E Magazine November 2017

SAP launches Leonardo Center in Bangalore

Nutanix powers Essar with Enterprise Cloud Platform

16th STAR NITE AWARDS 2017 Sustainability and Digital Transformation Accelerates the Next Wave of Digitization

pg 32

VOLUME XIX

ISSUE 03 NOVEMBER 2017

PRICE Rs. 50

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Tally announces Tally.ERP 9 Release 6.2 for SMEs

IBM announces private cloud software platform

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00110000111000011010101000011100010101010000000000000000011000010000100101010001100000100101010100011110000111000011010101000011100010101 0011000011100001101010100001110001010101000000000000000001100001000010 << Advanced Threat Protection >>

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<< Application Security >> 01010100001110001010101000000000000000001100001000010010101000110000010010101010001111000101010000111000101010100000000000000000110000100001001010100011000001001010101000111100 0101010000111000101010100000000000000000110000100001001010100011000001001010101000111100010101000011100010101010 0011000011100001101010100001110001010101000000000000000001100001000010010101000110000010010101010001111000 001100001110000110101010000111000101010100000000000000 << Cyber Security >> << Endpoint Security >>

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<< Internet Security >>

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54pg VOLUME XIX

ISSUE 03 November 2017

PRICE Rs. 50

SUBSCRIPTION COPY NOT FOR SALE

The Fate of ‘8’

60pg

Broadcom keen to acquire Qualcomm for $130 billion

A

s per news report, San Jose based Broadcom has wished to acquire the semiconductor company Qualcomm for $130 billion. Broadcom has offered a value of $70 per share of Qualcomm in the acquisition proposal.

The total revenue of the three firms Qualcomm, Broadcom and NXP is expected to touch $51 billion in FY 2017. Broadcom also said this proposal of buying Qualcomm would stay put irrespective of the outcome of the latter’s pending acquisition of NXP. Qualcomm has confirmed of receiving the proposal from Broadcom.

RCom inks deal with Veecon Media to sell DTH business

A

s per news source, Reliance Communications (RCom) has signed an agreement with Veecon Media and Television Limited, for sale of its subsidiary Reliance BIG TV Limited (RBTV). It is the Direct To Home (DTH) services across India.

The news source also reveals that the buyer will acquire the entire shareholding of RBTV with business on “as-is whereis” basis. The buyer will also take over the all existing trade liabilities and contingent liabilities.

This move is in line with RCom’s decision to concentrate on B2B business.

www.varindia.com

November 2017

5

HELLO INDIA

Technology is an extension of us ……..start-ups need to come up with counter disruption strategies Artificial Intelligence is the future across the globe. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will rule the world. Secondly, Blockchain is believed to be the next game-changer in the tech sector.

It is important to understand that disruption isn’t merely a change or evolution. Rather, it is the use of new business models to reinvent or reshape an existing business. The original inventor isn’t necessarily the disruptor.

Leading through disruption and all of this will pose new challenges for leadership. Never has it been more crucial for leaders to brace themselves for change and find ways to drive it themselves, even if it means disrupting their own businesses.

Mobility has become a top priority for enterprises as it promises to drive innovation and streamline operational efficiency, besides delivering customized customer experiences. There is faster adoption of technology and creation of new services in the digital space, be it positioning your bank for a better mobile experience or putting together scalable service delivery platform for a telco. Going forward, 5G will enable organizations to move into new markets and build new revenue streams with radically new business models and use-cases.

In the financial sector, start-ups are taking advantage of new technologies to bring new businesses to market.

They are helping banks to solve problems, even in thorny areas such as compliance. Banks certainly aren’t going to go out of business because of these start-ups, but they can’t ignore the changes happening in their own backyard. Going forward, they will have to think differently about how they operate and develop strategies to counter disruption with their own Fintech offerings, which means learning how start-ups work. To be responsible to their customers, banks need to be responsive to changing trends in the industry.

The recent Star Nite Awards – 2017 held in New Delhi witnessed the famous Tech Talk and 60-second Elevator speech, where the tech leaders had spoken about disruptive technologies and how they are impacting their respective organizations.

There is no denying the fact that technology is an extension of us. Today's apps will be tomorrow's digital assistants that will predict what we want, automate our requirements, and take care of all our tasks. Cybersecurity is another game-changer in the industry. Sometimes, you work defensively, blocking your opponents from sensitive information. At other times, you are working your defence, zooming past pressing cyber threats and attacks. And to stay on top of all of this, you need information – the latest from your industry.

To sum up, can we say that it is simply about the smarter way of using new technology to embed responsibility into the news gathering process.

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CONTENTS

The Fate of ‘8’

Website: www.varindia.com

Publisher: Deepak Kumar Sahu Editor: S Mohini Ratna Executive Editor: Dr. Vijay Anand Copy Editor: C. M. Dutta Deputy Editor: Samrita Baruah Sub - Editor: Aparna Mullick Art Director: Rakesh Kumar Network Administrator: Ashok Kumar Singh Manager-IT: Subhash Mohanta Manager-SEO: Bidyadhar Behera BUSINESS: Commercial Manager: Amit Kumar Jha Sr. Marketing Manager: Ashok Ranjan Dash Circulation Executive: Manish Kumar Marketing Manager: Dipendra Kumar CORPORATE OFFICE: VAR House, A-84A/3 Rose Apartment, Paryavaran complex, Ignou Road, New Delhi - 110030 Tel: 011-41656383, 46061809 Email: edit@varindia.com Bangalore: Bureau office Marketing Manager: S. Kamala kar Correspondent: L. G. Swami D-103 G.F., Ashish JK Apartments Thubarahalli Extended Road Bangaluru- 560066 Tel: 080-49530399 | Mobile:09886280836 E-mail: kamlakar@varindia.com Mumbai: Bureau office Regional Manager (West): Anil Kumar Sr. Correspondent: Mamta S. Anurag Residency, 203 - “B” Wing, Plot No-5, Sector-9, Kamothe, Navi Mumbai-410 209 Tel: 022-65561292, Mobile: 08108017479 E-mail: anil@varindia.com, mamta@varindia.com Chennai: Bureau office Branch Manager: Parthiban K A2, R.C.Residency, Cholambedu Road, Thiruvenkada nagar, Ambathur, Chennai - 600 053 Mobile: 098400 55626 E-mail: barani@varindia.com Hyderabad: Bureau office Branch Manager: Sunil Kumar Sahu 32-161/3, 202 Neha Paradise, Nr. Maissamma Temple, Venketeswara colony Ramakrishna Puram, Hyderabad - 500056 Telangana, Tel: 040-32989844/ Cell No. 08100298033 E-mail: sunil@varindia.com Kolkata: Bureau office Marketing Officer: Sunil Kumar Correspondent: Kiran Kumar 67 Sarada Park, Garia, Kolkata - 700084 Mobile: 08100298033, E-mail: sunil@varindia.com Mobile: 09903088480, E-mail: kiran@varindia.com

60pg FACE TO FACE

SNA – INDUSTRY ROUND TABLE

51|

45|

Cambium Networks brings High Quality products with Affordability to customers

INTERNATIONAL EVENT 28|

IT giants and Distributors meet together at The Fifth Annual DISTREE APAC

EVENT 34|

Sustainability and Digital Transformation Accelerates the Next Wave of Digitization

INDUSTRY EVENT 48|

VMware Vision

VAR MOBILITY 58|

Comio seeks to manifest itself among entrenched competitors

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.

For Subscription queries contact: info@varindia.com Subscription: Rs. 500(12 issues)Rs. 1000 (24 issues)

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

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OLS and last-mile communication – Two major pain points of partners

60|

The Fate of ‘8’

VAR SECURITY 52|

Indian Surveillance industry transitioning to the next level

54| Are we fully secured from the ‘bloodless’ cyber war?

REGULARS Round About

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Hot Bytes

16, 18

On the Ramp

20, 22

Voice N Data

24

Channel Buzz

26

Movers & Shakers

54

Product of the Month

47

Movers & Shakers

62

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November 2017

9

LG eyes the IT display market with unabated interest LG is today a leading player in the manufacturing of IT displays and it is optimistic of carrying this legacy forward.

Sanjeev Mittal, Product Head - IT, LG throws more light on this market and how it views the opportunities and challenges that it faces in the current scenario -

Where does channel stand in LG’s scheme of things? What kind of a role do you envisage for them to play in the growth strategy of the company?

Channel is the most important medium of exchange between the end consumers and LG IT sales division. Be it retail, B2B or B2G sales, the channel stratified by the verticals - deep insight about their geography, end customer connect and service- contributes almost 100% of the sales. In future we would only solidify the connect with the channel through tighter and more personalized engagement. After all, the channel is the first customer for us and unless we live and match our goals and expectations together, our growth will be just a pipe dream.

What strategic plans do you have in 2018 to build on your Channel eco-system?

LG has been the most consistent player in IT displays, Digital Storage (DVD writers) for the last 20 years. A deep engagement with channel has commanded the loyalty of many a channel partner. It is not uncommon to come across channel partners who are as old as the LG IT presence.

Channel engagement is already our strategy, not a plan.

What big opportunities do you see in the country today for LG products?

We are the only company manufacturing IT displays in the country while the DVD writers are almost end of their PLC so there is no point to start manufacturing facility due to economies of scale. Despite the fact that the monitors fall under 0% BCD, LG is the only company yet that has risen to the challenge and started manufacturing monitors, upto 20” in size at our Pune manufacturing facility.

Sadly, there is no direct benefit that has accrued to us in sales despite the fact that PMA in government procurements supports domestic manufacturing. Hopefully government will be stricter in implementing the PMA policy.

On the other hand initiatives like GST have opened up opportunity for sales of computers to many first time buyers. Since these buyers tend to be on shoestring budget and prefer cheaper assembled computers, we have already witnessed a spurt in demand for monitors just like a spurt witnessed in component business. With support from the channel and our strong GTM in wake of GST we have increased our market share to almost 30% in the unbundled segment. LG is leader in the standalone monitor segment for 2 consecutive quarters.

How do you see the growth of small, mid-level businesses and start-ups in India today?

MSMEs and start-ups are seeing an exponential growth curve. We continue to evaluate our distribution to reach out to these companies and be their first choice. With our own directly managed service network and 24X7 support, LG will try to remain the MSME and Start-up first choice for displays.

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Sanjeev Mittal Product Head - IT, LG LG has also launched its range of low cost PC through its PCoM (PC on Monitor concept) along with Intel and Microsoft. For below 20K the PCoM is an out of the box solution for MSME and comes with genuine preloaded Windows 10 Professional OS.

How is LG trying to innovate and differentiate itself in terms of offerings and market strategies?

• With display being our staple business driver, to keep growing, we stratified and researched specific customer needs, products that cater to the specific needs of such customers. With 40 plus models of monitors we cover most of the customers’ expectations.

• LG monitors product portfolio includes 4K, UHD, 21:9 (UltraWide) apart from regular computer monitors. Most of the range now comprises of IPS displays which have better colour reproduction and offer wider viewing angles.

• In B2B, Enterprise and corporate segment we have strongly positioned our 4K & Ultrawide display range while for government sales we offer monitors with TCO certification. We spoke to DGS&D, and they created a separate category for monitors in their product listings to various buyers through GeM portal. Since computer monitors are required as second monitor to Laptops, Thin Client displays and also double up for viewing video source through NVRs in surveillance equipment.

• Since 2016 LG has been selling its premium Notebooks i.e.

‘Gram PC’ in consumer segment. In 2018 we would be introducing the Gram for the enterprises to offer a larger bouquet to our ever growing enterprise client list We are optimistic LG’s reputation in the premium display category will carry over to make a positive impact in people’s lives. LG’s long history of developing premium displays will give customer the peace-of-mind that what they are seeing on-screen is extremely accurate backed by one of the finest service networks. n

www.varindia.com

November 2017

11

Channel Chief

"Our aim is to double our partner engagement by 2019" Chandrahas Panigrahi CMO and Consumer Business Head Acer India In a chat with VARINDIA, Chandrahas Panigrahi,

Partner Selection

Partners are always the key to success for vendors, and a right set of partners and a robust channel strategy can drive a company towards success.

So it is very important to choose growth leaders. While selecting partners, Acer observes the behaviour of buyers as presently end-users are adopting a combined-channel approach. It becomes easy for end-users to experience and consider Acer’s technology on the platform they choose.

“We decide our right mix of partners by observing the buyer’s behaviour. These days, end-users are moving towards a combinedchannel approach. Thus, being present in various retail formats makes our technology offerings both visible and available for consideration on the platform the customer chooses. We ensure that all these platforms (online and retail) exist in complementarily providing the Acer’s experience and expertise wherever customers are comfortable accessing it. Acer exclusive stores provide consumers with an immersive experience of Acer’s vast range of products and services under one roof. Our intent is to provide a unique retail experience to our customers and enable them to browse, touch, feel and experience Acer’s latest product portfolio crafted to appeal to the needs of all segments. We want people to walk away with a powerful and memorable buying experience,” explains Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO & Consumer Business Head, Acer India.

Channel Strategy

Partners play a critical role in positioning a brand in the market and they are the representatives of the brand to the customers. Acer has always been a channel-friendly company and the company is escalating its relation with the channel community to spread its presence in the SMB market segment.

Acer will continue to strengthening its partnership with partners with the introduction of exciting promotion for both channel partners and users.

“Being a channel-friendly company, we believe in growing with our channel partners. Our partners have played a crucial role in positioning Acer as a leader in the technology segment and have remained the key medium to reach out to our target audience. We are aggressively strengthening our partnership with the channel community to expand our presence in the SMB market segment. Our association with our channel partners has always been extremely rewarding, and further we believe in strengthening and supporting our partners by introducing exciting creative marketing promotion for both the channel partners and end-users,” reveals Chandrahas.

Channel Business Model

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CMO & Consumer Business Head, Acer India, discusses about the company's channel strategy, business model, factors considered for partner selection and channel enablement The reason behind the success of Acer’s growth globally is due to its Channel Business Model which has helped the company to adapt with global IT trends, partnership with premium partners and reducing operating expenses.

“Acer's unique Channel Business Model enabled the company to achieve sustainable worldwide growth. The model offers flexibility to adapt to changing global IT market trends, involves collaborating with the industry's top-tier partners and suppliers, while minimizing operating expense for both and enhancing profitability. Acer has put in place a robust channel strategy to accelerate growth. Acer is strengthening its partnership as well as customer outreach program with intensive engagement programs. It has forged strong partnerships with all the large format retail stores and smaller partners, with an aim to increase Acer’s brand presence in the tier-II and -III locations. We aim to double our partner engagement by 2019 with deeper and wider coverage,” elaborates Chandrahas.

Channel Enablement

Acer has always been supportive and encouraging towards partners to form a winning formula of supply chain management which enhances customer’s experience. The company has over 5,000 partners and this growth is a result of channel-friendly policies and initiatives.

“Acer's unique Channel Business Model is instrumental to the company's continued success. The model gives us the flexibility to adapt to industry trends and it encourages partners and suppliers to collaborate in a winning formula of supply chain management, allowing us to provide customers with fresh technologies, competitive pricing, and quality service. We have 5,000+ partners, which include exclusive stores as well as multi-brand outlets and this phenomenal growth and channel base is due to our very channel-friendly policies and initiatives. We also work closely with partners on financing their purchase, demo programs for high-end models, schemes to focus on portfolio to help them increase average selling price, training to ISPs through mobile app, etc,” states Chandrahas. n

Aparna Mullick aparna@varindia.com

www.varindia.com

November 2017

13

ROUND ABOUT

Small is Beautiful Small is beautiful – at least that is what we have been told. Is that concept changing? There are a few who believe “micro” is the passionate coinage that has the emotional and practical value than small. The evolution of the word “start-up”, which is more appealing and saleable to the youngsters, is seemingly relegating both words. I often wonder why the word start-up has caught the imagination of people across geographies. Does it mean that start-up is a universal lingo? Till the time I am proved otherwise, I fastidiously hold on to that view.

Understandably, the semantics of the word start-up is irrelevant, but let me attempt to define the word start-up. To me, it is an equivalent of micro but with a high component of and access on technology, knowledge and innovation. The word conveys the beginning of something, the germination of idea to do something not based on conventional thinking and mould but something new, path-breaking and technologically savvy act. Does it mean disruption? Many consider even now start-up is something to do with information technology.

The new jargon that I am hearing in meetings and profusely invoked in discourses of management subjects is OLA and Uber model. These are platforms that are run on Internet (Internet of Things, to be more precise) to make available many services at the doorstep, affordable and qualitatively superior.

Now this model is sweeping every segment of the service industry.

There are WhatsApp groups for providing vegetables and other groceries at the doorstep, extending household services and even extending supplying your choicest food materials at the doorstep.

Now OLA and Uber model is set to conquer not only all modes of transport, but also other spheres of business. These developments are creating gainful employment all across. For instance, look at the number of cars with a car aggregator like Uber. In India, they have operations in major cities and even in smaller towns. The first layer of employment creation is at the level of drivers. Car owners are encouraged to pool them, subject to certain terms and conditions. Drivers also can come forward to pool their cars along with their services under a contract, which stipulates their responsibilities, payoffs and commissions available to the aggregator, etc. There are cases when a car owner joins the aggregator’s pool during his spare time and earn some money as an additional income. There are also instances when a laid-off IT worker in Bangalore or Hyderabad pools his car and services to the aggregator for making good of his lean income period. If one adds up such situations of service aggregations, it is easy to find out the enormous number of jobs this model can create.

Internet companies like Google and Yahoo have created strong platforms that can be availed by business houses to reach out to their clientele on a personalized basis. I am told a number of Indian portals are working round the clock to develop apps that can radicalize the way in which the small and medium industries can source raw materials collectively at a cheaper rate. In the process, they are creating interactive customized platforms for helping their SME clientele using applications based on Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, and Internet of Things.

However, to move in the value chain, we have to evolve platforms that are more relevant to the Indian conditions. There lies the ingenuity of Indian professionals. With the type of importance given to incubators and other facilities extended to research and development, we have to come up with newer and sleeker technologies and concepts that can redefine our capabilities and maintain the headstart in many avenues.

I feel that the survey should focus on segments like start-ups, micro, small and medium. Even within each subgroup, there can be segregation of brick mortar, technology, IT, knowledge-based industries, etc. That way, the survey will be able to do justice to each segment since their problems and prospects vary from each other. Theoretically, we have placed strong focus on small. How does it get implemented is another issue? Happily, according the recent disclosure by the World Bank, India has moved 30 notches in the pecking order as far as ease-of-doing business is concerned. We have to build on these achievements to move in the value chain. At this rate, India can climb at least 20 points above

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the performance of each preceding year. That will also augur well for the small companies since getting licences and sanctions is the most annoying irritant that they face.

Yet, the real test is not climbing the ladder, but to ensure an ecosystem for industries of all hues and sizes to operate successfully and grow.

What are the areas that these small companies are looking forward to have improvements? First and foremost is procuring the licences.

Some of them, particularly the start-ups and micro units, may not need any licences to begin with unless they are in certain categories, where there are stipulations to seek licences. But a large number of small and medium companies need licences or clearances from the authorities, particularly from the environment departments, which are normally time-consuming and most often cumbersome. Secondly, for getting power connections, in some states, the process is laborious and dilatory.

Getting water connections is also a major hurdle in most of the states.

Finance is a major concern for all units, particularly for the brick-andmortar industries, which need relatively large investments. Marketing is yet another area that cripples most of the small units. Tax-related issues are another area that hampers the growth of small companies.

What lies ahead for the small sector? There is a strong political will to promote small industries cutting across party spectrum. Is that they are using small units only for propaganda or nobody has clearly diagnosed as yet, as to what plagues this segment? Or, is there any resistance on the part of small units to move in the value chain. That is also a moot point to ponder, having regard to the fact that vertical movement of small units to medium and large units seldom takes place. The long and short of it is that we have miles to go for translating rhetoric into achievable landmarks. Could we do that in the near future? I cannot vouch for that. But I am reasonably sure that the India’s march towards an industrially strong nation very much depends on that milestone.

www.varindia.com

November 2017

15

HOT BYTES

Seagate partners with Aditya Infotech and Prama Hikvision

S

eagate Technology has appointed Aditya Infotech and Prama Hikvision India as authorized distributors for its video surveillance storage solutions in India.

B o t h companies will be offering Seagate SkyHawk surveillance drive as part of their surveillance solutions.

As the industry’s first surveillance purpose-built drive, Seagate SkyHawk is optimized for 24×7 workloads in capacities up

to 10TB. Equipped with enhanced ImagePerfect firmware, SkyHawk helps to minimize dropped frames and downtime with a workload rating 3x that of a desktop drive

and can support the razor sharp vision of 64 cameras.

SkyHawk drives also come with a data recovery services option for additional peace of mind.

Cisco and Google to provide new Hybrid Cloud Solution

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o deliver a hybrid cloud solution that will help customers maximize their investments across cloud and on-premises environments, Cisco and Google Cloud have entered into partnership. The companies will provide a unique and open hybrid cloud offering that enables applications and services to be deployed, managed and secured across onpremises environments and Google Cloud Platform.

The solution delivers cloud speed and scale, with enterprise-class security.

"Our partnership with Google gives our customers the very best cloud has to offer -- agility and scale, coupled with enterpriseclass security and support," said Chuck Robbins, Chief Executive Officer, Cisco.

"We share a common vision of a hybrid cloud world that delivers the speed of innovation in an open and secure environment to bring the right solutions to our customers."

SAP launches Leonardo Center in Bangalore

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AP SE has launched APJ’s first SAP Leonardo Center in Bangalore, India. The fourth SAP Leonardo Center globally, the facility is a go-to place for SAP’s ecosystem for digital inspiration and coinnovation. The center is located in the new 5.15lakh sq. ft. facility of SAP Labs India Bangalore campus which was inaugurated earlier this year.

Speaking on the new launch, Tanja Ruckert, President of IoT and Digital Supply Chain,

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November 2017

SAP, said, “We are proud to announce the opening of SAP Leonardo Center Bangalore, in the city at the heart of India’s innovation efforts. We look forward to accelerating the digital transformation of our customers using Design Thinking methodology and unleashing the potential of SAP Leonardo, our digital innovation portfolio.”

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Ixia tracks new emerging “Reaper”

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xia has announced that the company’s Application Threat Intelligence (ATI) Research Center is tracking a new IoT botnet known as “Reaper”.

Last year, an IoT botnet known as “Mirai” created havoc for enterprise cyber business through DDoS attacks utilizing bots made up of IoT devices.

“Ixia suggests that any IoT device with public Internet facing connectivity be patched with the latest updates and be closely monitored,” stated Steve McGregory, Senior Director of Application Threat Intelligence, Ixia.

“Network visibility is the ability to know what is in your network and what it is doing, and it is a key tenet to being prepared to defend and proactively mitigate weaknesses."

Check Point partners with LG

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heck Point Software Technologies has announced that its security researchers have discovered HomeHack – a vulnerability that exposed millions of users of LG SmartThinQ smart home devices to the risk of unauthorized remote control of their SmartThinkQ home appliances.

The vulnerabilities in the LG SmartThinkQ mobile app and cloud application enabled the Check Point research team to remotely login to SmartThinQ cloud application, take over the user’s legitimate LG account, and gain control of the vacuum cleaner and its integral video camera. Once in control of a specific user’s LG account, any LG device or appliance associated with that account could be controlled by the attacker – including the robot vacuum cleaner, refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, washing machines and dryers, and air conditioners.

Ramco to provide payroll services for a British BFSI Company

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amco Systems has won a multimillion dollar Payroll Transformation order from one of the FTSE 100 constituent and British Multinational Banking & Financial Services Company.

Ramco will enable the BFSI major in consolidating its multi-country Payroll on a unified platform and provide Managed Payroll Services for its associates spread across 14 countries.

With Ramco’s Global Payroll platform, the BFSI major will derive benefits of a unified payroll processing

system which will effectively and efficiently handle operations of 8,500+ employees across Asia, covering Vietnam, Brunei, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal; and the Middle East covering Iraq, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and UAE in Phase 1.

DIGISOL completes one year of Structured Cabling Business

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IGISOL Systems Ltd celebrates its one year of successful Structured Cabling business.

To mark first Anniversary DIGISOL organized nationwide celebration with its distributors and partners.

DIGISOL’s cabling portfolio includes Copper cabling solutions (Cat5e, Cat 6 & Cat 6A), UTP/STP LAN Cables, Keystones, Patch Panels, Patch Cords, and Face Plates, etc. The Fiber range has Fiber cables, Fiber Patch Cords, Pigtails, LIU couplers and an

entire FTTH Product line.

DIGISOL cabling products adhere to EIA/TIA and ISO/IEC international standards.

They are RoHS compliant and are backed by international 25 years product warranty performance. DIGISOL Structured Cabling Systems is here to fulfil the network connectivity needs of medium to small businesses and home networks, as well as SME and Enterprises requirements.

iVOOMi expands its reach, opens 500 new Service Centres

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VOOMi has achieved the target of 500+ service centres in six months since their inception in the Indian market. The brand has its presence in all 29 states and is further expanding in every nook and corner of the country. iVOOMi has announced its plan to strengthen its space in the Indian market by serving its consumers through 500+ service centres which are spread across 400 cities nationally. iVOOMi also plans to work towards the target of delivering services to all the consumers with a TAT of 48 hours by the

middle of 2018.

Ashwin Bhandari, CEO, iVOOMi, India, said, “We are glad to announce that we are further expanding our service centre network in India to provide our customers with unmatched after-sales services.” “We are even working on an innovative structure for delivering services to the market. The next stage will be building nodal centres, wherein we will have knowledge and support centres to fix the problems being faced by the consumers,” he further added.

The Perfect Storm: Why Traditional Information Security isn’t Working Seclore discusses why traditional information security solutions are not meeting the needs for secure collaboration

Rights Management that works: In a world where collaboration with third parties is essential to doing business, your data and files are increasing at risk of getting into the wrong hands. Seclore Rights Management, the first fully browser-based solution, makes it easy for employees and third-party recipients to collaborate freely and securely. Protect your information to the last mile with Seclore.

The new way forward: Enterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM) One of the primary solutions organizations are beginning to implement to address the need to protect and audit information wherever it travels is Enterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM).

EDRM enables organizations to persistently protect and track information wherever it travels. The usage policies enforce exactly what a recipient can do with the file (view, edit, cut/ paste, screen share, print and more), when (set expirations or revoke access), and from where to support geo-fencing (by IP address, device). All usage actions including unauthorized attempts are recorded for audit and regulatory reporting.

Mr. Rohit Oberoi (Director Channel- India Middle East & Africa, Seclore) receiving the award on behalf of SECLORE TECHNOLOGY for BEST ENTERPRISE DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT in a recently held 16th VARINDIA Star Nite awards ceremony from Mr. Bipin Tyagi (Executive Director- C DOT, Govt. of India), and Mr. D. K. Sahu (Chief editorVARINDIA).

67% Sensitive Data Loss Due to Emails sent to wrong Person

Learn more about how you can utilize data-centric security to protect your collaboration, write info@seclore.com

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November 2017

17

HOT BYTES

WinMagic enters into partnership with Scale Computing

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inMagic has joined hands with Scale Computing to target enterprises that need highly secure access to their data across their unified public, private and hybrid cloud environments.

Scale’s high availability HC3 hyperconverged platform combined with WinMagic’s SecureDoc CloudVM encryption and intelligent key management solution allow organizations to secure their cloud workloads.

States James LaPalme, VP of Cloud Solutions, WinMagic. “The future

lies in turnkey cloud solutions, like Scale’s hyperconvergence platform, and we are excited to be able to add the powerful security benefits of our SecureDoc CloudVM solution into Scale’s HC3 platform -providing customers greater control and certainty over their data security with an intelligent enterprisecontrolled, cloud-agnostic key encryption solution.”

Microsoft and Karnataka Government to leverage AI

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he Government of Karnataka has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft Corporation India to empower smallholder farmers with technolog y-oriented solutions that will help them increase income using cloud-based technologies, machine learning and advanced analytics.

The MoU is also aimed at using digital tools that have the potential to deliver cutting-edge innovations and artificial intelligence to help farmers get higher crop yields in the state.

Technology partner Microsoft in collaboration with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has deployed a Sowing Advisory Service in the kharif season on a limited pilot, under the Bhoochetana project.

Built on the Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite including Machine Learning and Power BI or Business Intelligence, these technology solutions aim at promoting digital farming practices in the state.

Tally announces Tally.ERP 9 Release 6.2 for SMEs

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ally Solutions has launched its latest release in the GST-ready suite, Tally.ERP 9 Release 6.2 to provide a one-stopsolution for filing GSTR 2 returns, the last date for which is 31st October (July return). GSTR 2 return contains details of all inward supplies of a business and based on this return the Input Tax Credit is determined.

Bharat Goenka, Managing Director, Tally Solutions, said, “We are blessed with the close interactions with the GSTP community, leading to

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November 2017

continuous improvements in our products. With Tally. ERP 9 Release 6.2, we expect that we will dramatically ease the way people can complete their GSTR-2 obligations, as well as their ongoing invoicing and compliance requirements. The product has been designed to save time and effort for GSTPs and bring them on the same page with their clients."

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SBI chooses Microsoft Office 365 for transformation

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he State Bank of India (SBI) has chosen Office 365, the cloud-powered productivity solution from Microsoft to improve communication and collaboration among its workforce, addressing the banking behemoth’s requirement of transforming it into a modern workplace.

This is one of the largest deployments of Office 365 in India, spanning SBI’s countrywide network of 23,423 branches, 263,000 employees and servicing more than 500 million customer accounts.

Microsoft has consolidated SBI’s server infrastructure in 17 countries, helping it save more than US$200,000 annually.

BT collaborates with AWS

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T has entered into strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in a move that reinforces its leadership position as a driving force in cloud services and will help customers fully reap the benefits of AWS in the UK and around the globe.

BT’s “hybrid cloud landing zone” is a market proposition comprising an integrated set of cloud deployment tools and designs. It will consist of ready-made blueprints for best practice hybrid cloud deployment, across multiple geographies and cloud environments, especially AWS. This is designed to help customers manage the complexity of multiple hybrid cloud environments, establish virtual networking between multiple geographic regions and maintain the highest levels of security across hybrid cloud environments, at scale.

Nutanix powers Essar with Enterprise Cloud Platform

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utanix has announced the deployment of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform at Essar. The aggregated revenues of the Fund’s portfolio companies total US$15 billion (projected for FY2017-18), and the Essar group companies employ more than 50,000 people.

“Businesses in India are in a state of transition, as they modernize legacy infrastructure to keep pace with dynamic business demands. Our endeavour

is to ensure more than just cost saving. We aim to power mission-critical applications and services with a unified solution and enable immediate

performance gains to business,” said Sunil Mahale, VP & MD of Nutanix India.

“The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS is fast becoming a preferred choice for business-critical applications by industry leaders."

HCL and Red Hat OpenShift Container platform to offer PaaS solution

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CL Technologies (HCL) has entered into collaboration with Red Hat to offer HCL Application Platform-asa-Service (PaaS) services to enterprise customers globally. The collaboration combines Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform with HCL’s unique next-generation IT transformation and operations capabilities to deliver a holistic application PaaS solution, accelerating the process of building modern digital and cloud-

native applications for 21stcentury enterprises.

“HCL continues to invest in skills and developing partnerships for next–generation Mode 2 services, addressing digital business transformation needs for customers with cloud as a key technology platform,” said Kalyan Kumar, Chief Technology Officer – IT Services, HCL Technologies. “This collaboration positions HCL and Red Hat to play a leadership role in the global application PaaS market.”

BSCDCL deputes HPE to implement Cloud-based Control Centre in M.P.

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ewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced that Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Ltd (BSCDCL) has selected the HPE Universal Internet of Things (UIoT) Platform to create India’s first cloudbased Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC). The Universal IoT platform with its multitenancy capabilities makes it possible to run multiple city command centre operations in parallel.

The selected cities include Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Indore, Ujjain, Satna, and

Sagar.

“The vision of Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Ltd to create the country’s first Integrated Command and Control Centre in Madhya Pradesh is driven by a future-focused vision for their cities and citizens. We are pleased to be selected as partners to implement this innovative solution. Our proposed solution is comprised of world-class products and platforms that are proven in cities across the world,” said Som Satsangi, MD HPE India.

www.varindia.com

November 2017

19

ON THE RAMP

IBM announces private cloud software platform

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BM has announced a new IBM Cloud Private software platform to help companies unlock billions of dollars in technology investment in core data and applications and extend cloud-native tools across public and private clouds.

IBM Cloud Private software is designed to enable companies to create on-premises cloud capabilities similar to public clouds to accelerate app development. The new platform is built on the open-source Kubernetes-

based container architecture and supports both Docker containers and Cloud Foundry.

IBM has also announced new containeroptimized versions of core enterprise software, such as IBM WebSphere Liberty, Db2 and MQ – widely used to run and help secure the world’s most businesscritical applications and data.

Salesforce introduces Financial Services Cloud for Retail Banking sector

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alesforce has a n n o u n c e d Financial Services Cloud for Retail Banking, a new industry application that enables retail banks to deliver the highly personalized, intelligent and connected banking experiences that consumers expect. Now every bank employee, from the personal banker to the teller to the mortgage officer, can have a complete view of their customers

and work collaboratively to exceed expectations.

“Banks are no longer just competing against one another. They’re being compared to any company providing a convenient user experience that builds loyalty,” said Rohit Mahna, SVP and GM of Financial Services, Salesforce.

"With Financial Services Cloud for Retail Banking, Salesforce is making it possible for customers to love their banks again."

Hitachi Vantara introduces Cloudenabled data recovery solution-HDID

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itachi Vantara introducing the latest version of its specialized data recovery platform, Hitachi Data Instance Director (HDID) v6, which significantly modernizes IT environments and how data is protected. This newest version improves data availability – a requirement for transforming an organization into a modern digital enterprise – by supporting always-on service objectives.

This addresses the needs of customers, partners and global system integrators

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November 2017

requiring a cloud-enabled data recovery solution.

Speaking on the same, Iri Trashanski, Senior Vice-President, Market Development and Product Management, Hitachi Vantara, said, “Traditional approaches to data protection cannot protect critical data fast enough or frequently enough. They also can’t recover from multiple failure scenarios quickly enough to meet today’s data availability requirements.”

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MoArmouz presents Lightening adapter

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oArmouz has launched its Lightening adapter. It facilitates users to seamlessly connect accessories that come with 3.5 mm audio plug/charge, to the devices.

It is a multifunctional adapter.

The adapter comes with three function buttons- one to play and pause while listening to the music and to answer and disconnect the call. The other two buttons are for increasing and decreasing the volume levels. The adapter consumes low power of only 10mW. The device is equipped with WAKE technology that automatically detects the insertion or removal of headphone. It comes with 1-year warranty and priced at Rs. 3999.

Acer brings Predator Triton 700 Gaming Notebook

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CER has launched its highlyanticipated Predator Triton 700 ultrathin gaming notebook in India.

The Predator Triton 700 houses the highperformance NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (overclockable) GPU and 7th-Generation Intel Core i7 processors in a svelte 18.9 mm-thin (0.74 inch) aluminum chassis, thanks to Acer’s AeroBlade 3D metal fans that increase airflow by 35 percent yet take up less space within the device.

Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, says, “With an ultraslim form factor, it is one of the few Notebooks that was truly built from scratch keeping in mind philosophy of delivering the maximum performance in the Slim and light Package offering Maximum Efficiency.”

Huawei unveils All-Intelligent Network to address business uncertainties

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uawei has launched the “All-Intelligent Network” at Ultra-Broadband Forum 2017. The forthcoming intelligent world will present new opportunities for the development of ultra-broadband.

The number of video users has increased significantly, and millions of companies are migrating to the cloud.

Leading countries have released timetables for 5G commercial deployment.

However, many carrier networks still lack agile operation systems. They are hard to maintain, and rely on only a small number

of security features for protection, which makes it difficult to support the future development of business where uncertainties are rife.

To this end, Huawei has launched the AllIntelligent Network, to help carriers address future business uncertainties. The All-Intelligent Network has three key features: intelligent, simple, and superfast.

RSA expands businessdriven Security Portfolio

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SA has introduced new products to help address many of the challenges related to compliance with data protection regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

According to the company, New RSA Archer offerings around Data Governance and Privacy Program Management can be paired with RSA NetWitness to help speed

breach response, and RSA SecurID to deliver identity and data access assurance to further continuous compliance capabilities.

“We used to live in a world where executives ran the business, IT ran the infrastructure, security set the perimeter, and compliance made the rules, but regulations like GDPR are breaking down those old walls,” said Rohit Ghai, President, RSA.

3i Infotech to lead digital transformation 3i Infotech has planned to consolidate its service offerings to help enterprises with their digital transformation in India and globally. The company, which has years of deep domain expertise across the BFSI, healthcare and government spectrum, will hinge its solution offerings on three distinct areas, namely Co-innovation for transformation; Customercentric and Modular frameworks for quick, adept deployments and Quantifiable outcomes that will maximize RoI for customers.

Speaking on the renewed focus of the company, Mohua Sengupta, EVP and Global Head of Services, said, “We are seeking to carve our future as a clear digital engineering partner, and hence all our solution offerings are aimed to help ready our customers and enterprises in adapting to the rapidly evolving digital transformation worldwide.”

www.varindia.com

November 2017

21

ON THE RAMP

Google bug bounty program to enhance app security

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oogle has launched the bug bounty program for third-party application in Android play store. In this program, ethical hackers will interact directly with the developers of popular apps via a common platform and are in for $1,000 bounty reward on reporting critical vulnerabilities.

Google announced its bug bounty program on Thursday saying that the goal of the program is to further improve app

security which will benefit developers, Android users, and the entire Google Play ecosystem.

Bug hunters who want to participate in the program can examine apps from the vendors and can get at least $1,000 for each bug they find.

However, they not only have to report the bug but also get it fixed, only after that they can apply for the reward.

Teradata presents IntelliSphere Software Portfolio

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eradata has announced Teradata IntelliSphere, a comprehensive software portfolio that unlocks a wealth of key capabilities for enterprises to leverage all the core software required to ingest, access, deploy and manage a flexible analytical ecosystem.

“Teradata IntelliSphere is a powerful, allencompassing suite of robust software that orchestrates the modern analytical ecosystem and ultimately powers advanced analytics at scale,” said

Oliver Ratzesberger, Executive Vice-President & Chief Product Officer, Teradata.

He added, “With IntelliSphere, companies no longer need to purchase separate software applications to build and manage their ecosystem.

Companies can design their environment to realize the full potential of their data and analytics today, with a guarantee that future updates can be leveraged immediately without another licence or subscription.”

Symantec unveils Endpoint Security capability

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ringing together d e c e p t i o n technology, Mobile Threat Defense, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Hardening and intensive protection through advanced m a c h i n e learning, Symantec has announced an endpoint solution. Built on the Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) platform, the solution delivers these capabilities in a single agent, meeting the challenges of the Cloud

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Generation by helping to simplify and optimize their environments, lower costs, and improve security.

Symantec provides comprehensive endpoint capabilities in a single agent, allowing CISOs and IT teams to monitor, manage and contain threats while reducing operational c o m p l e x i t y.

Through its integration framework, additional partner solutions can be integrated with SEP and managed within Symantec’s single agent.

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AMD unveils two new Ryzen Mobile Processors

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MD has introduced AMD Ryzen mobile processor, previously codenamed the “Raven Ridge” mobile APU, providing a complete entertainment experience with optimal efficiency.

The AMD Ryzen 7 2700U and AMD Ryzen 5 2500U processors combine the architecture of “Zen” x86 cores – featuring AMD SenseMI Technology processor-level intelligence – with Radeon “Vega” graphics in a System-onChip design to achieve unprecedented ultrathin notebook performance.

The AMD Ryzen 7 2700U gives up to 44% more multithreaded CPU performance and up to 161% more graphics performance than the competition.

Cisco helps accelerate building smart cities

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isco has introduced the City Infrastructure Financing Acceleration Program. It is a $1-billion program aimed to make it easier, faster, and more affordable for cities around the world to fund and adopt technologies that will transform their communities.

"Funding is a major stumbling block for municipalities beginning their smart city transformation," said Anil Menon, Global President of Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities. "With our partners, Cisco will bring the capital and expertise it takes to make smart city projects a reality. Digital Alpha, APG, and Whitehelm Capital bring a fresh perspective on investment in an area that has previously been perceived as too new and, therefore, too difficult to finance."

Pega adds AI and Virtual Assistant to its solutions

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egasystems has announced new artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual assistant capabilities in Pega solutions to enable faster and more effective responses to customer service requests across channels. These features instantly analyze incoming chat messages, emails, and phone calls in real time so organizations can immediately understand their customers’ needs and more quickly connect them to the right information.

“When it comes to satisfying your customers,

every second counts in the digital world. This is why many of our clients turn to our AI-powered solutions to help bring fast and accurate resolution to service cases coming in from any channel,” said Don Schuerman, CTO & VP – Product Marketing, Pegasystems. to deliver unprecedented experiences in the most demanding and competitive environments.”

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications available on IBM Cloud

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USE in its recent announcement has released that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications will be made available as an operating system for SAP solutions on the IBM Cloud. In addition, IBM Cloud is now a SUSE Cloud Service Provider, giving customers a supported open-source platform that makes them more agile and reduces operating costs as they only pay for what they use.

Commenting on this, Phillip Cockrell,

SUSE Vice-President of Worldwide Alliance Sales, said, "Customers need access to a secure and scalable cloud platform to run mission-critical workloads, one with the speed and agility of IBM Cloud, one of the largest open public cloud deployments in the world."

Dell launches XPS 15 notebook with InfinityEdge display in India

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ell India has announced the launch of XPS 15 notebook with InfinityEdge display feature, the XPS 15 also packs a stunning 15.6-inch screen into a 14-inch form factor, backed by the Intel Quad Core processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics.

Speaking at the launch, Alen Joe Jose, Product Marketing Director, Consumer & Small Business, Dell, India, said, “We are thrilled to introduce the 15inch device in Dell’s awardwinning flagship XPS

line for Indian PC users.

Having seen a phenomenal response to the 13-inch XPS notebook, we have also witnessed a growing demand among power users for a larger form factor in the performance class category of PC’s. The Dell XPS 15 offers a number of industry-firsts, making it the most anticipated 15inch laptop in the world.

www.varindia.com

November 2017

23

VOICE-N-DATA

Gemalto introduces IoT module providing global LTE connectivity

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emalto has announced the expansion of Industrial IoT connectivity with a significant breakthrough in wireless engineering – an IoT module to provide global connectivity on 12 LTE bands plus, 3G and 2G cellular coverage all from a single device.

The IIoT relies on highly efficient, global connectivity solutions that can be easily deployed anywhere.

"Ideal for worldwide tracking and tracing, telematics and fleet management solutions, the

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Cinterion multi band LTE Cat. 1 module with 3G, 2G fallback is a one stop shop for cellular IoT connectivity, no matter where your IoT solutions are deployed or where they move," said Andreas Haegele, senior VP -IoT products at Gemalto.

Orange Business Services offers guest Wi-Fi services to Nespresso

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range Business Services has been selected as the global supplier of Nespresso’s guest Wi-Fi and internet service, which will be rolled out in most of its standalone boutiques in five continents. The service will help Nespresso bridge its in-store customer experience with its digital channels.

When customers connect to the in-store guest Wi-Fi service, they can immediately and securely browse the internet and connect to the Nespresso portal.

There they can download the Nespresso app, visit Nespresso.com to access digital services, browse the latest news or get further product information. For guests who already have the Nespresso app, they can immediately connect to it.

Orange delivers this secure, fully-managed guest Wi-Fi service worldwide, including the local internet connections, and ensures that it complies with strict and changing regulatory and legal constraints. It also provides customers with a consistent experience at all locations.

Netgear makes new advancements in Wi-Fi

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ETGEAR has released a new, advanced edition of its award-winning Nighthawk X6 Tri-Band WiFi Router.

The new Nighthawk X6S

AC4000 Tri-Band Gigabit WiFi Router with MUMIMO (R8000P) now offers faster WiFi, a more powerful processor, and multi-user MIMO technology for improved performance and

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November 2017

Nokia to start Vodafone along with Huawei 5G-ready completes First 5G Data Connection Multiband Radio odafone has V achieved the first production 5G data connection in

blazing-fast speeds when simultaneously streaming to multiple devices.

The Nighthawk X6S Router with breakthrough tri-band Wi-Fi and MU-

MIMO is designed with gaming, streaming, and mobile devices in mind, making it ideal for simultaneous streaming too many Wi-Fi devices in your home.

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okia will begin m a nu f a c t u r i n g its 5G-ready AirScale multiband base station at its state-of-the-art facility at Oragadam, near Chennai, in India, to meet the growing domestic and global demand for mobile broadband, as well as support the Indian Government’s “Make in India” vision.

By 2020, there will be 46 billion devices fuelling demand for mobile broadband. The world’s first triple-band radio, AirScale offers huge capacity and connectivity to support future traffic growth, while reducing space requirements and the costs associated with it, and at the same time enabling faster rollout of new services.

Ruckus expands its portfolio with ICX 7650 family

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uckus has announced a new family of switches to support next-generation network edge and aggregation/ core requirements. The Ruckus ICX 7650 family delivers high-performance switching capabilities to meet current and future network demands, including high-density 802.11ac / 802.11ax WiFi deployments, UHD video streaming, line rate encryption and single point of management.

“The demand for high-speed, resilient edge networks continues to increase,” said Sudarshan Boosupalli, Country Head India & SAARC, Ruckus. “The innovative technology behind the ICX 7650 switch family captures all these requirements, enabling users to scale and future-proof their network infrastructure to meet the increasing demand of wired and wireless network."

Italy. The 5G trials were conducted by Vodafone in partnership with Huawei, which made available a radio base station using Massive MIMO technology.

It’s part of trials in Milan promoted by the Ministry for Economic Development. Vodafone, which was selected to conduct 5G trials in the Milan metropolitan area, used frequencies in the 3.7-3.8 GHz portion of

spectrum made available by the Ministry.

The success of the 5G trial represents is a major step forward. This was a real live test demonstrating use of 5G Prototype equipment that already meets the current 3GPP standard, including Massive MIMO technology, which increases both capacity and coverage.

Juniper unveils new optical solution to disaggregate Optical Line System

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uniper Networks has announced that it is disaggregating optical line system hardware from network control software, rolling out a new optical solution that brings unprecedented levels of flexibility, cost control and multi-layer visibility to packet-optical transport.

Juniper’s end-to-end metro packet transport portfolio gives service providers the necessary building blocks to deploy new services built on cloud, 5G, IoT, multigigabit broadband and other advanced technologies.

Closed, proprietary

optical-transport networks that bind the transponder, optical line system and control software together significantly hinder service providers’ ability to deploy an agile service delivery model. Juniper’s new cloudgrade solution, including an open, programmable optical line system, as well as a microservices-based management and control platform, allows operators to deploy any transponder solution to keep costs down, optimize the photonic layer control plane, and maintain unmatched service continuity.

ITL under MHRD tender to provide Wi-Fi to Indian central universities

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he Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has floated a tender for enabling 38 Central Universities in India to make them WiFi enabled. And, IL&FS Technologies Limited (ITL) has won the tender after being evaluated on various parameters set by the ministry.

The purpose of this project is to provide all the 38 Central Universities a WiFi-enabled campus network which would be connected to the National Knowledge Network (NKN). MHRD has envisaged National

Mission on Education through ICT (NMEICT) as a centrally- sponsored scheme to leverage the potential of ICT, in providing personalized and interactive knowledge modules over the internet/ intranet for all the learners in these universities anytime and anywhere.

www.varindia.com

November 2017

25

CHANNEL BUZZ

M-tech hosts gala meet for Eastern Partners

NVIDIA announces Developer Connect program to meet big data challenges

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M

-tech organized a gala meet for its dealers from various states. Attended by over 150 + leading dealers from Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and North Eastern states, the event was held in West Bengal. The meet showcased M-tech’s range of products and was intended to further strengthen its ties with dealers for the long term.

The senior officials from M-tech Informatics Ltd present at the meeting were, Goutam Jain, Cofounder and Executive Director, Lalit Agarwal, CEO, Pravesh More, COO, and Abhishek More, Sales Director, Bihar & South.

The meet saw various M-tech products on display with company officials educating the dealers about

the products, after- sales service and marketing & sales strategy. The management shared the company’s future growth road map, unique market insights and channel strategy. The company announced a 120 day feature phone replacement policy for its customers. The event concluded with an open Q&A session.

Goutam Kumar Jain, Cofounder and Executive Director, M-tech Informatics Ltd, said, “As we embark on a journey to transform into a Rs 1000 cr company by 2020 with a strong new product pipeline including new 4G smartphones and aggressive expansion plans, it is important to forge crucial partnerships.”

Kaspersky Lab conducts training module ‘Secure Hands’

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aspersky Lab has conducted three ‘Kaspersky Secure Hands’ training events to help engineers stay equipped to fight the newest cyber threats. These were held in Chennai, Cochin and Mumbai in association with Kaspersky’s partner, Ecaps Computers.

Altaf Halde, MD, South Asia – Kaspersky Lab said, “Over the years, we’ve learned that time is everything while responding to online threats. In a bid to equip our partners with the knowledge of the latest risks and how to use our solutions to fight them, we curated the Kaspersky Secure Hands module. Training our partners in using it ensures that we get the best results for the security programs we have, saving our customers huge costs. It was an invigorating session and we are sure the participants greatly benefitted from it. Every threat that can be neutralised through

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these sessions, is a victory for all of us.”

The training sessions were conducted all through September, viz. September 8 in Chennai, September 15 in Cochin and in Mumbai on September 21, 2017. The sessions were for handpicked participants, with over 40 companies joining in the three sessions. Kaspersky Lab specially designed the module

along with Ecaps, to make threat identification and resolution as simple as possible. The training covered both, endpoint and nonendpoint products. The daylong event covered the newest, preliminary and advanced risks that companies can run into. The participants were also explained how Kaspersky’s products would help them manage these exposures.

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VIDIA has recently announced its Developer Connect Six-City Program, an educational tour that will provide program attendees workshops and demonstrations of tools designed specifically to meet the challenges big data presents.

The 2-day event in every city will bring together the local ecosystem of AI developers, data scientists, researchers, and academia, to look at AI trends, technology, use cases and India’s role and opportunities in what many are calling the fourth Industrial Revolution.

Starting from November 14th in Hyderabad, this series of events will showcase the most vital work in the computing industry today, including deep learning and AI, big data analytics, virtual reality, and much more. This program is part of the Developer engagement program of NVIDIA, which has been very successful in training

programmers in AI. NVIDIA is also conducting its Deep Learning Institute (DLI) workshops in each of the six cities; DLI provides training on the latest techniques for designing, training, and deploying neural networks across a variety of application domains through self-paced online labs and instructor-led workshops.

Speaking on the same, Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, NVIDIA - South Asia said, “NVIDIA's DGX portfolio and its software are the essential instruments for advancing the work of world-class AI research and realizing the promise of this new era of computing. Through the Developer Connect Program, we are empowering developers with skills needed to solve some of the most challenging deep learning problems in the areas of image recognition, text classification and speech modelling.

ASIRT tech day continues to focus on collaborative growth opportunities

T

he ASIRT has hosted a tech day at the Interlink Banquets, Mumbai. In line with the association’s objective to offer significant business opportunities to partner members, Tata Teleservices, ACCOPS and Shree Maat Computers were invited to share their offerings to the members. The key highlight of the evening, however, was the live musical performance by singer and

Joshi, Deputy GM – Enterprise Business, Tata Teleservices Ltd, and concluded by Mohan Bhat, Co-Founder & MD of ACCOPS. The presentations offered valuable business and growth opportunities and were enthusiastically received by the members.

Narendra Joshi, Deputy General Manager – Enterprise Business, Tata Teleservices, said, “The telecom

performer Raj Kapadia.

Being the first meeting post the festive season, the celebratory cheer was evident in the air as members from all across Mumbai and some even from as far as Ahmedabad, gathered at the venue. The event began with sponsor presentations

by Ajay Parekh, CEO of Shree Maat Computers, followed by Narendra

sector in India is estimated to be a Rs.13,000-crore market and is driven primarily through a serviceoriented approach. The ASIRT is an ideal platform for us to explore probable franchise opportunities as most members here are SME’s with established network in areas where brand sales managers cannot reach."

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INTERNATIONAL EVENT

IT giants and Distributors meet together at The Fifth Annual DISTREE APAC

Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore Singapore: The fifth Annual DISTREE Asia Pacific (APAC) consumer tech channel event was hosted at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel in Singapore from 8th to 10th November 2017. The event witnessed a gathering of more than 170 senior executives from consumer tech vendors, distributors, retailers and e-tailers.

VARINDIA supported this three-day event as the Media Partner.

Top Indian Distributors and Retailers namely Elcom Trading, Fujisan Technologies Ltd., Prabhat Telecoms (India) Ltd., Rashi Peripherals, Redington (India) Ltd., Rhythm Corner Alaknanda, Softech Computers Delhi Ltd., Technocrat Infotech Pvt. Ltd., and Ample were the participants at this year’s DISTREE event. 90 Distributors and 25 Retailers from across the APAC region participated and a total of 209 participants witnessed the event.

DISTREE APAC provides a business development platform for brands looking to manage, build or launch routes to market for consumer technology products in the fast-growing Asian region. The exhibitors at DISTREE APAC 2017 represented the entire consumer tech product landscape, such as mobile accessories, smart home solutions, components, memory, connected devices and gaming products. This year’s exhibitor base

included a wide range of consumer tech device and accessories brands at different stages of channel development.

DISTREE APAC also provides brands that are new to the region with a unique opportunity to broaden their market knowledge and evaluate potential channel partners reaching 20-plus countries. The presence of retailers as well as distributors at this years’ event gave exhibitors a better understanding of the channel structures that exist in major Asian markets. By bringing together great brands with the region’s top channel partners, DISTREE aims to create a win-win business environment for all attendees.

With growing consumer demand and a huge population base, DISTREE APAC provided the ultimate channel development platform for tech brands. The 3 days of meetings offered numerous opportunities to find new business opportunities, catching up on the latest channel initiatives and discover new ideas. More than 600 pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings were organised at DISTREE APAC using the event’s powerful web platform.

The popular ‘60 Seconds to Convince Awards’ gave the exhibitors the chance to deliver a one-minute pitch for their latest products.

Live voting determined the winners in three categories - Best Product Design, Best Product

Innovation and Best Presentation. Bookeen picked up the ‘Best Product Design’ award for its SAGA e-Reader and the ‘Best Presentation’ award for its highly entertaining product pitch.

The ‘Best Product Innovation’ award was bagged

by Wonew for its Intelligent Selfie Stick.

The Keynotes sessions included topics like virtual reality (VR), distributor transformation and consumer behaviour. A new APAC Market Snapshots session was introduced where distributors gave updates on business conditions and market trends in specific countries, with presentations from Anyware from Australia, Rashi Peripherals from India and Leader Radio Tech from Hong Kong.

Creating an opportunity for channel leaders across the Asia-Pacific region to meet with their existing suppliers and prospective vendors, the event primarily focused on the consumer channel for ICT Lifestyle products and bringing together senior distribution executives from across South East Asia and Oceania as well as a number of other key Asian markets.

DISTREE APAC 2017 thus created a powerful networking platform that allowed both exhibitors and delegates to build indepth relationships and focus on new business development opportunities.

Christophe Painvin, Executive Director – DISTREE Events

We launched DISTREE events 5 years ago. In fact we have been organising events for last 15 years all around the world. We created B2B events because we want to mix together with distributors and brands. In fact we want to accelerate the development of brands who want to invest in market and want to increase the distributor channel in different markets. So for brands, DISTREE events are a real opportunity to meet different distributors across the region and to test the products for future customer and to find some new channel. During our DISTREE events, we are trying to accelerate our presence and raise solutions for brand to target the new market.

We are focused on innovative projects and new products. This will ensure new projects for the region and also products for the IT sector. From this year’s event, we are looking for good distributors whom we can associate with sellers. This year 17 retailers and 74 distributors have participated and in total we have 209 attendees from 18 different countries this year.

We however do not have any plans to organize any such events in India market and so have invited some distributors and retailers from India. Maybe later if brands want to go to India directly, we will help to find some new distributors and maybe organise events there. For the moment we don’t have any plan.

A distributor by attending our event can drive several benefits - like during the 2 day event we can make more than 23 different plans for brands to innovate and help in establishing their identity. So they can find some new projects for the market. Everybody here is looking for business and distributors. So we are well wishers for brands and also the business solution for the distributors.

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Paresh Gathani, Director – Fujisan Technologies

Our current focus for the India market is to look for new partners and opportunities that probably we can bring to our India customers and partners. Our products make good sense to our partners and customers and we look at some business opportunities.

We are into imaging printing solutions and software solutions for enterprise management. We basically offer our products to convert every such organization that still uses a lot of paper to digital content. The business has been growing very fast as far as our imaging products are concerned which are related to converting physical data to digital data. We are looking at growing at a considerable speed and the growth expectations will be met as because we are just through two quarters and two more quarters are there to achieve; so we are expecting a positive result.

Sunil Narang, MD - Elcom Trading Company

There has been a major shift in the way businesses are done. So like earlier we were doing only PCs, but slowly we shifted our focus to mobile portfolio and then to software solution distribution. and of late we have also forayed into surveillance.

We are planning to have a growth of 5 - 10 % in revenue. But the 10% would not be 10% but actually 20%+. Because of GST, the book value of the revenue has actually gone down by 13%. When earlier the VAT used to be 5%, we were selling our products at 100 rupees and the book value of the products used to be 95 rupees. But now if I am selling products at 100 rupees the book value would be 82 rupees. The major thrust for India is from the Chinese market. Big Chinese vendors are trying to come to India but not too many countries are looking at the same.

Pankaj Mirchandani, Director – Sales & Marketing, RCA

This is the second year I am participating at DISTREE and this year I have had the chance to meet with a few vendors and participants.

I found the keynote speakers and workshops conducted extremely informative and useful.

Talking about latest trends, Personal Health Trackers and Wireless Charging are some of the new trends we are witnessing in our sector.

Being in the Tech Industry for more than 25 years, we keep ourselves abreast with the latest technological trends and add to the catalogue as per market trends. When we look into the current market landscape, a lot of vendors are extremely serious, but most of them however position themselves as ‘luxury brands’, thereby missing a large chunk of the market Despite all the changes like Demonetization & GST roll out, we will register a healthy double digit growth.

Soong-EN Yong, Manager, Regional Sales – APAC, PanzerGlass Panzer is a Danish company and was started in 2013. It is a focused company since we only make tempered glass, unlike many of the other brands that also covers cables, power banks cases etc.

We have PanzerGlass and Cristiano Ronaldo combined products. So in this series we may have 10 tempered glasses and phone back casing like the usual leather case and other cases.

With respect to the India market, we are looking for the right distributer and retailers as it might not be very easy to start selling tempered glass there as we are targeting the premium segment market. So we would be selling at Apple premium store, Samsung stores etc. We are targeting the high value customers where the value and the quality give good experience.

Rajesh Goenka, Vice President, Sales and Marketing - Rashi Peripherals

The PC market in India is growing by leaps and bounds and this is resulting in demand for technology and peripherals & accessories also growing.

Talking about new technology, the wireless Bluetooth is of course a fundamental technology but of course lots of incremental features are in it which is creating a revolution in the consumer market.

For last 10 years, we have had a record growth of 25% and even in this year we will continue to grow. So when the organisation is growing, the revenue size keeps growing and maintaining the high performance is important. But still we are able to manage the pace. And our average growth is still 2x than current India demand. We are growing at 2 times more as compared to the country growth.

Asif Khan, Director – Technocrat Infotech

This is the first time we are participating at DISTREE. The expectation to meet new vendors, view the latest products and futuristic information about technology are the major factors why we look at distributing in such events. The workshops are very informative as it helps to understand market trend and dynamics.

GfK and Content help us in better understanding about business trends, like growth in Gaming, Wearable and Smartphone give us direction to more focus on growing products.

As we are in distribution, our business does not get directly impacted by demonetization. But generally I see vendors are very much interested and serious about the India business. For our business, we are expecting a growth of 10 - 15%. The roadmap for our business would be to expand in new product range and ink more brand tie-ups.

Vishwamani Tiwari, Chairman – Prabhat Telecoms (India)

We have seen a huge change in global product development patterns and a lot of more innovative products are seen coming to the market. IOT is becoming a part and parcel of new development bringing Telecom and RF in every part of development. Being a core telecom company, we have been getting actively involved to capture new technology and products and looking to taking it to mass level in our geography.

Prabhat Telecoms has a bright future and has made steady progress in the past 10 years. Our Turnover and PAT (Profit after tax) are improving at a rate of 15% on a year to year basis. In the next one year we are looking to strengthen our network not just in India but also in international countries like Asia, Africa and Europe. We are also looking forward to leveraging the vast pool of skilled and young labour force in India by assembling and manufacturing products in India and exporting it to other potential markets.

Alton Pereira, Manager - Promate

Senior

Project

The main thing about our electronic product is its auto voltage regulator in which if you connect any automatic device it will automatically regulate the voltage for that device. Other than that we have a speaker called Cyclone that mainly works on sound vibrations; so you can stick it up on any surface and create a speaker out of that surface which means the surface itself turns into speaker.

Currently we have not ventured into Indian market because there is cut throat competition especially the race we see with mobile accessories. We however are looking at ways into foraying into the Indian market, but that would be mainly into the e-commerce market.

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VAR CORPORATE

Anniversary

ThinkPad reinforces strong

Lenovo is one of the finest technology companies with a high brand recall that comes from the company’s strong product portfolio that includes Personal Computers (PCs), Smart phones, Workstations, Servers and Storage devices with IT management software etc.

The Company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, highquality, secure and easy-to-use technology products. Its product line include the legendary Think brand commercial PCs and Idea brand consumer PCs, as well as Servers, Workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. Lenovo is a global Fortune 500 company. $43B GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY COMPANY 58,000 EMPLOYEES CUSTOMERS IN 160+ COUNTRIES 231 ON THE GLOBAL FORTUNE 500 LIST Lenovo’s core strength lies in its product innovation, highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution, which has helped the company sustain its position as an established brand with products across a diverse price segment.

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With high brand recalled value, its market recognition reflects the investment and commitment that Lenovo has made in terms of continued product innovation and brand evolution. The company has maintained its position as the global leader in PCs and coupled with the fast-growing smartphone business.

Lenovo is a known market leader in building great laptops at reasonable prices. This year, Lenovo has leaped into our top spot in VARINDIA Star Nite Awards for its excellent and innovative products among the SME segment. Thanks to these machines' excellent keyboards, long battery life or eye-catching designs.

The top three vendors - HP, Dell and Lenovo - are battling for the large-enterprise segment. The market has extremely limited opportunities for vendors below the top three vendors, and this further intensified in the first quarter of 2017. Lenovo and HP were in a virtual tie for the top spot.

Lenovo accounted for 19.9 percent of worldwide PC shipments, followed

by HP with 19.5 percent share, and Dell at 15 percent share.

The original ThinkPad, designed by Richard Sapper and engineered in Japan, was inspired by the traditional Japanese bento box, and Lenovo has taken some of these classic elements and fused them with modern hardware.

ThinkPad debuted 25 years ago in October 1992, with a bright red TrackPoint nub and a classic design that still exists in a modern form.

Lenovo is celebrating the laptop’s 25th anniversary with a special anniversary edition of the ThinkPad with a retro-themed limited edition ThinkPad that takes a number of design cues from the original.

brand recall for

The special edition ThinkPad is based on current ThinkPad T470 laptop model with a price tag of $1899 and will be available in select countries. The device is equipped with a fingerprint sensor and has support for Windows Hello. In terms of connectivity the laptop offers USB-C port (Thunderbolt 3), SD card reader, regular USB ports, HDMI port and ethernet connectivity.

Mechanical specifications: Performance you can count on With the responsiveness and efficiency of 7th generation Intel® Core™ processors, the Lenovo ThinkPad T470 lets you switch effortlessly between your favorite apps—increasing your productivity, creativity, or entertainment levels along the way.

Super fast SSD storage Unlike a regular mechanical hard drive, a Solid-State Drive (SSD) has no moving parts and performs faster—including booting up (nearly 3X quicker), opening files (as much as 30% faster), and transferring files (around 200 MB/s, compared to 50-120 MB/s). As well as being quieter, it’s also more reliable, more rugged, and more secure.

Tested for battle, built for success Every ThinkPad laptop undergoes 12 stringent military tests and over 200 quality checks. So, you can rest easy knowing that your T470 is more than capable of surviving the bumps and bruises of everyday life.

User-friendly, business-friendly Easy to set up and roll out, the T470 is also quick to service, upgrade,

Why Lenovo: Key Highlights · ThinkPads: They are the undisputed champions of productivity, thanks to their best-in-class keyboards, accurate pointing sticks and long battery life. · Yogas: Best series of bendback 2-in-1s · Pushing the envelope: From totally flat keyboards that double as writing pads to OLED screens, Lenovo takes risks. and secure. From an everyday user to an IT technician, this business laptop is designed to make life (and work) easier for everyone.

Make light work of long days With its two batteries and Power Bridge technology, the T470 gives you greater flexibility and up to 18 hours of power on a single charge.

That's more than enough juice to help you burn the midnight oil or bingewatch your favorite show.

For on-the-go productivity and entertainment Weighing around 1.58 kg and just 19.95 mm thin, the T470 gives you portability, without sacrificing performance. Its 14.0" FHD display delivers sharp, vibrant visuals—perfect for working on the go or kicking back to enjoy a movie.

Look sharp, sound sharper The T470 has an HD web camera and dual array microphones (with background noise reduction) as standard—ideal for whether you're on a call in a busy open plan office or a bustling coffee shop.

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The 16th VARINDIA Star Nite Awards 2017 concluded recently that recognized 45 vendors, 16 Resellers/VARs and 15 CMOs from the Indian ICT Industry. There were altogether 5 different tracks of seminars, where 700 customers and partners attended the daylong event

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EVENT

Sustainability and Digital Transformation Accelerates the Next Wave of Digitization

(From Left to Right): Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation; Mr. Vishal Bhardwaj, Group Head – CSR – Dalmia Bharat Group; Mr Ajay Choudhary, DGM – Marketing ALIMCO; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs; Mr Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher and Group Editor, (VARINDIA & SPO INDIA); Shri. Ram Kripal Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources; Ms. Madhu Madan, Country Head - Resource Mobilization, HelpAge India; Ms. Dipanwita Chakraborty, Regional Director, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainable Development, Asia Pacific, Cargill; Mr Avijeet Kumar, COO, CAF India and Ms. Meghna Garg, Associate Director – Facilities & Administration, Thomson Reuters India’s most popular event Star Nite Awards (SNA), popularly recognised as the DNA of the Channel was held last Friday, where 700 CXOs had gathered to discuss and deliberate on the theme ‘Sustainability and Digital Transformation with Simplification’, with the aim of improving client experience for profitable growth. The day-long session was organised by Kalinga Digital Media, the infor mation-communication-technolog y (ICT) publishing house that celebrated its 18th anniversary and hosted the 16th edition of Star Nite Awards ceremony.

Shri Ram Kripal Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources, Government of India was the Chief Guest at the event and he kick-started the event by lighting the ceremonial lamp.

The Hon’ble Minister in his keynote address emphasised that CSR is the need of the hour and that it should be promoted for the welfare of the country The first panel discussion of the day was titled - Technology helping in Sustainable Development and the discussion was joined in by Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation; Mr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Group Editor (VARINDIA and SPO INDIA); Chief Guest, Shri. Ram Kripal Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs and Ms. Meenakshi Batra, CEO, CAF India.

The second panel Discussion was on ‘CSR & Sustainability in Business’, which

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was moderated by Radhika Ralhan, Head Innovations for Exponential Impact Unit, CAF India. The speakers included Ms. Dipanwita Chakraborty, Regional Director, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainable Development, Asia Pacific, Cargill; Dr Angeli Qwatra, CEO, Centre for Disaster Risk and Safety; Mr Avijeet Kumar, COO, CAF India; Ms. Akanksha Sharma, Head- CSR & Sustainability, Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd.; Mr. Vishal Bhardwaj, Group Head – Corporate Social Responsibility – Dalmia Bharat Group; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs; Mr. Sanjeev Dham, COO, Smile Foundation and Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation.

The third and the final panel discussion was on CSR @ Women's empowerment that was Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs. It was joined by eminent speakers like Ms. Laxmi Agarwal, Indian Campaigner with Stop Acid Attacks; Ms. Meenakshi Batra, CEO, CAF India; Dr. Vikas Goswami, Head Sustainability - Good and Green, Godrej One; Ms. Rina Dhaka, Fashion Designer; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs; Mr. Sanjeev Dham, COO, Smile Foundation; Ms. Mamta Wasan, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, ‎Fidelity National Information Services; Ms. Madhu Madan, Country Head - Resource Mobilization, HelpAge India; Ms. Meghna Garg, Associate Director – Facilities

& Administration, Thomson Reuters and Ms. Shivani Wazir Pasrich, Theater Personality, TV host.

Three parallel track sessions were conducted during the event 1. Government and PSU Breakfast session being supported by NETAPP, GEMALTO and INSPIRE. 2. An Industry Round Table that was attended by 45 senior officials of various IT Associations from across the country.

3. Enterprise CIO Round Table session being supported by VERTIV and CANON. A number of government ministers, officials, as well as top industry executives from around the world, spoke in all the 5 different sessions.

The industry round table was supported by IT associations from across the country - FAIITA, PCAIT, COMPASS, FITDAK, TAIT, ASIRT, FITAG, CONFED-ITA, ITAO, CMDA, RCTA, JCDA,ISODA, UPCDA, AIT, VCMDWA & ADCTA who also attended the Industry Round table to discuss and understand the theme of “Vendors Commitment for the VARs”. The meet was also attended by ACER as the key vendor. The key discussion was on the topic of ‘On-line versus Traditional Resellers’.

Evening session As evening descended, the air at the Ballroom of Hotel The Lalit, New Delhi was pregnant with hope and anxiety to understand

this year’s verdict on who are the winners of the Annual Star Nite Awards. But once the awards were announced, the mood changed to one of celebration - with the joy of the winners overshadowing the disappointment of those who did not make it.

Star Nite Awards took the opportunity to recognize the Chief Marketing Officers (CMO), Value Added Resellers (VARs) and IT Vendors (Corporates) serving the Indian ICT Industry.

The CMO Leadership Awards 2017 saw 15 CMOs being recognised, while VARs from 4 regions namely Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata were felicitated during the event

ceremony.

There were Technology showcases by 16 Corporates that included Vodafone, Canon, Vertiv, Dell-EMC, HPE, Ingram Micro, Inspira, Acer, Cambium Networks, eScan, ALIMCO, Digisol, Epson, Gemalto, RAH Infotech, LG and IndiaSoft-ESC that promoted their products and solutions.

Another attraction of the Star Nite Awards was the Tech Talk session. The idea behind tech talk is that, within five minutes a speaker needs to tell the audience on the present and future technology that their respective organisations are endorsing. There are a multitude of topics

capped, on which Five leaders has shared their ideas and concepts with the audience. These talks were a great source of inspiration to all those who were present in the hall and was a great benefit for their professional growth.

The speakers who spoke during the Tech Talk were Ms. Monalisa Sahoo, Sr. V.P-MarketingVodafone Business Services; Mr Ruchin Kumar, Business Head (Govt. & Defence) – GEMALTO; Mr. Rajeev Sreedhar, Director – Channels & Alliances (India & SAARC) - McAfee; Mr. Sujit Panigrahi, Co-Founder & CTO- Convergent Technologies and Mr. Sunil Sharma, Managing Director- Sophos India.

keynote address Shri Ram Kripal Yadav Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources, Government of India “India is a huge country and 70% of its population reside in its villages. Even after 70 years of independence, the condition of the villages or the lifestyle of the people living in these villages has not improved. Development in areas of food, electricity, water, sanitation is still a far cry. The government is doing its bit in introducing schemes from time to time for such people but due to challenges in last mile, these schemes are not reaching the right individual. It is here that CSR is going to play a big role and NGOs & different corporates involved in CSR should take this responsibility upon themselves to act as a bridge and provide these services to the people there.”

Shrikant Sinha CEO - NASSCOM Foundation “When we talk of STGs and 17 of them, we try to see how they are impacting us and what exactly they mean to us. But the question is who creates these STGs? Do we think that the UN owns these STGs or is it the Govt. and the corporates who take responsibility of these STGs or is the NGOs and the civil society who own them? Unless and until we are clear that each and every one of us own the STGs and have the responsibility of achieving these goals, I don’t think we can make any headway. We being the social arm of NASSCOM, we believe in technology and feel that it is today a game-changer in bridging the digital divide.”

Vineet Goenka Member – IT Taskforce, Ministries of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways

A Sheshagiri Rao CMD – TCIL “On 2nd July 2015, when our Honourable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi launched the three pillars of digital infrastructure as utility, digital service and also digital empowerment to the citizens, it was then that the wave of digitization started. The complete government and industry is working towards it.

The schemes which are developed and implemented by government or PSUs are converging towards it. Today, everything wants to be in a digital fashion. If we talk about the readiness, we are actually trying to implement it and maybe we are 20% ready. There is however a gap of 80% which needs to be bridged by all of us.”

Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs - Ministry of Corporate Affairs-GOI “Any company that is registered in India, or any multinational has any operation in India, it should declare what is its CSR budget. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has developed a 360 degree database in which we are able to track every single company – where they have spent the money, which district they have spent the money and so on.”

“When we started the journey in 2014, we started addressing corruption, curtailments, curtails, complications and compulsions in public life. Taking this to the next level was more disturbing because there was delays, debts, diseases, more disabilities, distortion of facts. As we progressed, we thought that we have to stop this, which was going on in this country for several years. When we took it further, we talked about three Es - ethical business, the environment and economic viability. So even if you are ethically correct, environmentally right, we should not do a business which is not economically viable."

Vipin Tyagi Executive Director C-DOT “This is the time to create in India the new India. What can be created and what can we do so that we can realise the new India. It is the best place in my assessment as we have hardware and software capabilities. We are all geared up but the only thing is that this is the time for us to really think of what we want to create. The potential, ability, creativity that we have in this country which is bottled up should be realised.”

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EVENT

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

Prashant Gupta Partner – Grant Thornton “Cyber crimes are evolving day by day around the globe. In past, it used to be like we would look into crime incidents and work with the clients to come up with a defensive strategy by analyzing the problem and then resolve it. But in recent 4-5 years, the kind of attacks or risk factors that is coming out has really awaken the industry. The most recent Bad Rabbit attacks that revolves around vulnerabilities on the website, created quite a stir in the last few weeks. Similarly the WannaCry that revolved around systems working on Microsoft systems was another such attack that squeezed the security industry and made them think about of what can be done to avert such threats.”

“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 ver y 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.”

TECH TALK

Star Nite Awards witnessed the inspirational Tech Talk session by the Tech professionals in their areas of focus, while engaging with the analysts through track presentations. Grant Thornton supported the event as the Knowledge partner.

Monalisa Sahoo, Sr. V.P-MarketingVodafone Business Services “I believe the SMEs are the growth engine for India's economy. If we see the industry figures, there are about 50 million SMEs who contribute about 40% of India's export, 38% of our GDP and they are employing a staggering 117 million employees in the sector. And if you look, 68% of this Industry today is not even digital and a very small percentage of them actually do their business in a digital manner. We have this great mission of our prime minister about digital India and we believe that vision can be made a reality when we actually focus on this segment and actually make them go digital.”

Ruchin Kumar, Business Head (Govt. & Defence) - GEMALTO “We are in Data Centric security and when I am talking about Data centric security we ensure that data is safe from unauthorised access. Data confidentiality is there in the system. We also ensure that Data integrity and things like granular access, authorization and similar type of security concepts are there in place.

If we see in the organisations when we talk about security, some 70 to 80% budgets are spent on the parameters on the firewalls, on the IDS, IPS and other systems. By virtue we have concretized our parameters and it is almost impossible for outsiders to intrude in our systems.”

Rajeev Sreedhar, Director – Channels & Alliances (India & SAARC)- McAfee “McAfee has been a pioneer in the security space and thus we made sure that whatever acquisitions we made, we always integrated their technology with our’s in order to give a visibility to the customer in terms of security. We have taken a step ahead through which our technology can protect, detect and also remediate, which means from a customer’s standpoint he/ she does not need to invest in too much technology and skills and have that automation done where not only the viruses get detected but also protected against it that we are seeing in the recent times. Another key factor that we have come out with is 'data exchange layer' which is based on open protocol where customer can integrate the McAfee technology with that of the technology they have deployed from any other security vendor. So we have create an open fabric or DXL where technology from other security vendors can also get integrated.”

Sujit Panigrahi, Co-Founder & CTOConvergent Technologies “'smooth XRM' a product that we have, if you look at the typical CRMs that you find in the market they all cater to the end customers. Our smooth XRMs actually solve that particular problem; what we are looking at is extending that relationship to both partners and customers. So partners are extremely important for all the OEMs. Essentially when you look at the industry leading CRMs, they typically do 3 things - first, they do sales performance tracking, essentially the primary sales from the company to the distributors. But they do not capture the tertiary sales, the sales that actually happens in every stores. So, what we do is, we help companies and large OEMs to be able to capture the tertiary sales from every point of sale. Second thing is about marketing communication, typically it is either to customer or to the sales team and not necessarily to the channel partners and the third thing is about service and the support."

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Sunil Sharma Managing Director. Sales Sophos India “Sophos started 35 years back, in 1982. It started on information and endpoint security and after 35 years it is a listed company on London stock exchange. Today we have 20,000 partners across the globe and in India itself we have 3000+ partners. We have 17 branches in India and have a direct representative in any small city you name in India.

India is contributing more than 5% to the overall worldwide business. There are 850 people involved in research and development, product development and support, based out of Ahmedabad and Bengaluru. In our sales team, we have 82+ people who are there to support our partners. Sophos has also done massive investments in terms of solutions; in fact we were the first company to come out with solution addressing WannaCry and Bad Rabbit. This talks volume about our company which is into information security – end-to-end endpoint security, network security, remediation and synchronised security is what we offer.”

Panel Discussion I: Technology helps in Sustainable Development In the 1st panel discussion of the day, Technology helps in Sustainable Development, Mr. Deepak Kumar Sahu, Group Editor (VARINDIA and SPO INDIA), opened the floor for the audience to interact with the Minister and discuss on the topic of how rural development can be possible with general support.

Shri. Ram Kripal Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources while talking about limited resources and reach, requested people to engage and participate with the ministry of rural development as there is a need to get involved in such initiatives. “The ministry of rural development has been working for roads, water, and toilets, which now has become a separate department in itself. The CSR approach envisages doing well for the society and I will say everybody is working according to their level but there is the need to speed this up this and engage (From Left to Right): Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation; Mr. Deepak yourself more with us. I urge the media too Kumar Sahu, Group Editor (VARINDIA and SPO INDIA); Chief Guest, Shri. Ram Kripal to help Ministry in working towards this and Yadav, Hon’ble Minister of State for Rural Development and Land Resources; Dr. Bhaskar so that the CSR approach and funds can be Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs and Ms. Meenakshi utilised to its best. As our PM says, this is not Batra, CEO, CAF India. possible by only one’s wish or contribution; everybody has to equally indulge in it and this should be considered as a mass-movement; everybody should take responsibility as without public participation it’s not possible.

In context of the mass constructions of toilets in India, it cannot be a success until and unless beneficiaries will cooperate with the govt. So there is a need to raise awareness and if the beneficiaries themselves take the responsibility of maintenance, only then it will be called a success. Therefore, the PM appeals to the national populace to join us with the campaign; for this he has instructed his department and has also allocated additional funds for water tanks and for maintenance of the public toilets.”

Enumerating the activities that NASSCOM Foundation takes up, Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation said, “NASSCOM Foundation along with Capgemini and Aricent takes up many development works. We have given skill training to more than 1 lakh rural youth so that they become ready for the \job market. We have also visited schools and colleges from tier 2 & 3 cities where the percentage of placement is less than 50% and picked up students from there to train them. Right from soft skills, to advanced engineering skills, we have imparted training in each of these areas.”

Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs in his appeal to the government urged that whatever programmes and schemes it introduces at the district and rural level should be linked to CSR. “When we were drafting the CSR law for the country, I always put his idea forward that whenever there is any development work going on at any district, and if the respective district magistrate or administrator link them with CSR, then the fund available for CSR fund gets stronger and the development work also speeds up where NGOs can also give a helping hand.”

Ms. Meenakshi Batra, CEO, CAF India highlighted the fact that NGO and foundation headquarters based out of cities should be made aware of rural development and they should be asked to work there for rural upliftment. “Many of the CSR decisions are taken at the corporate headquarters, particularly in big cities like Mumbai, Gurgaon and there is a need to raise awareness about rural development among those decision makers. If you take the example of CAF, we have been working for rural development in last 5 years and we do close to 50-60% work in these areas. So there I felt that NGOs based out of big cities should be made more aware about the issues prevailing in the rural areas.”

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EVENT

Panel Discussion II: CSR & Sustainability in Business The 2nd panel of the day, CSR & Sustainability in Business that was moderated by Ms Radhika Ralhan, Head Innovations for Exponential Impact Unit, CAF India emphasized on the fact that apart from technology and innovation which are 2 big factors, the third factor is the mindset change. People should be able to realise that technology can help them. There is also the need to make more and more people educated because if today we look at urban people, most of them are not able to get jobs but there are people from villages running to cities in search of work. So there needs to be created an eco-system where jobs are available for such people. It is the people coming together who can make a difference and believing that ‘changes can be done even with a small thing’.

The discussion also stressed corporate philanthropy to be very significant when it comes to driving the entire agenda of sustainable development. There are a number of examples where MNCs have partnered with Non profit organisation for some remarkable sustainable development programs. In India too, there has been in past where companies have been doing this kind of philanthropy and mention can be made of companies like Bajaj, Tata now that have now started doing it. At a time when International funding and grants are shrinking, the 2% CSR mandate comes in as a tremendous opportunity to really push the national and the global development agenda.

(From Left to Right): Ms. Dipanwita Chakraborty, Regional Director, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainable Development, Asia Pacific, Cargill; Dr Angeli Qwatra, CEO, Centre for Disaster Risk and Safety; Mr Avijeet Kumar, COO, CAF India; Ms. Akanksha Sharma, Head- CSR & Sustainability, Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd.; Mr. Vishal Bhardwaj, Group Head – Corporate Social Responsibility – Dalmia Bharat Group; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs; Mr. Sanjeev Dham, COO, Smile Foundation; Mr. Shrikant Sinha, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation and Ms. Radhika Ralhan, Head Innovations for Exponential Impact Unit, CAF India.

Panel Discussion III: CSR @ Women's empowerment The 3rd panel of the day, CSR @ Women Empowerment was moderated by Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs who set the context by stating why it is increasingly becoming important for addressing the issue of woman empowerment in today’s time. The panel that included women representing different industry and stream discussed on some of the key issues that continue to remain a thing of concern for women empowerment.

We are aware of many problems that women face in everyday lives and in every sphere of activities. But it is upon us of what best we can do for women in every single space and make them feel lighter and better. Achieving gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls, rests upon unlocking the full potential of women.

Social, Economic and Political empowerment, (From Left to Right): Ms. Laxmi Agarwal, Indian Campaigner with Stop Acid Attacks; Ms. including education for women, health of Meenakshi Batra, CEO, CAF India; Dr. Vikas Goswami, Head Sustainability - Good and women, mobility of women, participation of Green, Godrej One; Ms. Rina Dhaka, Fashion Designer; Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Former women in various fields and also protection of women against Gender based violence are major DG & CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Ministry of Corporate Affairs; Mr. pillars of creating an enabling environment Sanjeev Dham, COO, Smile Foundation; Ms. Mamta Wasan, Senior Vice President, Human for empowering women overall. But whatever Resources, ‎Fidelity National Information Services; Ms. Madhu Madan, Country Head a woman does, she should be consistent and Resource Mobilization, HelpAge India; Ms. Meghna Garg, Associate Director – Facilities in that consistency lies success. For instance, & Administration, Thomson Reuters and Ms. Shivani Wazir Pasrich, Theater Personality, it is a regular scenario for a woman marketing TV host. professional, where she goes for meetings, present proposals, but at the end of the day does not even meet with partial success. But we learn to be consistent in our deeds by facing such a situation, and accept whatever challenges come to us. But that does not mean we get accepted in whatever way the world perceives us. We have to break out of that mould of having taken for granted and thereby submitting to the requirements of the family or society.

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CMO Leadership AwardS

CMO Leadership Award winners in the event. The awards were being facilitated

by Vinit Goenka, Member-IT Taskforce, Ministries of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways; Savitur Prasad, Addl. CGDA, Ministry Of Defence, Govt. Of India and Deepak Kumar Sahu, Publisher and Group Editor, VARINDIA & SPO INDIA Monalisha Sahoo, Senior Vp-Marketing - Vodafone Business Services Srihari Palangana, Director Marketing â&#x20AC;&#x201C;India, Dell EMC India Chandrahas Panigrahi, Cmo & Consumer Business Head -Acer India Amit Gujral, Cmo - LG Electronics India Sriram Gopalaswamy, Head Of Commercial Marketing - Lenovo India Pvt Ltd Parag Amalnekar, Director-Marketing, Netapp India Arvind Saxena, Group Marketing Head - Sify Technologies Ltd B S Rao, V.P-Marketing - Ctrls Datacenters Ltd. Dipti Singh, Head-Marketing & Communications -Vertiv Energy Pvt. Ltd. Tushad Talati, Director- Brand & Communications - Epson India Pvt. Ltd. Rupa Roy, Head Marketing, Apac - Mcafee India Sales Pvt. Ltd. Pawan Awasti, Channel Marketing Asia South - Nvidia India pvt. Ltd. Deepti Sharma, Marketing Head - SUSE Anoop Jarial, VP- Product Marketing, D-Link India Anupam Saha, Senior Marketing Manager - CP Plus India Pvt. Ltd.

UNISTAL SYSTEMS receiving the award for EMERGING ANTI VIRUS CONSUMER - Editors Choice Awards

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EVENT

SNA AWARDS 2017

Polycom unified communication solution pvt. Ltd. Receiveing the award for Best video conferencing infrastructure solution company

Oracle India receiveing the award for Best Business Application Solution Company

Dell India Receiving The Award For Best All In One-Consumer And Best Note Book- Consumer

Commscope Solutions Receiveing The Award For Best Structured Cabling Company

HP inc. Receiving The Award For BEST Note Book- Enterprise, Best Inkjet Printer (Single & Mfp), Best Laser Printer (Single & Mfp), Best Thin Client And Best Workstation

Canon India Receiving The Award For Best Photo Copier And Best Imaging Solution Company

Dell Emc Receiving The Award For End To End Technology Solution Company, Channel Favourite Any, Hyper Converged Infrastructure Solutions, Storage Solution Company

Hewlett Packard Enterprise receiving the award For Best X 86 SERVER , Best Networking Vendor For Enterprise -Aruba and Channel Leadership Award 2017

Epson India Receiving The Award For Best Projector, Best Pos And Best Inkjet & Inktank Printer

D-Link India Receiving The Award For Best Networking Switch Company And Editors Choice Award For Best Structured Cabling Vendor

Microsoft Corporation Receiving The Award For Best O.S - Window 10

Vertiv Energy Receiving The Award For Power Management Solution Company

Sophos Technologies Receiving The Award For Best Security Company In India

Tally Solutions Receiving The Award For Best Erp Solution For Smb

Seagate Technology Receiving The Award For Best Internal & External Hard Disk Drive

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SNA AWARDS 2017

Western Digital Receiving The Award For Best Flash Drive - Ssd

Sify Technologies Receiving The Award For Ict Company Of The Year

Rah Infotech Receiving The Award For Fastest Growing Vad

Vmware Software Receiving The Award For Best Cloud Infrastructure Solution Provider

Acer India Receiving The Award For Best Gaming Laptop

Company Name

Award category

Polycom Unified Communication Solution Pvt.Ltd.

HP India Inc

Commscope Solutions India Pvt. Ltd. Cisco Systems India Private Limited

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Sify Technologies Ltd Dell India Private Limited.

Canon India Pvt. Ltd.

Lg Electronics India Pvt. Ltd. Acer India Pvt.Ltd. Dellemc

Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd. Vertiv Energy Pvt.Ltd. D-Link India Limited

Epson India Pvt. Ltd.

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. Sophos Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Symantec India Pvt. Ltd. Lenovo India Pvt. Ltd. Western Digital (Uk) Ltd. Seagate Technology Intel Technology India Kingston Technology Mcafee India Sales Pvt. Ltd. Vmware Software India Pvt. Ltd. Nvidia Graphics Pvt.Ltd. Oracle India Pvt. Ltd. Sap India Pvt Ltd. Fortinet Inc. Redhat India Pvt. Ltd.

Seclore Technology F5 Networks.

Ctrls Datacenters Ltd. Cambium Networks Tally Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Microworld Technologies Incorporate(Escan) Aditya Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Digisol Systems Ltd. Radware India Pvt. Ltd. Barco Electronic Systems Pvt.Ltd. Forescout Technologies Fourth Dimension Solutions Ltd. Inspira Enterprise India Pvt. Ltd. Rah Infotech (P) Ltd. Unistal Systems Pvt. Ltd.

Video Conferencing Infrastructure Solution Company Best Note Book- Enterprise Best Inkjet Printer(Single & Mfp) Best Laser Printer(Single & Mfp) Best Thinclient Best Workstation Best Structure Cabling Company Best Networking Solution Company Best Unified Communication Solution Company Bset x 86 Server Best Networking Vendor For- Enterprise- Aruba Channel Leadership Award 2017 Ict Company Of The Year Best All In One-Consumer Best Note Book- Consumer Best Photo Copier Best Imaging Solution Company-1 Best Led Monitors Best Gaming Laptop End To End Technology Solution Company Channel Favourite Company Hyper Converged Infrastructure Solutions Storage Solution Company Best O.s.- Window 10 Power Management Solution Company Best Networking Switch Company Editor's Choice Award For Best Structure Cabling Vendor Best Projector Best Pos Best Inkjet & Inktank Printer Best Data Decurity Company Best Security Company In India Best End Point Security Solutions Best Note Bookâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; Sme Best Flash Drive-Ssd Best Internal & External Hard Disk Drive Best Processor Best Memory Module Best Enterprise Security Solutions Best Cloud Infrastructure Solution Provider Best Graphic Cards Best Business Application Solution Company Best Cloud Solution Provider Best Enterprise Network Firewall Best Open Source Infrastructure Solution Company Best Enterprise Digital Rights Management Best Application Delivery Network Vendor Best Data Center In India Emerging Wifi-Vendor Best Erp Solution For Smb Best Internet Security Suit â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Smb Best Electronics Security Company Best Innovation -Scs Products Best Ddos Vendor Best Wireless Collaboration Solution Vendor Best Network Access Control Vendor Emerging S.i. Of The Year 2017 Best Value Added Distributor Fastest Growing Vad Emerging Anti Virus - Consumer - Editors Choice Awards

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EVENT

INSPIRA ENTERPRISE receiving the award for BEST VALUE ADDED DISTRIBUTOR

MCAFEE INDIA receiving the award for BEST ENTERPRISE SECURITY SOLUTIONS

CAMBIUM NETWORKS receiving the award for EMERGING WIFI-VENDOR

RADWARE INDIA receiving the award for BEST DDOS VENDOR

FORESCOUT TECHNOLOGIES receiving the award for BEST NETWORK ACCESS CONTROL VENDOR

NVIDIA receiving the award for BEST GRAPHIC CARDS

MICROWORLD TECHNOLOGIES (eScan) receiving the award for BEST INTERNET SECURITY SUIT â&#x20AC;&#x201C; SMB

FOURTH DIMENSION SOLUTIONS receiving the award for EMERGING S.I. OF THE YEAR 2017

KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY receiving the award for BEST MEMORY MODULE

SECLORE TECHNOLOGY receiving the award for BEST ENTERPRISE DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

CTRLS DATACENTERS receiving the award for BEST DATA CENTER IN INDIA

BARCO ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS receiving the award for BEST WIRELESS COLLABORATION SOLUTION VENDOR

F5 NETWORKS receiving the award for BEST APPLICATION DELIVERY NETWORK VENDOR

DIGISOL SYSTEMS receiving the award for BEST INNOVATION - SCS PRODUCTS

LG ELECTRONICS receiving the award for BEST LED MONITORS

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EVENT

VAR REGIONAL AWARDS MUMBAI Aarvee Computers - Best Reseller Xpress Computers Ltd. - Best Var Orient Technologies Pvt Ltd. - Best Solution Partner Ashtech Infotech Pvt. Ltd. - Best System Integrator NEW DELHI Acpl Systems Private Limited- Best Solution Partner Team Computers Pvt Ltd- Best System Integrator Orbit Peripherals Pvt. Ltd.- Best Var Modi Infosol Pvt.Ltd.- Best Reseller KOLKATA Lalani Computer Academy Pvt.Ltd. -Best Reseller Technocrat Infotech Pvt. Ltd. - Best Var Embee Software Pvt.Ltd. - Best Solution Partner Techniche Consulting Services - Best System Integrator BANGALURU United Computers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Best Reseller Future Business Technology India Pvt. Ltd. - Best Solution Partner Value Point Systems Pvt.ltd. - Best System Integrator Newwave Computing Pvt.Ltd. - Best Var Up-country Sanghivi Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Best System Integrator, Ahmedabad

SOLUTION KIOSKS AT THE EVENT

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sNA - INDUSTRY ROUND TABLE

OLS and last-mile communication – Two major pain points of partners

The 16th Star Nite Award 2017 held on 3rd November witnessed an assembly of IT associations from across the country where VARINDIA along with FAIITA (Federation of All India IT Associations), organized a meeting to discuss the pain points of the channel and their expectations from the Federation. Various issues were raised during the discussions, but the major concerns that continue to exasperate the partners include price disparity in OLS, last-mile communication among associations, declining margin in SI business, lack of proactiveness of the Federation, etc.

Apart from the pain points, the growth opportunities of the business were also discussed, and Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India, mentioned, “To make the IT business more vibrant, we need to grow our business. PC penetration is in single digit, but globally it is over 30%. In the case of mobile phones, India is in the second position after China in terms of handset sales in a quarter. If the mobile phone penetration can happen, then why is it not possible in the case of PCs? GST offers a wonderful opportunity and the whole PC experience is changing.

The fourth Industrial Revolution is nothing but Artificial Intelligence, IoT, etc which, in turn, will increase the demand for PCs because it is all going to lead the content creation. Therefore, the new usage of PCs is going to come in the next two–three years. The new technologies will drive the growth of PCs." Champak Gurjar, President, FAIITA: "I have always conveyed that FAIITA is for business and we are here to increase business opportunities. We will also see that how we can educate our members to get the benefit of FAIITA."

Saket Kapoor, General Secretary, FAIITA: "In the last meeting of FAIITA held in Mumbai, it was decided that we will have State Champions (a person from a state who does significant volume of business) to have some kind of impression on the brand owner or OEM. In case the State Champion says something to the brand owner or OEM, then that would have an impact. We have been successful in a few states.

As far as communication to the last-mile is concerned, we are trying to pass the communication but as per the feedbacks which I get that the communication is not moving further to state Presidents. So we need to work on that as well."

B. Hari, Vice-President, FAIITA: "The internet penetration in India is growing very rapidly. So all brick-and-motor businesses will have to move to internet. The total bandwidth that we are consuming has gone up very significantly. The market share for most products is also increasing in the online space, but 85% of the business especially in the electronics space is done offline so this market is going to stay.

The only thing is we have to come together to understand what are the best practices so that there should be peaceful coexistence and we are able to speak sense to the brand owners whose products we are distributing or selling."

Sushil Kumar, State Coordinator, JCDA: "As I represent Jharkhand, the basic problem is the threat of online business and the price disparity between online and offline channels. We just say that a major percentage of the business comes from channel, but it is not the truth. Especially during the festive season, it is a very difficult situation for Tier-1 or Tier-2 partners to sell products. Moreover, the price disparity between the online and offline channels is huge. We are not opposed to supplying products to online channels, but the price difference should not be huge which hampers the offline channel business. " Navin Gupta, Jt Secretary, FAIITA: "Talking on the OLS issue that dealers are buying from online channel, they are using distributor’s money as they do not have cash to buy from OLS. So our money is involved to increase OLS business. It is a difficulty being faced by the Regional Distributors or National Distributors that how much money is to be invested in the market for channels.

In the case of FAIITA, it should start communicating with other associations. Unless and until local and state associations receive communication about the industry, GST, new laws, then how can they have trust in FAIITA. If this is started on a regular basis, then the local association will have trust in FAIITA."

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Alok Gupta, President, PCAIT: "For communication transparency in FAIITA, there will be about 40 people in the central body and after adding the district Presidents there will be a team of around 300 people. So that will be one link and everyone can communicate. From January next year, we should have a grand meeting where all district Presidents with state champions and office-bearers will be present. So that is the next thing that needs to be proposed in the next FAIITA meeting regarding the agenda to move ahead."

P. L. Suhasaria, President, COMPASS: "At first, we need communication transparency from FAIITA. Second, if we try to stop OLS, then we cannot do it because half of the industry will suffer for that.

Many dealers sell through OLS and get a good three percentage profit margin. To fight against OLS and other issues, we need to get united."

R. Sridhar, Past President, AIT: "In Bangalore, we have a different problem altogether. We are in the enterprise segment and there is also a lot of undercutting. The margin in the enterprise segment is bare minimum today. We need to address this issue while talking to vendors.

There is no standardization in the industry. There must be some kind of certification. If someone takes up a work, he goes to a certified person. So, thereby some margins are maintained. But now all margins have been wiped out.

We need to do the entire IT business from a different prism."

Arun Dey, Vice-President – East Zone, FAIITA: "Though FAIITA was formed two-three years back, but we have been unable to bond with the members.

So to unite all the members we need to communicate with the members regarding the issues. So, all the associations have to take the responsibility to do some kind of activities and meetings. The FAIITA representatives should also need to be present so that the happenings of national association, agendas and benefits of the channels can be conveyed. So I recommend to FAIITA that we should work for weaker section of the IT industry to prove that the association is for them and then the association will exist."

Vira Swamy, President, TCCDA, Hydrabad: "We should have to be proactive regarding the sales in OLS during the festive season. We get into action, talk to the right person but by that time the festive season is over.

Another concern is the market operating price of IT commodities. Unless and until we improve our market operating price, we cannot survive on the minimal margin."

Narendra Modi, President, CMDA, Pune: "If we want to make FAIITA a strong association, then we should move professionally. CMDA, Pune is an ISO 9001-approved association. FAIITA needs to work from the ground level."

Pankaj Shah, President, ASIRT: "We are the exclusive association catering to system integrators.

So the FAIITA leaders should consider the problems of the SI community also, besides the traders and box-pushers. In the SI business, the MRP and MOP of many products are less than even one per cent. In online, many people among us are selling refurbished or dumped materials. We should inform our vendors and principal companies about it."

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K.R. Chaube, President, TAIT: "We should consider FAIITA as a country so nothing can be solved so easily. FAIITA started with the issue of online channel and still we are with the same problem. There are various problems, but the objectives of FAIITA are very important. Every state association has a role and the biggest challenge for the last three years is that every association is being formed with some objectives. So if FAIITA wants to address the concerns of every association, then there are a lot of issues. So the objectives of FAIITA need to be defined."

Mitesh Dave, President, FITAG: "With the formation of FAIITA, we started fighting against OLS and we are still fighting for the cause.

According to me, apart from OLS, we should also consider two other issues and take them forward.

We need to identify the other two issues. We should also improve our liaison with the government."

Arun Nagraj, President, FITDAK: "To solve the problem, I have developed an app and everyone needs to get enrolled on it. The problem of communication till the last mile will be solved with this app. One can create groups where people can do B2B, dispose of all the old stocks among colleagues etc. But nobody is interested to get onboard on it. We should at least try to use this app."

Navin Gupta, Organizing Secretary, JCDA: "The objective behind FAIITA’s formation is OLS. Nothing has improved and the situation is still the same. I have observed a few things in the last two years. A few years back, Punjab association called for a purchase bandh and it was supported by FITAG and again the same has been done by UP association but nobody has stood up to support this bandh. If we have supported each other, then our unity would have helped to solve the OLS issue."

Kamal Gulati, Regional Secretary (North), ISODA: "We are living in a very dynamic world and in my view laptops and mobiles will be going off in five to seven years. Devices which will control multiple things would be in trend. Licensed software possibly will not exist in the coming year. So, to my mind, the time in which we are where government sales are rising, consumers and SOHO are becoming more critical. Apart from collaboration, we could work on training and updating people about new technologies and its advantages which can play a critical role."

Devesh Rastogi, President, UPCDA: I see FAIITA as a proactive association, dealing in two ways – opportunity and challenges. We have to look for new business opportunities for the members and work towards that. We have a number of challenges like OLS, national distributors, credit, channel ethics. As a national association, we have to be proactive in all of them.

Communication to the last mile is an important issue. FAIITA has to reach up to the last retail point.

Shyam Modi, Chairman, ADCTA: "According to me, we should increase the communication with government. Second, all the associations should pass on the information to our partners about the activities that have happened in FAIITA. Also, we need to request to the government to further decrease the GST rate."

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

Zopo Speed X the new phone in the sub Rs 10,000 segment The Zopo Speed X is powered by 1.3GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6753 processor and it comes with 3GB of RAM. The Zopo Speed X runs on Android OS v7.0 (Nougat), but the Speed Xâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s firmware can be upgraded to a newer version of OS. It comes with a Li-Po 2680 mAh, non-removable battery. The 5-inch Full HD display smartphone comes with a resolution of 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels at a PPI of 441 pixels per inch. It packs a powerful (13MP+2MP) dual rear camera along with a 13MP front camera that comes with the amazing soft LED Flash feature.

The camera of the Zopo Speed X is equipped with autofocus.

Autofocus is a camera feature that fine-tunes the focus of the camera, which is a nice feature of this smartphone. At the rear it holds a 13+2 MP sensor with auto focus and f/2.2 aperture and due to the dual camera setup the bokeh effect of the camera is great. The Zopo Speed X is a dual SIM (GSM and GSM) smartphone that accepts Nano-SIM. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, FM, 3G and 4G and sensors on the phone include Compass Magnetometer, Proximity sensor, Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor and Gyroscope. Zopo Speed X has 32GB ROM which is expandable up to 128GB. It comes with an 8.1mm slim and stylish metal body and yet weighs only 131g.

It is available in 4 exotic color variants.

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INDUSTRY EVENT

At VMware’s annual flagship conference, vForum 2017 held in Mumbai this year, VMware’s global and India leaders, industry's top influencers and subject matter experts came together to highlight company’s latest strategies in cloud infrastructure, business mobility technology and other technologies that will define the digital transformation of businesses in the future. During the course of the event, top leadership from VMware summarised its latest updates on products, solutions and GTM strategies for the year, as well as gave an overview of the market opportunity India holds for VMware’s global growth businesses.

VMware eyeing the Indian telecom sector to boost its growth

Pat Gelsinger Chief Executive Officer - VMware Inc.

California-headquartered VMware which is part of Dell EMC boasts of $7 billion plus revenue. It has over 5, 00,000 customers and 75,000 partners worldwide. It helps organisations accelerate their digital transformation journeys by modernising data centres and integrating public Clouds, driving innovation with modern apps, empowering the digital workspace and transforming security. VMware brings innovation in products and they have strategic partnerships with major technology players that include Amazon, IBM, HP and Microsoft. In terms of headcount, India has now passed Palo Alto as VMware’s biggest site. The presence of VMware in India has now expanded to six locations, including R&D centres in Bengaluru and Pune.

VMware identifies the key pillars responsible for reshaping industries – cloud, mobility, networking and security. After establishing its presence in the banking and the government institutions in India, Cloud infrastructure and business mobility major VMware is eying the vast telecommunications sector to further boost its growth.

“Bharti Airtel will be making extensive use of our products,” says Gelsinger. “In September, Vodafone entered into a software licensing agreement with VMware in order to access a range of the technology vendor’s products. As part of that agreement, VMware will be one of the vendors to support the operator’s global roll out of Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) to accelerate its delivery of future products and services in a rapid, cost-efficient manner. Software-defined virtualised platforms and services are an important part of the plan for service providers as they evolve their mobile networks towards the introduction of 5G in around 2020.

Gelsinger said, “India is a great talent base for me. Developers in Bengaluru and Pune contribute crucial components of VMware’s key technologies and the R&D team in India plays a critical role in product development in all of VMware’s strategic imperatives — the softwaredefined data centres (SDDCs), Hybrid Cloud and end-user computing.”

The main technology areas are software-defined networking, virtualisation, virtual desktops, digital workspace, enterprise mobility management, Cloud automation and operations monitoring. “India is a great market. Everything is big here in India and moreover, most of the technology companies are here offering us opportunity to partner with them to reach the world. So we have three reasons to be here — the talent, market opportunity and forging global partnerships.”

Lastly, VMware consistently focuses on what it calls cyber hygiene and infrastructure security for its customers. “Technology companies have largely failed our customers in the area of cyber security. So we build many of the base-level security capabilities directly into our products,” he summed up.

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Technology Innovation helps to reshape Industries Raghu Raghuram Chief Operating Officer, Products and Cloud Services, VMware Inc.

The digital transformation journey begins with getting ready for public Cloud, and to have that one needs to set up private Cloud infrastructure. “It is an important step is to categorise your applications – determining which applications need to be moved to the Cloud,” said Raghu Raghuram, Chief Operating Officer, Products and Cloud Services, VMware Inc. Secondly, hybrid cloud services from VMware are built on the foundation of vSphere, a leading virtualisation platform. Its NSX Cloud delivers consistent networking and security for Cloud-native applications and what really matters for organisations is to have a multi-Cloud strategy, and manage and secure them in a consistent way. Whether you are using private Cloud, public Cloud or hybrid, the important thing is to manage these in a consistent way.

“Starting with the US, VMware has started making VMware Cloud available on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to expand its hybrid Cloud strategy.

VMware Cloud on AWS is an on-demand service that enables one to run applications across vSphere-based cloud environments with access to a broad range of AWS services,” he concluded.

VMware plays role in Technology Transformation at the global level

Robin Matlock CMO – VMware

The technology sector is one of the strongest sectors for consuming VMware’s technology. I would argue that we play a bigger role than just virtualization. The entire VMware ecosystem is a part of our success and we will not succeed without it. It is in Dell’s best interest to allow VMware to nurture our ecosystem. Michael Dell personally has been very public and very consistent on his point of view on supporting VMware’s need to have a very diverse ecosystem.

Working with IBM...

We have got a great joint traction in the market. They have become a very strategic partner to us. So we have actually showcased our relationship with them. We had a wonderful advancement with IBM with the announcement on the cloud relationship with IBM Software Bluemix where VMware was running our stack on the IBM environment. We also boast of an extending and expanding cloud relationship with IBM. They are really vital partner of ours and we do business with other cloud providers as well but the IBM one was actually the first big one out of the gate.

Major achievements in 2017...

If you could look at our revenues, that would be probably one of the most comprehensive measurements of our growth. With our NSX portfolio, management automation and mobility with our end user computing portfolio, we are now delivering cloud services. We have over 5000 virtual SAN customers and over 2500 NSX customers, so those are business that are coming out of that incubation stage and are starting to really get traction. That’s a really important matrix of ours.

Engagement with the customers to maintain leadership...

Well there is no silver bullet. There is no one thing. I think it’s a lot about creating forums for customers to come and engage. So this is a big one of course. We also engage with business leaders because sometimes it’s not about just the technical stuffs, it’s about the understanding of business. If they want to transform their businesses and they are having an agenda of digital transformation, so, how do we help them in that journey? To address this, we have to connect the dots for them based on our experience of those 5, 00,000 customers. We have seen it done time and time again, so we are trying to bring that insight and create those opportunities to discuss that.

Public cloud demand…

The demand for public cloud is growing. I think in different regions, it’s in different stages of maturity but I definitely believe that public cloud is the real thing. Now I don’t believe that all workloads are going to move out of the datacenter to public cloud. I think some workloads will and I think some will not. There is regulation. There is privacy concern. So there is a lot of complexity in managing an enterprise and the applications and data that our enterprises run on. But I do believe that public cloud brings some value to the enterprise that is very attractive.

If it is done and if you are careful, you can have low cost elasticity. So I think the more we are enabling a nice seamless integration between on premises and public clouds, it will make it easier for enterprises to use the cloud that is for them.

Convergence of technology...

VMware is the pioneer of software defined. Talking not just compute, but about the whole networking industry, we got a tie up between networking hardware and the networking operating system and creating network virtualization. It’s got just as much potential as compute virtualization had 10 years ago; I would predict network virtualization to become equally as big. We are big advocates of software defined.

Hybrid cloud is the foundation of our whole strategy and the reason it’s the core of our strategy is because we believe customers require hybrid cloud architecture to prosper in this new decade. So hybrid cloud is just paramount to our whole strategy and we believe very passionately that it is here where the world will go and we are at the forefront of hybrid cloud architecture that will enable hybrid cloud computing.

Role in designing partner programs as a CMO VMware business is largely dependent on a vibrant ecosystem that is called Partner Exchange. We are bringing all our partners together and share with them by engaging and understanding their businesses to work together. This year we are holding a very high-end business leadership meeting where we bring senior leaders to understand where is the industry going. Our ecosystem is one of the critical success factors of our history and our future success. It’s all about deploying and getting customers to use all the capabilities served to them and our partners play a very vital role in it. The global partner program serves our partners worldwide because a lot of our partners have representations in multiple countries around the world. So, we have one global program supportive regionally.

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INDUSTRY EVENT

VMware collaborating with partners to ensure mutual success

Ross Brown Sr. V.P., World Wide Partners and Alliances, VMware

In an exclusive interaction with VARINDIA, Ross Brown, Sr. V.P., World Wide Partners and Alliances, VMware spoke about the commitment of VMware for the channel community across the globe – Partners are a very important component of our business eco-system and theyare involved in creating a solution and then they take them to the market. VMware has done a great job for partners in being able to create an integrated set of platforms for both datacenter transformation to hybrid cloud and provide across our 4400 cloud providers a consistent set of tools and experiences that radically make it easier to deliver IT value and in return it creates value for our partners.

Digital transformation……

It’s a big transition period with multiple engagements where you have multiple choices with Open Stack, Azure Stack, ‘VCF’. Therefore, we are going to try to make the best argument we can, for what we can do there. So, one difficulty we have is how one chooses the platform. The other difficulty they have is, work moving upstream. For example, if you look at Fujitsu’s Primeflex or HP’s Composable Infrastructure with Synergy or Dell’s VxRack, you are looking at a much more simplified and hyper converged architecture because all the intelligence sits in the software now. We are managing the networking plane and managing the storage. That transition radically simplifies what infrastructure means. But in an integrated solution it’s very difficult to come in and say.

Solution portfolio gets stronger with DELL EMC...

In Dell EMC merger, Michael Dell recognized a really good server company and a really good storage company. Putting them together you get integrated storage and servers and now you are building a Rack. By putting the networking switch in, you now have an integrated business. With the crown jewels in EMC; one is VMware and the other one is Pivotal, the opportunity can go win the architecture battle for hardware. I can go win the software battle for the software defined datacenter and we can also win the cloud native application architecture. That’s for partners who have connected the dots on that. Secondly, our deal with HPI and ‘Workspace ONE’ as their standard platform for managing their desktop as a service globally also speak of the vast opportunities we have.

Major achievements for VMware mission ’17...

The merger between HP and SEAC speaks of making a decision that for all of their outsourcing clients that they are going to default to ‘VCF’.

So, I would say there is an acceleration that’s going on and the biggest milestone we have achieved was moving from discrete products to platforms.

We have created Workspace ONE and VMware Cloud Foundation because its gives us a tremendous platform instead of point products to then go build a great partner program and a great business.

About 85% of our global transactions go through the channel and it will go to 90% next year. With some recent changes we are seeing 25% growth rate on the partner eco-system. Secondly, the growth of VMware has seen changes post-merger with Dell as it has increased from earlier 7-8% to 12.5% and that’s accelerating.

Going forward...

The reality is that it is a multi-Cloud world and the strategy of VMware is to focus not only to run on Clouds, but also helping customers thrive regardless of whichever Cloud they are in.

Gearing up to help customers in digital transformation Arun Kumar Parameswaran Managing Director - VMware India “The software services provided by VMware and its partnerships with multiple players in the Cloud infrastructure segment, including Amazon allow organisations to enjoy the benefits of hybrid Cloud and about 90 per cent of our customers want private Cloud in India, however, the demand currently is mostly for private Cloud,” Arun Kumar said.

“It also depends on the verticals you are working with. Regulated sectors like banking, telecom and governmental institutions want private Cloud as they can’t have their data on public Cloud,” he explained.

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FACE TO FACE

Cambium Networks brings High Quality products with Affordability to customers After becoming independent from Motorola Solutions in 2011, Cambium Networks has always been working towards connecting people, places and things, justifying the company’s vision “Connect the Unconnected”.

The company also focusses on offering affordable quality products which is a result of the company’s relentless effort towards innovating products. While discussing about the values and focus of the company with VARINDIA, Atul Bhatnagar, CEO, Cambium Networks, also mentions about the key verticals, investment plans and importance of R&D and innovation.

With a vision to connect the unconnected, Cambium Networks has understood the needs of Indian customers. In a price-sensitive country like India, customers always look for both quality and price. So understanding the customer’s requirements, the company has designed affordable products through innovation.

“Our vision is ‘Connect the Unconnected – People, Places and Things’. We focus a lot on products with affordable prices and high quality. So affordable quality is a key strategy because for Indian market you need quality products which work in variety of temperature, moisture, rain, icy conditions. So what we have done is we design the products which are affordable through innovations and yet we keep the quality of the product very high.

That is our formula for winning,” explains Atul Bhatnagar, CEO, Cambium Networks.

Key verticals

The verticals that are important for the company are service providers, energy grid, oil & gas, smart city, etc. Cambium helps to aggregate and transport data wirelessly with a coverage capacity of two metres to 245 kms.

“The key segments are wireless internet service providers, especially for developing cities. The big service providers are providing business-to-business connectivity.

Other segments include energy grid, oil & gas because wherever there is telemetry, wherever there is data to be brought back in to the applications or headquarters or cloud, our products are used because they can bring the data wirelessly.

Indoor-outdoor Wi-Fi, hotspots, smart city are some other segments. The smart city has a lot of data which generates within a city which has to be aggregated and transported wirelessly. We can cover two metres to 245 kms so that brings a good territory to provide the loop, the fabric and it can transport the data,” says Bhatnagar.

R&D and Innovation

Message for Partners “We would like to see strong partners and offer them good margins. They will keep the strength and create a strong winning situation.

We will like to give certifications and educate them on products so that they can deploy and support with confidence.”

Cambium Networks has its innovation centre in Bangalore with a capacity of around 200 people who design global products of quality and affordability.

“We have a strong presence in Bangalore and our engineers are innovating to offer affordable products which are not easy. It is easy to make expensive products with quality, but it’s tough to make affordable and yet highquality products. We will have strength of over 200 people soon in Bangalore Research and Development (R&D) Centre. For our company, it’s a pretty strong size and it is also designing global products. The India R&D Centre is not just providing high-quality products at an affordable price but also innovative products,” states Bhatnagar.

Few factors drive innovation in the company. Customer requirements, emerging technology, standards, etc play an important role behind innovation.

“Innovation in our company happens by three-four different paths. First, the engineers come up with an innovative idea and they decide, peruse and experiment in the lab.

Sometimes, they succeed and at times they fail. When they succeed, it gives us a base for innovation. Second, sometimes customer requirements drive us. If a customer says we are in a noisy condition then we have to design products which can connect a link in a very noisy condition. Third, it’s the new technology which is emerging on the horizon by the chip makers as they are designing the next- generation chip which gives us more processing power, memory, bandwidth. Sometimes, innovations happen due to new chips and hardware. Fourth, it is due to new emerging standards. While everyone will use the standard, it needs innovation to make it supportable, diagnosable. So, all these four areas drive innovation in Cambium Networks,” highlights Bhatnagar.

Talking about the latest innovation, he adds, “cnMedusa is the most important innovation of Cambium Networks because that is world’s first 14/14 massive mu MIMO and that access point does seven conversations at the same point in a 20 megahertz band. It is our most sophisticated innovation. We have deployed 3,000 Medusa units worldwide.”

Investment plans

While discussing about the investment plans of the company, he mentions, “The Indian market will be our biggest target and we spend 16-17% of the revenue on research and development. India is a growing market and there is a lot of opportunity for channel partners and those who provide affordable quality.” n

Aparna Mullick aparna@varindia.com

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Indian Surveillance industry transitioning to the next level In a talk with VARINDIA, Dr. Tinku Acharya, FIEEE, FNAE, Founder & MD - Videonetics technology highlights the growth of the IoT enabled surveillance industry in India as also the company’s future roadmap…

T

he security industry is ever-changing, with only a handful of innovators striving to come up with the next big thing in video management, central stations and many other security must-haves. From advanced multi-directional cameras to intelligent systems and other emerging technology, today’s video surveillance industry is poised to take IP cameras to the next level.

Analogue to digital surveillance…

Dr. Tinku Acharya observes that as more IP-based security devices inevitably replace the aging analogue systems, there is a wider use of security products and need of intelligent frameworks to meaningfully extract growing wealth of information from the sea of data generated from these security products.

“Videonetics indigenously developed the first versatile video IoT framework in India and the software framework can make any IP enabled device in intelligent and IoTenabled,” he says.

In 2017, some of the factors that have and will continue to play a large role in the steady growth of the video surveillance industry are - increased awareness of cybersecurity threats and the need for more secured solutions; savvier customers who understand the products and solutions better than ever and know what they want; a resurgence of video analytics as the technology gains a larger field of practical applications; increasing features and decreasing prices of video equipment; and the increasing acceptance of technologies such as video IoT, cloud computing, ubiquitous networking and underlying technology.

Surveillance in smart cities…

A city can’t be safe if it is not smart. Today, we can see surveillance application in retail, education, government, critical installations, traffic management, hospitality, health-care, and BFSI with other verticals exploring similar solutions. The same technology, when implemented in smart city projects reduces manual interference, predicts internal and external threats, system malfunctions and alerts authorities in times of exigencies.

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“As the cities grow smarter and more futuristic, video surveillance will begin to play pivotal roles in ensuring the safety of the cities, feels industry experts in the Smart Cities ecosystem. This will help to make our cities smarter, with a goal of achieving fewer crimes,” says Dr Tinku.

He further adds, “We have also deployed our city surveillance and intelligent traffic management solution at various states like Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat, aimed to reduce antisocial behaviours, crime, reduce traffic violations, enhancing disciplined behaviour to protect

“If technology works in India, it will work anywhere in the world.

Hence ‘made in India’ is the ‘Mantra’ for our industry not only in India, but it will play a great role in world market.”

Dr. Tinku Acharya lives of citizens and their properties.”

Going forward…

From reducing traffic violations to improving security in schools and airports, Videonetics has been innovating as well as deploying solutions for wide range of industries including banking, critical infrastructure, government, corporate campuses, seaports, traffic management, sports, large manufacturing plants, campuses, etc.

When it comes to research and development, Videonetics is committed to continue to march on its patriotic mission.

“We invested a lot, and will continue to invest in our R&D towards generation of Indian Intellectual Properties resulting in “Made in India” innovative products,” asserts Dr Tinku.

At present, Videonetics is working on Intelligent Traffic Management projects in more than 50 cities across the nation. It is developing futuristic intelligent applications to make the cities and traffic even smarter.

Dr. Tinku Acharya FIEEE, FNAE, Founder & MD - Videonetics

Dr Tinku also mentions that Videonetics will be announcing a number of pioneering technology and features next year which probably will be first of its kind. “We are working on a very versatile video-centric cloud computing framework especially optimized for video operations, and will launch our unique video IoT framework soon,” he sums up.

Latest innovations of Videonetics • Videonetics' Intelligent Traffic Management System is designed and architected to replace tedious manual processes to track, regulate and analyses vehicle movement on roads, and to enforce traffic rules for safety of citizens and their properties • Intelligent Video Analytics by Videonetics automatically extracting meaningful actionable information from digital video based on a rich set of video analytics.

• Videonetics innovated the new software based IoT platform which can be installed in a server or router or edge switch to ensure this unification platform.

• The Cloud Platform for Video is intelligent and robust enough to handle Millions of Gigabytes of Video data.

Megha megha@varindia.com

www.varindia.com

September 2017

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01000010010101000110000010010101010001111000011100001101010100001110001 001100001110000110101010000111000101010100000000000000000110000100 << Advanced Threat Protection >>

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<< Application Security >> 0000000001100001000010010101000110000010010101010001111 001100001110000110101010000111000101010100000000000 << Cyber Security >> << Endpoint Security >>

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<< Internet Security >>

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<< Network Security >>

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Are we fully secured from the ‘bloodless’ cyber war?

Cyber security in India has become a common board-room talk in most of the organizations and with thrust on digital India, eCommerce and digital payment; it has gained even more importance in recent times. The challenge is however - can we secure the world from the bloodless war?

Cyber security has gained such prominence in the last few years that it has also been identified as one of the key areas of development by PM Narendra Modi. Today’s digitally connected world presents a high risk of exposure to cyber attacks which are also the most sophisticated ones. As more data becomes readily available and information sharing becomes a norm, customer trust, corporate control and data privacy are all at risk.

Increasing need to secure information...

As the world enters the brave new world of compliance, cyber threats will continue to evolve.

With the rising concerns on cyber security, organizations are mandated by regulators to protect sensitive and private information in many different ways; demonstrating diligence in maintaining accurate inventories of personal data, where it resides, and how and where it is transmitted and handled.

“Increasing advocacy and awareness on Data Privacy has resulted in more pressure on

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organizations to provide customers with insight and the ability to request at any time how much of their personal data is being kept and how it is being used. Regulatory challenges, if left unaddressed, could threaten the stability of the financial system. More robust and comprehensive data governance and privacy assessments need to be regularly conducted in order to ease compliance burden against the backdrop of a fast-evolving regulatory landscape,” says Rajnish Gupta, Regional Director, India & SAARC, RSA. He further continues, “Connecting security incident with business context to manage risk and protect what matters most is what RSA calls Business-Driven Security. This also helps bridge the ‘Gap of Grief ’. Both security and business leaders want to understand to what degree security incidents, be it from cyber or data privacy, impact business objectives, business continuity, intellectual property, and damage to reputation, among other things. The inability to do so is what we call the “Gap of Grief ”.

Organizations will need to have these three most critical elements for a sound security strategy; rapid response and detection, control at the user access level, and business risk management. It’s time to thrive in an uncertain, high-risk world.

It’s time for Business-Driven Security.”

“Modern networks are complex, with undefined perimeters and elastic architectures,” says Jitendra Ghughal, Director Channels, India & SAARC, Fortinet. “At the same time, modern cyber attacks are more frequent and sophisticated, identifying and targeting specific vulnerabilities and incorporating code into their

malware that can detect and evade security.

As technology evolves and cyber attacks have become more threatening, IT teams have had to incorporate additional security solutions along the way to protect data across their distributed networks and virtual environments. This sort of organic sprawl results in what many security professionals refer to as accidental security architecture.”

What many customers may not realize is that their gradual implementation of separate security platforms across each networking layer, including the Cloud, has actually limited their visibility and control and hindered their ability to implement an effective security strategy.

Having to manage each of these tools and hand correlate data between them, especially as networks become more decentralized, puts significant strain on IT teams, which are generally already understaffed due to the current IT skills gap. As a result, they are more likely to miss important threat intelligence, as they do not have the time to adequately analyze and crosscheck data collected from multiple sources.

The complexity of many Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) protocols means that far too often IT is simply unable to respond to even the incident alerts they know about. While many IT security professionals recognize that SIEM protocols can provide valuable benefits, 68 percent say they would need additional staff to maximize its value.

“Security professionals are coming to realize that the solution to an overly complicated security suite is not to continue to deploy more security tools. Instead they believe in

Security solutions from vendors – Trend Micro

Rajnish Gupta Regional Director, India & SAARC, RSA

Connecting security incident with business context to manage risk and protect what matters most is what RSA calls Business-Driven Security. This also helps bridge the ‘Gap of Grief’.

Trend Micro TippingPoint next-generation intrusion prevention system (NGIPS) solution detects and blocks attacks in-line in real-time.

It also provides endpoint security solutions like Trend Micro Smart Protection Suites, and Worry-Free Business Security to protect users and businesses from the threats by detecting malicious files, spammed messages and to block all related malicious URLs. Trend Micro OfficeScan with XGen endpoint security infuses high-fidelity machine learning with other detection technologies and global threat intelligence.

F5 Networks

F5 uniquely enhances organization’s security strategy with the broadest portfolio of appcentric security solutions and services in the market. F5’s contribution to the security strategy goes beyond security solutions to include programs like F5 Labs, providing actionable application threat intelligence; the F5 Security Operations Center (SOC) and Security Incident Response Team (SIRT), providing intelligence services and monitoring to more effectively identify threats and deliver immediate response.

eScan

With its strong R&D capabilities, eScan has incorporated technologies like Terminal Services Protection module (TSPM) to detect & mitigate brute force attempts. eScan’s EPP and EMM solutions are an integral part of eScan’s enterprise range of products, with MDM and Hybrid Network Support such as eScan Corporate 360, eScan Endpoint Security and eScan Enterprise 360. Furthermore, the new eScan Management Console (EMC) module includes a Secure Web Interface that facilitates dynamic security management of the server, endpoints and mobile devices in the corporate network.

Fortinet

Jitendra Ghughal Director Channels, India & SAARC, Fortinet

"Security professionals are beginning to believe in taking an architectural approach that integrates tools into a single system to achieve real defense in depth and shorten the time between detection and response."

Nilesh Jain Country Manager - India & SAARC, Trend Micro

"Trend Micro is working closely with most of our customers to ensure that they are fully aware about all kinds of attack vectors."

The Fortinet Security Fabric offers customers a unique resolution to security sprawl with its connected end-to-end security architecture. It offers integrated tools that cover customer’s entire IT infrastructure, including application protection, security for public, private, multicloud, endpoints, networks, data centers, and more. In addition to integrate its own family of security products into the Security Fabric, Fortinet also offers the Fabric Ready Partner Program to ease Security Fabric deployment for both its Channel Partners and customers by allowing tools from third party vendors to interoperate across the Security Fabric. Fabric-Ready integrated solutions are pre-validated and ready for deployment.

Sophos

Sophos’ XG Firewall stops evasive network applications that were going unidentified. It also has the ‘synchronized security’ its real time threat intelligence system that works together with network and endpoints to combat known and unknown threats. taking an architectural approach to security that integrates tools together into a single system and incorporates machine learning and automation to achieve real defense in depth and dramatically shorten the time between detection and response,” says Jitendra.

Trend Micro on its part has an optimized and connected security strategy, with separate team for government, large and mid-enterprises as they have different set of requirements. Its approach is very simple with a focus to protect customers irrespective of whether it is latest or conventional attacks, with comprehensive solutions, which cater to customers at all entry and exit points for attacks, including email gateway, web gateway, network or endpoint.

“Our job is not only to protect enterprises from cyber-attacks, but also to prevent and prepare companies to tackle it themselves. And hence, we are working closely with most of our customers to ensure that they are fully aware about all kinds of attack vectors and the precautionary measures are taken accordingly,” says Nilesh Jain, Country Manager - India & SAARC, Trend Micro.

With its strong R&D capabilities, eScan has incorporated technologies like Terminal Services Protection Module (TSPM), MicroWorld Winsock Layer (MWL), Proactive Behavioural

Analysis Engine (PBAE), Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS), Domain & IP Reputation Check and Non-Intrusive Learning Pattern (NILP) Technology to provide realtime protection against Ransomware, DDoS, APT and other cyber-attacks. “In our endeavour to remain at the crest of the growing security challenges coming from multi vector attacks, we have strengthened our technologies by relentless efforts from our R&D team,” says Sunil Kripalani, Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing, eScan International Cyber Policy expert, Advocate Prashant Mali however feels that organisations spend too much on prevention but they need to be reactive to threats too. “While some organizations spend only on prevention, in cyber space as new threats loom large, organisations need to be reactive to threats and should also have strategies in place to find the perpetrators.

Cyber Insurance should be on board agenda and the policies should be seriously evaluated by expert lawyers before buying,” he reiterates.

BFSI remains the main target for security hackers and being aware of this they have stepped up their cyber security defenses. Yet, it has not hindered cybercriminals from continuing to hack away at banks and financial firms’ defense.

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Overcoming security threats...

Sunil Kripalani Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing, eScan

"In our endeavour to remain at the crest of the growing security challenges coming from multi vector attacks, we have strengthened our technologies by relentless efforts from our R&D team."

Sunil Sharma managing director sales, Sophos India & SAARC

"Sophos continues to enable business readiness to stay a step ahead of cyber threats.

The security market has focused on scanning executables for anti-malware, but now we see a growing number of data breaches."

According to a recently released Sophos Labs 2018 Malware forecast report that recaps ransomware and cyber threats trends, no platform is immune. Cyber threats will continue to grow in numbers and complexity.

“Sophos continues to enable business readiness to stay a step ahead of cyber threats.

For years, the security market has focused on scanning executables for anti-malware, but now we see a growing number of data breaches occur due to exploits. As a result, we have pushed aggressively into the realm of next-generation anti-ransomware exploit detection and prevention with Sophos Intercept X that fights zero day malware and unknown exploit variants.

In a nutshell, being proactive in cybersecurity will ensure business continuity,” says Sunil Sharma, managing director sales, Sophos India & SAARC.

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As was with last year, sophisticated ransomware attacks will continue in 2018, but in a more specialized and targeted manner.

While this year, security for a handful of public cloud providers were compromised, next year, one can expect attack on applications and data of customers which are hosted in public cloud without adequate protection.

“India has already experienced the exploitation of ATMs, through ransomware attacks. The year 2018 will experience more of similar targeted attacks at the ATMs. While earlier physical attacks on ATMs were common, malware attacks on ATM were not much heard of, till mid of last year. Momentum of similar attacks is going to pick up with hackers going behind ATM machines,” reminds Nilesh.

“Threats are evolving so quickly on the black hat side that the only way to combat them is through automated and intelligent defense layers that can quickly identify new and existing threats and then make decisions to mitigate them.

This type of cybersecurity defense is called “actionable intelligence.” It requires deploying interconnected security solutions everywhere across your expanded network, including deep into the cloud. The goal is to create a security solution that is able to see and identify the stages of a threat and then make a decision on its own. Such an expert system is able to identify and block attacks at network speeds so that we don’t have to rely on humans, who often miss too much and respond far too slowly, to take action,” suggests Jitendra.

And all of this needs to happen automatically, everywhere and at the same time across the entire distributed network. This includes physical and virtual environments, distributed data centers, remote offices, IoT and mobile endpoint devices, and even deep into the multicloud, including everything from complex infrastructure solutions to simple cloud-based services. “Actionable intelligence combined with expert systems empowered with automated processes that enable autonomous decisionmaking is the future of cybersecurity,” he says.

Advocate Prashant Mali maintains that it is high time for organisations to establish a cyber security culture immediately and it should be every organisation’s goal. “Organizations should have legally vetted incident response policy which is to be drilled every year. They should spend on human dimensions of cyber security.

Every single agreement every organisation has needs to be vetted in the light of cyber Risks.”

F5 Networks also believes that dialogue is always positive. Discussion and deliberation among boards and enterprise leaders are an imperative and help safeguard the organizations from possible threat. “However, our recent Global CISO report (conducted in partnership with Ponemon) found that security strategies are still only a reaction to threat rather than a proactive approach. The findings are in line with what we have witnessed in the market.

At F5 we believe that the next iteration of security challenges to business will come from “Bad actors” that will not distinguish between a private business or a government business,” states Parag Khurana, Managing Director, F5

Advocate Prashant Mali Bombay High Court Lawyer and International Cyber Policy Expert

"While some organizations spend only on prevention, in cyber space as new threats loom large, organisations need to be reactive to threats and should also have strategies in place to find the perpetrators."

Parag Khurana Managing Director, F5 Networks India & SAARC

"At F5 we believe that the next iteration of security challenges to business will come from “Bad actors” that will not distinguish between a private business or a government business."

Networks India & SAARC. He further continues, “The conversations so far mentions securing business networks from external threat whereas in an increasingly digital world and the advent of personal hand held devices the threat vectors have shifted.

We have observed that almost 9 out of every 10 attacks utilize vulnerabilities at an individual user level. Hence, we believe the approach should be to focus more heavily at securing applications to consequently secure the network.”

While cyber threats of a higher magnitude continue to be a global phenomenon and cyber security becomes an integral part of national security, there lies a huge opportunity for India to lead in the cyber security space through innovation and leadership. n

Samrita Baruah samrita@varindia.com

Dinesh Malkani to lead Smarten Spaces Ex-Cisco CEO, Dinesh Malkani will lead Singapore-headquartered Smarten Spaces as its worldwide CEO. He also happens to be its founding partner and will bring a differentiated perspective on the future evolution of organizations and industries as they adapt to the opportunities the 4th Industrial Revolution will bring. He will lead the pioneer team responsible for shaping the blueprint to design, define, develop and deploy the company’s strategy worldwide.

He will also be a member of the Smarten Spaces Board.

Smarten Spaces is getting the solution conceptualized and designed in Singapore. The company also announced the establishment of its Experience Development Centre in Bengaluru, India. Smarten Spaces will enable transformation of the experience in environments used by communities of people. It is introducing globally its artificial intelligence powered platform, connecting users to things and services where they live, work and play.

The company continues to add talent as it grows its pioneer team which includes · Aamer Azeemi, an industry thought leader on work being done to build Smart Cities and Smart Infrastructure and will lead enterprise consulting and strategy enablement, building on his experience in Wipro, Omniyat Properties and Cisco · Krishanu Seal, who will lead Technology & Engineering and be responsible for creating the software platforms at Smarten Spaces to deliver nextgeneration solutions, leveraging his expertise from his leadership roles as Vice President of Engineering at Flipkart and in Research and Development at Yahoo, Aol and Amazon.com. · Prithvi Shergill, who will anchor talent enablement and workplace experience design, having led Human Resource and Facility Management teams in HCL Technologies and has worked to start and scale various organizations and teams at Accenture, Singapore Telecom, AT&T. “The company has raised the initial funding it requires to build and go to market as it expands across additional geographies. Space design and management today is hungry for new ideas that will disrupt how people are using technology as they seek to shape new ways of working and making living more enjoyable. Efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and sustainability can today be multiplied by augmenting intelligence using IoT," Malkani said.

Dinesh Malkani, in his last assignment, was the President of Cisco India and SAARC and has held leadership roles with companies like AT&T, Avaya, Jabra across Asia Pacific.

Ericsson live demonstrates potential of 5G at Ericsson Connect 2017 Ericsson has showcased live 5G end-to-end demonstration in India using its 5G test bed and 5G NR Radio, demonstrating extremely high throughput and ultra-low latency. According to the company, this milestone builds on Ericsson’s pioneering role in the Indian telecom industry. It reinforces the company’s commitment to bring the latest technology innovations and creating a 5G ecosystem in the country in support of the Indian Government’s vision to have 5G mobile network roll outs in India by 2020.

Speaking at the event, Nunzio Mirtillo, Head of Market Area – SE Asia, Oceania and India, Ericsson said, “We are strengthening our commitment to the Indian market by pioneering the first live 5G demonstration in the country.

The 5G technology showcase has been organised in the direction of creating a robust 5G eco system in the country even as the Government plans to have 5G network roll outs by 2020.

The technology exhibit at Ericsson Connect 2017 also featured 5G use cases and live demonstration of essential technologies on the road to 5G like Gigabit LTE (1 GBPS download speeds) with License Assisted Access (LAA) technology. The LAA live demo highlights how this technology can leverage wireless network resources using higher frequency bands on small cell architecture. Other technology

innovations presented in the showcase included advancements in Radio Network Evolution, 5G Ready Transport and Network Slicing.

He further added 5G research and development is natural for Ericsson thanks to our innovation, R&D focus, technology leadership and thought leadership. We are the first to market with solutions that enable today's networks to evolve smoothly to the next generation of networks.”

Ericsson’s new 5G platform comprises the 5G core, radio and transport portfolios, together with digital support systems, transformation services and security.

Nitin Bansal, Managing Director, Ericsson India said, “5G is expected to play a major role

in digitalization of industries. 5G will bring new level of performance and characteristics to the telecom networks enabling new services and creating new ecosystems. New revenue streams will open for operators as they go beyond being Connectivity and Infrastructure providers to become service enablers and service creators.

5G has the potential to enable 43% incremental revenue opportunity for the Indian operators by 2026.”

Also, as per the latest released Ericsson 5G Business Potential Report, 5G will enable a $27 billion revenue opportunity for Indian telecom operators by 2026. The largest opportunity will be seen in sectors like manufacturing, energy and utilities followed by public safety and health sectors. This will be over and above the revenue generated from traditional services which is expected to grow up to $63 billion by 2026.

Agriculture will open-up revenue opportunities up to $400 million for telecom operators. The application of 5G will be in areas like field monitoring and mapping, livestock routing and monitoring, on-field applications, and related services. The retail sector in India will offer potential 5G enabled revenue of up to $1.15 billion by 2026. 5G can help in revolutionizing customer experience and increase operational efficiencies within the retail segment.

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VAR MOBILITY

Comio seeks to manifest itself among entrenched competitors In a chat with VARINDIA, Sanjay Kalirona, CEO and Director, COMIO India speaks about the present smartphone market landscape, its different strategies to strengthen its position in the market, strategy around service support, retail, and much more….

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he Indian smartphone market is rapidly growing due to the transformation of latest and more advanced technologies.

With the robust growth in smartphone shipments, India is now the second largest telecommunication market. The market continues to be dominated by Chinese brands, with China-based smartphone capturing a hefty amount of share in the smartphone shipments of the country.

Meanwhile, the low cost and well executed services are also adding to the robust growth of Chinese brands in the Indian market.

“India has witnessed a boom in the smartphone market and is considered as one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world. The demand for smartphones is growing exponentially in India especially in Tier II and III markets. 50% of the smartphone market is dominated by the Chinese players. This is one the most evolving and dynamic of industries,” reiterates Sanjay Kalirona, CEO and Director, COMIO India.

While discussing the present landscape of the market with VARINDIA, Sanjay discusses how Comio smartphones have been designed keeping the Indian consumers in mind.

Strategies for market expansion...

As a new entrant in the market, when Sanjay was asked to tell us about the current strategy of the brand to strengthen its position, he revealed, “Our strategy is to position COMIO as a strong emerging brand in the smartphone segment. Also, we are focusing on marketing of the brand for which we have launched a 360-marketing campaign across platforms where we will aggressively look at one-on-one engagement with the youth.”

While sharing his thoughts on the growth of Indian market, Sanjay said that India is the second largest market for smartphones. “From the consumers’ perspective, tier- 2 & 3 markets play a vital role as they will contribute to 80% of our sales. COMIO aims to have a 10-12% market share within the mid-segment smartphone category.”

When asked about the current market size of Comio in India he discussed, “We have received a tremendous response from North and West India ever since our launch. It is too early to comment on our market share as we have not even been in the market for 6 months.

But definitely the response is phenomenal and we are working towards becoming the leader in the mid-segment category in the coming years.

It is a growing and dynamic industry hence brands need to innovative their product with the changing times and communicate with their TG effectively.”

Speaking on the investment in R&D, Sanjay shared that COMIO plans to invest INR150 Crores in manufacturing and R&D. According to him, the brand has received an overwhelming response for their smartphones in a very short span of time. This has encouraged the brand to keep moving towards its aim of becoming the leader in the mid-segment category by coming up with even better products for their consumers.

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Sanjay Kalirona CEO and Director COMIO India He further revealed that COMIO had sold 65,000 handsets in two weeks since its launch. The three smartphones- P1, S1, & C1 became available at all leading retail chains in North India and key online platforms starting 5th September 2017.

Retail & service strategy….

COMIO is primarily focusing in general trade/offline market and aim to gain consumers’ trust and belief. Offline is the most flourishing channel for the brand at the moment. Sanjay revealed that they have 30,000 retailers and 800 distributors to strengthen its brand presence in the market while it will also increase its after-sales touch points to 800+, catering to 500-550 towns.

When it comes to support, COMIO is offering its customers a very special after-sales service. The brand will be offering 30 days DOA, a special buy back and upgrade offer allowing customers to upgrade their old smartphone.

“The COMIO upgrade offer, allows you an assured 40% return on your old COMIO phone (not more than 12 months old) which will be given if you want to upgrade your existing COMIO phone.

Additionally, all three smartphones also come with a free one-time screen replacement warranty within six months of purchase to supplement the one-year + 100 days’ extra manufacturer warranty,” concluded Sanjay. n

Abha Singh abha@varindia.com

VAR MOBILITY

Sony India unveils series of smartphones exclusively for India

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ony India has launched two brand-new smartphones in the mid-segment, namely “Xperia R1 Plus and R1”, exclusively for the Indian market. The mid-segment enjoys a dominant share of the Indian smartphone market.

Launched exclusively for the Indian customers, Xperia R1 Plus and R1 have been specially designed for the Indian market, given the much in demand 4G network features, thereby creating the most future-ready smartphones, catering to a unique customer experience.

The smartphones come with a premium 13.2cm (5.2”) HD display with simple extruded form, a 13MP Autofocus camera.

With Exmor, Faster uploads via Uplink Data

Compression (UDC) with Qualcomm Snapdragon 430, it has the latest network capabilities such as VoLte and 4G Broadcast and comes with Android Oreo 8 . 0 upgrade ready.

Kenichiro Hibi, MD, S o n y India, said,

“Customer interest is exceedingly high in the smartphone category in India, particularly the midsegment and we would like to leverage this demand with the launch of our midsegment smartphones."

Xiaomi presents new Redmi Y series and MIUI 9 OS in India

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iaomi has introduced its new smartphone series with two latest additions – Redmi Y1 and Redmi Y1 Lite.

Alongside the new series of phones, Xiaomi has also unveiled the global version of MIUI 9, the

latest upgrade to its popular Android-based operating system, which includes new features designed for India.

The company has revealed that, with MIUI 9, Xiaomi focused on faster app launches, and a smoother UI with reduced latency. MIUI 9 also brings split screen, an improved

notification dropdown, as well as icon animations, and smart photo editing featuring object removal.

The improved notification dropdown includes multiple styles, bundled app notifications, as well as quick replies right from the dropdown.

MIUI 9 also brings support for the Panchang calendar, festival cards for over 26 festivals in India, as well as Horoscope, News, Cricket News, Cricket Schedule, Football Schedule, Health and Fitness, and “On this Day” information.

The gallery app now features 12 sticker sets onboard, with four exclusively designed for India.

OnePlus presents its flagship device 5T

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nePlus has announced the OnePlus 5T, its flagship device.

The device offers key hardware and software updates inspired by the active OnePlus community, including a higher resolution, 18:9 display, enhanced low-light camera performance, and numerous new software features.

"The feedback on the OnePlus 5 has been very positive, but there were some areas where we saw room for improvement to create an even better user experience," said OnePlus Founder & CEO Pete Lau. "We love nothing more than offering our community the latest and greatest technology and a user experience to beat expectations. Once again, we’ve worked hard to refine every last detail.”

The OnePlus 5T marks the introduction of a 6-inch Full Optic AMOLED Display with an 18:9 aspect ratio to deliver a more immersive viewing experience, all while keeping a form factor similar to that of the OnePlus 5. Its Full Optic AMOLED display features a new Sunlight Display that adapts automatically to harsh light to facilitate a great viewing experience.

To ensure the OnePlus 5T’s seamless front design, OnePlus moved its famously fast ceramic fingerprint sensor, which unlocks the phone in under0.2 seconds, to the back of the device. The seamless aluminum unibody of the OnePlus 5T is both functionally and visually slim, creating a phone that is not only comfortable to hold but extremely durable.

Designed with painstaking attention to detail, the OnePlus 5T continues OnePlus design's proud tradition of refinement and total cohesion.

Micromax along with Vodafone presents 4G smartphone at Rs.999/-

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odafone and Micromax has announced the launch of India's lowest-priced 4G smartphone with Vodafone SuperNet 4G connection for just Rs.999/-.

The smartphone “Bharat2 Ultra” is a new smartphone under Micromax's successful 4G smartphone “Bharat series” that aims to bring better camera, battery and display options for the new smartphone users in the most affordable category.

Under this partnership, the existing and new Vodafone customers will have to buy Micromax Bharat-2 Ultra Smartphone priced at Rs.2,899/- and will have to simply do a recharge

of at least Rs.150/- per month for 36 months. (The recharges can be of any denomination totalling to a minimum of Rs.150/- per month.)

Rahul Sharma, Cofounder, Micromax, says, "The Bharat-Series, has been aimed for acquisition of the first-generation smartphone users. This partnership with Vodafone will help bring in the next phase of smartphone adoption by hand-holding consumers to upgrade them from feature phones to smartphones.

We believe that greater device affordability and low-cost data packs will drive increased smartphone adoption, as there is still a huge gap."

Moto x4 with Snapdragon 630 launched in India at Rs.20, 999/-

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otorola has introduced a new addition to its Moto x series – Moto x4 at an introductory price of Rs.20, 999/-. The new

serve as your eye to the world – just point the lens at an object of interest and it will automatically ask if users want to learn more about what they are seeing.

Moto x4 features a dualrear camera with advanced intelligent camera software, an IP68 water- and dustresistant design. The device is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor and will be available in Sterling Blue and Super Black colour variants.

The device sports a dual 12MP and 8MP rear cameras and a 16MP front camera with an adaptive low-light mode for the selfie. The new Detection feature lets the camera

It can even scan a business card and quickly add the info to user’s contacts.

Moto x4 is armed with robust protection, the IP68rated water-resistant design keeps Moto x4 protected from accidental spills, splashes and even puddles.

Equipped with powerful performance capabilities, the new Moto x4 is driven by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 2.2 GHz octa-core processor. Inside, a 3,000mAh battery will power you through your day.

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The Fate of ‘8’

2017 has been nothing short of an exceptional year for smartphones as the year saw a hype in new exciting technologies and features like Infinity Display, facial recognition security, dual sight video capability hitting the market, while on other hand specs like finger print security and dual camera were seen becoming a humdrum due to its easy availability in budget phones. But the real hype however was with the number ‘8’...

The Race to launch model 8...

2017 is almost coming to an end! If we talk about the launch of smartphones and their latest technologies, we have seen a bevy of them getting launched this year. Undoubtedly the year 2017 has been a pretty crucial year for the Smartphone Industry as most of the leading players released their by far best groundbreaking technologies in their devices.

The Indian market in the past few months has seen the launch of some of the most incredible products. If we are asked to select the best smartphones launched this year, the Samsung S8, Galaxy Note 8, Nokia 8 and iPhone 8 plus would indeed be the ‘Newsmaker’ launches of 2017.

Amidst these launches this year, other than the technology there was one more element which was common among these devices - the Number ‘8’. The Top leading Smartphone brands like Apple, Samsung, and Nokia have introduced their ‘model 8’ devices, all in quick succession. Here, it won’t be wrong to say that 2017 has indeed been the year of ‘number 8’, especially for the Indian mobile industry.

Whether we talk about iPhone8, Samsung Galaxy Note 8 or for say Nokia 8, the number 8 had been an extra common element apart from its technologies.

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Which is the best 8?

If we look at the current situation of the Indian Smartphone market, it continues to be dominated by brands like, Samsung Xiaomi, Lenovo, Vivo, Oppo etc. Samsung and Xiaomi are both sharing the top spot in the chart with a market share of 23.5% each in the Indian Smartphone shipments. .

While in context of the India premium segment (>Rs. 30,000/US $465 retail price), the market has recorded a growth by 180% YoY during Q3 2017, as suggested by Counterpoint’s latest report. It reported that the three brands - namely Apple, OnePlus and Samsung together controlled 98% of the total shipments in the premium segment. However, Apple retains its position as the premium brand.

Commenting on the present landscape of the Indian smartphone market, Karn Chauhan, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research said, “Samsung and Xiaomi together contributed to almost 45% of the smartphone market. This is the first time since 2012 that the top two brands have reached this level of combined share, signalling that key brands are ramping up their presence in India. Additionally, the quarter was marked with return to growth for

local handset players such as Micromax and Lava in the smartphone segment.”

This year the No. 8 has been noticed as a prominent common trend in almost all the phones apart from the Dual camera and fingerprint technology. Though the finger-print sensor technology and dual camera feature have become almost ubiquitous, but the Magic of 8 is visibly seen as a common thread between all the major brands.

If you are a believer of numerology and a person who considers number 8 as a lucky number and thinking to upgrade your current smartphone, then you can try your hands on these devices. According to numerology, the number 8 symbolizes dominance, growth and achievement due to which it is considered to be lucky especially in Asian countries.

It’s hard to whittle down the best device from the rest, but we can certainly tell you the best and the exclusive technology each product carries that make these devices different from the rest.

Talking about Nokia8, the dual sight video capability is definitely the unique feature of the brand. The device also packs the Snapdragon 835 SoC for better performance. The brand is

Notable 8 devices

iPhone8 Launch date: September, 2017 |Price: Rs. 61,999 | Ram & Storage: 2GB (64GB) | Display: 4.7 (750x1334)| OS: iOS 11 | CPU: Apple A11 Bionic | Battery: 1821mAh | Rear camera: 12MP | Front camera: 7MP|

Nokia 8 Launch date: August, 2017 |Price: Rs. 34,299 | Ram & Storage: 4 GB (64, 256 GB) | Display: 5.3 (1440 x 2560)| OS: Android Nougat 7.1.1| CPU: Snapdragon 835 | Battery: 3090mAh | Rear camera: 13MP | Front camera: 13MP|

Lenovo K8 Note Launch date: August, 2017 |Price: Rs. 11,849 | Ram & Storage: 3GB (32, 128 GB) | Display: 5.5 (1080 x 1920)| OS: Android Nougat 7.1.1| CPU: MediaTek Helio P25 | Battery: 4000mAh | Rear camera: 13MP | Front camera: 13MP|

Samsung Galaxy S8 Launch date: April, 2017 |Price: Rs.57,900 | Ram & Storage: 4GB (64, 256 GB) | Display: 5.8 (1440 x 2960)| OS: Android Nougat 7.0| CPU: Samsung Exynos Octa 8895 | Battery: 3000mAh | Rear camera: 12MP | Front camera: 8MP|

Notable 8 devices pinning its hopes on its bothie effect to act as the big USP for the product.

While on other hand, Samsung in it’s both launches has added its new Bixby feature which has been optimized to understand English in Indian accents. The latest additions to Samsung portfolio also comes with an Infinity Display, and an improved S Pen that acts as a personal translator and convertor which appear as a big selling proposition for the brand.

The latest iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus comes with features like wireless charging, while its vastly improved cameras and Portrait Mode make its camera as one-of-a-kind experience. In comparison to the Model-8 devices of Samsung, Apple and Nokia, Lenovo’s 4000mAh battery and reasonable price is its biggest USP for its devices. The price of Lenovo devices makes it popular among the midrange phone segment. There is also a TheaterMax VR mode and the advanced dual camera, 3 GB Ram and expandable memory of upto 128 GB makes the latest products of the brand premium at this price.

Honor 8Pro phone packs 128GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 128GB and is powered by a strong 4000mAh battery. Comparing to other products, the device gives the most storage and also is slightly less expensive than the rest which makes it a sought after product of the brand.

Apart from these mega launches, there is also another remarkable launch that hits the market in 2017 - again with the number 8 Google’s announcement of its next version of mobile OS ‘Oreo 8’. As a technology that definitely stands out as an exceptional launch, some of the highlighting features of Oreo 8 includes picture in picture (multi-windowing mode) which lets users to see two apps at once, a new redesigned notifications system, new ‘adaptive launcher icons’, improved sound quality and battery life, multi-display support with a number of fresh improvements and new APIs for developers.

If we closely look into all these models, except Lenovo, almost all other devices come under the premium price range. But it’s difficult to say who will beat the rest and prove itself as a successor for their respective brand. According to the market pundits, currently due to the number of launches the market has become very competitive. Because these premium range products also need to compete with the latest 4G capable feature phones of Reliance and Airtel. One definitely knows that both fall into 2 different price segments and caters to 2 different customer segments, but if we see the overall sales, it will be interesting to note as who will be able to manifest itself among the leading competitors.

To sum up, it is indeed hard to choose the best, solely based on the hearsay statements as all the latest launches are equipped with the best technology. However, the market figures will tell in future as to which product has ruled the market. Till then we leave it for customers to decide and allow them to contribute to the overall sale of their most favourite devices. n Abha Singh abha@varindia.com

iPhone8 Plus Launch date: September, 2017 |Price: Rs. 69,999 | Ram & Storage: 3GB (64GB) | Display: 5.5(1080x1920)| OS: iOS 11 | CPU: Apple A11 Bionic | Battery: 2691mAh | Rear camera: 12MP | Front camera: 7MP|

Lenovo K8 Plus Launch date: August, 2017 |Price: Rs.10,999 | Ram & Storage: 3GB (32, 128 GB) | Display: 5.2 (1080 x 1920)| OS: Android Nougat 7.1.1| CPU: MediaTek Helio P25 | Battery: 4000mAh | Rear camera: 13MP | Front camera: 8MP|

Samsung Galaxy Note8 Launch date: Sep. 2017 |Price: Rs.67,900 | Ram & Storage: 6GB (64, 256 GB) | Display: 6.3 (1440 x 2960)| OS: Android Nougat 7.1.1| CPU: Samsung Exynos 9 Octa 8895 | Battery: 3300mAh | Rear camera: 12MP | Front camera: 8MP|

Honor8 Pro Launch date: July, 2017 |Price: Rs. 29,999 | Ram & Storage: 4/6GB (128GB) | Display: 5.7(1440x2560)| OS: Android Nougat 7.0 | CPU: 2.4 GHz Octa core Kirin 960 | Battery: 4000mAh | Rear camera: Dual 12MP | Front camera: 8MP|

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Movers & Shakers

Ajit Pillai joins Seclore Technologies as VPSales for India

Ajit Pillai has joined Seclore Technologies as VP-Sales for India.

He brings with him more than 20 years of experience in IT Security, driving sales & marketing initiatives to promote IT solutions in the domains of e-security, Networking Performance & Data. His most recent assignment was with Check Point Software Technologies as Director-Sales where he spearheaded enterprise business across India and SAARC region. In his previous assignments, he helped MNCs such as Trend Micro to set up Channel Infrastructure & Secure Computing to set up and grow their business in India.

David Chang to oversee India operations for Gionee

Gionee India has announced that David Chang, Global Sales Director, Gionee Communication Equipment will now lead the India operations for the brand.

The strategic announcement comes at a time when Gionee with a loyal customer base of 1.25 crore in the country is bullish on strengthening its regional penetration.

Gionee India has already established its leadership in the Indian smartphone market and with Chang’s skilled management the company aims to further consolidate its ranking amongst the top-selling brand in the country. Ranked at No. 10 globally, Chang has been instrumental in taking the brand to this position.

Veeam appoints Kate Hutchison to CMO’s role

D-Link elevates Tushar Sighat as Managing Director

D-Link (India) at its recently concluded board meeting announced Tushar Sighat as its new Managing Director, while he continues with his position as CEO of the company. With this Tushar will now be playing a key role in meeting company’s incessant growth goals and reiterating D-Link’s leadership position in networking segment.

As per the company, Tushar Sighat joined D-Link as the CEO in the year 2011 as part of his second inning with the organization. Through the years Sighat has demonstrated exemplary leadership skills and has been instrumental in transforming D-Link into a thriving business entity. Under his able leadership D-Link has grown manifold.

Altaf Halde joins Network Intelligence as its Cyber Security Global Business Head

Network Intelligence, a 400-employee cybersecurity consulting firm has announced the appointment of Altaf Halde as the Cyber Security Global Business Head. Halde has more than 20 years of experience in cybersecurity with responsibilities that have included enterprise account management, channel management, critical infrastructure and government relations.

Halde was instrumental in growing the Kaspersky Lab’s product business faster than competition (as pointed out by IDC in their Endpoint security survey, 2013-14). Prior to Kaspersky, Halde headed the business for other cybersecurity MNCs such as Sophos PLC, Utimaco and Pointsec.

Mritunjay Singh quits Persistent Systems

Veeam Software has appointed Kate Hutchison as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

According to the company, Hutchison will lead Veeam’s global marketing organization and continue to strengthen the company’s brand momentum. Hutchison will report directly to Veeam Co-CEO & President Peter McKay. As revealed by the company, Hutchison brings to Veeam more than 20 years of experience as CMO at a variety of software and hardware technology companies, including Riverbed, Polycom, VMware, Citrix and BEA. Hutchison successfully led Riverbed through a re-positioning and rebranding effort that took the company into a much larger – approximately 11x larger – market overall.

Persistent Systems has announced that Mritunjay Singh (Munjay) has resigned from his position as Executive Director and President – Services.

The company has accepted his resignation. An interim leadership structure for Services, effective immediately, is focused on continuity in business operations and a smooth transition of his management responsibilities.

Dr Anand Deshpande, Chairman & MD, Persistent Systems, said, “Mritunjay Singh or Munjay, as he is popularly known, joined us more than four years back and has been an integral part of the growth of the company over these years. On behalf of the board and all employees, I would like to thank him for his contribution and wish him all the best in his future endeavours.”

Mobikwik Marketing Head Akash Gupta quits to start his own Tech Start-up

Dinesh Malkani to lead Smarten Spaces

Akash Gupta, Vice President – Marketing for Mobikwik, has decided to move on and pursue his entrepreneurial dreams. The former Marketing Head of Mobikwik would now be venturing into the Green Tech Space.

Akash has been associated with Mobikwik for over two years. Joined as the General Manager, Akash grew to become the Vice President of Marketing, owing to his knack for infusing ROI-oriented marketing programs and strategies. Leading both, online and offline marketing functions of MobiKwik from the front, Akash has been instrumental in the emergence of Mobikwik as one amongst the leading players in digital and consumer Fintech payments in India. Under his leadership, MobiKwik grew from 25mn users to 65mn+ users now.

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Ex-Cisco CEO, Dinesh Malkani will lead Singapore-headquartered Smarten Spaces as its worldwide CEO. He also happens to be its founding partner and will bring a differentiated perspective on the future evolution of organizations and industries as they adapt to the opportunities the 4th Industrial Revolution will bring.

Dinesh will lead the pioneer team responsible for shaping the blueprint to design, define, develop and deploy the company’s strategy worldwide.

He will also be a member of the Smarten Spaces Board.

Dinesh Malkani, in his last assignment, was the President of Cisco India and SAARC and has held leadership roles with companies like AT&T, Avaya, Jabra across Asia Pacific.

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RNI - NO 72399/1999 Printing Date 18 & 19

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Date of Posting 20 & 21 every month

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

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64 pages including cover