace. This can be as simple as setting up Google alerts on key technology trends such as RPA, or joining LinkedIn forums relevant to a specific industry.

Using the insights gained from the market, companies then need to set up structures for continuous innovation. Finding new ways to reach out and bring value to customers that leverage insights from the market is critical. This will require companies to become more agile and adaptive, innovating new products and services while also re-inventing existing offerings.

“Partnering with niche players and competitors to build an ecosystem for delivering digital solutions is another extremely valuable approach for keeping pace with changes in the market. Much of the market disruption we are seeing is coming from startups.These companies are introducing new concepts and often are open to partnering for joint success,” asserts Sunil.

Automation & AI – Trend-setters for 2018…

Technology is ever evolving. AI and Machine Learning are advancements in technology, bringing in operational efficiency, cost savings, better customer experiences and increasing sales and productivity.

The bottom line remains the same – cloud is empowering users to save huge data and computational intelligence is allowing one to solve real world complex problems with the data whether by automating routine tasks or recommendating the right products. Robotic Process Automation helps fasten the process and bring in precision. Similarly, a bot can provide24x7 assistance to customers, responding to queriers and assisting customers.

Predictive Analytics is suggesting impending manintainence of a machine at your manufacturing unit.

“Automation and Articfial Intelligence will continue to dominate the IT industry and we will continue to see smart cities, smart machines and smart homes. Enterprises will continue to adapt, change and re-invent themselves with changing business models and disruptions,” explains Sunil.

The world is moving towards automation and cornification, and as an organization Infogain’s goal is to help clients stay ahead of the game in their digital transformation journey. “We are partnering with leading technology companies as well as niche players, in addition to coinnovating with our customers and investing in IPs and frameworks. We

Technologies that will have huge potential in the coming years • • • • • • • •

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Blockchain IOT Robotic Process Automation Intelligent Devices – Bots & Drones Customer Experience Predictive Analytics Cloud

are re-skilling our employees in order to keep them current on innovation and latest learnings.

We will continue focus on the following in coming years – a. Focusing on Automation and Intelligence b. Instill a culture of continuous learning within our staff c. Co-Innovation Model d. Consulting & Solution-led approach e. Build Partnerships,” says Sunil.

Focus for Infogain in 2018…

At Infogain, the key areas of focus will be Legacy Modernization and Digital Transformation areas of Knowledge Management, Machine Learning, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Solutions will remain its key areas of investment, while it will try to differinate itself by brining in automation and intelligence in all its offerings.

“Another strong area of differentiation is Infogain’s deep domain knowledge as well as technology expertise. For example, building up an AI/ ML use case requires not just knowledge of neural nets and algorithms, but also a deep appreciation of the business impact. While most service providers are focusing only on technology, Infogain’s solutions leaders bring in the much needed domain expertise critical for any digital engagement.

We listen to customers and their needs and provide expertise to fit their needs instead of trying to sell them what we want – we give them what THEY want and need,” sums up Sunil.

www.varindia.com

January 2018

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VOICE-N-DATA

Airtel expands its footprint in Gujarat

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harti Airtel has announced the readiness of 6,500 mobile broadband sites (4G+3G sites) across Gujarat, expanding the availability of high-speed data services to more than 7,250 towns and villages in the State. In the expansion process, Airtel has installed one new 4G site every 90 minutes in the past six months to cater to the surge in the high-speed internet needs of the users and to collaborate with the Government’s vision of Digital India.

K.C. Narendran, CEO –

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Gujarat, Bharti Airtel, said, “Keeping in mind the fastevolving usage habits of the new-age mobile internet user and the ever-increasing smartphone penetration, we are delighted to take our mobile-broadband capabilities to the next level with 6,500 sites, ably backed by strengthened and scaled up infrastructure.”

Telecom industry supports Kerala State Human Rights Commission's and ensure that tower order emissions are well within

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he Kerala State Human Rights Commission (KSHRC) has recently ordered reinstallation of a telecom tower near the premises of Sacred Heart UP (SHUP) School in Tripunithura against the school’s plea to remove it.

“We welcome the order by KHSRC based on strong legal and scientific grounds. Indian telecom players practise the highest standards of compliance

the safe limits defined by the Government of India,” said Rajan Mathews, Director General, COAI. The tower removal was erroneously ordered basis an old Government Order dated 1st January, 2015 without taking into consideration the subsequent G.O. dated 16th July, 2016, outlining the new rules of mobile tower installations near schools, colleges, hospitals, police stations and Anganavadies.

Cisco and Zain Group to help telecom operators’ IP/MPLS an increase of expectations network and workloads driven by

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ain Group and Cisco have successfully achieved a key milestone in expanding the telecommunications operators' IP/MPLS network with cuttingedge technologies, setting the groundwork for new opportunities and business models to be developed.

As a telecommunications operator serving over 45 million customers across eight countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Zain Group's network infrastructure faces

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January 2018

NI to extend Telecom industry not prepared support to for spectrum auction now: COAI ccording to advance Wi-Fi A news reports, telecom watchdog, and 5G Research the COAI (Cellular Operators’

the growth of devices and connections. The annual Cisco Visual Networking Index (Cisco VNI) forecast projects a 12-fold increase in the Middle East and Africa mobile data traffic from 2016 to 2021, a compound annual growth rate of 65 per cent.

Cisco's innovation around cloud-scale and automation will deliver next-generation network capabilities to Zain Group to enable simplification, scalability and open innovation that drive business results.

www.varindia.com

I has announced the MAC layer support for its LabVIEW Communications 802.11 Application Framework.

There are many challenges to address when working toward a more optimal delivery of joint Wi-Fi and 5G cellular services. One is the ability of 5G network slicing to seamlessly deliver end-toend orchestration across different radio access technologies.

Wireless researchers can pair the 802.11 Application Framework with NI software-defined radio hardware to rapidly conduct network-level, real-time, over-the-air prototyping experiments for a wide range of Wi-Fi and 5G MAC/PHY research.

Taashee Linux Services enters into partnership with OP5

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aashee Linux Services has struck a partnership deal with powerful monitoring solutions provider OP5. Controlling an IT environment with OP5 Monitor software will ensure that the corresponding network becomes increasingly responsive and more reliable with faster speeds guaranteed.

By choosing OP5 for Monitoring solutions, Taashee intends to turn the wasted hours of organizations into productive ones. With the possibility to monitor thousands of networks, the software tool offers one of the best Performance Monitoring tool available around. The additional features such as Network Performance Reporting will ensure that organizations take steps in improving their network availability.

Association of India) has requested the government not to conduct any spectrum auction till the market stabilizes. Ranjan Mathews, Director General, COAI, has said that the industry needs time to settle down before spending over spectrum. He added, the telecom operators will be requiring more spectrum soon, but if the exchequer re-auctions spectrum to earn revenues, the industry

cannot afford it before the latter part of 2018 or early 2019.

He also mentioned that at present telecom companies are expanding their 4G services, while consolidation in the industry has also entered the final phase.

D-Link launches McAfee Powered Wi-Fi Router – AC2600

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-Link and McAfee have announced the D-Link AC2600 WiFi Router powered by McAfee (DIR-2680), an all-in-one solution that automatically increases security for devices on the home network and delivers on both companies’ vision to address the pressing need for online security as people’s lives become increasingly connected. The comprehensive solution includes D-Link’s highperformance dual-band 802.11ac router with MUMIMO technology that enhances network capacity

and efficiency for users, McAfee Secure Home Platform that automatically protects all devices connected to the network, and the Intel Home Wi-Fi Chipset WAV500 Series to deliver robust Wi-Fi connectivity to numerous connected devices.

“We are on the forefront of preventing and fighting cybercrime as consumers need to feel safe and protected as cyber threats continues to rise,” said John Giamatteo, EVP, Consumer Business Group, McAfee.

NETGEAR expands its networking portfolio

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etgear has announced that it has set a new standard in flexibility for networking switches with the introduction of its industry-first 5-speed Multi-Gigabit switching products. The company said that all of the devices in business, small offices or homes can now run at their individual highest speeds as the intelligent ports on the switches automatically adapt to the optimal speed required on a per-port basis.

XS505M 5-Port 10Gig abit/Multi-Gig abit

Ethernet Unmanaged Switch with SFP+ Port is now available for Rs.28,000.

Other 10-Gigabit switches provide a standard 1-Gigabit connectivity to any device, but the new NETGEAR Multi-Gigabit Switches provide additional options for 2.5 and 5 Gbps if the device and cabling support it.

FACE TO FACE

‘APAC business owners are as aware of new technologies as their Western counterparts’ Deep Agarwal, Regional Sales Director – India, Zebra Technologies throws light on what actually is the Intelligent Enterprise Index and can a customer benefit from this index to call itself a truly intelligent company -

What is the intelligent enterprise index that Zebra has?

Zebra’s “Intelligent Enterprise” Index measures, to what extent companies today are meeting the criteria that define today’s Intelligent Enterprise. The criteria was identified by leading executives, industry experts and policy makers across different industries at the 2016 Strategic Innovation Symposium hosted by Zebra in collaboration with the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH).

The framework consists of technology solutions that integrate cloud computing, mobility, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to automatically ‘sense’ information from enterprise assets.

What makes any enterprise smarter than others?

According to Zebra’s Intelligent Enterprise survey, the most advanced companies have a clear vision of their IoT future, an understanding of the ROI and are investing currently to make it happen. These companies invest in technologies that drive their frontline operations, which in turn enable both new data insights and advanced applications that guide users to the “next best action”.

How can companies make the greatest use of their internal intelligence?

There has been an increasing focus on Big Data analytics to derive intelligence from company transactional data. While there are plenty of insights that can be gained here, this can also overlook the opportunities to leverage real-time operational data.

For a retailer, tracking sales and inventory are necessary to improve planning. But knowing in real-time when a shelf is empty and directing a worker to restock it has an immediate and significant financial impact. The most progressive companies Zebra works with look at their opportunity costs and workflow inefficiencies and consider how they could improve these by leveraging real-time data.

Why are organizations still resistant to embracing intelligent digital transformation?

Several studies have already confirmed that enterprises in Asia Pacific are leading the way in digital transformation planning. However, there are still many challenges in undertaking that journey. In order to tap into the power of intelligence, businesses will have to:

• Set priorities on what to invest in currently - customer acquisition, engagement, efficiency, information management, and analytics to name a few • Strategize and assess available and required resources • Determine the operational plan • Understand the required technological infrastructure to enable change • Conduct risk analysis of investment and long term benefits to capture future opportunities

How does APAC enterprises compare to global enterprises?

Only 2% of APAC companies are considered truly “intelligent”, scoring lower than their global counterparts (5%). These are the companies scoring more than 75 points on the Intelligent Enterprise index. That said, 51% of enterprises in APAC have achieved half of their “intelligent” potential, scoring above the global average (48%), according to the survey. These are the companies scoring between 50-75 points on the index.

Interestingly, we observe that there are only small differences between APAC and global numbers. This means APAC business owners are as aware of new technology as their Western counterparts, and are similarly seeking ways to ramp up their technology adoption.

Interesting findings – Some of the key findings from Zebra’s Intelligent Enterprise 2017 survey include • IoT vision is strong and investment set to increase - In APAC, 38 percent of companies spend more than $1 million toward IoT annually, and 80 percent expect that number to increase in the next one to two years. In fact, 67 percent of APAC companies expect their IoT investment to increase by 11 percent or more during this time. However, 39 percent of companies today have not executed on their IoT plans or do not have any plans at all. Although only 36 percent currently have company-wide deployment, it is expected that 65 percent will have it deployed company-wide in the future.

• Customer experience is driving IoT - Seventy-one percent of companies claim the largest driver of IoT investment is improving the customer experience. In the future, increasing revenue (54 percent) and expanding into new markets (53 percent) are expected to be the largest drivers.

• Business engagement is top of mind, but culture should be given more consideration - Eighty-one percent of companies have a method in place to measure ROI from their IoT plan, and 73 percent have IoT plans that address both the cultural and process changes necessary to implement it.

• Many companies lack an adoption plan - Fifty-four percent of companies expect resistance to adopt their IoT solution, yet don’t have a plan in place to address it. Only 27 percent who expect resistance have a plan to address it.

• Companies keep employees informed, but there is room for more - Approximately 83 percent of companies share information from their IoT solutions with their employees more than once a day, of which half of these employers share in real or near-real time. However, only 34 percent provide actionable information to all employees, and information is provided either via email (69 percent) or as raw data (67 percent).

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CHANNEL BUZZ

Toshiba delights its Storage Partners with a trip to Bali

BITA to organize ‘Technovative Show- 2018’ in January

nder the FTS scheme, Toshiba, along with Rashi Peripherals and Balaji Solutions, has offered 89 Storage Partners a trip to Bali, Indonesia.

As part of its Partner Engagement initiatives, Toshiba

aroda IT Association, popularly known as BITA is having its presence in Baroda since 1997. BITA is primarily a non-profit organization having strength of 260+ members.

BITA was formed with the primary aim to facilitate Information Technology in Trade & Commerce and encourage Technical advancement to BARODA region. BITA is committed to promote IT by organizing Seminars, IT Exhibitions, Technical Training programs, School & College based activities, IT Quiz, Competitions etc.

The association has been organizing the most popular IT exhibition in Vadodara – “BITA IT SHOW”, since past 17 years. This year it is organizing the “BITA Technovative Show” with the aim to invite different industries – Information Technology, IT consumables & peripherals, Software Solutions, Security & Surveillance, Cloud & Data

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Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation successfully concluded its flagship Foreign Trip Scheme (FTS) for partners. Under the scheme, Toshiba, along with Rashi Peripherals and Balaji Solutions, took 89 Storage partners an exotic trip to Bali, Indonesia.

According to the company, the FTS is a target-based scheme from Toshiba, where Storage partners get foreign junket for achieving

sales targets. This year, 89 partners from B- and C- class cities were taken to Bali to felicitate and celebrate their success. The scheme was based on two major product categories, namely External HDD and Surveillance HDD. The FTS provided a platform to all partners to engage and interact with the senior leadership of Toshiba, Rashi Peripherals and Balaji Solutions.

Partners were thrilled to enjoy the scenic beauty of the beautiful city Bali and enjoy their muchneeded break after year-long hectic business schedule. Commenting on the tour, one of the partners Jeyakumar, Proprietor of Maduraibased Easy Technologies, said, “It was a fabulous trip to Bali and it was a great experience to see the scenic beauty and culture of the nation. It was also a good platform to meet fellow partners and interact with the senior management of Toshiba and Rashi Peripherals.”

Unistal presents its partners with an opportunity to win a Thailand/Goa trip

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nistal’s Protegent antivirus comes with inbuilt proactive data recovery software.

Protegent is being used by endusers across India and abroad as well. Unistal has come up with amazing 2N/3D trip to Thailand or Goa on the purchase of Protegent products in the months of January – March 2018 (till 31st March).

1. Buy Protegent and enjoy Trip to Thailand Under the scheme, Reseller has to: o Buy Protegent Antivirus 10 user – 75 Boxes OR o Buy Protegent Total Security 10 user – 60 Boxes OR o Buy Protegent Complete Security 5 user – 50 Boxes OR o Earn 650 Points 2. Buy Protegent and enjoy Trip to Goa Under the scheme, Reseller has to: o Buy Protegent Antivirus 10

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January 2018

Rajib Banerjee National Sales Manager Unistal Systems user – 50 Boxes OR o Buy Protegent Total Security 10 user – 35 Boxes OR o Buy Protegent Complete Security 5 user – 28Boxes OR o Earn 400 Points 3. Earn 200 Points and Get Rs.4, 500/- Gift Voucher or American Tourister Travel Bag 4. Earn 100 Points and Get Rs.2, 000/- Gift Voucher or Espresso Coffee Maker

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Management, Internet on Things, Mobile & Telecommunication, Robotics, Smart Solutions & Automation, Gaming & VR, Consumer Electronics etc. The show will be held from 26th to 28th January 2018 for 3 days, at Akota

Stadium, Vadodara.

The other proposed activities/ events at the BITA Technovative Show 2018 are • E-waste Awareness campaign, collection at event venue.

• Training programs, seminars, Talk shows • Quiz, Competitions, student based events • Gaming Zone

Rashi Peripherals organizes Super Champions Meet in Mumbai

Rashi Peripherals has organized a Peripheral and Accessories Super Champions Meet in Mumbai. The event was aimed at educating Super Champions on the market insights into the memory, accessories and peripheral vertical and discuss business avenues in this rapidlygrowing business segment.

Themed as “Super Champions” the event brought about 75 key Champions from all over India and IT accessories and peripheral vendors on a common platform. Leading brands such as Logitech, Google Chromecast, S a n D i s k , Plantronics, Fitbit, and Belkin showcased their latest solutions and conducted in-depth product training sessions for Super Champions.

During the event, vendors showcased their solutions to Super Champions and also explained their product roadmap for FY 2018.

Apart from product training, there was also a discussion on topics like on-field support from vendors, partner relations and overall market positioning of the brands.

Rajesh Goenka, VP, Sales & Marketing, Rashi Peripherals, highlighted the company’s ambitious growth plans in the peripheral and

accessories space. “The message is pretty clear that we aspire to be the leader in this in the peripheral and accessories space. Today, we are partnered with almost all the world’s renowned brands and are growing at a consistent growth rate yoy."

FACE TO FACE

‘Channel is the security architecture for McAfee customers’ Girish Gargeshwari, Director - Sales for Commercial & SMB business, India, McAfee while giving a brief about the current security industry in India also recounts the channel eco-system that exists for McAfee today and how it stands as a pillar of strength in serving the ever-growing security needs of McAfee’s customers The ever evolving dynamics of the security landscape is providing McAfee with challenges as well as opportunities. This is further driving the security company to innovate and create solutions for both enterprises and consumers. Today, the fact remains that more and more organizations are accessing customer’s data and the risk of a cyber attack is more prevalent.

“In the recent times, we have witnessed a heightened increase in the awareness levels across enterprises and the same can be corroborated with the appointment of Gulshan Rai as the first chief of cybersecurity, a post created to address the growing e-threats in the country. Awareness prompts readiness and owning this onus has been a major imperative for McAfee,” says Girish Gargeshwari, Director Sales for Commercial & SMB business, India, McAfee while setting the context for the discussion.

The security industry is one of the most fragmented of any in IT and no one provider delivers the entire threat defense lifecycle.

McAfee’s strategy is however to create an integrated security system that automates the threat defense lifecycle so that customers can address more threats faster with fewer resources. With Digital India initiative, Smart Cities, Aadhar programme and proliferation of e-wallets, India is one of the key markets where McAfee feels it can make a big difference.

“We believe that there’s power in working together with people, products and solutions, organizations and industries working together. In line with our ‘Together is Power’ approach, McAfee aims to build a diversified defense across protection, detection and correction and leverage best-of-breed technologies without exorbitant complexity.

McAfee has also officially acquired Skyhigh Networks, the leader in the cloud access security broker category (CASB) market.

The acquisition aims to accelerate McAfee’s innovation and growth as a company, singularly focused on being the preferred cybersecurity partner for customers.

“Through our collaborations with players like Cisco and IBM Security throughout the security industry, we further aim to close information gaps, breaking silos and providing the visibility we need to protect our most important assets from cybercriminals,” asserts Girish.

Go-to-market strategy...

McAfee considers channel as the security architecture for their customers. Its 3 key channel priorities will be - Strategic Engagement, Mutual Growth and Profitability, and Better Customer Outcomes.

Its strategy is to continue to go deeper and align with fewer select set of partners who have the capabilities its customers are looking for. “We will drive mutual growth and profitability through stronger account engagement, where we engage earlier and more often with our partners,” says Girish.

The McAfee Security Innovation Alliance (SIA) technology

partnering program comprises more than 150 vendor security partners who deliver tightly integrated, differentiated and lab-tested solutions that help customers address all stages of the threat defense lifecycle by enhancing, augmenting, strengthening and broadening the core functionality of McAfee products.

“From a sales perspective, we look forward to leading a market shift in security from ‘conspicuous consumption’ to more service oriented engagements with strategic partnerships. India is one of the fastest growing businesses in APAC for McAfee and we are always working on awareness and moving to readiness with the help of our partner community,” he says.

McAfee is tailoring partner programs with distributors across APAC and India, to provide benefits to partners by adding value to their security stack of products, solutions and services.

“Today most of the customers have a common problem where they are making continuous investments in security technologies, but the results may not match up to the expectation of the desired outcome.

As we stay very close to our researchers, we learn about new customer trends which in turn help us in strategizing. For instance, our customers are interested in a layered security approach, which means using multiple security controls to protect against threats. Also on the channels side, The Service Delivery Specialization is the best way for McAfee partners to differentiate themselves from the competition and demonstrate they have the capability and capacity to deploy services for McAfee products,” points out Girish.

McAfee is thus well positioned to be #1 security player to serve the Indian market. It also looks forward to broadening its tier-2 partner play in the market. n

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TECH TRENDS 2018

Technological Innovations to Rock 2018 The year 2017 has been a remarkable year in terms of technology implementations and also few of the biggest cyber breach has taken place. It has seen emergence of innovative technologies like IoT, Cryptocurrency, AI, Virtual Reality etc but the biggest reform that has taken place is the implementation of GST, which has eased the daily operations of business.

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orldwide IT spending is projected to be USD 3.7 trillion in 2018, an increase of 4.5 percent from 2017, as per Gartner. Global IT spending growth began to turn around in 2017, with continued growth expected over the next few years.

Businesses will continue to invest in IT as they anticipate revenue growth, but their spending patterns will shift. Projects in digital business, blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to be main drivers of growth.

“2017 in definitive terms will be remembered as the year that saw the emergence and establishment of many milestones. The implementation of the Good and Services Tax

(GST), introduction of the rural electrification scheme ‘Saubhagya’ and the increase in BCD taxes on consumer electronic items will further contribute towards enhancing local manufacturing, and improving the efficiency of business ecosystem in the country. Favourable monsoons, taxation reform, hike in central employee allowance and a steady repo rate were some of the factors which pushed the consumer durable growth this year to 10%,” rewinds Manish Sharma, President and CEO, Panasonic.

The spirits of 2017 will be continued in 2018 as more latest technologies are expected to emerge and rule the IT landscape. Let’s take

India is growing through digital transformation where every size of business is adopting digitalization in everyday work which makes their life easy but the core aspect of it is data. With digitalization, everyday data is being generated enormously and every company’s prime focus remains on data management.

Understanding the requirement, NetApp has elaborated its Data Fabric solutions and services portfolio in India. Together with HCI and Data Fabric architecture NetApp is looking forward to simplify management of applications and data across clouds and on-premises environments.

Sumeer Chandra Managing Director HP Inc. India

C Sukumaran Director, Consumer System Products, Canon

Ritesh Gandotra Director, Global Document Outsourcing, Xerox India

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January 2018 www.varindia.com

a sneak peek into it.

Cloud

Kartik Shahani Integrated Security Leader, IBM India/South Asia “Today, digital transformation is the key to success for enterprises, SMBs and start-ups.

At the centre of this transformation is data making data management the prime focus for a company’s IT strategy. Recognising the need to properly manage unprecedented data that’s being generated today, NetApp recently expanded its Data Fabric solutions and services portfolio in India. We also introduced new consumption purchase models, improved all-flash capabilities and hybrid cloud offerings that simplify moving data to and from the public cloud. With HCI and our extended Data Fabric architecture, we wanted to simplify management of applications and data across clouds and on-premises environments,” says Anil Valluri, President, NetApp India and SAARC. Cloud will remain in trend in 2018 and adoption of public cloud will boost the need of hybrid cloud. With the increasing IT spend organizations will move to public cloud due to scalability, flexibility and convenience while on the other hand control on some sensitive data is also require which leads to the mix of two with hybrid cloud.

“In 2018, public cloud adoption will drive the need for hybrid cloud. As leaders increase their IT spend, there will be a growing need to explore public cloud as an option.

Organizations will want the scalability, flexibility and convenience of public cloud while they need (especially for government) to maintain control of some of the sensitive data and watch out for long-term TCO. The ideal approach

Makarand Joshi Area Vice President & Country Head, India Subcontinent, Citrix

Chandrahas Panigrahi CMO and Consumer Business Head Acer India

Alen Joe Jose Director – Product Marketing, CSB Dell India

to achieve this balance is to mix the two with hybrid. The idea of running all applications on cloud will be replaced with a more selective approach and having the hybrid cloud will help them to do just that. This trend has already gained momentum in the global market and has been well recognized by the analyst community.

There will be a HCI first approach for any new purchases made by enterprises in the coming year, which will result in an increased adoption of HCI which fundamentally enables customers to do hybrid cloud,” explains Sunil Mahale, VP & MD, Nutanix India Business.

private cloud on hyper-converged infrastructures and this trend will witness a major traction in 2018. It is expected that many IT companies will deliver enterprise cloud platforms.

On similar line, Lucy Kurian, Office Technology Principals, ThoughtWorks opines, “In the recent years cloud has become the preferred choice for infrastructure for both traditional and digital native organisations.

We will continue to see increased adoption of cloud native technologies and techniques like, containerisation with docker, windows containers and similar, alongside public/ private/hybrid cloud with Amazon, Web Services (AWS), Azure and Google Cloud.

Which also means, leveraging microservices, container orchestrators like Kubernetes will shoot up across all traditional and digital native organisations.

The growing need for AI and data driven applications will drive a much larger number of traditional organisations, than ever before to embrace digital and the cloud native approach as a way forward.”

Customers are always in favour of building a

Sunil Mahale VP & MD, Nutanix India Business

The ongoing shift from on-premise data centres to cloud model has opened up significant opportunities for service providers in India.

"By thorough understanding on the potential of India market, Sify has invested heavily into data centres, cloud and network infrastructure which brings 95% of our revenue generated from India. Our services model based on “less hardware, less people and less licences” have struck the right chord with Indian customers," says Kamal Nath, CEO, Sify Technologies.

“Customers favor building a private cloud on hyper-converged infrastructures. This trend will see traction in 2018 and we are expecting many IT giants to now focus on delivering an enterprise cloud platform,” says Anshuman Rai, Director Sales, Converged Platform & Solutions Division, Dell EMC. Every technology is now becoming software controlled. Software defined would be the next big technology in 2018. Likewise in Cloud, platforms like Software as a Service (SaaS) will be highly deployed across countries. Also, Software-defined WAN technology will come into forefront in 2018.

“From DevOps, the focus will now shift to DevSecOps. SaaS solutions are expected to become the most highly deployed cloud

Anil Valluri President, NetApp India and SAARC

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TECH TRENDS 2018

Jason Hart VP and CTO, Data Protection Gemalto

Kuldeep Malhotra Vice President Konica Minolta Business Solutions

Sunil Gupta President and COO Paladion Networks

service across the globe. Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology will move from being an emerging technology in 2017 to become mainstream in 2018. Netmagic aims to become the pioneer in SD-WAN technology in India and provide next-generation network solutions to Indian enterprises which can address the mass market; and thereby create a significant and profitable business. Indian IT sector employment prospects, both in the near and long-term are expected to be broadly positive and encouraging for the future,” predicts Prasenjit Roy, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company).

efficiency of the cloud by keeping technology resources like compute, storage, and networking, closer to users. We will see more enterprises use edge design patterns in their infrastructure architectures to better leverage the benefits of the cloud, without sacrificing speed or reliability. Adding the edge computing element will put processing power back in the corporate network for faster results that work, even if the cloud doesn’t,” highlights Bhaskar Agastya, Country Manager- Ixia, India.

Busque, Regional Managing Director, India, Australia and New Zealand, Verizon opines, “IoT will become part of the fabric of an organization in 2018 – the challenge will be how to integrate device management into overall IT infrastructure in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the organization. This is where AI and robotics will come into their own, offering intelligent automation of managed IoT deployments cheaply and efficiently.”

As per Makarand Joshi, Area Vice President & Country Head, India Subcontinent, Citrix, “Cloud and cloud enabled SaaS apps are here to stay. Cloud opens a completely new facet for technology adoption and operational efficiency.

Capabilities around analytics, AI, robotics that have been integrated into cloud based offerings are proving hard to emulate using traditional onpremise deployments due to cost, complexity, and skill considerations. Businesses, therefore, will have to evaluate the capabilities of the cloud offerings alongside on-premise offerings and accordingly implement an environment spread across cloud platforms that best meets their capability and productivity goals.”

Internet of Things (IoT) & Artificial Intelligence (AI)

It is expected that 2018 will witness the growth of IoT. Connected devices will be smarter and data will be used in a more constructive which will help organizations to have deeper insights and financial gain.

Another technology that is coming up in Cloud is Edge computing. Enterprises will adopt edge design in the infrastructure architecture to make the most of Cloud.

“2018 is likely to be the Year of IoT everywhere. Connected devices will become smarter, more immersive and expectations will increase to convert data to insights and financial value. Also, algorithms and data visualization templates have evolved so that new use cases can take advantage of earlier ones. The exponential adoption of IoT will drive down sensor and acquisition costs, enabling more viable business cases that have previously been too expensive.

From 2018, organizations will finally begin to take IoT security seriously, investing in training for their workforces and incorporating security teams from the start of their IoT deployments,” says Takayuki Inaba, Managing Director, NEC Technologies

“Edge computing improves the overall

Reiterating similar words, Robert Le

Puneet Gupta Chief Digital Officer, ITC Infotech

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Zakir Hussain Director, BD soft, Country Partner Bitdefender

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an important technology because of the consumer products. A combination of AI and humans will be of greater benefit to society.

“AI became mainstream with consumer products like Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri, and Hitachi believes that it is the collaboration of AI and humans that will bring real benefits to society. Through tools like Pentaho Data Integration, our aim is to democratize the data engineering and data science process to make Machine Intelligence – a combination of Machine Learning and AI – more accessible to a wider variety of developers and engineers,” views Russell Skingsley, Chief Technology Officer, Asia Pacific Hitachi Vantara Another disruptive technology called Augmented Reality will revolutionise the retail and logistics in 2018.

“Augmented Reality (AR) will be another big time change agent. Retail and logistics will be disruptively revolutionised by AR in this year. 2018 will be the year of the bots going far beyond the present field of airline reservations

Sanjay Ramnath Vice President Global Marketing, Barracuda Networks

Sachin Batra National Head of Marketing and Sales, ZTE

Balaji Rajagopalan Executive Director- Technology, Channels & International Distributor Operations, Xerox India

Anshuman Rai Director Sales, Converged Platform & Solutions Division, Dell EMC

or to confirm bank account details,” says Asoke K. Laha, President and Chief Executive Officer, InterraIT

to upgraded gadgets and new technologies. As a matter of fact, IT products such as digital payment and rest of the daily needs are also digitalized, making transactions and deals at our fingertips. However, recovering from the Ransomware and DeMon, threats which are a challenge for networks across the globe, we are persistently advancing the cyber-security.”

will be increasingly targeted by hackers to steal data and disrupt businesses,” views Sanjay Ramnath, Vice President Global Marketing, Barracuda Networks.

Cyber Security & Cryptocurrency

Cyber threats have grown manifold with the growing dependence of internet among people. In 2017 we have witnessed few major cyber attacks across globe where important data has been compromised. The defenders of the cyber world are continuously evolving their defence machanism around new technologies like machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence but the attackers are also not lagging behind. The only winning factor for the defenders will be technology supported by human intelligence.

With evolution of technology cyber attacks will also get modified. Cyber criminals may demand payments rather than ransoms to unlock data. Email will remain the common form of attack for the criminals. Social engineering, targeted campaigns, spear phishing etc will be leveraged by cyber criminals for attacks.

Another area which is smart homes will be compromised for ransom by cyber attackers.

They will exploit the security loopholes of the internet connected devices for attacks.

“In 2018, we’ll begin to see smart homes held for “ransom” and an uptick in personal data being accessed for theft and blackmail purposes.

Hackers are becoming more sophisticated in exploiting security vulnerabilities in internetconnected devices. Experts have projected there will be anywhere from 20 to 30 billion of these by 2020, greatly increasing the overall “attack surface” and creating constant security challenges,” says Jason Hart, VP and CTO for Data Protection, Gemalto.

“The evolution of ransomware in 2017 should remind us of how aggressively a threat can reinvent itself as attackers dramatically innovate and adjust to the successful efforts of defenders.

We must recognize that although technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence will be cornerstones of tomorrow’s cyber defenses, our adversaries are working just as furiously to implement and innovate around them. As is so often the case in cybersecurity, human intelligence amplified by technology will be the winning factor in the ‘arms race’ between attackers and defenders,” opines Steve Grobman, Chief Technology Officer for McAfee, LLC.

“Ransomware attacks will continue to impact businesses. Attackers will continue to look for new mechanisms (like botnets) to deliver ransomware. We also expect the evolution of ransomware to “protectionware”.

Cybercriminals may evolve from demanding ransoms to unlock data to demanding payments to avoid being targeted. Email will remain the most common delivery vehicle for advanced threats. In addition to delivering malicious payloads, email-borne attacks will continue to become more sophisticated. Attackers will leverage social engineering, targeted campaigns, spear phishing and whaling to steal credentials, exfiltrate data, commit business fraud and more.

On a positive note Zakir Hussain - Director, BD soft, Country Partner of Bitdefender says, “As far as IT is concerned, IT is an evergrowing industry where every day is dedicated

As organizations become more dispersed and adopt cloud platforms, they also present an expanded attack surface for cybercriminals to launch multi-vector attacks. Web applications

“In 2018, Cybersecurity must also evolve.

First, organizations must recognize the ineffectiveness of security-based, and rulesbased, defenses on modern attacks and finally adopt MDR. Second, organizations must adopt AI as a standard layer within their security posture. Our own AI offers the only way to collect, analyze, and process the massive volume

Nidhi Markanday Director, Intex Technologies

Robert Le Busque Regional MD, India, Australia and New Zealand, Verizon

BVR Mohan Reddy Founder and Executive Chairman, Cyient

To have a robust cyber security framework organizations primarily have to identify ineffectiveness of security-based, and rulesbased, defenses on modern attacks and finally adopt MDR. On the other hand, organizations must also consider technologies like AI to protect itself from cyber attacks.

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TECH TRENDS 2018

Manish Sharma President and CEO Panasonic

Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu Managing Director, Check Point, India & SAARC.

Kamal Nath CEO Sify Technologies

of data produced by AI-driven cyberattacks,” suggests Sunil Gupta, President and Chief Operating officer Paladion Networks.

faster,” suggests Kartik Shahani, Integrated Security Leader, IBM India/South Asia.

PC industry holds high hopes in the year 2018 in terms of revitalization of PC growth.

The industry is banking on technologies like IoT, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence which will act as a catalyst to boost the PC sales. Not only this, as per statistics the consumer PC market is growing quarter on quarter. Moreover, the market share of commercial PC market has also improved due to large education projects introduced by different sates and increased IT spending in BFSI and IT/ITES segment.

India as a country is advancing from detact to respond when it comes to cyber security. Data is of outmost importance and regulators are also forming data security and privacy regulations.

AI based security applications will fortify the defense mechanism as it offers deeper insights by analyzing huge amount of data.

“In India, the market trend is moving from 'detect' to 'respond'. Data privacy is becoming paramount in India, and Indian regulators are also in process of coming out with data security and privacy regulations.

With cloud services being the key platform for companies to scale up and transform their customer experience, cloud security and AI driven security services are going to be the defining trends for 2018. AI based security applications can read and understand security they analyse every incident, identifies root causes, methods, trends and predict the next pattern even before it happens. Because of the huge volumes of data and information to be dealt with there will be a lot of automation using AI also. Cognitive and AI technology strengthens our defenses across the system by infusing deep insights derived from crunching huge amounts of data, into the defense and response systems.

IBM for instance, has trained Watson in security and then integrated the technology in QRadar, our security intelligence platform, with results that found 10 times as many incidents, 60 times

Russell Skingsley Chief Technology Officer, AP Hitachi Vantara

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Puneet Gupta, Chief Digital Officer, ITC Infotech is of similar opinion and says, “On the enterprise front Security industry will be get disrupted with new AI driven solutions and players challenging existing security models. Crypto industry will potentially see new roadblocks, especially regulatory but will finally begin to become more real with the likes of Amazons seriously looking at Crypto as payment options.”

Another trend which is making its way to mainstream is cryptocurrency. Digital currency like Bitcoin, introduced in 2009, runs on a peerto-peer network called the blockchain. This kind of digital money is gaining momentum as also provoking negetivity like gambling. Presently, 1 Bitcoin is valued at 277.60 Indian Rupee Bitcoin.

There are at least 15 bitcoin exchange forums, with the majority being set up over the past two years. Like many other countries, India has not yet legalized this form of digital money.

“With the use of crypto-currencies increasingly associated with criminal and illicit online activity, we will see international government and law enforcement agencies to take action over the abuse of cryptocurrencies, which will in turn adversely affect the value of the currency itself,” opines Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Managing Director, Check Point, India & SAARC.

Personal Computers (PC)

Asoke K. Laha President and CEO InterraIT

“2018 seems a year full of many interesting developments specially for the PC industry.

Many trends are like IoT, Virtual Reality, and Artificial Intelligence will definitely go a long way in improving the PC user experience. We also see huge progress in gaming PCs with laptops becoming more powerful and more thinner rivaling desktop gaming performance.

Virtual/Mixed Reality will enhance the gaming experience and make it truly immersive. On the enterprise business front, year 2018 looks even more postive for PC industry. According to leading research firm, business PC shipments are estimated to return to growth by 2018, driven by faster Windows 10 replacement in many regions. The consumer PC market was 1.51 million units in Q3 2017, which was 9.5 per cent higher compared with the same period last year and a growth of 85.4 per cent Q-o-Q. The commercial PC market registered 1.52 million units in Q3. Large education projects improved the commercial PC market share. Moreover, major deals in the commercial segment, backed by education projects across various States and spending from BFSI and IT/ITeS

Takayuki Inaba Managing Director, NEC Technologies

Prashant Singhal Global Telecommunications and TMT Emerging Markets Leader, EY verticals, will aid the increasing contribution of the commercial segment.” says Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India.

With the rise of popularity and interest in esports, the gaming landscape is gaining momentum in the PC industry. Consumers are now looking for high-performance, sleek and lightweight, thin, yet powerful laptops which will in turn leads to the growth of the ultra-thin and light segment.

“In terms of trends for 2018, we expect PC gaming industry to gain greater momentum this year. The gaming landscape will evolve further owing to the rise in the popularity and interest in esports amongst gaming enthusiasts and adoption of advanced gaming technologies, like Augmented and Virtual reality. In addition, a growing preference amongst consumers for high-performance, sleek and lightweight, thin, yet powerful laptops, will pave the way to the growth in the ultra-thin and light segment,” describes Alen Joe Jose, Director – Product Marketing, CSB, Dell India.

3D Printing

A new revolution has arrived in the world of printing technology- 3D printing. The printer vendors are believing that it will empower manufacturing and transform industries. India is also considered as an improitant market for this new technology.

“We believe that digital transformation of manufactuing will be a key enabler of the next Industrial Revolution. 3D Printing will contribute to democratizing manufacturing and transforming industries, including the $6 trillion Asia-Pacific and Japan manufacturing segment.

India is a strategic hub for this significant shift and we are excited to bring the cuttingedge Multi Jet Fusion technology to Indian customers across a variety of vertical markets,” views Sumeer Chandra, Managing Director, HP Inc. Restating similar words, Ritesh Gandotra, Director, Global Document Outsourcing, Xerox says, “The rise of 3D printing is likely to lead to re-invention of many old products, as well as the introduction of extraordinary new innovations. I believe 3D printing, is on track to move beyond a mere emerging technology into

Prasenjit Roy Senior VP & Chief Marketing Officer, Netmagic (An NTT Communications Company) a truly transformative one."

Printers

In printer segment the latest trend that is prominent is the adoption of Inkjet printers among the Enterprises and government segment and Canon has a wide range of offering in it.

Depending on the printing requirement, the customers choose their printers.

“The trends that we have seen are the consumers have more choices to make. The biggest trend that we have witnessed is that Inkjet is taking a place in Enterprise and government segment and that is the reason Canon has launched six new models this year.

5G is an upcoming technology which will make its way in a much faster pace than expected. A lot of investment has already been done into 5G. This gives us the range to approach to our consumers.

Second is consumers are very focused on return on investment (ROI). Based on the volume of printing they decide which range to go for and fortunately we have around 80 model in Laser and Ink printers together,” C Sukumaran, Director, Consumer System Products, Canon.

The growing number of startups will boost the demand for Multi-functional Printer (MFP) as they will be offering new trending technologies. Konica Minolta is also planning to expand its solution business by introducing DMS and Dispatcher phoenix solutions.

“The demand for MFPs will also soar as new startups emerge catering to future technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things. Our focus will be to increase market share both in Office MFP in Black & White and Colour segment. We are also planning to

Steve Grobman Chief Technology Officer McAfee, LLC. take our solution business to new heights by introducing DMS and Dispatcher phoenix solutions to the Indian market.

We will continue to expand our range of products this year along with participating in national exhibitions and local events focused on the printing industry,” highlights Kuldeep Malhotra,Vice President Konica Minolta Business Solutions.

The digital printing industry is undergoing a transformation with new and evolving technologies and applications which is offering cost-effective and customized solutions. 2018 will observe more similar application as mobile printing, cloud, advanced security features etc. are gaining grounds. Moreover, with groing number of SMBs in India, office printing has widening scope and demand for MFPs will increase. Another factor that will boost the segment is the introduction of GST which cannot be overlooked.

"Taking a look at the overall printing industry and business, despite the slowdown across the globe, India’s printing industry promises to grow significantly. The digital printing industry especially is seeing significant transformation with new technologies & innovative applications providing cost-effective and customized solutions. Xerox has been at the forefront when it comes digital printing and 2017 further strengthened our hold in this segment with huge acceptance seen for our digital presses across categories. In 2018, with mobile printing, cloud, advanced security features etc. becoming more popular, we will see more such application development gaining importance. Such apps will allow users to control their MFPs remotely and transmit documents to fax, email and cloud hosted services like Google Drive and Dropbox. The launch of ConnectKey-enabled printers and multifunction devices was based on similar lines/trends and we hope to see more traction as on-the-go businesses becomes a trend and there is an accelerated movement towards more integrated work flow solutions.

Also, considering that the SMB market in India is given prime focus and is the backbone of our economy, office printing segment has immense scope. We believe that there will be an increased demand for MFPs as companies look

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TECH TRENDS 2018 Intex Technologies Talking about the telecom service providers, in 2017 telecom industry was undergoing a consolidation. We have seen mergers and acquisition in the past year. In last few months, operators are facing huge financial burden but the industry has seen growth in mobile data consumption and it is expected that 2018 will be a year of innovation.

Bhaskar Agastya Country Manager Ixia, India for innovative solutions to simplify business processes. Additionally, we must acknowledge the government’s digital initiatives and other reforms like the GST. It is surely a game changer for our economy which aims to bring us at par with the other developed nations.” Balaji Rajagopalan, Executive Director- Technology, Channels & International Distributor Operations, Xerox.

Mobility

Mobile phone has become an indispensable aspect of human life as it is an age of connectivity. To better connect the people with each other mobile companies come up with various features for an enhanced customer experience. Many handset companies came up with all-screen devices in 2017 and replace the Touch ID with Face ID. To further improve the experience, manufacturers may work on developing Fingerprint Sensor under the screen.

“This year, several mobile companies unveiled their products with a full screen.

However, having a real all-screen experience means no home button or fingerprint scanner on the front. Some brands replaced the Touch ID with Face ID while some moved the fingerprint scanner to the rear of the phone. In 2018 we will see many manufacturers working on developing a Fingerprint Sensor under the screen,” says Sachin Batra, National Head of Marketing and Sales, ZTE. On the other side, it is also true that we have witnessed a renaissance in feature phone industry. It has made its come back among the consumers in a big way. Features like 4G and bundling strategy with telecom service providers have triggered the growth.

“This year was also the ‘year of the feature phone’, as we saw its resurgence in a big way.

In fact, we launched several feature phones like the Navratna Series that included out maiden 4G Feature too. We also adopted the ‘bundling strategy’ by partnering with Vodafone and Airtel, both of which worked really well for us.

In 2017 has been a defining year as we launched 29 models. Our Mobile Accessories division also saw some tremendous growth as we sold as many as 300K power banks in last three months alone,” highlights Nidhi Markanday, Director,

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“2017 was a transformational year for the Indian telecoms sector. The much awaited consolidation set-in, altering the sector landscape significantly. It was primarily triggered due to the deteriorating financial health of the sector, rather than being voluntary. Over the past 12 months, operators have been facing huge financial burden. Unless the growth comes back to the sector, long term viability is at stake. At the same time, mobile data consumption in India has increased manifold, propelling India to the top of the data consumption league worldwide.

The latent demand for data has fuelled the digital economy. 2018 is touted to be the year of rapid innovation for operators, riding the digital wave. Operators have the chance to transform from a pure telecom to a larger ecosystem player through strategic adjacent market partnerships.

Adoption of newer technologies, reinventing operating models and a larger participation in the sharing economy is set to pave the way for India to dominate in the ‘4th Industrial Revolution’ and bring the much awaited ‘Digital Kranti’,” explains Prashant Singhal, Global Telecommunications and TMT Emerging Markets Leader, EY. 5G is another upcoming technology which will make its way in a much faster pace than expected. A lot of investment has already been done into 5G. “5G will come faster than predicted and it will cause big disruptions as it becomes the beginning

With evolution of technology cyber attacks will also get modified. Cyber criminals may demand payments rather than ransoms to unlock data. Email will remain the common form of attack for the criminals.

Social engineering, targeted campaigns, spear phishing etc will be leveraged by cyber criminals for attacks.

Lucy Kurian Office Technology Principals, ThoughtWorks of a new era for connectivity. Even in its early stages, there has been heavy and widespread investment into 5G, with many providers and organizations already committing resources to test the new equipment, technology, and uses for 5G. In fact, in a recent survey conducted

by Ixia, it was revealed that 96 percent of large technology companies plan to leverage 5G and 83 percent will have 5G solutions deployed within the next 24 months. The transition from 4G to 5G will present numerous business opportunities across multiple verticals. It will ultimately make connectivity much easier and will usher in a new wave of technology and growth for many organizations that otherwise would not be possible,” thinks Bhaskar Agastya, Country Manager- Ixia, India

To Conclude…

As technological innovations are taking place with time, the demands of the consumers are also undergoing change. These days, customers desire for transformation and innovative solutions powered by latest technologies. But on the other hand skilled employees are on a deficit in new technologies to meet customer requirement.

“The customer requirements are going through dramatic changes. The customers are demanding digital, transformative, and innovative solutions with application of new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, 3D Printing, Drones, AR/VR/ MR etc. The adoption of new technologies is growing at a pace faster than what was anticipated by the industry. On the supply side, there is a serious challenge in reskilling/ upskilling employee base in new technologies to meet new customer demands. Sizing up to new customer expectation in providing innovative solutions is yet another area of concern,” says BVR Mohan Reddy, Founder and Executive Chairman, Cyient.

At the end, it quite evident that few technologies like IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality will drive innovation in the segments like Cloud, Cybersecurity, Personal Computers, Printers, Mobility. n Aparna Mullick aparna@varindia.com

VAR ANALYSIS

Refurbished smartphone market has a big scope to grow in India Across India, millions of users still buy refurbished phones believing that they would rather use an old phone with the features they need than settle for a new phone with lower specs. Along with affordability, the shorter upgrade cycles of smartphones these days are also fuelling a demand for used phones.

As per news reports, India has an unorganized market of 70 million refurbished smartphones with 35% year-on-year growth rate. It is also believed that refurbished handsets will trigger internet penetration in rural India in times to come. Throwing more light on this and explaining the opportunity that Quikr sees in this space, Sarath Chandra Gudlavalleti, VP - Quikr Bazaar speaks to VARINDIA to share more aspects about this market with Rigorous Quality checks and 6 month warranty. They are refurbished to ensure that they work as good to address the Quality related barriers plus warranty working as an additional layer to address trust related issues.

Kindly define the refurbished smartphone market?

In this era of digitalization, the refurbished smartphone market in India has largely been offline and unstructured. That said, this space is still witnessing over 100mn new smartphone shipments p.a. Given that we have over 100mn active mobile subscribers; most of these smartphones are potentially replacement handsets. Looking at the trends on our platform, we believe that the consumer does not need to compromise on the choice of a smartphone anymore and hence the acceptance of refurbished phones is here to stay.

What is the scope in this market? How big is the market? At what percentage this market is growing?

The scope for refurbished market is huge with technology changing rapidly and gadgets becoming outdated sooner than usual, giving an opportunity for refurbished phone market to flourish. The main target audience for this are consumers that have the mindset to use the best that the market has to offer while not wanting to compromise due to cost constraints. Consumers usually get a discount of 30-40% on these products. Not just that, every product available on our platform goes through rigorous quality checks. Quikr is seeing 42% QoQ growth in sale of refurbished phones and Apple, Samsung, One plus, Xiaomi and Motorola seem to be the most popular brands.

What are the facilities you provide before selling the access to high end smartphones within refurbished products? consumers reach. Refurbished smartphones What are the parameters doesn't pinch your pocket as they are 30 to 60% lower than the new smartphone allowing before buying a handset? millennials to afford a higher spec'ed device at lower price. There are a few barriers in buying a used Smartphone: Quality, Trust and Pricing being the key ones. Quikr certified phones come with Rigorous Quality checks. They are refurbished to ensure that they work as good to address the Quality related barriers. Smartphone is both a Personal & Productivity device and one doesn't want to compromise any more.

What are the challenges of this market? Does unorganized grey market acts as a threat?

Indian refurbished smartphone market is

Quikr Certified smartphones go through rigorous quality checks covering functional, physical and IMEI checks. These phones come with a 6 month 3rd party warranty and a 7-Day replacement guarantee. The parameters considered before buying a handset are price, brand, functions and specifications.

What is your take on refurbished smartphones helping in penetration of internet in rural India?

Looking at the trends on our platform, we

Who are the major buyers of this market? From which states you are witnessing the maximum pull?

While huge demand for refurbished phones is seen in the metros, cities like Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Vishakhapatnam, Patna, Raipur, Surat, Madurai, Ludhiana, Guwahati and Indore are the top cities in terms of demand.

Indian customers are generally skeptical while buying any second hand electronic device.

What kind of behaviour do you observe among the customers in this case?

Refurbished phone market has made

largely unorganized and predominantly offline.

The grey markets are restricted to big cities hence nationwide accessibility is a challenge.

Another barrier is in buying a used smartphone based on Quality, Trust and Pricing parameters.

Digitally trusted platforms like Quikr are solving problems of accessibility, discoverability and transactions. Also Quikr certified phones come

believe that the consumer openness & acceptance to refurbished smartphones is here to grow. We have been witnessing 42% q-o-q growth for the certified phones on our platform. We are already present in more than 1200+ cities and Tier-2/3 and below cities contribute about 70% to the demand for refurbished smartphones on our platform. n

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VAR SPECIAL

India is amongst the fastest growing economies of the world, GST — the unified tax system that is set to revolutionize indirect taxation in India— is finally here. Some of its key proposed advantages are streamlining of tax payments, reduction in tax frauds, and ease of doing business.

The manufacturing sector in India contributes a mere 16% to the overall GDP. However, the potential to make this a high-growth and high-GDP sector is huge. The “Make in India” campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes this possibility a reality, by giving impetus to the sector. It provides a unique opportunity to streamline business operations to become more compliance and profitability-oriented, rather than tax-oriented.

It puts power in the hands of business leaders to bring about positive change and steer their enterprises on a growth path, powered by GSTcompliance.

Second, the retail trade contributes an estimated amount of more than $600 billion to the economy. The impact which GST, the unified indirect tax structure introduced by the Government, brings on such a major economic lever will be highly significant.

But when it comes to implementation of GST, the small and midsized business are facing challenges in their day to day operations, especially in the IT industry. Various challenges have come to surface and the businesses are getting affected. Here are the views of VARs (Value Added Resellers) of Delhi:

Alok Gupta Managing Director, Unistal We were eagerly waiting for introduction of GST because we were always of the firm view that there should be One Nation, One Tax and less work. We appreciate the government for introducing GST. The move was in the right direction, but in our business we have found one thing that, while the government was planning to introduce GST from 1st of July, their own department and PSUs were not GST ready. Two things that were very negative when it comes to businessman, System Integrators, Implementation Partners or Solution Providers that whatever agreements were there along with the taxes, they should be simply converted to the basic cost plus GST. But a lot of jugglery took place and it was very disappointing. Another thing is that, after the implementation of GST till now, all the old agreements of VAT and service tax regime have not been converted to GST. It resulted in a lot of negativity in the businessman’s mind that the government was not ready for GST, but they implemented it.

The Government has always said one nation, one tax and one number. India is one country, you have got one tax implemented if I have taken a GST number it should be applicable all over the country. You are implementing it through software, charge one tax from us, get it deposited and bifurcate the tax through the help of software you have implemented and give it to that state.

Rajiv Gupta Director, Park Network At the beginning, we were facing some problems, but now it has become easy. Earlier, challenges were system related, documentations, etc. Still, another challenge is material lying with us before 30th June. A lot of money is stuck up in GST before 30th June which has still not been recovered after six months. The suggestion is to make the system simpler and return over money which was already stuck up in the system, make the system so fast that we can recover the money on time.

Saket Kapoor Managing Director, Green Vision I see a drastic change from VAT days to the current GST regime. The interaction with my Chartered Accountant or accounts department has actually increased. It is my first observation as far as GST is concerned. Second, a lot of compliances and adherence to various rules have cropped up which was earlier not there in case of VAT. In our country, small businesses form a very large chunk and they all are affected by the GST compliances and the difficulty in raising an invoice. In the IT industry, till very recently, we have items which would be at 28% and also at 18%. This kind of anomaly as an industry has been escalated and the government considered our representation. In November 2017, after four months of the GST rollout, it was corrected. For small businesses, the biggest challenge is GST and not profitability of business. GST has complicated the way a business is to be pursued as an organization. It does not differentiate with a small business and an enterprise.

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A. Singh Managing Director, Computer Land GST started on a very good note. It was told that GST will simplify doing business but that did not happen. It was being given to understand that the introduction of GST will result in ease-of-doing business, but it has become difficult to transact business. The implementation of GST is like a complex mathematical exercise â&#x20AC;&#x201C; IGST, CGST, STGST. It has become very complex. With GST, there is a general sentiment which has hit people. People who were doing mid size business they think that their business has gone down, compliances have become very complex, people are afraid to do transactions. Since there business is going down, they do not want to spend money.

One GST code should be able to do business all across the country. Second, no CGST, SGST, etc but it should be one tax. The division of tax by way of GST between the Centre and states should be taken care by the government.

Sewak Nautiyal Managing Director, Spark Technologies As of now, we transfer the data from our software to excel sheet and then upload the sheet on GST site. But the data is not being accepted at the site or you have to upload it multiple times. So this is a concern about GST. Another concern is after uploading the data, the portal is not updating it for the next 48 hours.

There are different tax slabs of 12%, 18% and 28%. For small integrators, different products are selling on different tax slabs. So he gets confused about what percentage of service tax is to be charged. Due to this confusion, the business is getting impacted. There should be one tax slab for GST which will make easy for all businesses to follow that format.

Sunil Narang Managing Director, Elcom Trading Company The experience about GST is a mixed bag. The good thing is that the number of taxes has been reduced to one tax and things have improved. The bad part is the ill-preparedness of the government, portals not working, lot of documentation and paper work and the cash flow has been impacted badly with the ill implementation by the government.

The accounting has been a bit simplified, but the way GST has been implemented, the first GSTR1 forms or GSTR2 for the month of July are yet to be filed. So, if the government takes six months to file first monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s returns, it clearly reflects on the preparedness of the government.

It has been much simpler if it has been implemented on the lines of other countries like Europe, US, Singapore or Dubai. They have single-point one tax and less paper work.

Himanshu Gupta Business Owner, SSDN Techsolutions GST theoretically is a good regime, aimed at plugging in various tax gaps and tax evasion possibilities. But, practically, the compliance has become a very big issue. The whole question of ease-of-doing business is under a scanner. It has become very difficult to do business these days. Second, the whole liability of first point taxes previously has now been shifted to the latter channels of the business. So the gap that we identify here is that we do not see a complete shift of liability moving from the first point to the latter channels. GST is not a pure indirect tax. It has a direct income component link also. So now the business is under a big tax stress. GST needs an income tax reform as far as direct taxes are concerned. If the idea is ease of doing business, then it has to be simplified.

Anuj Modi CEO, Modi Infosol Overall, what we presume is GST to be very positive from our organization point of view. GST has helped us in many ways in terms of reducing the complexities, C Forms, F Forms and also in reducing the number of bills that we had to initiate in terms of multiple states. But some problems still persist. As in UP, we still need a road form to enter the state.

There are challenges but it has still now helped us in doing business easily. We foresee growth in business in the upcoming year because GST is also taking its own sweet time to settle down. There have been multiple factors in the market like demonetization and people who are buying products from us. They are facing a lot of challenges. For these basic issues business has gone slightly down towards the consumer side but commerce is growing due to GST and digitization.

Mohit Aggarwal Proprietor, Eurotech Infosys GST is a good initiative but if you see in the taxation part the IT taxation is very high. In IT products, the government is charging 18% tax. The Digital India initiative of Prime Minister Modi encourages the adoption of IT products so the tax should be at 12% rather than 18%. After GST, we are observing a crunch in the market and the sales are going down.

We expected that the sales should be 4-5 times as there are a lot of compliances in GST and nobody can do it through mobile and because of that the sales should increase but it has not happened.

P.K. Sharma Director, Comnet Vision GST, a long-awaited initiative, should fare well in the long run. But at present there are a number of problems. The system is not in tune with the requirement and people are struggling to file their forms, returns, etc. Clarity is missing, deadlines are extended, etc. The date on which few things were to go could not go because of the technical issues. For example, the TRN1 which was supposed to go on 27th of December last year could not go because of technical reasons and if IRN 1 is not submitted then TRN2 will not go. Consequently, the amount of adjustment which was to be carried forward as a stock will not be available for the people. I think it is because of the technical failure as the government did not expect this kind of traffic which the system was not be able to take it and the internet conditions in India were also responsible.

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VAR SPECIAL

India is a strong service-led economy with the sector generating a significant chunk of employment opportunities and contributing to the GDP. It contributed around 66.1% of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gross Value Added (GVA) growth in 2015-16, is the biggest magnet for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and an important net foreign exchange earner. Some of the core areas of service are IT and ITES, banking and financial services, outsourcing, research and development, transportation, telecommunications, real estate and professional services.

On the whole, GST is expected to bring domestic players at par with large multinational corporations due to the renewed import and export norms and the rules for FMCG suppliers. This is a good sign for Indian trade and exports in general, and thus the implementation of GST shows promise to propel India onto the international trade arena. On an average, we see the tax slab increasing from 15% to 18% for most of the services.

While this may translate to higher cost of services to the end consumer, GST also presents a whole lot of opportunities, pushing ease of business.

After the implementation of GST, though a few loop holes have cropped up but the IT VAR (Value Added Reseller) community of Mumbai is on high spirit about it. Putting forward the views of Mumbai VARs:

Devendra Sayani Director, DC Infotech GST is a good initiative of One Tax and One Nation by the government. It permits to do business in a free way.

There is no hazel of different taxes which is good for business. Previously when we sell products to other states there were hazels of C forms, Octroi but now all has been gone because of this one tax. Currently it is difficult to predict the business growth as it is a new structure so it will take some time to grow for the business. It will definitely give a boot to the business.

Jiten Mehta Director, Magnamious Systems: I am happy and having a good experience with GST because of credit, reporting etc. GST will not impact your grow, it will simplify your taxation system, so growth will happen as the focus would change as you will come out of statutory regulatory things and will focus on business. For me the streamlining has happened because multiple bodies of government have been removed. The biggest advantage is Octroi has been removed from Mumbai which make the movement of goods easy. Second it is a standard rate whether its services or goods, so there are no challenges across the country. So it has become a level playing field pan India.

Prasad Tilve, General Manager & Head, Government and Strategic Alliances, Business Development, Netmagic: GST and services are provided by GSP service providers and they need cloud to host their services. So we treat GSPs as ISP (Independent Service Providers). We provide them robust IT infrastructure and we have multiple services like SimpliCloud and SimpliVPC. So GSPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s are hosted on this and they get excellent connectivity, visibility, support, scalable infrastructure for their businesses. TCS and Infosys are the two GSPN service providers. Infosys is hosted in Netmagic so we have the existing connectivity in proper GST network. So that serves a very low latency for all the GSP service providers.

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Ravi Jalan MD & CEO, Shakti Enterprises: As a businessman, I was dealing with servce tax and VAT but after the implementation of GST I need to pay only one tax instead of two. So it is comparatively easier. It takes time to understand the new things but overall what we are feeling is that it’s good to pay one tax rather than two. Till now I have not observed growth in my business as government are making changes frequently.

Viren Bavishi Director, Sapphire Micro Systems: GST is good for trade and industry. We are looking forward to GST thinking that it would do lot of good but then initial hitches are troubling us a lot. Rather than spending a lot on benefits of GST, government should have educate the people, which is not done properly. Government should try educating people at every level. Earlier there were a lot of tax evasions on account of customs and VAT but now the evasion should have been taken care although it is not happening so far. Previously, while doing interstate business we used to end up losing some amount of CST as well as there were a lot of hazels for all types of forms which is now removed. Now, entire India has become a one single market.

Pankaj Shah CEO, Technoplus Systems: GST as it stands for Goods and Service Tax is good for India in the long run. There have been hiccups but it would be streamlined in another six months to one year hopefully. It is good for IT industry due to the Digital India push by the Government of India. We are having good experience and the sales have increased. There are many SMEs who have come into the GST structure due to which they are also planning for IT expansion.

GST has challenges as it is in early stage and every businessman is facing some problem with the software and return filling but it will be streamlined in future.

K R Chaube Director, Techlink Infoware: GST is a good step towards tax reform. The objective behind GST is to simplify taxes and we are quite optimistic about it. We are a process driven organization and we are into software products also where ERP is an important part of taxation. The only thing which we need to handle is a lot of compliances. But it is a good initiative. We do not see any challenges but we were skeptical about how it will get amalgamated. We do not know how it will impact us in future but we are optimistic that in another year’s time it may simplify things.

Ajay Parekh Founder, Shree Maat Computers: As per our Prime Minister, it’s a good and simple tax and it is true. For System Integrator community the life has been simplified as there are no Octroi or Excise Duty. There no hurdle while buying any material regarding the excise duty etc, so in that way it has really simplified our life. We are looking forward for many fold growth but still there is a hurdle about paying tax, the website problem and getting credit of VAT paid material, which is obstructing the growth.

Rajesh Goenka Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Rashi Peripherals: Overall, post GST things have been very positive because of couple of reasons. First, pre GST the inventory level for the entire quarter had gone down. So, the moment GST was launched, everyone started to buy and as a result we saw upswing in the business especially in July, August, September. So from business perspective it was good. Second, because of the GST compliance regulation, lot of awareness has got incorporated in businesses where they are buying computers which resulted in increase of PC demand. We think this is going to be a sustainable business opportunity in a near long term scenario subject to economic conditions of India remains the same or better. The only flip side of GST is the accounting process where the amount of effort that is required is enormous. We have double up our power in accounts and finance team. So those compliance issues are there but from business point of view GST has been good and we think that it is positive and will further improve.

Pravin Dhoka CEO, Ortek Computers: The move towards GST implementation is fine but as far as IT industry is concerned we are still facing challenge in selling goods cross territory. The domestic business has increased. Another problem that government should undertake is that they should minimize the written filing. Currently, it is around 39-40 forms which they should reduce it to one written form per month. Then it will reduce the workload and we will concentrate on our business.

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VAR ANALYSIS

All eyes on Budget With the Government set to present its fifth and the last comprehensive Budget in February 2018 before the polls of 2019, the industry, particularly the IT & Mobility industry has its hopes high. A common belief is that the Government is likely to come out with a populist budget that would tie all the loose ends and something that will provide relief to the “aam aadmi”. The budget is also going to be a significant one for the simple reason that, it will be the first budget after the revolutionary GST law was implemented last year. The Gujarat election results will also play a part in the formulation of this year’s Budget.

From the ‘Make in India’ perspective, the budget needs to make it easier for companies to shift their manufacturing into India. Right now neither the infrastructure is in place nor there is 100% clarity in the rules. There need to be some clarity in the taxes which can promote trust and allow people to invest into manufacturing. The same goes with the Digital India initiative that needs to have a continued focus on more technology adoption to encourage digitization and shaping the IT infrastructure and the Government needs to keep this in mind this while drafting its budget for the year.

In terms of digital payment, the government must try to address demand-side concerns and continue to incentivise digital payments and their providers to help the ecosystem gain greater adoption and synergy through the budget. While digital payments are now projected to supersede cash by 2022 according to industry reports, this momentum in the digital payments ecosystem will be needing more policy support to be sustained.

What the industry expects?

Alok Dubey CFO ACER

Vivek Agarwal Co-founder M-tech Informatics Ltd

“With the introduction of GST, year 2017 has been an eventful year across economies and industries. For the year 2018, we are optimistic that the union budget will focus more on Digital India initiative in order to shape the IT infrastructure and increase adoption of technology to encourage digitization. We are also expecting that the government may slash corporate tax for the larger companies in the upcoming budget. It may/should help Indian companies to compete globally and attract more investments to the country. Besides this, we are also expecting that the budget will be centered around lowering personal income tax slabs, and tax savings schemes which would lead to higher disposable income and directly benefit the normal taxpayer.”

“The upcoming Union Budget 2018 will be a significant one as it will be the first budget after a bold economic measure like GST has been implemented. We are likely to witness a whole lot of business and economy friendly measures being announced. Thanks to the government’s Make in India initiative which encouraged local manufacturing and augmented production, India has emerged as the second largest mobile phone market in 2018.

As the country eyes the top position, the mobile phone industry expects the government to maintain and introduce more favourable policies for domestic manufacturers.”

Sanjay Kumar Kalirona CEO & Director, COMIO

Rajan S. Mathews Director-General COAI

“India is currently the fastest growing smartphone market in the world. The upcoming Union Budget should support the growth of this industry by smoothening GST (from 12% to 5%) and offering tax reductions, especially towards the budget category as it will make mobiles much more affordable for the consumers. There is an enormous scope for India to strengthen its manufacturing capabilities and create a self-sufficient eco-system for component manufacturing. The incentives provided by the government will help build India as a manufacturing hub, complete the mobile supply chain and further support the ‘Make in India’ vision.”

“In the upcoming Union Budget, telecom sector is eagerly waiting for some breather. The telecom sector is the biggest supporter of indigenous manufacturing.

However, till such time as quality products at a competitive price are available in the country, the government needs to rethink its stand regarding customs duty on equipment, to ensure timely roll-out of networks. The issue of tax withholding on discounts extended to pre-paid distributors needs immediate attention. It is important to understand and appreciate that the discount extended to pre-paid distributors is not a commission, as these distributors do not act as agents of telecom companies.”

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FACE TO FACE

‘Hunger to Learn’ - the mantra for Sterlite to match its competition L K Pathak, VP – Marketing & Communication, Sterlite Tech in a chat with VARINDIA explains how marketing strategies have changed after digital transformation disrupted normal business across verticals Being in the Telecom Solution space, Sterlite Tech faces the most discern audience and therefore, the marketing mantra for it has always been to go with the solution approach to address customer issues. This has helped it to gain fast traction, gain mindshare of its customers and achieve tangible results.

“This has worked very well. We won back to back three smart city projects in India. Our solution approach has enabled leading telecom operators in their roll out of 3G/ LTE and WiFi network,” says L K Pathak, VP – Marketing & Communication, Sterlite Tech.

He further continues, “Marketing strategy is the reflection of our organizational goals and business priorities. It’s from the overall business goal that we derive our overall marketing purpose and direction. Further it is important that we articulate the company’s brand purpose and sensitise internal stake holders to deliver the promises we have made to our customers and partners.”

Sterlite is operating in a dynamic business world where it has to earn its relevance every passing day. Hence the mantra here is to have “HUNGER TO LEARN”! “We must be closer to our customers, have eagle’s eye on the competition, map current & future trend and

take distinct position which no competition can match,” says Pathak.

Realising the fast changing pace of the digital technology and its impact on telecom business, Sterlite has made significant strides in its capability to serve its customers right at the designing phase to further build and manage the data network. With the acquisition of Elitecore OSS/BSS, SterliteTech has broadened its portfolio from Optical Fibre to System and network integration to Software.

“Needless to say telecom operators are increasingly looking the best of suite transformation with associated services from a single vendor. Considering the world over demand for digital infrastructure for the operators, Smart City and Rural broadband

network requirements in our country, I think Sterlite is the most potential partner with its end to end capabilities. We are enjoying this exciting transformation journey and are following a well structured approach to reposition our brand as an enabler of digital transformation,” Pathak asserts.

Digital transformation has completely disrupted what used to be normal business across all the verticals. “The situation demands that the companies choose right partners to support the digital lifestyle of our customers which demands high data speeds to support humongous traffic almost every time, to robust digital platform which supports Omni Channel covering the entire life cycle of a customer from sales and marketing to Order management to Billing and Customer on boarding, to digital care. The integration of back office and operations needs to be completely digitized and responsive 24x7 to the e commerce,” says Pathak.

Digitization has opened up a whole new era which has evolved from Big Data to now Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Robotics which would be making business more predictable, Productive and efficient! Companies need to invest with utmost planning and must choose right partners with strong commitment to a scalable, agile and secured digital network.

Sterlite with its diverse portfolio and strong System integration and network integration capabilities is partnering telecom Operators, Smart Cities and Enterprises to enable them in their digital transformation journey.

Paytm rolls out RuPay debit card Now one can create their own UPI ID and link their bank account for faster payments. Send money directly to any bank account at zero per cent charge. It is all possible with the launch of Paytm BHIM UPI app. Paytm Payments Bank Savings Account holders can now order a physical debit card from the App. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder, PayTM said, "Shop easily at any shop or withdraw money from any ATM with your debit card. Paytm has launched its physical debit card on January 18, 2018."

Paytm , the pioneer company into digital payment , announced last year that they will be

rolling out Paytm debit card (RuPay card) back in 2017. Keeping their promise alive, the digital payment company is now entering into physical banking. In the recent announcement on Twitter that they announced that they are launching the all new debit card with no transactional charges. The user will get an interest of four percent per annum every month.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder, PayTM said, "Shop easily at any shop or withdraw money from any ATM with your debit card.

Paytm has launched its physical debit card on January 18, 2018."

This move will benefit users who use Paytm for shopping and other expenditure. They now can use the card with the merchants who do not have option for Paytm.

Lastly, users can also avail for a free virtual card to make online purchases across all merchants accepting RuPay cards. You can order the physical debit card through your Paytm App.

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COVER STORY

RISE OF THE INDIAN GAMING ERA A country having the world’s second largest online population, the second largest smartphone user base, and the fastest growing smartphone market is poised to become one of the fastest growing mobile gaming markets in years to come -

G

aming in India is growing to have a huge fan base. The Indian online gaming industry is speculated to add 190 million gamers and become a $ 1 billion opportunity by 2021, from $290 million in 2016, as revealed by KPMG and Google’s recently released report titled ‘Online gaming in India: Reaching a new pinnacle’.

The segment is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.61%, in value terms, over the next five years with more than 300 gamers in India. The market is witnessing a massive evolution in terms of its accessibility and adaptability and the key driver has been the proliferation of low cost smartphones amongst urban and rural population.

Undoubtedly, with one of the youngest population in the world, India is one of the fastest growing markets for gaming. The reason why the gaming market in India is

making huge strides can be attributed due to rising income levels, advancement of technology, trend of individual escapism and increase in internet penetration.

Not just entertainment, gaming is gradually growing as a compelling profession in India. There are gamers today who play different genre of games such as MOBAs, FPS, RPGs and many more. The concept of eSports events is also slowly rising in the country. 2017 alone had eSports / competitive gaming events with a total prize pool of USD 320,000 / 2 Crore (according to AFKGAMING.com).

With the PC industry evolving, factors like gaming notebooks, hybrids, convertibles and Ultrabooks are driving industry growth.

PC gaming is seeing a revolution and that is where PC and laptop makers got an opportunity to research and bring in the fascinating innovations in gaming. The booming industry has given a platform to companies to tap the gaming enthusiasts and build a community to take gaming to a new era. There is indeed great scope in Indian market for vendors who are currently eyeing the gaming segment.

It is true that gaming as an industry is not new to India but is getting a wider acceptance, on a professional level, for the last couple of years. “It’s not long back when the gaming communities in India were fragmented and existed in isolated pocket regions. Conscious efforts and focused investments by brands like HyperX have resulted in their unification to a certain extent and created more competitive communities,”

Mukesh Chaudhary Country Head-India, SAARC & ME, Rapoo Technologies India Pvt. Ltd.

Alok Choudhary Group Business Manager, Rashi Peripherals

Siddharth Jatania MD ADATA India

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Gaming - a growth catalyst for businesses...

Chandrahas Panigrahi CMO and Consumer Business Head Acer India

Vamsi Krishna Head - Consumer Marketing for South Asia - NVIDIA

Deepak Gupta Country Manager-India Zotac

states Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, HyperX and Kingston Technology – India.

Vishal however states that though gaming is an exciting segment to deal with, the Indian gaming industry requires to be dealt with a bit differently.

There are 3 growth catalysts for the gaming Industry – Games, Hardware and Community, according to Deepak Gupta, Country Manager-India, Zotac. “The fact that we provide world class hardware is an opportunity, and considering there are 15 million gamers in India and not everyone has the best hardware to game on, ESport iCafe will be a revolution in coming years for us. India is on the verge of a revolution that will stem from eSports cafe and will serve as a hub for local players and fans alike,” says Deepak.

Vamsi Krishna, Head - Consumer Marketing for South Asia - NVIDIA reiterates that gaming as an industry fuels a lot of business opportunities like gaming cafes or eSports gaming cafes. “We believe that India has the potential to become a leading market for the gaming industry and NVIDIA is helping India reach that level by promoting an international standard among gaming cafes, at a time when Internet connectivity is getting cheaper and more accessible.”

Romeo Misao, Marketing Manager ViewSonic India too feels that the gaming industry is proving to be a far superior catalyst to create numerous business opportunities.

“The gaming industry has become a multimillion dollar business,” he says. “There are

thousands of companies developing and publishing games. The game designing and creating industry was a fairly small until very recently. India was an outsourcing hub for foreign gaming companies. This was simply because gaming was not considered a mainstream form of entertainment back in the day. In the near future, the country has a huge potential of becoming a global centre of developing and manufacturing various gaming technologies.”

Alok Choudhary, Group Business Manager, Rashi Peripherals says that the Gaming industry is predominantly divided into two major categories: Gaming Hardware and Gaming Applications and both the categories have huge potentials to grow. “While the Gaming Component market is growing at a steady rate, there is a huge demand for Gaming developers.

Gaming PCs require different high-end configurations of RAM, Graphics Cards, Fancy Cabinets, RBG lights, Keyboards, and Mice. Therefore, DIY PCs for extreme Gaming are high in demand. Similarly, it is also giving a major boost to other industries such as Animation, VFX industry, Gaming events and Internet cafes. Gaming is a very dynamic industry and hence, there is an ample scope for innovation and creativity in this space. Hence, Gaming brands and developers are experimenting various innovative things to develop the industry,” he says.

“We have observed that the gaming industry is hugely benefitted by advertising,” observes Rajesh Thadani, Executive Director- Consumer Business & E-commerce – Lenovo India. “Revenues that are generated through advertising is benefitting the mobile gaming companies enormously. Brand visibility in the form of placing logos or even brand names in the games, fetching the gaming community’s attention while using the app and even engaging them through advertisements is actively followed by big brands in the country.”

He also points out that AR/VR too are emerging business opportunities that gaming companies are targeting currently.

In fact, many industry insiders agree that VR is shaping up to be the biggest gaming trend for 2018.

“The gaming sector boom is certain to drive growth in the IT and telecom industries in India. India has ingenious talent pool in the IT and programming sectors that will play a significant role in the development of superior games and at reasonably lower costs. Lastly there are serious players and investors that have entered the gaming industry, who are expected to facilitate its further growth,” says Rajesh.

Gaming will also create new business opportunities in education, gamification and entertainment sectors, as opined by Roopak Nair, VP – Products & Marketing – JetSynthesys. “Online games have captured the imagination of millions of Indians who experience games for the first time on a mobile device. Better hardware and data speeds have meant that new and high-quality games will continue driving device adoption in the future. Besides, the education space can be transformed with gamified experiences delivered through VR and learning based games which will see more adoption in the near future since games are consumed by all genders and age groups alike. In the corporate sector, the need for gamification for various processes from hiring, to training professionals on new courses, to assessment of skills is already taking shape. And finally the entertainment sector which has shifted to video and social media consumption on mobile will see merging of these trends as games become consumed more through e-sports and live streaming as much as prevailing entertainment shows of today as the market for competitive gaming

Roopak Nair VP – Products & Marketing JetSynthesys

Samsung 49 inches ultra wide Curved Gaming Monitor

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COVER STORY

Vishal Parekh Marketing Director, HyperX and Kingston Technology – India

Romeo Misao Marketing Manager ViewSonic India

Rajesh Thadani Executive Director- Consumer Business & E-commerce, Lenovo India

mushrooms in India,” he explains.

In spite of gaming becoming an important segment, the fact still remains that there are 12 to 15 million gamers in India and only about 300 decent gaming cafes across the country. Comparing this scenario with China which has 60 million PC gamers with 160,000 eSports Cafes, India is grossly underpenetrated in this segment. In terms of revenues too, India still pales as compared to China and the West.

This is because India Gaming industry is still in its nascent stage, as pointed out

by Siddharth Jatania, MD - ADATA India.

“But in spite of the vertical being very niche at present, more and more partners are now interested in promoting gaming products in Tier 2 – Tier 3 cities as well. Companies also understand its importance and have started focusing on it.”

like Virtual Reality, 4K video and Mixed Reality. The demands and expectations of consumers have also increased now.

Gaming laptops have come a long way and with each passing day, they are becoming as powerful as desktops. Rapid changes in the gaming industry are expected to offer new opportunities for developers, publishers as well as technology partners in the future, and this is all anticipated to grow the India gaming market by 2022. Hardware brands like Kingston, Lenovo, Asus, Dell, and Samsung have brought in many technology

Opportunities for Brands...

Technology has indeed taken big leaps in the recent years. More and more gamers are getting inclined towards gaming as a result of advancements in technologies

Top 5 Picks by VARINDIA Dell Inspiron 15 7000 - A powerful laptop tailor-made to meet the needs of enthusiasts, and raising the bar for Dell’s most aggressive performance design and components offered within the Inspiron Gaming laptop family. It is powered by Intel Core i7 quad-core processor combined with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 discrete GPU with NVIDIA Max-Q Design Technology & 6 GB of blazing fast GDDR5 memory, offering overwhelming performance. For easy connectivity, Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming sports Thunderbolt 3 port (USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C with support for 40 Gbps Thunderbolt and DisplayPort).

Omen 15 & Omen 17 by HP Inc – The laptops are completely reinvented and redesigned in 2017 to offer a design built for gamers, with more expansion capabilities, additional ports and VR compatibility. They are housed with high-performance NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 for the graphics horsepower to run games at 1080p/2160p) and beyond and powered by 7th-gen Intel Core-i Quad Core CPUs for raw computing power to handle massive multiplayer games, serious multi-tasking or the latest eSports titles. The laptops also have dragon-red backlit keyboard with three backlight options optimized for gaming with red accented WASD keys and white backlight for easy identification.

Lenovo Legion Y520 - Equipped with up to 7th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and the latest NVIDIA discrete graphics cards, the Legion Y520 has an aluminum-brushed body and weighs less than 2.5 kgs. The device allows gamers to custom tune audio with the 2 x 2W Harman speakers and Dolby Audio Premium for an outstanding audio quality even without headphones. The Legion Y520 laptop has an optional red backlit keyboard that provides 1.7 mm of key travel for responsive keystrokes. The laptop comes with up to 128GB of PCIe SSD storage, ideal for reducing boot-up time and in-game loading, or 1TB of HDD storage.

Asus ROG Strix GL503 – The laptop is made for those on the go, with a 15.6-inch display, as-thin-as 2.3cm profile and a frame that’s as lightweight as 2.5kg. It is engineered with up to the newest Intel Core i7 processor, up to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics, and Windows 10 Home, Strix GL503 that equips the gamer to control the competition. Its understated, black brushed-metal cover conveys an inner focus and sophistication possessed by the most dedicated players. It offers up to 32GB of fast DDR4 2400MHz memory.

Acer Predator Triton 700 - The Predator Triton 700 houses the high-performance NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (overclockable) GPU and 7th Generation Intel Core i7 processors in a svelte 18.9 mm-thin (0.74 inch) aluminum chassis. Acer’s AeroBlade 3D metal fans increase airflow by 35 percent yet take up less space within the device. Two NVMe PCIe SSDs in RAID 0 configuration and up to 32 GB of DDR4 2400 MHz memory helps the system run at peak performance. The VR-ready Predator Triton 700 offers bright, vibrant visuals on a 15.6-inch Full HD IPS display with 120Hz refresh rate and supporting NVIDIA G-SYNC for buttery-smooth gameplay.

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advancements to support the gaming market in India.

In particularly the gaming market in India, Viewsonic provides consumers with top of the line gaming monitors which are a part of its XG series and VX57 series. “In India, we have recently launched the XG2402 monitor which features an incredible 144Hz refresh rate, as well as AMD FreeSync technology and “Rampage X Lighting” to cater to the RGB lovers when it comes to PC setup. ViewSonic also offers some of the fastest 1ms response time monitors (VX57 series) for console gamers, XG2530 superfast 1ms with 240Hz refresh rate monitors for their high end gaming requirements and the WQHD SuperClear IPS XG2703-GS gaming monitors with G-Sync for NVIDIA GPU lovers,” says Romeo.

HyperX, as a brand, believes in bringing the best technology to consumers in India to enhance the user experience. “Not only that,” says Vishal. “We also work with our partners to help them formulate a good pricing strategy. For example, we have the best-in-line gaming peripherals like the HyperX Revolver S headset with 7.1 Dolby surround sound or the premium Alloy Elite mechanical gaming keyboard with media keys. Our involvement in the gaming brands and communities gives us a chance to get a proper user feedback, which we try to use to incorporate in the next generation of products.”

In its quest to provide customers the most immersive PC gaming experiences, Lenovo has spent considerable time building and listening to a community of gamers to better understand what they value most.

“In 2017, we launched a dedicated subbrand for Lenovo gaming PCs – we call it Lenovo Legion. The new gaming sub-brand offers gamers powerful gaming devices and community engagement. It’s a user experience designed around what they’re passionate about – the most immersive gaming experiences. Just as the Roman army shared a common purpose that bound them together as a force to be reckoned with, the Lenovo Legion is all about our growing community of gamers and their passion for gaming,” says Rajesh.

Rashi Peripherals as a Gaming Component Distribution power-house in India is heavily promoting DIY Gaming PCs through its various marketing initiatives and awareness campaigns to nurture a Gaming culture in the country. “We are the leading player in the Component business and almost 80 percent of the components are distributed by us through our 51 branches to 9000 plus partners pan India. We are also developing an online configurator, where Gamers can choose their respective components and place the order. It is our aspiration to make all the gaming requirements easily available at consumer doorsteps. The industry is set to grow further and we will continue to expand our Gaming portfolio to serve the demand for high-end Gaming solutions,” explains Alok.

Gaming innovations at CES 2018 HyperX (Kingston): HyperX announced three new products - wireless gaming headset, the HyperX Cloud Flight (its first Wireless gaming headset), an expanded suite of RGB gaming peripherals including the Alloy Elite RGB (Mechanical Gaming keyboard) and Pulsefire Surge (RGB Gaming Mice).

Asus: ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) unveiled its latest line-up of gaming gear at CES® 2018, including the ROG Strix SKT T1 Hero Edition laptop, ROG Strix GL12 desktop, ROG Strix Flare RGB mechanical keyboard, ROG Aura Terminal addressable RGB controller, ROG Spotlight RGB projection light and Bezel-free Kit display accessory.

Corsair: Corsair has announced a complete range of new performance wireless gaming peripherals. Powered by CORSAIR UNPLUG and PLAY wireless technology, the K63 Wireless Mechanical Keyboard, K63 Wireless Gaming Lapboard, DARK CORE RGB Wireless Gaming Mouse, and MM1000 Qi Wireless Charging Mouse Pad allow PC enthusiasts and gamers to experience wire-free gaming without compromise.

Dell: Dell is announcing a new VRready Dell Inspiron Gaming Desktop starting at just $799 to reduce the entry cost of VR. Engineered for PC gamers, the new Inspiron Gaming Desktop features 8th Gen Intel Core processors with up to six cores and graphics, solid-state drive options for faster boot-up times and intelligent thermal design for longer gaming sessions.

MSI: The MSI GE63 Raider RGB Edition bagged the Best Gaming Laptop award at this year’s CES 2018. It’s an impressive gaming laptop – inside and out. It features RGB lighting that can sometimes look a little garish, but it works brilliantly, turning the MSI GE63 Raider RGB Edition into an eye-catching device that really stands out from the crowd.

Gigabyte: Gigabyte had several motherboards on display at CES including an AMD AM4 motherboard, the AORUS X470 Gaming 7 WiFi with an unreleased AMD 400-series Promontory chipset. These new motherboards will debut in the April timeframe. It is a high-end gaming focused motherboard and should allow enthusiasts eyeing a Ryzen or Zen+ (Ryzen 2000 series) processor to push it as far as possible.

Acer: Acer announced its first modern laptop that uses an AMD processor and an AMD Radeon discrete graphics chip. The Nitro 5 is a multimedia-focused notebook that will be available this April in various configurations targeted at people with different budgets and needs.

AMD: Alongside announcing the first desktop Ryzen processors with built-in Radeon Vega Graphics, AMD detailed the full line up of Ryzen mobile APUs including the new Ryzen PRO and Ryzen 3 models, and provided a first look at the performance of its upcoming 12nm 2nd generation Ryzen desktop CPU expected to launch in April. In graphics, AMD announced the expansion of the “Vega” family with Radeon Vega Mobile.

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COVER STORY ADATA has a dedicated gaming brand ‘XPG’, through which it reaches out to gamers. “From Increased speed of gaming DRAM up to 4600MHz, high speed M.2 SSD`s in small form factor to RGB solution technology embedded in DRAM, mouse and mouse pads to headsets with 3D surround sound, we are doing our part for be upbeat with the gaming industry and push gaming to next level,” comments Siddharth.

Roopak is super excited about the wave of new technology be it Virtual Reality, AR or Smart Watches which will enable gaming on the go and make it a much more physical and connected experience in the future for all gamers. “Our current game Sachin Saga, is already the fastest and most downloaded cricket game ever in the first month of its launch with our first mobile eSports event kicking off with close to 20,000 players competing in the qualifiers, leading upto the finals on January 19 at the India Gaming Show. It was also the first cricket game where we motion-captured Sachin Tendulkar with more than 36 cameras so that the experience is as real as it gets for the player.”

Acer is betting big by focusing on bringing powerful and unique gaming innovations that offers exceptional performance within a wide range of budget. “We see a huge potential for gaming laptop in India, as the hardware components are becoming more compact and powerful day-by-day, perhaps making laptops lighter, sleeker and compact.

We recently launched Predator Triton 700, Predator 21X in India, Triton 700 is one of the thinnest gaming laptop in the world that offers high end gaming experience while Predator 21X is world’s first most powerful curved screen gaming laptop. Besides this, we also introduced wearable gaming device- “Acer Mixed Reality Headset” that incorporates the best of AR and VR in a single device. In order to gain even stronger foothold in the gaming industry, we plan to bring many more innovative to India in 2018,” states Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India.

Samsung recently launched its Curved Monitor in India, with 49-inch ultra-wide display. It is a perfect companion for gaming enthusiasts. “For the gamers, it is essential to have a monitor that can keep up with the intense demands of today’s high-end games, without lagging or stuttering, and provide an immersive experience in the process.

And Samsung’s gaming monitors are made keeping the users’ experience in mind. The monitors also help prevent eye strain and fatigue with embedded flicker-free and Eye Saver technologies,” says Sukesh Jain, Vice President, IT & Mobile Enterprise Business, Samsung India.

After monitors the next important thing for gamers is the storage solutions and Samsung has memory drives specially focussed for gamers. With the Samsung NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory express) SSDs (Solid State Drives) gamers can seize a competitive advantage over rivals and experience superior gameplay. Samsung also has the Game Launcher App in its

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Indian Gaming Trends in 2018 eSports to gain prominence – With eSports being the most viewed event worldwide, this organized video gaming events and tournaments will rise to prominence in 2018. The concept of eSports events is also slowly rising in the country. 2017 alone had eSports / competitive gaming events with a total prize pool of USD 320,000 / 2 Crore. eSports is estimated to be worth about $1.5 billion by 2020 — based on a projected compound annual growth rate of 32 percent.

Virtual Reality (VR) will go mainstream - While there are already lots of developments in the VR area, the virtual reality gaming market is projected to exceed $45.09 billion by 2025. VR too is emerging as a big business opportunity that gaming companies are targeting currently. In fact, many industry insiders agree that VR is shaping up to be the biggest gaming trend for 2018.

Multiplayer Online Games (MMO) will be on rise - Multiplayer online game is an area in which developers are very eager to work. In recent years, developers have focused on it by creating a game world featuring real people, where one can interact with each other. This will see a further momentum in 2018.

Game development will see a new boom - The gaming sector boom is certain to drive growth in the IT and telecom industries in India. India has ingenious talent pool in the IT and programming sectors that will play a significant role in the development of superior games and at reasonably lower costs.

smartphones and tablets which provides gamers with a more user-friendly and immersive gaming experience, facilitated by various customization options.

Gear VR is another contribution by Samsung to the gaming industry and with the multifunctional controller, it adds comfort to the Gear VR experience by placing the device’s controls in the user’s hands rather than on the headset itself and let them play ultrarealistic VR games.

For NVIDIA, technologies like 4K, HDR, Augmented Reality/ Virtual Reality are going to be big game-changers for the gaming industry. “Gaming at 4K resolution has been a dream for gamers for years. 4K displays with resolutions of 3840x2160 are now available at very affordable prices, and next-generation Pascal-based graphics chips that power GPUs including the GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti are available to drive those extreme graphical demands. High Dynamic Range (HDR) Displays allow for more vibrant and realistic graphics for games. Last year NVIDIA announced 4K G-SYNC HDR displays, the first ever HDR monitors designed specifically for PC gaming, featuring high refresh rates, custom panels, Quantum Dot technology and support for HDR10, the HDR format being adopted for PC gaming. And because G-SYNC HDR displays are designed for PC gaming, they have near-zero input latency compared to HDR TVs, for fluid and responsive gameplay,” asserts Vamsi.

“Zotac is the No.1 Graphics brand in India and looking on the opportunity in gaming segment. This year we have a new gaming line up which includes MEK1

Gaming Desktop PC and ZOTAC MAGNUS MINI PCs which is meant for enthusiast gamers and very portable to carry for LAN parties,” says Deepak.

“We, at Rapoo Technology have a full range of accessories for customer to support all formats of gaming i.e. PC Gaming, Mobile Gaming & Console gaming.

We have recently launched our exclusive gaming brand in India called VPRO, which caters specially to the growing demand of gaming accessories in India,” tells Mukesh Chaudhary, Country Head-India, SAARC & ME, Rapoo Technologies India.

And so...

The gaming market in India is still smaller compared to other South East Asian countries like China, Philippines and Thailand. However, India has a definite growth potential in the near future, considering the fact that India has a large population, especially youth who form a major chunk of the gaming market.

The increasing focus of gaming companies towards Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) related games is also expected to boost India gaming market in coming five years. Factors like VR, AR and MR will push the boundaries even higher. With the current rate of technological innovation, there is a huge potential for this industry. In addition to this, the Indian gaming industry has been advancing from casual to serious gamers and thus there lies a massive scope in reaching out to the bulk of untapped gamers across Tier I and Tier II cities. n

Samrita Baruah samrita@varindia.com

FACE TO FACE

An all new Avaya charts out its channel growth plans for 2018 It took almost a year but now they are back after having completed the restructuring process. As it embarks on a new journey, Fadi Mubarak, Vice President (Channel), Avaya recalls of how the whole exercise has been a learning experience while also saying that the new path that it will tread from this point will not be done without the help of its channel partners -

A

vaya embarks on a new journey following a successful balance sheet restructuring that shed billions of dollars in debt, freeing up $300 million in cash flows for investment in technology innovation and growth. The company is being listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and has begun trading on the stock exchange when the market opened on January 17, 2018.

After having emerged from Chapter 11, the objective for Avaya in 2018 as a company is to start growing again.

“As the financial restructuring is behind us, we have free cash flow. So obviously we need to accelerate investments, and regain our fair market share, which we can now reclaim in the UC&CC business. Obviously, that can't be achieved without our partners.

They have to be on board with us and our growth is equivalent as it is an opportunity for us and them because the revenues will grow,” says Fadi Mubarak, Vice President (Channel), Avaya.

The only change is that the strategy now is to encourage having an ecosystem of partners, not only direct partners, because customers are requiring more and more complex solutions. In addition, these solutions require different set of companies to collaborate to build a comprehensive solution. So Avaya will now have some traditional re-sellers, new application developers, new system integrators and distributors.

All these together with the components have to collaborate to put a viable solution together and take it as a complete solution to the customers. “A great example of that is when we go around the smart city projects in India; we see multiple components that are interlinked and not independent. So, our strategy will be to encourage collaboration, and develop our channel programs to cater to these scenarios in terms of enabling different types of partners on the different roles they are going to play, encouraging rebates and rewards for such types of behaviours.

We also introduced cloud nomination for partners because apex models are now more and more in demand. So, this is how we evolved our channel programs and eventually you win more market share and result in top line growth,” says Fadi.

Empowering Avaya partners...

Enablement of partners is a journey and is an ongoing process. Obviously, there are multiple needs and ways to start – right from events, showing them the new viable solutions that Avaya has put together that it wants its partners to take it to market, how it positions them against the value for the customers and so on. This would also involve explaining the value proposition that Avaya is going to take to the market and the building blocks and the skills needed of them.

“Then we start executing on that for those partners who are committed to take these solutions and take that value proposition to market. The enablement happens in the form of online enablement for certain things, on ground enablement and classroom based training on other things. This is complemented by engaging together on the first few projects through our own professional services, working with them. This would ensure that the delivery is successful and transfer of know how between our professional service team and their professional services also happens. So our APS (Avaya Professional Services) strategy is to complement our partners and indirectly it is an enablement when we engage together,” explains Fadi.

The APS are however largely driven by the complexity of the projects. With new technologies coming up frequently, Avaya does it very regularly as new technologies. As the things mature and the partner become self-sufficient, they then continue deploying the projects on their own.

Avaya has its traditional channel programs where it classifies its partners in emeralds, sapphire and diamonds, depending on the

volume business and skills.

Avaya always evolves the program according to the market requirements. And this is why it added the cloud badges, as it feels the cloud model, not as a technology but more of a financial model. So Avaya is investing with its partners to start launching different cloud offerings to address the market requirements. The advantage here for partners is that it gives them access to market segments that otherwise would not have been available to them. There are lot of start-ups, companies or big market companies who will not embrace complex solutions unless they are offered to them as an apex model for various reasons.

“So that additional route to market will bring in increment, and recurring revenues to our partners and ourselves to grow the joint market share we hold in India,” he says.

The global and Indian channel programs are very much similar in nature. They just have small variations to address specific market requirements. “So sometimes if we design a program in India, we will modify the programs existing in the US market a bit.

The way we design the edge program is very modular and the partner can pick and choose depending upon their go to market interest.

They can choose which part of program they will abide to and which will have its own rules and investments, and its rewards.

Therefore, it has been designed in a way that we do not have to modify the program but we leave it to the partner to decide in which category or categories they would like to play and the program adjusts itself for those requirements,” sums up Fadi. n

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Data will be a big enabler for advanced security solutions to come up In a chat with VARINDIA, Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet highlights the presence and growth of the security industry in India –

T

he new digital economy has seen security attacks going rampant. We should not forget the recent Blackwallet case where the hackers hijacked the DNS server system and vanished $400,000 from the users account. These kinds of activities prove that whatever we do to maintain our digital security, it is just not enough. There are many companies in the global and India market that dedicates its services and products to secure the valuable information and decrease the chances of vulnerability.

Fortinet is one such company that is taking the responsibility to secure the vulnerable data of business. Fortinet’s vision is to protect enterprises network through its intelligent security fabric that spans across the entire network, linking different security sensors and tools together in order to collect, coordinate, and respond to malicious behaviour, wherever it occurs in real time.

Transition of security...

In the new digital economy, access to data is critical. Meeting the shifting demands of consumers, monitoring and managing critical network and system components in real time and creating algorithms to extract meaningful information from the Big Data these devices can generate are all necessary to compete in the new digital marketplace. Part of this digital transformation is the adoption of IoT devices and networks, which continue to be deployed in networks at an unprecedented rate.

“Organizations need to respond by insisting on more and better security controls being implemented in devices by manufacturers.

Security solutions need to be able to evolve into expert systems built around integrated security technologies, actionable threat intelligence, and dynamically configurable and interactive security fabrics,” says Rajesh Maurya, Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet.

“In fact basic security hygiene also needs to become part of our basic security protocols, with patch and replace protocols happening on all devices automatically. And we need to replace organically developed accidental network architectures with intentional design

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that can withstand serious and sustained attacks,” he adds.

While talking about consumer behaviour in Indian market, Rajesh said that ITDMs continue to prioritize the maintenance and upgrade of their cyber security solutions in an attempt to combat today’s cyber security adversaries. Investments in new and upgraded security solutions will continue through 2018, but 34% of Indian respondents also reveal that investments towards employee training will become one of the top 3 investment priorities.

Fortinet also expanded its team of highly skilled support engineers to provide advanced Technical Support and professional services to customers in EMEA and SAARC. With Fortinet Professional Services, customers can request the services of offsite or onsite consultants to design install and migrate security platforms.

With direct access to Fortinet’s developers and support, these engineers will ensure a timely and seamless service experience for customers.

“The best defence against intelligent and automated threats is an integrated, collaborative, and highly adaptive security fabric.”

Future plans for Indian market...

Sharing his future plans, Rajesh says that with Fortinet Security Fabric, partners can create a collaborative ecosystem not only with Fortinet's own extensive portfolio of security and networking technologies, but also include third-party partners in cloud, software-defined networking, sandboxing, testing, security information and event management (SIEM), and Single Sign On technologies.

“Fortinet will work to increase this value so we can become more important to their business and enable them to expand with the Fortinet Security Fabric. We want partners to build on the Fortinet Security Fabric

Rajesh Maurya Regional Vice President, India & SAARC, Fortinet to deliver their own value-added services, not just implementation services, but also managed services that they can wrap around the Fabric. We are also looking at ways to help more partners move from a one-time sale relationship with their customers to one that creates long-term relationships. We want to help partners look at providing lifetime value to their customers,” he sums up. n Focusing on an individual’s security to ensure a safer digital environment, Rajesh recommends some practices to ensure the security of individuals • Avoid making transactions on nonpersonal computers.

• Routinely updating software mitigates the risk of infection.

• Check credit card and bank account activity frequently during active shopping periods.

• Users are advised not to provide important personal details in social media sites.

Megha megha@varindia.com

VAR SECURITY

‘Wi-Fi is very important for doing any kind of business today’ Srikanth Natarajan, Director – Channels and Alliances, India & SAARC, Ruckus Networks in a chat gives out information on the Unleashed Access points that the company has launched 8 months back and the response it has garnered from its SMB customers The fastest growing vertical for Ruckus in India is the SMB and commercial space.

Technology adoption among the SMB is fast rising. Wi-Fi is today a business need for retail outlets, small hotels, clinics and law offices.

Besides it is a business need for those SMBs who work with customers looking on to various compliance tools and more seamless business.

Hence connectivity becomes keen and Wi-Fi becomes very important.

Unleashed Access Points (AP) is an integral part of the Ruckus portfolio. It plays a key role in driving the run rate business and the Ruckus partners. Around 60% of Ruckus’ partners today are focusing on Unleashed. Not just this, Ruckus Unleashed products comes with standard Ruckus warranty. Ruckus provides TAC (Technical Assistance Center) on Unleashed as they do to any of its other products.

The SMB segment is entrepreneur led and does not have people and processes for IT. They need a simple Wi-Fi solution that is easy to deploy,

easy to manage and delivers Enterprise Grade performance with the assurance of security.

Unleashed is a controller less solution that does exactly this and delivers a robust performance with minimum intervention. Once deployed, the Unleashed APs do not need any fine tuning or management. They deliver high performance and a secure network without a controller.

“SMB’s enjoy a trouble free network with Unleashed,” says Srikanth Natarajan, Director – Channels and Alliances, India & SAARC - Ruckus Networks. “Ruckus Unleashed delivers all of the above at an attractive price point for SMBs.

Adoption has been high and SMBs are keen to appreciate the value Ruckus brings in compared to some of the other players. Similar products from other players do not deliver an Enterprise class performance. Unleashed R510 and R610 are the fast moving high-end products which deliver the ideal combination of performance, reliability, and coverage for medium-density indoor locations at a price customers can afford. Unleashed products are accepted PAN India; very well marketed in North, West and South India regions” He further continues, “One of our customers, a budget hotel chain has deployed Unleashed nationwide across all its properties with a promise to its customers that Wi-Fi will be robust and secure. The customer post deploying Unleashed is getting excellent guest feedback on Wi-Fi which is resulting in repeat business.”

Unleashed today enjoys a good market share in the SMB space. It enjoys close to 80% market share in the Hospitality and Education segments.

“We are also driving Unleashed into new segments like residential homes and small offices,” Srikanth says.

Ruckus is also making key investments in the partner community in the form of roadshows, seminars, demo equipments and pilot projects as well as in educating both customers and partners.

Hikvision Smart Parking Management Solution Hikvision is set to make life easier for parking operators. With their state-of-the-art Smart Parking Management Solution, this solution from Hikvision masterfully improves the efficient management, security, and profitability objectives of parking operators.

For parking lots close to town centers or popular facilities, high customer flow during rush hours often creates parking entrance congestion.

Effective parking safety and management are critical concerns here, especially in retail sectors.

The Hikvision Smart Parking Management System applies the latest barrier technology, combining it with Hikvision’s industry-standard Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) to ensure seamless, managed vehicular entrance and exit from parking lots. Fast vehicle identification and integrated barrier control software means queues are minimized, and greater vehicle flow can be handled to increase the productivity and efficiency of any parking site.

Advanced Hikvision DarkFighter and True WDR imaging technologies are employed in the ANPR system, as well as optional IR or built-in white light LED lighting. These industry-leading technologies ensure the delivery of crisp and

clear recognition and recording of every vehicle using a parking lot day and night.

Parking Guidance cameras in this robust solution automatically monitor the use of the car park along with the availability of spaces, 24 hours a day. More sophisticated and useful than the usual ‘Spaces available’ sign, the system actually highlights the available parking spaces to customers and guides them to those spaces upon arrival. This is achieved via parking guidance display screens at critical junctions within the car park, which display the number and location of available parking spaces. Additionally, a dynamic lighting indicator system directs customers to a specific space available – reducing customer parking times and creating an experience where drivers always find a free parking space quickly.

Controlled by the Hikvision Parking Guidance Terminal, the system not only provides power and network access for up to 32 nearby cameras, but also provides real-time video for surveillance and incident evidence preservation.

Additionally, terminals back up critical data locally and can run parking guidance offline – to ensure optimal system reliability and minimal impact on local area data networks.

Creating additional value and an improving end-user experience in a parking lot, the Hikvision Smart Parking Management System includes a ‘Find My Car’ feature. When returning to the parking lot, drivers can use the Query Kiosk touchscreen. By simply entering their license plate number in full or in part, vehicles can be easily located on a schematic floor map, and the vehicle location displayed, along with the shortest and quickest route to the vehicle.

Day-to-day management, including remote barrier control, license plate access management, vehicle accidents and unauthorized parking, can now be achieved with Hikvision’s centralized parking management platform.

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VAR MOBILITY

iVOOMi wants to keep prices as a ‘value proposition’ for the brand In a chat with VARINDIA, Ashwin Bhandari, CEO, iVOOMi India, discusses on the current Indian smartphone market, the company’s roadmap for 2018, besides sharing his thoughts on business expansion in future, new innovations and much more...

As the Indian Smartphone market witnessed a tremendous growth last year, it is also expected to grow further in 2018 with a major traction in sales. Driven by high demand and upgrades, the market is likely to witness immense growth this year as well. As a brand, iVOOMi also sees a huge potential in this market. Talking to VARIndia, Ashwin Bhandari, CEO, iVOOMi speaks on how the past year has been a great one for the brand.

He reveals that since its inception in the Indian market, they had a consistent growth of 2x, and is prepared to capture 3-4% of the Indian Smartphone market in 2018.

Outlook on the Indian market …..

When asked to speak on the current market scenario, Ashwin says, “There is a continuous need for high performance devices with quality, which the country is adapting to at a very fast pace and we have an exciting roadmap on the same.”

He further adds, “The present development in the market makes this the best time to manufacture and design our devices locally and it will in fact, enable us to deliver products that are more suitable and satisfactory for the Indian market. This will ensure better logistics and supply chain management basis the market. Once we start the designing of our products within India, it will help in lowering of production costs and improvement in the quality of the products and enable us to deliver better devices at value prices.”

Strategy to strengthen…

According to Ashwin the two biggest challenges in the current business environment are the changing market dynamics and developing the ecosystem for manufacturing in India.

Mentioning about the company’s future roadmap, he further states, “The brand also expects 2018 to be beneficial for the brand.

2018 will mark the next phase for us; we have huge plans in terms of innovative products, and innovative sales models to reach our consumers, better after-sales services and further growth till we set up our own R&D in India by 2019. Our focus is still under the

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products delivered today by iVOOMi are made in India,” says Ashwin while talking about its partnership with the Hipad technology.

Discussing on the impact of its present financial result on products and services, he reveals, “We have been consistently achieving our set targets; and in fact, our revenue and numbers have been much above our expectations. This gives us greater leeway to bring on better products and look forward towards building on it at a much faster pace next year.”

Ashwin Bhandari CEO iVOOMi India 8K category for smartphones and we will be working hard with R&D and re-engineer the best of the technologies at these price points.” iVoomi also had a long-standing relationship with Hipad. “For years, we have worked very closely with Hipad on multiple projects in strategic terms. Hipad EMS is the best in South East Asia with a proven track record for more than 10 years. Hence, we want to leverage our long relationship to deliver best-in-class products every day. We were the first to start production at their facility based in Noida, followed by Xiaomi. We believe producing/manufacturing close to the market enables us to be highly agile and responsive towards the market and that’s what our association with Hi-pad has empowered us to do. We currently have the capability of making 400K smartphones at the facility. 95%+of the

R&D & service support...

Ashwin believes R&D and service support are very important. He shares, “Currently 20% of our revenue is invested in market research and most of the remaining chunk is invested in product development. iVOOMi has its presence in all 29 states and is further expanding in other parts of the country. We had recently expanded our service centre network by opening 500 more service centres in tier 2, 3 & 4 cities to provide our customers with unmatched after sales services. We are working on an innovative structure for delivering services to the market. The next stage will be building nodal centres, wherein we will have knowledge and support centres to fix the problems being faced by the consumers.” "iVOOMi’s core value has always been to focus on its strength and it has been able to build the same globally. “We want to focus on product R&D, build latest, cutting-edge designs while keeping the prices as a value proposition for our iVOOMi fans,” he says.

Summing up, Ashwin asserts, “iVOOMi will be focusing on the under USD 120 category for 2018. Hence, developing and reengineering high-end features and values for our consumers will be our primary focus.

With respect to the products, few features that we will be focusing on are Face Unlock, Cool Camera functions, Full View Displays (under 120 USD category), Design innovations, Bigger RAM and memories (under 120 USD), Higher megapixels selfie and back camera, to name a few.” n Abha Singh abha@varindia.com

VAR MOBILITY

Ziox Mobiles unveils “Duopix R1” with Dual Rear Camera

Z

iox Mobiles has announced “Duopix R1” with Dual rear camera feature that vividly captures every picture with fast autofocus acquisition while shooting still photos in Live View mode.

Capturing every detail vibrantly, Rear 8.0 MP AF + VGA camera embedded with flash instantly adds a coin of beauty to every capture and the 5MP Front Selfie Camera benevolences, Dual Happiness with advanced picture quality paired along the highperformance 8MP Auto Focus Rear Camera. Power packed in 5-inch HD IPS

Full Lamination Display, the device is powered by 1.25 GHz Quad-Core Processor, the smartphone

delivers blazing superfast performance for an absolutely unparalleled interface teamed up with 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM, providing users an on edge and smooth functioning.

iVOOMi India announces new smartphone series exclusively RAM+32GB on Flipkart respectively. The

i

VOOMi has launched its second series of flagship smartphones – i1 and i1s, with absolute view, embedded with modern technology like one-touch

Fingerprint sensor, dual rear camera, and superior design that provides high performance and efficiency paired with beauty and class. The first flash sale of the products will start on Flipkart on 10th January, 2018 at 12:00 PM. The devices are packed with 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM and 3GB

ROM, storage can be expanded up to 128GB via a micro SD card on both devices. These are 4G VoLTE supported smartphones, which are high on its power efficiency.

Both the devices are equipped with 3,000mAh battery and run on Android 7.0 Nougat with the screen size of 5.45 inch (13.84 cm) HD Infinity Edge Display (18:9 Screen Ratio).

Both the devices run on Quad Core, MTK 6737 processor for high performance. On the outside, these devices boast of the 13MP+2MP dual rear camera with soft Flash and Autofocus along with 8MP Selfie Camera to provide more clarity and capture impeccable selfies and pictures.

Gionee introduces S10 Lite at

G

ionee India has unveiled the latest S10 Lite and announced its availability across all retail stores in India at a price of Rs.15,999.

Embedded with 3,100mAh battery and a fingerprint sensor, the device comes packed with a professional 16MP selfie camera. The phone is supported by a strong Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile Platform – Quadcore 1.4GHz which enhances the photo taking experience with outstanding computing power. Backed

by GioneeAmigo 4.0, developed on the basis of Android 7.1, the device promises upgraded user experience powered by intelligent management system.

The S10 Lite has a WhatsApp clone feature that enables users to create three WhatsApp accounts, allowing them to differentiate their personal and professional life. The device allows a user to split screen, making it possible to juggle different activities on one screen at one time.

Rooted with Intelligent eye protection, the device has a blue light filtering which protects the user’s eyes and reduces fatigue, making a long-time use of the phone more comfortable.

The phone possesses a 4GB RAM that assists in multitasking and a 32GB ROM that is expandable up to 256 GB. Gionee India has also joined hands with Paytm and Jio to announce an exciting offer with this launch. Every purchase of S10 Lite will come with 2 Paytm Cashback Voucher Codes entitling customers with Rs.250 cashback on a base buy of Rs.350 from Paytm Mall. New or existing Jio customers who purchase S10 Lite will get 5GB data each month for a period of 10 months on any data recharge of Rs.309 and above.

OnePlus reveals red variant of 5T Lava for Indian customers

O

nePlus has launched the 5T Lava Red for the Indian market priced at Rs.37,999 which will be on sale from 20th January on Amazon.in.

The Lava Red colour shade is achieved through an accurate combination of temperature, consistency and baking time with less than 0.01 per cent variation; even a micro deviation in any of the three aforementioned criteria would lead to 100 per cent scrapping of the devices.

OnePlus has also included a new wallpaper unique to this edition for enhancing the user experience. However, the Lava Red 5T features and specifications are same as of the regular 5T which

sports a 6.01-inch full HD+ AMOLED display and a 16MP + 20MP dual rear camera for enhanced low light photography.

The smartphone is backed by a 3,300mAh battery that supports OnePlus’ proprietary Dash Charging technology and uses the Snapdragon 835 chipset along with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.

itel Mobile introduces 4G VoLTEenabled Smartphone “A40”

i

tel Mobile has recently unveiled its latest 4G smartphone offering. itel A40, at an effective price of Rs.3,099 in association with Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), under its “Mera Pehla Smartphone” initiative. itel A40 runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat) with the ability to split screens, freeze applications, and have multiple social media accounts (including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram) logged in simultaneously. itel A40 has a lot of features to fulfil the needs of shutterbugs.

The smartphone comes equipped with 5MP rear camera with auto-focus and flash, 2MP front camera with selfie flash, and bigger and brighter 5” FWVGA display. The smartphone also has multiple immersive features to play around with, including audio pictures, frames, and GIFs. The smartphone comes with an assurance of a long-lasting battery life with its 2,400mAh lithiumion battery. An additional benefit is that its proprietary battery optimization fetches about 9 days of standby

time, 11 hours of nonstop 4G talk-time, 14 hours of 3G calling, and 28 hours of 2G talk-time. This allows users to enjoy endless video calls, photo clicking, media browsing, and gaming sessions, apart from using an array of other features, day in and day out.

With 1GB RAM and a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor itel A40 delivers a seamless, powerful performance. It also gives 8GB storage space and comes with OTG support to facilitate a seamless data and power transfer between OTG devices.

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Movers & Shakers

Nitin Chauhan joins Paytm Payments Bank as CISO

BIS Research ropes in Manoj Madhusudanan as Innovation and Growth Advisor

Paytm Payments Bank has appointed Nitin Chauhan as its Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). In his current role at Paytm Payments Bank, Nitin will be in charge of Information Security, setting up and enhancing the firm’s enterprise security strategies, infrastructure and network design. He will also ensure regulatory compliance with an emphasis on building a security framework for all Paytm Payments Bank customers.

Nitin comes with around two decades of experience across Information and Cybersecurity. Prior to joining Paytm Payments Bank, he served as the CISO at RBL Bank for over 6 years and also worked with Kotak Bank and other financial institutions.

BIS Research, a global market intelligence, research, and advisory company, has announced that it has brought Manoj Madhusudanan on board as its Innovation and Growth Advisor.

Manoj will work closely with BIS Research’s CEO Faisal Ahmad on key strategic elements to help the firm reach the next orbit of growth – both in terms of capabilities and market reputation. This will be in addition to Manoj’s role as the Co-Founder and CEO of Ziligence. Ziligence is an AIdriven platform incubated by BIS Research whose proprietary technology provides real-time insights on companies to help clients optimize their portfolio risk.

Raj Kumar Rishi quits HP Inc, to lead Xerox India

Souma Das joins Teradata as MD for India Operations

Xerox has announced the appointment of Raj Kumar Rishi as Regional General Manager and Managing Director of Xerox India. In this role, Rishi will focus on driving growth and achieving the business objectives for Xerox India.

Rishi joins Xerox most recently from HP where he led HP India’s print business. He was also a senior leader in HP’s consumer, inkjet printing, printing consumables, enterprise /commercial and distribution businesses. Prior to working for HP, Rishi was Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Samsung’s Audio Visual business.

Teradata has appointed Souma Das as Managing Director for Teradata in India. At Teradata, Souma will be responsible for providing leadership and overall strategic direction to the company's India business overseeing field operations that include sales, customer management, marketing, professional services and customer support.

Souma joins Teradata backed by a stellar career spanning almost three decades of technology industry experience having successfully nurtured and grown the business of large information technology organizations in India.

Alexander Moiseev named the 1st CBO at Kaspersky

InMobi names Marc Steifman as its CFO

Alexander Moiseev has been appointed the Chief Business Officer (CBO) of Kaspersky Lab, stepping up from his previous Chief Sales Officer (CSO) role. The newly created position sees Moiseev take the lead for sales and marketing globally, reporting directly to Chief Executive Officer and chairman, Eugene Kaspersky.

Moiseev joined Kaspersky Lab in 2006 as Business Development Manager before earning a promotion to Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab, Italy in April 2008. He was subsequently promoted to Managing Director of Europe, spending three years in the role, before being appointed Chief Sales Officer in July 2016.

InMobi has appointed Marc Steifman as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.

Marc has over two decades of experience working in investment banking focused on growth companies. In the past, he has advised more than 100 clients in transactions totalling over USD $25 billion. In his last stint, he served as Managing Director and Co-Head of Piper Jaffray’s Technology Investment Banking Group.

His transaction experience includes advising on M&A, IPOs and raising private capital across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Arun Balasubramanian to be new Country Manager for India

Dun & Bradstreet appoints Anand Iyer as Director – Operations

Qlik has announced the appointment of Arun Balasubramanian as its Country Manager for India. In his role at Qlik, Arun will be responsible for leading and expanding Qlik’s operations in India. His deep experience in the Indian IT market and with cloud and subscription delivery models will add greater depth to and drive growth for Qlik’s countrywide operations. Arun will report to Julian Quinn, Regional Vice-President, Asia-Pacific.

With over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, Arun has a distinguished track record of sales and market accomplishments in India, and has held senior executive positions at HP, CA Technologies, and Salesforce.

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Dun & Bradstreet has announced the appointment of Anand Iyer as Director – Operations, India. Anand will be responsible for the Operations organization of the Risk Management and Sales & Marketing verticals.

Anand brings over two decades of expertise working with brands like Datamatics, Smart Stream Technologies. Prior to Dun & Bradstreet, Anand was the Chief Information Officer, heading Technology, Operations and Customer Support functions for National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX). At NCDEX, he was responsible for setting up and operationalizing the country’s first commodities repository, the National e-Repository Ltd (NeRL).

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RNI - NO 72399/1999

Printing Date 18 & 19

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Reg. No: DL-SW-01/4030/18-20

56 pages including cover

Date of Posting 20 & 21 every month