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Amazon launches Prime Music service in India

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hough Amazon had brought its Prime service to India 18 months ago, it was devoid of the free music and video streaming services. Amazon added the Prime Video months later, but it was taking time to make the music service ready for the market.

As per news sources, Amazon has partnered with five labels for India, including Sony Music. Previously, the music service was limited to those in India who owned an Echo device but now it can be accessed by Prime customers via the web and apps for iOS and Android.

Amazon’s timing is pretty interesting, coming as does just hours after Gaana announced a big $115 million funding round that sees $500 billion Chinese internet giant Tencent join as an investor.

India to drive next major growth for Netflix

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etflix’s current global subscriber base is somewhat around 120 million members, but surprisingly the next 100 million will be from India.

“India will be a major driver for Netflix’s future growth with the company already benefitting from low internet c o s t s and the expansion of 4G in the country,” Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix said. “The launch of Reliance’s Jio 4G LTE network in the country in 2016 had increased competition and reduced data prices.”

Netflix will be a “giant exporter of Indian content”, with its recent Indian original movie Love Per Square Foot performing well in markets like the UK and US.

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March 2018

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HELLO INDIA

Enterprise IoT to bring strategic revolution Change is an inevitable part of technology. But the present rate at which new technologies are rendering established ones obsolete can leave companies scrambling to adapt. Digital business is now a reality and most of the organisations are in the process of Digital Transformation.With this the role of the Technology Leader (CIO, CTO, etc.,) has also changed. The fact is everything that can be connected will be connected.

In the coming days, CIOs will face new challenges and take on new roles. It is the time when we have so many disruptive technologies converging on the business world at the same time. We are going through a fundamental shift in technology and it is no longer merely transactional, and instead should become a source of information for business decision-making. Cyber-attacks are on the rise. It is impossible to create a non-hackable system. There is a growing concern that these hacks can lead to the destruction of mission critical data. The impact of not being able to recover business processes and data can be devastating.

The possibilities for IoT (Network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment) might be boundless. With IoT transformation taking hold and the technology improving and expanding, IT professionals have a responsibility to guide the process and deliver on the promise of the future.

However, enterprises have a number of complexities and variables that do not exist in the home, where IoT is currently having the most success.

The rate of global connectivity is multiplying, with three quarters of businesses now investing in mobile devices to better serve their staff and customers, and two thirds believing it will bring them greater understanding of consumers. Enterprises need to get ready to manage the growth of a mobile, increasingly connected workforce. With the mobile devices being used to carry out vital business activity, IoT presents the opportunity to add even more value by enhancing and enabling business critical tasks and processes.

Industrial business challenges include fast-changing market dynamics, technical complexity and the relentless pressure to do more with less. The perceived benefits are, connected devices bringing new business challenges around scale, interoperability, security and the management of devices and endpoints. With the growth of IoT, Industrial IoT also holds a lot of promise for manufacturers, but many struggle to identify the right strategies for adoption within their operations. The Government of India also realizes the next generation of technology which is seeing exponential growth. There is an allocated budget of Rs 3,073 crore that will spearhead work on fifth generation technology start-ups like Artificial Intelligence (an area of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to seem like they have human intelligence) and other disruptive technologies. It is a fact that IoT won’t work without artificial intelligence.

India has a great scope for start-ups that work in the AI space. Personal data is a double-edged sword. AI is all set to revolutionise manufacturing, transport, healthcare, finance, retail, agriculture and even into medical science. We need to improve the speed and accuracy of big data analysis in order for IoT to live up to its promise.

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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 Correspondent: Abha Singh 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

AI holds promising future in Security Surveillance

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.

FACE TO FACE

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Sophos believes AI will redefine the security landscape

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Policy Framework Protection in India

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Rockmetric enabling enterprises to deliver analytics at scale Riverbed reinforces its ‘partner first’ initiative with new program IceWarp sees a big opportunity in India’s enterprise market ‘TDBS’ Ultra LOLA solution is the firstof-its-kind in the telecom industry’ India a strong contributor to Radware’s global numbers

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5th International Data Science Summit 2018 concludes successfully

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Britzo aims to capture the Indian market with its rural-centric approach

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Who is fishing whom?

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Browsers are trending to be more paranoid or are we?

COVER STORY 32|

AI holds promising future in Security Surveillance

LEAD STORY 40|

2017 – A turbulent year for the Indian Telecom industry

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Retail & SME to be the major growth propellers for Acer India is a key growth market for Acer. The company is also one of the fastest growing PC vendors in the country and has emerged as the No. 1 PC Gaming brand in the country. Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head - Acer India during a conversation with VARINDIA shares excerpts from its Indian growth story Year 2017 was a remarkable year for Acer as it concentrated on the retail expansion front. The company today has around 100 exclusive Acer stores across India. It has also expanded its presence in the North-eastern part of the country, by unveiling stores in Agartala, Shillong and Guwahati.

“Acer firmly believes that retail plays a very important role in customer connect, brand experience,” says Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head - Acer India. “It is important that our customers get a first-hand feel and understanding of the products they are buying.

We have invested heavily on training our store sales personnel, demo programs and store experience. 2018 will be another year of rapid growth in retail channel.”

Acer has a strong presence in the consumer, education, government, BFSI and large corporates segment. It has made a significant impact in enterprise segment with breakthroughs in large companies where it has positioned some of its latest products and new form factors like 2 in 1 laptops.

“We have also seen good success in the server and workstation product line,” supports Chandrahas.“Some of the largest research institutions run on Acer Supercomputers. With Govt. moving to a market place like model and encouraging adoption of technology at all levels we expect 2018 to be an even better year.”

SME is another very important market for Acer. Its product portfolio perfectly fits the SME segment and Acer feels thatitis a strong growth driver for them. Acer’s extensive range of products from business laptops to projectors, workstations and servers cater to all the IT hardware needs of an SME. “In 2017 we have seen excellent success in this market and we expect a strong 2018 in SME,” says Chandrahas.

He further continues, “Acer has emerged as the No.1 PC gaming brand in India according to a leading market research agency. We are a leading brand with 25.4% market share in the gaming laptops and 41.9% marketing share in gaming monitors.We are betting big by focusing on bringing powerful and unique gaming innovations that offers exceptional performance within a wide range of budget. Besides this, display segment is also a key segment for Acer, in which we are focusing on this by introducing products under various categories like projectors, monitors, high end gaming monitors.”

Acer gained the top spot in the gaming market with its critically acclaimed and widely popular Predator and Nitro gaming series. To boost up the spirit of PC gaming, Acer has organized Asia's largest DOTA2 gaming tournament - The Asia Pacific Predator League to encourage the budding e-sports players in India.

The PC major has also encouraged and evaluated innovation in every form from the beginning. Taking a cue from its global successes, Acer has been working towards expanding its foothold in every sector including, cloud, IoT, gaming, Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality along with notebooks, convertibles, 2in1s, desktops, AIOs, and monitors. “Innovation has been our key focus and it we believe it will help us succeed further,” claims Chandrahas.

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Chandrahas Panigrahi CMO and Consumer Business Head Acer India Channel strategy…

Acer has put in place a robust channel strategy to accelerate growth. It is strengthening its partnership as well as its customer outreach program with intensive engagement programmes. It has forged strong partnerships with all the large and small format retail stores, with an aim to increase Acer’s brand presence in tier II and III locations. It has a robust distribution network comprising of Acer Malls and Acer Points, and is planning to expand it even further.

To keep pace with the dramatic changes in the IT landscape, Acer has been investing significantly in training, in-store merchandising with apt showcase/display of new high end models, sales enablement, schemes and easy finance options.

Looking forward…

Acer is already the leader in PC gaming segment and growing at a rapid pace in the display segment. It is also one of the leaders in thin and light notebooks and convertibles.

“We will be looking to retain our leadership position and grow segments which we feel has potential. Our retail expansion will continue to gain momentum. The launch of India’s first Mixed Reality Headset, has raised the bars of expectations from our audience with its impressive user experience packaged in sleek, futuristic materials. The year 2018 will be undeniably an action packed year with the advent of innovations in both hardware and software space,” sums up Chandrahas. n

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Channel Chief

XPPS aims for success of MPS Partners Xerox India’s important part of business is its Partners. Its partners play a major role in getting market feedbacks so that the company can enhance its products and services. The company is also planning to expand its partner base and tap on the SMBs in Tier 2 and 3 cities. Discussing all these, in a chat with VARINDIA, Balaji Rajagopalan, Executive Director- Technology, Channels & International Distributor Operations, Xerox India also discusses about the Xerox Partner Print Services, channel roadmap etc.

Xerox has a very robust partner network which is critical to the company as it depends on them about the market feedback, consumer expectation etc. The partners are an important foundation of Xerox’s business.

“Xerox is one organization in the marketplace which is truly partner driven, that means we operate only through our partner network. They form a crucial part of the Xerox India business and we rely on them to get to market feedback, customer expectations and a lot more. We have over 100 strong channel partner network in India that provides a backbone to our business to ensure consistent good work,” mentions Balaji.

Further explaining he adds, “Our partner representatives take care of our office business which includes the entry level devices like Docucentre SC2020 and D series. We also have partners who are managing our production business, which is our graphic communication business. There are umpteen number of service providers (including OEMs, System Integrators, Channel partners etc.) in the market who offer managed print services, each having their own definition of what managed print services means. However, this is where Xerox leads globally. Xerox MPS (referred to as XPPS) offerings extend far beyond managing a fleet of output devices, providing an OPEX business model and driving down TCO for organizations, it penetrates into areas which directly have impact on core businesses and sustainability objectives of organizations. Xerox strives to enhance its partners’ profitability by introducing newer growth avenues.”

Xerox Partner Print Services (XPPS)

XPPS is aimed at helping partners to grow. It provides partners with everything that is needed to offer better managed print services to their customers.

“Xerox Partner Print Services is a comprehensive managed print service solution providing remote monitoring of entire fleets of printing devices, proactive management and delivery of toner and service, and much more. It works for our partners whether they’re just getting started or seeking to expand their existing MPS business. Our partner services and support provide them with everything needed to deliver quality managed print services to their customers,” explains Balaji.

The XPPS program includes training, certification etc. so that the knowledge and expertise will help partners to scale up their performance and business.

“The number one priority of the Xerox Partner Print Services program is assuring the success of our MPS partners. That is why we include training, certification and accreditation requirements to assure you are equipped with the knowledge and expertise needed to scale your operations, close profitable sales and meet or exceed customer expectations.

Training includes online courses and webinars. It is designed around easyto-understand, step-by-step instruction that accommodates a variety of learning styles,” adds Balaji.

Channel roadmap for 2018

Xerox is planning to penetrate deeper into Indian markets by taping SMBs in Tier 2 and 3 cities. It is also looking forward to expand its partner network and also improve their productivity.

“We as an organization have been enjoying business through various coverage programs related to the MPS and XPPS space. So, we are definitely trying to expand the core to an intensity till which enables us to get more competitiveness for covering the market.

Going forward, we plan to delve deeper into the Indian markets,

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

Message to Partners “Xerox is known for its premium quality, innovations, technology and the value it creates for its partners as well as customers. We believe in collective growth, where in we lay a lot of importance on partner/customer success and advancement. We initiate programmes and trainings to ensure their prosperity. Being market leaders for decades now, we not only understand the market well, but also work on the feedback, thereby continuously improving our offerings. Our product portfolio has solutions for customer at all levels. We cater to SMBs in Tier 2 and 3 markets as well as to high end large enterprise customers. We promise quality products at affordable prices. Thus, being connected with Xerox, not only gives partners sufficient scope of revenue generation but also a recognized brand name for association. Also, for the partners, the trainings are going to be exciting in 2018 and the key is to definitely work with zeal in order to win the market. Also, the partners should brace themselves to do big numbers in 2018.” tapping the SMBs in Tier 2 and 3 cities. We have rolled out products that are premium quality yet offering affordable costs. The new enhanced Xerox Color C70 and the ConnectKey enabled devices are such products.

To further tap this market and reach more customers in more territories, we plan to appoint more partners. We already boast of over 150 partners, but now plan to not only increase the number but also help them improve their productivity. We take their feedback very seriously and work on solving the problems our customers face.

So, this is something that we do on a fortnightly basis. We examine the performances and keep them adding to the strength of the coverage piece through partners across the India. We also see good traction on Xerox Partner Print Services (XPPS) and are confident that it will add a layer to our bottom-line this year,” concludes Balaji.

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February 2018

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ROUND ABOUT

H1-B Visa and Harley Davidson What is the connection between H1-B visa and Harley Davidson? There is hardly any, except that both the words start with “H”. The H1-B visa has a direct bearing on the knowledge economy. It is a kind of visa that the U.S. grants to professionals across disciplines, be they belong to the IT industry, architects, lawyers, and engineers. The list goes on. The only overarching criterion is that such talents should not be available indigenously. In the Indian context, this type of visa is mostly availed by the IT professionals who go to the U.S. to take up offshore operations, basing themselves out of the U.S. terrains. Indian professionals get most of the visas under this category, which normally number around 84,000 or so annually.

If the H1-B visa is in the realm of the knowledge economy, then the Harley Davidson represents the brick-and-mortar sector. Indeed, it is the inspirational model of a motorbike. The Trump administration is claiming that the Indian government has artificially jacked up the landed cost of the motorbike by charging an exorbitant import duty on the item, varying between 50 per cent and 100 per cent.

The U.S. claims that the steep rate is beyond reasonable limit and wants it to be brought down to the same level of duty the U.S. is imposing on similar import of bikes from India. The Indian authorities point out that their export of motor bikes to the U.S. is usually below 1,000 annually.

Most of India’s exports of cars and motorbikes are destined for Latin America and Mexico. In private, Indian vehicle manufacturers admit that comparison between Indian exports and imports of the bikes from the U.S. is out of sync with reality. However, one can argue that the duty should be reciprocal – not one-sided.

Of late, trade wars have been looming large in the global scene. Many feel that it is a part of Trump’s policy of “Buy America” or “America First”, as it is sometimes referred to. India is not the only country targeted. The European Union, China, Canada, Mexico, and Australia have come under U.S. surveillance and retaliation. The Trump administration has made it very clear that, despite being an ally for many years and partners to the NAFTA agreement, the U.S. will be forced to take punitive measures if its interests are jeopardized.

While Harley Davidson figures prominently in the trading basket of the U.S. with other countries, other products that attracted the wrath of the administration are steel, aluminum, agricultural products, etc. Importantly, the affected countries, including the U.S. allies, are harping on counter retaliation if the U.S. sticks to its guns.

Coming back to India and the trade war, my take is that India’s interest will not get affected the way it is being feared. Headlines suggest that most of the Indian IT professionals will come back soon with their families.

H1-B visa restrictions were in the horizon for a long time. Every time it erupts, there will be some calibrated responses and reactions from the government in diplomatically couched-up language and will cobble up some statistics to counter the proposed move. This time around also, there was such a move.

The apprehension is that, if the threat looms large, many will have to return to India, dashing their hope of becoming a U.S. citizen. I feel sorry for such people and their immediate families, but, at the same time, I have a few suggestions to offer based on my own experiences.

H1B visa is meant to bring temporary professionals to fill up the positions, which cannot be filled up by the local people. H1-B had been misused in the past to replace local American employees by low-cost professionals from India, China and other low-cost countries like old Eastern Europe.

My main advice for professionals is to develop pertinent skills that the U.S. needs and that are definitely not the conventional software development and solutions. Such modules are fast losing relevance. Our universities should come out with a new curricula in the engineering and technical institutes that are connected with artificial intelligence, robotics, etc which are in huge demand in the U.S. Of course, these are the pivotal tools in the new digital revolution sweeping across the world and the expertise India has developed in these frontiers is very limited.

Equally significant is finding out alternative markets for IT products and solutions. We can boast of exporting our IT products to some 156 countries or so. That way, ours is a big spread. A close analysis of the export figures reveals a different trend. Our IT exports are mostly focussed on

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the U.S. More than 60 per cent of the IT exports are destined to the U.S., and the rest mostly to the U.K. and EU. Our share in three huge markets – China, Japan and Korea – is insignificant. At the same time, the big players in the Chinese and Japanese markets are the ICT giants from the U.S. and the EU. All major contracts are bagged by them, which are worth billions of dollars and the so-called large Indian companies are subcontractors and vendors.

We have to change this trend. It is not that easy. A lot of groundwork has to be done to move in the technology value chain to become highly competitive. That is only possible when we catch up with research and development, incubation, and innovation. There should be a premium on R&D. This can be encouraged by upgrading the research infrastructure, better facilities and perquisites for research workers, engaging crosscountry research, and developing good patent registration regime. Laxity in implementing them will further stymie the upward movement in the technology value chain.

There are two types of variables that have to be taken into account while mapping the future manpower requirements of any economy. Foremost is the skill requirement and two, the age profile of the population. The U.S. is known for the frontline technocrats who can innovate and discover.

But you require second and third layers of experts and technicians to implement and maintain them. Countries like India are in the forefront to supply them. For undertaking such tasks, a mere body shopping will not suffice the purpose. Those experts have to be there on a continuous basis to look after the peripheral needs of the digital revolution.

India has the world’s youngest population. This is the demographic advantage that we have now. That also foretells that India can provide skilled workforce to the world. More than any other country, the U.S. knows about it. That is why I am convinced that the present dilemma about the H-I B visa is a temporary one and the world cannot ignore India’s demographic strength. But one word of advice to my Indian professionals: a H1-B visa or a Green Card should not be your ultimate goal. You are meant for much bigger things in life. Aim high, build capacities within, take risks and no one can block your growth path. That is also a passport for becoming wanted rather than being taken for granted. n

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February 2018

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HOT BYTES

Canon’s imagePRESS C10000VP installed at Prism Printers

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anon India has announced the installation of the first topof-the-range imagePRESS

C10000VP at Delhi-based Prism Printers in Gol Market, New Delhi. The machine was inaugurated in the distinguished presence of PuneetDatta, Director

of Professional Printing Products (PPP), Canon India. i m a g e P R E S S C10000VP is Canon’s first 100ppm machine which has the ability to produce consistent high-quality prints wide variety of media, including highly profitable texture paper and is recognized as one of the strongest digitalcolour Production Printer lineup Canon has ever offered. The innovative imagePRESS C10000VP/ C8000VP takes digital colour printing to the next level.

Tata Comm collaborates with Chunghwa Telecom

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a t a Communications has joined with Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s largest mobile network operator, to bring global connectivity to consumer electronics and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Tata Communications MOVE – IoT Connect allows IoT devices to be deployed quickly both locally and internationally by leveraging Tata Communications’ ecosystem of mobile

network operators worldwide.As part of this ecosystem, Chunghwa Telecom will be able to tap into additional revenues by connecting IoT devices through Tata Communications MOVE. The Taiwanese electronics industry output is expected to be worth US$228 billion (NT$6.65 trillion) in 2018, and the wearables market grew at double digits in both volume and value terms in 2017.

Videonetics solution deployed in North Bengal

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ideonetics’ Intelligent Video Management Software & Automatic Number Plate Recognition Solution has been successfully deployed to secure the largest city of North Bengal under the Safe City Mission of the Government of West Bengal.

Under the unified solution, more than 100 critical locations are secured along with major traffic junctions which registered heaviest traffic flow at peak hours.

Videonetics IVMS solution

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helps in recording and viewing video footages over IP network in an efficient and elegant way, hence empowering city police with 24x7 realtime monitoring with i n ve s t i g a t i o n - f r i e n d l y interface. To deter traffic violations and recognize suspected/unwanted vehicles, ANPR system has been installed at critical junctions to capture the licence plates of any vehicle(s) in the field of view (FOV) of a specialized camera, even in low-light conditions.

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Airtel partners with Cisco

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harti Airtel and Cisco have joined forces to improve customer experience by taking their SON collaboration to next level. SON is now carrying out optimization based on customer experience and predictive analytics, apart from the traditional approach of responding to network degradations.

“Our collaboration with Cisco has helped us to dynamically adjust our network during exponential increase in voice and data traffic,” said Abhay Savargaonkar, Director – Networks, Bharti Airtel.

“We are taking SON to next level by integrating it with other data sources and machine learning capabilities. This is a path breaking step to put more intelligence in the network and enable us to enhance real-time experience."

Sterlite Tech bags SI project for the Indian Navy

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terlite Tech has been awarded an Rs.3, 500-crore Advance Purchase Order to design, build and manage the Indian Navy’s communications network. This will give the Indian Navy digital defence supremacy at par with the best naval forces globally.

“We are delighted to get an opportunity to play our role in strengthening India’s defence through highly scalable, futureready networks,” said Dr Anand Agarwal, CEO, Sterlite Tech. He added, “Our recent experience of creating an intrusionproof communication network for the Indian Army in Jammu & Kashmir will be leveraged for the Navy’s communications network. We look forward to delivering this end-toend strategic network for the Indian Navy with our unique software-to-silicon capabilities.”

Intel to announce 5G to mobile PCs very soon

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ntel has announced that it is collaborating with Dell, HP, Lenovo and Microsoft to bring 5G connectivity to Windows PCs with Intel XMM 8000 series commercial 5G modems.

Intel expects the first highperfor ming 5 G connected PCs to surface in the market in the second half of 2019.

Intel is investing deeply across its wireless portfolio and partners to bring 5G-

connected mobile PCs to market, with benefits for users like high-quality video on-the-go, highend gaming, and seamless connections as users traverse Wi-Fi and cellular n e t wo r k s.

Intel will help to open the door to new experiences hardly imaginable today, and make connecting online from anywhere, anytime the norm.

Dimension Data modernizes “Smart Campus” of services firm

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imension Data has entered into strategic partnership with a leading global professional services firm to modernize its IT infrastructure for their new Smart Campus in Hyderabad. The smart campus will be IoT-enabled with smart lighting and smart parking. Dimension Data has upgraded the firm’s IT infrastructure with Software-Defined Access (SD-access), which enables automated end-to-end segmentation to separate user, device and application without

redesigning the network.

“There was a pressing need for the firm to move away from traditional network architecture that demanded higher manual intervention and does not support automation.

Dimension Data’s implementation of SDAccess has ensured the seamless convergence of people, technology and workplace to improve agility, productivity and engagement for the firm,” said K.N. Murali, Solutions Head, Dimension Data India.

Ciena expands its facility in Gurgaon to support its R&D growth

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iena has recently expanded its campus in Gurgaon to support the company’s continued growth of research and development (R&D) globally and reinforce Ciena’s market share leadership in India.

Adding a second building adjacent to its existing Gurgaon office creates a unified campus that brings together the company’s R&D staff, labs and resources into a single location.

“The Asia-Pacific region and India specifically, are high-growth markets

for Ciena. Expanding our Gurgaon campus strengthens our ability to address the networking challenges of customers in the region as they look to deploy more intelligent and adaptive networks that can cater to today’s digital economy,” said Ryan Perera, Vice-President & General Manager, Ciena India. “This expanded facility also gives us the infrastructure to extend our innovative R&D efforts, facilitate stronger customer engagements, and drive greater collaboration across our teams.”

www.varindia.com

March 2018

17

HOT BYTES

ZICOM to make Telangana secured

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icom is expanding its citizen-safety initiative ‘Make Your City Safe’ (MYCS) to the state of Telangana towards making Telangana safe. The company has recently signed aMoU to launch the citizen safety mission for Telangana in the honorable presence of Home Minister Shri Naini Narshimha Reddy and other influential stalwarts by the name of ‘MakeTelangana Safe’.

In 2012, Zicom launched Mission “Make Your

City Safe”, a ZicomSaaS initiative to make housing societies, schools and hospitals more secure by equipping them with high quality CCTVs that require “Zero investment, Zero management”.

Apart from providing hardware, the company also undertakes the responsibly of monitoring the health of their security systems and offering free-of-cost services to ensure the smooth functioning of their products.

Detel Mobiles to set up its first manufacturing unit

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etel Mobiles and Accessories has associated with the Government of Andhra Pradesh to start its first manufacturing plant in the country. The objective is to cater to 40 crore unconnected people with the range of most economical feature phones

by Detel. MoU has been signed by both the parties at the Sunrise Andhra Pradesh Investment Meet held in Visakhapatnam.

The company plans

to manufacture its feature phones, and other products to propel the “Make-inIndia” initiative. Detel emphasizes the fact that owning a phone is no longer an option but a necessity now. The company has made strategic alliances with the State government, as well as retail partners and telecom operators to reach to the nooks and corners of the country and make every person, living in tier-3, -4 and even -5 cities, equipped with a feature phone.

SonicWall to provide security solutions to Wonder Cement

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onicWall has been selected as a preferred security provider

by Wonder Cement. The implementation of SonicWall next-generation firewalls and award-winning network security solutions will allow Wonder Cement to enhance security, improve reliability and reduce cost.

Wonder Cement is a leading cement manufacturing company from the house of R.K. Marble Group.

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March 2018

“India is the secondlargest cement producer and the industry is anticipated to continue to grow at a steady pace for the next two to three years.

The importance of the cement industry makes it a target for cybercriminals, which is why cement companies should secure their organizations,” said Debasish Mukherjee, SonicWall Country Manager India & SAARC.

www.varindia.com

Netmagic plans to expand its green data centre capacity

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etmagic which runs seven data centers with a total gross capacity of 6 lakh sq.ft. will be investing Rs.1,200 crore to double its capacity with new launches in Bengaluru and Mumbai in April, 2018. With the 2 lakh sqft data center in Whitefield, Bengaluru and 3 lakh sq.ft. inChandivali, Mumbai, the company will be taking its total storage to 11 lakh sq ft.

Ensuring maximum energy efficiency and a minimum impact on the environment, all Netmagic data centers are green data centers.

The current data center market in India is valued at $2.2 billion, and is expected to touch US$4.5-billion mark by 2018.

HCL Infosystems sells off its subsidiary to Karvy for Rs.108 cr.

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arvy Data Management Services has acquired HCL Services, a subsidiary of HCL Info systems in a deal of Rs. 108 crore. The sale of HCL Services Ltd was approved by HCL Info systems' Board that consists of domestic enterprise services business, the company said in a BSE filing.

The deal amount of Rs 108 crore, which includes the tax refunds of Rs 87 crore, which would be paid to the company to the extent received. The transaction is expected to close by April 1, 2018.

The deal, however, excludes HCL Infosystems' Care Business that is being transferred to HCL Computing Products Limited for subsequent divestment to BSE-listed Quess Corp.

Oracle protects customers with robust Cloud Guarantee

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racle expanded the breadth and depth of its enterprise service level agreements (SLAs), helping enterprises

as-a-Service (IaaS).

“No cloud provider in the world can match what Oracle guarantees,” said Thomas Kurian, President

that want to shift critical workloads to the cloud today. Building on the strength of its recently announced 99.995 percent availability guarantee for Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle has unveiled an end-to-end financially backed cloud warranty for Infrastructure-

of Product Development, Oracle. “Our competitors offer narrow commitments and countless exclusions in fine print while Oracle’s SLAs deliver an industry first: guaranteed performance, manageability and availability in the cloud.”

Vertiv partners with Telefónica over energy savings solutions

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ertiv and Telefónica have joined hands to boost energy savings through fitfor-purpose infrastructure solutions.

Vertiv will provide Energy Savingsas-a- Service (ESaaS) across Telefónica’s core and access sites in Europe and America, covering all facets from initial site assessment to comprehensive maintenance services over the next ten years.

“Telefónica is among the biggest telecom providers

in the world and a Fortune 500 company, as well as one of the most active operators on sustainability initiatives, which makes us extremely proud of this collaboration,” said Giordano Albertazzi, President for Vertiv in Europe, Middle East and Africa. “This agreement will reinforce our longstanding partnership and emphasize our dedication to providing energy- efficient and highperformance solutions for the telecom industry.”

Huawei partners with Savex Technologies to expand its presence

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uawei Enterprise B u s i n e s s Group has announced its partnership with Savex Technologies to further strengthen its partner network and grow its enterprise footprint in India.

The partnership will create maximum value for Indian enterprises with its innovative ICT solutions and services backed by strong ecosystem.

Savex will support Huawei in developing resellers to market and

promote products and services products to Huawei enterprise customers in India.

Anil Jagasia, Managing Director of Savex said, “We are looking forward to

this partnership, as Huawei is known for its great enterprise products and this complements our offerings to channels. This mutually benefiting partnership will allow us to reach out to pan India."

Windows 10 Pro means business.

“PACKS PLENTY OF OOMPH” - LAPTOP

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

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

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

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

www.varindia.com

February 2018

13

ON THE RAMP

Dell EMC brings VxBlock System 1000

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ell EMC has expanded its converged infrastructure (CI) system with the addition of the nextgeneration Dell EMC VxBlock System 1000.

The new system breaks the physical boundaries of

now available via Dell EMC and its channel partners. The VxBlock 1000 is designed to support workloads of all types and includes a substantially broader choice of storage arrays, data protection and compute than previous-generation

traditional CI and offers enterprises even greater simplicity and flexibility to help accelerate their IT and digital transformation efforts.

The VxBlock 1000 is

VxBlock Systems. This new system’s all-in-one, design expands upon CI’s promise by further simplifying IT infrastructure lifecycle management through extensive pre-validation.

Riverbed releases updates to its SteelConnect

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i v e r b e d Technolog y has announced major updates to its SD-WAN and cloud networking solution – SteelConnect, the first and only SD-WAN solution that provides unified connectivity and policy-based orchestration spanning the entire distributed network fabric – hybrid WAN, branch LAN/WLAN, data centers, and the cloud. Riverbed is expanding the power of one-click connectivity and

optimization into AWS and Microsoft Azure with added support for AWS Direct Connect and Azure ExpressRoute.

Riverbed is also introducing seamless integration between SteelConnect and Riverbed Xirrus Wi-Fi with zerotouch provisioning of Riverbed Xirrus access points, and is providing new deployment flexibility with the addition of LTE wireless options for SteelConnect SD-WAN.

Ericsson introduces IoT Accelerator Marketplace

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o help address the need for collaboration within the digital ecosystem community and benefit developers and service

shorter time-to-market for new offerings to their enterprise customers.

For application developers and application partners, it is a window to an

providers, Ericsson is launching the IoT Accelerator Marketplace.

For service providers, it is a catalog to find IoT apps from the global ecosystem to offer enterprise customers and provides

IoT ecosystem to connect with service providers through one single platform, exposing global cellular connectivity APIs. It also includes monetization and settlement capabilities to facilitate monetization.

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March 2018

www.varindia.com

VNL launches its locallydeveloped 4G/ LTE offerings

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hri Manoj Sinha, Hon’ble Telecom Minister, has launched locally-developed 4G/ LTE telecom system amid an international buyers-sellers meet of the telecom industry. The system has been designed and developed by VNL Ltd, keeping in mind the requirement for high-speed connectivity, particularly in rural areas.

The 4G gear fulfils the domestic equipment manufacturers’ aspiration for Made-in-India products, based on LTE technology for ensuring seamless connectivity at most affordable prices and reduces substantially the import dependence for the same.

Veeam announces Veeam Availability Orchestrator

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eeam Software has announced general availability of NEW Veeam Availability Orchestrator – the newest addition to the Veeam Availability Platform – which enables enterprises to ensure business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) compliance.

Veeam Availability Orchestrator solves this problem by delivering a DR orchestration solution that reduces the time, cost and effort associated with planning for and recovering from a disaster.

Veeam Availability Orchestrator is the answer, providing an orchestration engine rich with planning, automated documenting and testing capabilities for preparedness and compliance, with full support for Veeam replicas.

Microsoft Surface Pro now available in India

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icrosoft has announced that the new Surface Pro and accessories are now available for retail purchase in India in online Microsoft stores (Amazon and Flipkart) as well as Croma, Reliance, Vijay Sales, and other authorized retailers in India. For commercial customers, the new Surface Pro will be available through more than 130 commercial resellers.

“We are delighted to announce the launch of Surface Pro in India and offer our consumers another superior device that will enable them

create, study, work and play virtually anywhere,” said VineetDurani, Director – Windows and Devices, Microsoft India. “We continue to push boundaries to better serve the needs of our customers who are seeking greater mobility and power in their devices to stay productive. The new Surface Pro delivers the versatility of a laptop and a creative studio in one thin, lightweight device.”

Hitachi Vantara unveils new capabilities for machine learning

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itachi Vantarahas announced additional capabilities for machine learning orchestration to help data scientists monitor, test, retrain and redeploy supervised models in production. An innovation from Hitachi Vantara Labs, collectively known as “machine learning model management,” can use these new tools in a data pipeline built in

Pentaho to help improve business outcomes and reduce risk by making it easier to update models in response to continual change.

Improved transparency gives people inside organizations better insights and confidence in their algorithms. Hitachi Vantara Labs is making machine learning model management available as a plug-in through the Pentaho Marketplace.

HP Inc. announces its Spectre x360 laptop in India

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P Inc. has introduced the next-generation HP Spectre x360 laptop in its flagship consumer notebook portfolio. The new HP Spectre x360 weighs just 1.26 kg and is one of the thinnest convertible notebooks in the industry. It features the latest 8thGeneration Intel QuadCore Processor along with a brilliant display in sleeker and more angular design.

The Spectre x360 laptop now offers the world’s longest battery life in a quadcore convertible portfolio, without compromising on

style and durability, while improving security with an integrated privacy screen option and fingerprint login.The redesigned HP

Spectre x360 transforms between a laptop and a tablet while delivering quad-core performance with new 8th-Gen Intel Core Processor, battery life up to 16.5 hours, and a new integrated privacy screen.

www.varindia.com

March 2018

21

ON THE RAMP

DELTA announces nine models in its INX UPS Series

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elta Electronics has launched its INX Series, Standard Model, Extended Runtime 6A and Model Extended

power supply solutions for a large variety of application areas, like telecommunication, office systems, industrial

Runtime 16A Model, Single Phase1/ 2/ 3 kVA series uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

Delta 's product portfolio covers a huge range of components and

automation and renewable energy solutions. INX13kVA is suitable for small datacenter, IT and network device of SMB, workstation (POS/ATM), bank branches, telecom.

Radware brings Cloud Malware Protection Service

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adware has launched its Cloud Malware Protection Service, built to detect, alert and block upon evasive zero-day malware that elude existing anti-malware defenses and steal data.

The new cloud service includes audit tools that continuously test the user’s network for gaps in its malware protections, as well as real-time reporting to help organizations comply with the notification requirements

under EU GDPR and other regulations focused at private data protection.

Radware’s Cloud Malware Protection Service relies on traffic analysis to detect communication anomalies indicative of evasive zeroday malware activity. It leverages advanced machine learning, patented AI algorithms, big data analysis, and a global community of over two million enterprise users to identify and block malicious traffic that is consistent with data theft.

BenQ unveils ZOWIE XL2411P PC Monitor

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trengthening B e n Q ’s e S p o r t s brand, ZOWIE has announced the launch of XL2411P monitor in India.

It provides the features of the classic XL2411 monitor and adds the Display Port connector for enhanced connectivity.

C o l o u r Vibrance has also been added allowing colour to be fine-tuned to personal

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March 2018

preference.

Rajeev Singh, MD, BenQ India, said, "We, at ZOWIE, continue to provide professional tournamentgrade equipment to the eSports industry. Our XL series is specifically designed t h a t guarantees t h e smoothest and the most responsive gameplay experience ever."

www.varindia.com

Tally launches ERP9 Release

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ally Solutions has launched its latest software Tally.

ERP 9 Release 6.4 which caters to effective e-Way Bill compliance. E-Way Bill as a mechanism helps reduce tax evasion and ensures seamless inter-state transportation of goods, with minimal loss of time at checkpoints. With the introduction of e-Way Bill, invoicing will become a more frequent activity than before. Businesses will be required to record sales invoices, and then generate the e-Way Bill. Invoice generation and dispatching of goods will have to take place simultaneously.

Tally has been the invoicing and accounting solution of choice for more than 1.3 million businesses.

The company is extending a simplified e-Way Bill compliance solution.

Fortinet announces the addition of FortiOS 6.0

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ortinet has announced the evolution of its Security Fabric architecture with the release of FortiOS 6.0, a network security operating system. With more than 200 new features and capabilities, enterprises will benefit from new levels of security operations automation and advanced protections for their expanding digital attack surfaces.

Michael Xie, founder, president and CTO at Fortinet said, “Security must take on its own transformation by integrating into all areas of digital technology and be able to translate user intent into automated business response. FortiOS 6.0 delivers hundreds of new features and capabilities that were designed to provide the broad visibility, integrated threat intelligence and automated response."

Zoho introduces Zia Voice along with the launch of Catalyst

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oho has unveiled Zia Voice, a conversational AI for sales teams that adds speech and chat capabilities to Zia, Zoho's AIpowered sales assistant. Zia can now also predict deal closures and analyze email sentiment.

The company has also introduced Catalyst – a set of capabilities that allow larger and complex businesses to build their own mobile and web apps and additions to Zoho CRM, on existing Zoho

infrastructure, to serve their own businesses uniquely.

"We are delivering the first conversational AI for CRM, with Zia Voice," said

Mani Vembu, COO, Zoho Corp. "Zia's enhanced AI capabilities will now help salespeople sell smarter, with contextual assistance."

ViewSonic introduces latest 4K UHD Projector

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iewSonic Corp has launched the PX747-4K projector at a price of Rs. 2,75,000/-. For entertainment spaces with high ambient lighting, the PX747-4K comes equipped with 3500 ANSI Lumens which allows for clear, detailed images and no need to turn off the light.

ViewSonic 4K UHD projectors utilize the latest XPR technology to display a jaw dropping 8.3 million pixels onto the display

surface, meeting Consumer Technology Association (CTA) standards for 4K UHD certification. With 4K UHD resolution, the most noticeable benefits are the enhanced clarity and increased detail that come along with a resolution four times that of Full HD. The addition of HDR and Rec. 2020 compatibility allow for further enhancements to color and contrast to produce true-to-life pictures.

Toshiba launches 2 TB HDD for high capacity storage applications

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oshiba Electronic Components Taiwan Corporation has announced its new MQ04 Series 2TB HDD model MQ04ABD200, designed for use in notebook PCs, all-in-one and slim-line desktop systems, and other applications requiring high capacity storage and 2.5-inch mobile-class durability.

The MQ04ABD200 dual-disk model delivers 2TB of storage capacity in a compact 2.5-inch, 9.5mm height form factor.

The drive’s 6Gbit/s SATA interface and 5,400rpm

performance, result in a 34 percent increase in maximum transfer rates and a 50 percent improvement in power efficiency

compared to Toshiba’s previous 1TB mobileclass model generation, MQ01ABD100.

FACE TO FACE

Rockmetric enabling enterprises to deliver analytics at scale Helping large enterprises to deliver sophisticated data analysis and queries with Microsoft Azure, Rockmetric, a partner of Microsoft, enables its customers to offer it without any investment. The platform encourages an individual to do more with data and AI. Not only large enterprises but SMEs are also adopting analytic tools for businesses. In a chat with VARINDIA, Nimesh Mehta, Chief Executive Officer, Rockmetric discusses about the company’s target verticals, latest innovations, trends in analytics etc.

Kindly give us a brief about Rockmetric. What are your offerings?

Rockmetric is a 'Cognitive Data Analyst' that automates analysis and insights with a 'Natural Language Search' interface. Business users can now get on-demand access to insights by sending a simple email, through voice or a simple English search query on web or mobile.

Business teams can request for queries such as “Why did the Sales for Brand A dip in Mumbai during May?”, “Which are the bottom 5 Account Managers by Target Achievement Rate” or "What is the Forecast for Sales through Channel A".

How is Rockmetric helping businesses to do analytics in less time?

Large corporations spend a large amount of resources, infrastructure and time to deliver ad-hoc data requests across the organisations. Companies are unable to deliver analytics at scale due to large costs involved in supporting many users.

Large enterprises can now deliver sophisticated analysis and ad-hoc queries at scale instantly without having to expand reporting and analytics teams. Rockmetric platform automatically understands user queries, analyses data and delivers beautiful charts, descriptive insights and complex analysis instantly. These insights are delivered at scale without any manual intervention.

How is Microsoft Azure enabling the company to offer real-time business insights to clients?

Microsoft Azure has a comprehensive breadth of offerings across IaaS, PaaS, Analytics and AI. Rockmetric uses Azure as a strategic public cloud platform to enable our customers to get started with advanced analytics without large upfront investments.

Integration with Microsoft products like Office 365, Outlook, Kaizala and Microsoft Teams helps to enable individuals in enterprises to achieve more with data and AI at scale. Microsoft understands needs of large enterprises really well and they have a very robust program to support partners to deliver enterprise-scale solutions.

How rapidly are businesses adopting tools of modern analytics for their teams?

Indian enterprises have shown great enthusiasm to adopt modern analytics tools. Last decade has seen significant advancements in databases, storage and algorithms. Business users, however, had to interface with the

same old spreadsheets and pre-built dashboards.

Business users have experienced highly sophisticated and personalised consumers apps and are now demanding for great user experience, simplicity and modern interfaces like voice, chat, and natural language search in enterprise applications. We are witnessing unprecedented enthusiasm from business users to adopt an intelligent, personalised, easy-to-use and ondemand solution for analytics.

How are SMEs adopting analytics to serve their customers?

SMEs now have access to sophisticated tools at very affordable costs.

They can now access the same tools that were earlier only used by large corporations. It is an exciting time for SMEs to adopt and deliver a worldclass experience at a fraction of the cost.

What are the verticals you target?

We are largely targeting medium to large enterprises in Banking, Financial Service and Insurance domain. We also have some large customers from Manufacturing and Retail domain.

Any latest innovations that you can brief us about?

Our proprietary natural language search delivers a search engine like experience to users at scale. Our cognitive insights engine delivers complete business analysis and diagnosis within a few seconds. The platform learns from the data and from the user behaviour over time to personalise and deliver only the most relevant insights.

The application has the potential to save the huge manpower that goes behind delivering data across the organization. The platform uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, modern columnar databases and cloud to deliver a world-class solution.

What are the trends in analytics today?

There are four major trends that is driving the adoption of modern analytics platforms: 1. Adoption of Natural language queries and voice commands 2. A lot of Businesses will soon move away from painfully building pre-built dashboards and reports to on-demand ad-hoc analysis with descriptions 3. Technology helping in Personalised insights and analysis for unique needs of each user 4. Automated machine learning based analysis for quick turnaround time.

www.varindia.com

March 2018

23

VOICE-N-DATA

NETGEAR expands its 5-Speed Multi-Gigabit Switching Portfolio

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ETGEAR is expanding its family of industry-first 5-speed Multi-Gigabit Switching Products by launching XS724EM and XS505M Switches in

India.

The new NETGEAR 5-Speed switches operate at 100Mbps, 1Gbps, 2.5Gbps, 5Gbps, or 10Gbps. Through an intuitive interface, the Multi-Gigabit switches

provide easy, reliable and affordable connectivity with granular per-port bandwidth control and traffic monitoring without needing to install expensive

n e w cabling to alleviate speed barriers. The five speeds per Ethernet port make them the most flexible and affordable 10-Gigabit/ Multi-Gigabit switches in the market.

Ruckus IoT Suite to offer IoT Access Network Ruckus Networks has announced the Ruckus IoT Suite, which enables organizations to readily construct a secure IoT access network.

The Ruckus IoT Suite further speeds time-to-returnon-investment (RoI) and reduces deployment cost by allowing for the use of common infrastructure between the wireless local area network (WLAN) and the IoT access network.

“Organizations are looking to the IoT to

help improve operational efficiencies and enhance the customer’s experience, but their ability to do so is constrained by today’s siloed IoT networks,” said Dan Rabinovitsj, President, Ruckus Networks. “Ruckus is addressing the market by providing the ‘glue’ between the world of sensors, cameras and things with big data and analytics."

Saudi Telecom Co and Cisco ink strategic MoU

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audi Telecom Company (STC) and Cisco have announced that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and intend to collaborate on the development of 5G communication systems and networks. The joint effort aims to facilitate STC's transformation into a digital service provider and supports the pivotal role it plays in enabling Saudi Arabia's 2030 Vision and National Transformation Plan.

The MoU was signed at

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March 2018

the Mobile World Congress

by Nasser Al-Nasser, Chief Operating Officer, STC, and Ali Amer, Managing Director, Global Service Provider Sales, Cisco Middle East and Africa. Under the terms of the MoU, Cisco intends to work closely with STC on its architectural transformation to help unlock the commercial potential of 5G mobile networks.

This will enable STC to provision advanced network services, such as low-latency, and differentiate its service delivery in the 5G era.

www.varindia.com

Spectra to meet Juniper Networks partners with broadband Affirmed Networks and Netronome Networks with Juniper’s Contrail services demand Juniper has expanded its Provider Cloud and

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pectra has announced to select Nokia's IP/MPLS routing and GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) fiber solutions to build out its network to meet customer demand for highperformance broadband services. Spectra will be the first ISP in Bengaluru to offer 1 Gbps services with unlimited bandwidth at a competitive price for both residential and enterprise customers.

Udit Mehrotra, CEO & MD, Spectra, said, “We are working hard to ensure our offerings and expertise in ultra-high speed broadband access and transport continue to improve the quality of internet consumption in India and support the country’s future digital innovations.”

Vodafone commences air traffic IoT drone tracking technology trial

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odafone has commenced trials of the air traffic control drone tracking and safety technology.

Vodafone’s pioneering approach uses innovative 4G IoT technology to protect aircraft from catastrophic accidents as well as prevent inadvertent or criminal drone incursions at sensitive locations such as airports, prisons and hospitals.

The risk to aircraft is growing at an exponential rate. Analysis from the Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) project indicates that by 2050 drones will log more than 250 million flying hours per year over densely-populated areas of the European Union, seven times the cumulative annual flying hours of conventional crewed aircraft.

partnership with Affirmed Networks and Netronome to give mobile providers a simple-to-manage, highperforming distributed mobile cloud solution for rapid deployment of IoT and 5G services.

“The evolution of connected IoT services and ultra-fast 5G networks requires that the underlying infrastructure evolve in ways that yield low latency and flexibility to scale where needed. By integrating Affirmed Networks’ CUPS

Netronome’s SmartNICs, we’re evolving our solutions to enable service providers to truly realize a distributed mobile cloud capable of

faster service creation and time to revenue for the next generation of services and applications,” said Sally Bament, VP, Service Provider Marketing, Juniper Networks.

NI partners with Samsung for 5G New Radio Interoperability

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I has collaborated with Samsung Electronics to develop 5G test UEs for 5G New Radio (NR). The first public demonstration of this collaboration will show Samsung’s 28 GHz base station communicating with an NI test UE at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 in Barcelona next week.

The 3GPP officially released a first draft of the 5G NR standard in December 2017. An

important next step in the formation of a new 5G ecosystem calls for equipment and device manufacturers to test their implementations that conform to this standard with each other to achieve the goal of interoperability.

Interoperability device testing determines whether the base station and device can establish and maintain a robust communication link capable of achieving 5G performance in the prescribed test conditions.

VIAVI collaborates with Microsemi to meet 5G network demands

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IAVI Solutions has announced collaboration with Microsemi, a leading provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, to enable flexible optical networking technologies needed to meet the demands of 5G networks. With the VIAVI ONT-600 and Microsemi’s DIGI-G5, the newest member of its DIGI OTN processors, telecom service providers globally now have solution platforms to build, test and quickly deploy 5G-ready optical networks

including OTUCn, Flexible OTN (FlexO) and Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) technologies.

VIAVI and Microsemi bring individual strengths to the mission of developing and validating platforms for these different transport technologies. The VIAVI ONT has been proven in lab testing of 100G components and systems, and has the first 400G support to include forward error correction (FEC), PAM4 modulation, and now with complete support of all 400G transponder form factors.

FACE TO FACE

Riverbed reinforces its ‘partner first’ initiative with new program Riverbed is moving away from a traditional, competency based program to a revolutionary, new global partner program - the Riverbed Rise program that is seen to set a new bar in the industry. Uma Thana Balasingam, Vice President, Channels for Riverbed Asia Pacific and Japan in conversation with VARINDIA shares more insights on this program and how it is going to help its partners Digital transformation is accelerating change in technology, innovation, and cloud economics, thereby bringing a change in customer needs.

Channel partners in India as well as globally are grappling with how to adapt their own business models to address rapidly changing customer needs. The tech and talent gaps that once existed between India and mature markets are beginning to close. These advances are happening primarily because of the current government’s push for digital initiatives and its subsequent investments in projects like Digital India.

Riverbed is delivering the right technology at the right time for the India market. This, combined with a compelling new partner program designed to help partners grow profitably, will enable both Riverbed and its partners to help its customers thrive in a rapidly changing and highly competitive market, capture greater market share and achieve the growth the company aspires to.

SD-WAN & Riverbed…

SD-WAN represents a significant growth opportunity for Riverbed and for its partners in India. It’s a solution that thrives in an increasingly unpredictable, cloud-based and software-defined world.Riverbed’s strategy for helping its partners thrive in this new environment is simple – • Make significant investments to expand its portfolio with solutions for digital experience management and software-defined networking, in order to create new opportunities for its partners to solve some of the biggest challenges facing their customers in the digital/ cloud era.

• Throw out the book and create a unique new partner program – called Riverbed Rise that’s built to allow partners to grow profitably in this new environment via simplicity and flexibility, enabling partners of all types to respond immediately to rapidly changing customer needs.

“This world had effectively disrupted the IT

Uma Thana Balasingam, Vice President, Channels for Riverbed Asia Pacific and Japan value chain, as customers now need to consume IT in new ways. In turn, this demands a totally new approach to partnering,” says Uma Thana Balasingam, Vice President, Channels for Riverbed Asia Pacific and Japan.

She further continues, “To achieve the growth that it aspires to, Riverbed needs to access what is today a largely untapped segment growth opportunity for its solutions portfolio.

To be successful, we have just introduced Riverbed Rise, our new partner program, and the foundation of Riverbed’s partner ‘first’ initiative, which aims to energize and reward partners who lead and drive commercial segment customer engagement in to what are effectively new accounts for Riverbed.”

Riverbed Rise Program –setting a new bar…

The goal of the Riverbed Rise program is to support partner growth and profitability by aligning rewards with strategic business priorities and sales performance. The program emphasizes flexibility to recognize and reward partner performance and capabilities across all partner types and consumption models. Further it is designed to allow partners to better plan their investments to drive growth – where, how and when to invest to transform their businesses around the Riverbed Portfolio.

Riverbed Rise aligns with the changing IT

landscape and how partners are evolving to solve their customers’ technology needs. The new program is a departure from traditional, competency-based programs to an innovative, flexible dividends-based design. It aims to reward all types of partners, business models and various customer technology consumption preferences.

“You can think of dividends like rewards points,” points out Uma.“Reward points (dividends) are assigned to recognize partner performance and capability. The more reward points (dividends) a partner earns, the greater the benefits they will receive.”

This is a significant change which seeks to take ‘first mover’ advantage of the new IT market supply chain dynamics. Riverbed’s partner ‘first’ initiative creates a new partner relationship framework that is ‘fit for purpose’ in the cloud/digital Era. It fully recognizes the huge contribution that its partners make, and reinforces Riverbed’s commitment to its partner community.

And so…

Riverbed is focused on delivering a totally new partner experience in 2018. This includes the new program, a new partner portal, more robust marketing tools with dedicated partner social channels, revamped programs and simplified discounting schedules.

www.varindia.com

March 2018

25

CHANNEL BUZZ

TAIT successfully organizes its annual cricket tournament

26th Convergence India 2018 expo concludes in New Delhi

Link Road, Bhakti Park, Wadala East, Mumbai. The LG-Orno Gladiators, a team owned by LG, in association with its distributor Orno Computers, displayed an allrounder team performance as they played with 11 other teams for two days to win the coveted grand final and claim the SEAGATE-TAIT IT

26th Convergence India 2018 expo and the co-located 2nd Internet of Things India 2018 expo were kicked off at PragatiMaidan, New Delhi with a dive into robotics & artificial intelligence and an opening address by Mitra, the charming Made in India robot that captivated his audience.

T h e inaugural ceremony saw the Union Minister of State for Communication (IC) Manoj Sinha who also holds the railways portfolio, taking to the stage in front of a packed crowd to explain how events such as Convergence India and IoT India are of special relevance to the country; how the emerging 5G technology is the most important area where India aims to be a leader; how all equipment and components for the BharatNet project are indigenously

The mega cricket event organized by the Trade Association of Information Technology (TAIT) was a unique initiative that saw OEMs and IT retailers (Channels) come together to play as a team. The event was held at the Bhakti Park Garden, Anik Wadala

CUP 2018 title.

Spearheaded by the new Director on board, Sunil Thariani, along with the event committee members, Directors, namely Samir Parekh, Samir Mehta, Magan Gangani and Gopal Pansari, this initiative was well supported by the board.

The teams were divided into four groups and played 12 league matches, 4 quarter- finals and 2 semi-finals.

Jwala Singh, a formal national-level cricketer, the current Director of the Mumbai Cricket Club and coach of Prithvi Shaw – the illustrated Indian cricket captain of the under-19 team, was the honourable Chief Guest at the tournament.

The Man-of-the-Series title was awarded to Aakash Aakhade of LG Orno Gladiators sponsored by Seagate and the winning team and runner team each member were felicitated with medals and the gift from Livetech.

manufactured to boost the Make in India campaign, among other relevant subjects.

“In the last three years, 266 million mobile connections and 140 million additional Internet connections were added. We had a meager 5 telecom equipment manufacturing units in 2014; today

we have a staggering 118 such units manufacturing more than 22.5 crore mobile handsets,” said the Minister.

He, however, admitted, “Though we are the world’s second largest consumers of the Internet, more than two-thirds of our population is yet to be online.”

TAITRA boosts COMPUTEX, SMART ASIA India & Taiwan Excellence in India Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) announced this year’s edition of COMPUTEX. Along with it, TAITRA also promoted SMART ASIA India & TAIWAN EXCELLENCE in New Delhi. James Kuo, Deputy Executive Director of Exhibition Department at TAITRA inaugurated the conference along with Champak Raj Gurjar, President- Federation of all India IT. The conference also witnessed participation from COMPUTEX, SMART ASIA India & TAIWAN EXCELLENCE representatives.

Sharing his vision on IndiaTaiwan relationship, Champak Raj Gurjar, President- Federation of all India IT said, “COMPUTEX & SMART ASIA are the perfect shows of the year for Taiwanese and Indian IT players to create business and sourcing for potential partners. India-Taiwan economic relations received

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to create more trade opportunities between India and Taiwan as well as industry cooperation and knowledge partnerships.

We look forward to working closely with our Indian partners to explore new horizons”.

further boost after the singing of “India-Taiwan Economical Cooperative Agreement”. The agreement led to intensified cooperation in crucial areas of technical assistance, innovation, entrepreneurship and business incubation. We wish all the success to this year’s edition of COMPUTEX, SMART ASIA India & TAIWAN EXCELLENCE and hope the endeavor will fortify the economic ties between the two

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progressive nations”.

James Kuo, Deputy Executive Director Exhibition Department TAITRA said, “It is a great honor for us to announce this year’s edition of COMPUTEX, SMART ASIA & TAIWAN EXCELLENCE. Taiwan has been making a drastic shift from high-tech manufacturing to an innovation-driven economy.

Through COMPUTEX & SMART ASIA, we are hoping

With a new positioning, an all-new COMPUTEX 2018 will be focusing on attracting international players’ participation in its 6 main themes, Al, 5G, Blockchain, IoT Applications, Innovations &Startups, and Gaming & VR. To echo the main themes, 4 featured exhibits are launched: ‘SmarTEX’, ‘InnoVEX’, ‘Gaming & VR’ and ‘iStyle’. While COMPUTEX 2018 is broadening its horizons, COMPUTEX participation in Convergence India 2018 with its COMPUTEX d&i awards winning products will unlock further business potential for both the countries.

Meet your next favorite book

Dear Sir, While we are in a process of compilation of seventh edition of the Brand Book. This year Brand Book focus on how Indian ICT (Information & Communications Technology) industry is evolving and the importance of digitization in supply chains is growing by leaps and bounds to compete with the global economy. To address the newer challenges, corporates are coming out with innovative approach by creating specialised products and services to meet the demand. Focused branding and awareness is must to reach the target audience.

India IT spending is projected to total $87.1 billion in 2018, an increase of 9.2 percent from 2017 estimated spending of $79.7 billion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. IT security is becoming a priority; Organizations are spending more on security as a result of regulations, shifting buyer mindset, awareness of emerging threats and the evolution to a digital business strategy.

There is a need to align security strategy with business functions.

Brand Book is the ultimate book for the technology investment decision makers in the Industry (CIO/CTO/CISO) community in the Industry and across the vertical.

Highlights of the Brand Book • 50,000 copies circulated Nationally (Across the vertical) • Reaches to 5,000 CXO(CIO/CTO) in the country as the complimentary copy.

• Profiling of 100 ICT companies in India • Experience cell of Top 100 CIO/CTO/ CISOs of the Industry (Eminent CIOs of India).

• Market Scape and in-depth analysis on IT Hardware, Software, Services, Telecom Services, Mobile Phone, E-Commerce, after Market Services and payment industry.

• www.mybrandbook.co.in reaches 2 million hits in a month

Organizations must change internally to change externally. People who are collaborative, agile, analytical, innovative and creative where the network effect technologies transform the CIO’s work from making tactical technology decisions into building strategic platforms. Brand Book is the ultimate solution, where all successful brand Icons and leaders come together under one platform and share their uniqueness, have featured in the Coffee Table Book. It also recognises the brand power of the corporates.

Lastly, this issue will disclose some interesting facts about this year’s top ICT brands (Top 25) with you all.

For more information, publisher@varindia.com

www.mybrandbook.co.in

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March 2018

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INDUSTRY EVENT

ODISHA IT CONCLAVE 2018 Hotel Swosti Premium, Bhubaneswar THE EVENT WITTNESSED PRIDE OF ODISHA & PREFERRED IT BRAND AWARDS The recent IT Conclave event organised in Bhubaneswar, Odisha by the IT Association of Odisha (ITAO) was a daylong conference on Information Technology products and services.

The focus of the event was on smarter city and better lifestyle services for the citizens of Odisha. The Conclave had the key theme as ‘Smart City Smart Link’ which is a perfect blend of technology and ease of living for all people of the state and the Smart City Bhubaneswar Authority along with various Departments of Govt. of Odisha for a joint endeavour in future days.

The event was inaugurated by Priyadarshi Mishra, MLA - Bhubaneswar, North- Govt. of Odisha; Ashok Meena, IAS, Principal Secretary, GA & PG, Government of Odisha;Omkar Rai, DG-STPI; R.N Palai, ITS, Spl. Secy. to Govt., IT department, Govt. of Odisha; Deepak Kumar Sahu,Publisher & Chief editor-VARINDIA; Dan Mishra, Chairman - CSDC Corporation; Sunil Mohapatra, Director, Sales – Adobe; Satyajit Satapathy,Director,sales – EPSON India; Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO-ACER and Soubhagya Routray, President-ITAO. Soubhagya Routray, President, ITAO addressed the gathering in his inaugural address on the growth of the IT industry in Odisha and enumerated the huge number of stakeholders of ITAO in Odisha. “We are trying to provide a common platform for mobilizing the IT resources and utilize the same for generating awareness and mass employment,” he said.

Ashok K. Meena, Principal Secretary, Electronics & Information Technology Department, Govt. of Odisha spoke about how using the benefits of Information Technology in everyday life is now a common phenomenon.

“We want to develop a dynamic IT ecosystem for the robust use of IT solutions in public delivery and other infrastructure development in our Smart City Bhubaneswar and also across the state,” he said in his Inaugural Session.

“Great changes are taking place in IT Sector covering the entire world. The Start-ups and Entrepreneurs, the local talents need to scale up their innovations with home grown solutions by embedding themselves with IT majors. To create localised solutions for public service delivery is

very much necessary. Those new companies that are coming to Odisha into product and services for investments or newer opportunities, I would say one thing that is partnership, partnership and partnership with the local partners and entrepreneurs.”

“The IT and Electronic sector in Odisha is growing at a good speed. The Centre of Excellence on Virtual Reality (VR) at IIT, Bhubaneswar is a unique initiative and a model for others to boost the IT sector in the state,” said Dr Omkar Rai, Director General - STPI. Dan Mishra, Chairman and CEO-CSDC said, “There is a saying which says that when a wave comes, either you swim or sink. This is true with the digital wave too, where the level of preparedness decides how well you would be able to adapt to digitization. When I left India in 1969, computer technology was still at a nascent stage. There were only 4 computers in the country at that time. I remember travelling to Bombay to do our programming project.

The other 2 were in Kolkata and 1 in Delhi. In computer programming, ‘Zero defect’ is very important and this determines the success of a business. The ancient computer systems however no longer exist but the heritage still remains and we have all readily accepted it.”

Priyadarshi Mishra, MLA, Bhubaneswar

North and Rudra Narayan Palai Special Secretary& CEO, E&IT Dept, Govt. of Odisha were the other guests on the dais during the session. IT majors like Adobe, CSDC, Epson, Quadgen, Polycom participated in the conclave with their next level IT products and collaboration prospects in Odisha.

The Plenary session on ‘Smart City Smart Link’ was moderated by Deepak Sahu, Group Editor VARINDIA while the panel consisted of eminent stalwarts like R.N. Palei, Special Secy.

E&IT GoO and CEO-OCAC; Sunil Mohapatra, Director South East Asia Region, Adobe; Dan Mishra, Chairman CSDC & Exec. Chairman ICAD Investments LLC; Satyajit Satpathy, Director Sales and Marketing, Epson; Santosh Amnigad, Director, Projects, Quadgen Wireless Solutions Inc. and Sujit Panigrahi, Co-Founder and CTO, Convergent Technologies.

Deepak Sahu spoke about how Bhubaneswar, Odisha has emerged as the first smart city in the country. “There is a lot of technological and intellectual advancement in our people. Smart and connected products are bringing people closer. The data from various fields is helping smarten the smart city. These can be used to coordinate traffic, early warning systems for disasters among others. Bhubaneswar has lot of BPOs and KPOs. Many companies have

Ashok K. Meena Principal Secretary, Electronics & Information Technology Department, Govt. of Odisha

Dr Omkar Rai Director General STPI

Dan Mishra Chairman and CEO-CSDC and Executive Chairman – ICAD Investments LLC

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shifted centre from Delhi to Bhubaneswar.

Bhubaneswar needs to go smart and digital.

Smart cities should help increase quality of life and last mile connectivity,” he said.

RN Palai spoke on engaging citizens in the process. “There would be tremendous pressure in the city due to urban expansion. Most of the people in the country live in cities. But India lives in the villages. Lot of migration has to happen.

Influx of population to the city is going on. The urban administration has to work in a futuristic manner and catch up with the technology. An investment to the human capital and Social Capital has to be made to create sustainable development. Bhubaneswar is far better than other cities without too much technological intervention. We have natural light, water utilisation, efficient lighting and transport. A smart grid of Wi-Fi is needed to make everyone connected. The Govt. is working on making all public services online within a frame of one year. It’s a long and steady process for ease of citizens.”

Sunil Mohapatra is his speech said,“Digital era is an age of experience. We have to find

Sunil Mohapatra Director, South Asia Region ADOBE tomorrow’s solutions today.”

Satyajit Satpathy said, “Smart city is not about free Wi-Fi;this notion has to be eliminated. Smart city is much beyond our present thinking. By 2020 we expect 600 global smart cities which will generate 60% of global GDP. A gamete of products has to form a proper technology. Data Analytics is one of the most important things that would add value to these initiatives. A convenient lifestyle for the citizens is what is needed. Citizens have to be a

Convergent Technologies spoke on how a smart city has to provide happiness and liveability. “We need to build a generation of healthy children and healthy citizens. We should provide education to all people irrespective of their background. We need to create enough work for people to earn a living. We have to get paperless transactions and home delivery of govt. services. Simplifying life for services, amenities, jobs, happiness, and children has to be our priority.”

The conclave witnessed two unique sets of awards being given. The Pride of Odisha Awards were given to outstanding Odia contributors for the growth of the IT Industry around the world. The ITAO Preferred Brand Awards were chosen and voted among the IT community in Bhubaneswar and were given to the most reliable products, manufacturers and service providers across segments.

Pride of Odisha Awards: WINNERS 1. Santosh Kumar Sahoo, CEO & managing Partner, Computer Lab Pvt. Ltd.

Panel Discussion on "Smart City Smart Link" Moderated by: Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher and Group editor, VARINDIA

ways on how to extend the IT experience to the consumer. We are making citizen friendly technology available to government. For example citizens can obtain their certificates from the government directly by using IT services and Real time data and growth - It is all about experience. We enable our partners to coordinate with the local government and take things forward.”

Dan Mishra said, “Thousands of computer programs do not make a smart city. A smart city is a liveable and lovable city. One should be happy and feel safe in the city. You cannot make anything smarter over years. Today will be far behind tomorrow. People change and times change. If you take a longer time to develop solutions, it will be obsolete by the time of completion. Innovate today and develop

part of the proceedings. There has to be a blend of technology and citizens. All departments and citizens have to collaborate. Let them be a part of the system and policies.”

Santosh Amingadsaid, “Smart City Mission is to develop core infrastructure and provide adequate facility to people. We are dedicated to install a Fibre data grid for 680 km across Bhubaneswar. We are further working on setting up an IT core around the city and data centres, smart parking, and smart traffic management services. Once it is developed, there would be enough opportunities to help the citizens in the end.The ultimate goal of technology is to make life easy for everyone.”

Sujit Panigrahi,Co-founder& CTO-

2. Sunil Mohapatra, Director, South Asia Region, ADOBE 3. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher & Group editor, VARINDIA 4. Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO & Consumer Business Head, Acer India 5. Satyajit Satpathy, Director, Sales& Marketing, EPSON India IATO President Soubhagya Routray while felicitating the winners said, “We feel honouredto felicitate the Pride of Odisha winners in the IT Sector. These individuals are role models and made our state proud with their brands globally.”

The event also witnessed 12 Preferred Brand Awards being voted by IATO members.

Pride of Odisha

Sunil Mohapatra Director Sales Adobe

Chandrahas Panigrahi CMO & Consumer Business Head Acer India

Dr. Deepak Kumar Sahu Publisher and Group editor VARINDIA

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VAR ANALYSIS

W

Who is fishing whom?

e are living in the era of the Digital Cloud which is an integrated online platform than any other time in the history. We have different level of role and scopes to interact online via social media, email, blog portals or any other e-commerce transactions. We are conducting our business and infrastructure via complex data / Big Data driven channels and with different innovations. Thus our culture is adopting such fundamentally linked socialism to the real time goal of individual.

As we know within this social media trend each individual must have a facebook, twitter or Google etc. social account. As the world's most popular search engine, Google has created most enormous popular services like YouTube, Gmail, Google Map and much more ...with the integrated search service used by hundreds of millions of people.

Now a days we all are familiar and addicted with all the above services due to easy to use , deliver fast relevant results and are primary search destinations world wide.

However, for global use, we concern privacy and especially in the realm of huge data storage, search tracking, and use of personal data cloud.

Thus the vital concern of these social media sites, including Google have about the right to privacy and security for the amount of information that they are tracking, storing and ultimately using, are becoming increasingly important to many users.

First of all we should have to be aware about what type of Information and details these social media portals are tracking about you, how it uses these Information and how you can protect yourself not to be in sharing mode.

We know the Information / Content we are fishing about (Searching), is the King always is the Vital marketing theory for most of the social media marketers. Content Fishing means to find out expected content or important public information from a sharing medium. You are standing in line at the grocery store or at a mall, so it seems like a decent time to scroll through Facebook.

But then you do it again while you are stuck in traffic driving those groceries home, and then again waiting on dinner to arrive. Before you know it, you can spend cumulative hours on social media over the course of the day, hours you âre never going to get back that could feasibly have spent, at least a few of them, doing something a little better. Over the past few months, a few of my friends have decided to delete Facebook and Twitter off their professional phones in an attempt to curb their social media use. It is a

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strategy that has helped them cut down on how much they use both, but it is also made them miss out on invites to events and other things because they âre not looking at it all. It would be better to find a medium of some sort. Enter Pyxsee. The app that can track your social media use and allows you to set limits on how long you spend places like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram each day.

Some time you need privacy and you probably don't want to broadcast about some facts which is happening most of the times or special to you, but a lot of social media tracking your location and making it easy for others to do the same. Facebook tracks the location of all of your messages, While it's pretty well known that Facebook's Messenger app uses location data,

it's not so well known just how that location data can be used. But thanks to a new Google Chrome extension called Marauder's Map by which you can get some interesting creepy location data from the messaging app. It is also be noted that if someone with whom, you are messaging has their location data turned on, you can also see almost exactly where they are located by simply clicking on the icon next to the time you sent the message.

Instagram also playing the same role by collecting some attractive and valuable specific data about users' locations based on where they post images. While the picture sharing app does give users the option to name the location of where they are uploading or downloading an image, it also a geo-tag of an uploaded pic regardless if the user has selected the "Add to Photo Map" function.

Here is the kind of data your Android device transmits to Google on a regular basis:

• A list of types of movements that your phone thinks you could be doing, by likelihood. (e.g. walking: 51%, onBicycle: 4%, inRailVehicle: 3%) • The barometric pressure whether or not you âre connected to wifi • The MAC address ”which is a unique identifier of the Wi-Fi access point you are connected to • The MAC address, signal strength, and frequency of every nearby wifi access point • The MAC address, identifier, type, and two measures of signal strength of every nearby Bluetooth beacon • The charge level of your phone battery and whether or not your phone is charging • The voltage of your battery • The GPS coordinates of your phone and the accuracy of those coordinates • The GPS elevation and the accuracy of that That is very disturbing considering that most people are actually unaware of it all, even if they all agreed to share Location History with Google.

Because it appears that location tracking is actually the lawbreaker here. As soon as you allow any Google-made app to record your location history — Google Maps is one likely candidate, but there are plenty of others âre all of Google’s Android apps will then grab that location data, not just the app asking permission to track you. Google did make Location History an opt-in program. But the implications of enabling Location History in a Google app aren’t clear to the user.

With your permission, Google uses your Location History to deliver better results and recommendations on Google products, Google told Quartz. For example, you can receive traffic predictions for your daily commute, view photos grouped by locations, see recommendations based on places you have visited, and even locate a missing phone.

Location History is entirely opt-in, and you can always edit, delete, or turn it off at any time.

You can turn off Location History if you care about your privacy more than anything else, but that means not being able to use some apps that require access to your location???

Thus when we are fishing, fishing and fishing in this twenty-first century's agile digital cloud using smart mechanisms ... and we are finally tracked, recorded and shared by Social Merchants and are knowingly pissing up by default, owing to the loose restrictions allow law enforcement in many cases....and the hands on enforced privacy policy rules. n

VAR ANALYSIS

I

Browsers are trending to be more paranoid or are we?

f, for any reason, you need to observe your tracks while you are browsing the web on your desktop, you have plenty of options to keep anonymous. Thanks to Mr.Orbot, Android users, too, have a splution to use the Tor network to anonymise their web browsing sessions and avoid being monitored. Now, thanks to Onion Browser ($0.99), iPhone and iPad users also finally get an easy option to tunnel their web traffic through the Tor network.

Now a days each and every browsers are trending to be equipped with exactly on demand features. There are bookmarks or easy access to search, and after all for advanced feature like remember password, block cookies etc. are driven by cookies (temporary storing data in a Virtual medium), enable user agent spoofing on the same IP and machine. As world wide webtrafic is on action, and all these browsing activities should channelise through a secured transport layer, which is called secured socket Layer (SSL) and is a part of dedicated HTTPS mechanism, so that easily we can’t be monitored publicly.

At the same time, the security issues and challenges for Financial and Govt. transactional data including BIG-DATA/FAT-DATA has long been common practice online. More recently, all the browser applications are pushing to encrypt all World Wide Web traffic. Google search, Wikipedia, Facebook,Twitter etc. and are now using HTTPS default but practically migrating from HTTP to HTTPS can be experienced as a major technical and Financial challenge, an imposed concept for security of transformed data ....." A trend of paranoid approach of all major Browsers".

The web browser is an application software for retrieving and presenting web informations or resources from server on world wide web. The information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier/Locater (URI/URL) that may be a web page, image, video or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users easily to navigate their browsers to related resources.

In cyber world HTTP is an adaptation of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) for nonsecure communication over a computer network.

In HTTPS, the communication protocol is encrypted by Transport Layer Security (TLS), or formerly, its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). The protocol is therefore also often referred to as HTTP over TLS, or HTTP over SSL.And hence HTTPS = HTTP over TLS, or HTTP over SSL. You may have noticed that when you visit certain sites, such as https://www.google.co.in, browsers like Google Chrome display a little green padlock and the words "Secure" next to the address. That icon means that the site uses the encrypted web protocol HTTPS instead of plain old unencrypted HTTP.You might also notice the words "Not Secure" next to an address

in Chrome–typically when you're asked to enter a password or credit-card number on a site that doesn't use HTTPS to protect your information.

Starting in October 2017, Google will display the "Not Secure" warning more often according to a blog post published today by Chrome security product manager Emily Schechter. Now a days when you visit a site that uses plain HTTP, Chrome displays an icon of the letter "i" in a circle.

(Clicking on the "i" reveals a warning, "Your connection to this site is not secure.") and hence Google is here notifying his users for its Search Console tool that a forthcoming version of Chrome will display warnings or error when users are asked to submit any information over an unencrypted HTTP connection–not just passwords and credit cards. That means if you enter search terms on a site that doesn't use HTTPS, or type your email into a newsletter subscription form that isn't encrypted, you'll see a "Not Secure" notice. Users of Chrome's Incognito mode will see the warning when visiting any website that doesn't use HTTPS, even if it doesn't have any forms or fields. And

Technically we can summarise that : • In HTTP, URL begins with “http://” whereas URL starts with “https://” • HTTP uses port number 80 for communication and HTTPS uses 443 • HTTP is considered to be unsecure and HTTPS is secure • HTTP Works at Application Layer and HTTPS works at Transport Layer • In HTTP, Encryption is absent and Encryption is present in HTTPS as discussed above • HTTP does not require any certificates and HTTPS needs SSL Certificates

that's just the beginning.

"Eventually, we plan to show the 'Not secure' warning for all HTTP pages, even outside Incognito mode," Emily Schechter, a member of the Chrome security team, wrote in a blog post.

For the most part, this is a good thing, because it will push more websites to adopt HTTPS. Now there are many question are getting raised on weather HTTPS is 100% secure and secondly, is it a conspiracy to earn extra dollar to the companies into the business of HTTPS ?

Web security due to FireSheep networksniffing tool made it easy for anyone to detect your login info over insecure networks - your local coffeeshop's hotspot or public Wi-Fi at the library. That prompted a number of large sites to begin offering encrypted versions of their services on HTTPS connections.

Lately, even sites with fat-data like Twitter are nevertheless offering HTTPS connections.

You might not mind anyone sniffing and reading your Twitter messages en route to the server, but most people don't want someone also reading their username and password info. That's why Twitter recently announced a new option to force HTTPS connections.But the limitation is that Twitter's HTTPS option only works with a desktop browser, not the mobile site, which still requires manually entering the HTTPS address.

So, the cyber world is moving toward more HTTPS connections, why not just make everything HTTPS? This question remain unanswered.

The real problem, is that with HTTPS you lose the ability of cache.The developers really love it and now a days all users are also very much comfortable for low loading time. When we assume any BIG-DATA or FAT-DATA web interfaces like Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, then without cache....NO SERVICE OPTION FOR SORTER LOADING TIME. !!! Also concept of Ranking & SEO activities will be impacted with small performance hit when using HTTPS, since "the SSL initial key exchange adds to the latency."

In other words, a purely security-focused, HTTPS - only web is possible, with today's technology but will be slower and cost effective.

Perhaps the main reason most of us are not using HTTPS to serve our websites is simply that it doesn't work with virtualisation. Virtual hosts, which are what the most common cheap web-hosting providers offer, allow the web host to serve multiple websites from the same physical server – hundreds of websites all with the same IP address. That works just fine with regular HTTP connections, but it doesn't work at all with HTTPS. Although there is a way to make virtual hosting with HTTPS work together by using the TLS Extensions protocol – it's only partially implemented and hence, HTTPS isn't going to work for small, virtually hosted websites. n

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COVER STORY

AI holds promising future in Security Surveillance S

ecurity whether it is cybersecurity or surveillance has become the biggest concern for people in recent days. And the reason for its importance is the everincreasing number of cybercrimes. With the rise in cybercrimes having created a havoc-like situation in many countries very recently and forced many to scale up their security measures, the growing importance of physical security has been clearly understood. Terrorism and antisocial activities are ever growing which call for deployment of surveillance security in every industry. This has influenced the growth of the surveillance industry. For proactive measures, many industries are adopting surveillance cameras integrated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.

So what is AI and how does it work in the surveillance industry?

Explaining it, Deepak Pargaonkar, Senior Director – Solutions Engineering, Salesforce India, says, “When we talk about AI, it is a part of almost everything now. When we look at our daily life, it has become a part of our daily life. Take, for example, natural language processing like Siri. When we give a voice command, then Siri starts doing that for the user. Another example is: if I upload a picture with my friends, it immediately asks for tagging my friends. Here, the image is being processed and vision analysis is taking place. The third aspect is intense analysis. It is very important for various purposes. In an organization where there is a high volume of emails that you are experiencing then some mechanism to go to

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Abhishek Kumar Regional Director, South Asia, Oncam

The nation’s businesses are the prime drivers of the economy, and their growth will give a fillip to the surveillance security market. The biggest demand is coming from small and medium enterprises as well as hospitality businesses.

Deepak Pargaonkar Senior Director - Solutions Engineering Salesforce India

"AI now is getting more comprehensive and the algorithms are becoming richer through more analysis in big areas. A number of organizations including Saleforce India are doing a fair amount of work in the area of vision or image analysis."

Jim Simon Sr. Director of Marketing, APJ, Quantum Corp.

It is well established that humans have very little capability for accurately monitoring surveillance feeds as attention wanes after just a few minutes. AI is capable of monitoring every stream and can do so better than any human and at a much lower cost.

the intent of the written body and identify what could possibly it mean then accordingly take some call before the human being starts intervening. If you look at these examples, then possibly these are the building blocks for everything that happen in surveillance.

The security industry has the components like capturing the images or there could be some social post or some written communication that also needs to be monitored, just to understand the sentiment of the written body.

AI now is getting more comprehensive and the algorithms are becoming richer through more analysis in big areas. A number of organizations including Saleforce India are doing a fair amount of work in the area of vision or image analysis. Once the images are captured when it comes to do some analysis, human analysis has always been a part of it, but what AI does is it takes away the manual labour and also adds some intelligence. This some intelligence means it starts applying deep learning models on the images. These deep learning models go through images; it compares the existing things that are available and it predicts the outcome. Once the outcomes are predicted, the actionable also needs to be done.”

Further explaining, Aditya Khemka, Managing Director, CP PLUS, adds, “Surveillance has been a passive form of protection so far. However, this is changing quickly. Artificial Intelligence is imparting brains to surveillance cameras, thereby letting them analyze live video without human interference. While still at its nascent stage, AI will drastically boost the capabilities of surveillance cameras helping police forces find offenders easily and improve overall public safety. Cameras will no longer require constant monitoring as video clips will become searchable and quick to find.”

Artificial Intelligence in Video Surveillance

Artificial Intelligence, a new technological innovation, has emerged in the field of security surveillance that is taking this industry towards the next level of growth. It is the most trending technology these days and is being adopted by many.

“Over the past few years, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) market has grown rapidly.

With the advancements in processing power and the plethora of information now available as a result of IoT proliferation, more and more industries are putting AI to work. Today, Artificial Intelligence is the most trending technology in the security industry. HikVision has gained over a decade of experience in this field. HikVision has taken this technology and innovated a family of products to maximize its use. The DeepinView IP camera range and the DeepinMind NVR range work together to provide all the power and benefits of Deep Learning. While the cameras provide the smart ‘eyes’ of the system, the NVR represents the analysis and storage capabilities of the brain.

Mandar Joshi Head - Channel Business, DIGISOL Systems

AI infused with surveillance is going to be the next big evolution in the surveillance technology. This will change the world’s idea of surveillance. This will make the surveillance smart by providing artificial mind to its digital eyes.

Raj Jadhav VP – Solution Consulting, Tech Support & IT, D-Link (India)

It is, indeed, very exciting time here in India with technology proliferation at its peak. Government initiatives such as smart city, modernization of railway, increased awareness around security amongst the masses have opened enormous surveillance business avenues.

Robbin Shen Managing Director, Dahua Technlogy India

I see a bright future for the video surveillance market in India as the dynamics are in favour of its impressive growth. The socioeconomic conditions of India will drive the video surveillance market as all sectors are poised for expansion.

The products help to tackle security on two fronts – recognition, monitoring and counting of people and recognition and detection of vehicles. They use Deep Learning technology at its most effective – for its ability to classify and recognize thousands of ‘features’,” describes Ashish Dhakan, MD & CE, PramaHikVision India.

The adoption of AI technology in surveillance is revolutionizing the security

The video surveillance market in India is poised to grow, supported by socioeconomic conditions of the country. As per 6W Research, it will reach $2.4 billion by 2020.

Also, Video Surveillanceas-a-Service (VSaaS) will further drive the growth trajectory.

industry as it is making surveillance smart and it is also helping to overcome human flaws coupled with analysis which is aiding in crime reduction.

“AI infused with surveillance is going to be the next big evolution in the surveillance technology. This will change the world’s idea of surveillance. This will make the surveillance smart by providing artificial mind to its digital eyes. It will help in compensating for human shortcomings, proactive analysis will help in reducing the crime, will bring in much more robust detection and recognition tools,” says Mandar Joshi, Head – Channel Business, DIGISOL Systems.

AI is primarily used in surveillance to identify abusive incidences as it provides higher accuracy and refinement. Moreover, AI with machine learning capabilities in cameras has propelled video analytics feature when it comes to response and accuracy.

“Traditionally, AI based on algorithmic rules is being used to detect abusive incidences in the surveillance system. Thanks to machine learning and intelligence, image processing is being implemented at edge (camera), resulting in greater scale of accuracy and refinement in surveillance security. The latest silicon with high processing power and AI with

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COVER STORY Machine Learning capabilities in cameras have catapulted the video analytics features in terms of response and accuracy. D-Link cameras have abilities to fulfil the proactive surveillance intelligence like face recognition, object finding and recognition, scene change, abnormal speed, illegal parking, multiple loitering, cross wire, etc. Further, in my opinion, onboard intelligent video analytics would drastically reduce the cost of surveillance security system,” explains Raj Jadhav, Vice-President – Solution Consulting, Tech Support & IT, D-Link (India).

Apart from identifying critical situations, providing high accuracy and refinement, AI has also the capability of monitoring and analyzing a humongous amount of data streams. It is more efficient than humans and it costs less.

“AI is particularly valuable in the surveillance security industry. It is well established that humans have very little capability for accurately monitoring surveillance feeds as attention wanes after just a few minutes. Most of all, the number of data streams (i.e. cameras) is growing rapidly such that a large infrastructure like an airport could have thousands of camera streams. AI is capable of monitoring every stream and can do so better than any human and at a much lower cost,” views Jim Simon, Sr Director of Marketing, APJ, Quantum Corp.

Video Surveillance Market in India

As per a report, Indian enterprises are fast adopting AI. The technology helps the surveillance cameras to understand and analyze situation through algorithms. IT will act as a catalyst to take surveillance security market ahead.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology enables connected surveillance cameras to ‘see’ and ‘understand’ their environment instantly by using AI and Deep Learning algorithms. In the coming years, AI technology will not just be a catalyst but a key driving force like IoT to evolve the video surveillance and security market to the next level.

According to a report commissioned by Intel, undertaken by the International Data Corporation (IDC) that surveyed 194 Indian organizations across sectors, 71% are looking at increased process automation as a key benefit which could drive spike spends on this technology by 2020. The report further states that the Indian market is very fast in the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. Indian enterprises have been quick to adopt AI in the recent past, with nearly one in five organizations (22.2 per cent) across the four verticals surveyed implementing the technology in some way. This number is anticipated to soar considerably by mid-2019 with nearly seven in 10 firms (68.6 per cent) anticipated to deploy,” says Ashish Dhakan.

The video surveillance market in India is poised to grow, supported by socioeconomic conditions of the country. As per 6W Research,

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Sanjeev Gulati Country Manager-India & Saarc, VIVOTEK

In the surveillance market, there are a consistently growing number of opportunities and industries embracing different solutions and functionalities.

Sudhindra Holla Country Manager, Axis Communications India & SAARC

The number of businesses adopting IP-based video surveillance technology has been constantly on the rise since 2010.

Various sectors are now seeing an increased update in the IP-based solutions compared to analog cameras.

Vijay Wadhwan Head, System & Solutions division Panasonic India

Market for video surveillance equipment in India is witnessing strong tailwinds and growth is predicted to accelerate throughout the period to 2020.

it will reach $2.4 billion by 2020. Also, Video Surveillance-as-a-Service (VSaaS) will further drive the growth trajectory.

“Well, according to 6W Research, the market for video surveillance in India is projected to reach $2.4 billion by 2020. I see a bright future for the video surveillance market in India as the dynamics are in favour of its impressive growth. The socioeconomic conditions of India will drive the video surveillance market as all sectors are poised for expansion. The emergence of Video Surveillance-as-a-Service will also drive its market growth,” opines Robbin Shen, Managing Director, Dahua Technlogy India.

Presently, the surveillance market is witnessing growth riding on the back of digitization. Moreover, both big and small enterprises are realizing the importance of surveillance system as it generates value for the business.

We believe that the market will grow at a CAGR of around 27.15 per cent till 2021. The reason behind this optimistic outlook is that, in India, the adoption of surveillance devices has not kept pace with the business growth.

This disparity further increases if you bring advanced IP-driven surveillance devices into the picture.

Enterprises, both big and small, are beginning to realize the importance of surveillance systems, especially the ones that generate more value for the business. The surveillance market is, at present, experiencing accelerated growth because of the ongoing digitization, both for private businesses and public projects, as well as the replacement of legacy surveillance systems. As far as AI is concerned, considering the value that the technology adds to the surveillance industry, AI will not merely serve as a catalyst, but as a dominating force driving the market adoption,” predicts Abhishek Kumar, Regional Director, South Asia, Oncam.

IP-based Surveillance System

IP-based video surveillance technology is constantly on the rise, as many sectors are seeing an update in IP-based solutions than analog cameras. In the retail segment, a major chunk of the businesses have noticed a positive impact on security and operations after adopting IP-based video surveillance.

“The number of businesses adopting IPbased video surveillance technology has been constantly on the rise since 2010. Various sectors are now seeing an increased update in the IP-based solutions compared to analog cameras. There are many opportunities ranging

from IP migration strategies (video encoder solutions, hosted video, edge storage, etc) to looping in POS and video analytics data that are taking IP video mainstream which has a quantifiable impact on sales and operations. In the retail sector, approximately 93 per cent of retailers who use IP-based video systems have noted a positive impact on security, LP and operations. 40 per cent also noted a positive impact on merchandising,” says Sudhindra Holla, Country Manager, Axis Communications India & SAARC. Another vertical that has received benefits from video analytics is traffic management.

Explaining the same, Rajender Singh Bhandari, Director – Systems Engineering, Marketing & Services, NetApp India, says, “We have seen deployment of several closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) and video analytics deployed for security and safety, law enforcement and intelligent traffic management. The CCTVs collect data and analyze it before dynamically adjusting the green period for each traffic light.

Since the video data of the traffic situation is captured on a real-time basis for every day, week and month, the traffic light pattern is controlled, resulting in an optimized traffic flow. While the above examples are focussed on the public sector, other data-driven industries such as manufacturing, healthcare and retail will also benefit from this smarter data.”

The IP-based surveillance systems will boom as the benefits offered by it are of better quality than analog cameras. The systems provide enhanced image quality, video analytics, etc.

“The surveillance industry is going to thrive on IP based systems sooner or later without doubt. The image quality and other perks offered by IP-based systems are hard to compete for analog cameras. Hence, the shift will prove to be beneficial and will improve the security offered so far.

In terms of advantages, IP-based systems supersede analog cameras in every respect.

Especially the quality of images has enhanced a lot with IP-based systems. Further, Intelligent Video Analytics can be applied on network cameras and they give exceptional results. Also, network cameras give the flexibility under multi-location applications by providing centralized monitoring and management,” explains Kaushal Kadakia, Marketing Manager, IPVS, Matrix Comsec.

Apart from high-resolution picture, other benefits include a variety of cameras, which are scalable, are easy to install, have analytical capabilities, etc.

“IP surveillance is being adopted as users are discovering its benefits, especially in the long term. Advantages with IP cameras are the wide range of resolutions available in cameras; scalability owing to the use of IP addresses instead of the finite ports in video

Kaushal Kadakia Marketing Manager, IPVS, Matrix Comsec

The surveillance industry is going to thrive on IP based systems sooner or later without doubt. The image quality and other perks offered by IP-based systems are hard to compete for analog cameras.

Ashish P. Dhakan MD & CE, PramaHikVision India

With the advancements in processing power and the plethora of information now available as a result of IoT proliferation, more and more industries are putting AI to work.

Khalid Wani Director – Channel Sales, India, WD

In the coming years, demands on video surveillance systems are expected to only increase. Going forward, video surveillance systems must respond with key improvements, including higher quality and better throughput and increased primary storage capacity.

recorders; easy installation with the use of Power over Ethernet (PoE) cables which carry both power and network cables together; and analytical capabilities that reduce the manning of surveillance drastically by using algorithms to define breach nature and limits,” mentions Aditya Khemka.

While shifting towards IP-based surveillance system, buyers are expecting refined arrangements rather than ease security techniques.

“Market for video surveillance equipment in India is witnessing strong tailwinds and growth is predicted to accelerate throughout the period to 2020. India has the potential to be among the top three countries in the next few years. Moving from simple based security frameworks to IP- based observation, buyers are expecting exceedingly refined arrangements rather than ease security techniques. Warm imaging, low-light receptors, propelled sensors and facial recognizable proof are a portion of alternate areas coming into focus over the most recent couple of years, especially in India,” says Vijay Wadhwan, Head, System & Solutions Division, Panasonic India.

Though pricing created a barrier in the adoption of IP-based surveillance systems, but

the enhancing computational and technological capabilities of internal components and lowering of price helped its growth.

The surveillance industry is fairly resilient to change, and coupled with pricing requirements in the market, it has created obstacles in the adoption of IP-based surveillance systems.

However, the growing computational and technological capabilities of the internal components, as well as the decline of pricing and increasing functionalities have been ramping up adoption of IP surveillance systems.

The more the industry evolves, requirements shift for devices to act independently, provide analytics capabilities and smart functionalities and being easily deployed, flexible and highly scalable, while at the same time keeping it easy and ready to co-work with several other IP devices through a centralized system.

For all these characteristics, IP-based surveillance systems will keep its increasing momentum going forward within the industry and greatly expanding on advantages and functionalities for years to come,” highlights Sanjeev Gulati, Country Manager – India & SAARC, VIVOTEK.

Opportunities in Indian Market

Companies are witnessing opportunities

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COVER STORY in the security market and 6W Research has projected that the market will grow at a CAGR of 13 per cent during 2017-23. A large number of verticals such as BFSI, government, transportation, educational institutes, etc are widely implementing video surveillance.

“There is immense potential in the surveillance security market. As per 6W Research, India’s video surveillance market is projected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 13 per cent during 2017-23, especially with the switch from analog to IP-based surveillance system.

Verticals that are embracing video surveillance are Banking & Financial, government, transportation, retail & logistics, commercial offices, industrial & manufacturing, residential, hospitality & healthcare, and educational institutions,” mentions Mandar Joshi.

Reiterating similar views, Sanjeev Gulati says, “In the surveillance market, there are a consistently growing number of opportunities and industries embracing different solutions and functionalities. Some worth noting are the Banking and Financial, retail, transportation, government and higher security and entertainment. Each of these sectors have their own set of requirements and expectations.

Hence, there is no a one-fits-all solution that could be applicable to all sectors. Hence, the opportunities are as wide as the requirements of the market expectations.”

With advancing technology like AI being adopted in the security market, it opens a wide opportunity for the companies. Systems will become more automated.

“The future holds an ample amount of opportunities for the surveillance security market, especially in India. With AI, the systems can be made more reliable. Human intervention will reduce gradually as the systems become more and more automated.

For example, IP-based systems are nowadays capable of sending instant notifications in case of any mishap, informing the concerned person in real time through SMS and Email.”

Though video surveillance is being widely accepted now, the major verticals embracing it are manufacturing, hospitality, retail and BFSI industries. However, the education industry is also growing gradually. In the bigger picture, consumers are now well aware of the need of surveillance in and around their property,” says Kaushal Kadakia.

The Indian economy is growing at a rapid pace which is being driven by the businesses of the country. This will, in return, help surveillance security market to grow. The companies are witnessing major traction from small and medium enterprises as well as hospitality businesses.

“India is now the fastest-growing large economy in the world. The nation’s businesses are the prime drivers of the economy, and their growth will give a fillip to the surveillance

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Aditya Khemka Managing Director, CP PLUS

"Surveillance has been a passive form of protection so far. However, this is changing quickly. Artificial Intelligence is imparting brains to surveillance cameras, thereby letting them analyze live video without human interference."

Rajender Singh Bhandari Director – Systems Engineering, Marketing & Services, NetApp India

Since the video data of the traffic situation is captured on a real-time basis for every day, week and month, the traffic light pattern is controlled, resulting in an optimized traffic flow.

Companies are witnessing opportunities in the security market and 6W Research has projected that the market will grow at a CAGR of 13 per cent during 2017-23. A large number of verticals such as BFSI, government, transportation, educational institutes, etc are widely implementing video surveillance. security market. The biggest demand is coming from small and medium enterprises as well as hospitality businesses. Moreover, Smart Cities in India will require the most advanced surveillance systems for end-to-end processes, from cleanliness management to round-theclock traffic monitoring. Big enterprises are also focussing on business process enhancement and faultless surveillance through advanced monitoring systems,” highlights Abhishek Kumar.

Raj Jadhav is also of same opinion and says, “It is, indeed, very exciting time here in India with technology proliferation at its peak. Government initiatives such as smart city, modernization of railway, increased awareness around security amongst the masses have opened enormous surveillance business avenues. People have realized the significance of surveillance system which results in the

implementation of community and private surveillance system.”

Though the size of the market is very small, still Panasonic views a potential in the wearable camera market. Explaining about the market, Vijay Wadhwan says, “We also see a huge growth opportunity within the wearable camera market. Although the industry may seem very small right now, but as we go forward this will certainly become very large because of the massive police we have in the country.

Whatever may conspire between the police and public can be recorded in the camera, and will act as a proof or evidence in the future. This can even work on a real-time basis as it works on IP protocol.”

Finally…

It is evident that AI holds the future in video surveillance industry and has further scope to provide better features for enhanced security. It is also expected that demands of video surveillance will further accelerate in the days to come with advancements like better throughput and increased storage capacity, etc.

“In the coming years, demands on video surveillance systems are expected to only increase. Going forward, video surveillance systems must respond with key improvements, including higher quality and better throughput and increased primary storage capacity. The number of deployed cameras should grow, as organizations realize the importance of covering more perspectives. Quality must also be improved for valuable analytics applications such as facial recognition and licence plate readers. With more cameras and higher resolutions, the sheer amount of video content will grow dramatically, challenging existing primary storage solutions,” concludes Khalid Wani, Director – Channel Sales, India, Western Digital Corporation. n Aparna Mullick aparna@varindia.com

FACE TO FACE

IceWarp sees a big opportunity in India’s enterprise market IceWarp had achieved a whopping 200% business growth in the last financial year. With a strong understanding of the Indian market dynamics and sensitivity, IceWarp growth was backed by significant deals in the enterprise sector coming from India. Sharing more about the company’s performance, Adam Paclt, Global CEO, IceWarp and Pramod Sharda, CEO (India & ME) – IceWarp talks to VARINDIA of how they feel they are different from their competitors -

Adam Paclt Global CEO, IceWarp

What are the key trendsthat are going to drive the IT industry and how decisively is IceWarp aligning with these trends?

It is crucially important for the IT Industry, especially for our customers and companies how they effectively manage them, effectively search for them, and effectively work with data, in terms of artificially intelligent & machine learning. So if you ask me what trends, then AI and machine learning are going to be the biggest trends.

Talking about IceWarp, we maintain email, Calendar, contact, data, documents and chats in just a single platform. So when we have the data, we need to understand how effectively use it to drive growth for our customers. And I think this is one of the biggest trends in the market today.

What are the key differentiation/ benefits that IceWarp offer compared to G-Suite & Microsoft Office?

The biggest differentiator is in its user interface; IceWarp is a Single environment and working on a single platform and application.

We have one simple user interface in which you can click through yourdocuments, Team chat, Voice Chat and Calendar in it.You can work in multiple windows simultaneously specially in a

market where vendors have multiple interface.

So this is a big differentiator for us.

Another big differentiator is that Microsoft or Google does not have their datacenter in India, but IceWarp has its datacenter here.

Which means that we started with our trust in Indian market and we went ahead with that and this gives us faster reliability and easy access to the data which is important. We are also able to give our customers options; they can choose whether to have on-premises or in cloud. India has a very different kind of scenario, where large organizations would not want to go on cloud. So IceWarp gives an advantage where companies can decide whether they want to book a Cloud or want to be on premises or a mix of both.

If a customer wants to be on cloud and buy mailboxes, they are able to augment the entire capacity and redistribute it as per the work load, like if a senior employee needs more mail space and a junior employee needs less, they can do it while using IceWarp. This also leads to rise in the Total cost of ownership.

What are the key role of C-Level executives in today’s digital era and how technology has changed the market for them?

IceWarp allows enterprises to effectively share data, collaborate, irrespective of which time zone they are working from. Any C-level executives would need a technology like us for better productivity and to run their daily business operations effectively. Our product is suitable for companies of any size – from small to mid and large enterprises. We work in a very competitive market segment and so have to react to things very fast by taking hundreds of decisions in a day.

How IceWarp is redefining the collaboration market?

We need the channel and resellers to reach our customers. We see our partner ecosystem not just to sell our products but also to teach our potential customers of how to use new technologies.Vice versa, we are also getting a feedback from our customers of what new we can bring out in our products. So we are continuously learning of how to improve our technology. We are able to shift our priorities very effectively the way our customers want. So channel for us is very important, but it is not only about sales but also constant learning and building a relationship with our customers.

How long have you been

Pramod Sharda CEO (India & ME) – IceWarp

in the Indian Market?

We have been in this market since2014, commercially we launched our operation by September of that year. It is almost a 3 and a half years in this market now. We are a Czech Republican country and we Czechs see India as one of the great potential in a world.

As of date, we have dedicated partners in South (Bengaluru, Chennai) and West (Maharashtra, Gujarat) and they are helping us to grow in India.IceWarp encourages its partners to sell the product and we take the full ownership of pre-sales, implementation, migration and support.This helped us to move faster in the market. So proactively we give them margins but we took the entire responsibility on our shoulders so that they can have successful clients. We have partners today with us who have been associated with us for last 2 years.

IceWarp does not follow a distribution model but we have a partner structure where we have partners and resellers and we sell directly to them. We had faced many challenges – the first challenge was to convince the partner; because when we first came to India the first question was who all our customers were. IceWarp is a global company that has a large customer base across the globe but still in India we had to struggle to sign our first partner. n

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INDUSTRY EVENT

5th International Data Science Summit 2018 concludes successfully Data Science is an emerging subject for almost five years and it has got different methods and techniques like Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence as well as other things. Data has lot of opportunity and prospects as we get a lot of insights by analyzing these data. But there is one thing that needs to call up - which is there are still some kind of disparity in terms of the maturity of different organizations in embracing and implementing these technologies. While few of the internet companies and social media companies are really on that edge of experimenting with these methods and techniques everyday and leveraging them for their applications, other industries are still trying to catch up.

The 5th International Data Science Summit 2018 was organized by Data Science Foundations. The summit held annually offers a platform to bring the industry and academia together under one roof to discuss the advancements in the field of data. The Summit 2018 discussed about Application of Big Data Analytics in Media, Big Data Ecosystem, Standardization efforts - Big Data, Applications of IoT in smart city implementation, Challenges in Big Data Analytics implementations etc.

Surina Rajan IAS, Director General, Bureau of Indian Standards (Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution) Government of India: In India and in rest of the world, Big Data has become a major focus for scientists and technologists and with that government policy of promoting Digital India it has become all the more important in the country. Recently, a committee has also been formed in NITI Ayog under its Vice Chairman to develop the national strategy for AI, Machine Learning and its applications. In this year’s budget you might have noticed the budget provisions have also been substantially enhanced.

We also have a 100 Smart Cities mission in the country where the seamless integration and exchange of data and its usage for decision making is a foundation for smartness.

In nutshell we can say that heterogenesis, scale, timeliness, complexity and privacy perhaps these are the major big challenges which are impeding progress in all phases of the pipeline that can create value from data. We need to address all these. I assume that standardization will play a major role in addressing these issues.

Reena Garg Head (Electronics & Information Technology) (Secretary, JTC1/ SC7), Bureau of Indian Standards (Under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution), Government of India The process of standard formulation is the basic concept is consensus based and the standards are formulated by BIS through a 14 division councils with the help of sectional committees which are under these councils. For standard formulation, a proposal can be for any indigenous standard or for already existing international standard which needs to be adopted. The proposal is first examined by the committee and it can be submitted by any individual, organization or any committee member.

So this goes to the relevant committee and it examine whether we need to process it further for preparing national standard. After the committee approves the working draft is prepared and it is circulated to the committee members as preliminary draft. The comments are invited from the committee members and then the comments are discussed and resolved. Then it moves on to the next stage where we circulate the drafts for public comments to all the possible stake holders and after the resolution of those comments the standard is finalized and published as Indian standard.

Wo L. Chang Digital Data Advisor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG-9 on Big Data, Convenor, National Institute of Standards and Technology: Data Science is very important in many senses but then the interoperability between the Big Data system ecosystem is important because we want to utilize all the analytics possible but without the extended ecosystem it’s very hard to use other people’s analytics. In ISO JTC 1/WG-9, we try to look at how can we provide reference architecture so that the data scientist they can build application out of it. Hopefully through the common ecosystem we can use each other’s analytics tools.

For data science analytics you need a lot of data and in India it has a large population that means you have a lot of consumer and data to collect. It is very important because having this mass of data to not only from data science purpose but how can we really help the industry from the consumer side in terms of products, services. In India you have a lot of opportunity because you have a huge market.

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Vivek G V, Vice President, Process Optimization – COE, Northern Trust Data Science is an emerging field today. The word data itself is very powerful. We often say that in God we trust rest all we bring later. So from that stand point I think data science is an emerging field. There are so much of opportunity and when we say the word data science it is so much involved, the definition of data science starts from data quality, data governance, Internet of Things, Big Data, even things like Robotic process automation you need good defined data to make a business case. So from that standpoint I think there is a huge opportunity, the market is huge, a lot of areas are still unexplored. It is booming because the investment of resources and knowledge that used to be there to take advantage of it from India standpoint.

At this point of time we have the knowledge, understanding from our organization perspective.

We build teams around data quality and governance which are fundamentals to the whole analytics.

We also have started analytics group within Northern Trust which is also successful and getting aligned with industry concepts and the frameworks as well. So I think we are on the right track but still there is work from the standard perspective.

Ray Walshe Digital Leader – World Economic Forum: India is a growing economy and data science is going to be the fuel required to harness that growing economy in terms of ICT and technological revolutions that are currently happening.

So, there is a very fast pace change in technology adoption at the moment. The next generation data science is required in order to position itself well to maximize data opportunity to give new businesses, new business models, and new technologies. These days data science is required. Right across the board you need data scientist who are able to extract from sensors, IoT, warehouse data, aggregate data to get Symantec knowledge from the data.

I work for Dublin City University, so standards are part of my business. So in terms of trying to get involved with next generation of standardization, I will be working on cloud computing, big data, AI standards. I think for any community or company that is interested in being innovative, being able to do international trade, to maximize the revolutionary technology as they come along then standards is what we are working at and I am a part of it.

Ujjyaini Mitra AVP – Strategy, Head Analytics – Digital Venture, Viacom 18: Data Science is bringing opportunity for job, innovation, companies etc. When I talk about job, I think every company today needs a bunch of data scientists and therefore people having rights skills because data science is not one single domain, it’s like maths, statistics and computer science, unless and until you amalgamate all the three it’s very difficult to be a data scientist. People who have right skills have immense opportunities. Data Science is going to grow atleast for next 10-12 years.

In my organization particularly, first thing that we have adopted is all decisions should be data driven. We are trying to cut short of as much of the gut feel based decisions. Second is no silo in the data. So if I have five different business units, all the units, data should talk together. So therefore I have a 360 degree view of the complete business.

Third is data science, so far analytics was a very much support business. But now in our organization data science is a main frame business department all together. So as a Sales person has a revenue earning as a part of their KRA equally my data model also has a same KRA. So we actually share the profit/ loss of the business as a part of our KRA. Therefore this is a business team and not a support team for the business to run.

Gautam Banerjee Managing Director, Business Brio: There is a lot of data which is getting generated across different spheres of life. So from a holistic perspective every day we are generating tons and tons of data. For a Country like India there is a lot that we can do with data for the social good. So one of the things that comes into my mind is disaster management, when there is an earthquake happens it has always been a challenge to locate the survivors and how to drop food packets. Helicopters generally take contingencies during this time. Now the point is where will be the helicopters will be going, what kind of contingencies will helicopters be caring because if there is a particular area where there are lots of child along with their mothers are there then the kind of contingencies that have to be dropped will be different than the area where most of the males have accumulated. So these are the things which basically can be tracked through the signal of active GSM phone. So whether you have a data card or a normal SIM card, so by accessing the data at a macro level where there is no possibility of data breach or a privacy breach you can actually understand the movement of people and then the cluster of the people getting formed and according you can plan the dispatch of the helicopters along with contingencies.

This was done in an earthquake which hit us in Uttarakhand sometime back. It was extensively used in Nepal earthquake.

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LEAD STORY

IDEA AIRCEL BSNL

MTNL

AIRTEL VODAFONE RELIANCE JIO

2017 – A turbulent year for the Indian Telecom industry The telecom industry is currently going through a phase of major disruption. The year 2017 has especially been a landmark year in every sense – right from the proliferation of 4G to the M&A’s that took place between some of the major telecom operators in the market -

I

ndia is currently the world’s secondlargest telecommunications market with a subscriber base of 1.05 billion. The market has registered strong growth in the past decade and a half, with the Indian mobile economy growing rapidly and contributing substantially to India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as per the report by GSM Association (GSMA) in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

However, 2017 was a different year altogether for this sector, given the spate of consolidations and developments that it saw.

It was sparked by the entry a year ago by Reliance Jio Infocomm that finally culminated in the take-over of Reliance Communication’s wireless assets by Jio. “The Indian telecom industry has been faced with dramatic changes for quite some time now, due to rapid technological innovation, dynamic and intense competition and the unpredictable regulatory environment, has only added to it,” says Rajan S Mathews, DG – COAI. “On the positive side we have the proliferation of 4G and the strengthening of support infrastructure like mobile towers and networks with an investment of over INR 10, 44,027 crores in the sector. This is against the telecom sector’s consistently falling revenues,

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“ T h e I n d i a n t e l e c o m industry has been faced with dramatic changes for quite some time now, due to rapid technological innovation, dynamic and intense competition and the unpredictable regulatory environment, has only added to it,” says Rajan S Mathews, DG – COAI financial instability and a cumulative debt of INR 4.6 lakh crore.”

He further added, “However, because of the influx of new entrants, telecom players

had been seeing a decline in profitability and margins. As a corollary, the sector is undergoing a consolidation phase, earmarked by a series of mergers & acquisitions as well as severe

disruption. This has resulted in the Bharti Airtel – Tata Teleservices – Telenor combine; Idea Cellular – Vodafone combine; RComs’ exit and Aircel filing for bankruptcy. One must note that disruptions are nothing new in this segment. However, it is also true that all brands are intensifying their investments and rethinking strategies to retain existing customers and acquire new ones.”

Free voice calls, plummeting data tariff rates and cut-throat competition in the past 1 year has caused major changes in the very fabric of the telecom sector. “Such paradigm shifts will play a critical role in consolidating the industry, a move away from its current fragmented structure,” says Rajan.

till 31st Dec 2016 for everyone owning a Jio sim. It came at a time when only 49 per cent of Indians owned mobile phones, and data penetration was just 21 per cent. By bringing out such an offer, the telecom major aimedat providing 4G coverage to 90 per cent of the Indian population by 2017.In the process, the operator has also been accused of flouting net neutrality laws in its pursuit of bringing out a disruption to the market.

Jio’s network is today literally present in every city, town and village of the country, with more than double the number of 4G base stations when compared to those of all the other Indian operators put together.

The Data Revolution led

by Reliance Jio…

The speculation around Vodafone agreeing to combine its Indian subsidiary,

The beginning of 2017 saw Reliance Jio Infocomm creating a history of having signed 100 million subscribers in a record time of 170 days. This achievement was earned on the back of the data revolution that the Telecom major has ushered in the country, something which no other telecom operators had started till Reliance Jio came into the picture. As a matter of fact, Jio's achievement was then the fastest 100 million achieved by any startup technology company in the world including the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp and Skype. The company saw record additions of 7 new members per second, every single day for the last 170 days, enabling it to cross the 100 million mark within six months of commencement of services.

Jio that had officially began its journey on September 5, 2016, hadshaken up the industry within a short time, even forcing many of its competitors to go out of business.The industry got the first glimpse of this disruption when Jio came out with its Welcome offer that made unlimited Data, HD Calling, and SMS free

The Vodafone-Idea merger…

Vodafone India with Idea Cellular began to hog the headlines since January of 2017. The merger announcement was finally made in March of that same year that resulted in the creation of India's largest telecom operator with the country's widest mobile network.

The partnership was conceived with the objective of allowingboth the parties to invest more significantly in improving coverage and capacity in telecom infrastructure, thereby enabling Vodafone-Idea to offer a better, more innovative and attractive range of services to

Indian consumers and fuelling the Digital India initiative of the Government.

The merger, approved by both The Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) saw Vodafone owning 45.1% of the combined company after transferring a stake of 4.9% to the Aditya Birla Group for $579 million in cash concurrent. The Aditya Birla Group owned 26% of the total stake but the agreement also settled that the group would acquire more shares from Vodafone with a view to equalising the shareholdings over time. If Vodafone and the Aditya Birla Group’s shareholdings in the combined company are not equal after four years, Vodafone will sell down shares in the combined company to equalise its shareholding to that of the Aditya Birla Group over the following five-year period.

People familiar with the matter are also saying that both the parties are working on a new name and brand identity for the combined entity, which may come into effect a year after the transaction closes.

Bharti Airtel taking over Telenor &Tata Docomo…

To reinforce its battle against Reliance Jio and to win the numero uno position in the Indian telecom space, Bharti Airtel inked an agreement with Telenor South Asia Investments back in February 2017 to buy Telenor India’s operations in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, UP (East), UP (West) and Assam. These seven circles contribute about 35% to Airtel’s total revenue.

The acquisition also slated to bolster Airtel’s 4G spectrum holdings and revenue market share.

Airtel pocketed 43.4 units of 4G spectrum in the 1800 MHz band from the Telenor deal.

Airtel did not want to stop here and went on further to announce an agreement of merging the Consumer Mobile Businesses (CMB) of Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Limited (TTML) into Bharti Airtel in October of 2017.

Airtel absorbed TTSL’s business across the country in nineteen circles (17 under TTSL and 2 under TTML) that represent bulk of India’s population and customer base.As per the terms, Tata Tele’s business, along with around 45 million customers, a majority of its 5,000 employees and around 178.5 MHz of airwaves with almost 40% of that 4G-ready, had been transferred to Airtel.

Aircel filing for insolvency…

After detailed talks with lenders and shareholders failed to yield a consensus on restructuring Rs 15,500 crore of debt, Aircel and its two units Dishnet Wireless Limited and Aircel Limited, had finally decided to file for bankruptcy in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Mumbai early this month.Discussions were also held with the

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LEAD STORY shareholders for infusion of fund, in particular

by Maxis Communications BHD (a Malaysian based promoter holding 74% stake in Aircel).

But none of these discussions could arrive on any consensus and the only option left before Aircel was to file for insolvency.

Though this decision came as a surprise to many,there are reasons behind how Aircel reached at such a juncture. The major portion of the debt comes from the loans raised by the corporate debtor to buy spectrum, including broadband wireless airwaves in 2010. Given the competitive nature of the telecom market and sensing urgency, Aircel was also considering the option of venturing into 4G services through partnerships. Again in 2016, Aircel contemplated merger of its wireless business with another operator, Reliance Communications Limited.

However, the merger did not succeed and Reliance Communications had to call off the plan citing legal and regulatory uncertainties.

NCLT however believes that there is potential on part of Aircel to revive the business, given the company’s current revenue generation and over Rs 32,000 crore worth of assets, including spectrum.

Furthermore, with Aircel going out of business, there has started a tug-of-war between market leader Bharti Airtel and Vodafone over porting in Aircel customers. Airtel claims that close to 50 % of the Aircel subscribers nationally have ported to Airtel in the last

couple of weeks that brings up the total to over two million Aircel customers across India.

In Tamil Nadu alone, that used to be Aircel’s stronghold, approximately 1.5 million Aircel customers have successfully ported to Airtel, said the company. Competitor Vodafone, on its part, said that more than 10 lakh subscribers of Aircel have ported to their network in the last couple of weeks.

RCom sell-off to Reliance Jio...

With the recent news of Reliance Jio Infocommsigning a definitive agreement to acquire the wireless assets of the Anil AmbanirunReliance Communications (RCOM) and its affiliates, the number of private operators has now been brought down to just three (3) as against nine (9) during 2015-16, besides state run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.The assets would include spectrum, mobile towers and optical fibre network of RCom.Last year in November, RCom has also signed an agreement with Veecon Media and Television Limited, for sale of its subsidiary Reliance BIG TV Limited (RBTV). As a result of debt and a failed merger with Aircel, the company had earlier planned to shut down its 2G and 3G services including all voice services and only offer 4G data services from December 2017.

RCom owed banks Rs. 45,516 crores ($7 billion) as of March 2017 when it last made public its debt numbers, and more to vendors.

And so…

Many experts were quick to point it out that mergers and acquisitions are good for the market from the economic perspective. With the recent consolidations, four telcos have now become dominant in the market which should in the coming times lead to a better scenario.

However, it remains to be seen how the market will react to these deals as they are yet to reach operational culmination.

“Rising competition and resultant tariff wars, combined with India’s preparedness for 5G and emerging technologies such as AI, AR and IoT are all contributing towards making PM’s vision of digitally empowered India a resounding reality. What the industry needs however is urgent relief and rescue through substantive and meaningful government interventions. It has also called for a stable and predictable regulatory and policy environment which also facilitates innovation and encourages investment,” says Rajan.

Additionally, companies will look to upping their ante with respect to service quality, make investments to improve their networks, infrastructural facilities and spectrums to compete better. “We expect all these major swings to eventually benefit the end consumers, as prices are expected to come down,” sums up Rajan. n Samrita Baruah samrita@varindia.com

CP PLUS honored with Asia’s Greatest Brand Award at Asia One Awards CP PLUS has added yet another feather in its cap by bagging the Asia’s Greatest Brand Title at the Asia One Awards at Singapore this February. The gala awards night, which was hosted at Ritz Carlton, Singapore, saw eminent figures from the global corporate fraternity.

“We are delighted to have received this award amidst eminent figures and this is a very proud moment for us. Awards such as these are testimony that we’ve been able to make an impact with our products & solutions where we put our heart and soul to.

I’m grateful and humbled on behalf of team CP PLUS for receiving this accolade in an international forum,” said Aditya Khemka, MD - CP PLUS. CP PLUS also grabbed Asia’s Greatest Leader 2018 and Asia’s Greatest CMO 2018, which were received by Aditya Khemka, MD - CP PLUS and Yogesh B. Dutta, COO, CP PLUS respectively.

The Summit commenced with a red

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carpet welcome to over 200 diplomats, businessmen, social leaders, government dignitaries and entrepreneurs at the Roselle Junior Ballroom of Marina Bay Sands Expo and Conventions Centre, Singapore. The Awards were given away in the presence

of eminent figures like the Ambassador of Ukraine – His Excellency DmytroSenik; Minister-Consular of Kazakhstan Embassy in Singapore – FaizrakhmanKassenov and several other renowned business dignitaries.

PricewaterhouseCoopers P.L. was the process reviewer for the show. n

FACE TO FACE

‘TDBS’ Ultra LOLA solution is the firstof-its-kind in the telecom industry’ in India. Ultra LOLA is a fresh approach to network design with the objective of curtailing network latency at each stage of workflow. Its key features are – • The solution provides faster connectivity between National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), with the shortest available distance possible in TDBS fiber path to handle traffic • It is redesigning of the network solution through replacement of traditional Ethernet over SDH (EoSDH) with specialized low latency switches • This solution provides no interim network elements between the switches at both ends, so as to minimize processing delays • The solution optimizes the latency from 10,000 micro seconds to 400 micro second Ultra LOLAsolution helps institutional stock traders in processing financial transaction on real time basis, in an error free manner with virtually zero latency. Low latency solution backed by a SLA based service offers an appealing business proposition to the trading community in India.

Tata Docomo Business Services (TDBS) offers a unique enterprise service portfolio to its customers in India and becomes the first to provide SLA on Voice Services. In a chat with Vishal Rally, Sr. Vice President - Product & Commercial, Tata Tele Business Services, he tells VARINDIA of how his brand’s SLA tend to be different from other service providers in the country -

What are the terms and conditions of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) on Wireline Voice Service and what is the purpose of launching this service?

Service Level Agreement (SLA) is an agreed upon measure of the average response and resolution times that the telecom operators provide to their customers. It is an optimum level of service where if the service provided is not optimal, the organisation offers compensations to their customers.

Tata Docomo Business Services (TDBS) will offer its customers 99.5% guaranteed service availability/uptime. In case of failure to provide acommitted level of service, the customer will be provided with service credits as mentioned below -

markets TDBS is targeting for this solution and why?

Technological prowess in thefinancial trading market is moving to the next level wherein automated computer programs decide on theexecution of a trade based on certain pre-defined instructions. Institutional stock trading firms are working towards Performance Service Credit processing their financial transaction in Between 99.0% and 99.5% 1 day rental real time basis with virtually zero latency, to gain the most from market data and Between 98.5% and 99.0% 2 days rental processing of that information. For ages, Between 97.5% and 98.5% 3 days rental the most important prerequisites for stock Below 97.5% 4 days rental exchange have been high speed seamless network or internet with zero or minimal latency.

TDBS is the leader in telecom enterprise This necessitates a robust low latency space, and as a leader we keep doing innovations telecom infrastructure that can help meet in products and services so that we can help the above objective. Keeping the above our customers in their business endeavors. requirements in mind TDBS has especially The targeted business segments are - small, designed a low latency solution called Ultra medium and large enterprise across all business LOLA, for the institutional stock traders to verticals. help them execute transactions at unmatchable speed. Ultra LOLA solution provides robust How it is different from any low latency telecom infrastructure to traders, other service provider’s SLA? helping them process market data in real time.

TDBS is offering one of the most unique It optimizes the latency from 10,000 micro services in the category of enterprise portfolio. seconds to 400 micro second, which is 25 We are the first Indian Enterprise Service times faster connectivity than the conventional Provider to introduce SLA on Wireline Voice network speed.

Services (PRI/SIP) in India. Globally service providers have been offering SLA onVoice What are key features of Services, however in India we will be the first. Ultra LOLA and how will In India, telecom service providers do offer an it benefit customers?

SLA but only on Wireline Data Services.

This solution is a first-of-its-kindin the Why is TDBS launching Ultra enterprise telecom market, providing low latency in network speed to stock trading firms LOLA Solution? What are the

How is competition placed vis-a-vis TDBS with respect to SLA on Wireline Voice Services and Ultra LOLA services?

Both the SLA on Wireline Voice Services and Ultra LOLA are unique offerings from TDBS to the enterprise customers in India, no other telecom player offer it.The service will be commercially available from the second week of January 2018

How big is TDBS’ enterprise business? How did the business performed in 2016-17?

TDBS is a leading telecom enterprise service provider in the Indian market. We offer the largest product portfolio to enterprise customers. We have perhaps the largest channel partner network among TELCOs and this allows us to reach out to and effectively service the needs of the geographically dispersed SME customers in the country.

The company focuses on product innovation and has many “industry firsts” to its credit. We were the first to offer cloud based IOTservices and SaaS solutions among others to enterprise customers across the country. TDBS registered a 15% growth in 2016-17 against a 7% industry growth.

What new services or offerings can TDBS’ customers look forward to in 2018?

We will announce launch of new products/ services at an appropriate time in the future. n

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Sophos believes AI will redefine the security landscape In a chat with VARINDIA, Sunil Sharma, Managing Director for sales - Sophos India & SAARC discusses about the present security landscape, trends and future of the Industry -

T

he Indian market of security products is growing at a very strong pace. The rise in enterprise security spending and the increasing concerns regarding security has also led to the growth of this security market.The Indian market holds a lot of potential, especially after the recent advancement in security technologies.

People have started to understand that high-end cyber security is the only panacea to immune organisations against cyber breaches. With the recent technological development and cyber-attacks, businesses across verticals have started investing in highly advanced security systems and services. Hence, the digital-based security products market is constantly emerging and have started to rule the Indian market.

Sophos, a global provider of cloud-enabled end user and network security solutions has been into this industry for more than three decades from now. Sophos as an organisation believes in keeping IT security simple and reliable.

Talking on the latest trends in the present security landscape, Sunil Sharma, Managing Director for sales - Sophos India & SAARC says, “As of today, if you talk about trend, it’s all about machine learning, deep learning and artificial intelligence; it is about trends of protecting the unknown because when you protect the known there is a known security solution which is available but when you protect the unknown you need to have the protected security. Just like Sophos that secures its customers with intercept X.” Sunil further adds, “Intercept X takes care of any kind of exploits prevention, any kind of ransomware attack with technology like cryptoguard, and use the right kind of analysis to understand with the root cause of a particular threat. Intercept X is also able to clean up any kind of malware with the help of Sophos Clean, which is a part and parcel of this comprehensive solution.”

With the array of security solutions, Sophos is looking forward to transform the security landscape.Talking about this and its portfolio, Sunil tells, “Apart from Intercept X, we have solutions starting from endpoint security traditional antivirus to encryptions. We have server protection solutions which are one of the best security solutions we are providing today which are also endpoint security. Then we have email security, web security, UTM, Wi-Fi, also the phishthreat which is the simulation tool for

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educating and spreading the awareness amongst the users. These are the kind of solutions that we have. The best thing about our endpoint security and network security products are that they talk to each other; there is a synchronisation that helps in putting up the best defence in retaliating to any threats, thus protecting the user from the unknown and known kind of threats.”

When asked about the company’s expectations from FY 18, he reveals, “Sophos is growing almost twice than the financial revenue of last year on the endpoint security business and we continue to grow again this financial year with a similar kind of number. I think we are very gung-ho about this market. The Market is growing and we have the right kind of products to address this market.”

With the Indian market witnessing an increasing demand in security solutions and systems, this has led to the emerging of competition in the market. And with the growing competition in the security industry, it has made necessary for businesses to stay in competition with a competitive strategy to outshine their competitors in the market.

Talking on this, Sunil explains, “We try to be cutting edge because of our innovation. Although we have cutting edge technology by the virtue of our expense and research and development and innovation, we would like to make security very simple to use and easy to use by the customers and that is what differentiate ourselves from any of our competition vendors.”

Explaining further, he tells, “Our go-to-market strategy is very simple, we sell 100%through channel, and have 2000+ partners. We sell through them, educate them, train them and enable them to secure our customers.”

It is believed that AI will further boost the industry as it comes with a number of substantial benefits which make it different from the mainstream technologies. When asked about implementing AI in its products, Sunil asserts, “As of today we already have products like Intercept X which has deep learning and machine learning capabilities and now on the network security we already have Sandstorm technology where we have made the machine learning a part of our products. So in all of our products, moving forward, we will try and make this as the core of our technology area.” n Abha Singh abha@varindia.com

FACE TO FACE

India a strong contributor to Radware’s global numbers Since its inception, security has been an inherent part of Radware’s ADC solutions. This approach ensures that the company finds a very strong acceptance which further contributes significantly to its numbers in India. VARINDIA finds out more while interacting with Radware -

Nikhil Taneja, Managing DirectorIndia, SAARC & Middle East - Radware “Innovation is in our DNA and we will continue to strengthen our cyber and application security offerings in the coming years by coming up with most innovative security solutions. We want to reach out to every possible enterprise to showcase our technology live on their setup and help them understand and believe in the technology they will be investing on. We want to reach out to the customers much before they plan to invest on application security solutions and help them realize the potential of our solutions on their very own network.”

Radware’s business model right from the day one has been 100% indirectand has carried its relationship with partners across the country on a strong note. Channels are very much part of its GTM strategy and it has a great working relationship with Tier1 and Tier2 partners in in each region and touch upon Tier 3 partners in many ways.

Radware is also working closely with security solution focused T2 channel partners to further enhance its focus in T2 markets.It spends lot of its time, energy and money to train them on Radware’s technology.

Channel plans for 2018…

Radware would like to continue the way it has been doing all these years. It has achieved

great success though this approach and thereby maintains a very strong eco-system with the partners.

“We havespecific markets being addressed by specific partners. Our main objective is to regularly trainpartners with the features we are adding to our technology and how we are expanding in terms of our offerings,” says Nikhil Taneja, Managing Director-India, SAARC & Middle East – Radware.

He further continues, “The sooner we achieve this agenda, the better it is for us to be there in the market and be ahead of our competitors. We continuously imbibe in our GTM strategy to be with the partners all the time make them understand how we exist in their stack of solution offerings to their clients.

In 2018, we look to continue to improve upon this aspect.”

Radware is happy today to participate in many of the Government initiatives. It has alreadywon significant number of smart city projects in different states and some pilot projects in the digital India initiative.

“The Government business is a major contributor for our businessin India and thus we have a strong focus on any such new initiatives announced by the Government. We address both application switching and security space and both these initiatives involve both the offerings by Radware and this is the reason we have already got into certain projects and are addressing each and every RFP from different Government departments of both state and Center.We are also proactively working with the consultants and the Government agencies involved by showcasing the technologies we have how they benefit by them,” asserts Nikhil.

For one of its large government customer, Radware mitigated one of the first of its kind anonymous attack in India and assisted throughout the attack campaign to help its customer stay online.Today more than a dozen banks in India rely on Radware on-premise DDOS solution which helps them to handle cyber-attack drills and stay ahead of the latest attack campaigns.

Radwarealso have a strong push towards its existing customer with respect to new technology launches where it proactively approaches them, take them through the new solutions/features, help them understand and exploit newer technologies so that they are able to appreciate and then procure something they are confident about.Customers too appreciate this approach when Radware interacts with them on a regular basis, share its roadmap, new technologies and solution offerings and help them see the advancements in features sets in

Terence Ying Vice President APAC Radware “Radware is a leading provider of cyber security and application delivery solutions.

Based on our ability for instantaneous attack detection, handling massive scale and complexity in a multi-tiered and global hybrid cloud environment, we have been offering security protection to leading customers in a wide spectrum of industries in India.”

real-time.

Lastly…

India has been a strong contributor to Radware’s global numbers and has been topping in terms of APAC growth numbers and continues to maintain the leadership position since last 16 years. India delivered a record year in 2017 and it expects an encore in 2018.

“Indian is one of the very important country as far as the Radware strategy is concerned.

The growth potential India has, it invites lot of focus and attention from the top management including R&D teams who spend a lot of time talking to large customers in India to identify trends and get their feedback on our solutions,” concludes Nikhil. n

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SECURITY SPECIAL

Policy Framework for Data Protection in India

Policy Framework for Data Protection in India - A National Conference to Deliberate India’s Data Protection Policy was held on 22nd January 2018 at the Constitution Club of India, New Delhi. The event was organized by Center for Knowledge Sovereignty (CKS) in association with Microsoft, Bharat Niti and The Dialogue. The Knowledge Partner for the event was Mirror Now. Hemant Goswami Chairman – Bharat Niti

“Talking about identity thefts, every time you go to a public place, whether to obtain an arm’s license or a ration card, you have to prove your identity fresh. There is no chance of someone stealing your identity as it is very difficult to prove it. What has changed after the new cyber revolution has taken place?

I wonder whether the whole new cyber world in which we are living now, has made us more secure or are we on the edge of facing different kinds of threats from fraudsters. It is hard to believe that the world we are now is very secured than what it was earlier. What India is doing right now I think nowhere in the world any country is doing. In the US it is so difficult for citizens to go to any bank and withdraw money; even the Internet money transferring or transferring money from one bank to anothertakes them 3 days, IMPS is unimaginable for them.This is the new environment which we have created. This is where we have moved to from a place where your identity was not secured to a place where your identity is certain and cannot be stolen as of date. The concern for US, which is identity theft is not here in India. I have not seen Aadhaar related frauds in India. It maybe 1 in a million but it is far less than what is happening in US right now. So, from where we have come and where we are going is something we must appreciate when we discuss about cyber security. I think the kind of example which we are creating for the world is unparalleled. The scales on which we are working are unparalleled. We are working on such scales that we are the natural leaders in the whole world of cyber security and electronic transaction. We are creating new models for that. So when we discuss about privacy laws and how to make it more secured, we must understand that what we have created till now is far better that what has ever been created in the world till date.”

Lt. Gen. V M Patil AVSM, PVSM (Retd.) Vice Chairman – CKS

“Till the end of the 17th century India’s share in the world’s GDP was 37% and within 150 years of colonization it came down to 0.1%. Now in the 21st century particularly the way the events have moved in last 3 years, the world is looking at India once again with hopes and there are many reasons for that. We are a country with 125 crore Indians, of which 800 are less than 35 years of age.The younger generation and our present leadership cannot afford to let down the hopes of the world and the hopes of Indians. The digital economy, the data protection and protection of individual’s privacy, all these determine whether India can rise to the expectations of the world.

As Gen Shekatkar mentioned, till 19th century the world used weapons and military power to acquire resources; in the 20th century in the cold war between the 2 blocks,the Americans used the power of economy and the digital power to influence the 11 countries in the Soviet system for over 45 years, without firing a single shot but merely by stringent economic policy. This also led to the dismantlement of the Soviet Union. That is the digital power which Americans have shown to the world in the last century. While couple of months back, the Chinese used their digital power to influence the media and perception during the Doklam crisis for 79 days and created such a fear psychosis among the majority of the ill/misinformed Indians on how China can teach a lesson to India. They never fired a shot but they used the digital medium to such an extent that all the Indian media stationed in Beijing used to get everyday briefing and social media posts conveying that India needs to be taught a lesson. But thanks to the leadership of our country and the way they acted with maturity and confidence, the Chinese had to ultimately withdraw.”

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Lt Gen. Dr D B Shekatkar, PVSM, AVSM, VSM (Retd.), Chairman –CKS

“It is a common perception that soldiers are not supposed to be knowledgeable. India is the vishwa guru because the amount of data available in India is enough to sustain the whole world. Why is it so? Because on this planet every 6th human being is an Indian. That is our reach, we are not generating the data only within our country but we are doing it across the globe and the whole world is looking at us.

The Border is losing significance day by day; the topic which we are discussing today is the borderless world.

Knowledge has no border, data has no border. This takes us to new point- connectivity of the people, where geographical distances have lost their relevance today. This is the power of connectivity and this depends on who is asking what and who is providing what. We should however be careful on the usefulness and uselessness of this Data.

The 19th century was the century of muscle power, where everyone who had the muscle could rule the world, while the 20th century was the century of money power; based on the power of money you can buy anything that you name it. The 21st century is the century of knowledge power, the more knowledgeable you are the more powerful you will be and you become knowledgeable because the data available to you or because of the information available to you.In 1992 or 1993, a document was produced titled ‘What will China do to the world by 2035?’ Now nobody knows where it has gone, but every word written in the report is coming true. China is spending 90 billion dollars every year across the world to mould the minds of people in favour of China and to make them think that what China is doing is correct and is for the good of the world. And therefore, the war we are going to fight in this century will be bloodless and contactless, where you are not in contact with your enemy, your adversary, your competitor.”

Dr. Avik Sarkar Head - Data Analytics Cell at NITI Aayog, Govt. Of India

"The first thing that I would like to talk about is why are we talking about data so much? From the government perspective, we need a lot of data for policy and good governance purpose. So if we take the recent example of Dengue that had spread all over Delhi, it is very common in many countries to get the healthcare data, know where the dengue clusters are, map them with polluted water location and resolve the issue. We are not able to do such simple things because we do not have health records in electronic format that can be shared in a way so that decision makers can take the decision. So it becomes very challenging for us.

We are now in the AI (Artificial Intelligence) game and we can use the same for good governance. The leaders in this field are US, China and a few other countries where already they have already gone ahead and form their AI policies on how to enable the AI ecosystem. There are several aspects in the AI ecosystem that a country can do to enforce it so that private players, academia and researchers can accelerate the work in AI. One of the factors that NITI is working is availability of good amount of training data because that is one of the core things and when you want data for this purpose they would like to have all the data. There is a lot of work on the anonymization. But we have to do this to ensure that the ecosystem is there and the things are in place."

1st Panel: Framework of the IT Act from a Technological point of view The 1st panel discussion was held to discuss the overall framework of the IT Act and was moderated by Kazim Rizvi, Founder – The Dialogue. The panelists included, Deepak Maheshwari, Head of Govt. Affairs- Symantec Corporation; Mukesh Jain, Chief Technical Officer – VFS Global; Meenu Chandra, Senior Attorney Manager, IP& DCU Lead (India Region) – Microsoft and Dr B V L Narayana, Director – CRIS Deepak Maheshwari Head of Govt. Affairs- Symantec Corporation

“One of the things that I would like to start my discussion on Data Protection framework in the country is that any legislation has to balance many interests and issues. In data protection there has to be a balance between the rights of an individual to self-determination but at the same time we have to foster the innovation ecosystem; there has to be a process that incentivizes positively. We need positive incentives for the data controllers and processors to comply with that and then there has to be a remedial process in terms of grievance addressable etc. if there is any breach. So that’s the broad framework on which it has to be made. When we look at Justice Srikrishna’s whitepaper which has come out, one of the important things that I have noticed this time when compared to the IT Act is that the Act also has the provision for example section 43 A but that applies only to body corporate whereas in this whitepaper the proposal is applied for both private as well as public sector. Some exceptions must be there like national security.

Second, in terms of consent if you see section 43 A, it is only about consent whereas now the proposal is about not only consent but other basis as well including legitimate interest and contractual obligations etc. In that you can have scenarios like prevention of financial frauds, law enforcement activities and the purpose of ensuring cyber security within a frame of legal interests. Going beyond that one of the important things is we must have judicial oversight for certain type of ask from the law enforcement or other agencies how this is being practiced.

We should remember that data transfer and even internet are not unidirectional, they are multi-directional and if you are looking from a frame of national borders, it’s bi-directional, there are things which go out and comes in. India has been the greatest beneficiary of cross border data transfers for past few decades and that is how we have created the 150 bn IT industry in the country. So we should not only think of data going out but we should also think that there are people who are sending data in. The whole notion that if data in India it is safe, I think that is slightly misplaced. We should also look at that aspect.”

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SECURITY SPECIAL Mukesh Jain Chief Technical Officer – VFS Global

“Privacy is as defined by an individual. While signing up for a free account or Android we go through the terms and conditions and we press accept button. It’s a legal document. The document also says that the company owns all your data. We ourselves because of less knowledge or to get something for free or some other reason end up sharing our information. So just because they are asking to use your data and you cannot say no and have to press yes, you are being held hostage. I was in a committee in Microsoft which recommended cookies should not be allowed. Microsoft was actually the first company to actually disable cookie. But there was too much of pressure from other players and unfortunately that has to be revoked. If you do not want to share your information then it should be allowed. That is how private browsing came into picture but very few know about that. Privacy is in your control and you have full control. If 20% of the people discard to download an app because you are asking so many information then it will for sure change. Unfortunately we cannot ask everyone to change so that will lead to laws. After my research on Poka-yoke, first and foremost why do we need data collected? You have to say no for sharing data.”

Meenu Chandra Senior Attorney Manager, IP& DCU Lead (India Region) - Microsoft

“Now we have the demarcation between personal data identified as the bill data and sensitive data because very rightly the risks associated with a piece of data will vary with the kind of data it might be. The more sensitive it is the higher the risk context which means the security context is higher and the protection context is even more important. In that context, I think we need to have the ability to look at when we talk about consent in the context of these kinds of data, how are we going to be implementing the consent requirements. Right now we want to talk about consent explicitly from the data subject which is good and important. It is also important to realize how we are going to be implementing those pieces. So when we talk about consent about mobiles and addresses, well this is a kind of data we are throwing anywhere. But at the same time looking at how many times you are going to prompt a user in this digital world to give consent, you would end up having multiplicity and fatigue of taking consent in that process.

So we need to think a little bit broader in that sense. Notification can be used in that case rather than asking for consent every time. You can talk about the legitimate interest that you have in using a data beyond the consent that you might have given is covered within the legitimate piece in the notification. Using notification is a good tool. Again looking at de-identification, a lot of data does get gathered but doesn’t have value because its linked to an individual. It might just have value as a meta tag. That data might get gathered on a server somewhere on the world just to give an analysis of de-identifying them from their names to get them into that space of knowing their routines etc. There is value in using de-identified data and that value should not be hampered because we are talking about every piece of data that might lead to some individual. So we need to be very careful about the rules of de-identification.”

Dr B V L Narayana Director – CRIS

“There are two issues which I will raise, not on security and protection but on the governance of data. There are two issues in the use of data, first is rendering services. I have a name which is B V L Narayana and I have a huge problem in telling it to people that I am B V L Narayana and not somebody else. My PAN Card has some other name my mistake, the income tax people have told me a lot of times that you are not the same person but because I pay tax they accept it. I had a tough time to convince them that I am the same person and it’s the mistake of the PAN Card department. It became worst because as per Prime Minister now the PAN number is connected with AADHAR. In AADHAR they asked my full name. My surname is the first part of my name, B is my surname.

As per AADHAR I am not the same person though everything else matches and therefore they could not link my PAN Card with AADHAR. Therefore the issue that comes in is when I am putting the data as my identity and it is put in by someone else then who has the right to decide what is correct, what should the rule say. The law may say anything but it has to apply. In railways the rule which we have given to our staff is to trust the customers. So my first request is if data is used as identity and that becomes a mandate for services then who should have the right to decide, should the individual have the right or the person who wants to take the services have the right? It is a very common issue. Security comes much later. If I cannot use data for services so what will I do with security? The more I allow usage the better it is.”

2nd Panel - Data Protection & Sovereignty

The 2nd panel was moderated by Faye D-Souza Executive Editor – Mirror Now and the panelists who participated are Amit Dubey, Chief Technical Officer, Tech Mahindra; Karma Bhutia, Founder & CEO iShippo.com; VinitGoenka, Member Governing Council – CRIS, Secretary – CKS; JayadevaRanade, Cabinet Secretariat – RAW and Triveni Singh, Deputy Superintendent - Noida Police cybercrime cell.

Faye D-Souza Executive Editor – Mirror Now

"Today we run the risk globally in general and in particular India of getting exposed to filtered information and the best way to tackle this by reading the morning newspaper. The paper, whether you like it or not will tell you everything. It will not curate information based on who you are. This is a serious problem because today a football fan will read only about football news. We are raising an entire generation of citizens who are ill informed of the things they are not particularly interested in. And so we are raising a generation who is becoming selective in terms of what information he wants. Now the dark side of that is fake news. I don’t believe the government can step in because that will amount to censorship and undemocratic. But the person who can step in at this moment is you.

There is a very good way to check if something is fake or not by being smarter than that algorithm. You can verify that information by checking two top newspapers if they have published any news on that topic or not."

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Amit Dubey Chief Technical Officer, Tech Mahindra

“There were more than 15, 000 requests to Facebook support system last year during a criminal investigation case by law enforcement agencies. Out of these 15, 000 requests, only 53% were responded. It takes 12-15 days sometimes to get a response from Facebook. They have their own international norms and policies which require lot of approvals and the data centers are mostly out of India, so they have to follow those norms and policies. They cannot give a quick response which is always a problem for law enforcement agencies. There were more than 100, 000 requests which go through individuals. Each of us have problems on Facebook and we want to get a response because of somebody is misusing our data, bulling etc. In that case it takes much more time than 12-15 days as of standard duration. There are a few recommendations which I am going to make here • The data should be in India and it should be governed under the Indian Government Policies and then only the quick response can happen. If we are going to follow some international norms then it will never have that efficiency in the system.

• Second is the privacy factor of any data. On whenever we are sharing any data, Facebook should also be accountable, they should have some sort of Artificial Intelligence into their system that somebody is cloning my account. They should at least warn or alert me. That will help us to get some privacy protection to our data.”

Jayadeva Ranade Cabinet Secretariat - RAW

"There are 2 types of illiteracy – one is the traditional form of illiteracy which is the ability to read and write and the other is illiteracy as far as technology is concerned. People like us a bit more time in understanding the Internet. When we look at the cyber domain, we look at it as a big black box. This issue really needs to be addressed and in a manner that creates an awareness. So that is an issue that does come in. The whitepaper besides talking about people like me also talk about the regulator. I will cite an example that is there in public domain – during the Doklam crisis, the government went ahead for setting up of an undersea cable and BSNL decided to float a global tender without putting in any disability clause. So we have a situation today where people applied and among them we had Huawei as a bidder which is a Chinese company. So when we talk of illiteracy, I include this illiteracy on behalf of a regulator too."

Vinit Goenka Member Governing Council – CRIS, Secretary - CKS

“As the civilization progresses, there arises the need to change the law. Every new thing that comes in the civilization creates a new challenge for the existing civilization. A simple change made in the law, for instance making seat belts mandatory while driving, it is the duty of the government to make the people aware of it through multiple exposure to advertisements or even through educational institutions also. So laws of the country can be imbibed in a citizen through academics also. No law is complex; they can be made simple by breaking them into small parts and then passing on the same to citizens.People like you and me who have larger access to people should also take the responsibility of percolating this information about laws to them. Another major topic in the country today is data sovereignty. Now there is a difference between data sovereignty and censorship. The data which is circulating within the country should not go out through any social media or any e-marketplaces. Laws should be enforced that makes it abiding on the part of companies to bring their datacenters inside the country where they stack large amounts of data of the country. This will also make it easier to investigate whenever there is any breach of data.”

Karma Bhutia

Triveni Singh

Founder & CEO iShippo.com

Deputy Superintendent - Noida

“I have a couple of things that we should update. I think AADHAR is an important thing in terms of its design, technology, data integrity etc.

Then AADHAR is also helpful in the fact that it answers the who part and the identity of an individual. Now, 1.25 bn people are identified. Now the big question comes, which all other big companies are interested in it? That answers what, why, when and where. Intent and desire - that’s where all the marketing lies. The attribution is the biggest game in terms of marketing and it is possible by profiling.

Once you get attributed for a thing, I get to know what, when and how you did that because of identity. Now profiling happens when you have third party players. They say that AADHAR is secured. But with eKYC data all over the place, there happens to be leakages from third parties. But in actual, the AADHAR data is not leaking. So the identity space constraint, probably it is secured. When it is considered that Data is the new oil, we have the oil that everybody wants – to be able to attribute and profile. Once it is done they know all the parameters then the theme changes because your privacy is getting violated. The privacy is not violated by somebody else holding your identity but the mission is happening by combining all of these things, which we need to address in terms of policy where we can say attribution and profiling have to be limited.”

Police cyber crime cell

"There came a boy in my office who told me to name any website which he would then hack it. And believe me, the boy actually hacked it in front of me much to my disbelief.

This incident happened a year back.

When asked how he does it, he said that there are small tools available on Google with the help of which websites can be hacked and it just takes 2-3 hours of understanding these tools. These tools include some data tempering and data fiddler software which can be downloaded from Google. I called two of the top telecom and insurance companies in India and I asked the boy to hack their websites. He not only hacked the websites but also recharged their phones free of cost. What I am trying to say is that almost all the websites are 90% hackable and none of them are 100% secured. Even iCloud that claims to be a fully secured website has been hacked. So having a secured website is a myth. In today’s date, there are 2 legal provisions – if there is a criminal breach we can lodge the FIR and arrest the culprit. The other provision is that under the IT Act, civil penalties can be imposed on certain offences by a civil court and there is a different machinery for it. Each state should have an adjudicating authority. But sadly no one is aware of the presence of an adjudicating authority.”

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SECURITY SPECIAL

3rd Panel - Right to Perspective & Privacy

The 3rd panel was moderated by PriyankaChaudhuri, SFLC.in and the panelists included Charu Malhotra - Professor, Indian Institute of Public Administration; Prof Subhasish – IIT Delhi; Anand Krishnan, Senior Analyst-Policy – Data Security Council of India; cyber law expertPuneetBhasin; Abhijeet Chatterjee and AtulTripathi, Consultant – The National Data Council Secretariat. The idea of the discussion was to focus on individual participation, about what an individual deserves from fundamental rights and from Right to perspective that includes fundamentals like consent, Right to be forgotten and so on. It also looked at key data protection principles Priyanka Chaudhuri, SFLC.in

"The objective of data protection law is not to protect the law but the individual. The recent KS Puttaswamy judgement has also emphasized on protecting individual privacy. Justice B N Srikrishna, former judge of the Supreme Court of India will head a Committee of experts which has been formed to deliberate on a data protection framework for the country. Even this report says that the individual should be the center of data protection. One of the core principle of data protection is the individual participation."

Charu Malhotra Professor, Indian Institute of Public Administration

"There are many aspects as to why personal data should be protected. First is the identity and the profiling of the person, second aspect which is equally important is the commercialization of the data which could be leaked out. The third aspect is the surveillance aspect of the data, if the state uses the data in certain cases for surveillance for minority or certain other groups, is it ethically or provisionally correct or not. Today the challenges to the data protection framework are many fold. The first is the diversity of the country; when we talk of diversity we just don’t talk about seniors or the illiterate section, but we also talk about communities and demarcations on the sociocultural aspect of a country. So it is very important for the data protection law to address this demarcation of the country in order to come up as a holistic framework.

The second issue which I am worried about is the consent and the notice part. If I am intelligent enough to understand a document and ready to give my consent, would an intellectually weaker individual able to understand to those same conditions just like me and give his consent? The Whitepaper on Data protection also talks about sending a notice to everyone. Now in which language would the notice be sent, through which channel it will be circulated, such things should be addressed first.

The third thing is how many of us understand that when we talk of data, it is not just about data that is getting captured but also the data that is being stored, processed or transitioned. So imagine there is this whole pipe where you put your data and anybody can drill into it to steal any data. How you as a citizen get to know that?"

Prof Subhasis Banerjee Computer Science & Engineering - IIT Delhi

"Virtual identification is a recommendation I made in 2016 to Aadhaar. Privacy threats come from 2 usages of data – collection & storage, where the primary purpose of storage is investigation & audit post facto. That’s a legitimate use. The second need for storing data is to join databases so that you can profile individuals. Profiling is essential and you cannot just rule it out. Storage of data and breaking them into silos is necessary to make use of databases in the first place. But it has got a contradictory requirement with respect to privacy. So how can these contradictions be resolved? One solution can be issue of local identifiers for each silo, so the identifier used for income tax is completely different from identifier used for bank. But there has to be a mapping; the central authority has to keep a safe mapping of these identifiers. Legitimate profiling and data mining can be facilitated then. I have already made this recommendation to UIDAI and they are working on it. With respect to consent and notice, I think both are broken. There are 2 reasons to it – one is information overload that comes with consent in terms of both volume and complexity. The second reason is choice limitation – so if I don’t give my consent then what. The consent framework is crucial for dealing with privacy and according to me rights based framework and a consent based framework is the way to deal with privacy."

Anand Krishnan Senior Analyst-Policy – Data Security Council of India

“In my opinion, it is not the consent that is broken but it is the notice. We go and try to explain in a legal language of what he is signing up for, regardless of the fact whether he understands or not. At the end of it, a person clicks on a consent button affirming his action that he has understood everything what he is signing up for, what kind of processing will happen with his data and so on. This point has come up in several public consultation meetings before. The White paper that has been published is in English and incredibly a large document, but there is a need to publish it in Hindi and other languages for more people to access it. If we are talking about privacy and following the recent judgement, then it was important that we publish this Whitepaper in at least 2 languages.

Talking about notice, it should also be made available in a couple of other languages without just keeping its access for the elite and educated class. There have been many conversations on how we will fix the notice and the need to simplify it further. Possible solutions could be radial boxes, pre-ticked boxes which will let the user see that what personal data being given, what processing is going to take place and then give them the option to opt out of it at a later stage. There is this misconception that consent is the only basis of processing data. There are 2-3 various ways through which you can have different grounds of processing. Now Right to be forgotten has application across the internet. It is my ability to go and get that data set deleted from a public domain, but it is a fact that the data once published will never get erased or deleted."

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Puneet Bhasin Cyber law expert

“There is nothing like a right that will be deleted forever from the face of this earth. It may be that on Facebook or any social media, you are off the feeds or certain records or from any public information from any agency that you requested to not publish it. So it is not that suddenly out of the blue everything is going to be erased. There is a erasure of data with respect to a context. Now this Right to be Forgotten has been given much hype and there have been a lot of deliberations on it abroad. In most of the cases, more than Right to be Forgotten, it is the issue of Right to recover data after the demise of a person. A large amount of data in today’s time is being stored by you in social media – moments, writings, photographs, everything. So the family members of the deceased try to recover this data since they are part of memories. It is upon us whether the access of the account of a person who is not alive is actually seen as an authorized or an unauthorized. This may not have made much of a difference some 4-5 years back because we never used to post so much about our lives on Facebook. But today every aspect of our life is being shared on Facebook. So these are all priceless memories. So you try to hack into their account to get back those memories which is an offence in the eyes of law. So I think that is a bigger issue than mere erasure that our data protection framework is not interested in.”

Abhijit Chatterjee Chief Innovation Officer, C-Zentrix

"I believe that if there is a problem, there must be a solution too. Now the problem statement is – you have a mobile phone in hand and it has got stolen. You had taken some photographs in that phone and they reach some wrong hands. If these photographs and information are not much of importance to you then it is absolutely ok. But if the information in the phone is something confidential which cannot be shared with everybody, the first question that should arise is that the person who gets the phone, can he get access to the data available in the phone. Even if he is able to access that data, is there any possibility that he might misuse that sensitive data. Now you cannot go to CBI or the government and say that your phone is stolen and that they are responsible for the theft. This may not happen with all of us but I would like to address specially the teenagers who have just got a mobile phone as gift from their parents. They would surely want to show how tech-savvy they are and so will download apps, take videos & selfies and upload them wherever possible for others to see. But what they don’t understand is that each of this information is so important that tomorrow if any of their personal details are misused, they can be harmed. Even before considering any law of this land, it should be the foremost responsibility of us individuals of how we treat our own personal details – of what to post and what not to post, how much of our life needs to be made public and so on.”

Atul Tripathi Consultant–The National Data Council Secretariat

"Today social media has become the potent trouble maker for any policing affairs. I will give you three examples – one is the classic example of J&K, where everything is happening on social media, whether it is a call for stone pelting or any encounter taking place, or any hindrance being caused. The second example is that of West Bengal, where a Facebook post caused a havoc in a place called Basirhat. Lastly on 1st& 2nd January, we saw what happened in Bhima-Koregaon in Maharashtra. It was all there on social media. That has become the biggest pain. So the data which is there on social media – how do you get hold of it because it is not within our legal boundaries? How much of data is available to us even it is outside the legal boundaries. It is very very miniscule. These are the 2 big challenges that the policing affairs or any law & order agency face. Another important thing that is already taking place in today’s time and was also referred even by the Prime Minister very recently is online radicalization. This is again happening on social media. It is there for all of us to see. Some of us may not be enticed towards it but lot of us does get attracted to it. That has started to create a big havoc in the society. In the coming days, online, social media and the data are going to be the biggest challenge."

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Britzo aims to capture the Indian market with its rural-centric approach In a chat with VARINDIA, Pradipto Ganguly - CEO & Co-Founder Britzo discusses the company’s plans and strategies and how it envisions to strengthen its pan-India reach-

to strengthen its position in the market,Pradipto reveals, “In the first phase of our expansion strategy, we will launch Britzo’s service in 17 states across the country – including the highdemand markets of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, NESA, and Gujarat – by the end of Q1, FY2018-19. We will undertake strategic geographical expansion post in this phase to establish our presence on a panIndia level.”

The Indian Mobile market is erupting tremendously. The present market has ample scope of growth leading to different players to enter. The new entrants have slowly started getting their foothold in the market and emerging as strong competition for the existing market players.

Britzo, the latest entrant in the Indian mobile phone market comes with a mission to provide 'Mobile Phone’ for every Indian at a price and quality which brings a smile to them. Britzo believes in having satisfied customers by offering the industry’s most demanding standards and practices.

Talking about its inception,Pradipto Ganguly - CEO & Co-Founder - Britzo shares, “For Dharam and I, Britzo is a dream fulfilled in the truest sense. We had been brainstorming on how to reach out to consumers in India’s rural heartland and empower them with the now-ubiquitous digital technology. This idea started condensing into a vision of our own brand. Britzo came into existence soon after, in December 2017. We recruited the best talent and can proudlysay that the cumulative experience of more than 200 man-years in the handset industry is our biggestasset. Our end-to-end products are targeted at and designed keeping in mind the consumers in tier-III, tier-IV, and tier-V markets.”

Pradipto reveals that the company aims to secure a market share of 3% in India and generate revenues of around Rs. 3000 crore by end of FY2018-19.

Britzo has 10 smart feature phone offerings and 2 smartphones in the product pipeline at present, which will be launched as per their product rollout schedule for the current year.

Talking on this, he says, “Our mobile phones are Made in India and, most essentially, ‘Made for the Indian Masses’. Around two-thirds of our nation’s population currently lives in semi-

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Explaining further he adds, “Our current focus is to leverage the traditional, 4-tier offline distribution model: Super Distributor -> Distributor ->Retailer -> End Consumer.

We are also contemplating partnerships with major online players which have greatservice penetration within the semi-urban and rural markets across India.” urban and rural areas. Obviously, the price sensitivity synonymous with the Indian market only becomes more pronounced as we make deeper inroads into these regions. This is one of the primary pain points that we have addressed during Britzo’s conceptualization.”

He later adds, “We have spearheaded multiple product innovations aimed at enhancing extant Information and Communication Technologies.

Certain market developments have also helped in further minimizing manufacturing costs, while simultaneously amplifying the capabilities of our devices. Today, the price range of smart feature phones offered by Britzo starts at Rs. 700, enabling unbridled access to smartphone applications and more than 15,000 songs and videos to customers. This highly-competitive price point is after setting apart more-thanadequate commissions for stakeholders along our distribution supply chain.”

Plans for regional penetration….

Britzo has earmarked Rs. 100 crore for the indigenous development of products, marking its contribution towards the‘Make in India’ initiative. Pradipto tells that a similar value will be invested in R&D initiatives intended to tap into new-age technologies and their adoption for India-specific applications.

When asked about the company’s strategy

Speaking on its target audience, he says, “Anyone who has remained untouched by the ongoing digitization drive in the country is our primary target audience. We will largely be targeting consumers belonging to the C, D, and E socioeconomic classes in tier-III, tier-IV, and tier-V regions.”

Footprint expansion pan-India…

While talking about how it is try to be cutting edge amidst hundreds of other homegrown Indian brands, he says, “Our handsets are the new-age Smart Feature Phones that comeequipped with a customized Operating System and provideuninterrupted access to smart applications, as well as songs andvideos, at an unmatchable price point. In order to generate greater customer confidence, we are also offering a product warranty of 12+3 months and a 180day replacement warrantyon all our products.

We have additionally tied up with 25,000 E-SevaKendras to ensure service availability in tier-V regions and complement our pan-India network of 900+ service centers.”

The marketing plans of Britzo are also thoroughly rural-centric. They encompass customized ‘Below the Line’ activities that include ensuring brand presence in rural haats, increasing brand awareness through nukkadnataks, and tapping all localized modes of communications. n Abha Singh abha@varindia.com

VAR MOBILITY

Celkon unveils its UniQ flagship smartphone

C

elkon Mobiles has launched UniQ, the first-of-its-kind highend smartphone for just Rs.7, 999/-. Made to cater to the customers who

interface being offered for a very economic price. The Celkon management has unveiled the smartphone as part of its 9th anniversary celebrations held in the

have budgetary aspirations, Celkon UniQ promises to be an unbelievable offering from the company.

UniQ, which has been launched across pan India, boasts of advanced specifications, stylish body and seamless

Tirupati manufacturing unit today. UniQ was unveiled

by Shri Pradyumna PS, IAS, Collector of Chittoor District in presence of other dignitaries.

Celkon UniQ comes with a striking user interface.

Ziox Mobiles launches “Tubelight”

Z

iox Mobiles, under the aegis of Sun Airvoice Pvt. Ltd, has unveiled its latest feature phone, “Tubelight”.

Tubelight comes with a textured back finish and brightest torch integrated with 8 LED lights. With a bright display of 2.4 inches,

the phone also comes with an Auto-call recording feature.

Paired with elite sound quality that boasts big and loud sound, Internet

support to stay connected with the happenings of the world and social media applications as well. The feature phone also comes with a crystal-clear digital camera to capture moments vividly and lively. Not just that but saves a heap of the pictures and multimedia files with an expandable storage of 32 GB. Deepak K a b u , CEO, Ziox Mobiles, said, “Our very unique Tu b e l i g h t is the stereotype breaker among the f ea tu re p h o n e market.

Designed exclusively for Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets of India, stunning looks, superior functionalities at budgeted prices shall strike the right chord among the users.”

Samsung debuts Galaxy S9 & S9+ with Dual Aperture

S

amsung Electronics rolls out its flagship smartphones, Galaxy S9 and S9+ in India, with camera featuring a Dual Aperture lens, Super Slowmo capability, AR Emojis that look like you, and stereo speakers tuned by AKG with Dolby Atmos.

HC Hong, President and CEO, Samsung Southwest Asia, said, “Galaxy S9 and S9+ are made for today’s age where communication and expression is increasingly happening through images, videos and emojis. India has one of the highest number of social media users, is one of the biggest 4G data markets and one of the fastest growing cashless economy in the world. With Galaxy S9 and S9+, we have reimagined the smartphone for today’s and tomorrow’s India, so that you can ‘Do what you can’t.”

“Galaxy S9 and S9+ are smartphones in a class entirely of their own. With the camera reimagined, now consumers can shoot photos and videos like they can’t with any other smartphone. With cool features like Super Slow-mo and AR Emoji, consumers can express themselves in a way that’s unique and personal to them. Through our partnership with leading operators, Galaxy S9 and S9+ consumers can experience data speeds like never before for faster downloads and uninterrupted streaming.

We have also reimagined how you can own these devices with retail and operator partnerships,” said AsimWarsi, Senior VP, Mobile Business, Samsung India.

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ also offer automatic Motion Detection, an intelligent feature that detects movement in the frame and automatically begins to record in Slowmotion.

Lava unveils Android Oreo Go Edition powered smartphone – enhanced to give Dual LAVA Z50 Bokeh experience and an

L

AVA has announced the launch of LAVA Z50, a smartphone to run on Android Oreo (Go edition). Z50 is designed to provide a great product experience, especially to the first-time smartphone users.

The device will be available at over 100,000 retail stores by mid-March 2018 in black and gold colour options.

Gaurav Nigam, Head – Product, Lava International, said, “With LAVA Z50, powered by Android Oreo (Go edition), we are giving our firsttime smartphone users an impeccable software designed for faster processing, more memory at hand vs nonAndroid Oreo (Go edition) phones, and the possibility to get entertainment through YouTube Go, to help users control their data. The camera has been

LED flash for nighttime video calling. I must say it is a great opportunity for

both – consumers and the brand.”

Lava Z50 comes with a special launch offer of free one-time screen replacement, in case screen breaks within one year from the date of purchase.

Nokia expands its portfolio with four new additions

H

MD Global, the home of Nokia phones has added four new Android smartphones – Nokia 8 Sirocco, Nokia 7 Plus, new Nokia 6 and Nokia 1 to its portfolio.

Furthering its promise to a pure, smart, secure and upto-date Android experience, HMD Global also announced it is to become the first global partner to have a full suite of devices selected into the Android One programme

by Google. The unwavering commitment to deliver a pure, secure and up-to-date Android experience has ensured Nokia smartphones were a natural fit for the global programme.

In addition to these stunning new Android

smartphones, the iconic Nokia 8110 is reloaded, delivering 4G connectivity, apps including Google Assistant, Google Maps, Google Search, Facebook and Twitter, and the return of the slider phone.

Three new Nokia smartphones – the Nokia 8 Sirocco, Nokia 7 Plus and the new Nokia 6 – join the Android One family, offering a high quality software experience designed by Google.

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Movers & Shakers

Capgemini appoints Patrick Nicolet as Group CTO

Ex-Microsoft Office head Qi Lu joins Baidu as its COO

Capgemini has announced the appointment of Patrick Nicolet to Chief Technology Officer (CTO), in charge of the technology and innovation agenda for the Group. Patrick also continues to be a member of the Group Executive Board.

Patrick was appointed CEO of Nordic and Central Europe Application Services in 2009. He joined Capgemini in 2000 and held significant roles delivering business development/business transformation as the Sales Director for Capgemini’s Telecom & Media business and subsequently, as the Group Sales Director.Patrick began his career as the General Manager of the first Swiss private-public partnership company to develop an incubator, technology transfer services and a science park.

Baidu, a Chinese online search giant, has named Qi Lu, former Microsoft business group head, as its COO and Group President.

According to the company, at Baidu, Lu will be in charge of products, technology, sales, marketing and operations.

“A key strategic focus for the company over the next ten years will be artificial intelligence,” Baidu Chairman & CEO Robin Li revealed.

“Li is counting on Lu's leadership experience and knowledge of AI to help the company attract the necessary expertise to become a global leader in the field,” he said.

At Baidu, he will be responsible for the day-to-day running of a host of products, including search, advertising, mapping and payment services.

Nokia names Sanjay Goel as President of Global Services

LAVA promotes Sunil Raina as President & Business Head

Nokia has announced the appointment of Sanjay Goel as President of Global Services and member of the Group Leadership Team (GLT) from April 1, 2018. Goel will report to Nokia President and Chief Executive Officer, Rajeev Suri. Igor Leprince, who previously held the Global Services position, will support Goel during a transition period and then leave Nokia to pursue opportunities outside the company.

Goel was most recently head of Global Services Sales. He brings with him the experience of senior leadership roles in Services over the last ten years at Nokia. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Engineering with a specialization in Electronics and Communications from the Manipal Institute of Technology in India.

LAVA International has elevated Sunil Raina as President & Business Head as it gears up for accelerated growth.

Sunil Raina will now take up the business leadership role at LAVA International, with all the business functions, viz. Sales & Distribution, Product, Customer Service, Marketing Communication and Sales Automation reporting to him, including Business HR reporting to him as well. Sunil Raina has been elevated as President & Business Head from his current position as Chief Marketing Officer.

Parag Agrawal is the new CTO at Twitter

Apurva Chamaria quits HCL, joins RateGain

Twitter has appointed Parag Agrawal as its new CTO. Agrawal who is an IIT Bombay alumnus has a PhD from Stanford University in computer science.Agrawal joined Twitter in October 2011 as an Ads Engineer, where he held the title of Distinguished Software Engineer. He had earlier done research internships at AT&T, Microsoft and Yahoo.

According to reports, Agrawal had taken over the role of CTO internally in October 2017. He replaced Adam Messinger, who previously held the position.He leads the technical strategy for the micro-blogging site and oversees machine learning and AI across its product and infrastructure teams.

After a 13-year stint across markets, ApurvaChamaria has quit HCL Technologies and has joined RateGain as its chief revenue officer.

Chamaria was the VP and head of corporate marketing at HCL Technologies.

Chamaria's role at RateGain will be a global one. His work will be to align sales, marketing, alliances and customer success together to maximize revenue across all areas of the business.

Speaking about his move, he said that there are two trends he sees at present – firstly, CMOs are moving to larger business roles and secondly, start-ups are roping in senior marketing talent to take their businesses to the next level.

Cisco names New President for Asia-Pacific & Japan

Kaspersky Lab names Yeo Siang Tiong as its new GM for Southeast Asia

Cisco has appointed Miyuki Suzuki as President for its Asia-Pacific & Japan business.

After three years at the helm of Cisco Japan, she has been promoted to President for Asia-Pacific & Japan. Charged with regional revenue growth across 18 markets, and propelling customer digital transformation and cybersecurity efforts, Suzuki will report to Chris Dedicoat, Executive Vice-President of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations.

A seasoned executive with more than 35 years’ experience, prior to Cisco, Suzuki served in numerous leadership positions for organizations throughout Asia, spanning across technology, aviation, telecommunications and financial services.

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Global cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab has appointed Yeo Siang Tiong as its new General Manager for the Southeast Asia (SEA) region with strategic focus on Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. He joined the company on February 21, 2018.

As he takes up the leadership role over the company’s business in SEA, Yeo will be responsible for further implementing the company’s strategic business vision for the region’s SMB and enterprise markets and accelerating the growth of the Kaspersky Lab’s industrial cybersecurity solutions and services across various sectors in all of six SEA countries.

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RNI - NO 72399/1999

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

Printing Date 18 & 19

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56 pages including cover

Date of Posting 20 & 21 every month